Bartholomew's Notes

From the Guardian, 1 August:

A 17-year-old boy accused of murdering three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport can be named as Axel Rudakubana.

… He will next appear at Liverpool crown court, on 25 October, and a provisional trial date, lasting six weeks, was scheduled for 20 January.

That provisional date was later confirmed in November: it seems reasonable that a trial scheduled to last weeks should start on a Monday, and 20 January 2025 is the third Monday of the new year. The date did not attract much controversy, although inevitably there was some obstuse comment on social media that it was unfair that public disorder following the murders was being dealt with more quickly.

However, it is now being alleged online that the date was chosen deliberately because it coincides with the the US Presidential inauguration, and so will be overshadowed in the news. On Twitter/X, the two events were linked on 15 December by “Inevitable West”, an anonymous account that is sometimes promoted by Elon Musk as a guide to events in the UK. One of “Inevitable West’s” rhetorical strategies is to begin their posts with “🚨BREAKING”, despite not having any new information:

🚨BREAKING: The Southport trial will begin on 20th January – the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration.

This is a coverup the magnitude we’ve never seen before.

Casual readers were thus given the impression that the date has only just been chosen.

The conspiracy theory then expanded when it was noted by others that two other trials are set to begin on the same Monday: those of Ricky Jones and Anthony Esan.

Jones’ trial date was announced in September; as the Evening Standard reported:

A former Labour councillor is set to stand trial next year over an allegation he encouraged violent disorder in a speech to an anti-fascist protest during the recent riots.

…”We have to set a trial date within the custody trial dates, and the earliest date we can offer is January 20 next year”, said Judge Oscar Del Fabbro.

A conspiracy theorist would have to argue either that (a) earlier dates have been excluded from “custody trial dates” due to some occult government influence; (b) the judge has incorrectly identified “the earliest date”, presumably on instruction from the government; or (c) the judge deliberately avoided the possibility of a later date, again in compliance with improper politicial instructions. None of this is warranted from the context.

Anthony Esan’s trial date, meanwhile, was reported by Kent Live in August:

The case of a man accused of attempted murder following the stabbing of an army officer has been adjourned. During a plea and trial preparation hearing at Maidstone Crown Court today (August 22), Judge Philip St John-Stevens adjourned the arraignment on Anthony Esan’s charges.

Esan’s trial was, however, fixed to start on January 20, 2025 and is expected to last three weeks. It will be heard by a High Court judge.

Nicholas Lissack seems to have been first off the mark in drawing a sinister inference from these other trial dates, a few hours after Inevitable West’s post:

It’s quite the coincidence that on 20th January—Trump’s inauguration—these events are all taking place:

– Axel Rudakubana’s trial.
– Ricky Jones’s trial.
– Anthony Esan’s trial.
– Semina Halliwell’s inquest.

Strange timing, isn’t it? Almost too convenient for the authorities.

The Halliwell inquest dates are actually 13 to 21 January, and it was not included when Darren Grimes jumped on the bandwagon:

DEFLECTION:

🔘 Labour councillor accused of calling for slit throats

🔘 Man accused of stabbing Lt Col Mark Teeton near his barracks

🔘 Man accused of murdering girls in Southport

EACH trial begins January 20, the day the media’s eyes are focused on Trump’s inauguration?! 👀

Grimes’ post was then amplifed by Isabel Oakeshott, partner of Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice, with the added commentary “This is extraordinary”. Grimes also inspired Henry Bolton to offer the view that “It’s impossible to credibly argue that the judicial system is not being influenced by political interference from the government.” Alex Phillips, meanwhile, claims that the timing is a “stitch up”, while Laurence Fox warns that “They are getting desperate now. Which is very concerning, because once the lies stop working, they will use fists”. Fox previously suggested that the media had published a photograph of the suspect as a child “to make him look like the victim”.

The Southport murders have been a repeated focus for conspiracising: previously, the suspect has been misidentified, and last month there was a false online rumour that as a lawyer Keir Starmer had represented the suspect’s father in an asylum hearing. Conspiracism is also inflamed by public figures claiming to have access to extra information: Nigel Farage recently said that “I know a hell of a lot more than the British public know” (a quote uploaded to YouTube by his interviewer Winston Marshall under the title “The Biggest Cover Up of Our Lives!”), while on 8 December Mike Graham posted an enigmatic “Watch this space #Southport”.

Graham’s post drew attention to an October edition of The Times carrying the headline “Claims of Southport ‘Cover-Up'” – this referred specifically to claims by Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch that the suspect being charged with a terrorism offence and with producing ricin indicated that “facts may have been withheld from the public”, but such a headline of course has the potential to encourage broader speculation (it was amended online to “Tories Accuse Police of Southport ‘Cover-Up'”).

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From Farmers’ Weekly:

London witnessed an extraordinary spectacle on Wednesday 11 December as more than 600 tractors rolled into Westminster in a dramatic protest against the Autumn Budget’s impact on farming.

Organised by Save British Farming (SBF) and Kent Fairness for Farmers, the rally showcased the growing frustration of farmers who believe government policies threaten the future of British agriculture and their livelihoods.

The SBF website states that it exists to protest “the trade deals our government is negotiating which fail to protect British animal welfare and environmental standards for imports.” However, the 11 December action focused on recently announced changes to Inheritance Tax, which it is argued with ensnare farmers whose agricultural land has become valuable but who remain cash poor (1). And SBF “branding” seems to have been less in evidence than banners promoting a group called “#together”, which surrounded the speakers.

As noted by John Bye, the group’s leader, Alan Millar, “was interviewed by Sky News at today’s protest, and chatted with Tory and Reform MPs”. The group, writes John (link added), “started out as a campaign against lockdowns and covid vaccine mandates, but later diversified into opposing anything from net zero to the assisted dying bill. While still finding time to promote anti-vax misinformation from their friends at HART“. DeSmog has more background details here. The same banners appeared at a previous farmers’ protest last month, at which Jeremy Clarkson posed with one (2).

Various other signs at Wednesday’s protest were were photographed by a video journalist named Matt Capon. It’s important to be cautious of reading too much signifance into placards that may be outliers, but the examples shown reflect the familiar contours of populist conspiracism. One man, wearing what appears to be an “I Will Not Comply” hat, had a sign that read “Net Zero aims to make farmers extinct” (along with a “Danger! Agenda 2030” sticker); another effort read “I Do Not Consent to Climate Hoax” and “Full Fart Milk for ME!” (3). One particularly large banner read “Reject the Great Reset” and referred readers to a group called “Stand Up UK” and to social media associated with Together’s “youth ambassador” Montgomery Toms.

I previously looked at conspiracy influencers involving themselves in farmers’ protests here.

Notes

1. Some conspiracists refer to the “Bill Gates budget”, alleging that the end of the tax relief is a deliberate ploy to force farmers to sell up to Gates.

2. At this earlier protest Clarkson expressed irritation when the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire reminded him that he had previously been open about investing in land as a tax planning strategy. One economist, Paul Cheshire, has gone so far as to describe the current situation as a “tax loophole” that has “simply pushed up the price of land without improving returns to active farmers”. A compromise solution suggested by a tax expert named Dan Neidle is that the tax should only be made payable when land is sold rather than handed on via inheritence.

2. This alludes to objections against a feed additive to reduce the amount of methane produced by cattle. These objections are firstly that climate change is a “hoax”, making such reduction unnecessary, and secondly that the product, called Bovaer, is dangerous and poisons milk. Reform has taken up the cause, and when Daniel Finkelstein accused the party of populist conspiracism in The Times, Reform’s Richard Tice responded by warning that “@Dannythefink wants to experiment with our bodies”. The product is distinct from an additive developed by a company in which Bill Gates has invested, although the Daily Mail managed to shoehorn him in with a headline (later amended) that referred to Bovaer as “Bill-Gates inspired”.

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A headline in the Daily Telegraph:

Rotherham rapist to be released from prison after serving only nine years of 19-year sentence

A member of a Rotherham grooming gang who raped and tortured his victims is set to be released from prison after serving only nine years of a 19-year sentence.

Banaras Hussain, 44, who is also a convicted drug dealer, will be allowed out on licence on Friday after being jailed for violent sexual offences in 2016.

That “only” in the headline strongly implies that Hussain has benefited from some controversial act of judicial leniency, when it is general knowledge in the UK that 50% of a sentence served is an “automatic release point”. Hussain has been freed, but he remains subject to various restrictions and can be recalled to prison at any time should be not adhere to the conditions of his licence. Some would argue that his overall sentence ought to have been longer (or been indeterminate, whch gives more leeway in keeping someone in prison beyond a minimum period), but the headline’s framing is misleading.

Also misleading is the reference to “nine years” rather than “nine and a half years”, which implies less than 50% and will put readers in mind of the government’s early release scheme to ease prison overcrowding (1). The text, though, grudgingly clarifies the point:

It is understood that Hussain had already served a number of months on remand and had, therefore, served more than half of his full sentence. Last year, he was moved to an open prison.

Sentencing council guidelines state that offenders sentenced to four years or more for violent or sexual offences can potentially be released at the halfway point under strict licence conditions.

…He was not released under the early release scheme introduced by Sir Keir Starmer’s government as sexual offenders are not eligible.

The phrasing “can potentially be released” downplays the “automatic” nature of the release point, implying that it’s a special privilege that might be applied from time to time rather than standard practice.

The false claim that Hussain has served less than 50% of his sentence has been promoted by GB News on Twitter/X, in a post stating “Maggie Oliver, formerly of Greater Manchester Police, reacts to grooming gang member Banaras Hussain’s release from prison after less than half his sentence”. Ignoring time served on remand in order to create a false impression that someone has been released exceptionally early is a strategy to watch out for in populist reporting.

The Telegraph article also provides a platform for politicians to strut and pose:

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has written to the Parole Board, asking it to reverse its decision and “keep this monster behind bars”.

…Richard Tice, Reform UK’s deputy leader, said that if a sex offender is sentenced to 19 years in prison, they should be detained for 19 years.

He added: “A sentence is a sentence. I don’t believe in any early release for those sorts of crime. These crimes are heinous and you have to set an example. What is the point of giving someone 19 years and [letting them] out after nine and a half?”

Jenrick must know that the Parole Board cannot simply put aside the rules in the way, but his stunt will doubtless work to whip up misdirected resentment against professionals doing a difficult job.

And Tice similarily must know that determinate prison sentences cannot be dealt with differently according to the “sorts of crime” involved. This seems to be part of a broader Reform strategy of misrepresenting long-standing aspects of the law as capricious anomalies. For example, in July his partner Isabel Oakeshott suggested that the identity of a 16 year old on trial for murder was “being covered up”, when the identity of any minor on trial is protected (when corrected, she cited the naming of the 10-year-old killers of James Bulger in 1994, although she neglected the detail that they were named only after their trial had concluded with guilty verdicts).

The suggestion that Hussain has enjoyed special leniency also has another purpose in Reform rhetoric. Here’s the former Conservive MP Andrea Jenkyns, now Reform’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire:

People are sick of this two-tier policing system, where we see a head of a grooming gang released early from prison. Whilst political prisoners are locked-up.

By “political prisoners”, Jenkyns means people who have been sent to prison following convictions for online incitement in the wake of the Southport child killings. The designation has not been made explicitly by party leader Nigel Farage, although it was implicit in his recent statement on Question Time (53:47) that “Kier Starmer locks people up who say nasty things on Facebook – Two-Tier Kier”.

Note

1. The early release scheme allows some prisoners to be released after serving 40% of their sentence, although headlines have tended not to make clear that this is a reduction of 10 percentage points down from 50% – i.e. a 25% reduction in the time to be served, rather than a massive cut of 60%.

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From the Daily Mail:

Viral social media rumours claiming that Sir Keir Starmer represented the father of Southport suspect Axel Rudakubana in an asylum case are untrue, Downing Street said today.

The claims were yesterday circulated widely on X, formerly known as Twitter, by users who were citing them as evidence of an alleged cover-up over the true circumstances of the Southport stabbings in which three girls aged six to nine died.

…The erroneous allegations made against Sir Keir centre on a High Court ruling dating from 2003.

…The High Court document makes clear that Sir Keir’s clients were a 16-year-old Ethiopian girl, a 26-year-old Iranian man and two Angolan men aged 22 and 33.

The sixth party – the only Rwandan national involved in the case – was a 42-year-old woman.

The story does not go into who spread the claim online, although anyone who keeps an eye on fringe-right accounts would have seen it: on 15 November, for instance, Laurence Fox posted “Who was Axel Rudakubana’s human rights lawyer? @Keir_Starmer”, which he then amended to “Who was Axel Rudakubana’s father’s human rights lawyer @Keir_Starmer ?”. Although not mentioned by the Mail, the rumour built on online speculation about why the suspect’s father came to the UK (speculation that is best avoided until the trial is completed).

The rumour doubtless got a massive boost from comments by Nigel Farage, in conservation with Winston Marshall on 16 November:

On Southport, all I can say to you right now, is I know a hell of a lot more than the British public know. A hell of a lot more. I’ve been completely silenced. I dared, the day after Southport, to do a video to say, “Can we please know who this man is? Was he known to the authorities? Why do I feel we’re not being told the truth?”

The level of demonisation I came under for that from both front benches was astonishing. From media commentators, demonisation on a level that I’d never even experienced. Now I’m told by the Speaker of the House of Commons, I can’t ask questions about it in the House of Commons. Parliamentary privilege is out of the window.

Even rumours today that the court case, which is due in January, every effort is being made to defer it…. We are witnessing one of the biggest cover ups we’ve ever seen in our lives, and I won’t say any more than that.

Farage’s recollection of his video after Southport once again downplays what he actually said at the time, which was that there were “reports” that the suspect was known to the security services – this was obviously derived from the false “Ali Sl-Shakati” story, although Farage wisely kept his references vague. The reason he cannot ask questions about it in the House of Commons is because of a rule from 1963 that “cases in which proceedings are active in United Kingdom courts shall  not be referred to in any motion, debate or question”. Speakers have some discretion where “they have considered that no substantial risk of prejudicing proceedings would arise”, but Farage prefers to suggest some sinister irregularity rather than make a case for an exception within the rules.

The question, then, is whether Farage was referring to the rumour that has been debunked in the Daily Mail or to something else. It’s quite possible that he was misled by a screenshot of the 2003 ruling doing the rounds, given how quickly and confidently he drew false inferences from online details about the former Reform activist Andrew Parker as soon as they were put before him (Farage asserted that Parker was an infiltrator working for Channel 4 – a subject he has since gone quiet about).

Meanwhile, Sunder Katwala has rounded up some “influential spreaders of the viral rumour on X”, in a series of posts:

Dominic Cummings, who shared the rumour at 2.35pm on 17.11 with a message asking people if it was true or false, saying “nothing would surprise me” (gaining 845k views) before an hour later saying it did not stack up. [here]

Paul Golding, the leader of Britain First, shared it on X at 1.52om, half an hour before Dominic Cummings did. He shared an image of the [unrelated] 2003 case front-page. Golding got 971k views – and Britain First started a petition about this (gaining 100k signatures). [here]

While Paul Golding and Dominic Cummings shared the rumour itself, many found more virality in tweeting about rumours – very much *really hoping* they are not true, like Mr [Konstantin] Kisin, who was very worried how this would not end well. [here]

This comical exchange in which Charlie Bentley-Astor tells Kisin its “probably worse than what you are hearing” but that “most of what you are hearing is probably true” though warning that some of the most viral claims are “misnomers”. (Both seem to self-identify as journalists) [here]

This “Akkad Secretary” got 2.6 million views for spreading the false rumour on X. He now has 69.5k followers. X may well have paid £ to this verified account for this: by rewarding, funding, incentivising and inducing such conduct, they were the main site. [here]

As for Farage,

Saying “we are witnessing one of the biggest coverups we’ve ever seen in our lives” with Winston Marshall gives him more flexibility. His Saturday interview taken by quite a few people as about the same rumour. [here]

Of course, even if the rumour were true, and even if there were some reason why the decision to allow the suspect’s father to remain in the UK had been particularly controversial, it would hardly be to Starmer’s discredit. As discussed by Roddy Dunlop KC as a hypothetical (responding to Kellie-Jay Keen / Posie Parker):

Let’s say the PM, acting as counsel, obtained a legal decision, from a judge, that his client should be given leave to remain in the UK. And then let’s assume that years later that client’s son is responsible for an atrocity.

To try and hold counsel responsible for that atrocity – to imply that (s)he has any moral blame therein – is to misunderstand utterly the role of counsel. We are not our clients, nor their guarantors. We act for all people. Some of them are bad people. Sometimes bad people do bad things. That does not mean they should be denied legal representation.

It would, though, be a difficult predicament for a lawyer-turned-PM when it comes to national memorialisation and interacting with relatives and survivors – a PM having a past connection with a suspect’s family would obviously be emotionally problematic for victims’ loved ones and for survivors, however well they might understand professional duty. Spreading a false rumour about such a connection was not in the best interests of Southport families.

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A statement from Essex Police:

Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come to a voluntary interview.

They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred, linked to a post on social media.

…As this was a call to set up an interview, no extra details were given. That’s because we have to follow the law and make sure that everyone’s rights and entitlements, in particular to seek legal advice, were respected.

This is the right way to do things – it’s the correct procedure as set out by the Police And Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE).

Fuller details of an alleged offence are always provided prior to the commencement of a voluntary interview, under caution. That allows those present to seek appropriate legal advice and representation if they wish to.

As part of our investigation, we’re liaising with the Crown Prosecution Service regarding an alleged offence which was reported to us by a member of the public. This is an investigative stage review – nothing more.

As has been widely reported, the above refers to a police visit to the Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson last Sunday – an incident that has prompted reams of apocalyptic commentary about the how the UK is now comparable to the USSR under Stalin or (inevitably) to George Orwell’s dystopian vision. Pearson has endorsed Richard Tice MP’s description of her as “terrified and scared”.

The details are that on 16 November 2023 Pearson posted a Tweet (archived here) that incorporated a photo of two men of apparent Pakistani heritage shown holding a flag of the political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and posing with police. The photo was from August 2023 and had been taken in Manchester; Pearson described the men as “Jew haters”, it seems in the mistaken belief that the image showed protestors in London opposed to Israel’s actions in Gaza after 7 October. It’s not clear how exactly she interpreted the flag – perhaps she thought it represented Hamas, but it’s also possible she thought it was a Palestinian national flag and that this in itself was sufficient evidence of being a “Jew hater”. According to the complainant, as quoted in the Guardian, “Her description of the two people of colour as Jew haters is racist and inflammatory”.

The Essex Police statement was made in response to Pearson’s own account as described on the front page of the Telegraph. Pearson complained about not having been given the details, and on one point her account is at odds with Essex Police: she says she had been told that the matter was being dealt with as a “non-crime hate incident”, althugh according to the force the officer actually said “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.” She also says that police referred to “the victim” rather than “the complainant” (so much for Henriques).

Although the Telegraph and allied media are relentlessly milking the incident (including the detail that the police called on Remembrance Sunday), the force’s actions do seem to me to be disproportionate. It might have been appropriate (although probably futile) for the police to have offered Pearson “words of advice” about her lack of care in throwing around allegations, but there was not enough of a case to answer for them to arrest her, and it seems unlikely that any case warranting a charge will emerge from a police interview – even if she declines to explain herself. Unlike the case of Bernie Spofforth, where it was reasonable for police to ask her about where her false information about “Ali Al-Shakati” had come from, Pearson’s post was obviously just a polemical (albeit ill-grounded [1]) extrapolation from a flag. (2)

But there is disproportion on both sides here. It would be natural for Pearson to feel apprehension, but “terrified” is excessive – especially given that she has an entire media ecosystem that includes former Prime Ministers (Boris Johnson and Liz Truss) and high-profile politicians fighting her corner. One problem is that people invest police procedure with too much significance, assuming that massive forensic and legal machinery is in play when in fact all that may be happening is low-level box-ticking. It can happen to anyone, and if more people understood this there would be less “no smoke without fire” stigma.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph has been looking for the complainant, who is not named by the Guardian. A musician and doctor named Nishant Joshi had advised Pearson to delete her post, and the paper incorrectly surmised from this that he may have been the person who had contacted police. Joshi was not just emailed by Telegraph journalists: the paper’s hacks doorstepped his parents and “were contacting long-lost Facebook friends, music pals, and anyone who’d ever known me”.

There has also been some confusion over a mirror account. Although Pearson at some point deleted her post, its content was copied by another account that also called itself “Allison Pearson”. This created an impression that Allison Pearson the journalist had been confused with some other Allison Pearson (or an impersonator), which prompted GB News to run a crowing article by James Saunders and Jack Walters headlined “Outrage as Guardian Identifies Someone Else’s Tweet as Allison Pearson’s in Failed Swipe at Under-Fire Journalist”. This article has now also been deleted.

Note

1. Although it should be noted that while in government in 2021 the PTI foreign minister described Israel in terms of “very influential people. I mean, they control media”.

2. Anyone who might draw a more negative inference should be aware that Pearson has announced that she intends to bring libel actions against various people who have done so – in one instance, she claims to have received advice from a barrister on a Saturday afternoon just hours after a comment appeared, and that he is compiling a “list”.

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From GB News, Friday 9 November:

The annual Remembrance Day parade will implement their biggest security operation ever to protect veterans amid concerns of terror attacks tied to Middle Eastern tensions and warnings that pro-Palestinian demonstrators may target the event.

…Pro-Palestinian groups have suggested that they intend to join the crowds attending the parade at the Cenotaph.

Similar groups are set to target the Day of Remembrance across the country, as the Student Federation for a Liberated Palestine has called for a “student day of action”, co-ordinating a network of 15 pro-Palestinian student groups.

As a result, Caerdydd Students for Palestine – made up of students at Cardiff University – have planned a protest to take place this Monday.

We’re not told which “pro-Palestinian groups” supposedly intended to “join the crowds attending the parade”, and none actually did either yesterday on Remembrance Sunday or today. Further, an online flyer for the Caerdydd Students for Palestine protest “rally” for Monday 11 November states that it will begin at 5 pm – long after any Remembrance events, which focus on 11 am. As such, the supposed connection between pro-Palestinian “actions” and Armistice events appears to be contrived.

However, GB News are not alone in this: on 8 November the Express ran an article headlined “Pro-Palestine mob plot to ‘swarm’ five UK cities in ‘coordinated’ Armistice Day protests”:

Five UK cities are being targeted by Youth Demand, an undercover investigation by Express.co.uk can reveal. [1]

In a secret meeting on Saturday, November 2, the activist group joined Just Stop Oil at a members-only central London bar for an exclusive event.

The event in West Dock, called the ‘Politics is Broken: People’s Assembly & After Party’, saw upwards of 50 activists gather to listen to speeches and discuss policy while vegan food and alcohol were served.

Youth Demand activist Arthur Clifton told the crowd how the group was planning to wreak havoc on Monday, November 11 – a time when thousands across Britain will honour those who gave their lives for our country.

…A call to action on Youth Demand’s Telegram channel posted on November 5 told activists that “in just over a week, our nationally coordinated actions will be popping off all over the country”.

And in an apparent threat to Remembrance ceremonies in the five cities being targeted, the rallying cry finishes: “We know we have to shut it down for Palestine.”

It is difficult not to notice that the article fails to include any quote from Clifton that references Remembrance Day events, and that the “apparent threat” mentioned in the last paragraph is inferred. I took a look at the Telegram post; it refers to a “national week of action” commencing 11 November – as such, “shut it down” appears to have a general sense. The Express author might say that “apparent threat” merely means possible knock-on effects from transport disruption caused by protests, but that does not seem be the most obvious interpretation.

The supposed link between “pro-Palestinian groups” and Armistice appears in all instances above to have been constucted by cherrypicking details. The framing also builds on what happened last year, when 11 November fell on a Saturday and as such happened to coincide with a pro-Palestinian march in central London. Although the march took place some distance from the Cenotaph, the populist then Home Secretary Suella Braverman suggested that it was under threat, prompting an aggressive crowd to show up to “defend” the memorial. Andrew Bridgen, who at that time was a Reclaim MP, went further, issuing a statement that made wild claims about “protestors against the Remembrance service” who were supposedly “seeking to occupy Whitehall overnight”.

UPDATE: Youth Demand have posted a video of activitsts sitting in the road in Parliament Square on the Monday morning, with the caption “Supporters of Youth Demand silently shut the road into Parliament Square at exactly 11am this morning, during the Armistice service at the Cenotaph”. Given that vehicles in the area would have stopped anyway for the two minutes’ silence it’s not clear to what extent they can really take credit for “shutting” the road. In any case, the action can hardly be called “wrecking havoc” or a “threat” to a ceremony going on up the road.

Note

1. Youth Demand responded by scoffing at the “undercover” claims:

A news outlet has supposedly exposed our publicly announced plan to take action next week by coming to a public event (ticketed btw, so thanks for the donation😉), and done some deep undercover work by joining a telegram chat link (which you can find in our bio btw if you want to keep up to date💋).

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From BBC News, a few days ago:

A businesswoman who was arrested after sharing a fake name for the Southport attacker online will face no further action.

Bernadette Spofforth, from Chester, was arrested on 8 August after reposting the fake name, commenting that if it were true there would be “hell to pay”.

The 55-year-old, who has more than 50,000 followers, later deleted the post and apologised after realising the information was incorrect.

I discussed the case previously here – Spofforth was suspected not just of having “shared” the fake name, but of being the first person to have put it online. The name, “Ali Al-Shakati” (double-hyphenated by Spofforth as “Ali-Al-Shakati”), apparently means “I have to go to my apartment” in Arabic, but it created the impression that the Southport attacker was a Muslim. Spofforth’s post also claimed that he was an asylum-seeker on an “MI6 watchlist”, which was then amplified in a general way by Nigel Farage when he referred to “reports” that the suspect was “being monitored by the security services”.

I thought at the time that it was unlikely that the arrest would lead to any charge, although it was matter of public concern where the false name had originated. Spofforth’s own explanation has been vague, and friendly populist-right interviewers since the case was dropped (Dan Wootton and Julia Hartley-Brewer) aren’t pressing her on the point. Inconsistences and anomalies have been noted by Sunder Katwala here and earlier here. However, it appears that Cheshire Police were concerned only with whether a case could be built against Spofforth, rather than who else might be culpable, and so it may be that we will never know who invented “Ali Al-Shakati” or why. (1) Despite her interview round, Spofforth hasn’t said a great deal about what specific questions were asked during her police interview.

Some commentators have suggested that the phrase “if this true” in Spofforth’s post proves that she did not knowingly spread false information, and thus should never have been suspected of incitement. The logic of this, it seems to me, amounts to saying that it can never be incitement to ask a question, which would be preposterous. However, in the wake of the arrest various populist-right figures (Dan Wootton, Bev Turner, David Vance) posted a notice which they apparently believe would give them immunity from successful prosecution. (2)

It should also be noted that Spofforth has a blue-tick verified Twitter/X account, which creates a financial incentive to sensationalise rather than exercise caution and discernment.

Note

1. The fact that it wasn’t a real Arabic name suggests a mixed motive – not just to spread disinformation, but also to feel a sense of superiority by including an “in joke” that most people wouldn’t understand.

2. The notice reads as follows: “None of the information posted or repeated on this account is known by its author to be false, nor intended to stir racial or any hatred of, nor cause psychological or physical harm to, any person or group of people (howsoever identified)”. This is a sovereign-citizen adjacent approach to the law, in which a form of words amounts to an incantation that somehow confounds the the power of the authorities.

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From the Daily Telegraph:

A Pakistani web developer accused of spreading fake news that helped foment anti-immigration and anti-Muslim riots after the Southport stabbings has been arrested in the city of Lahore.

Farhan Asif is alleged to have worked for a sensationalist news aggregation website called Channel3Now, which published false reports about the identity of the knife attacker.

Channel3Now infamously repeated claims that the attacker’s name was Ali Al-Shakati; that he had recently arrived in the UK via boat as an asylim seeker; and that he had been on an MI6 “watchlist”. From an extra detail carried in Dawn, it appears Asif is claiming that he got this false information from another aggregator site, called Kossyderrickent and based in Nigeria. Kossyderrickent has removed the relevant page, but an archived version shows that its write-up included a verbatim Twitter/X post (now deleted) from an account called XCellent78:

Southport Stabbings suspect, Ali-Al-Shakati, was on MI6 watch list and was known to Liverpool mental health services. He was an asylum seeker who came to UK by boat last year.

Those kids have been failed by our pathetic government who are more interested in going after Tommy Robinson on made up terrorism charges than actually stopping real terrorists

These sentences were integrated into the text, rather than being presented as a quote by a third party. XCellent78’s post also included a full stop that is missing on Kossyderrickent, which is suggestive of a cut-and-paste job. The reference to “our pathetic government who are more interested in going after Tommy Robinson” of course is incoherent in a Nigerian context.

Channel3Now repeated much of the first line, but without the comma: “Ali-Al-Shakati was on MI6 watch list and was known to Liverpool mental health services. He was an asylum seeker who came to UK by boat last year.”

The first part of XCellent78’s post also appeared in a post by a member of the UK conspiracy crowd named Bernie Spofforth (@Artemisfornow); Spofforth claims that she copied XCellent78, but her post appeared first and so it would appear to have been the other way round. Spofforth and XCellent78 both have an extra space after the second comma (“Ali-Al-Shakati,  was on MI6…”) that is not present on the Kossyderrickent version. Questions that occur to me include (1) why was the false name given two hyphens?; (2) why does the sentence refer to “MI6 watch list” rather than “MI6’s watch list”, or “an MI6 watch-list”?; and (3) why “came to UK” rather than “came to the UK”?

Spofforth was arrested a couple of weeks ago, and she remains under investigation by Cheshire Police. So far, she appears to be the earliest person to have put the false claims into the public domain. We may never be sure whether she’s the ur-source for all the online repetitions – if the rumour was circulating privately before her post then there may be other lines of transmission. However, we can suggest with some confidence a chain of Spofforth → XCellent78 → Kossyderrickent → Channel3Now. Alternatively, there may have been some unknown source common to both Spofforth and XCellent78 (in which case, Spofforth might have mistook the XCellent78 post for this earlier source).

Channel3Now in Pakistan was the focus of an ITV News investigation that appeared a week ago. However, the arrest is now being seized on by bad actors to re-write the history of the past month; here’s Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice, extrapolating wildly:

If this is true…..well well well

Seems a gentleman in Pakistan spread the fake news about Southport

Perhaps he was of the Far Left, deliberately creating division ….

What say you ⁦@Keir_Starmer?

Meanwhile, Tommy Robinson:

So as the UK government blamed everyone from the non existent group “EDL”, the “Russians”, even me, for the riots.

It was a Pakistani.

Hundreds jailed, scores attacked by Muslims because of the government lies.

#StarmerMustGo

And Laurence Fox:

I hope the police are grovelling their way to @Artemisfornow front door to apologise for their dreadful abuse of power.

While from GB News:

‘Starmer’s claim that these riots were organised by far right agitatiors was itself, fake news.’

Director of Free Speech Union, Toby Young, reacts to a man in Pakistan identified for allegedly giving a false name for the Southport attacker.

These interpretations are all deeply dishonest, although the motive is to “flood the zone” with a superfically plausible narrative that populists and conspiracists will identify with without needing much or any convincing.

Channel3Now certainly played a role in amplifying the false information: for example, it provided the basis for a post on Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch that was (typically) quietly deleted. However, it did not create the “fake news” – and either way, the site’s involvement does not exonerate those who spread it further or who acted on it by rioting and inciting disorder.

“A Pakistani made them do it” is a pathetic excuse.

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From the Daily Telegraph:

BBC presenter Chris Packham has been criticised after urging people who bank with Barclays to stick their heads in a bucket of petrol and set themselves on fire… He said: “But, if anyone here is banking with Barclays, then, I suggest you stick your head in a bucket of fuel and set fire to it because you’re burning our planet down. And, it’s time to put this stuff behind us.”

A complaint about Packham’s comments was also made to Derbyshire Constabulary.

The complainant, a country sports enthusiast who wishes to remain anonymous, wrote to officers asking how the BBC presenter’s comments could be legal “given the recent spate of civil unrest which we have seen across the country” and those “inciting people to take direct action.”

A police spokesman said: “The video has been reviewed and no offences have been committed.

“Each incident that takes place is reviewed based on the language used as well as the specific set of circumstances in which the comments are made.

“In this instance, while there is legislation covering individuals encouraging or assisting a person or persons to cause serious harm to themselves, there is no suggestion that this is a serious attempt to influence anyone to commit any such acts.”

This preposterous non-story, bylined to Simon Trump and Steve Bird, is just the latest installment in an ongoing series of lame attack articles aimed at Packham, in each case bolstered by a convenient anonymous accuser.

Back in April 2023, the same duo reported on speculation that a vehicle working on Packham’s Springwatch programme may have been responsible for running over a badger nicknamed Bernie in Suffolk… in 2015. How did this become “news” eight years later?

The mystery surrounding the badger’s death only came to light after a keen naturalist recently posted a message on social media asking whether the BBC would ever reveal what happened to Bernie.

Details of where to find the message were not provided. This was followed by another item in August:

When Chris Packham appeared on The One Show with three goshawk chicks, the naturalist took great pride in showing how a bird of prey once near extinction in Britain is at last thriving.

But, that BBC recording is now at the centre of a police investigation over whether a wildlife crime – including the somewhat unusual practice of bird sniffing – was committed before the nation’s very eyes.

The clip, broadcast in June following a morning of filming, prompted a complaint to police that a filming licence may not have been obtained.

…The man who complained – a shooting enthusiast who does not want to be named for fear of reprisals – said: “I watched the programme and was struck by the way Mr Packham was handling and sniffing the birds. These birds are Schedule 1 protected and it is a crime to ‘intentionally or recklessly disturb at, on or near an active nest’.”

The matter was dropped in October:

Hampshire Police has written to the man who complained – an amateur shooting enthusiast who does not want to be named – to say that no charges will be brought and the case has now been closed.

It is tempting to suspect that the “country sports enthusiast”, the “keen naturalist” and the “amateur shooting enthusiast” are all the same person – or if not, that there is some coordinating intelligence behind them. Does this individual really “fear reprisals”, or is it rather that the two hacks for some reason would rather obfuscate who it is they are repeatedly relying on for their stream of easy copy?

As well as the above, in 2022 the paper also published a more serious story about Packham – this time, it was written up by the paper’s crime correspondent Martin Evans, but as with the more recent examples an unnamed individual was at the heart of it:

A mystery businessman has offered a £50,000 reward to help capture a gang who carried out a terrifying arson attack at the home of the BBC TV nature presenter Chris Packham.

Suspicion immediately fell on pro-hunting supporters who were thought to be targeting Mr Packham because of his vocal opposition to bloodsports.

But there was also fevered speculation online that the attack might actually be the work of animal rights activists who were trying to set up and discredit their opponents.

…The mystery benefactor, who claims he is not a hunting, shooting or fishing enthusiast, has appealed on a website to a number of potential parties, which he believes could help.

The website was being sued by Packham for libel (mentioned by Evans in passing), and there is no evidence that Evans did anything to verify the existence of this “mystery businessman” for himself. In his witness statement, Packham detected bad faith (para 179):

The clear message from these articles is that in addition to writing myself a death threat letter, I also fabricated the arson attack in order to, presumably, elicit further publicity and/or public sympathy. I understand that the final date for the reward to be claimed is 2 May 2023 which is the first day of listing for trial in this litigation, making a mockery of the idea that the reward is not associated with my defamation claim.

Packham’s advice to Barclay’s customers was captured by a website called Fieldsports TV, which had settled a separate libel action last November.

UPDATE (October):

On 5 October 2024, Trump and Bird produced yet another story about Packham:

Chris Packham has been forced to pay £200,000 to a pensioner and country sportsman he was accused of pursuing “vindictively” through the courts, it has been claimed.

In 2023, the naturalist and BBC presenter was awarded £90,000 in damages after the High Court upheld his defamation claims against two contributors to Country Squire, an online magazine that wrongly accused him of misleading people into donating to a tiger rescue charity.

But his case against Paul Read, a 70-year-old grandfather who was the proofreader for some of the magazine articles, was thrown out by the High Court judge.

It meant Packham, 63, became liable for the pensioner’s legal costs, and Mr Read has now claimed his damages have been dwarfed by that bill.

It is understood the Springwatch presenter had to pay £196,008, more than double the £90,000 he was awarded as damages.

Read was actually billed on the website (previously discussed here) as a “co-author” of the articles, a designation he was happy to accept until the libel action was launched. However, given that Trump and Bird go on to quote Read, why is the costs figure only “understood” to be £196,008? This implies some intermediary. The article does not explain why this is news now, 18 months after the court case.

Ten days later the same detail appeared in the Daily Mail, in a short piece by the paper’s gossip columnist Richard Eden that also contains further claims:

He [Packham] has, it emerged, sustained a grievous blow in his latest High Court battle, after which he was accused of ‘vindictively’ pursuing a 70-year-old grandfather through the courts – and was landed with a legal bill for £196,008.

But that, it seems, does not mark the end of Chris Packham’s current woes.

I can reveal that the BBC presenter has just suffered the publication in America of a marmalade-dropper of a book which has been privately published but is financed in part – so its publisher claims – by some of Packham’s BBC colleagues, with elements of research apparently supplied by High Court staff… it pulls no punches, even alleging that Packham, 63, is ‘narcissistic’ and a ‘manipulator’.

That “He” in the first sentence starts the article, which implies some botched late editing. As for the book, Eden neglects to provide its title, its author or the name of the publisher. It seems poor form to publish vicious allegations against Packham’s character – “narcissistic” and “manipulator” – that are unattributed and unexplained.

The book in fact is called The Fall of Packham, and an image of the cover was posted online by Andrew Gilruth of the Moorland Association on 8 October. No publisher is apparent, although the author is supposedly one “James Johnson”. It doesn’t seem to be for sale anywhere, and there’s no ISBN number. However, copies have been circulating privately: Jeremy Clarkson brandished a copy in an Instagram video that was noticed by the Express on 24 October (Clarkson miread the title, referring to it as the “The Fall of Chris Packham“), while celebrity farmer Gareth Wyn Jones showed off his one the next day. Several apparent references to the title of the work have also been made on Twitter/X by a law professor named Andrew Tettenborn, in undignified goading replies to Packham’s own posts (here and here).

Clearly, then, the book is being disseminated by someone with a grudge, and it provided a bit of easy work for Eden at the Mail. So why did Trump and Bird at the Telegraph ignore it? It seems unlikely that they wouldn’t have received a copy as well, and its appearance is the only news hook on which to hang Read’s award so many months after the case. Perhaps they don’t believe everything anti-Packham that comes their way.

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On LBC News, Nigel Farage has been pressed by Tom Swarbrick about his 30 July references to “reports” claiming that the Southport stabbings suspect was a Muslim who had recently arrived in the UK (an aspect of “cover up rhetoric” that I previously noted here). Here’s Farage’s reply:

One of the reasons the Southport riots were as bad as they were is we weren’t told the truth. There were stories on online from some very prominent folks with big followings, Andrew Tate, etc., suggesting the man had crossed the English Channel in a boat in October 2023. Other suggestions that he was an active Muslim, and much of this led to the riots that we saw.

I asked a very simple question: was this this person known or not [to the security services].

…Give us some clarity… I mean, I remember, the London Bridge attacker, we knew within an hour that this person was known to the security services. Whenever in Northern Ireland there was a terrorist outrage, very quickly people were told the background of the perpetrator. I asked a very simple question.

I could have said “some reports suggest he crossed the Channel last October. Some reports suggest he’s an active Muslim”. I did none of those things. What I asked for was clarity. We didn’t get clarity, and I would argue… that what happened in Southport would not have been at the same magnitude had the truth been told, and told very, very quickly. It wasn’t for many hours that we learnt more.

Here’s what Farage said at the time:

Was this guy being monitored by the security services? Some reports say he was. Others are less sure.

The next day, however, he reformulated what he had suggested:

…I also asked whether, amidst a sea of speculation, the 17-year-old involved had been under the watch of our authorities.

It’s remarkable that Farage would choose now to say that “some reports” means Andrew Tate. Most people would have understood Farage as referring to credible sources, some of which were supposedly saying the suspect was known to the security services while others were saying that this only might be the case. Anything emerging from Tate would very obviously have just been a derivative rumour. This false picture fell apart, which is why the next day Farage tried to give the impression that he had instead merely raised a broad and general question arising naturally from the circumstances.

Farage’s new self-justification fails to convince, due to several leaps and false premises.

First, Merseyside Police confirmed on the evening of 29 July that the suspect had been born in Cardiff. An update at lunchtime on 30 July said that an “incorrect” name (i.e. Ali Al-Shakati) had been circulating on social media. Farage’s statement was posted to Twitter/X a few hours after that – it appears he wants credit for not repeating specific claims that had already been debunked by the police despite the fact that the “security services” claim had been bundled in with them. Most reasonable people would have thought “well, the rest of the internet rumour was rubbish, so why should the supposed ‘MI6 watchlist’ claim be taken seriously?”. Farage, in contrast, appears to have thought “well, police have responded to the false claims overall, but here’s one detail that I can still get some mileage out of”. And he also appears to have thought, “an ‘MI6 watchlist’ can’t be right, since MI6 operate abroad, so I’ll amend to ‘security services’ as being more credible”.

Further, Farage’s comparators are bogus. A more reasonable inference from the London Bridge attack would be that if a suspect is known to the security services then this will probably come out very quickly, not that the lack of any such confirmation indicates a cover up. And in the case of Northern Ireland there was a very obvious terrorist context, with groups even phoning in to take responsibility for bombings. That’s why people were told “very quickly” (1) – but where context is unclear, it will take a few more before police will be in a position to update the public. Understanding the vast differences shouldn’t be difficult.

If Farage had merely wanted police to act more quickly to neutralise false rumours then that would have been explicit in his 30 July statement. He would also have highlighted what the police had actually said. Instead, he gave credence to the “security services” rumour, which in turn implied a context of Islamic extremism. As such, there is no reason to go along with his self-exclusion from the factors he says affected the “magnitude” of what happened in Southport, and elsewhere.

Now that the suspect has been charged and named, news reports must be guarded so as not to prejudice the trial, although unsourced claims about his alleged motivation continue to circulate on social media (I saw one instance promoted by Carl Benjamin). Given the circumstances, many social media users will either chafe at or ignore the legal requirement to describe Rudakubana as “the suspect”, and there’s scope here for bad actors to suggest that the word has been chosen by the media in order to favour him – this may seem ludicrous, but Laurence Fox claims that the media has published photographs of Rudakubana as a child in order for some reason “to make him look like the victim.”

Note

1. It should also be remembed, though, that what we were told “very quickly” as regards Northern Ireland wasn’t always correct.

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