Guido Fawked - Investigation Hypocrisy

Nothing has put the rank hypocrisy of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog in sharper focus than their sick and obsessive pursuit of Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner. Today has brought an excellent example of this, as one of their favourites has been caught peddling misinformation bordering on malicious dishonesty.

Behold the judge of standards in public life

Susan Hall, the increasingly desperate Tory candidate for the London Mayoral election next month, has been gratuitously slagging off her Labour opponent, incumbent Sadiq Khan, claiming that Khan is about to implement policies that he is not. The pièce de résistance in Ms Hall’s pantheon of misinformation is the totally false claim that Khan will hit motorists with a pay per mile scheme.

This from the Standard: “In recent days Ms Hall has repeatedly attacked Labour’s Mr Khan for ‘planning a new pay-per-mile tax’, which she calls ‘his Ulez 2.0’ … The mayor has admitted asking TfL to explore the concept, but has promised it will not be pursued, saying: ‘As long as I am mayor, we’re not going to have pay-per-mile’”. Then it got worse.

“Fact-checking campaigners have criticised Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall’s campaign as ‘deceptive' for a leaflet saying Sadiq Khan will bring in a pay-per-mile system for drivers … Images of the leaflet, which claims the mayor wants to bring in ‘another tax on drivers’, were published online by Full Fact”. Then it got worse still.

As Adam Bienkov at Byline Times has told, “The Conservative Party has been accused of running a campaign against Sadiq Khan which is based on a ‘barefaced lie’ which will ‘panic’ Londoners into handing over their personal data … Hall’s campaign have sent out leaflets to Londoners which are designed to look exactly like driving penalty notices”. There was more.

Susan Hall - may be celebrating prematurely

The leaflets have a QR code. “Anyone scanning the code will be taken to a website requesting they fill out a ‘petition’ against the new ‘tax’, which then collects their data”. Also, “The Conservative Party is not mentioned at all aside from a small print reference to ‘CCHQ’”. It’s Zac Goldsmith 2.0.

And has sparked an investigation by the ICO: “The Information Commissioner's Office say they are now considering complaints about the Conservative party's Sadiq Khan leaflets”. So, O Great Guido, given the headline “Police Reconsidering Rayner Case After Criticism”, and knowing the legendary Fawkes appetite for consistency and even-handedness, where is the equivalent headline for Ms Hall, following her misleading leaflets?

But you know the answer: of Ms Hall’s deliberate attempt to smear her way to the Mayoralty, there is nothing. Nil. Nix. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Not a sausage. Bugger all. But there is a crude attempt to smear SNP leader Humza Yousuf using the old Guilt By Association ploy, or to be more specific, the old Guilt By Claiming He Is His Brother In Law’s Keeper ploy.

And there are two more instalments this morning of Staines’ continuing sad obsession with Ms Rayner, bringing back memories of the right-wing media pile-on against Keir Starmer over what was called Beer And Currygate in a failed attempt to make it sound like a story. And when Starmer was cleared of any wrongdoing, The Usual Suspects inferred He Done It Anyway.

So it will be the same for Ms Rayner. So will the Fawkes hypocrisy.

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