Guido understands newly-appointed education minister Brendan Clarke-Smith is preparing to post a raft of legal letters to high-profile celebrity lefties who spread false claims about a photo of the MP that appeared over the weekend. The photo, which showed Clarke-Smith posing in a thong, was taken over ten years ago during a waxing fundraiser for the British Heart Foundation and Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance. It made the rounds recently when the Twitterati baselessly declared it showed Clarke-Smith mocking NHS staff during the height of the pandemic…
Comedian Sue Perkins has already posted a grovelling apology and promised to donate to both charities:
1/ I messed up & want to offer a correction. I retweeted a post about @Bren4Bassetlaw without fact-checking. The picture of him was not taken during the pandemic, nor was he mocking NHS staff. He was fund-raising. I’d like to offer him my sincerest apologies for any upset caused.
— Sue Perkins 💙 (@sueperkins) July 11, 2022
That makes one, although there are still plenty of others out there who Guido understands can expect to hear from his lawyers soon…
UPDATE: Campbell apologises. Whoops…
It has been drawn to my attention that a tweet I recently retweeted about Tory MP Brendan Clarke-Smith was misleading and defamatory. It was of an old photo of Mr Clarke-Smith in which he posed to raise funds for charity. It was described as having been taken during lockdown 1/2
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) July 12, 2022
