Guido’s revelations on Jonathan Reynolds are running for a third day. It has finally landed on the BBC…
Nick Ferrari asked Lisa Nandy why the business secretary finds it “necessary to lie about his background.” She said:
“I don’t think Jonny lied about his background for a minute, he has never pretended to be a solicitor – there was a duplicate entry on LinkedIn written by a staffer, one of which said he was a trainee solicitor – which he was – and one of which said he was a solicitor. He corrected that, which has sparked this story.”
Wrong on a few counts there. Reynolds called himself a ‘solicitor’ in parliament, was described as one on his personal website, on his Times Guide to the House of Commons entry, and on his personal Twitter. His team could not say if they ever sought to correct the numerous other biographies and newspaper write-ups that described him as a full solicitor…
The story was not sparked by his LinkedIn but by the multiple glaring references, some of which were made by Reynolds himself, to his being a solicitor. He never qualified…
The Telegraph says the SRA wrote to Reynolds in January to tell him to stop calling himself a solicitor. Labour is making a habit of hiding behind staff errors. Reeves says the same of her own LinkedIn discrepancies. Guido remembers Starmer boasting of his time at the CPS:
“When they made mistakes, I carried the can. I never turn on my staff and you should never turn on your staff… I will carry the can for mistakes of any organisation I lead.”
That’s gone in the bin…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”