Over the weekend, Labour launched their new Bernie Grant Leadership Programme, timed to coincide with their celebration of “36 years since the first Black MPs were elected”. Their glitzy announcement video featured contributions from David Lammy and Dawn Butler, who were evidently unaware that the entire premise was incorrect. The first black MP was elected in 1767…

Clearly James Townsend, was also the first black Mayor of London, slipped Labour’s mind. However, this wasn’t just an isolated omission. Labour also failed to mention, amongst others, Henry Redhead Yorke, elected 1841, who was the son of slaves and Peter McLagan, elected 1865, Scotland’s first non-white MP. This didn’t stop David Lammy from repeating the claim that:

“Thirty-six years ago, the first black MPs were elected into the House of Commons to represent their communities as Labour MPs.”

This piece of myth-making is despite the fact the Labour Party didn’t exist when the first black MPs were elected to the Commons.

Guido will leave it to co-conspirators to decide whether Labour’s black history blunder was simple incompetence, a deliberate misrepresentation of history, or a judgement on the ethnicity of Parliament’s trailblazers. If Guido is being generous and not calling Labour’s myth makers knowing liars, they definitely should pay more attention in class during black history month.

Dawn Butler, who made history as the the first sitting MP on celebrity video-sharing app Cameo, has again broken new ground by becoming the first sitting MP to leave the platform after receiving what looks like no requests. Having joined the service in June to cash in on the trend set by Nigel Farage, Iain Dale, and John Bercow, Butler has now quietly deleted her profile, much to the disappointment of her 6-person ‘fan club’. Despite no videos being publicly available on the profile at the time of deletion, one person did leave her a five star review…

John Bercow, meanwhile, has found a lucrative new career on the platform. He appears to have realised corporations will happily fork out £2,250 to watch him scream until he’s red in the face. A service he used to provide to his own staff free of charge.

As Steerpike noticed on Friday, Bercow has now even become a viral sensation over in China, where his 92-second birthday message to fictitious ‘virtual idol’ Jiaran (an animated character) has picked up 3.9 million views. What might’ve been, Dawn…

Dawn Butler has once again tried to get herself booted out of the Commons for the sake of a few Twitter likes. Last time, it worked – this time, not so much. Standing to make a point of order this afternoon, Butler claimed Gillian Keegan had given “misleading information to MPs on the government’s handling of contracts during the pandemic“, and was “incorrect and wrong“. After discouraging “such long points of order”, Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing politely pointed out that Butler’s claim “was not a matter for the chair”.

Sensing an opportunity to go viral, Butler then asked:

“I just wonder how we’re supposed to operate in Parliament if Ministers do not come to the House and tell the truth.”

After scolding Butler for accusing Gillian Keegan of lying, Laing gave her the chance to retract the statement. Butler tried again:

“The minister is rewriting history and I think we have a problem with that.”

Rather than giving Butler what she wants, Laing accepted the claim and let the issue pass. Another well-handled moment from Laing after she did the same thing with Zarah Sultana last week…

Dawn Butler’s Commons hissy fit yesterday went exactly as planned: her own Twitter clip is currently on 1.4 million views, though she’s retweeted various other uploads of the clip which total 6.3 million in about half a day. She even had a speedily filmed and produced Byline TV interview out on the strop stunt…

It turns out Dawn’s stunt came very close to backfiring. Thankfully for her she was only suspended for the remainder of the day’s sitting – if she’d been thrown out using a similar standing order, and been suspended until the next sitting day, she would have remained a suspended MP going into the Summer recess, thereby being unable to draw a salary for over six weeks. Six weeks of an MP’s salary would have come to £9453. Commons sources suggest Dawn’s dodging of this unlucky outcome was unlikely to have been deliberate after a careful reading of Parliamentary procedure…

This attention-seeking stunt will work as desired…

Liz Truss kicked Pride Month off to a great start yesterday, urging Whitehall officials to withdraw from the Stonewall diversity scheme following a row over trans rights. Naturally the left is outraged, despite the Equalities and Human Rights Commission having also recently withdrawn from the scheme. Former Shadow Equalities Secretary Dawn Butler tried rallying her troops on Twitter, asking followers who they trust more: Stonewall or Liz Truss. Two hours and 9,000 votes later, who’s come out on top?

As ever, don’t ask questions to which you may not like the answer…