Toby Young’s False Fake News

Such is the desperation of those at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) that, in an effort to blame the false claims circulating in the wake of the Southport stabbings - in this case, that someone in Pakistan had started it, honestly - that they invited the loathsome Toby Young to share the benefits of his allegedly superior insights with their remaining audience.

What a happy bunny

So it was that Tobes told viewers “Yeah, I think it’s interesting [that] the Pakistani authorities are accusing this guy and his news agency of being the first news source to identify the attacker as an asylum seeker, which we now know was false. But it does suggest that Keir Starmer’s analysis, his initial claim, that these riots were organised by far fight agitators, many of them from outside the areas where the disorder took place, was itself fake news”.

Would Sir like to dig himself in a little deeper? “So, one of the ironic implications of this … is that the Prime Minister himself may be guilty, under the offence created by the Online Safety Act, of knowingly publishing false information which has a harmful effect”. And Starmer may not. But do go on.

“You could argue that, by blaming far right agitators from outside the areas where the riots were taking place, Keir Starmer effectively encouraged … Muslim counter-protestors, for the most part, to form mobs, to police areas, to identify and attack people they thought were far right agitators from outside their area … you could argue that Keir Starmer’s misinformation regarding who was behind the riots contributed to a harmful outcome”. There is more.

“He could therefore be guilty of an offence under the Online Harms Act”. And I have to tell Tobes that this is total bullshit. It is certainly false that the attacker was an asylum seeker. It is also - demonstrably - false to claim that the initial claim making that assertion emanated from a source in Pakistan.

Time after time after time, the old adage that something that looks too good to be true probably is too good to be true is ignored or forgotten, or as one Tweeter put it, “Seems completely baffling why a Pakistani (and probably Muslim?) journalist would want to stir up racial tensions and make British Muslims a target”. Also, Sunder Katwala has more. Rather a lot more.

“At same time [Toby Young] defends Bernie Spofforth, who posted the fake name earlier. She seems clearly the source from which this 'news' article [in Pakistan] took the fake info, when it published the same name *an hour later*”. You can see the whole thread HERE. But the idea of deflecting from Ms Spofforth was now in full flow. Again, blame the Scary Muslims™.

So it was that Richard Tice (he’s not very nice) of Reform UK Limited (which isn’t a political party) mused “If this is true…..well well well [It wasn’t true] Seems a gentleman in Pakistan spread the fake news about Southport [he didn’t] Perhaps he was of the Far Left, deliberately creating division [perhaps Tice could stop telling whoppers]”. Matt Capon had his number.

“He's being deliberately misleading here in order to whip up needless speculation from the keyboard detectives and ignite outrage from his base. The timeline for Channel3 amplifying Bernie Spofforth's tweet has been made public for several weeks now”. So Toby Young is talking out of the back of his neck in trying to shift blame to One Of Those Nasty Brown People.

Racism takes many forms. Even if it did somehow make it to Oxford.

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