Oh what a tangled web The Guardian Media Group weaves as it colludes with New Labour plotters to deceive! Now the GMG’s smears against Corbyn are not just fact free journalism – they are rapidly becoming an abject embarrassment.
This appalling smear is one of the feeblest and genuinely pathetic bits of Anti-Corbyn propaganda to date. The Observer ran this ‘story’ on its front page and it’s currently the headline story on the Guardian website. Goodness – wait until you hear the shocking allegations that occupy the front page of the British liberal media!
You see, Corbyn once went to a fundraising dinner ran by a Palestinian support group (Friends of Al-Aqsa) and someone who was attending once said something (at another time) praising Hamas. The money raised was not declared by Corbyn because…it was never received.
That really is the entire pith of the ‘story’
.
Once this non-existent link between Corbyn and something Ismael Patel once said has been dishonestly mooted, there is naturally a quote from a Labour MP trying to oust Corbyn. Step forward John Woodcock M.P. for Barrow and Furness.
“These revelations raise incredibly serious questions about the probity of the campaign’s finances and the relationship between Mr Corbyn and this organisation. We need Mr Corbyn to give full and frank explanations.”
Woodcock declines to say what these “questions” are and well he might since the story offers no evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever – just a lot of cheesy innuendo.
Naturally, The Observer doesn’t pause to reflect on Mr Woodcock’s role in plotting against Corbyn ( the kind of thing Journalists are supposed to do). So, as our act of charity for The Observer, here are some links that show Mr Woodcock in a series of vitriolic attacks against his own leader (they would make any Tory proud, actually)
Furious Furness MP John Woodcock in heated row with Jeremy Corbyn’s aide
John Woodcock urges Labour MP colleagues to rally against Jeremy Corbyn
Labour MP John Woodcock says Jeremy Corbyn was a ‘f***ing disaster’ at PMQs
It is time for the hard truth about Jeremy Corbyn and the company he keeps
I could post many more links – it seems Mr Woodcock spends a great deal of his time feeding journalists lines of attack against Corbyn. We imagine his constituents may have other priorities for their elected representative than briefing the corporate media?
Corbyn’s support for the Palestinian cause is well known. That somebody said something about Hamas at an unrelated place on another day is nothing to do with him. That his campaign didn’t declare money it didn’t receive is an odd subject for John Woodcock to be asking “incredibly serious questions” about.
The Observer raises dark eyebrows about some confusion from a Corbyn spokesperson as to whether a cheque has been received and cashed and then fluffs out the rest of the article re-reporting its own lies about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and alluding to the platform it gave Tom Watson to whine about Shami Chakrabarti being nominated for the House of Lords.
The Corbyn campaign’s relations with the Friends of Al-Aqsa, and reluctance to disclose details about the cheque, comes at a difficult time for the Labour leader.
Corbyn has been heavily criticised for nominating Shami Chakrabarti, the civil rights campaigner, as a Labour peer, after she delivered an independent report into the state of antisemitism in the Labour party which has been criticised by some as a whitewash.
This is the standard of journalism in The Guardian Media Group (GMG) now. Scraps of tittle tattle form the basis of today’s headline news and are then re-reported as tomorrow’s headline news. Quite pathetic. But amazingly it gets worse!
Sodium Haze readers who enjoy playing GMG bingo will be anxiously awaiting a quote from a ‘thinktank’ or a ‘foundation’ that can be relied upon to supply a fitting quote – and huzzah, here it is!
Haras Rafiq, managing director of the Quilliam thinktank, and a former member of a government taskforce looking at countering extremism in response to the 2005 terrorist bombings in London, criticised Corbyn’s relationship with Friends of Al-Aqsa. He said: “It’s a reflection of the regressive left.”
The credentials of the ‘Quilliam Thinktank’ are accepted (as always) without a flicker of concern about their sources of funding and activities ,but the “self-styled ex-extremists Maajid Nawaaz, Ed Husain and Rashad Ali” and the Quilliam think-tank are worthy of five minutes of scrutiny.
[The Quilliam thinktank] … has links to neoconservative initiatives such as the Centre for Social Cohesion and Harry’s Place. Although the exact funding figure is unknown, the Quilliam Foundation has reportedly received £700,000 as part of the government’s Preventing Violent Extremism Programme, £400,000 of which was given by the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT).[1] The think tank has been embroiled in several controversies since its founding for encouraging domestic spying and preparing secret blacklists of citizens and groups that it alleges share the ‘ideology of terrorists
And where were concerns about the Quilliam Thinktank aired in the media in recent years? Hilariously it was in The Guardian!
“Spying morally right, says thinktank”
– Guardian 16th October 2009.
List sent to terror chief aligns peaceful Muslim groups with terrorist ideology
• Quilliam Foundation’s list ‘not for public disclosure’
• File for counter-terror boss branded ‘McCarthyite’
Guardian 4th August 2010
Quilliam’s toxic take on liberty
The former Islamic fundamentalists of Quilliam are using public money to advocate a totalitarian approach to British society
Guardian 23rd October 2009
To lionise former extremists feeds anti-Muslim prejudice
Guardian 24th April 2008
And one needn’t look far for other interesting stories about the Quilliam Foundation’s antics.
Tommy Robinson, Former EDL Leader, Claims Quilliam Paid Him To Quit Far-Right Group
Huffington Post 10th December 2015
Former Member Of Banned UK Terrorist Organisation Joins Counter-Extremism Think Tank Quiliam
It seems extraordinary that one of the world’s largest media organisations cannot do the basic acts of journalism that our humble blog can complete in half an hour. It is even more gob smacking when all they had to do was check back on their own coverage! Now it’s true that some of these pieces are just in the Opinion section – but surely all that has to ring an alarm bell for a competent editor? Perhaps not bothering with journalistic balance has become corporate policy?
Why is it that such a controversial source should be offered an unchallenged quote on the front page of a major newspaper? It seems apparent that the Quilliam Foundation is much more newsworthy itself than the “regressive left” it seeks to slander. For some answers we will need to seek out a journalist working independently – step forward Craig Murray.
The Quilliam Foundation is the branch of New Labour tasked with securing the Muslim vote and reducing British Muslim dissatisfaction with New Labour over the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. If they wanted to do that with New Labour money, that would be their own business. But I object fundamentally to their doing it with my and your money.
Well, well, well!! So, The Quilliam Foundation turn out to be pets of the New Labour spin machine; which perhaps explains why an editor at The Observer, a New Labour MP and neo-con linked think-tank find themselves in such perfect harmony on the front page.
Sad days for a once proud newspaper – no wonder the Guardian media group is heading for oblivion. Smear and innuendo with not a shred of evidence is spiced up with quotes from biased ‘sources’ with no attempt at balance and no discernible journalistic integrity whatsoever.
If I were to suggest to Daniel Boffey, the Observer’s policy editor, that he has disgraced himself, his newspaper and his profession with this article, I would doubtless be accused of being abusive – even though the suggestion is true.
Far be it from me to propose that readers of this article should contact @DanielBoffey and @JWoodcockMP to share their views.
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