Here they are, for historians, that diverse bunch that have driven Brexit information warfare. Remember their names. They will be written in the annals of British decline, as a warning to others of the danger to democracy when media is captured by a narrow, ideological clique
Piers Morgan trying to blame the Crown Prosecution Service for prosecuting Caroline Flack. I personally blame the CPS for not prosecuting Morgan and his other cohort of bullies and hackers.
Terrifying point by former Durham Police chief, Mike Barton, on BBC. Given Cummings’ travels from the hotspot of London in early April when Durham and surrounds had low COVID-19 rates, he cannot rule out being a carrier of the disease which then killed more in the North East
Nando’s now confirming what
@BylineTV
and
@BylineTimes
have been reporting for weeks. Their chicken shortage is due to Brexit, not some Pingdemic. Maybe the BBC and other media will start informing the public at some point
Just seen another
@BBCNews
report on lack of supermarket produce because of ‘supply chain problems’ without mentioning Brexit.
Imagine them reporting on ‘fire safety issues’ in 1940 without mentioning the Blitz.
Orwell based his concept of Newspeak on his time at the BBC
Farage works for GBNews. As it did during Brexit, GBNews’ owner makes millions shorting Farage’s target NatWest.
A hedge fund owner should never be allowed to own a media company that can move markets. Beyond conflict of interest. It’s market abuse
Dominic Cummings is married to the daughter of an aristocrat. He has a six figure government salary.
@grantshapps
says their child would not have support in London.
Who are they kidding?
Boris Johnson. You can have Brexit. It’s your baby now. It’s all yours. You lied to win in 2016 and lied to win in 2019. Because of the lies, I don’t even blame those who voted for you.
It’s all on you now, everything that happens.
One important problem with British journalism is the amount it pays columnists. Boris Johnson got £275k a year to produce perhaps 20 bloviating columns. That would pay for over 1,000 news pieces by good reporters. But opinion and status is valued, while news and truth are not.
So both
@Peston
and
@bbclaurak
were lied to by TWO sources about the fake punch. This is very bad. Management of both
@itvnews
and
@BBCNews
should look into how their prime political journalists were played during a crucial part of a crucial election.
So we were right. The lethal ‘herd immunity without vaccine’ strategy came from Dominic Cummings “protect the economy and if that means some pensioners die, too bad”.
There’s an audit trail now. I hope lawyers are watching. Herd Immunity without a vaccine is unheard of.
What the BBC won’t dare to publish, social media can. Here’s our Prime Minister with his arms around Pornographer in chief, Daily Express UKIP and Farage backer, Richard Desmond.
Welcome to the Oligarchy
This should be BREAKING news on the BBC. A cross party parliamentary select committee has concluded that Britain's biggest ever political donor could well have been funded by a foreign power.
This is illegal. It's also treacherous.
Silence in the face of this is complicity
Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics... “He failed to satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come from sources within the UK.” Says
@DamianCollins
Kate Hoey has blocked me so she won’t see this, but I must say the elevation of her, Claire Fox and Evgeny Lebedev to the House of Lord is probably the most undemocatic and most corrupt moment in Britain’s history for two hundred years
Now the majority of British journalists are feeling like
@carolecadwalla
has for 2 years. Ignored, ridiculed, sidelined on matters of acute public interest.
But the marginalisation ends here. Time for all people of good faith to fight back against untruth and disinformation
Your brief reminder that Isabel Oakeshott, pals with Farage, Banks, Wigmore, funded by Ashcroft, sat on evidence that Leave EU colluded with a hostile power (and tried to fabricate evidence to get myself and Carole Cadwalladr arrested). None of this reported by BBC.
Anyone trying to follow the trial this year on the Murdoch, Mail and Mirror newspapers would have got the impression Prince Harry’s case was hopeless.
That’s because these papers act as a cartel, and spend more time deceiving their readers than informing them.
BREAKING: Harry wins…
He’d have been happy if the judge had found just ONE case of phone hacking but in the end Judge rules 15 of the 33 articles were obtained by Unlawful Information Gathering by Mirror Group Newspapers from 2006 to 2011.
Think about this
1. Foreign Secretary loses his security detail
2. Meets former secret agent of a now hostile power which has invaded a European nation
3. Parties hard and is seen hung over and incoherent in Perugia airport
This is Profumo on hyperdrive. This man is now PM
BREAKING: Boris Johnson flew to Italy without his security detail & met ex-kGB agent 2 days after NATO summit to discuss Russia sanctions. New from me &
@TownsendMark
REVEALED: An investigation by
@GoodLawProject
can reveal that the partner of Michelle Donelan, [newly appointed Education Minister], heads up the commercial unit at a PPE company that has been awarded numerous PPE contracts.
According to
@Mishcon_de_Reya
, Wootton is ‘reserving his rights’ to sue me personally for rebutting his false claims that Byline Times is conducting a ‘smear campaign’ as part of a ‘hard left… witch hunt’. Ludicrous. We don’t care about his politics. We’re evidence based.
The media told us to cheer at the toppling of statues of Lenin in 1989, of Saddam in 2003. There was no talk of an ‘act of vandalism’ by Britain’s Home Secretary then.
The whole scandal of the last six years has yet to come out. Wait till people wake up to the connections between Hedge Funds, Tufton Street type think tanks and Cambridge Analytica style social media operations.
I thought this was a joke. But sadly not. Cummings' father in law
"Sir Humphry Tyrrell Wakefield who owns Chillingham Castle in Northumberland is riding his horse Barack, named because the horse is half black and half white"
You encouraged Russian oligarchs to sue our journalists in London. You’re constantly threatening Channel 4 News and the BBC. You’re no more in support of a free press than you are of marriage vows
The courage of these journalists, putting themselves in terrifying and dangerous situations, is astonishing to watch.
They’re risking their lives to ensure that the truth is told.
Free press will not be intimidated or cowed by barbaric and indiscriminate acts of violence.
Incoming. More bots awakened with more fake news. Now we know where all Dominic Cumming’s last minute online ad spending is going. On fake accounts. With defamatory lies against a mother and a sick child. Boosted by the right wing press.
Our media in a nutshell.
I don’t know when it will happen, but at one point the ardent Brexiters will have to admit to the inevitable. Brexit didn’t bring us any more freedom or sovereignty. It impoverished millions and made us a pariah on the world stage. Truth is the daughter of Time.
In two days, Government commission on racism (chaired by No 10 aide) clears it of racism. Govt spokesperson clears PM of conflicts over Arcuri affair. Police clear themselves of bad policing. See what’s wrong with this picture?
And if not now, when?
I hate to say this, but I’m glad
@BorisJohnson
has made Dominic Cummings indispensable. His advisor has now become a household name, and more eyes are looking at his time in Russia, his lying campaigns around the NHS, overspending, dark data, and now his whole £1bn ARPA project
While Nadhim Zahawi is back in the news, worth recalling what happened when he was vaccine minister two years ago.
His wife and two sons established a new company called ‘Warren Medical Limited’
It was shut down soon after
@BylineTimes
published this
So ashamed to be British at the moment. While Ukrainians are laying down their lives, confronting Russian tanks and missiles, to defend democracy, our Govt can only name 5 sanctioned oligarchs, and the Conservative Party is still funded by stolen blood money. Venal. Despicable
On the most serious electoral fraud in modern times, the BBC - having suppressed coverage in the first place - continues to deceive the public.
Vote Leave was found GUILTY of overspending
Met Police are STILL investigating
How can you get something so important so wrong?
Shame that the Private Eye piece has diverted us all, in Clinton/Lewinsky style, away from the important allegations about Carriegate
1. Johnson tried to get his then gf a job for 100k funded by us
2. The Times censored the story
Somehow it's not newsworthy Cummings broke the law when running Vote Leave. Somehow it's not newsworthy he worked with Cambridge Analytica's Trump campaign offshoot. Somehow it's not newsworthy that he was held in contempt of parliament. But a Number 10 tiff is front-page news
Is it really that hard? Anyone with an ounce of sense wants Israel to defeat the invaders terrorising their civilians. But by the same token, anyone with an ounce of sense wants Israel to cease terrorising the Palestinians. Why do some people find this so hard?
No longer able to hate on health workers and other essential workers, the Sun and the Mail now turn on teachers in their incessant search for culture wars to distract from the incompetence of government
If the Wooton scandal teaches us one thing, it should be this. Once you’ve got the Mail and Murdoch onside (or compromised) the BBC will be silent and you have most the media stitched up.
Very very unhealthy for our democracy
Please remember that Cummings is more powerful than the Chancellor (Sayid Javid resigned over this). The man you saw stuttering on TV, blaming the media for his lapses in judgement, and show no contrition, only poor eyesight, is the most powerful unelected figure in the UK.
Okay, all those who disputed Johnson was ‘Britain Trump’, can’t you see it now? The willingness to abandon any principle, any standard or rule of law, to lie consistently and inconsistently, just to say in power?
Whoever is advising
@BorisJohnson
Johnson over his
#PMQs
style against
@Keir_Starmer
should be sacked or taken aside.
Never lose your temper when cross-questioned by a lawyer. They love it, and just get calmer until you've lost the jury entirely
Oakeshott today: ‘Police investigating the leak into the diplomatic cables I obtained is a threat to press freedom.’
Last year: ‘I’m reporting Cadwalladr and Jukes to two police forces for obtaining the Banks emails I obtained.’
The Kwarteng Hedge Fund Scandal is much worse than Johnson Lockdown Parties, or PPE, or any other scandal I can remember because…
The millions made by hedge funds was directly at the cost of the British people, and we will have to pay with higher interest rates and inflation
Thread:
Given [Putin’s campaign of espionage and infiltration, designed to cause destruction to Britain’s prestige and international effectiveness, why did the security services or the UK Government fail to counter it? And what was the role of Brexit?
I've worked for the BBC as a freelancer for 34 years. The mother of my children was Newsnight editor and then senior exec. I've always supported the principle of public service broadcasting.
But BBC News and Current Affairs has completely failed the nation at a time of crisis
As he begins his exit, hopefully taking the corrupt cartel of media tycoons, Russian oligarchs, hedge funds and Spiked former communists with him, my anger at Johnson is turning to grief - grief for what he’s done to this country since the Brexit vote. What a sad, strange tale
To all those asking how the
@BylineTimes
team is faring? We’re good. Real news is always ‘something somebody somewhere doesn’t want you to know’ — so it’s full of threats, legal and physical. Odd combination of both this weekend, but we have so much more to reveal
So Newsnight reporting how 40 pregnant women died of Covid, and 38 of them had not been vaccinated. Just think of that when you think of all the vaccine disinformation you see on social media, promoted by so many influential figures, and weep
With Cameron getting over £7m from Greensill, you can see why Paterson thought half a million for lobbying was just entry level rewards for being a Conservative MP
If it's true, as regularly reported, that Johnson and his allies have backed Truss because they think she will be so useless there will be a clamour for Johnson to return - this would be biggest act of self interest, and deriliction of their duty to the British people, imaginable
Brexit is no longer about leaving the EU. It’s about lying, law breaking, foreign funding, dark money dominating the country, and the hard right using racism and xenophobia to rule. Brexit is about Britain exiting the norms of the rule of law.
One of the constant reasons cited by Wootton’s lawyers why - for over 14 days now - he won���t answer our questions about his various identities and what they got up to, is that he’s too distressed.
But not too distressed to party and get on TV every night and troll the nation
Please note, despite it being raised insistently in Parliament over the last few days, I’ve yet to see
@BBCNews
address the Lebedev/Putin back channel scandal live on air.
Two things not to forget about Boris Johnson as he kicks his pro Ukrainian shtick. He said Putin was right to annexe Crimea because the EU provoked it. And according to close pal Temerko, he only backed Brexit when Eastern European businessmen persuaded him.
With what?
I really struggle with why journalists are not willing to name other journalists who are propagating hate. Who else will? Is it left to Muslims to fight this on our own? We deserve your support.
"There are loudmouth pundits and rabble-rousers one could name...."
In addition to the 30 detailed evidential questions
@BylineTimes
sent to Wootton's lawyers earlier this week, we've sent another 20 plus today to answer by Monday.
Every article we publish has been built up forensically.
The current response from Wootton: 'hard left blog'
Before Twitter gets completely broken, or some of us get locked out, I just want to observe that the company now is bankrolled by Saudi money, just like the Trump family (and surprisingly enough The Independent and Evening Standard)
Blood smeared on a journalists windscreen. A hack attempt through our call out email for witnesses. And now this (nb
@metpoliceuk
)
I’ve seen it before. This whole ‘dark forces’ and ‘nefarious actors’ rhetoric from GB News encourages these kind of threats.
Suella Braverman, in her short record-breaking tenure as Home Secretary, also managed to beat Priti Patel as one of the most unpleasant and draconian in living memory. Quite a feat
Constantly in awe of the way
@CNN
is calling out lies by Trump and his backers and digging up past statements to prove it. When
@maitlis
did this over Cummings on
@BBCNewsnight
- she was chastised. Wake up British media
So Andrew Neil joins the Russian Embassy, Arron Banks, Guido Fawkes and Julian Assange in smearing
@carolecadwalla
- for her prize winning scoops this year. By doing so he openly aligns himself with the forces trying to repress one of the scandals of the century. But why?
Just a quick shout out to all those journalists who mocked
@BylineTimes
coverage of the conflict of interest between ministers making market moving decisions, and their hedge fund donors who cashed in on them.
Two huge failures in key political broadcast journalists are responsible for this government. Laura Keunssberg reduced Vote Leave lawbreaking to ‘rule breaking’ and Robert Peston describes Cummings’ defence of it as a ‘tour de force’
Britain - you’ve been had
More than 150,000 Russian-language Twitter accounts posted tens of thousands of messages in English urging Britain to leave the European Union…
Most of the messages sought to inflame fears about Muslims and immigrants to help drive the vote
The BBC had both the Vote Leave and Cambridge Analytica scandals on a plate. Losing that to Channel 4 news could be carelessness. But platforming all the culprits rather than the whistleblowers suggests a darker motive
Incredible to remember that all through January, when China was dealing with the
#COVID19
and we could have been prepared and informed
Our PM was absent on a holiday no one knows who paid for
The Government was boycotting the public broadcaster, the BBC
Something forgotten in all this. The judge found the largest ever political donor on British history, Arron Banks, had many secret meetings with Kremlin officials — a hostile foreign state — to talk Gold and Diamond deals during Brexit vote.
Could the public interest be higher?
GBNews losing millions a month. The Conservative Party chairman under a generous contract to them. Their board is stuffed with Tory peers. It runs talk shows dominated by Conservative MPs. This isn’t a media operation. It’s hedge funded right wing information warfare
Latest register of members’ interests shows the Ashfield MP Lee Anderson will earn 100k for 8 hours a week at GB News. Last year he was reported as saying on Facebook "We are paid handsomely for the job we do and if you need an extra £100,000 a year on top then you should really…
US medic friend just messaged me “Saw our first reinfection. First wave patient from March, mild. Now in ICU, positive again.”
Damn you Cummings and your dumb dangerous Herd Immunity tripe
Dominic Cummings dominated SAGE meetings that pushed for ‘herd immunity’ and led to a late lock down
Now this premature exit from lockdown is led by his bad example.
At both ends of the pandemic, he’s the architect of the UK’s ‘world leading’ catastrophic COVID-19 response
Why did the BBC’s
@bbclaurak
link her million followers to Cummings’ smear-fest of a blog without reporting the basic *news* — that he’d resigned from No 10. Once again, like Cambridge Analytica, Vote Leave and Bannon scandals, the national broadcaster is being gamed.
NEW: The Senate Intelligence Committee released its prelim findings into Russian targeting of election infrastructure during the 2016 election.
"In a small # of states, Russian-affiliated cyber actors were in a position to, at a minimum, alter or delete voter registration data."
No mincing of words by
@derspiegel
"Great Britain is out of the EU. The liars and amateurs on the island won. You are an eternal shame for all conservatives."
Apparently there are quite a lot of deleted tweets like this. But even if some of the details are wrong and no crime was committed, it’s all in the public interest, says Harry
BREAKING: So the Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower has been 'depersonned' by
@facebook
without any chance to retrieve his contacts or private materials.
Vicious authoritarian move by the social media giant, revealing it's not only bigger than China, but more despotic
The problem with the BBC is one department: BBC Westminster, which used to be run by Sir Robbie Gibb. The whole of the rest of the corporation is being dragged into ignominy by a tiny politicised clique. It’s a disaster for our global reputation and one of Britain’s best brands
All the BBC’s attempts to appease the threats to it from Cameron to Johnson have come to nothing. The license fee to be abolished by Dorries in 2027. They have nothing to lose now and might as well go down fighting
Even the BBC can’t help reporting this. The UK (population 60m) has more deaths from COVID-19 yesterday than the entire 27 countries of the EU combined (450m)
The Vote Leave government took one of the best health, science and medical systems in the world, and Brexited it
One of the reasons the right wing press hate the ECHR is because article 8 - on privacy - stopped their phone hacking. This is literally their payback for that (Raab confirmed it).
A journalist who actually combats misinformation, and Farage’s bluster is busted.
Why on earth has the BBC not been doing this? Imagine the difference. Instead the lies go unchallenged, and we’re walking blindfolded off the edge of a cliff.
Nigel Farage: Ultimately, Ireland will leave the EU too.
@Nigel_Farage
tells
#cblive
that he cares about what happens in Ireland in the context of
#BREXIT
Day 10. It’s gone! No fervid Covid dreams. Woke up with an appetite rather than aching eyeballs. That nasty army of alien life forms have been routed from my body. I was lucky. They never invaded my lungs. These were the mild symptoms. Now I’m ready to help in any way I can.
Johnson’s dad Brexiter Nigel Lawson who is now resident in France (close to Andrew Neil?) Farage has houses there and has got his kids German passports. Rees Mogg has moved his business to Ireland where Guido Fawkes lives.
They really don’t like this country do they?
Stanley Johnson applies to become French citizen "so that his grandchildren can live & work in the EU after Brexit".
Other people's grandchildren will have blue passports to boost their spirits as they contemplate their much more limited horizons.
Oakeshott suing the Guardian. Banks suing Carole C. Trump, Farage, Banks, Wigmore responding immediately to Oakeshott’s Darroch diplomatic cables leak. This is information warfare, conducted by anti-democratic forces who want to cover up their own lawlessness. Resist.
This was a funny moment with Wootton’s new lawyers. Their response to the information we provided them was to accuse us of hacking their client and saying they would be making a criminal complaint to the police…
Thereby confirming the passwords were indeed Wootton’s
"All four of the accounts used the same unusual eight-character password – which his new representatives today appeared to confirm was indeed used by the journalist"
Here is part 7 of our special
#MediaToo
investigation into
#DanWootton
.
The Sun will always hate Starmer because he opened the second phone hacking investigation that closed the News of the World. The Sun is still paying out millions in court for its own phone hacking and other privacy intrusions.
And so the attacks begin from The Sun.
This isn't a newspaper. It is and always will be a political campaigning tool for a morally bankrupt billionaire and his family, hell bent on subverting democracy for its own gain.
One of the reasons we set up
@BylineTimes
is because the British press is a self interested cartel which conceals as many stories as it reveals, and the BBC is a cowed, co-opted shadow of its former self.
This is ever more apparent this week
@BylineTimes
Part 4 and yet Sky News and the BBC have barely said a thing. The Daily Mail is quiet. The Sun is quiet. Even the 'left' Mirror has said nothing. Weird that. Why is Dan Wootton being protected? Where is the same 'hate' they gave an ITV presenter and a BBC presenter?
#GBNEWS
The Lebedevs were protected because whole swathes of Britain’s political media class went to their Umbrian palace or other wild parties. These people were compromised, by friendship, hospitality, and now embarrassment, even before we get to the possibility of darker stuff