Ben Bradley apologises unreservedly for Corbyn spy claims

[Ken Burch]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ben-bradley-apologises-unreservedly-for-corbyn-spy-claims?CMP=share_btn_fb

The Conservative MP Ben Bradley has apologised unreservedly and will make a substantial donation to charity for a tweet making claims about Jeremy Corbyn’s links to cold war spies, the Labour party said.
Bradley, who has more than 4,000 followers on Twitter, alleged on Monday that Corbyn had “sold British secrets to communist spies”. The tweet, which has since been deleted, followed newspaper reports claiming that Corbyn gave information to a spy during the cold war.
Corbyn was alleged to have met Ján Sarkocy, a Czechoslovakian diplomat in London who was expelled as a spy in the 1980s. Corbyn rejected the allegations as “ridiculous smears”.

Labour said on Saturday that Bradley, 28, had agreed never to repeat the allegations.
The apology was welcomed by Labour, which said the funds would be split between a homeless outreach centre and a food bank in Bradley’s constituency of Mansfield.

[Ken Burch]

1. More:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/24/ben-bradley-apologises-unreservedly-for-corbyn-spy-claims?CMP=share_btn_fb

Labour said Bradley would tweet the following apology: “On 19 February 2018 I made a seriously defamatory statement on my Twitter account, ‘Ben Bradley MP (bbradleymp)’, about Jeremy Corbyn, alleging he sold British secrets to communist spies. I have since deleted the defamatory tweet. I have agreed to pay an undisclosed substantial sum of money to a charity of his choice, and I will also pay his legal costs.
“I fully accept that my statement was wholly untrue and false. I accept that I caused distress and upset to Jeremy Corbyn by my untrue and false allegations, suggesting he had betrayed his country by collaborating with foreign spies.
“I am very sorry for publishing this untrue and false statement and I have no hesitation in offering my unreserved and unconditional apology to Jeremy Corbyn for the distress I have caused him.”
A spokesperson for Corbyn said: “We are pleased Ben Bradley has admitted what he said was entirely untrue and apologised, and that charities in Mansfield will benefit.
“Following the botched smear campaign against Jeremy, this case shows we are not going to let dangerous lies go unchallenged.”



[LeftishBrit]

2. This is ridiculous stuff

Basically McCarthyism repeating itself as farce.

I am sure that all politicians have MET all kinds of people. That doesn't mean that they've spied for them. What access would Corbyn have had to classified info anyway? 'Oh Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Brezhnev would like a bit of advice on how to grow vegetables; can you help?'

As for Ben Bradley, I'm glad he apologized- the possibility of a major lawsuit can do that!- and I now await his similarly abject apologies to unemployed people ('a vast sea of wasters' who should be sterilized); and public sector workers (who should just change jobs if they don't like their pay or conditions). Come to think of it, he's a public sector worker himself; and as a taxpayer, I wish he would find another job!

[Ken Burch]

4. Bradley's constituency is extremely marginal...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

Based on the changes in the vote between 2015 and 2017, it appears he was ONLY able to gain the seat(prior to that, Mansfield had been Labour since 1923), it appears that the only reasons Bradley scraped through(by a little over 1,000 votes) were the collapse of the UKIP vote and the hate campaign against Jeremy carried on by both the media and by those in the PLP who kept trying to oust him as leader even AFTER the election had been called, even when they knew changing leaders was not possible and that no one who could have been put in at that time could have brought the party together and demonstrated any personal appeal to the electorate).

Absent even one of those factors, Mansfield would never have gone Tory at all.

[Denzil_DC]

3. Andrew Neil (I'm not usually a fan) skewers squirming Brexit Minister Steve Baker

Link to tweet

(Four-minute Twitter video embed - well worth watching if you can.)

BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics
✔
@daily_politics

“Has he betrayed his country?” asks @afneil after claim from defence secretary about the Labour leader

"Jeremy Corbyn, I think, is a grave danger to this country because of the ideas in which he believes and what that would mean..." @SteveBakerHW

As you may recall, Baker (shame Neil didn't press him for himself being a grave danger to this country, including lying to Parliament about the existence of the papers detailing the economic impact of Brexit, but baby steps ...) has form for spreading politically convenient paranoia:

Brexit minister forced into apology for maligning civil service

One of Theresa May’s Brexit ministers has been forced to apologise after airing claims in parliament that civil servants had deliberately produced negative economic models to influence policy.

The comments resulted in Steve Baker being accused of maligning the civil service for the second time in a week after he previously told MPs that economic forecasts by officials were “always wrong”.

Downing Street initially backed the minister despite the fierce backlash, but later said he had made a “genuine mistake” after a recording brought into question what he had said.

The row began after Baker was asked by Jacob Rees-Mogg, a senior Eurosceptic Tory backbencher, to confirm that a Europe expert had told him Treasury officials “had deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad, and that officials intended to use this to influence policy”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/feb/01/brexit-minister-steve-baker-accused-for-second-time-of-maligning-civil-service

[Ken Burch]

5. I've seen Andrew Neil on many interview clips from here.

When HE thinks you've wronged somebody on the Left, that's astonishing.