BBC “Fake News” Accuser IS PROVEN LIAR

Last week, the BBC published literally hundreds of news stories. By the Corporation’s own admission, they got one of them wrong. Not deliberately or premeditatedly wrong - they messed up. Stuff Happens. But the opportunity was there for those who really do put stuff out there that they know to be untrue: they had the green light to kick the Beeb.

An unsavoury sleazebag airs his views

So it was that somewhere deep in the Northcliffe House bunker, or perhaps at one of its remote outstations, an odious flannelled fool hove into view. “The BBC bulletins were breathless and ran for hours. The scoop? The boss of an NHS trust had asked their reporter to put him in touch with Burberry and Barbour because it was running out of protective gowns. Just one problem, it was … fake news, says HARRY COLE”.

Ah, as Chief Inspector Clouseau might have said, “The old ‘condemnation without having to read beyond the headline’ ploy”. So what else did Master Cole have to impart to any reader not yet asleep? The claim was apparently “The boss of an NHS trust has asked the BBC to put him in touch with a fashion company making protective gowns because he fears he is about to run out”. And the Today Programme had run with it.

“For hours, the chilling warning from this leading NHS figure was plastered across the BBC website and repeated every half-hour on the airwaves. But then it simply disappeared … By Friday evening, the BBC would be forced into a humiliating climbdown, ‘clarifying’ that their anonymous NHS trust boss was no such thing. The story was a fabrication”.

Well, Master Cole would know all about fabricating stories. His first Sun front page splash, which claimed the Labour Party would be deprived of its “Short Money” allocation unless Jeremy Corbyn was sworn to the Privy Council, was fabricated. It was know to be untrue before publication. The source of the quote Cole obtained to stand it up disowned it.

Cole is one of the most clueless imbeciles ever to be allowed through the door of an ostensibly reputable newspaper: he was one of those who believed that the phone hacking scandal was a “non-story” back in 2009. While working in the service of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, he was convinced they would bring down former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan. They did not.

And now he is at the Mail on Sunday, still pretending to be a journalist (no, don’t laugh) while managing to miss that his current paper has a track record of lying for kicks, as Professor Brian Cathcart pointed out: “This is the same Mail on Sunday that libelled a single working mother, [Danielle Hindley], wrecked her life and had to be dragged to the door of the court before it apologised two years later. They are connoisseurs of fakery”.

That’s the same Mail on Sunday that recently ran a fake story claiming that there was to be an investigation into MPs deemed unhelpful to the Brexit cause, telling readers “Downing Street has launched a major investigation into alleged links between foreign governments and the MPs behind the 'Surrender Act' which could force Boris Johnson to delay Brexit, The Mail on Sunday can reveal”. The story was 100% Fake News.

Master Cole himself followed that with a Fake story of his own, claiming “Tory MPs have drawn up a new law that would see any British citizen who undermines Government negotiations abroad face jail”. Also 100% Fake News. Another total pack of lies.

Worse, Glen Owen and Master Cole had been taking dictation from their contacts on the Tory right; no semblance of investigative journalism was involved. And now, Cole is sitting there astride his high horse as he pontificates about the BBC.

Harry Cole is in no position to lecture anyone about truth and morals. That’s because he wouldn’t be able to identify them if they jumped up and kicked him in the undercarriage.

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