Tom Harwood And The Art Of Lying

Are you sitting comfortably this fine weekend? Good. I have a story to tell you. And it’s all about lying.

Lying emanating from the political and media class is nothing new. But the spread of unchallenged lying is not only recent, but worrying, and moreso when it happens on prime time television from a broadcaster whose standards should mean doing better. Like calling it out.

What time is it Eccles?

The latest edition of the BBC’s supposedly flagship debate show Question Time featured, for reasons that have not yet been given, yet another propagandist from Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s news channel”), in the form of Tom Harwood, formerly teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog.

Harwood decided to pontificate on the subject of The Railway, which should have sounded alarm bells in any reality-based environment. He is, after all, the only pundit so stupid that he was gloriously and memorably Pwned by the Virgin Trains Twitter feed, after he presented himself at the barrier for a train from Euston to Manchester less than two minutes before departure time.

As is advertised all over Euston Station, the barriers had been closed two minutes before departure to allow the train to close up and make an on-time departure. Teaboy Tom was incandescent with rage: he would book with someone else next time he went to Manchester, which would be an interesting thing to see. He knew, whisper it quietly, zip about railways.

“I just find it extraordinary that we’ve gone through an enormous economic upheaval in this country. Every single private sector business is having to restructure, is having to do things differently [no citation] and yes, is having to find places to save costs” opined Harwood as he set up his false equivalence.

On he went. “And yet we expect that the public sector, almost uniquely, doesn’t have to make any of those same decisions [no citation]. That every single public sector employee in the railways can expect that their lives can continue completely uninterrupted compared to anyone in the private sector. I think [good to hear] that’s an extraordinary position to find ourselves in”.

Was there a point on the way? “Listening to the Prime Minister speaking today, some of the reforms that are needing to be made to the railways, there are some ticket booths around the country that sell about one ticket a week [this is total crap, uninformed bullshit, it’s not true, it’s a flat out lie]”.

There was more in the same vein. “These need to be manned all the time”. Name one. He won’t. He can’t. He’s making it up. HE IS LYING. And he is getting away with it. “Any rational business would think it would be rational to modernise, to update [the railways DID - decades ago] and move forward. And yet the RMT doesn’t want to anything like that”. Cos they did it already.

The lying continued unchallenged. “They want to freeze the railways in time [they never did, and they don’t], not make any new changes”. This lengthy and wholly dishonest tirade was heard in reverential silence not only by host Fiona Bruce (who probably also doesn’t know very much about the subject), but also by Wes Streeting. Which brings us to the Neil Kinnock moment.

We had a senior Labour MP - A Senior Labour MP - seemingly unable or unwilling to challenge a stream of malicious misinformation. Those citing Streeting as a future party leader should watch that performance - or the lack of it - and stop and think. Leadership material he is not.

Back to Teaboy Tom, sad to say he wasn’t finished. But he had just one more waffer-thin point to make. “This is national infrastructure [nowt gets past him]. I think there are certain points of national [sic] important infrastructure that does [sic] need to keep running”. So that point is what, exactly?

“And potentially we can learn from some of these European countries you were mentioning, Wes [who still wasn’t calling out the SOB] … we could learn from Spain, we could learn from Belgium, we could learn from France, we could learn from Italy, which all ban national strikes on their railways. That’s a sensible policy that can keep us moving”. HE HAD JUST LIED AGAIN.

But that, for Teaboy Tom, was not the point. He got his round of applause, and shovelled his ripe load of weapons grade bullpucky in the general direction of a prime time audience WITHOUT BEING CHALLENGED. And there’s the rub.

In the Tory Party, too many individuals from alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson downwards lie as a matter of routine. When they are not merely misleading, our free and fearless press lies, mainly because it, too, is just shovelling on what Bozo and the Tories have fed it.

But senior Labour politicians, and BBC hosts, should not be allowing the lies to pass without challenge. Had Ms Bruce done her homework, she would have known of Harwood’s tendency to spontaneous trouser ignition. And that is what makes it so much worse - the liars get away with it.

The Beeb, and Labour, have to do better. That is all.

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