Stories of potential further Tory MP defections continue to emerge, despite clearly coming from Labour – the only party to benefit from spreading such claims. Last night, following a Telegraph story of five more potential defectors, a senior Conservative source got in touch to totally reject the claims, calling out Labour’s briefings and saying it doesn’t tally in any way with their intelligence. Meanwhile Labour’s sent hacks on a wild goose chase trying to track down these supposed defectors…
One such MP, North West Durham’s Richard Holden, was approached by journalists last night, one of whom was being “nagged by someone in NW Durham [constituency Labour party] who says you are defecting. Can you confirm that this is total bollocks?”. Richard characteristically replied:
You’d think the local party would leave it there. This afternoon, however, branch chairman Pat Glass – the former Labour MP and Shadow Europe Minister best known for calling a voter a “horrible racist” during the EU referendum – is now accusing Holden of some bizarre and pointless game of 4D chess. She claims he himself is spreading the absurd rumour:
Really @RicHolden? Our Chair, Pat corrects the record:
— NW Durham Labour 🌹 (@NWDurhamLabour) January 20, 2022
"This is a non-story made up & put out by Richard to generate a local story & publicity for himself. He should get on with his job which is working for the people of North West Durham & not himself.”https://t.co/tO5pfDIOwO https://t.co/4KRtZvezFW
Guido gently suggests that accusing Holden so overtly of this, despite no evidence, may not prove a clever strategy…
