Rushed Defence

I am at a total loss to understand why Conservative MPs and their client journalists jump so quickly to defend Boris Johnson. The reason I say that is because there's only one thing Boris is reliable for, and that's being unreliable. They come out denying some statement he's accused of making, only for a video of him saying it surfacing about a week later, making those defending him look total tits.

The latest knee jerk defence against PartyGate is Starmer's BeerGate in Durham, a totally vacuous confection of outrage over something that was perfectly legal, only for an image of Boris to surface doing the same thing a week later, but in a pub, which was illegal. It's like a comedy script.

Michael Fabricant is one of the worst offenders. It would be a gift to the Labour Party if Fabricant was given airtime every day for the next 2 years - he just can't help rushing out crappy defences that are demolished within hours of him putting them online.

Oliver Dowden has gone an written a letter to Starmer complaining about a 'secret' pact between Labour and the LibDems to not stand against each other in council seats where one or the other has the best chance - a pact so secret that almost everyone knows about it. 

Dowden goes all over Twitter with this letter, attracting obvious comparisons between the Express and DM urging a similar pact between the Tories and UKIP at the last GE. There's also the fact that this is a tactical consequence of First Past the Post, which is favoured by the Tories. Doubtless they will now scream against FPTP and made some electoral changes, especially as they now have control of the 'independent' Electoral Commission.

Nadine Dorries made the mistake over the Bank Holiday of re-Tweeting a Daily Mail article about Starmer having a curry during lockdown. Unfortunately for her, the image of Starmer having a curry was tracked down to 2015 and the uncropped image included Frank Dobson, who died in 2019, before the pandemic. It was a manufactured story by Tory client journalists - and her spreading it is a double blow, as she's meant to be in charge of countering the spread of digital misinformation. 

Here's the image in the Daily Mail:

And here's the uncropped image with the deceased Frank Dobson: