After Reform demanded a public apology from the BBC for Matt Chorley’s misquoting Farage on Newsnight last night the corporation has acquiesced. Matt Chorley said Farage called for “white cold rage” instead of “pure cold rage.” He was forced to apologise this morning – it wasn’t enough…
The BBC itself has apologised to Farage, removed the Newsnight episode from iPlayer and Sounds for now and will also air an apology tonight. Safe to say the BBC wants Robert Kenyon to appear on the Question Time panel tomorrow night…
Posted on X this morning by Matt Chorley and tellingly retweeted by the BBC Press Office account:
“I owe Nigel Farage an apology.
During last night’s Newsnight we covered the murder of Henry Nowak and the political reaction to the case, including discussing Nigel Farage’s comments about ‘pure, cold rage’.
However I referred to ‘white cold rage’. This was a mistake on my part, a misremembering of the quote. It didn’t change the content of the interview but I should have got the quote right. I apologise to Nigel Farage for this.”
Reform’s shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf last night claimed “the insertion of the word ‘white’ by the BBC is obviously designed to change the meaning completely. It was no slip of the tongue, Chorley said it THREE TIMES.” Now Chorley grovels…
Speaking to BBC Newsnight the Blue Labour group’s primary ringleader Dan Carden suggested that the local elections will be game over for Starmer. Asked if he had confidence in the PM, Carden said:
“He’ll take us into the local elections and I think that will be a moment where the public have been consulted and there’ll be results. All of us as MPs will be looking at what our voters are telling us in those results. But there is definitely a question about the future of the Labour government, the future of the Labour Party and what that vision is that we are setting out for the country.”
He blamed the Labour leadership for the government’s malaise:
“It feels right now like we’re going from crisis to crisis and that happens because there is a lack of ideological vision and strategy at the heart of government… I wish I wasn’t carrying forward this message but I think you know we have to be honest and after the local elections it will be for the PLP and the leadership to look at where next.”
Rise Shabana…
Baroness Margaret Hodge, Labour’s ‘Anti-Corruption Champion,’ told Newsnight last night that No10’s efforts to secure an ambassador job for Matthew Doyle were entirely fair:
“If somebody you’re working with is about to lose your job, there’s nothing wrong I think in saying ‘Are there any other jobs available’ as long as you know that he could apply for going through due process to get those jobs… there’s nothing wrong with friends saying ‘are there any jobs around,’ what I do think was wrong was saying that they shouldn’t have told the Foreign Secretary I think that was wrong.”
Not even Pat McFadden took that line…
Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips appeared on Newsnight last night to discuss the Casey report to deny ever turning a “blind eye” to the rape gangs. She said those who wanted to speak out were “being told to keep it it quiet by people from within the Labour party and Maggie Oliver, herself a whistleblower, says Labour and the Tories have both turned a blind eye… not me – I have never turned a blind eye I never would shy away from calling a problem what it is.” Not my fault…
When Badenoch called for a national inquiry in the new year it was over the recent decision of Phillips herself to block central government intervention in Oldham. She wrote to the council:
“I believe it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the Government to intervene… I wish you every success in your pursuit of restoring public confidence in the services that Oldham Council is providing to safeguard and protect children.”
Phillips and Yvette Cooper also said their diaries were too busy to meet with the leaders of Oldham Council. This attempt to rewrite history won’t work…
Louise Haigh – convicted fraudster and former transport secretary – popped up on Newsnight last night to complain about the “misogynistic” and “sexist” culture in Downing Street, lamenting that “male advisers” are targeting her “female colleagues” with negative briefings. She moaned to presenter Victoria Derbyshire:
“I’m really fed up of opening the papers and reading briefing against my female former colleagues and I was really angry at the weekend to see the response to the electoral defeat that we had suffered at the hands of Reform to be that we should sack two female northern cabinet ministers… I only ever seem to read briefing against my female former colleagues.”
When Derbyshire pointed out that Ed Miliband – a man – receives his fair share of briefings, Haigh retorted that he doesn’t get it “anywhere near as badly as my female colleagues do.” Guido suspects the briefings against Haigh had a little more to do with her fraud conviction rather than her gender…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”