Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Thursday 14 May 2020

Harry Cole? John McDonnell Was Right

During his stint at Politics Co UK, Adam Bienkov sat in on a meeting of Jeremy Corbyn supporters, noting that John McDonnell “told the audience he had recently received a phone call from somebody introducing themselves as a journalist from The Sun. ‘I said look, you can be one or the other, but you can't be both,’ he quipped”. McDonnell has just been proved right, as the Murdoch title has announced a change of political editor.
The odious flannelled fool himself ...

As Press Gazette has told, the current incumbent, non-bullying Tom Newton Dunn, is being shuffled off to new Murdoch venture Times Radio. He “will be a presenter and chief political commentator at the station, owned by Sun and Times parent company News UK, which is due to launch this summer … He will host shows in the station’s weekly schedule and present special political programmes for events like election nights and the Budget. He will also continue to write for the Sun”. So who is his replacement?

Ah well. Remember what McDonnell told that audience back in 2015? Here it comes: “Harry Cole will replace Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn … rejoining the paper from the Mail on Sunday where he has been deputy political editor since 2018 … He was previously Westminster correspondent for the Sun after leaving political blogging site Guido Fawkes. He has also worked as contributing editor for The Spectator”.

Ha ha ha ha ha Harry Cole. Who couldn’t edit his way out of a paper bag. Who has been pretending to be a journalist ever since, as sole author of the Tory Bear blog, he called the phone hacking scandal disastrously wrong. Who claimed that being a contributing editor to the Spectator would open the door at any party, just before it failed to get him access to a private event hosted by Steve Coogan on behalf of campaigning group Hacked Off.
... and one of his greatest scoops (like heck)

Harry Cole. Whose first Sun front page was a pack of lies, disowned by the source Cole quoted to stand up his untrue claim that Jeremy Corbyn would have to be sworn of the Privy Council or Labour would lose their allocation of “Short Money”. The same Harry Cole who was big pals with Mark Clarke of Tory bullying infamy. Harry Cole, whose skill set extends very little further than being able to take dictation from the spooks.

Master Cole has continued the unintentional hilarity by telling “I want to thank Tom Newton Dunn, who … gave me a shot in the Lobby”. I say, is that legal? But Sun editor Victoria Newton, recently named in court documents relating to more of those pesky phone hacking claims, is more than happy to have the principle-free Cole on board.

The only problem is her detachment from reality: “Harry started his career at The Sun, and in his inimitable, mischievous way has firmly established himself as the scourge of politicians, breaking a string of fabulous scoops”. Like the one about Corbyn, the Privy Council, and Short Money? Cole couldn’t score a scoop in a tub of Ben and Jerry’s.

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday needs a new deputy political editor, and Cole’s former pal in the service of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, is at a loose end after BuzzFeed ended its UK political operation.

Why is the press stuck in an increasingly downward spiral? I couldn’t possibly comment.
Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

So one far right, lying, hypocritical tory gammon replaces another far right, lying, hypocritical tory gammon.

Planet Murdoch running out of morons.

Unknown said...

He, like his former boss, look like prime candidates for terminal weight related health issues. Any of which can't come a moment too soon. A repulsive, talentless, noxious alt-right Slug

Anonymous said...

Judging from today's failed Tory smear, I wonder whether Cole will have his arse handed to him by Starmer or cost the Sun a pretty penny in libel expenses. Or both.

J said...

@ anon 15:53

Tell me more! I seem to have missed something, unless its the Mad Nadds thing but done by Harry "Boris was shagging his missus, the cuck" Cole.

grim northerner said...

A face you could never tire of stamping on.

Unknown said...

Preferably whilst wearing running spikes

grim northerner said...

Smeared in fresh dogshit

Rosie said...

I took the witless tory stooge Harr Cole to IPSO over the Court Jezter story. It took three months of fighting the Sun's paid ombudswoman and her lawyers. I was told I had won in late November and that IPSO would release it but I found out they intended to bury it over Christmas. The Sun was to apologise on its front page, for the first time, which they did. They might as well have used invisible ink it was so tiny -a 6pt para buried on the front page. The adjudication appeared on Page 2, three days before Xmas 2015. December. However, the little old lady they thought they were dealing with, turned out to be ex Labour PRO retired from 1980s (moi), who promptly got in touch with Andy McSmith of the Independent and gave him an exclusive."Gotcha" ran the splash in the Indie which was promptly picked up by the Guardian, Mirror, Huffington Post and the BBC. Jeremy's office were informed but they did not respond, which hurt. Eventually James Schneider and I got to talk in 2017, and I was able to help a little with bits of PR from a distance. But I am afraid they never really harnessed the professional PR goodwill that was out there on the left, so under the cosh were they poor things, untrusting & eventually stuck in a bunker. They also had so many paid for employees working against them in Ian McNichol's appointees, and a load of dissembling PLP MPs, rotten to the core plotting & tripping them up. No one could have survived that and the attacks in the Guardian were often just as bad as the Sun. Vile Bodies all.

Anonymous said...

To Rosie at 01:38.

Thanks for an outstanding and informative comment.

Suggestion: Run it past Starmer's office to test his response.

The toffee (597) said...

Harry Cole?

More like 'Hank Cuckold'.

De piffle shags his (ex)bird and cuckold still writes fawningly about him. Was 'hank' de piffle's'fag' at Eton? It'd explain a fair bit, like.