Fame at last. Find me on
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and wherever else you get your kicks. How to grow your influence by finding, making and telling better stories
One of the things my non-Jewish friends here in the UK can’t grasp. An open invitation to pay respect to murdered Jews is attended almost entirely by Jews. A march for Palestine attracts thousands of non-Palestinians. Which is fine - but we feel so alone in our own country
It is ironic that this column about the submarine tragedy from Boris Johnson is accompanied by a story of ignored warnings, ridiculed whistleblowers, rule-breaking, cutting corners, incompetence, hubris, arrogance and alleged lying
@toadmeister
@Arwenstar
Surely 'speculated'. How can you conclude something when you don't have access to the actual medical data of the individual involved?
There is a very odd follow up question here from Laura Kuenssberg. The PM says - wrongly - that he followed all advice without hesitating. But instead of challenging that she says: ‘maybe the scientists were wrong’. As if that’s what he wants her to say and us to think
"Maybe there were things we could have done differently"
PM Boris Johnson tells
@bbclaurak
there will be time to "understand what exactly" the government could have done to tackle coronavirus
Sometimes he verges on the polemical but
@piersmorgan
@GMB
interview today with the embarrassingly bad Helen Whately is astonishing. Find it somehow. It's a brilliant example of angry, urgent journalistic scrutiny. And a terrible example of government PR incompetence
Weird feeling for someone who voted to remain in the EU to watch it implode over UK’s ability to work faster and harder to get more vaccines. It is a brilliant advert for Brexit - and for the ancient principle of first come, first served
Yet again where is Dido Harding? Surely she knows better than anyone that if you’re the boss and things go wrong you have to show leadership. And the testing debacle is yours
@didoharding
This isn't just pathetic and cowardly - it's wholly irresponsible
@piersmorgan
. People need information at a time of crisis on as many news outlets as possible
The UK Govt has banned any ministers from appearing on
@GMB
after a series of them made complete fools of themselves in the face of basic & important questions.
This is a pathetic & cowardly response to THEIR shameful incompetence.
cc
@BorisJohnson
.
@10DowningStreet
Overly forgiving, careless with money, unwilling to address flaws, abandoning him during illness, forcing him to change nappies and unsophisticated. It’s his wife who’s to blame for Boris Johnson’s woes says Tom Bower whose own wife is a close friend of and was ennobled by Boris
I voted against leaving the EU and am desperately disappointed about our isolated position. And then unelected bureaucrats like Ursula von der Leyen announce things like this and I wonder if I was wrong all along...
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has threatened to block vaccine exports to the UK and other countries with markedly higher rollouts of coronavirus jabs.
Read more:
I think Piers Morgan is going to be essential viewing over the coming weeks
@GMB
- and my advice would be for any Minister
@piersmorgan
and
@susannareid100
interviews to have facts and figures to hand...otherwise you look shifty
If Peaky Blinders had been made in America by
@HBO
with all resources that comes with it, we'd be talking about it as one of the great drama series. We're too reticent about the talents of Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory, Tom Hardy and especially Steven Knight
@ThePeakyBlinder
For 90 minutes,
@BBCr4today
has repeatedly referred to Liz Truss as the ‘first female foreign secretary’. Is there really no one on the programme who has heard of Margaret Beckett?
@MattHancock
Matt, you're completely right. Could this pledge also be extended to multi-national companies who - by using expensive lawyers - are able to avoid contributing to the UK economy through taxes that I must pay?
Still one thing bugging me about the Hancock affair: surveillance video taken on and stolen from super-secure government property. How much more is there and from where else?
Why is Rishi Sunak seeking pandemic advice from Gordon Ramsay, a multi-millionaire British TV star who lives in LA, has siphoned off taxpayers money to pay staff and whose restaurants are so expensive that most people will never visit them?
Over the next few weeks I'm speaking to industry leaders and experts to hear how they've reacted to the pandemic.
It starts tomorrow with
@GordonRamsay
who sat down with me to talk about the challenges facing hospitality and how he launched a TV show in lockdown.
#PlanForJobs
This exchange between
@piersmorgan
and Edward Argar basically feels like being bollocked by the editor for not knowing what the story is. 'Come back tomorrow'. And a completely justified bollocking
‘You don’t seem to know the numbers on anything crucial to do with this virus.’
Health Minister Edward Argar tells
@piersmorgan
and
@susannareid100
he didn’t know how many hotels are ready for quarantine or how many people obey self-isolation rules on arriving in the UK.
@StigAbell
Stig, as some of us have painfully experienced and recounted, elderly and sick people are being denied treatment for non-covid sickness and turned away from hospital. Many are dying. Having an empty one down the road doesn’t feel much like good news to be honest
Sacrilege to say this I know but has Rishi Sunak shown himself - so far - to be more of a brilliant media performer than Chancellor? The complicated, bank-reliant, impractical small business loans strategy has been a disaster when compared to other countries
Sentence of day frm Matthew Parris: ‘That he’s a habitual liar, a cheat, a conspirator, a cruel betrayer of women he seduces, a politician who connived to suppress mention of a daughter he fathered, a do-nothing mayor of London and worst foreign secretary in living memory’
#boris
Just trying to figure out whether anything else that happened around 5 or 6 years ago - anything else - might have contributed to us having to spend ‘eye-watering’ sums of money to persuade foreigners to work in the UK and then train them
This morning Sarah Vine admonishes the honesty of Harry Sussex. Sarah, of course, is married to Michael Gove who led the Brexit campaign and enjoys a reputation for his liberal use of the facts. The truth is, she’s right
“I have no idea if in the context of asymmetric warfare there is anyway to avoid civilian casualties”
Journalist Gabriel Pogrund discusses the Israel-Gaza conflict saying that he doesn't think "that either side is well served by their leaders”
#bbcqt
@George_Osborne
Unless of course you - a journalist and editor - have just retweeted messaging from a far right group pretending to be Extinction Rebellion
The brilliant
@MarinaHyde
captures the surreal nature of all of this, especially those of us who have lost loved one. Every day - every day - about 1000 people are dying of this virus. And we’re talking about police and Easter eggs
@JimBethell
James, it's not that your tweet was insensitive, more that it failed to acknowledge you have benefited from the kinds of advantages that almost no young person will ever have. They have to pass exams to succeed in life - you never did
Just so everyone knows, I sadly have had coronavirus but I'm on the mend. Rest assured that it was not as bad, painful or vomit-inducing as this
#imagine
#Galgadot
@BarristerSecret
It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of his own career! A commentator is not a journalist. Journalists don't 'finesse arguments under the illusion of wisdom'. That's what Matthew does
@George_Osborne
You did. But you told it so badly, uninspiringly and without any real vision that the other side won. Maybe you didn’t tell it well enough?
@JimBethell
James, I agree with you. But would it be just as correct to write: sustained and repeated government refusal and inability to address junk food culture, national pollution, workers' rights, lack of funding for new technologies and show real leadership?
Dear
@JustinOnWeb
wouldn't it be useful for listeners to
@BBCr4today
to know that Dylan Jones has very close ties to the Tory party? Have no doubt Corbyn played the grandad but if editor is going to tell tales we ought to have some context
There are so many eye-watering figures from Rishi Sunak that it’s difficult to comprehend. One though stands out: £12billion has been spent so far by Dido Harding on the disastrous track and trace project
‘Funniest, rudest, most mischievous man I ever worked with.’ And my mum used to work with
@Robin_Askwith
My Saturday memories are of Greavsie lighting up a studio rather than a stadium
#JimmyGreaves
Somebody who knows somebody else mentioned that a woman said she was having an affair with Boris Johnson. Is that really a front page story or is it a diary item? No wonder the Sunday Times doesn’t carry a byline
BBC bosses: ‘We need to get out of the bubble and talk to real voters to understand what’s really happening in the country.’
@BBCr4today
: ‘Great idea, we’ll present from Britain’s top universities’.
It would surely be relevant for
@bbcnickrobinson
to introduce his guest
@FraserNelson
as editor of a magazine with extremely close connections to Rishi Sunak. Otherwise you’re deceiving people in the same way as the Sunaks have
@emilyhewertson
Running a department also comes down to an individual’s character, ethics and trustworthiness. In which case, Angela Rayner is streets ahead of Gavin Williamson
Alot of criticism of
@GBNEWS
but I think this segment with
@BeccaHutson
is the smartest thing they've done. I love it when broadcasters say 'let's look at what's in the newspapers' but that's yesterday's news. Twitter is now
Forget about the Royal connection. If you were looking after a very elderly and frail great-granny and an estranged relative came home for 15 (!) minutes, then boasted in a self-admiring interview that *he* was protecting her, you’d be fuming
#Harry
@MsHannahMurphy
Here's what to watch:
Facebook insists it WILL NOT listen or watch or scan your "Messenger Room" video calls.
There won't be ads. Facebook says it won't use the content of the calls to inform later advertising.
‘I made a case against Brexit but it wasn’t heard’ says George Osborne in BBC’s Cameron documentary. A more honest assessment would be: ‘It was heard but my argument wasn’t good enough.’ Being sorry is pointless unless you can understand why people feel so angry
#thecameronyears
We need more maverick behaviour if advertising is to enjoy a renaissance says
@rorysutherland
in this fascinating interview. More mavericks across media disciplines I'd add...
@MattGarrahan
@PickardJE
New? I've been tweeting it to the
@FT
and
@Gabriel_Pogrund
since 8am yesterday morning! Perhaps just as interesting is why Gabriel ignored the story in the first place. Because he must have known...
@George_Osborne
Without irony, you wrote an artice this week criticising politicians for imposing stringent cutbacks without even mentioning that they are in fact continuations of your own austerity drive that helped to fuel Corbyn's rise to power
@DPJHodges
Great idea. And then maybe the Mail on Sunday could write a positive story about a Labour MP and the Mirror do the same for a Conservative. Give it a go, Dan. See what the editor says
@suzanne_moore
Same feeling form me when nice Conservative woman came round and I said ‘Sorry, they’ve really let you down at Westminster.’ Her response: ‘You’re telling me!’
Yorkshire cricket’s sponsors. I wonder what they feel about the club with which they’re associated - the England cricket captain’s club - being labelled institutionally racist
#AzeemRafiq
This, above all, I can never forgive Dominic Cummings for. When he was breaking the law to take a trip to see family at Barnard Castle, I was self-isolating as he asked. And I had to listen to my dad die on the phone
@oflynnsocial
Very well argued piece Patrick. Not sure I agree entirely with you, especially the line ‘people remember these things’. Do they, will they? If so, surely that will impact the Tories even more so, to Starmer’s benefit
@jonsopel
@mrjamesob
Jon I agree with you but have they also been expressing dismay and anger at the way the BBC leadership has been so apparently poor in duty of care for all involved?
Brilliant
@JANUSZCZAK
on the Turner Prize: ‘A jury of interwoven curators who hop from international biennale to international biennale, learning the trends, drifting ever further away from the realities of art. Someone please close down the farm’
Not for 1st time, this piece by James Forsyth - married to the PM’s official spokesman, best friend of Rishi Sunak and godfather to his child - is meaningless propaganda. ‘Plugged-in’ comment means analysis not copying quotes. Miss
@PhilipJCollins1
Rishi, do you mind if I ask whether it would have also been justifiable and reasonable to take care of my dad in his dying last few days rather than stay at home as I was legally obliged to do...?
Letters from Julia Neuberger
@simonmontefiore
@KarenPollock100
that reflect the surprise, anger, disgust and dismay that so many Jews felt at the Guardian Editor’s crass defence of Jeremy Corbyn
This may well be the best piece of science comms we’ve had in a year. Brilliant
@Channel4News
programme with
@krishgm
and a totally fantastic performance from Van Tam. This should happen every week, each channel takes a turn
TONIGHT: Deputy CMO Jonathan Van Tam faces viewers questions on vaccine myths, fears over 2nd dose delay, will Covid mutations mean re-vaccinations, schools reopening, summer holidays & did govt really do everything possible to avoid 100k deaths?
#AskJVT
#c4news
7pm
Love this book recommendation from
@DAaronovitch
for Sunak and Truss. Although why not add Poe’s Fall of The House of Usher. Two incestuous survivors of a family living in a disintegrating house, full of fear, sickness, doom and guilt in which one buries the other alive
You've got to admit one thing - David Cameron is still brilliant at PR and sales. 'As I say in my book...' 'As the book makes clear...' 'In the book...' 'As I write in my book...'
@BBCr4today
‘We had no idea that a mutant variant would be so transmissible’ announces politician Steve Baker to journalist Simon Jack and no one is around to challenge this utter falsehood. Can’t we have someone with a scientific background on hand
@BBCr4today
to offer analysis and honesty
Am surprised not more fuss is being made of Sky/HBO series Landscapers. Totally brilliant. Not just the acting of David Thewlis and Olivia Coleman but the writing of Ed Sinclair and direction of Will Sharpe
#LandscapersHBO
Many things make Kirsty Young the best interviewer Desert Island Discs has ever had. But perhaps the most important is that she listens intently - the best questions are the ones that answers inspire
#KirstyYoung
#DesertIslandDiscs
@edgarwright
Totally with you. Just sat with the kids to watch Silence of The Lambs for their first time. That Jodie Foster line at the end: ‘Don’t worry miss, this is the FBI, you’re safe’ provoked such bizarre, tense, unforgettable laughter in the cinema. Not same on the sofa
@oflynnsocial
Such a good point Patrick. Broadcasters are being hammered for alleged bias but it’s their lack of imagination and resistance to change that’s more important. Viewers are bored
#thatsnotentertainment
@martinkettle
@johnharris1969
Does it honestly matter Martin? I think his behaviour is largely despicable but on this he’s right and should be applauded - these people need our help and, like your newspaper, he’s helping to keep the story alive and on the front pages