Lockdown Busting And Client Journalism

Hardly had the dust settled on the latest revelation of lockdown rule busting by alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his jolly good pals within Downing Street than the questions began: didn’t any of the lobby journalists know? Why did it take yet another leak for a year and a half old story to finally see the light of day?

Laura Kuenssberg ((c) Guardian)

On top of that, another thought enters: had Labour got across the win line in 2017, would there have been an equally monastic silence from our free and fearless press? Had it been Jeremy Corbyn at Number 10, would the questions have taken a year and a half to be asked? As if you need to know the answer to that one. He’d have been crucified.

Ah, Master Cole

So we already have a case of what looks remarkably like double standards, and that’s before LBC host James O’Brien mused “From Brexit to these despicable parties, the whole administration is built on bullshit, arrogance & shamelessness. What never ceases to amaze is the way his supporters embrace the absolute contempt in which he must hold them. Especially the client journalists”. Would a former editor care to comment?

David Yelland, who has edited papers like the Murdoch Sun, certainly would. “I can easily name ten, maybe as many as 20 UK political journalists who must have known or should have known about this Johnson party. Their editors would fire them. Except some of these mates of Boris are editors. It will all [end] in tears. Ours”. Whoever can he mean?

Well, yesterday evening, outgoing BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg put out this Tweet: “What's also very obvious is that some staffers thought it was a v bad idea at the time - a flavour of messages shared with us from when Reynold's email was sent - 'Um. Why is Martin encouraging a mass gathering in the garden?', another says, 'Is this for real?’” At which point the questions began: what did she know and when?

And it wasn’t just her: talking of the Murdoch Sun, that paper kept Partygate off its front page this morning. And its political editor, the pretend journalist that is the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, can’t claim it was someone else’s call - the front page lead was written by, er, Himself. But he was saying nothing about the illicit party.

Until he grudgingly told “PM sends the Paymaster General Michael Ellis to answer Labour's UQ in the Commons … Hospital pass”. The first intervention from the Sun’s political editor. It’s almost as if the story were being played down to minimise the damage to Bozo. Meanwhile, Krishnan Guru-Murthy observed Ms Kuenssberg’s Tweet and mused “Making it all the more astonishing that it took over 18 months to be leaked”.

It was Guru-Murthy who had been interviewing veteran hack Peter Oborne when the latter named Ms K (and her ITV opposite number Robert Peston) as those who were not interrogating their sources and merely “shovelling on” what they had been briefed. Which led the Tweeter known as My Sweet Landlord to pose yet another question.

“Talking of client journalism, when exactly did Laura K get sight of these emails? Remember she was practically taking dictation from Dominic Cummings at the time. Did he not mention that he told Martin Reynolds this party was against the rules?”

We are thus far seeing, I suspect, the mere tip of the iceberg. That’s not good enough.

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