Guardian used fake news about Cummings

Angoosed typing one up

Hateful is the Daily Mail, Sun & Daily Star not the Guardian.  I will also concede Daily Mirror from the other side.

The Dominic Cummings furore began with an untruth. ‘Police spoke to Cummings about lockdown breach’ declared The Guardian’s front page headline on May 23.

Setting the tone of subsequent coverage, the involvement of the police was an essential element of the story of how the Prime Minister’s top adviser had supposedly flouted his own rules, plunging the Government into crisis.

It imprinted into the minds of the public the idea that this was not a minor transgression but something grave, requiring police action. But this was not true.

Police did not speak to Mr Cummings, who was self-isolating with his wife Mary Wakefield and their son at his parents’ farm in Durham, nor did they try to speak to him, directly or through a third party. In fact, they did not have any desire to speak to him at all.

Officers did however advise his father Robert about security issues following threats of violence. Mr Cummings senior contacted police – not the other way around – soon after his son moved his family north at the end of March amid concern for his four-year-old’s welfare.

The move was also partly motivated by safety fears. Reports had suggested Cummings opposed lockdown and did not care about Covid deaths, claims he denied but which prompted sinister visits to his London home by thugs making violent threats. Others used social media to encourage attacks.

It was against this background that his 73-year-old father sought advice from police on March 31. A Special Branch officer rang Mr Cummings senior the following morning offering guidance.

A week later, The Guardian was tipped off that Mr Cummings was staying in Durham but did not publish its story until last week.

So how did The Guardian get it so wrong, especially when, according to the reporter who wrote the story, the paper spent many weeks ensuring it was ‘absolutely bullet proof’?

It seems that hours before publication, The Guardian misinterpreted a clumsily composed Durham Police statement that read: ‘On Tuesday 31 March, our officers were made aware of reports that an individual had travelled from London to Durham and was present at an address in the city.

‘Officers made contact with the owners of that address who confirmed that the individual in question was present and was self-isolating in part of the house.’

Based on this, The Guardian wrongly concluded that there had been direct contact between police officers and Mr Cummings.

The Daily Mirror, which collaborated with The Guardian on the story, avoided the same trap by saying officers ‘spoke to his [Mr Cummings’s] family’. But it also claimed Mr Cummings was ‘investigated’ by police. Again this was wrong.

The police statement also said officers ‘explained to the family the arrangements around self-isolation... and reiterated the appropriate advice around essential travel’.

However, a day after issuing their first statement, police released another one – this time conceding it was ‘at the request of Mr Cummings’s father’ that they had spoken to him.

Two days later, the statement changed again. This time, police admitted they had given ‘no specific advice on coronavirus to any members of the [Cummings] family... Our officer did, however, provide the family with advice on security issues’.

The Sunday Mirror and The Guardian’s sister paper, The Observer, also claimed Mr Cummings had further broken lockdown roles by returning to Durham, where a witness apparently saw him in bluebell woods on April 19. This allegation, if true, could have sunk Mr Cummings since it undermined the credibility of his original justification for visiting his parents. He had said he was doing the ‘right thing’ by seeking the support of his family because he and his wife were too ill to look after their son.

But Mr Cummings vehemently denied making a second trip. And The Guardian has not produced any evidence beyond a sighting by an unnamed source.

Another witness who claimed to have seen him on April 19 said yesterday that he made the story up as a joke. Last night, the paper declined to say whether it stood by its second visit claim.

A Guardian spokesman said: ‘Without our investigation, Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham, and his subsequent trip to Barnard Castle, which have caused widespread anger among the public and across the political spectrum, would not have come into the public domain.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8372923/How-story-sparked-week-national-rage-fuelled-fake-news.html

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don't no why we,re wetting ourselves with what paper,s said whe we cummings statement and police report leading to 83% of public thinking he broke the rule,cummings obviouslt thought reports were close enough ,good enough to force him in to making a statement

People getting upset about fake news?

Well I never. Whatever next Dorris isn’t a liar and neither us Cummings

What a shocker

and what does the Liar tweet about it tonight?

Will they apologise? Shirley they have nothing to regret

they didn't cry wolf,cumming,s admitted the rest ,just didn't think he broke any rules, the police and 83% of public disagree with him

Agreed #scum media

The Torygaph, The Sun, The Excess

did you think it was guido fawkes,harewoon,grimes etc that potted him and were protesting outside his house
by the way the usual suspects were blaming the remoaning civIl service last week,no doubt an apology in coming, NOT

It is now clear why Starmer did not comment much on Cummings.

His own people are own there doing what they want seeing married lovers etc.

Has the Guardian retracted any of the lies they published that have undermined public health?

What will Cummings sue for?


He's a proven liar so nowt there

Reputation..... Lol


He might get awarded a penny, and end up paying costs.

At least we now know the motive behind the lies from the pro-EU/leftist mob.

They could not care less about public health.

All they care about is getting one man sacked for protecting his son.

So were the public not entitled to know that Cummings fled to what at best was his 2nd home despite all the government spokespeople telling people not to. I suspect the suggestion that Cummings is going to sue is the real fake news here.

GET LIBEL DONE

Insider traitor trying to block freedom of speech



GET LIBEL DONE

and sick too

this by the way at same time cummings wife told the world he was in bed unable to move a muscel

Are you proposing to close down The Spectator, 1st time poster?

If Bojo is so determined to have Mr Cummings on his side I'll accept it given the excessive time the debacle has generated. But, I'll take consolation in what Mr Van-Tam said yesterday at the daily Press Briefing on Covid-19 ie the rules were clear, and they applied to everyone.

Guardian condemned out of their own spokesman's mouth PP.