Question Time In Trouble AGAIN

Yesterday, the team at BBC Question Time went north to Motherwell, perhaps hoping that a trip north of the border would get them all away from the controversy that has dogged the new series more or less since it began. Sadly, this was a campaign that developed not necessarily to the Beeb’s advantage, after they were called out on audience selection.

What triggered the bullshit detectors of seasoned Scots Question Time aficionados was the appearance in the audience of a loud and opinionated man wearing a red jacket, especially after he tore in to SNP MSP (and, indeed, Minister) Fiona Hyslop. Not only was he allowed to ridicule Ms Hyslop, he was allowed to carry on for a whole minute saying more or less the same thing. No interruption from the chair for him.

Rachel Morgan had seen him before, and included a photo of him previously wearing an orange jacket. “#BBCQT Season ticket for the show is it, pal?” she observed. Another Tweeter mused “He’s been in that often his name should be on the credits at the end of the show”. Ms Morgan agreed. “His name is Billy Mitchell and he's a failed UKIP candidate. He's definitely been on before tonight's episode”.

Which would explain his antipathy to the SNP. What would also explain that antipathy was highlighted by Ian Fraser: “This bloke is no random member of the public but Billy Mitchell, a failed UKIP candidate, who's reportedly also a loyalist drummer. He's been on #bbcqt at least three times & was seen chatting to the panel at start”. And that explains the none-too-subtle orange jacket he wore to a previous Question Time appearance.

But what was that about talking to the panel? Kelly Macdonald was on to that: “This is the BBC QT plant before going on air . BBC being impartial .... aye right!” The Tweeter known as Lord Prefab had another snap of Mitchell talking to Tory peer and hardest of Brexits enthusiast Michael Forsyth. But not talking to Ms Hyslop.

Broadcaster and former SNP MP John Nicolson also recognised Mitchell, and indeed recognised his allegiance. “Last time I was on @bbcquestiontime this #OrangeLodge activist (subtly declaring his allegiance with his jacket) was in the audience & was called to deliver a mini speech. He’s on again tonight. There seems to be some debate over whether this his third or fourth #bbcqt appearance”. And it got worse for the BBC.

Chris Frew from Kilmarnock had also identified Mitchell, as well as confirming those Loyalist credentials. “Mr Billy Mitchell, former UKIP candidate for the North Lanarkshire Council by-election in Electoral Ward No. 9 (Coatbridge West), held on 28 February 2013; founding member of the Livingston True Blues Flute Band; and regular member of the #bbcqt audience”. Fiona Hyslop may be watching these developments with interest.

Question Time audiences are frequently stuffed with what look and sound like plants. South of the border, there tends to be a surfeit of variously clueless Tories and anti-Corbyn members of the Wall Of Gammon™. But Billy Mitchell’s appearance was rather worse than those: he’s been on before, he’s known to the team, and he’s got his own agenda.

Perhaps it’s time for a new audience selection person at Question Time. Just a thought.

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Frances Barber - Nurse, The Screens!

Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour front bench team may have won plaudits in Brussels for their latest Brexit initiative, to the clear discomfiture of Theresa May, but not everyone out there is happy about The Red Team. And someone who is never happy about The Red Team under Jezza’s leadership, especially late at night, is Z-list actor Frances Barber, who has once more gone over the top in no style at all.

Frances Barber

Owen Jones

Ms Barber had not exactly gone out of her way to win friends and influence people last month when she ranted “The Corbynites stack up against any decent person. I was piled on by Matt Zarb Cousin. RT’d by Owen Jones. So a massive bitchfest. I called them out. More. They despise women. They despise normal discourse . And it appears they allow anti Semitic bullying”. She had to say “appears” or they’d have sued her. Successfully.

But there had, since then, been a modicum of silence. That all changed after Owen Jones expressed his frustration at increasingly semi-detached Labour MP Chuka Umunna. “Ever since Chuka Umunna ran to be Streatham’s Labour candidate in 2008 on an anti-Trident, anti-Blairite ticket, then abruptly tried to reinvent himself as Blair Mark II, he’s had one priority, and one priority alone: his own political career. Enough”.

Ms Barber wasn’t having that. “Your hate won’t stop millions of Remainers back Chuka & all those who stand with him . Because the Working Class will be devastated by a Corbyn Brexit”. Plenty of false assumptions there, then. Jones reminded her that she had used the C-word against him, telling “You're in no position to lecture anyone on hate”. True, that.

What say The Great Thesp? “I stand by it. You & Matt Zarb tried to bully me. I’m not a pushover”. Jones corrected her. “No, Frances. You made defamatory claims about @mattzarb - claiming that he had set up a series of anonymous fake accounts to attack you - which Matt tweeted to refute, and I retweeted his refutation in solidarity, and then you called me a ‘cunt’. You are the bully here”. This bloke came up to me, once more.

By now, Ms Barber was off and running, or perhaps merely staggering hopefully. “If Corbyn gets into Number 10, Owen Jones, Aaron Bastani, Matt Zarbo, & various other aggressive outriders will be in charge of our Democracy”. They’re running for office too? Whatever.

Well, she was becoming ever more creative with her claims. “I called him a cunt because he & Matt Zarb tried to bully me. Look at the facts. I couldn’t care less about him except he’s a hypocrite & mouthpiece for Milne. That’s what is important. He is now A Lexiteer . That is what is at stake”. Meanwhile, Zarb-Cousin had replied to Owen Jones.

“I’m blocked but I presume whatever’s been said could be summed up by this emoji [wine glass]”. Well, as Ms Barber has admitted to Tweeting while Elephant’s Trunk And Mozart, that’s a fair assumption. Whatever was oiling her wheels, though, it wasn’t helping her credibility: after she Tweeted “You are a Political Advisor?  Lol” at Labour advisor Zeshan Araf, he put her straight in short order. “And you’re a shitty backup actress?”

Frances Barber Tweeting late at night is like Winshton’s opinion of Austen Chamberlain: he always played the game, and he always lost. Don’t drink and Tweet.

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Katie Hopkins Whitey Paranoia

Once again, pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins has been on her travels - well, so long as someone else is paying, and all that - and has fetched up in Israel, where she has taken approximately no time at all to decide who is in the right, and who is not. Sadly, the state of Israel and its environs are not as easy to describe or negotiate as Hatey Katie would have her followers believe. Worse, she’s got a return ticket.

Viewers may still want to look away now

Before leaving the UK, Ms Hopkins told of her trip objectives. “Heading to Israel to share the great work being done to counter the BDS movement - the ‘terrorist’s [sic] in suits’ And to tell the story of OUR people, in fear for their future, looking for a new place to call home Fight back for our Judeo-Christian culture”. OUR people? But do go on.

And go on she did, to the West Bank city of Hebron, where she declared “Following the shooting of #AbdullahTawalbeh here yesterday, I’m on a public bus through the West Bank to Hebron. Less than 1,000 Jews live here surrounded by 200,000 Palestinians. Like the brave white farmers of S. Africa, these pioneers are determined to fight for their land”.

The “white farmers of South Africa”, as she puts it, do not have the IDF in large numbers on call. And nor is it difficult to find views opposed to those of Ms Hopkins where it concerns the situation on the West Bank. As for her tin ear, well, try this gem: ”Here in Hebron at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Yishai has a genius idea for an app to help hush the the Muslim call to prayer”. Hushing the Muslim call to prayer. Ri-i-i-ight.

But the real wacko meltdown was saved for last, and teased with this message: “As many Jews quit Europe in search of a safe place to call home, I wonder … just where is it white Brits will escape to when we need a new place to call home?”. Why should “White Brits” need to escape anywhere? But she was serious, and here’s her schtick.

“It’s another sunny day here in Israel. The sky’s very blue. I’m off to meet a Rabbi to better understand the situation in the UK and France [why not ask someone in the UK or France?] and why so many Jews are now choosing to leave those countries, and then later today I’m really looking forward to meeting a whole bunch of families out here, with their unique stories of why they had to find a new place to call home”.

So far, so propagandist, but then came “One thing that’s really been striking me - I don’t know if it’s jealousy, or if it’s some kind of realisation, but for so many Jews, Israel is the answer. It’s where they find their place to belong. It’s where they find a new place to cal home. But for British people, particularly white Brits like myself, who are now outnumbered in London, in Leicester, in Birmingham, in Luton, I wonder - just where is it that we’re planning to run to when we need to leave?” Wibble. Hatstand.

Those “White Brits” are so badly outnumbered that the white population of the UK was 87.1% in 2011. The total white population of London in 2011 was in fact 59.8%. Very few of whom want to leave, and therefore need nowhere to run.

Katie Hopkins’ paranoia has gone off the scale. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Yellow Vests Cause International Incident

For those people who still believe that the so-called Yellow Vest movement - the Gilets Jaunes of French origin - is a benign grassroots people’s crusade with no political alignment, the moment of reality came today after it was made all too clear that the movement had been hijacked by the far-right.

Macron - recalled Ambassador

The BBC has reported “France has warned Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio not to interfere in the country's politics, after he met French ‘yellow-vest’ protesters.

‘This new provocation is unacceptable between neighbouring countries and partners at the heart of the EU,’ the French foreign ministry said. Mr Di Maio, leader of the populist Five Star Movement, met two leaders of the anti-government protests on Tuesday”.

But the reality is that the situation is already far worse than mere disagreement, as Jean Quatremer has told: “La France rappelle son ambassadeur à Rome après la rencontre, sur le territoire français et sans accord de Paris, entre @luigidimaio, leader du @M5S_Europa, et le gilet jaune Christophe Chalançon (qui souhaite un coup d’Etat militaire). Une crise sans précédent dans l’UE”. Anyone need a translation?

France has recalled its ambassador to Rome after the Italian Deputy PM met a Yellow Vest delegation on French soil that included someone who wants a military coup. Anyone that senior in the Italian - or indeed any Government - having meetings in another country should be at least notifying the country concerned first.

Worse, those Italian deputy PMs appear to be trying to interfere in the upcoming European Parliament elections: “Salvini has said [Emmanuel] Macron was a ‘terrible’ French president and urged French voters not to back his La République En Marche party in the European vote, while Di Maio last week accused France of impoverishing Africa and bringing on the migration crisis” as the Guardian has reported.

Di Maio - a clown trying to destabilise another country

Small wonder that this is described as an unprecedented crisis for the whole of the European Union. And there’s the rub: street protest and solidarity among those who feel themselves disadvantaged by tax changes and rising prices is not what happened near Paris when Luigi Di Maio met the Gilets Jaunes recently.

While the likes of Andrew Neil pretend that an electoral impasse in Germany is the greatest crisis to hit that country since the late 1940s, and a variety of Westminster bubble occupants try to persuade themselves that Brexit will have much effect on the integrity of the European Union, what the clowns now in power in Italy are up to right now really is, as Quatremer put it, “Une crise sans précédent dans l’UE”.

However the yellow vest movement started out, it is ending up being taken over by the far right. The rhetoric of Christophe Chalençon (see his Facebook page HERE) covers the same ground as many of the far right in the UK - accusations of state and media corruption, claiming the other lot are the thugs, and yet greater claims of popular support.

Chalençon has proclaimed “Excellent.... Macron destabilized….!!! Strongly meetings with Putin and Trump!” I’ll leave the nuance and translation to others.

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Sun Loses Libel Action - Not In The Sun

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun losing a libel action is not a new phenomenon: the Murdoch goons have been in court regularly even since the days of the deeply unpleasant Kelvin McFilth. But their latest reverse was against a Labour MP - which means they, and their pals in the right-leaning press, would rather not talk about it.

Richard Burgon - smeared but victorious

As the Guardian has reported, “The Labour MP Richard Burgon has won damages of £30,000 in his libel case against the Sun over a claim that a heavy metal band he performed with delighted in Nazi imagery … The high court in London ruled that claims in the story, which ran under the headline ‘Reich and Roll: Labour’s justice boss ridiculed after he joins a heavy metal band that delights in Nazi symbols’, had caused the shadow justice secretary significant harm”. And there was more.

“The article, published in April 2017, reported on Burgon’s decision to record a track with the Leeds band Dream Tröll. It alleged that the typeface used in a spoof Dream Tröll Twitter post entitled ‘We Sold Our Soul For Rock N Tröll’ paid homage to the logo of the SS, which played a key role in the Holocaust … In reality, the judge concluded that Dream Tröll had simply tweeted a parody image of a classic Black Sabbath album cover and were not endorsing the Nazi paramilitary organisation”. And the judge concluded correctly.

So how expensive will this be for the Sun? “Burgon, a lifelong heavy metal fan who would be placed in charge of the legal system if Labour came to power, took the unusual decision to bring the libel case against the Sun and its political editor, Tom Newton Dunn.

Burgon used the libel lawyers Carter-Ruck; the newspaper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, is now facing substantial legal costs”. Yes, it will be expensive.

Newton Dunn - disgraced. Again

So what have non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn and his pals had to say for themselves? Well, while the BBC has covered the case, and Press Gazette has done likewise, the most distinctive part of this story is who has not covered it. And one of the outlets that has declined to cover it is, to no surprise at all, the Sun.

You read that right: even though Politics Home has featured the case, as have the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, as well as the Mirror and even the Daily Mail, the Sun has gone off in a mardy sulk. Perhaps yet another humiliation for Newton Dunn, and this time from an MP who backs Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, was too much for the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker.

Or perhaps the Sun’s reluctance to mention the case is because, as the Guardian report told, “During the trial, the Sun’s lawyers tried to justify the importance of the story by drawing connections to claims of antisemitism in the Labour party, suggesting that Burgon was attempting to use lawyers to shut down criticism”. That’s cheap. And it’s crap.

The Sun doesn’t want to tell its readers - and it is therefore the one trying to shut down criticism. The paper tried to use a cheap and crude smear in court to back up its earlier cheap and crude smear - and failed. The Murdoch mafiosi have only themselves to blame.

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Karen Danczuk Ex IS A CRIMINAL

Fame is a fickle mistress, and no-one down there among the failed Z-listers knows this better than Karen Danczuk, momentarily famous for a combination of being once married to a disgraced former MP and spending unfeasibly large amounts of time flashing her cleavage for the cameras - any cameras. Now her ex is no longer in the public eye, nor is she. Except for a most unfortunate piece of news that came yesterday.

Before Kazza temporarily snared Spanish waiter David (you’ll have to forgive him, he’s from Alicante), she had become enamoured of one Andrew Foster. In December 2015, Mail Online told readers “Selfie obsessed Karen Danczuk has revealed her potential new man on Twitter … The 32-year-old, who rose to fame by posting busty pictures on the site, sparked romance rumours after uploading a montage of photographs with fitness fanatic Andrew Foster”. The liaison continued for a few months.

But by September the following year, the Sleb Goss was all about her meeting the Spanish waiter from whom she split recently. Meanwhile, Foster had been getting on with business. Sadly for him, it was the kind of business in which the law enforcement authorities takes a keen interest - with the consequence that he ended up only just avoiding jail.

About Manchester has told that “A Rochdale council worker who abused his role to fraudulently transfer £80k to his friends has been jailed … Matthew Ravey,28,of Weir Road, Rochdale also created false insolvency documents for himself and friends while working at Rochdale Borough Council, in an attempt to avoid reimbursing payday loan companies he was in debt to”. There was more.

“His career at Rochdale Borough Council began in October 2013, when he was hired as a business rates officer … In June 2016, an employee looked into a business rates refund that Ravey had processed after noticing it by chance … Ravey had applied a period of empty property relief totalling £4,208 on a company named Kinetic Security Products Ltd, despite records showing the company dissolved in 2014”. Do go on.

Kazza with Andrew Foster - who's just been convicted

“He created a new bank account and creditor address associated with the business that in fact belonged to co-conspirators Richard Rigby,29,of Windmill Court, Rochdale and Andrew Foster, 31 of Smithy bridge Road, Littleborough respectively”. Andrew Foster was involved in criminal activity at the same time he was dating Kazza.

And the Manchester Evening News has now told “Foster, of, Smithybridge Road, Littleborough, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering and was sentenced to complete 54 hours unpaid work”. Ravey was jailed. After all, he had siphoned off tens of thousands in council funds for his personal use.

Dating a bloke while he’s laundering money from the council to which she once got elected? Poor choices and Karen Danczuk do seem to be a recurring theme. And the Sleb status has more or less worn off. Still, there’s always a job on the Asda checkout.

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Donald Tusk Flushes Out The Guilty Men

They claimed all along that they had a plan for Brexit. They lied. They knew they lied. Their press cheerleaders knew they lied. And, worst of all, those with whom Britain had to negotiate a deal with the EU knew they lied.  Now European Council President Donald Tusk has called them out for not having a plan. And like so many guilty little schoolboys, out they have all come to bawl that the Rotten Foreigner™ is being nasty to them.

Tusk, however, did not name names when he said in Brussels this morning “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely”. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, with whom Tusk had been holding a press conference, told him “They'll give you terrible trouble in the British press for that”. So they did. Because the press didn’t have a plan, either.

The one who had a plan was Tusk: there is no way that he would have made that statement without it being carefully considered and rehearsed. So who took the bait? Who did a Pavlov and owned up to not having a plan for Brexit, and by clear inference leading their country into shit creek merely for personal aggrandisement?

The Sun newspaper moaned “SNEERING Donald Tusk … lost his rag today … top Eurocrat caused uproar”. Because the Murdoch mafiosi DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

The Daily Mail thundered “Donald Tusk poured petrol on the Brexit negotiations today as he raged”. Because the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

Former UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage moaned “After Brexit we will be free of unelected, arrogant bullies like you and run our own country. Sounds more like heaven to me”. Because this utter Mountebank DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

As the BBC has reported, “Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, who also campaigned for Britain's exit from the EU, said Mr Tusk's comments were ‘extremely regrettable’ and ‘not at all helpful … The man has no manners,’ the Conservative minster told the BBC's Politics Live”. Because this over-promoted nonentity DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

Oh, and “The Democratic Unionist Party's Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said: ‘This devilish Euro maniac is doing his best to keep the United Kingdom bound by the chains of EU bureaucracy and control’”. Hell and damnation! No popery! No! No! No! Not an inch! No! Never! Because this antediluvian bigot DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, not known for inhabiting the real world, wibbled “Mr Tusk, we have a plan! We are not restricted in our Little EU'er mentality … Bring on Global Britain, we will embrace Global Free trade. Whilst you will continue to see the inflexible EU trading bloc in collective, perpetual decline”. Which means she DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

Tory wide boy Grant “Spiv” Shapps added “By saying ‘there is a special place in hell for those who promoted #Brexit without any plan for how to carry it [out]’, you appear to be actively trying to wind everyone up & even deliberately foil securing a #WithdrawalAgreement”. No, brainbox, he’s showing that you DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN.

What this shower of pretend politicians has told the world is that not only is each and every one of them too stupid to see that they have volunteered themselves as guilty men and women, but more importantly that they are somehow proud of urging their country to leave the EU - but without having any plan as to how to achieve that goal.

Every one of those mentioned has admitted that they were, and indeed still are, prepared to screw with hundreds of thousands of jobs, and yet more livelihoods, just to play their political games, to follow their blind ideology and hang the consequences.

Well, some of us do care about those hundreds of thousands of jobs, and right now I have only one thing to say to the Murdoch press, the Rothermere press, Nigel Farage, Andrea Leadsom, Sammy Wilson, Andrea Jenkyns, Grant Shapps and the rest. Damn you. Damn you every last one of you. Damn you and damn all who sail in you.

You all just admitted that you played games with the futures of millions of Britons, as if this were some kind of party game. Well, it damn well isn’t. Damn you all to hell.

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IEA Ignores Charity Commission

As Zelo Street regulars may recall, the IEA, an Astroturf lobby group which has fraudulently pretended for some years that it is an educational charity, was ordered by the Charity Commission to take down a flagrantly pro-Brexit “report” from its website last December.  This it did, although under sufferance. The “report” was deemed to have “overstepped the line of what is permissible charitable activity”.

Now has come worse news for the IEA, as the Charity Commission has told “The Charity Commission, the regulator of charities in England and Wales, has issued the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) with an Official Warning, after finding that its trustees breached charity law in relation to a publication about a key government policy”.

There was more. “The warning sets out the ways in which the report and its launch contravened the legal and regulatory requirements that apply to charities with educational purposes such as IEA and amounted to misconduct and mismanagement on the part of the trustees … The warning also criticises the charity’s launch event for including as speakers only individuals who held a particular set of views, thus risking the public perception that the IEA is politically biased and has a political viewpoint on a key government policy”. A public perception that is richly deserved.

So it might be thought that those at the IEA would take heed of the warning, stop and think, then perhaps cut out the more blatant right-wing and anti-EU propagandising. But that thought would have been misplaced: the right-wing and anti-EU bias has continued as if nothing had happened. Like with the pro-Brexit propaganda.

Victoria Hewson, who claims to be from the IEA’s international trade and competition unit, has authored a highly partisan “briefing” in which she considers fears for food shortages in the aftermath of a no-deal Brexit. To no surprise at all, she concludes “that the risk of empty supermarket shelves is largely overblown”. This is pure partisan spin.

It gets worse: one look at the Twitter feed of the IEA’s talking head Kate Andrews, and there is a not-at-all even-handed offer described in the pinned Tweet. “The Road to Serfdom By Friedrich Hayek … Free to download on @iealondon website”. Not The General Theory Of Employment Interest And Money, then. And definitely not The Affluent Society. Or even anything by Paul Samuelson, that greatest of US economists.

Nor has the IEA shied away from media outlets, as Crispin Driver discovered to his horror: “I'm going to call you out on this blatant bias, #r4today - an item about trade and you present Tufton Street-based right wing lobby groups the IEA and the Adam Smith Institute as supposedly independent think tanks and economic experts”. Oh dear, BBC!

Miles King was not happy: “What? Did they not mention that the IEA had been given an ‘official warning’ for flouting charity rules? Astonishing”. But LBC host James O’Brien adopted a weary and resigned tone. “Why would they care? They’ve just had a slot on @BBCr4today to shill for whatever business interests anonymously fund them. Came on straight after & in full agreement with the Adam Smith Institute, there to... shill for whatever business interests anonymously fund them”. Charity Commission? Pah!

Next time it can’t be a warning. That charity status has to be removed. That is all.

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Red Roar In Copyright Trouble

The piss-poor not-really-centre-left Red Roar had an exclusive for its readers, whomsoever they be, earlier this week. “EXCLUSIVE: Corbyn branded EU ‘military Frankenstein’ and trashed second Irish referendum in unearthed footage” declared the headline, as this blog that is not at all connected to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, honestly, continued its assault on the Labour leader.

There was more. “Jeremy Corbyn claimed he does ‘not want to live in a European empire of the 21st century’ at a rally during the 2009 Irish referendum campaign. The film of his speech, exclusively uncovered by The Red Roar, will dampen the spirits of Labour members who are still hopeful that the party will back a People’s Vote”. Good of whoever was writing the post to admit this was about kicking Jezza, then.

And yet more. “The Labour leader attacked the European Union as ‘subservient to NATO’ based on the provisions contained in the Lisbon treaty. Speaking at the meeting organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement (IAWM) which has links to the Socialist Workers Party … Corbyn also mocked the idea of holding second referendums, joking that he had ‘just got a feeling they’re going to keep on voting until they get the answer they want.’”

Well, on both points, he would be the first to admit he got that one wrong: the Lisbon Treaty makes no provision of “subservience to NATO”, and Ireland obtained guarantees on its sovereignty before the second vote, so the electorate was not merely voting again on the exact same proposition. Still, the Red Roar carries on, focusing on other speakers at the same event and trying to do a little guilt-by-association.

Then, right at the end, the post tells readers “The full recording of Corbyn’s speech produced by Paula Geraghty in 2009 is available here”. That suggests Ms Geraghty had some knowledge of what the Red Roar was doing, perhaps even that she had given her blessing to them using her video footage. But it seems she had not.

We know this because yesterday she Tweeted at the Red Roar “This is my footage that you nicked without permission & without a licence. Please delete the footage now”. She will not be pleased that, as I type (0930 hours on the 6th February), that footage is still there in the Red Roar post. Which suggests they have ignored her request.

That is in the Very Brave category: as Jules Mattsson, whose bio suggests he knows about these kinds of things, put it, “This might prove expensive for some of the outlets nicking it”. It might just. It might prove yet more expensive because the Red Roar has clearly had the opportunity to take down the footage, but has chosen not to .

Here on Zelo Street, we’re looking forward to seeing Ms Geraghty follow through on her request and make matter properly uncomfortable for the Red Roar. Here’s hoping.

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