Sajid Javid is the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) and, as such, has direct governmental responsibility for community cohesion in the UK.
On Thursday, Mr Javid tweeted an image of a vile hate-letter that he claimed had been sent to him, under the hashtag ‘#fanmail’.
And in case there was any doubt that he was saying it had been sent to him, when asked in a follow-up tweet if that was the case, he answered simply ‘Yep’:
The incident was picked up by the national press, which claimed that Sajid was the fifth Muslim MP to receive one of the letters:
But today evidence has emerged that makes Mr Javid’s claim look highly questionable – as the same picture had been tweeted six days earlier as having been sent to an East London Muslim family:
The image tweeted by Javid had been cropped to remove the envelope and most of the table behind the letter but is from the same image of the same letter – as identical creases and light/shade areas, together with identical fold positions and the small area of table still remaining, show:
The SKWAWKBOX emailed Mr Javid to ask for comment – and whether he intended to apologise, or even to resign, for the untrue claim. We also emailed the Conservative Party press office to ask whether Theresa May or the party would censure Javid.
Neither have so far responded.
However, Mr Javid did respond to a challenge sent to him on Twitter by a UKIP figure – to claim that he had received such a letter, but recycled the earlier image rather than tweet a picture of the one sent to him – however, his observers were unimpressed:
At the very least, by his own admission, Javid ‘borrowed’ someone else’s image and tweeted it as his own, without explaining what he had done. Javid does not yet appear to have provided a picture of the letter he claims was sent to him.
The SKWAWKBOX has offered to help:
Mr Javid, please DM an image of *your* letter. We'll be happy to publicise it for you
— The SKWAWKBOX (@skwawkbox) March 17, 2018
Comment:
Claiming a piece of anti-Muslim hate-mail had been sent to him would be bound to cause anxiety for Muslim families and likely to inflame community tensions.
As HCLG Secretary with responsibility for community cohesion, sending out a picture that was not his, while claiming that it was of a letter sent to him personally, makes his position untenable – even if he did receive one, as using the incorrect image will have undermined the credibility of the hate crime.
The other four MPs to have received similar letters represent the Labour Party.
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Ministerial Code
Cabinet Office 2018
Annex A, The Seven Principles of Public Life
Principle seven – Honesty
“Holders of Public Office should be truthful”.
Rule 6 of the recently announced and much vaunted Conservative Party Code of Conduct
“Honesty – Holders of public office should be truthful.”
http://www.conservatives.com/codeofconduct
It would be interesting to know the political allegiance (if any) of the non-MP recipients of this disgusting letter. Is this a hate campaign specifically aimed at Asian Labour Party supporters and if this proves to be the case then it makes Javid’s behavior all the more perplexing
Have we ever had such a government run by a Cabinet of utter idiots.?!!
Can the police confirm whether they have received a complaint from Mr Javid regarding receipt of such a letter and whether or not they are conducting an investigation?
News to follow shortly
Oh, please leave ‘poor’ Mr javid alone…
…Don’t you know his father came to this country to drive a bus?? Yes – the same as sadiq khan’s father, but you’re not saying anything about him or his hate mail, are you? :p
I once read that Mr Javid receives two parcels of dog exrcement in his mailbag per day..
What I’d like to know is – Who’s sending him the other one? 😀
Would it not be feasible to contact west mercia police and/or the met to inquire whether javid’s actually made a complaint or if there is an investigation?
Nowt about it in his constituency’s local rag…
http://www.bromsgroveadvertiser.co.uk/search/?search=javid
It’s on other news websites…Not at me best today :/
By the way….javid said he’d ‘posted an EXACT copy’ of what he’d received – but then went on about the ‘original contains sensitive information’ when challenged.
I’d like to know…
1. Why was he unable to block out the ‘sensitive information’ on the ‘original’ using computer software – or merely just another piece of paper?
2. Just HOW can it be an EXACT copy if there’s ‘sensitive information’ on the ‘original’, but not the other copy that he cropped to show us all?
Exactly!
The “sensitive” stuff was obviously so sensitive that he couldn’t even mention the fact that the letter contained sensitive material (maybe it was signed ‘Vladimir’!), until someone realised it was an exact copy of the letter someone else had received a few days earlier that is.
This is very similar in nature to this:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mp-defends-faking-death-threat-over-syria-air-strikes-vote-a6764766.html
Exactly. The following is from a comment someone posted regarding Lucy Allan’s fabrication and deception, and sums it up perfectly:
If this frankly ridiculous act was as she claims “designed to expose the “unacceptable” abuse she received after voting in favour of air strikes in Syria”, it begs the question why not use a real one? I mean if she has had so many death threats, why did she have to make one up; there would have been plenty of real examples to choose from, wouldn’t there?
(Ends)
The point is of course that she invented it so as to smear and demonise peace campaigners/activists. Much the same as happened to the Greenham Common Women in 1982 when Michael Heseltine – surrounded by cops – was supposedly pulled to the ground as he entered Newbury Town Hall to address a private meeting of the local Conservative party. It didn’t happen – as HE himself said – but then again he said it knowing full well that his/their buddies in the Tory press would of course faithfully report that he was accosted and pulled to the ground by violent thugs etc, etc – ie by the peace activists who turned up to peacefuly demonstrate at this “private meeting” that they, the GC Women, had so conveniently got to hear about.
The reality was that he just momentarily stumbled, or to be precise, and as HE himself said afterwards at some point:
“I went down, because the policemen who were trying to get me inside were obstructed by women’s bodies and stumbled over themselves.”
Every single newspaper except The Guardian omitted to mention his quote in their coverage (although the Express did include it in their final edition).
Front-page headlines the next day declared: ‘Ban-the-bomb mob send Heseltine crashing’ (the Mail) and ‘angry peace girls rough up Heseltine’ (the Sun), and ‘Heseltine was dragged to the ground’ and ‘several women tried to kick and punch him’ (The Telegraph), and so on. It was of course a carefully planned black op designed to smear them and, as such, marginalise them. In a word; A hatchet job.
Mark Hollingsworth gives a full account of this episode – and others – in his excellent book The Press and Political Dissent. If you’ve never read it, I highly recommend buying a copy.
I saw Wes Streetings tweet about this. What a melt!
Notice how people like Wes, Spellar etc are always the first to defend Tories who trip up, but when Corbyn, Thornberry, and his team are mercilessly attacked and slandered by the Tories they’re silent as a dormouse.