A week ago, the Mail and other ‘MSM’ outlets were running fake news about a huge fall in Labour Party membership, claiming that it had dropped by around 150,000 compared to a year ago, to 385,000.
The claims were debunked by the SKWAWKBOX – and the membership figure was confirmed steady at 533,000 only three weeks earlier, so a fall to 385,000 in less than a month was clearly nonsense.
Not only was membership not falling, but Labour had just received the biggest donations in its history – outside of general election periods – in the week leading up to the Mail’s false claim.
So a week after the claims were thoroughly exposed, you’d think an MP would know better than to believe them when regurgitated by a Murdoch rag – but that’s exactly what right-wing Labour figure Mike Gapes did:
Gapes has been a continual opponent of Labour’s leadership, so it’s scarcely surprising to see him jump on an article claiming something negative. But it’s considerably more noteworthy – and thoroughly welcome – for a Labour general secretary to publicly correct a Labour MP sharing fake news, as Jennie Formby did in response to Gapes’ tweet:
The SKWAWKBOX contacted Mike Gapes to ask why he was still propagating discredited claims that Labour’s membership is falling. He responded “Because it is.”
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Mike Gapes would have no right of access to Labour’s national membership figures as a back-bench MP. Is he merely happy to swallow whole the claims of a Murdoch publication, even a week after they’ve been exposed – or did wishful thinking get the better of him.
Either way it’s ironic for him to trumpet claims of a membership fall over Brexit, given he was among a mere handful of MPs last week to indicate they plan to vote against Jeremy Corbyn’s intelligent amendment to force Theresa May make time for MPs to discuss and vote on the issue of a public vote on May’s deal.
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Gapes, yet another of the Israeli Lobby Zionists who are out to destroy Corbyn’s chance to become PM. Zionism should have no place in the Labour Party.
Can you ask Mike why he’s calling Formby a liar?
It’s worse because on the back of Murdoch’s fake news that Gapes deliberately and knowingly incorrectly spread Ayesha Hazarika then went on to broadcast incorrectly for a couple of hours on LBC on Saturday, she did this despite being told by tweet and email that she was incorrect and LBC were happy to propagate what they actually knew to be incorrect fake news. LBC and Ms Hazarika should face Ofcom to explain themselves. Ms Hazarika a former Labour adviser that hard up that she deliberately ran with this even though she knew the harm she would be doing? She claims to want a Labour government, very odd way of showing it and very selfish considering people are living in poverty and in work poverty and this government are attacking the disabled, the poorest and the most vulnerable and the homeless and are dying on streets. She could have done a programme about how Mrs May and the Tories are trying to turn the country into a one party state by taking the votes of people away and making it hard for others to vote because of being unable to produce correct identification. This government are literally trying to make it impossible for Labour to be elected and that is both dangerous and an infringement of our democratic rights!
I agree. Those who are trying to harm Corbyn and the Labour Party have the Tories austerity victims’ blood on their hands.
They are either part of the solution or part of the problem. They should hang their heads in shame.
The fake news stories about an exodus of members from the LP was one part of a devious plan which included two fake poll result by yougov (three, including the yougov poll for PV), and inviting Diane Abbot on QT solely for the pupose of setting her up. Yes, and my point IS that it was all concocted and contrived months ago, and postponing the vote/debate in December re her – May’s – Brexit deal at the last moment was a part of the plan, so as to make time for the fake polls to supposedly be conducted.
I didn’t watch QT last Thursday (I never do), but I read that Fiona Bruce did kinda apologise about misleading viewers about recent polling results. Oh, and now SHE has become the victim of a “hate campaign”. Her ‘apology’ is/was completely phony of course, but then she could hardly say that the whole thing was contrived.
I posted a series of comments which I think together are proof that the whole episode was planned two or three months or more beforehand (scroll down to the comment by southhay, and my comments start immediately below it):
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/01/20/bbc-accused-by-sound-expert-of-damping-abbots-question-time-volume/#comments
And the latest yougov poll for The Times is way overdue!
In fact there’s been no new polls at all in the past ten days:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2019
Did anyone watch Question Time last Thursday and, if you did, can you confirm that Fiona Bruce gave an explanation at some point regarding what happened with Diane Abbot and the polls the week before. It was mentioned in a couple of articles I happened to come across on Saturday (whilst doing some research) that she HAD, but I just quickly looked through the program on Iplayer and didn’t come across it, and I HAD assumed it would have been at the beginning, but it wasn’t.
The blairites are like 5 year olds in a kindergarden. Gape, GROW THE HELL UP.
I agree. He does seem immature.
IPSO in 2018 said that The Times was the 2nd most Untrustworthy newspaper after the Daily Mail, and worse than The Sun which was 3rd. Gapes is a total oaf and both of him should be deselected forthwith.
He responded “Because it is.”
And there was me thinkin’ you had to be over 18 years (not months) to stand for office…
Did you know that the Daily Mail’s circulation has fallen by 300,000 since 2015 when Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party? On average since 2003 the paper has continued to suffer a drop in its circulation of just under 100k copies per year.
These are figures that the Mail can’t of course simply make up Let’s
see then if it is the Labour Party or the Daily Mail who will be around in the next ten years.
Sour Right Wing Gapes!
I remember seeing a crowd of 2,000 running to Gateshead Stadium so they would not miss Jeremy Corbyn speak – if it had been Gapes they would have been running the other way!
The Corbyn surge re members also cleared Labour’s then £20m debt! JC4PM!
Sorry Bazza but I disagree , there wouldn’t have been 2000 running , there’d have been ZERO , well ok just 1 and his dog perhaps .
The only thing running is the shite that run outta Gapes mouth , eff off and join the Tories , Gape you’d be right at home there ,, twat
This is the same duplicitous and hypocritical Mike Gapes who, in 2009, called for Labour to engage in dialogue with Hamas and now deploys the usual smear, by accusing JC of being happy to talk to Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran, whilst placing conditions on talks with May.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/blog/mike-gapes-diverting-attention-away-from-mays-brexit-disaster/
The Labour Party needs to display on its website the current number of members. This could be updated every month or so and would counter right wing lies effectively.
Excellent idea and what a way of shutting down the right-wing fake news industry! You should suggest it!
You are on to something there. Gloves off, just remember when facing momentum to duck when they throw a left. Regards
Just came across the following article by Craig Murray:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/01/the-uk-government-manufacture-of-false-sexual-allegations/
I just came across an article in the New York Times dated January 22nd and headlined: ‘Rachel Riley lists the anti-semitic insults she’s received form ‘Labour’ trolls’.
And in the article it says the following:
In a powerful speech the TV star reeled off a shocking list of abusive names she has been called online.
“In the name of Labour I’ve been called a hypocrite, lying propagandist, tits, teeth and ass clothes horse dolly bird, weaponiser of anti-Semitism, fascist, right-wing extremist, Nazi sympathiser, Twitter cancer, thick Tory, brainwashed, an anti-Semite, white supremacist, hate preacher, Zio political trollster, not a real Jew, a child bully, conspiracy theorist, a paedo-protector minion puppet who my dead grandfather would be disgusted by.”
(Ends)
Right, so being called a hypocrite is abusive? Or a lying propagandist? Or weaponiser of anti-semitism. or a clothes horse or a dolly bird? And are ANY of them actually anti-semitic – as the headline states – or do they somehow just automatically become ‘anti-semitic’ because she is Jewish. But here’s the joke of it all. The very next thing it says in the article is this:
And she explained that the offensive names were tweeted by people whose profiles contained “the red Labour rose coupled with the Palestinian flag and the hashtag of Get the Tories out and Jeremy Corbyn for PM.
(Ends)
Right, so that proves it then beyond any shadow of doubt! The reality is that most of them are probably posted by Tory trolls posing as JC Labour supporters of course, precisely so as to discredit JC and his supporters. Anyway, no doubt the Tory rags et al covered this in a similar fashion – ie the Mail and the Sun and the Express etc – who between them have thousands of abusive and vile comments (in their Comments sections) directed at Jeremy Corbyn on a weekly basis.
Now if only he were Jewish, it could all be transformed into anti-semitism!:
https://nytimespost.com/rachel-riley-lists-the-anti-semitic-insults-shes-received-form-labour-trolls/
Maths, ten out of ten. English, not a ten. Ignore it all and remember the one before her. Terribly sad all round. Next job will be presenting second division underwater rollerball. She used to impress me. My wife warned me and I thought it was because she is a genius. Live and learn. Regards
“TV star….” really?
Isn’t she just a game show “hostess” of a show that’s watched by less than 1% of the population?