News from Labour Matters

Questions remain over Tory spin about a fake February election

Having highlighted Tory blogger Iain Dale’s shortcomings concerning his “exclusive” that Labour might be planning a snap General Election in February – a claim rubbished by the Daily Mail’s Ben Brogan within hours – Dale used his blog to launch a counter attack which (deliberately?) missed the point. Councillor Bob Piper noticed this and rebuts the recently sacked Telegraph columnist, but important questions still remain.

No doubt the News of the World will get their own back at the source who embarrassed them over their own non-story, but what of Dale’s timely source which lead to his embarrassment of an “exclusive”?

Clearly not a reliable source, yet Dale insists it didn’t come from Conservative Central Office, so who could possibly have seemed trustworthy enough to have given Dale the confidence to run such an important but uncorroborated article?

Did Iain Dale just make up, or he was fed a false story in the knowledge that he’d be unlikely to seek corroboration? Unless he spills the beans – and who’d believe a word he said now – we’re left with two choices: useful idiot or Tory propagandist. You decide.

Other news from Labour Matters

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• "Bleak unemployment figures are bad news" says John Denham - 12 October 2011
• Westminster Council to cut Taxicard budget by £500,000 a year - 11 August 2011