Tim Davie today, writing to the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee Chairman Caroline Dinenage:
“I’d like to make clear: although the racial slur was symptomatic of a disability and an involuntary tic, it should never have been broadcast. It was a genuine mistake, and we take full responsibility for our error.”
On why the slur ever made it to broadcast, given the two-hour tape delay:
“…initial evidence gathering has found that no-one in the on-site broadcast truck heard this when they were watching the live feed.”
That’s at least one more calamity for Davie to apologise for before standing down as Director-General next month. Will it be the last? There’s still plenty of time…
A former staffer to ex-Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson has had his property searched by police in connection to an ongoing investigation into Chinese espionage. Police doing a lot in quick succession…
James Robinson was director of communications for Watson from 2015 to 2018, after which he founded a PR agency. He is also married to GB News presenter and former Labour MP Gloria de Piero. He said in a statement:
“I can confirm that police officers visited my home with a search warrant. I understand their attendance was part of their inquiries into those arrested and questioned over matters relating to China.
Naturally, I co-operated fully with the police and will, of course, continue to do so as long as their investigations into the possible wrongdoing of others continues. I would like to make it absolutely clear that I have neither been detained, arrested nor questioned in connection with this, or any other, matter.”
Labour MP Joani Reid resigned the whip last night after her husband was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. Collateral damage racking up…
The Fair Work Agency’s new and first CEO has woke credentials up to the eyeballs. Oh boy…
The FWA is replacing the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and will run enforcement for the Employment Rights Bill. Including all the gender, pay, union, and other requirements…
Lisa Pinney, Environment Agency longtimer and the FWA’s new CEO, will take a salary of between £100,000-£162,500. Prior to this role she was also board member of Stonewall for six years between 2012 and 2018 and also founded the Environment Agency’s LGBT Network. In 2021 she was crowned Top 10 Diversity Hero by the LGBT Awards where her bio reads:
“Lisa advocates for LGBT+ equality alongside wider aspects of inclusion intersectionality and authentic leadership. Lisa works with others to challenge to bring change, speaking at events and supporting individuals and organisations to be more LGBT+ inclusive.”
She wrote Environment Agency blog from 2018 celebrating LGBT+ History Month she wrote: “Even here in the UK, a number of high profile columnists and newspapers have taken to attacking trans people and their fundamental rights. As a proud lesbian, feminist and trans ally, this is not ok.” Bodes well for heavy-handed enforcement of all employers in the UK…
Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith tells Guido: “It is no surprise whatsoever that another woke civil servant has been appointed given that the Fair Work Agency has been birthed by the (Un)Employment Rights Act, written by the trade unions. If I were an employer today I would be extremely worried about what this appointment, of someone who’s never seemingly employed anyone in her life, means for my business.” Go woke go broke…
Mandelson is no longer on police bail. The Met:
“A 72-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office has been released under investigation. The investigation remains ongoing.”
That means they don’t think he’s a flight risk any more since arresting him after a tip off from Hoyle on Monday. There is no fixed date for his return to the police station…
Just announced by the government. Ofgem CEO Jonathan Brearley is on excellent terms with Miliband – they are friends from the last Labour government…
The move will embolden Miliband in his clean energy disaster run. It now also ruins the Ofgem review, whose aim is to “revisiting the role of the regulator to ensure that it can support an energy market where innovation and high standards help drive better products and services for consumers, giving them more options to make choices more suitable for their circumstances.“ The review is run by DESNZ, which will now be headed up by the man who ran Ofgem since 2021…
Bearley is not rated by everyone in government, either. A DESNZ source said: “It was his f**k up in not investing in stuff that has made bills go up.” Fail upwards…
Starmer’s latest TikTok somehow attempts to turn his legalistic inaction on Iran into hard military edit. It doesn’t work…
The PM uses the video to claim: “long before the US and Israeli action last weekend, we had already deployed additional military capability to the region.” The inaction is clearly a sore point…
Even more bizarrely the shots of Wildcat helicopters and other armed forces with Starmer’s voice overlaid are accompanied by the intro to Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. At the Lobby briefing of political journalists Starmer’s spokesman was unable to say if the PM approved the choice of track, saying “the PM’s position on defence spending has been set out very clearly” and he wouldn’t “get into internal processes.” That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”