DOWNING Street has insisted that Boris Johnson will not be apologising to Labour leader Keir Starmer after the latter had to be rescued by the police from a baying mob shouting abuse.
The shouts were based upon the false allegation hurled at the Labour leader by Johnson that Starmer had allowed the sexual predator and abuser Jimmy Savile to escape prosecution for his crimes. The Conservatives insist that there is "no link" between the threats and abuse made against Starmer and the decision of Johnson to use parliamentary privilege to repeat the baseless far-right allegation against the Labour leader in an effort to deflect attention from Starmer's criticisms of Johnson's lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street and the many lies he told in order to cover them up.
As Johnson was making his accusation at Starmer, Jacob Rees-Mogg was proving that despite his carefully cultivated image of staid old-fashioned politeness, he too is more than willing to drag British politics into the gutter, by finger-pointing , jeering and laughing at the Opposition leader. It's not just Johnson who needs to apologise – his backing chorus of bullying enablers must apologise as well.
However, on Sky News this morning, the Orwellian-named Minister for Disinformation Chris Philp (below) gave a propaganda disinformation performance worthy of Saddam Hussein's Information Minister, the so-called “Comical Ali” in 2003.
Philp insisted that there was no way anyone "reasonably could suggest" that Johnson's baseless allegation that Starmer had allowed Savile to escape prosecution "incited or justified or prompted" the baying mob from whom Starmer had to be rescued by the police.
He went on, doubling down on the disinformation, "I don't think you can make the leap from commenting on someone's record as director of public prosecutions ... to harassment and intimidation."
At no point did the Minister for Disinformation make it clear that Johnson's remarks about Starmer were based upon precisely the kind of online disinformation that Philp is supposed to be countering. He did not do so during his interview on Sky News, nor while being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 , nor when he appeared before a House of Commons committee the day after Johnson made the remarks.
Philp seems to think that his job is to justify and defend disinformation, at least when it comes from senior Conservatives. This is the same Chris Philp who recently called for God Save The Queen to be played more often in public venues and on television.
The same attempts to excuse and deflect from Johnson's appalling and Trumpian use of lies to attack his opponents was in evidence on BBC Politics Live on BBC2 this afternoon. The one-time apologist and former Brexit Party MEP Claire Fox also insisted that "There is no link" between Boris Johnson's smearing of Keir Starmer about Jimmy Savile's crimes and an angry mob shouting abuse to Starmer about Savile.
The programme introduced Fox as an independent without mentioning her recent Brexit Party and Johnson-supporting past or the fact that she owes her peerage and her position in the House of Lords to Boris Johnson.
On the same programme, the Conservative backbench MP and former minister Robert Buckland suggested that the SNP MP David Linden had no right to criticise Johnson after Linden pointed out that Johnson has prior history of making "incendiary" comments, and cited instances of Johnson making racist, homophobic and Islamophobic remarks.
Buckland then attempted to draw an equivalence between Johnson's racist statements and comments made by independence campaigners, asserting without offering any evidence that these were often "below what we would regard as civilised debate”, saying: "We can point to plenty of examples during the independence referendum where frankly some of the language of the campaign for separation was incendiary, divisive."
That would be the Conservative Party which insists at every opportunity and without ever presenting any evidence that the SNP promotes anti-English racism. But apparently disinformation that incites harassment and abuse is just fine as long as it comes from the Conservatives.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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