Not even Labour is pretending that the Rayner house scandal is a “non-story”. The party has now cancelled the delivery of 21 new Facebook ads featuring Rayner which were to be delivered to millions of people. It’s not just broadcast interviews that Rayner is being kept off of…
LOTO might not want people commenting about Rayner’s electoral and tax issues while they’re trying to run a local election campaign. Do they expect to keep this going until the General Election?
Guido asked Ofcom over a week ago why it was pursuing GB News so virulently for apparently presenting news when Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy did so entirely blatantly on LBC. Ofcom has had over 20 spats with GB News in the last two years while leftist commentators claim it’s “scared” of the broadcaster…
Hello @Ofcom, this is the Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy presenting breaking news on LBC, the exact thing that Ofcom ruled against Jacob Rees Mogg over. Can we expect @LBC to get a rap on the knuckles likewise? pic.twitter.com/KNGFjDQWTP
— Media Guido (@MediaGuido) March 29, 2024
This morning the regulator confirms:
“We’ve launched an investigation into David Lammy on LBC, broadcast on 29 March. We’re investigating whether this programme broke our rules on politicians acting as news presenters.”
It shouldn’t take calls of hypocrisy on Twitter to spur action…
An article appeared a day ago on Wales Online titled “Mum says she can now do a weekly shop for family of four on her bike after 20 mph“, which included numerous typical arguments in favour of the speed limit – i.e. that everyone can now pedal their bike through idyllic rainbow-coloured country lanes without fear of metal death machines hurtling past at a terrifying 30 mph. Casually mentioned in the article is the fact that the “mum” works for the socialist agitator cycling charity Sustrans. Guido wondered who was responsible for oiling Sustrans’ wheels in Wales…
To absolutely no-one’s surprise, the Labour-run Welsh government has funded the charity to the tune of £19 million since 2010. Sustrans has been promoting Welsh Labour’s policy for years. Up in Scotland the taxpayer-funded charity has been clamouring for higher taxes from the SNP, including extra death taxes on all estates worth over £36,000. The gravy train never stops…
The Tories aren’t happy about the Wales Online propaganda. Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies tells Guido: “It is disingenuous that this interview has been allowed to go out… it seems the Labour Government backed Sustrans charity are getting desperate in an attempt to influence public opinion.” Meanwhile, the article has mysteriously disappeared from the Wales Online website following complaints to IPSO from co-conspirators…
BBC Verify may be an avid fact-checker on some more centre-right outlets, though they aren’t known to to be quite so thorough on their some of their own content. Perhaps that’s why they’ve ramped up spending on the department. According to an FOI request from Guido, the BBC has recently moved a number of staff from other areas of news into the BBC Verify Team. As of the beginning of February 2024 there are 63 people with combined salary costs of a whopping £3.2 million…
Tory MP Andrew Percy blasted the revelation, saying:
“It is staggering that the licence fee payer is shelling out millions of pounds for the laughingly labelled ‘BBC Verify’ team. Far from upholding high standards of journalism, BBC Verify has on too many occasions been biased and pushed out misleading information to viewers and readers, the very opposite of verification!”
Now we know where the hike in the the licence fee is going…
As much as Labour’s spin doctors wanted to dismiss the story yesterday’s local election campaign launch was overshadowed by Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner’s failure to satisfactorily explain herself. This morning’s newspapers are (finally) all over the issue Guido has been drumming on about for weeks;
- “How Angela Rayner could go from Labour’s trump card to their millstone“ opines the Telegraph.
- “Pressure builds on Angela Rayner over council house claims” – Times
- “Rayner denies wrongdoing over council house sale amid police review“ – Guardian
- “Angela Rayner refuses to publish tax records as police probe house sale“ – FT
- “Why won’t Rayner come clean on tax?” – Daily Mail
- “UK cannot install Angela Rayner as Deputy PM with unanswered tax-dodging allegations hanging over her” – Sun
- “Rayner on the ropes: Labour’s deputy leader flounders over housing row” – Mail
- “Angela Rayner insists she did nothing wrong over house sale“ – BBC
- “Angela Rayner will not publish ‘personal tax advice’ over council house sale“ – Sky News
The truth will out and this will not go away until she answers the questions which she obfuscates over. Why do the neighbours say she is lying about where she really lived? Wasn’t her brother really renting the house she pretends she lived at and where she kept herself on the electoral roll? Why doesn’t she publish the recent tax advice? As much as Labour keep trying to make out this is a non-story, it clearly isn’t. The press is only seeking the same kind of transparency she demanded of others…
Lee Anderson says he’s in “campaign mode” up in Blackpool with Reform and he’s missed his scheduled appearance on The Sun’s new politics show. He’s ducked Cole…
Empty chair: Lee Anderson has chickened out of @MrHarryCole‘s new politics show.
Watch #NeverMindTheBallots (without Lee) on https://t.co/sOsZmZ2K9A and The Sun’s YouTube channel from 7pm: https://t.co/SgJzTMSLSK pic.twitter.com/LpUcr2gsAL
— The Sun (@TheSun) March 28, 2024
