Yesterday morning — as the nation was digesting that fractious leadership TV debate — we awoke to be told that the Conservatives had been guilty of a heinous political crime.
Even I was momentarily taken in as the BBC hyper-ventilated about what seemed an appalling breach of faith on the part of Tory HQ. During the shoot-out between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, it had changed the name of its official Twitter account to factcheckUK from the usual CCHQPress.
This sleight of hand was evidently calculated to lend the account extra authority. What a stupid and underhand thing to do. I found myself cursing the Tories. Lying again.
The Conservative Party press office changed their Twitter handle to FactCheckUK ahead of the debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday evening
Stephen Glover writes that the nation awoke yesterday to discover that the Conservatives had been guilty of a ‘heinous political crime. (Pictured: Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson at the first television debate of the election campaign on Tuesday night)
But on further investigation it transpired that the Conservative Party’s logo was retained on the account during its brief transformation. This may well have been spotted by observant users.
Moreover, it turned out that the account is only followed by 77,000 people, few of whom would have been consulting it during the one-hour debate. In fact, was a single person on God’s earth deceived by this silly ruse?
Now that the dust has settled, we can probably agree that this was a needless piece of chicanery dreamt up by some half-witted digital wonk. But was it an outrage? Did it merit hours of coverage not just by the BBC but other outlets such as Sky News? I think the answer to both questions is ‘No’.
Incidentally, I heard few, if any, broadcasters mention that Labour has its own ‘fact- checking’ account on Twitter called The Insider UK which promises ‘facts, information and comment you can trust’.
The obsession with the Tories’ alleged perfidy was especially odd given that the leadership debate — the first of its kind ever to take place in the UK —had just thrown up some very serious issues.
The Conservatives caused a twitter row after re-naming their twitter account ‘factcheckUK’ for the debate on ITV on Tuesday evening
Now I realise the BBC and other broadcasters are supposed to be neutral. This column makes no such claims. But when the Labour leader tells a string of preposterous whoppers, I think even the Beeb might open up debate.
Needless to say, I don’t at all exempt Mr Johnson from bending the truth in the way politicians regrettably do. For example, he vehemently denied Mr Corbyn’s charge that his deal with Brussels effectively places a border down the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. I think it does.
Other claims uttered by the PM can also be challenged. I shall be surprised if his pledge to complete a trade deal with the EU by the end of next year is fulfilled, as he confidently asserted that it will be.
But several of Mr Corbyn’s falsehoods, which come straight out of the standard Labour playbook, are of a different order of magnitude, partly because they are repeated so often, and partly because they constitute such a shameless assault on the truth.
These are just some of the areas in which the Labour leader is guilty of perennial fabrication: taxation and poverty; Brexit; the NHS; and anti-Semitism. He was at it again on Tuesday night.
On taxation and poverty, he peppered his discourse with references to ‘grotesque levels of imbalance in our society’ and ‘increasing inequality’. And he repeated the assertion he must have made a thousand times that the Tories have ‘handed tax cuts to the super-rich’.
Corbyn, pictured with ITV staff at the debate, has committed perennial fabrications on taxation, poverty, Brexit, the NHS and anti-Semitism among others
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured, was debating on Tuesday with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on ITV in the first head-to-head meeting of the 2019 General Election
In fact, by several measures inequality has slightly declined under the Conservatives. According to official figures, the number of working age adults living in absolute poverty fell from 7.8 million in 2010/11 to 7.2 million in 2017/18 — even though Britain’s working population rose by three million.
As for Mr Corbyn’s constant refrain that the rich pay less tax, it’s not true either. Millionaires pay on average 40.3 per cent of their income in tax — up from 35 per cent in 2009/2010.
Let’s move on to Brexit. Mr Corbyn refused to say whether he would support whatever deal he reaches with the EU (which he says he can do in three months.) By way of distraction, he claimed a trade deal with the U.S. would take ‘at least seven years’. Why?
On the NHS, he repeated his outrageous lie that Mr Johnson plans to ‘sell our National Health Service out to the United States’. Setting aside the complete lack of evidence for this ridiculous assertion, the PM would have to be a certified lunatic to contemplate it for a single second.
Some people will have found the Labour leader’s mealy-mouthed denunciations of anti-Semitism especially disquieting. He maintained his party has ‘investigated every single case’. That’s not true. There are said to be 130 unresolved cases, some of them very serious.
And so it goes on. I’d need a whole newspaper to analyse fully the ways in which Mr Corbyn departs regularly from the truth, not only on the subjects I have mentioned but on other issues such as Labour’s relationship with the Scottish Nationalists and what he really plans to do with Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.
There’s an oddity here. Boris has acquired the reputation of being a serial liar while Corbyn, though frequently written off as not the brightest in the class, is widely thought to be doggedly wedded to the truth. So far as the Labour leader is concerned, that’s bunkum.
Stephen Glover even says he would need a whole newspaper to dissect Mr Corbyn’s lies. (Pictured: The Labour leader at the ITV debate on Tuesday)
If the two were schoolboys, Boris would be the one who openly pockets other people’s sweets with an engaging smile on his face, while Corbyn would be a quiet and slightly sinister figure in the background secretly plotting to burn down the school’s gymnasium.
Let me say that, unlike many of my friends and despite the polls, I don’t share the assumption that an overall Conservative victory is a foregone conclusion.
The Tories have made lots of mistakes over the past nine years, and Corbyn’s narrative of widening inequality, rising poverty and tax-avoiding millionaires, though false, carries a strong allure.
Is it too much to ask that the BBC and other powerful broadcasters might put some of his more outlandish claims under the microscope rather than obsessing about some peripheral Twitter account?
I realise broadcasters are supposed to retain their impartiality but why is it impartial to allow Corbyn and his henchmen to repeat obvious untruths unchallenged? That seems the very opposite of impartiality.
The BBC has a rather pompous outfit called Reality Check, often introduced by a journalist called Chris Morris, who descends from some higher plane to adjudicate about whether a particular politician’s assertions should be believed.
Yesterday morning I listened in vain for Reality Check to scrutinise the Labour leader’s most significant assertions during the debate. Instead, Chris Morris felt it more important to worry again about the Tories’ Twitter account ‘masquerading as an independent fact-checking site’ and ‘real people struggling’ to get what they need from food banks.
Nothing about Mr Corbyn’s claims that a trade deal with America would take ‘at least seven years’. No attempt to examine his claims of widening inequality or of millionaires paying less tax. Not a word about his false assertion that all claims of Labour anti-Semitism have been investigated.
All too hot to handle? I don’t understand why these topics should be. But by brushing them under the carpet, some journalists are in danger of allowing Jeremy Corbyn a free ride into No 10. Unless they wake up, that could be exactly what they do achieve.