Piers Morgan + Jameela - PWNED AGAIN

Once more, the impression is given that former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has a problem with women who are prepared to stand their ground and give as good as they get. This is the inescapable conclusion from another social media campaign by The Great Man that has developed not necessarily to his advantage.

Jameela Jamil

And what's more, Ron

This time, the target of Morgan’s ire is actress and presenter Jameela Jamil, who, like the Duchess of Sussex, has had the audacity to be successful and independent while Not Being White. This seems to have irked Morgan, who is only famous, remember, because he knows lots of people who are, whether they want to know him or not.

Ms Jamil is known to have had issues with her mental health. So it was that the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr (who has bested Morgan in the past) mused “Piers Morgan’s behaviour towards a woman who has said she’s in a fragile mental state should be held as the direct responsibility of his employer [ITV] who are sanctioning it with their silence. Ditto [TalkRADIO] doing nothing about this awful abuse against [Ash Sarkar]. Unbelievable”.

Louise Raw, who you can call as she’s a Doctor, responded “Piers Morgan has not drawn breath between faux tears over Caroline Flack and bullying another young BAME woman … Meghan Markle, Jameela Jamil, Ash Sarkar- isn’t it an odd coincidence that the NOT racist NOT misogynist Morgan’s favourite targets are all BAME women?”

Morgan was soon playing the victim. “I revealed that Caroline Flack told me in October she was 'struggling' with Jameela Jamil because of 'the hate she aims at me'.  Yet rather than condemn Ms Jamil's online bullying, you seek to get me fired for disclosing the harmful effect it had. Shameful”. ITV won’t sack Morgan. He’s their press criticism firewall.

Ms Cadwalladr was not really impressed. “Searching on your own name again, Piers. A whole 15 minutes after I posted it without you tagged in. Impressive”. Quick Piers, make up a credible excuse! “Someone sent it to me. Next time you try to get me fired, for exposing rank hypocrisy by an abusive online celebrity, at least have the guts to include my Twitter handle in your post”. A Big boy sent it to him and ran away!

Like Lord Justice Leveson, Ms Cadwalladr found Morgan’s schtick unconvincing. “Guts. From the man who literally sucks up to the most powerful man in the world while bullying young women who *have literally said* they are in mental distress”. And it got worse.

Back came Morgan. “Jameela Jamil is having a lot to say about online harassment, so in the interests of balance, here is a message Caroline Flack sent me last October after the same Jameela Jamil led an online pile-on against her regarding a new TV show she was doing”. Caroline Flack is dead, and now Morgan is circulating her Twitter DMs. Ri-i-ight.

Well, allegedly. As well as transparently playing the victim. “If you genuinely believe Jameela Jamil is in 'mental distress', perhaps you should tell her to get off social media where she continues to spew disingenuous abuse about people - including me - to over 1m followers. The abuse I'm currently getting from her followers is disgusting”.

Look over there at over one million followers. Says the dunce with 7.1 million of them.

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Danielle Hindley - The Silence Of The Damned

One constant in the ever-changing media landscape is the Press Association - and its reporting. The PA reports everything straight down the line, free of agenda, and it is trusted as a result. Some newspaper websites write up stories off the PA wire as a matter of routine. But, it seems, not every story off the PA wire gets past that filter that some in our free and fearless press impose in order to keep inconvenient reality from their readers.

So it was yesterday, when small business owner Danielle Hindley arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, to see her action against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Mail on Sunday, concluded. The MoS did not bother to turn up, but the PA reporter did. He took away a copy of the statement read out in court on Ms Hindley’s behalf. So how many papers have reported the court appearance so far?

As if you need to ask: the number, as I suggested yesterday, is a big round Zero. None of them. Not even Media Guardian. Nothing from the paper that broke open the phone hacking scandal. But then, since the days of Nick Davies and editor Alan Rusbridger, the folks at Kings Place have “moved on”. They want to be, if not loved by journalists at other titles, at least tolerated. They don’t want to be spat on at awards ceremonies.

So even the Guardian has said nothing, joining in the self-enforced press Omertà, despite knowing that the MoS premeditatedly, deliberately, and callously trashed Ms Hindley’s business by running a story that was not true, and which, by the time of publication, they knew was not true. Thus they joined in the keeping of another dirty little press secret.

Even when the case has been publicised, the exposure granted by the press establishment has been strictly limited. Press Gazette told last August that “A beautician has won a complaint against the Mail on Sunday over an article investigating the rise of treatments being carried out by unqualified practitioners … The Mail on Sunday has now published a fuller correction, which also appears at the top of the amended article online”.

Danielle Hindley

It looked for all the world as if IPSO had forced the MoS to make amends. What the PG article did not tell, however, is that two months before their article, Ms Hindley had begun her legal action against the paper. As with the papers themselves, it’s not always about what they publish. It’s also about what they choose not to publish.

And today, none of them have published anything. Except for Leeds Live, which has carried Ms Hindley’s own harrowing testimony: “What the Mail on Sunday did to me was too cruel. I felt trapped and unsafe and I attempted suicide as a result. Today in court the Mail on Sunday and its owners, Associated Newspapers, have admitted that what they published about me was false”. We nearly lost her. But the press doesn’t care.

She added “I’m not alone in suffering harassment, bullying and inaccuracy at the hands of the press … Look at what they have done to people such as Gareth Thomas and Ben Stokes, and look at what they did to poor Caroline Flack. Meghan and our beloved Prince Harry had to flee from them to protect their sanity and safety”.

But our free and fearless press has closed ranks to keep its readers from discovering just what it is prepared to do to ordinary people in order to drive sales and clicks. What the MoS did was despicable. What the rest of the press has not done is arguably worse.

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Danielle Hindley - A Victim Vindicated

Our free and fearless press likes to point out those who take them to court and win significant amounts of damages, along with their legal costs - then claim that what was published about them didn’t really hurt them, it was a good story really, and only a bit of good clean journalistic fun. Deeply unpleasant former Sun editor Kelvin McFilth’s favourite is the sum extracted from his paper by Elton John.

Danielle Hindley ((c) Tim Fenton, so there)

But not all victims of press misbehaviour are well-known; many cannot afford to take the press to court, and well they know it. The press sits as its own judge and jury, deciding who it’s going to shit on, and sneering at their targets to come and sue them if they think they’re hard enough. And when their targets do come after them, they just pile on the agony, stringing any action out, just to make it that bit more expensive and unaffordable.

The damage done to those targets - well, the press doesn’t care about that. And that is where Danielle Hindley comes in. She is a small business owner who lives in a former mining village not far from Leeds, and appeared on the Zelo Street radar at the end of 2017 at the prompting of a regular source of mine.

Ms Hindley had had an unwelcome visitor: a Mail on Sunday hack called Charlotte Wace who arrived at her house posing as a potential client. Ms Wace was carrying a hidden camera. At first it was just another case of press harassment, but then the MoS published. Their story claimed Ms Hindley was a “rogue beautician”, a “cosmetic cowboy”. It was the kind of story that could bust her business, and it very nearly did.

She had done nothing wrong. She had told the MoS they were wrong; they went ahead and published anyway. A subsequent complaint to IPSO was partially upheld; in the meantime, her neighbours were seeing what was in the paper and decided it must be true. Her little boy was horribly bullied at school. She was put in touch with campaigning group Hacked Off, and lawyer Jonathan Coad took up the case on her behalf.

Hacked Off have worked to publicise and help countless victims of press abuse; I have been privileged to meet some of them. They are, in the main, not household names, not wealthy, not with their own personal lawyer. They are just ordinary people, cast like so many rabbits in the headlights of the advancing press juggernaut.

A claim was submitted against the MoS in November 2018. No offer of settlement was forthcoming, and so in April 2019, legal proceedings were begun. Two months later, a year and a half after they had published an article about her that was not true, and which they knew not to be true, the paper made an offer of amends to Ms Hindley, which she then accepted. They would pay damages, plus her costs.

And so we arrived at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand today; a statement would be read out in open court on Ms Hindley’s behalf. Along with her supporters, and yes, I am proud and humbled to be one of them, she entered Court 37 to see her action against Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Mail on Sunday, brought to its conclusion.

The presiding judge, fittingly, was Mr Justice Jay. As plain Robert Jay, he had been the lead counsel to the Leveson Inquiry. He had lightly grilled all the proprietors, editors, hacks, hangers-on, and yes, he had heard the stories of the victims.

As Ms Hindley’s statement was read out by her barrister, Mr Justice Jay sat and listened as the Mail on Sunday’s disgraceful behaviour was set out. He said nothing; he did not need to. His world-weary expression said it for him; he had been here before.

It was before his prompting that so many accounts of press abuse were relayed to the outside world: the better-known victims of phone hacking, like Sienna Miller and Heather Mills; former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames, whose life was gratuitously trashed by the late and not at all lamented Screws; and Hugh Grant memorably accusing the Daily Mail, under the editorship of the legendarily foul-mouthed Paul Dacre, of hacking him.

It was also before Robert Jay that the ordinary people gave their testimony. Those like the McCanns, serially trashed by every red-top and mid-market tabloid; and Christopher Jefferies, denounced as a weirdo, and indeed a murderer, before the real killer of Joanna Yeates was arrested and the press realised they did not have a leg to stand on.

Mr Justice Jay had seen and heard it all. He had been a part of that process that might have stopped it all happening again, but the Leveson recommendations were largely ignored, as the Tory Party did the ultimate deal with the press devil and the likes of John Whittingdale made sure the Fourth Estate would be able to carry on as before.

Mr Justice Jay had tried. He’d done his best. Now, he looked at Danielle Hindley, sitting nervously before him, and knew it had happened again. Another ordinary person, a victim of a rotten press establishment that does not care who it abuses, or about the consequences of their actions, another statistic in the record of mere collateral damage. All he could do was to hear the statement read out on her behalf, and initial the record.

With that, the action was concluded. But where was the Mail on Sunday? Ah well. Their concern for the victims of their shoddy journalism was such that they did not even bother to turn up. A reporter from the Press Association attended; that was very much that.

After all, the press wouldn’t want their readers to know about Danielle Hindley. So they will say and do as little as possible to tell them about her story. Here on Zelo Street, though, there is no such reticence. Nor is there at Byline Media, where Professor Brian Cathcart has given his account of the whole sorry story. So now you know.

Our free and fearless press has ventured beyond the pale. But you knew that anyway.

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Toby Young’s Free Speech Sham

The time has arrived for the latest project from the loathsome Toby Young, along with a group of carefully selected colleagues: the Free Speech Union has now been launched. This will support the freedom of those supported to speak freely, a concept which is clearly fraudulent. Neither Tobes, nor his pals, can enhance anyone’s freedom of speech merely by championing them. They are already free to speak. No intervention is needed.

An unappealing trio: the loathsome Tobes ...

Still, the Mail on Sunday felt the need to give Tobes some publicity. “People who become the target of ‘Twitter storms’ after making controversial remarks will be defended by a new body called the Free Speech Union. The organisation will ‘stand up for the rights of its members to tell the truth in all circumstances’. The union has been set up by the journalist Toby Young in response to police investigations into a string of ‘non-crime hate incidents’ triggered by outspoken comments”. No-one is stopping anyone telling the truth.

... Doug Murray The K ...

There was a comment from The Great Man himself. "If someone at work writes to your boss to complain about something you’ve said, we’ll write to them, too, and explain the importance of intellectual tolerance and viewpoint diversity. If self-righteous social-media bullies pick on you, we’ll return the fire. If someone launches an online petition calling for you to be sacked, we’ll launch a counter-petition. The enemies of free speech hunt in packs; its defenders must band together too.” Tedious Maximus speaks.

... and Nigel Biggar

So this is an excuse for Tobes to wade in to disagreements at his own particular discretion. But one look at this organisation reveals what it is really about: for starters, as Ian Fraser points out, it “isn't in fact a union. It's a limited company, incorporated on 20 Nov 2019. The firm has five directors - Toby Young, Douglas Murray, Prof Nigel Biggar, Ian Rons, and Radomir Tylecote”. Who they? Ah well. That gets to the heart of the matter.

As Fraser notes, “Toby Young has tweeted on breasts, eugenics & the working class … Nigel Biggar is a longtime apologist of colonialism … Douglas Murray is a noted Islamophobe … Radomir Tylecote was suspended from HM Treasury after co-authoring an anti EU book”. They all spoke freely. And as a result, other spoke freely against them.

Tobes’ social media past caught up with him after he was gifted a board position at the Office for Students. No-one curtailed his right to speak freely. Nigel Biggar attracted adverse comment for his views on British colonialism; he was backed to the hilt by the Daily Mail, for what good it did him. Tobes’ outfit won’t do any better.

And Doug Murray The K has been regularly called out for his anti-Muslim bigotry. At no time was his ability to speak freely curtailed. Free speech campaigners? More likely is that they’re all sore losers who have banded together in order to try and get their own back on the Rotten Lefties™. Because we know whose free speech they won’t be defending.

As Paul Bernal has pointed out, “As Toby Young should know, your commitment to free speech isn’t shown by how well you defend those whose speech you agree with, but how you defend those whose speech you don’t. When his ‘free speech union’ talks about the excesses of the Prevent programme, then see”. This is just free speech for the right.

It’s another way for Tobes and Co to whine about how unfair the world is. Aw bless!

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Priti Patel Fails To Fight Back

After reports circulated at the weekend suggesting that Priti Patel, who has inexplicably been made Home Secretary by alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, was not getting on with her most senior Civil Servants, was bullying Whitehall staffers, and worst of all was having briefings withheld by MI5 because they could not trust her, there had to be a fightback. First of all, let us consider the MI5 claim.

This was tacked on, almost as an afterthought, to a small front page item in the Sunday Times under the by-line of political editor Tim Shipman. The piece simply ended with “MI5 officials have reduced the amount of intelligence they pass to Priti Patel because they ‘do not trust’ the Home Secretary”. It was as if Shipman was trying to downplay what looked very much like an exclusive insight into goings-on within the Home Office.

The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph put their item on the front page, telling readers “‘Furious’ MI5 bosses deny Patel relations have soured … THE Security Service has been dragged into the internal war between Priti Patel and her top civil servant as officials issued an unprecedented denial that it ‘did not trust her’”. There was more.

“MI5 officers were said to be furious at the claims, in the Sunday Times, and took the highly unusual step of issuing such a strong denial … ‘Reports suggesting that the Home Secretary and MI5 do not have  strong relationship are simply untrue’ said a security source”. So we do not hear from MI5, but just a “security source”.

Over at the Murdoch Times, the fightback was given greater prominence, but the focus was on Ms Patel wanting to know Who Told Shippers. “Patel ‘livid’ after claim she has lost trust of MI5 … Home Secretary demands inquiry into leaks” tells the headline, the supporting article adding “‘Priti is absolutely livid,’ an ally of the Home Secretary said. ‘The Blob (a derogatory term for senior officials) is tying to kill her. She’s determined to get to the bottom of it’”. Which gives the game away as to the identity of that “ally”.

Referring to the Civil Service, or the perceived Establishment, as “The Blob”, was a term beloved of those around Dominic Cummings, when the chief Downing Street polecat was advising Michael “Oiky” Gove at the DfE. It’s highly doubtful that other ministers or even Tory MPs would use such a term. But polecat Dom and his pals would. Point.

And the use of quote marks is another dead giveaway, something even the BBC is doing this morning: “Home Secretary Priti Patel 'deeply concerned' by 'false MI5 claims’”. Their report adds yet more quote marks: “The BBC's assistant political editor, Norman Smith, said the intervention from a security service source - saying the claims they withheld information from the home secretary were ‘simply untrue’ - was ‘highly unusual’”.

The reality is that someone said something to Shipman that rings all too true: the idea that intelligence may be held back from someone whose past loyalties have been, shall we say, variable and even wayward. All that sound and fury is mainly for the consumption of the Tory faithful; nothing said so far has proved the Sunday Times claim to be wrong.

Priti Patel’s Home Office tenure just hit a big bump in the road. And she can’t handle it.

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Murdoch Press STILL LOSING MONEY

Slipped out on Friday, while much of our free and fearless press - including their own titles - was focused elsewhere, the full accounts for the period up to June 2019 for News Group Newspapers give us a fascinating insight into the presence of the Murdoch mafiosi in the UK. And the bottom line is that this is a presence which is losing rather a lot of money.

It does, though, have its benefits: the waves of hate that titles like the Sun can break over its targets are without parallel, even by the Mail titles. The rest of the Fourth Estate inevitably follows the lead of the Murdoch empire, and knows not to cross its path. The problem for the Murdoch goons is that their past is catching up with them.

That is evident from the Strategic Report which opens the summary of accounts, which tells “Following the allegations of voicemail interception and inappropriate payments to public officials there have been a number of civil cases brought against the company, most of which have been settled, or are in the process of being settled. A provision has been made at the balance sheet date in respect of all claims that have been filed up until the date of finalisation of the financial statements”. So what’s the cost?

Ah well. Note 4, “Operating one-off charges”, on Page 20 has the information. “A charge of £26,721,000 (2018 - £14,740,000) in respect of claimants’ legal fees and damages has been made based on available information at the date of signing the financial statements”.

Moreover, “The company has incurred £25,737,000 (2018 - £29,979,000) of one off costs in regard to UK Newspaper matters. These include £25,129,000 (2018 - £29,480,000) of legal fees and £608,000 (2018 - £499,000) of other UK newspaper matter costs”.

So more than £26.5 million has been set aside for settling claims for phone hacking and other types of illegal news gathering, for which, in the case of the Sun titles, no admission has been made. How much NGN’s own legal costs for these claims are, we cannot be certain, except that it will probably take up most of that £25.1 million.

But up there at the top of the pile, the directors of NGN need not be downhearted: directors’ remuneration for the year was £5,191,000, of which “The highest paid director received remuneration (excluding pension contributions) of £2,787,000 (2018 - £2,808,000)”. It has to be assumed that this director is CEO Rebekah Brooks.

Back at the one-off charges, which include £1,549,000 for the Management and Standards Committee, the damage totals £54,007,000. But then consider the profit and loss account on Page 11: this records a loss for the financial year of £67,952,000.

This means that, even without the phone hacking claim costs, NGN would still have lost almost £14 million. The only comfort for the Murdoch mafiosi is that this is significantly less than 2018’s loss, after deducting the phone hacking claim costs, of around £45 million.

Will the Murdoch press make money again in the next few years? Given the claims keep on coming, and the potential downside for the Sun titles if there is serious blowback (as happened with the Screws over the Dowler hacking), it’s not such a daft question.

Or is Rupe just in it for the political leverage? There’s a $64,000 question for you.

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Question Time Ranter IDENTIFIED

After all the controversy sparked by an audience member on the most recent edition of BBC Question Time, where a number of totally untrue claims were made about migration, population, the education system, languages used in the NHS, and whether the country was “sinking” under people “flooding in” from elsewhere, we have the serious claim that someone connected with the programme has let through one of the far right.

One enterprising Tweeter made the connection between the angry but ignorant and dishonest audience member and someone who had demonstrated in support of Stephen Yaxley Lennon, who styles himself Tommy Robinson. Was it the same person? It appears it was, and John O’Connell of Far Right Watch had more.

“If the woman on the left is the woman on the right, FRW can assist. Left is Sherri Peach, nee Bothwell, mostly connected with Britain First, married to former National Front Election Candidate, Roy Peach”. He added “And before you attack us for 'doxxing', at the demo where she was photographed she was quite happy to give her name and be interviewed. Thus, perfectly in order”. Further confirmation came soon afterwards.

One Tweeter found a video of Ms Peach on YouTube, where she confirmed her name and sounded, well, like the Question Time ranter. O’Connell had another sighting to add: “And here she appears again, front and centre, in one of our own pieces from last year - the 'Britain First Fake Flag Burning' post”. You can see that post on Facebook HERE.

Another Tweeter noted “Looks like she was also a National Front candidate”. Indeed she was. Twice, back in 1974. O’Connell claimed “Further confirmation from multiple sources that this London National Front woman was invited on to the #bbcqt  (in Dorset) by #bbcqt staffer Alison Fuller-Pedley and placed front row. She stayed in a local hotel. Bill paid by a third party, as yet unknown”. Ms Fuller Pedley works on the show, but not for the BBC.

If true, that puts Mentorn Media (the company that produces Question Time, and also The Big Questions) in one of those Very Difficult Positions. It puts the BBC in a yet more difficult position. Worse, the way the rant was clipped up and distributed using the Question Time Twitter feed has run into further criticism.

As Sam Bright of Scram News has told, “So I used to run the social media accounts of a BBC political debate programme. This post blatantly violates BBC editorial guidelines”. Do go on. “If run properly, Question Time should inform people and (in theory) contribute to healthy, democratic debate. At the minute it’s built like an entertainment programme. It’s about clipping up extreme views and getting viral hits. The BBC need to rethink”.

And he had this warning to add: “I would like to put on record though that I think the BBC is a phenomenal institution. The overwhelming majority [of] journalists work their arses off to produce quality, impartial programmes. They just need to dump Question Time, in its current format at least”. They also need to explain the presence of Ms Peach.

Recently, the talk about Question Time has not been merely about those participating, but the programme itself, and most notably its fitness for purpose.

If the programme becomes the story, it is finished. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Top Six - February 23

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have to be out and about later. So there.

6 Caroline Flack - Slain By The Sun The Murdoch goons don’t want to admit it, but more than any other factor, it was The Sun Wot Done It.

5 Bozo Avoids Flood Visits - Here’s Why The Vote Leave campaign’s dishonesty extended to promising that £350 million a week to deal with flood defences. Or maybe not.

4 Brillo EU Ignorance Getting Worrying It only takes one Tweet to spray that credibility up the wall, and one Tweet was all it took Andrew Neil.

3 Andrew Sabisky And His Defenders The racism and eugenics specialist was defended by the usual media suspects.

2 Carole Cadwalladr Does NOT Libel Michael Gove Sarah “Vain” Vine tried to put the frighteners on the Observer journalist. It didn’t work. No change there, then.

1 Phillip Schofield Outing - Was It The Sun? Second week at the top of the six for this post. Did the This Morning host just come out of his own accord - or was someone in the press about to do it for him?

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Charlotte Gill Crawling REWARDED

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street may remember a vain and certainly not heroic attempt last September to burnish the reputation of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson by occasional hack Charlotte Gill. This was a campaign that developed not necessarily to her advantage; Ms Gill pretending that Bozo The Clown was some kind of victim was widely ridiculed. But she has continued to stick to her task.

Charlotte Gill

And it took an industrial quantity of brass neck to claim that Bozo was being “hounded” while most of her pals in the right-leaning press were kicking seven shades of the proverbial out of Jeremy Corbyn. She even managed to throw in “People made fun of Ed Miliband eating the sandwich for purely aesthetic reasons. With BoJo anything he does - sneeze, eat, breathe - must be compared to fascism”. No further questions, m’Lud.

Best not dwell on that, though, as she has returned this month to defending the indefensible, starting with the general musing “Was thinking about Jordan Peterson a few months ago. And how does he do it? How does he cope with so much backlash? And the truth is, people don’t. That’s why we can’t just endlessly have one person fighting cancel culture - we all gotta say no. Luckily ppl are getting braver”.

He does it because he’s a creep who doesn’t give a crap about his targets, and who has proved himself incapable of defending his views when put under the interviewer’s cosh. But do go on. “The Andrew Sabisky debate is a test for the government. Listen to Twitter? Or trust your own hiring decisions. We cannot have Roger Scruton/ Toby Young-style sackings over and over again”. Twitter Done It! Er no, Sabisky was a wacko.

Then it was on to Caroline Flack, and the quite mild observation that “being a famous woman remains a health hazard”. She wasn’t having that. “Men are public punching bags too. Stop trying to make what happened into a gendered issue”. Somehow, she missed that particular viciousness that attaches to pursuit of women.

But back to the Sabisky row, and the attention switching to chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, who Ms Gill now felt duty bound to defend. “As far as I can see, he is not advocating designer babies. He is warning about the dystopian possibilities of DNA technology. It is getting more advanced and we have to discuss where the limits should be. Shutting down this debate is dangerous”. No, it’s calling out eugenicists.

Who else out there on the right would she care to unsuccessfully defend? “So let me get this right. Our Home Secretary is being attacked for being aspirational about getting people into work?” Priti Patel. Who wants to get eight million supposedly “economically inactive” people into work. Except they’re already occupied studying, caring for others, or being retired. Nothing like leaping in before doing your homework.

But there was a payoff for this endeavour: just to show some appreciation - and to tell the world how desperate it must be - Conservative Home has now made her its deputy editor. To which Ross McCafferty observed “it’s always hard to remember with Tory self-owners, what was Charlotte's big embarrassing online moment again? Something about genetics and intelligence? Or not being able to find a date because she was right-wing?”

Before remembering that it was both. Interesting to see another crawler being rewarded.

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