Compare and contrast Rachel Sylvester’s drive-by shooting of Boris two weeks ago – branding him an “international joke”, a “wally”, an “irrelevance” – with today’s piece coming to BoJo’s defence: “It is legitimate for the foreign secretary, who has been criticised for his lack of seriousness, to express his opinion on the biggest diplomatic dilemma facing the country in a generation”. What could possibly have caused such a sudden change of mind? Surely nothing to do with the fact that Rachel’s husband, Patrick Wintour of the Guardian, is off to New York to interview Boris…
Fantastic anecdote in Rachel Sylvester and Alice Thomson’s The Times puff piece for Theresa May this morning. Only snag, it didn’t happen, the PM has not been to the White House yet…
Last night Twitter was lively and claiming that Andrea Leadsom had brought up the subject of family and motherhood, this was briefed to the Sunday Times’ political editor Tim Shipman:
Leadsom’s words were apparently in answer to a question about what differentiates her from May, not a leading question. She offered it.
— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) July 8, 2016
This morning Rachel Sylvester was out defending her story, claiming that it was Andrea who introduced the issue of family:
@GuidoFawkes @thetimes Yet at 9am this morning @RSylvesterTimes being interviewed by BBC denied mentioning family pic.twitter.com/QdF3473VN9
— Mo (@numpty_moan) July 9, 2016
However the partial audio released from The Times has Rachel Sylvester introducing the issue in a question thus:
Rachel Sylvester: “Does your family inform your politics? Do you think motherhood – I thought it was very interesting during the debates you several times said, ‘as a mum’. Do you feel like a mum in politics?”
Which clearly contradicting Rachel’s claim made at 09:04 to the BBC:
Rachel Sylvester: “What was so striking was it was she her introduced the issue of family, I didn’t raise it at all… it wasn’t I who introduced it, she did.”
An hour later at 10:04 the BBC has Rachel Sylvester saying she did raise the question:
@LiliLapis30@GuidoFawkes@thetimes@RSylvesterTimes 10am @RSylvesterTimes onBBC said something completly different pic.twitter.com/HgrIgye0fN
— Mo (@numpty_moan) July 9, 2016
So apparently contradictory assertions. Goes without saying that Leadsom completely denies raising the issue, calling the claim “gutter journalism”. The only way to establish whether or not Andrea Leadsom has been stitched up is to release the full recording – something The Times is refusing to do…
Listen to the key part of our interview with Andrea Leadsom https://t.co/Q97ZUFjPxM pic.twitter.com/TksFWL4Wqx
— The Times of London (@thetimes) July 9, 2016
The Times have released a partial excerpt audio recording of the key part of Andrea Leadsom’s interview with Rachel Sylvester:
Rachel Sylvester: “Does your family inform your politics? Do you think motherhood – I thought it was very interesting during the debates you several times said, as a mum. Do you feel like a mum in politics?”
Andrea Leadsom: “Yes. Really carefully because I am sure Theresa will be really sad she doesn’t have children so I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, do you know what I mean? Because I think that would be really horrible. But genuinely I feel that being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people, but I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.”
In Andrea’s defence, Sylvester brought up the subject of motherhood and asked the question about her being a mum. Suggestions from the Twitter outrage bus that this was a Trumpian ploy are way over the top. Leadsom’s horror at the Times headline “Being a mother gives me edge on May” is genuine. It was naive rather than nasty…
