Dan Hodges Bristol Baloney BUSTED

The protests in the city of Bristol last weekend, we were told, had resulted in more than one Police officer suffering broken bones. There had been an instance of an officer having a collapsed lung. Some observers with long memories of creative post-event injuries, though, were unimpressed. They were right: it was later admitted that none of the cops had suffered broken bones, or collapsed lungs. And it got worse.

He's desperate, Dan

The focus moved to claims of disproportionate response to peaceful protests. There were then more protests, and more such claims. Last night brought yet more of both, this time featuring one journalist gratuitously set upon by Avon and Somerset’s finest. He has now been asked to contact the Police, but is proving understandably reluctant, given what happened the last time he contacted them. But the cops have their defenders.

To no surprise at all, Priti Patel, inexplicably made Home Secretary, has backed them to the hilt. And so has the client journalism class, exemplified by a magnificently wrong headed outburst from the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges. Desperate Dan wants to blame the Rotten Lefties™ for it all.

Er, hang on, the smirk's stuck

Moreover, it was, for Hodges, an example of Labour’s lack of suitability for office. I kid you not:”Seeing quite a few ‘the police in Bristol didn't suffer punctured lungs, or broken bones!!! Nadia Whittome was right!!!’ tweets. Labour really are going to have to lose again before people on the left get it, aren't they”. As ever, the question marks ain’t making it.

Owen Jones pointed out the all too obvious. “Few self-styled democracies on earth have so many prominent journalists so utterly committed to speaking power to truth, to loyally serving the interests - and regurgitating the propaganda - of the authorities than here in Britain”. Client journalism called out. But now it was Hodges’ turn not to get it.

After all, he could always play the Corbyn card. It works when he puts it in his MoS columns, so why not here? “If Jermey [sic] Corbyn had (God forbid) won, how much truth to power do you think Owen would have been speaking”. FREEZE PEACH would have been erased, readers! But he had a serious point to make, even it if was a wrong one.

“Another perfect example of why Labour will keep losing. A giant social media loop is feeding off itself as we speak, convinced if you point to the fact police officers were only hospitalised, and didn't in fact suffer broken bones and punctured lungs, the Left are winning”. It’s just something on Twitter. The old Fraser Nelson ploy. And there was more.

“Until the Left decide votes are more important than Twitter likes and retweets, I don't see how Labour returns to power. It's not actually that they push daft stuff that turns off voters. It's that all their energy is channeled into mutual reassurance on social media platforms”. Which shows Hodges is the one who doesn’t get it: this isn’t about anyone pretending they are winning. It is about inept Government excusing heavy-handed Policing.

Dan Hodges has become so firmly wedged in his own sub-Spiked rut that he sees legitimate concern and real free speech about it as something to be not merely avoided, but dismissed as a mere “election loser”. It doesn’t affect him, anyway. Policing can be as heavy-handed as Ms Patel likes: he’s got his six-figure wedge and he should care. He’s crossed that floor and no way is he ever going to show any sign of regret. Sad, really.

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