The Tories this evening briefed journalists that an aide to Health Secretary Matt Hancock had been ‘punched in the face’ by a Labour supporter as he helped Hancock into his car to leave a Leeds hospital.
Video footage proved this was nonsense.
New footage shows what the Tories were claiming was a punch: a man looking the other way and pointing behind him – and the aide not watching where he was going:
The political editors of the BBC and ITV, along with other journalists, repeated the claims and even added that things had got nasty – and that police were involved. The police were not – and no wonder.
The hospital where the punch did not take place is the same one where a little boy with suspected pneumonia last week slept on the floor for four hours because there were no beds, thanks to Tory underfunding.
Boris Johnson seized and hid a journalist’s phone earlier today when the reporter would not stop asking him to look at a picture of the sick young lad. The Tories were clearly desperate for a distraction from this damaging video in circulation.
SKWAWKBOX view:
What a perfect illustration of growing Tory desperation – and of the media acting as their accomplices.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Indeed – the punch was about as connected to reality as Ha’Penny’s and Danny’s politics.
Yeah, pointing not punching. Both guys looking the other way – the lack of pain would tell the one “getting hit” that it was probably accidental and when he turned to look he knew for certain.
Stupid to make such a story up when there are cameras all around.
Slightly off-topic but dafuq is it with these MPs rolling their sleeves up when in hospitals?
Like they’re ever gonna do a minute’s graft. Most of them can’t even wipe their own arses ( rees-smog’s still employing the same nanny for his offspring as well as himself) nevermind anyone else’s.
Don’t you think that the BBC’s political editor of News should actually look at the video before tweeting about it? Because its absolutely clear from what she wrote that she hadn’t. This is an example of gross incompetence.
It WASN’T incompetence!
I agree- not incompetent, just too keen to lay the boot in on Labour. What we have is nothing less than Stalinist propaganda levels.
Incompetence would mean bias in the other direction too.
And is it not about time that so-called journalists told us who gives them false information. There is absolutely no reason to protect people who supply false information (and every reason to name them).
I did a search re >matt hancock hospital< earlier, and in the list of results that came up, the 'header' for the Daily Mail (or whatever it's called) was:
Labour activist 'PUNCHES Matt Hancock's adviser at Leeds Hospital
And then, underneath, it says the following:
An aid to Matt Hancock was alleged punched by a Labour activist as the Health Secretary visited a hospital at the centre of a storm about a sick child who was forced to lie on the floor
But when you open the link and go to the page, the headline is THIS:
'Labour supporters' target Matt Hancock after 'activists offer to PAY for taxis for people to accost him at Leeds hospital’ where boy, four, was pictured lying on A&E floor – as ITV reporter confronts Boris Johnson with the image
_____________________
And in the FIVE sub-headlines underneath, they say NOTHING about the alleged incident, but they then say this near the beginning of the article (and the ONE paragraph DOES actually follow the other!):
But he was apparently met at the hospital by a group of Labour activists and there was an ugly scene – with initial claims that one of his advisers was struck.
Tory sources at first said they believed a protester hit one of Mr Hancock's senior advisers – understood to be Jamie Njoku-Goodwin – in the face. However, footage later emerged suggesting it was an accidental collision.
Suggesting! Hmm, what a joke!
And here’s the Sun’s take on it:
MOMENTUM MOB Matt Hancock targeted by ‘Labour Momentum flash mob protest at Leeds Hospital’ where boy, 4, forced to sleep on floor
And THIS is how it begins:
MATT Hancock was confronted by a Leftie Momentum mob today following a protest over a four-year-old boy forced to sleep on the hospital floor.
The Health Secretary had been dispatched to Leeds General Infirmary in a bid to calm the storm surrounding Jack Willment-Barr’s overnight stay at A&E today.
But he is understood to have been confronted by Labour activists outside – with earlier claims by BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg one of his advisers had been punched.
It later emerged aide Jamie Njoku-Goodwin had accidentally collided with a protester.
Ms Kuenssberg has now apologised for the mix up on Twitter, saying: “Happy to apologise for earlier confusion about the punch that wasn’t a punch outside Leeds General – 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video that was wrong”.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10514844/matt-hancock-labour-momentum-protest-leeds-hospital/
WT…….!! I wonder WHO initially alleged it AND how they possibly could have done if it was just Hancock’s aid bumping into one of the protesters!
Dirty Tricks Dept at work again…… I mean how would any so-called Labour protesters have known that Hancock was THERE anyway?! Funny, isn’t it, how Hancock should be ‘dispatched’ to the hospital and such a thing should happen….. Only it didn’t!
And you can always depend on the Express!
Matt Hancock’s advisor ‘hit in face’ at Leeds hospital protest causing ferocious row
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1214958/matt-hancock-adviser-punched-labour-activist-leeds-hospital
I just this minute realised that I forgot to put a link to the DM ‘article’:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7773113/Labour-activist-PUNCHES-Matt-Hancocks-adviser-Leeds-hospital.html
Footnote: I hope this will appear directly under my link to the D Mail article, which I checked again (to check out the Best Rated comments) about an hour ago, to discover that it was ‘Updated’ late last night AND now has a completely different headline and IS, in effect, pretty much a completely different article now.
“The Tories are so desperate to distract from a four-year-old boy sleeping on a hospital floor because of their cuts to our NHS that, once again, they have resorted to bare-faced lying. This is a new low and the Conservative party has serious questions to answer,” said a Labour spokesperson.
And McDonnell tweeted: “Johnson and the Tories lie and they cheat to manipulate the media. A sick child treated on the floor of a hospital and they try divert attention with a dead cat lie story. Never has our politics sunk so low in our country since Johnson took over.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/matt-hancock-aide-altercation-hospital-campaign-visit
Yes Laura I Haven’t A Cluesberg jumping to concludions, making a sweeping statement and being destroyed by the evidence.
It was a mistake, no perhaps it was mediocre journalism, it was YOUR mistake.
So hope Labour wins and we democratically reform the BBC and give more power to license payers and then hold truth to power!
No Bazza, it WASN’T a mistake. If Hancock’s adviser WASN’T hit in the face, then how could “2 sources” – as she claimed in her tweet – have told her that it DID. It was ALL a set-up and SHE was part of it.
And re Kuenssberg, if you watched BBC News at Six, or BBC News at Ten, you will have seen that it was HER that did the report about Johnson putting the journalists Iphone in his pocket etc, and then, after showing a clip of Johnson addressing a bunch of workers at some factory, there’s clip of her asking a young woman about what she thinks of Boris Johnson being there in that part of the country (which is mainly Labour) trying to get people to vote Tory, and says to her “Do you think that’s going to happen?”, and the young women responds “I hope not” etc, and then the very next clip is of Kuenssberg – which begins by Kuenssberg saying “But others are for turning” – and goes straight to some guy saying “Yeah, I’m changing to Tory…….. just to keep Jezza out”.
I have no doubt whatsoever that Kuenssberg did that section – ie had the idea to do a section like that – for the sole purpose she could then include someone saying THAT – ie that they’re changing to Tory because of Jeremy Corbyn. And it’s funny how when she’d asked the young woman about Johnson etc, and the young woman replied “I hope not”, Kuenssberg then asked her “Why?”, but when the guy said what HE said about changing to Tory so as to keep Jeremy out, Kuenssberg DIDN’T ask him why, NO!, because THAT was irrelevant, because ALL she wanted for her report was to have someone saying exactly what the guy said and no more. And the reason all these so-called journalists keep doing it, is because they know that repetition works AND influences other people.
And in her report on BBC News at Six, Kuenssberg says at one point “And in the last few minutes the mother of the boy at the center of all of this has written to the press regulator asking for her son not to be turned into the subject of political argument……”
Well maybe it’s true, but then how did Kuenssberg learn about it, and in a matter of minutes. It seems unlikely that Kuenssberg would fabricate such a thing, but then again, I wouldn’t put it past her (and she can always claim that she got the info from TWO sources if it turns out to be untrue!), and it would be good if skwawkbox could verify whether it IS true.
I mean why would the mother write to the press regulator as opposed to the political parties themselves?
Exactly!
On the MSM – it’s interesting that the Groan seems to be attempting to recover its shredded reputation with last-minute more balanced reporting about Labour.
The revision doesn’t alter the ‘antisemitism’ guff that’s so deeply embedded in their journalists, but there seems to have been a hardening of its anti-Johnson line, coupled with somewhat more balanced treatment of Labour.
Interesting. Have they finally got the message that Swinson is a disaster area best left alone?
Or is it just a blip?
Great article by Gideon Levy in defence of Corbyn on the AS issue:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-contract-on-corbyn-1.8192769
Just for the record, the article Tony linked to is now behind a paywall, but I did a search and found it on another website:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52637.htm