Toby Young - Still Getting It Wrong

Still out there somewhere despite his recent setbacks, the loathsome Toby Young has found himself confronted with the uncomfortable reality of someone who knows what they’re talking about. It has resulted in yet another short but conclusive debate in which Tobes has come off second best, with only two people involved.

Tobes had enthusiastically endorsed the research by Adam Perkins which had concluded that the “welfare state is warping the personality profile of the population”. As Jonathan Portes has noted in the Staggers, “In an article headlined ‘Tell the truth about benefit claimants and the left shuts you down’ [he] described his findings as ‘bleedin’ obvious’”.

Jonathan Portes

The problem, though, as Portes points out, is that Perkins’ research was not only seriously flawed, but has now been shown to be so. He observes “The system of peer reviewing was introduced for a reason. There is no excuse for accepting and publishing a paper which contains multiple obvious errors, and which uses statistical techniques in a way which would not pass muster in an undergraduate thesis”.

Moreover, the thought enters that Tobes endorsed Perkins’ research because it matched his prejudices, was what he wanted to hear. After Portes had talked of “how @AdamPerkinsPhD's junk science was enabled by junk journalism from @toadmeister and @jennirsl”, and how “neither @toadmeister nor @jennirsl want either to repeat or to withdraw their endorsement of @AdamPerkinsPhD's discredited research”, Tobes clearly felt the need to hit back, however pointless his task.

“Disappointed that Jonathan Portes has repeated the claim that my blogpost for ‘Teach First’ about the modest effect school differences have on differences in exam results was ‘wrong’”, he started, before doubling down in no style at all.

“In fact, I ran that piece past four experts in the field, including three professors [no citation], before publishing it to make sure I’d got the science right. That I had in fact got it right was then confirmed in this piece by @MrAndyNgo in @QuilletteM”. Confirmed by someone who writes for the National Review Online, writing in Quillette, a publication described as seeking to make “tired alt-right talking points sound erudite”.

So it was no surprise when Portes responded simply “Disappointed to see @toadmeister doubling down (not for 1st time) on his lack of understanding of basic statistical concepts. His errors are explained very well here by @policysketch”. The Policy Sketchbook post sets out the reasons why Tobes has once again failed to grasp the concepts.

What say The Great Man to that? But Tobes has already moved on to his next task - to dismiss the idea that schools might have to weigh pupils for Ofsted’s obesity checks. “Expecting schools to remedy every social problem has to stop. Teachers have enough to do without being expected to compensate for the failure of parents to feed their children a healthy diet” he has scoffed. The well-off punditerati always know best, eh?

Well, the ones out there on the right, cocooned in their Pundit Establishment bubble certainly do. And rather than listen to the likes of Jonathan Portes, who insists on using things like facts, that is where Tobes is at. Which is why he’s still getting it wrong.

Cambridge Analytica Closes - NOT

Remember the “Non Story” that was Cambridge Analytica data? The one brought to us by the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr, who was ridiculed by those out on the right for doing so? The one featuring parent company SCL and obscure Canadian offshoot Aggregate IQ, the firm that got involved in the EU referendum? Well, “Non Story” it wasn’t.

We can say this with some certainty because, after Ms Cadwalladr brought us the story, whistleblowers like Chris Wylie and Shahmir Sanni fleshed out the details, and those on the Leave side in the referendum resorted to some desperate tactics to cover their tracks, has come the news that Cambridge Analytica is to close. And so is its parent SCL.

As the BBC has reported, “Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy at the centre of the Facebook data-sharing scandal, is shutting down … its parent company SCL Elections [is] also commencing bankruptcy proceedings”. The Guardian concurred: “Cambridge Analytica, the data firm at the centre of this year’s Facebook privacy row, is closing and starting insolvency proceedings”. Their clients had all run away.

Or had they? Hadas Gold of CNN put it this way: “Cambridge Analytica is no more. Says it is shutting down because of the ‘siege of media coverage’ has driven away ‘virtually all’ of their customers and suppliers … Unless of course maybe they’re all just moving over to a new company”. Scott Dworkin put that rather more directly.

“Cambridge Analytica, a shell company, is shutting down. The same people already started a separate shell data company. Keep the investigation going. They shouldn’t be allowed to close entirely while under investigation. What evidence will they try to destroy? Probably all of it”. Got that? Now the story is evidence destruction. Eyes on the ball.

And Carole Cadwalladr was already piecing the new jigsaw together: “Cambridge Analytica folds...why now?? Today [Chris Vickery] revealed two crucial ‘indisputable’ facts. It’s absolutely linked to AIQ & Brexit. And Trump campaign had access to psych profiles derived from Facebook data”. There was more.

“This is screenshot of legal letter Cambridge Analytica sent to @Guardian & Observer: ‘Cambridge Analytica has no employees and very few assets.’ It is a sham company. Last week, it held a sham press conference. It's just issued a sham report. So...what's really going on??” What was really going on was the question she then addressed.

“The news that Cambridge Analytica is shutting down is not some great triumph. It’s a billionaire using Britain’s insolvency laws to try & evade scrutiny - at the cost of his employees. We need a criminal investigation. And we need evidence secured. The question is how?” The story has not gone away. It’s just that the focus has changed.

The same Guardian report also pointed out “the team behind it has already set up a mysterious new company called Emerdata. According to Companies House data, Alexander Nix is listed as a director along with other executives from SCL Group. The daughters of the billionaire Robert Mercer are also listed as directors”.

What has happened is a mere ruse to distract attention while evidence is wiped. The dirty dealing never went away. It just figured out how to run and hide.

Tory Racism - We Have To Talk

Those getting their news from the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate, or even the greater part of the broadcast media, could be forgiven for concluding that racism is confined to anti-Semitism, and only exists within the Labour Party. Both conclusions would be understandable, given recent coverage. And both would be wrong.

Moreover, Labour has put measures in place to deal with complaints of any kind of racism within its ranks, while one party most certainly has not: the Tories might not want the spotlight shone on them with local elections coming up tomorrow, but shine it must. They are riven with every form of bigotry and prejudice, and the only response appears to be to suspend candidates - and, even then, only when the public finds them out.

The scale of the problem was illustrated by Matt Thomas, who compiled a list of Tory hopefuls who had been suspended, which he posted on Twitter yesterday.

Two suspensions related to anti-Semitism

Four candidates were suspended because of Islamophobia

Two further candidates were suspended for other forms of racism.

But what was worse was that Thomas’ list is already out of date! At least two more cases have come to light, one that of David Boston from Enfield, who posted a photo of bacon hung over a door handle, “to protect you from terrorism”, and the other being Nick Farmer from Wakefield, who lost his job “after comment about 'retards' and declaring 'it’s bleeding Karachi round here' outside [an] Asian shop”.

The Muslim Council of Britain has been calling for the Tories to take the issue seriously since 2016, after Young Dave had to say sorry “for having falsely claimed that south London imam Sulaiman Ghani supported the terrorist group Isis - a claim he used to attack Labour’s [mayoral] candidate [Sadiq Khan], who had appeared on platforms with him”.

It gets worse: Tory MP Roger Gale appeared on Channel 4 News yesterday evening and told host Krishnan Guru-Murthy “people like you do not get the issue of illegal migration”. What’s with the “people like you”? Would that be media people, or Asian media people?

And worse still is the dreadful spectacle of the Windrush debate in the Commons this afternoon, when Diane Abbott was interrupted within three minutes by a Tory back bencher wanting to deflect the debate to the subject of … yes, illegal migration. The whole reason for the Windrush scandal is that those caught up in it are not illegal migrants. They are British citizens. The undercurrent of “black = illegal migrant” is unmistakeable.

As David Lammy observed from the Labour benches, “The Commonwealth are watching this debate. And they are watching Tory MPs hectoring, filibustering, obfuscating, conflating the Windrush citizens with illegal immigrants and most of all making it look very much like the Conservative Government does not take this issue seriously”.

We certainly have a major political party with a racism problem here in the UK. And what their press pals do not want to admit is that it is the Tory Party. I’ll just leave that one there.

IPSO Sticking Plaster WON’T WORK

After the House of Lords inserted amendments to the Data Protection Bill which effectively put Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act back on the table, the proposed legislation is returning to the Commons. And here the press establishment has a problem: not only do the Tories not have a majority without the help of the DUP, not all of their MPs can be relied upon to vote against the amendments.

(c) Steve Bell 2014

So now the process of buying off Tory rebels has begun, and as with any promise from the press establishment, it is not worth the hot air from which it is formed. Our free and fearless press wants to be able to carry on as before, bullying, smearing, lying, misleading, manipulating, all with no comeback, with only the well-off able to seek redress against press abuse, while little people continue to be dumped on.

What the press will not do is to accept any measure that makes regulation of the industry independent, and gives the little people access to redress. But those Tory rebels need to be bought off. So press non-regulator IPSO has told anyone foolish enough to listen that it will make its arbitration scheme “compulsory”, unlike their previous effort, which was only voluntary - papers could pick and choose which complaints they took there.

Here’s the Press Gazette take: “The Independent Press Standards Organisation is creating a compulsory version of its low-cost arbitration scheme in a move towards greater compliance with recommendations made by the Leveson Inquiry … The scheme offers an alternative to court action for someone with a ‘genuine claim’ against a national newspaper, for example in a libel, privacy, data protection or harassment dispute”.

Do go on. “In order for the new scheme to come into force and be effective, members must sign up to it. They have until Friday 4 May to tell IPSO whether they will be joining up”. And will they? Professor Brian Cathcart is unconvinced: “These are the people who, launching IPSO in 2014, promised us front-page corrections, vigorous investigations and million-pound fines, and not one of those has happened”. Quite.

Also, note the quote marks around “genuine claim”. Who decides on that one? IPSO does. And who controls IPSO? The press establishment. The same press establishment that ensures IPSO’s Editor’s Code has holes in it large enough to accommodate a coach and horses. The same press establishment that, even then, abides by that code only until push comes to shove, and then chucks it out the nearest window.

And the press knows it has the Tory leadership in its pocket - hence PG telling readers “Culture Secretary Matt Hancock said he welcomed the move, calling it an ‘important step forward for a press that’s both free and fair’, but adding: ‘Now the papers need to sign up.’” As he knows all too well, either they won’t raise a finger by the Friday deadline, or the small print will have a get-out clause and the press will be able to disregard it all.

Call me cynical, because in all these years of observing the vicious and dishonest machinations of the press establishment, that is what it does to you. The press just wants to carry on shitting on whomsoever it wants, and with zero comeback. Any MP who buys this supposed concession is being had for a mug.

The press leopard hasn’t changed its spots. It never will. That is all.

Tories On The Brink

Most of the mainstream press is on their side. The broadcast media keeps on giving them a free pass. The Pundit Establishment overwhelmingly backs them. But all this cannot insulate the Tories from reality. And the reality tells us that our Prime Minister and her closest political pals are not only utterly tone-deaf, not merely desperately out of touch, but increasingly close to breaking apart over crises of their own making.

The issue which has exposed the tone-deafness has been the plight of the Windrush Generation: British Citizens losing their jobs, their homes and their right to live in the country they call home, all because of a hostile attitude to migration, and a policy underpinning it which is so inept that it has caught up hundreds of the country’s own citizens. Windrush claimed Amber Rudd. But it didn’t stop there.

Now has come a move from Labour which has once again exposed the wrong-footedness of our Government. As the Guardian reported yesterday, “Labour will use a so-called humble address motion on Wednesday to ask for all papers, correspondence and advice on Windrush between ministers, senior officials and advisors from May 2010 until now”.

There was more. “This would be handed to the Commons home affairs committee and would include information about any detentions or deportations, the setting of deportation targets, and how the policies were seen as affecting people’s lives”. The potential upshot of this move? “If successful, the tactic could undermine the government’s attempts to insulate Theresa May from the crisis”. The Tories are in check. But is it check mate?

Tory MPs are being whipped to vote against the Labour motion. This has played straight into The Red Team’s hands, with accusations of cover-up and an opposition spokesman telling “if the architect of this cruel farce, the prime minister, is ordering her MPs to vote to keep her role in this mess hidden from the public, it exposes the Tories’ crocodile tears on the Windrush scandal as a sham”. The vote will come at around 1900 hours.

But that isn’t the Tories’ only problem: back into view has come the spectre of Brexit, in the form of the Customs Union, which they claim not to be joining. Instead, there will be a so-called Customs Partnership (see ITV Political Editor Robert Peston’s musings on that idea HERE). The European Research Group of Tory MPs doesn’t want it. Bozza’s “friends” say he may walk out of the cabinet over it (like heck). Both current options have already been rejected by Brussels. Can Theresa May hold her team together?

She could get through today, but the increasingly fractured and fractious Tories then have tomorrow’s round of local elections to digest. If they do badly - that would mean losing more than one council in London, for instance - then back under the cosh goes the Prime Minister. The Tories don’t want to lose her as PM, but don’t have a credible unifying successor, and dread another General Election campaign like last year’s.

But they can’t stop falling out over Brexit, they’re utterly out of touch and heartless over the Windrush scandal, and those local elections might just tip them over the edge.

We may be about to live in yet more of those momentous times.

Guido Fawkes Dishonesty REVEALED

After the news emerged yesterday that driver and rider matching service Uber had been refused an extension to its operating licence by Brighton and Hove City Council, the media had to digest the fact that, as Zelo Street has been pointing out for some time now, what has been sold to the public and reality are two very different things. It also gave an excellent opportunity to expose the liars and fake news merchants.

And when it comes to lying and fake news, there is no more practiced combination of the two than that offered by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who duly posted on Uber’s misfortune. This gave a timely opportunity to point out to all those in the media who take the Fawkes “brand” as a reliable source that it is nothing of the sort. This post is aimed at those people.

Such as? Large numbers of (mainly) Tory MPs, pundits, mostly those out on the right, and broadcast media have been only too ready to bleat “but it was on Guido”. Fawkes posts get used to generate talking points. They are considered with suitable gravitas. But what The Great Guido posted about Uber in Brighton shows they should not be.

Milk, no sugar, hold the smears

Here’s why. Under the banner headline “LABOUR”, readers are told “Labour Revoke Uber’s Licence In Brighton”. The photo is captioned “Uber Faces Brighton Ban”. The post explains “The Labour administration that runs Brighton and Hove City council has revoked Uber’s licence to operate in the city. They are citing a 2016 data breach by American hackers to declare that Uber do not meet the fit and proper persons test. Uber will appeal, if they lose Brighton residents will no longer be able to use the taxi app. Socialism isn’t cool, kids”. You believed that? Here’s why you shouldn’t.

“Labour Revoke Uber’s Licence In Brighton”: NOT TRUE. Uber has not had its licence revoked. The company applied for a licence extension; the application was declined. There was no revocation. Basic factual error.

“The Labour administration that runs Brighton and Hove City council”. MISLEADING. As the BBC reported after the last local elections in the city, Labour was “now the largest party, gaining minority control with 23 seats, five short of an overall majority. The Conservatives have 20 seats while the Greens, who lost nine seats, now have 11”.

DOUBLY MISLEADING is that the refusal to grant Uber a licence (still not a revocation) was upheld - unanimously - by the council’s licensing panel. Far from being some kind of Labour stitch-up, as the Fawkes blog infers, it is made up as follows:

Jackie O’Quinn (Chair) - Labour and Co-Operative

Lizzie Deane - Green

Lynda Hyde - Conservative.

So the comment “Socialism isn’t cool, kids” is based on a FALSE PREMISE.

“They are citing a 2016 data breach by American hackers to declare that Uber do not meet the fit and proper persons test”. MISLEADING. And two things here. One, the data breach affected 57 million riders and drivers. 600,000 drivers had their licence details exposed. And worse of all, former CEO Travis Kalanick knew about it over a year before the story broke. It’s not some one-line throw-away “Oh, it happened in the USA so it’s not important” event.

And two, the Fawkes post OMITTED Uber’s “lack of commitment to use only Brighton & Hove licensed drivers in the city”. This is very important: vehicles licensed in the city have to comply with the “Blue Book” regulations, including the fitment of sealed unit CCTV. The information was freely available. The Great Guido ignored it.

“Uber will appeal, if they lose Brighton residents will no longer be able to use the taxi app”. NOT TRUE. As Councillor O’Quinn has admitted, vehicles from outside Brighton and Hove can still service pre-booked trips. The crucial difference is that those taking the trips will know that the vehicles in which they are travelling do not meet the Blue Book standards. Punters are free to choose a less safe alternative to locally licensed vehicles.

So, all you mainstream newspaper and broadcast media people out there, how does that stack up as a credible news source? It’s not as if the Fawkes post was cobbled together by an intern; it is the work of teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, described by his boss as a “fine young journalist”, although none of that is true, either.

Wickham is effectively running the Fawkes show when Staines is not around, taking over in 2015 from the previous head gofer, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, who has now gone on to peddle highly creative copy for the Murdoch Sun.

The Guido Fawkes blog is not a credible news source. If you balk at citing New Left Media sites like Skwawkbox, The Canary, Evolve Politics, Novara Media or Another Angry Voice, then you should not even be going near The Great Guido. Full stop, end of story.

Uber REFUSED Brighton Licence Renewal

These are difficult times for driver and rider matching service Uber: their appeal against the refusal by Transport for London to grant them a licence renewal has not been helped by a series of revelations here on Zelo Street about how their London operation was illegal, and known to be so (see HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE), and now comes news that one of their favourite UK locations has also refused their advances.

Last week, the Brighton and Hove independent told its readers “Taxi app Uber will learn whether its licence to operate in Brighton and Hove has been granted later this week. Anger over the fact Uber drivers licensed in other areas were able to operate in the city were expressed at Hove Town Hall today (April 23)”. There was more.

“Brighton and Hove City Council’s licensing panel met to discuss the company’s operators licence in the city, after it renewed it for just six months in October last year. This comes after the company was refused a licence to operate in London, which will go to appeal in June. The company launched in Brighton and Hove in October 2016, but has come in for criticism after drivers licensed with Transport for London were operating in the city through the app”. It wasn’t just drivers from London, though.

Vehicles registered in areas as far away as Manchester and Liverpool were arriving in Brighton, and clearly not just for a day by the seaside. This was important: vehicles licensed in Brighton and Hove must comply with the “Blue book”, which, for instance, mandates sealed unit CCTV for all taxis and private hire vehicles.

Uber has recently said it will stop vehicles from London having days out in Brighton, but has not prevented their drivers licensed in nearby areas from doing jobs there. So the problem of having vehicles out there which do not comply with the Blue Book has not been solved - Uber is getting good PR, while still sneaking around the law.

No wonder, then, that last year Uber secured a license renewal for just six months. And now has come much worse news: Uber has been refused a renewal altogether.

This from the Brighton and Hove City Council press release: “Following the hearing on Monday 23 April, Brighton & Hove City Council’s licensing panel has decided against renewing Uber Britannia Ltd’s Private Hire Operator Licence in the city. The unanimous decision was taken as the members of the panel were not satisfied that UBL are a ‘fit and proper person’ to hold an operator’s licence under the terms of Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and the council’s licensing objectives”.

There was more: “the panel did have significant concerns about the company’s data breach and UBL’s lack of commitment to use only Brighton & Hove licensed drivers in the city. These formed the basis of the decision to not renew the licence”. Uber must notify any decision to appeal within 21 days of receiving the council’s notification.

Other local authorities will have been looking on. So will TfL. The powers that be are gradually seeing through the fog of soundbites and lobbying.

The time of Uber on the south coast was for a time, but not for all time.

Rod Liddle Bigotry BUSTED

Another day, another amateurish attempt to peddle Islamophobic bigotry under the banner of supposedly respectable political discourse comes lumbering into view. And once again, it is the increasingly anti-Muslim repository of right-wing has-beens at the Spectator magazine who are the ones responsible. Specifically, the latest culprit is washed-up floor-crosser Rod Liddle, trying to drum up support for his next allegedly live show.

I'm only having the one bottle, honesht

Liddle, whose departure from the editor’s chair at the Radio 4 Today programme was one of the BBC’s wisest recent moves, has serious recent form when it comes to racism. In 2009, he offered Spectator readers “a quick update on what the Muslim savages are up to”. Later the same year, he changed focus to the Afro-Caribbean community.

“The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks” he sneered. His excuse was that he was “engaging in a debate about multiculturalism”.

Again in the Spectator, this time in 2011, Liddle claimed that the two men charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence would not get a fair trial, and the magazine was duly prosecuted for breaching reporting restrictions. He described the two men who murdered Fusilier Lee Ribgy as “two black savages”. Even he had to say sorry for that. Liddle has also dabbled in sexism, misogyny and transphobia.

So no-one should have been surprised when he penned “The origins of Labour’s racism”, another Spectator article in which he makes a number of variously creative allegations about the Labour Party. Liddle accuses a range of individuals and organisations of anti-Semitism, but not the Spectator of course, even though the magazine still gives a berth to career anti-Semite and Golden Dawn supporter Taki Theodoracopulos.

Auschwitz - Rod Liddle's idea of joke-making

Liddle’s targets are routinely accused of stupidity - it must be terribly onerous, carrying around that titanic intellect - and then we get to the main event, smearing Muslims as ant-Semitic, something so crude that even the current leader of UKIP can understand it.

Off he kicks: “I was kicked out of the party a year or so back for having suggested that the rising tide of anti–Semitism within Labour was a consequence of its growing Muslim membership and also the radical, white, pro-Palestinian far left (which of course now runs the party)”. Kicked out for bigotry. And wrong on who runs Labour. As usual.

But do go on. “We know why the Muslims are anti-Jewish - it’s all there in Muhammad’s hadiths and in the Quran”. Yes, Adolf von Batten would love that line. So it was no surprise to see Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain respond “Disgusting from @spectator to platform such anti-Muslim bigotry. Do the editors not recognise the appalling prejudice in the statement by Rod Liddle: ‘the Muslims are anti-Jewish’? There is little doubt we need a review into #Islamophobia in the press”.

Well, if there was to be a review into press Islamophobia, it would make sense to start with the Spectator, given the presence there of Liddle, Doug Murray The K, and the contrarian dullness of those from Spiked, so called because it should have been long ago.

Jonathan Portes was similarly unimpressed with the article: “Disgusting but not surprising from @spectator - @frasernelson has in the past been happy to publish open support for neo-Nazis by Taki. Condemnations of anti-semitism (or of any other form of racism) pretty hollow”. They’re certainly hollow coming from Rod Liddle.

This is, after all, the prize specimen who supported the BNP excluding Black and Asian people from the party. And joking about not being able to smoke at Auschwitz.

Rod Liddle has no room to call racism of any kind on any person, group or organisation. Mainly because he’s been openly indulging in it for years. I’ll just leave that one there.

Frances Barber - Not Really Racist

Accusations of bringing the Labour Party into disrepute seem to be quite the thing right now, and if actor Frances Barber is still a member - even after her meltdown over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, typified by her bizarre response to the Nice truck attack and her rabid Islamophobia - she may have put herself in pole position to get herself thus charged.

A D-list thesp has problems with ...

... an A-list politician

As so often with Ms Barber’s most upfront Twitter outbursts, it seems the event which has drawn such condemnation occurred late at night, when perhaps she would have been better advised to step away from the keyboard. Her gripe, as so often, was Labour and its current leadership. Her knowledge of the issues at hand was, as ever, deficient.

The ridiculous claims made in the Murdoch Sunday Times about Russian Twitter bots supporting Labour at last year’s General Election she swallowed whole. That was not a good start. Then, in response to someone pointing out that Tories have been in receipt of Russian-linked money, she snapped “Jeremy Corbyn took an eye watering £20K from Press TV”. Press TV, on which Jezza no longer appears, is not Russian.

Still, if at first you don’t succeed, try sucking some more seed, eh? And so it came to pass that she dropped the not really racist one, moaning “Yet again I’m fuming. Wind rush [sic] is a horrible disgrace. But the thought of Abbott crowing about the resignation of a Real Home office minister when we might have this hapless creature is anathema”. Got that? According to Ms Barber, Diane Abbott is a “hapless creature”.

And she wouldn’t be a “real” Home Office minister if Labour returned to Government. Would there be a retraction, a second thought, even? You jest. It was then on to yet more smears: “They want Stalinism. Seumus [sic] says as much. Don’t be deceived … I am more despondent about our so called Leaders than ever in my lifetime”.

There was more, and more that she got wrong: “Corbyn made a speech in N. E. Attacking immigrants. The hypocrisy is stunning”. It was in Scotland, and he wasn’t, but mere details, eh? The adverse comment was not long in coming.

Jo Phillips observed “Frances Barber here calling Diane Abbott a ‘hapless creature’. She does have form of course but this is especially nasty”. A Tweeter called James was rather less reserved: “Absolutely disgusting. This lady has supposedly cancelled her membership of @UKLabour, she should never be welcomed back in. This is racist, clearly bulling and utterly abusive”. It certainly isn’t the most classy of looks.

Still oblivious to the condemnation, Ms Barber then told anyone still awake the following day “Blocking spree this morning of all those that think Diane Abott [sic] would be a great Home Secretary. I give up”. If only she would.

Certainly if Frances Barber has cancelled her Labour membership then she won’t be able to do a Dan Hodges and rejoin just for the opportunity to flounce out again. Another late night outpouring of prejudice to go with all the others. No change there, then.

Tories Go Full Oswald Mosley

Recently, press campaigner Max Mosley was accused by the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre of racism, an interesting claim given the Daily Mail’s less than stellar track record on the subject. At issue was a leaflet issued during the by-election campaign back in 1961 in Manchester’s Moss Side constituency. Mosley was the election agent for his father Oswald’s Union Movement party.

The leaflet contained the claim “Protect your health. There is no medical check on immigration. Tuberculosis, VD [venereal (sexually transmitted) disease] and other terrible diseases like leprosy are on the increase. Coloured immigration threatens your children's health”. It stopped short of claiming that immigrants brought disease with them, but the inference was clear. Mosley denied ever having seen it. The Mail didn’t buy that.

But the Mail is nothing if not inconsistent in the application of its righteous anger: another right-wing party has just accused its principal opposition of spreading disease, and thus far there has been silence from those in the Northcliffe House bunker. Perhaps the difference is that Mosley is perceived by the Mail as a threat to their ability to dump all over the little people and behave as they see fit in order to impose their views on the populace.

Kamran Razzaq, though, has no known ambitions in that area, and so he gets no coverage in the mainstream press for claiming that the Labour Party spreads hepatitis. You read that right: Razzaq, who is standing for a council seat in the West Midlands, has had a leaflet put out on his behalf asserting “What have Labour delivered to this ward … Hepatitis … Decline of our area”. Class act, those West Midlands Tories.

The claim has caused such embarrassment within The Blue Team that it is one of their number who has called out Razzaq: Chris Calgie, who describes himself as a “Parliamentary and Tory bag-carrier”, told his followers “I don’t want to embarrass the party, but a Conservative candidate has sent a leaflet out saying the Labour Party have spread hepatitis in the area... Wtf”. And he had more to say on the subject.

“The reason I shared it is that often in politics, embarrassment is one surefire way to get a party to act. Far too often with CCHQ, devolved things are too centralised and - as in this case - things that need to be quality checked are left totally to nutters in local associations”. He’s certainly right that his party in the West Midlands is now being talked about for all the wrong reasons - two days before those local elections.

And if it was wrong for the party of unrepentant racist Oswald Mosley to spread scares about disease in order to frighten voters into the polling station in 1961 - and it most certainly was - then it’s totally out of order for the Tories, or indeed anyone else, to be doing the same thing in 2018. Pity that our free and fearless press won’t be on the case.

That’s because most of them want the Tories to win as many seats as they can hold on to next Thursday. What you will not read in the Daily Mail.