Over the weekend Paul Mason emerged from his leather-jacketed midlife crisis to reveal his latest conspiracy theory: Fleet Street is covering up the so-called NHS crisis. Top Corbynista Mason reckons the press are conspiring to keep NHS stories out of their papers so they can please their proprietors and secure invites to Downing Street drinks parties:

Does the theory stand up to scrutiny?

Mason told his followers that journalists at the Mail on Sunday had kept the NHS crisis out of the paper. The truth is the paper ran a major spread across two full pages high in the news section with the sub deck: “Britain’s NHS Emergency”. It featured the pull quote: “NHS is stretched to its limit”. 

Mason said there was “No NHS crisis” in the Sunday Telegraph. The truth is the paper covered the story on page two of the news section.

Mason also claimed the Sunday Times had ignored the issue. The paper devoted a large section of is leader column to the story.

Mason said the same of The Sun on Sunday. It covered the story on page two. The NHS crisis was also on the Sun’s front page this morning under the headline “Hospitals in Crisis”, with a spread across pages eight and nine on what it calls the “NHS Hospitals Scandal“.

Mason has so far failed to tweet any of this coverage or admit he was telling his followers a pack of fibs. This must be what the Corbynistas mean by their new Trumpian approach to dealing with the media…