Michael Crick
@MichaelLCrick
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Broadcaster/Writer; RTS Spec Jrnst of Year 2014 & 18. C Wheeler/BJR award 2018. Biographies of Archer, Ferguson, Heseltine, Butler, Farage. Editor @tomorrowsMPs
London
Joined August 2010
I will be very reluctant to use ever again after what happened with my family's 4-night booking in Washington DC last night. Evidence on Twitter suggests many others have suffered similar. But rather than just denounce I will.
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He’s now Dr Doctor Marcus Rashford of the University of Manchester
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I've just been expelled from GBNews studio after being invited there to criticise Brian Rose, 2021 London mayoral candidate, & then - when asked why I thought Ofcom should close GBNews down - I said because it's a right wing channel dominated by Tory & Brexit Party politicians.
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I’m puzzled. Brexiteers are upset with the Supreme Court judgement. Yet the Government insisted prorogation was nothing whatsoever to do with Brexit. So how can the decision to overturn prorogation harm Brexit?.
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So England are the first country to win World Cups in cricket, football and rugby.
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Amazing the BBC Ten O’Clock News didn’t have the Dominic Cummings story in their headlines. It must be a deliberate decision, but goodness knows why.
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I’m delighted to hear the BBC is going to invest £100m in “diversity”. But I hope that’s an honest aim, & their diversity includes the over-60s, & manual workers, & rural people, & those who didn’t go to university, & Northerners, & people not surprised by the 2016 Brexit vote.
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How cowardly of BBC News not to show Conservative Jenrick dinner video properly because the Tories vetoed it. There’s no way in a million years they’d lose in court - the public interest is obvious.
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These alleged false CV claims by Rachel Reeves are serious. Unless she can produce a good explanation, she should resign as Chancellor & MP - or be sacked. I know that won't happen, but brushing the allegations aside will only encourage others to make false claims.
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Senior Conservative MP: "Boris is an f****** disgrace & if he had an ounce of integrity - which he doesn't - he'd have walked immediately.".
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The Covid profits table of shame, thanks to Private Eye…. And if you’re looking for windfall taxes.
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In two to three years time, when Starmer and his government are no doubt deeply unpopular, I hope we in the media will ask ourselves: "Why were we so supine during the long 2024 election; why didn't we hold Labour properly to account while we could, and ask more probing.
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Richard Ratcliffe, who fought so tenaciously yet graciously, to release his wife Nazanin, tonight wins Campaigner of the Year at Civility in Politics awards
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I’m amused to read all these colleagues saying Cummings has left Number Ten for good. Don’t be so sure. I remember when Cameron forced Gove to sack Cummings as his special adviser at Education. Several weeks later my cameraman filmed Cummings leaving the Education Department.
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I can confirm that PayPal have closed the fund-raising page for James Goddard, one of the leading protestors against Anna Souby outside Westminster yesterday.
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Great parallels between Boris Johnson & Jeremy Corbyn: great campaigners, idolised by fans; twice divorced; hopeless with money; utterly disorganised; scant on detail; avoid media interviews, press conferences or scrutiny.
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I’m puzzled. The Congestion Charge was designed to encourage Londoners to use public transport. So why reinstate it when the Government wants people to avoid using public transport?.
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I have been sent an email from 2017 in which one of Starmer's constituents told him: "Tulip Siddiq should not be a Labour MP . since she has deliberately concealed her political links with an eye-wateringly oppressive regime in Bangladesh. ".
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Big story which Sunday Times doesn’t make enough of. They say officials fear Cummings will say Johnson missed 5 key Covid meetings at start of crisis as was writing his Shakespeare biography to fund his divorce settlement. I’d heard same from non- Govt source but couldn’t prove.
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I have left Channel 4 News and ITN after seven and a half great years. Farewell to all my fabulous colleagues. I’m looking forward to an exciting new life writing books again, and all sorts of other activity in journalism and other fields.
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Shocking report from Tortoise and James Harding about how easy it is to sign up fake Conservative members. How many members have the Russian government signed up? Does anyone in the party check that their members are genuine?.
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Today, FOR ONE DAY ONLY, every adult in Britain was born in the 20th century, and every child in Britain today was born in the 21st century.
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Tomorrow Rishi Sunak should show some backbone and respond to the sub postmasters scandal by saying:.1. Fujitsu banned from all future HMG contracts until full story told and everyone who suffered compensated;.2. All current Fujitsu contracts terminated;.1/2.
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If the Home Office is making all these cock-ups over the Windrush generation, how can they possibly hope to register the more than 3m EU citizens living here? I suspect that this is just a tiny taste of what is to come post-Brexit.
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I'm hearing that for tomorrow's speech by Jeremy Corbyn about media freedom, news cameras are banned - "no room" we're told. Instead the organisers will distribute a transcript and video clips after the event. Wow! There's a good way to challenge people in power!.
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Interesting. Labour's new climate envoy Rachel Kyte is co-chair of climate advisory board of Quadrature Climate Foundation, linked to Quadrature hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands which invests in fossil fuel firms. Quadrature gave Labour £4m on 28 May, at the start of the.
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There’s something rather strange about the PM’s demeanour in this video.
Boris Johnson calls tonight's result on his leadership "decisive" saying it means "as a government, we can move on and focus on that stuff that really matters". The PM has won vote of confidence despite Tory MP rebellion - 211 voted for him and 148 against.
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This is quite a shocking story by Alan Rusbridger, of how senior Tories fixed the chairmanship of Ofcom - hence the current mess over Ofcom's abject failure to regulate GB News:
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Vacuum of integrity. What a brilliant description from Dominic Grieve - just the sort of phrase Johnson might have dreamt up himself. The words will stick to Johnson for the rest of his life, and beyond it.
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High Street in Oxford has been brought to halt by a sit-down protest against the Cecil Rhodes statue on Oriel College by #RhodesMustFall campaign.
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36 new peers. Once again people have been appointed to our legislature for LIFE, with full voting & speaking rights, but no public scrutiny. Why, under a government supposedly committed to openness and transparency, are these appointments made in secret (apart from a few leaks)?.
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The Mail in 1991 when Panorama revealed John Manor was on the electoral register at a house where he never lived.
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This was such a crass,.insensitive remark by Kemi Badenoch. It shows no sympathy or appreciation for care home staff who often get paid just £12 an hour. They work in very stressful conditions, with heavy lifting, doing tasks many residents' families don't want.
Kemi Badenoch takes a swipe at migrant care workers, despite the UK having a shortage of 130,000 care workers,. "We need to make sure we are thinking about the next generation, not just who's going to wipe bottoms for us today"
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This is Jeff Silvester, boss of Vote Leave's Canadian data firm AIQ visiting Number 10 last autumn. I'm told his AIQ colleague Zack Massingham went with him, and they also visited Conservative HQ. Number 10 have yet to answer my question as to what their visit was about
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Lord (David) Pannick, perhaps the most brilliant KC of our times, is a busy man. He is defending two major clients right now: Boris Johnson and Manchester City. One is accused of debasing the premiership on a historic scale. So is the other.
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Amazing that Newsnight ended tonight with no acknowledgment that, after 44 years, tonight's edition was the last in its traditional format of studio discussions and interviews, and lots of reporter films. From Tuesday onwards it will simply be a studio-based programme with.
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New peerage list is an outrage - as always - verging on corrupt. None of these appointments have had any public scrutiny, yet they'll be in Lords for life. 27-year-old Plaid nominee Carmen Smith could be there for 70 years, on allowances of £40,000 pa. A mockery of democracy.
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More important than freebies & Sue Gray's pay, we journalists should be asking about Labour taking a record £4m donation - a party record - during the election (28 May) from Quadrature, a Cayman Islands registered hedge fund not made public til a few days ago cos of El Comm's.
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Eventually, during a break, an angry producer of the programme marched in and said "Out", and pointing at me, "You, Out!" He said I'd refused to "move on", in terms of topic. Gosh he was furious. So anyway, I left.
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If Number Ten is not careful it could soon look like the BBC has become the state broadcaster.
The @10DowningStreet press office have granted @theresa_may interviews to 20 @BBCNews journalists during conference; none for @Channel4News or @5_News and there is solidarity across broadcasters that this is a dangerous precedent.
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If you want to understand the British Establishment just read page 8 of latest Private Eye. The photo is from the 2014 Tory Carlton Club dinner. It includes Liz Truss, Lucy Frazer, former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells & current postal minister Kevin Hollinrake.
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Caught in the act! Meet Lee Anderson, Conservative candidate for Ashfield, who forgets his MailPlus mic is on. Click here to see our film and his ruse to set MailPlus up with unusually friendly voter.
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BREAKING: The CPS have told Channel 4 News tonight that they are considering charges against more than 30 individuals. #electionexpenses.
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Corbyn rally, Birmingham tonight. He has probably addressed bigger meetings in 2017 than any leader since Churchill
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If the PM is seriously thinking of appointing Nadhim Zahawi as Chancellor he should first get Zahawi to clear up the questions in this film I made for @MailPlus and first raised in the Sunday Times on 28 Nov 1999, and talk to businessman Kevin Higgs.
ZAHAWI DENIES FORGERY. Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi finally denies a 1999 newspaper claim that he admitted forging 2 signatures on fake copyright licence agreement.
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Tonight, in quick succession, I - & no doubt other reporters - received 6 Treasury press releases about what’s in next week’s budget - 5 of them embargoed to various times over weekend - so we can’t use them yet. Whatever became of budget secrecy & announcing things to MPs first?.
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Given Fujitsu's role in creating the deeply flawed Horizon computer system at the heart if the postmasters' scandal, it would be interesting to know if the British government is still awarding them contracts. If so, why?.
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Richard Ratcliffe is such an incredibly nice guy. A model to everyone is his courage, persistence and his devotion to his wife. When this is over he deserves a major place in public life. Both he and his wife are victims of @BorisJohnson’s crass behaviour as Foreign Secretary.
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Brexit department say Dominic Raab isn’t doing any more broadcast interviews today following the one he’s just done for Today. I’ve never known a time when both senior Cons & Lab politicians seem so scared of media questions.
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I pay a lot of money for my Times subscription. Please could somebody at the Times please explain why this story was pulled. If it was inaccurate please could you warn fellow-journalists so that we don’t repeat your mistake.
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In almost any other walk of life the outstanding, answered questions about the business careers of Zahawi & Shapps would disqualify them from the start. But in choosing a new PM - & doing so hastily - nobody seems to care.
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Damian Collins has been unanimously readopted as Conservative candidate for Folkestone & Hythe. So Arron Banks’s £30,000+ campaign, sending letters to every constituent, urging them to join Tories so as to deselect Collins, seems to have been a total waste of money.
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I have some sympathy with Jeremy Hunt's gaffe about his wife being Japanese - when she's actually Chinese. I once asked someone at a party: "Have you met my wife Barbara?" "No, I'm called Margaret." she interrupted. She's now my ex-wife, though I don't think this is the reason.
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The Tulip Siddiq story shows.astonishingly poor judgement on Starmer's part - he was alerted to problems with her by C4 News in 2017 & several if his constituents write to him as their MP complain. I'm afraid she will have to quit as an MP as well.
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I wonder what the hundreds of wrongly-convicted postmasters think of all this fooling around by Ed Davey, the former postal minister. If I were still a TV reporter I'd take a few appalling-treated postmasters to the next Davey stunt and see what they think. Amazing what short.
🚨 NEW: In his latest campaign stunt, Sir Ed Davey of the Liberal Democrats partakes in a water obstacle course
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If Conservative Party had done background checks on Zahawi 20 years ago he'd never have been an MP, let alone a minister. Based on a 1999 Sunday Times article by Nick Fielding about Zahawi & Jeffrey Archer they clearly should have contacted businessman Kevin Higgs. They didn't.
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What shocks me is reporters collaborate with May press team by agreeing to reveal their questions to them in advance
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No doubt GB News will post the full exchanges on here shortly.
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This postmasters scandal is blood-boiling. And so many of the incompetents responsible for these gross injustices are still working in public life. How many have apologised? How many have used their own money to compensate victims? How many have resigned in shame?.
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Ten days after the ITV Post Office drama was first broadcast, not a single member of the Post Office board of directors in that time - so far as I am aware - chairs, executives, non-execs - has had the decency, the courage, the humility, to do a broadcast interview on the scandal.
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I've just gone into a post office in northern England & got chatting to subpostmaster. They lost only a few thousand but know 3 others within 5 miles who suffered much worse. Only 2 of these 4 are in Bates campaign. That suggests scale of injustice could be even worse.
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Broadcasters shouldn't refer to Kemi Badenoch simply as "Kemi", while referring to the others by their full names. It suggests favour or cosiness.
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I warned the Conservatives Jeffrey Archer was an accident waiting to happen;.And Nadhim Zahawi;.And Andy Coulson;.And Grant Shapps;.And Boris Johnson;.And Lee Anderson;. Others warned them too. We don't have special powers or insight. In most cases it was blindingly obvious.
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I’m told by one Labour source that the Starmer “inner circle are worried about being seen as anti-Muslim”. Maybe that explains their treatment of Oldham, Rotherham and so on.
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If I were Prime Minister I would appoint a troubleshooter in Downing Street whose job it would be to spot scandals like the Post Office early on, and stop them. One duty would be to read Private Eye every issue, and the trade press.
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OK. Release the paperwork then.
It is important that the facts are not misrepresented on the basis of this interview as the Labour party (ever ready to jump on a bandwagon) is already doing🙄 . We will make a statement tomorrow telling the truth about what’s been happening. (5/5).
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My iron rule for press conferences. Ask ONE question, and keep it very short.
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It’s strange Norman Tebbit is calling for whip to be withdrawn from Heseltine for disloyalty, when only a few years back he said he couldn’t blame Conservatives for voting Ukip.
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Absolutely right. The past days, with a few honourable exceptions, have been a shameful period for British journalism, in which scrutiny, challenge, perspective, balance and common sense have been ditched in favour of fawning banalities.
I appreciate the bbc will be criticised whatever they do,but I am struggling with the sheer banality of the coverage. It just feels like everyone is just repeating the same words all the time.
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If Jacob Rees-Mogg is a man of decency, he will immediately pick up his phone, ring Douglas Ross, and apologise.
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So let me get this right: Jeremy Corbyn, who has strongly condemned the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie, won’t be readmitted to the Labour Party by Keir Starmer, who has remained silent.
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If Keir Starmer says he and his colleagues were in Durham for the Hartlepool by-election, I trust the costs of the trip appeared on Labour's by-election expense return. That ought to have included all their hotel bills, and the takeaway curry, which reportedly cost £200.
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Boris Johnson, "Brexit means Brexit and we are going to make a Titanic success if it". Perhaps worst speech he's ever made.
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For all the nice words about John Prescott from Keir Starmer and other leading Labour figures yesterday, he almost certainly wouldn't be allowed to be a Labour candidate these days - as a left-wing, trouble-making trade-unionist.
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He resigned out of a sense of shame at what had been happening under his command.
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Public discourse on Post Office scandal has been too selective on who should be held to account or blamed. There's not been enough focus on Fujitsu; or to other CEOs apart from Paula Vennells, such as Adam Crozier; or to the many postal services ministers other than Ed Davey.
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This is a truly dreadful interview by Davey & will be used by media trainers for ever as a model of what not to do. "Of course, I regret. " goodness knows how many times. So insensitive & ill-prepared. Davey's aides also failed to advise him properly. I'm afraid he has to go.
Sir Ed Davey has refused to apologise over his position in the Post Office scandal, despite being asked to more than ten times in an interview with ITV News' @PaulBrandITV .
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Theresa May has just told Iain Dale she won’t “answer hypothetical questions”, but then warns what would happen if Jeremy Corbyn became PM.
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Penny Mordaunt promises to help her Labour successor set up her office and help constituents. How often do losers make such a genrius pledge? How many other of tonight's losers will make the same promise?.
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@BBCNews In the history of dramatic political resignations, that is very near the top. Philip Rutnam is a very courageous man.
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If Nadhim Zahawi had pursued his libel threats against journalists he would have ended up committing perjury and perversion of the course of justice, offences for which his friend and old partner Lord Archer went to jail.
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And in a 1991 BBC Panorama programme we showed how PM John Major had been registered in 1968 at a house in Lambeth which the owner told me he'd never lived at - not even for one night. That qualified him to stand for Lambeth Council, and he duly won a seat. The Mail splash.
I'm not sure this police investigation into whether Angela Rayner broke electoral law will get very far. When we found on C4 News in 2017 Stoke by-election that Ukip leader Paul Nuttall was registered at address he'd told me he'd never yet visited, Staffs police investigated &.
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The BBC’s coverage from Ukraine tonight is brilliant - forensic, dramatic, intelligent, wonderfully shot, well written, courageous, shocking. Corporation has excelled this last month like no other time in its 100 years. (Though I admit I didn’t see much TV news before 1964.).
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EXCL Following queries from me, Ukip leader Henry Bolton has today corrected his LinkedIn site to remove the BA he claimed from Sandhurst (which doesn't award BAs), & clarified that the BA he still claims from City & Guilds (which also doesn't award BAs) is really an NVQ Level 6
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If I were Chris Rowley, chief constable of Lancashire, I would resign in shame after seeing Ed Thomas’s shocking BBC News report tonight. He reported that parents in Chorley are having to police a local park themselves to stop their children being attacked by violent gangs.
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@Nigel_Farage What about the UKIP MEPs who Left UKIP, like, er, you? Shouldn’t you stand down and let the next person on the Ukip list take their seat?.
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One of the most interesting things about Badenoch was that in 2018 the Mail on Sunday reported an interview Badenoch had previously given, in which she admitted hacking a Labour MP’s website in 2008 (when aged 28) to say nice things about the Tories”. The MP was Harriet Harman.
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In future, why not oblige all Referendum campaigns and all political parties while a contest is going on to lodge a copy of every online or social media ad, and every paper leaflet, at the time with the Electoral Comm? I’ve argued this for years in the case of ordinary elections.
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Corbyn gets it in neck for being lukewarm about Remain. Yet for Theresa May being lukewarm about Remain is now a great virtue. I'm puzzled.
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Nobody is attacking you for that. I suggest you spend a quiet evening in your empty house reading the Representation of the People Act
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It’s worth stressing that what happened today was NOT a press conference. There were just two BBC (as ever) people there; no other journalists & certainly no questions.
Theresa May’s press conference today was not about a Prime Minister making tough choices in a negotiation. It was about appeasing the insatiable Brexit fanatics in her own party. Brexit is a Tory psychodrama, nothing more.
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I'm not sure this police investigation into whether Angela Rayner broke electoral law will get very far. When we found on C4 News in 2017 Stoke by-election that Ukip leader Paul Nuttall was registered at address he'd told me he'd never yet visited, Staffs police investigated &.
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One of the most sickening aspects of an election is watching some supposedly neutral political journalists (or even previously hostile ones) softening towards the party that looks likely to win - at the very time when they should be more robust than ever. Presumably it's done to.
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Postmasters 2/2:.3. All senior Post Office staff & directors involved in scandal 2010-20, banned for life from public sector jobs;.4. All NDAs relating to scandal to be scrapped by Parliament;.5. Compensation to be paid by 31 Dec 2024. Keir Starmer should commit to same.
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I’m terribly sorry. I seem to have touched a raw nerve with so many people with this tweet. That was most inconsiderate of me. I do apologise.
Great parallels between Boris Johnson & Jeremy Corbyn: great campaigners, idolised by fans; twice divorced; hopeless with money; utterly disorganised; scant on detail; avoid media interviews, press conferences or scrutiny.
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Personally, I hate the idea of another Trump victory. BUT the BBC's obligation to be impartial extends to USA too. Yet too much of the BBC's US presidential campaign coverage is lazy - just a Harris love-fest. Most of their Democrat voices aren't being challenged.
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On sale at the UKIP Young Independence shop - the Nigel Farage condom. £1 each or 4 for £2.
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Private Eye says Guardian editor @KathViner was paid £391,000 last year. That’s more than twice as much as the Prime Minister. And Guardian CEO Annette Thomas gets £630,000 pa plus bonuses. Shome mistake surely? Or perhaps the Guardian’s financial woes aren’t as bad as I thought.
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