B. Fracas

[Carl Bovis @CarlBovisNature]

I'm a nature photographer and all my photos are genuine. 🙏🐦❤️

[B. Fracas @Cassiusus]

@rosegeorge3 @LBFlyawayhome

[Paul Holden @pauleholden]

This a deeply disappointing, borderline irresponsible interview of Morgan McSweeney from @bbcnickrobinson. It looks like impunity in action. Has the media not learnt any lessons from Mandelson and of the need to properly scrutinise political actors?

It is the BBC's job to hold political actors to account, to pose them real questions, and to get them to put a proper version of events on the record.

That is all the more important for a figure like McSweeney, who has wielded extraordinary power and has led or participated in attacks on legitimate, factual journalism, but who has never spoken about his role in these scandals on the record.

The interview doesn't touch, once, on the rock-solid evidence of McSweeney's serious unlawful misconduct or the Labour Together/APCO scandal. This stuff is widely available and easy to verify.

Here is a reminder of what we know about McSweeney, about which he wasn't asked a single thing:

1. McSweeney was Company Secretary of Labour Together from July 2017 to April 2020. During this period he failed to report over £700,000 in donations to the Electoral Commission. This was plainly unlawful. LT was found guilty and fined for this offence, but said in public it was an 'administrative oversight.'

2. McSweeney failed to report donations after he had unsuccessfully attempted to convince the Electoral Commission he didn't need to report them in late 2017.

3. McSweeney failed to report donations after the Electoral Commission told him, explicitly, that Labour Together had a legal duty to report donations.

4. McSweeney engaged in a two-month correspondence with the Electoral Commission in early 2018, in which it was clear he knew he had to report donations. Yet he failed to do so for over two years thereafter.

5. McSweeney failed to report donations even though he was telling MPs he was reporting donations, and even though Labour Together's website also stated that it was declaring donations to the Electoral Commission.

6. McSweeney failed to report donations even after Shabana Mahmood, on Labour Together's behalf, wrote an article for LabourList in February 2020 stating that Labour Together was reporting its donations. At the very time Mahmood wrote the donations, LT was taking in donations it was failing to declare.

7. McSweeney used this undeclared money, to fight an undeclared, covert war on the Labour Party leadership between 2017 and 2020. He also used it to pay for polling which was then fed into Starmer's leadership bid. Materials produced by McSweeney during his time at LT was fed, word-for-word, into Starmer's campaigning material. According to Rachel Wearmouth, McSweeney spent 'every spare moment' during the last six weeks of 2019 to prepare Starmer's leadership bid, during which time McSweeney was drawing a salary from LT.

8. When Labour Together was put under investigation by the Electoral Commission for McSweeney's failure to report donations, McSweeney was consulted by LT's lawyer Gerald Shamash. The email recording this consultation and its contents were published by the Tory Chairman Kevin Hollinrake and have been available in public for a year. The email raises serious questions about whether LT was candid in its responses to the Electoral Commission and, in particular, McSweeney's correspondence with the Commission in 2017/2018 that shows he was aware of the need to report donations. Early correspondence between LT and the Electoral Commission shows that, despite being asked to provide all information of relevance to the Commission's inquiries, LT failed to even mention McSweeney's name, let alone the phone call.

9. In early 2019 McSweeney launched an astroturf campaign called Stop Funding Fake News (SFFN) , with his friend and factional ally Imran Ahmed. It was supported by @SteveReedMP and operated out of the same office as Labour Together. SFFN purposefully set out to 'eviscerate' the economic viability of @TheCanaryUK and to destroy the livelihoods of its journalists, many of whom were long-time members of the National Union of Journalists.

At no stage in its first year operation did SFFN declare its controlling minds. Instead it presented itself as a 'grassroots' campaign of well-meaning activists.

McSweeney and Ahmed tried to take out proper journalism because they saw it as a threat to their political objectives. "Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us," is what McSweeney told Labour Together insiders according to Anushka Asthana.

SFFN made promiscuous allegations of antisemitism against The Canary - the antisemitism that McSweeney claims is what drove his factional war on the left - which were found to have no substance when reviewed by a panel of media lawyers and practitioners at media regulator Impress. SFFN repeatedly inferred that The Canary was antisemitic because it run articles quoting left-wing and anti-Zionist Jews disturbed by aspects of the "antisemitism crisis."

10. SFFN also targeted well-known US media sites, which led to McSweeney being directly called out by the US State Department. His colleague, Imran Ahmed, is now sanctioned by the US because the US accuses the company he and McSweeney set up, CCDH, of being part of a global censorship complex.

11. When I started reporting on McSweeney's undeclared money and his secret campaigns, including by taking damning primary documents to the Sunday Times, Labour Together appointed APCO Worldwide to produce a 'package' that would 'proactively undermine' my factually accurate, public interest reporting.

To be clear: APCO were hired to 'proactively undermine' my reporting on McSweeney and his role in Starmer's rise. The intention, as shown in internal docs, was to protect both Starmer and McSweeney's reputations ahead of an imminent general election, while I was trying to warn people about the true nature of this project and it's unlawful origins.

12. APCO produced an insane, ludicrous, highly defamatory report that accused me, my family and my colleagues of being part of a pro-Kremlin network of journalists and speculating that I received hacked documents from Russia. APCO also investigated @Gabriel_Pogrund, with whom I'd collaborated with on the Sunday Times story, making a series of offensive comments about him and his ethnicity. APCO identified a range of other journalists in the UK and US as "persons of interest" to be investigated.

This highly invasive, despicable investigation targeted my work colleagues and my family, including by finding my home address and mapping my personal relationships. Labour Together and its Managing Director, Josh Simons, reported me to the National Cyber Security Centre on the basis of this mad, insane report.

13. Less than a month ago, it was revealed that McSweeney and his buddy Paul Ovenden (later Chief of Strategy at Number 10, who would resign following revelations from my book) were copied into emails about the investigation. McSweeney plainly knew about APCO's investigation. Simons, in one mail, wrote to set up a meeting with McSweeney, Ovenden and APCO's Tom Harper in 'HQ' to discuss the 'Paul Holden report.'

Three days after this meeting I was reported to the NCSC, along with my colleagues and family members. Emails show Simons was coached in how to make a 'crime report' about me to the NCSC.

14. The APCO/Labour Together scandal was so ugly and so damning that Labour Together has been forced to change its name. It also led to the resignation of Josh Simons as a Junior Minister. The Speaker of the House has supported calls for a Parliamentary inquiry into Labour Together.

15. Josh Simons thereafter stepped aside as the MP for Makerfield in order to make way for Andy Burnham, the incoming PM who has displaced McSweeney's man, Starmer. There is a straight and clear line between attempts to protect McSweeney from scrutiny in 2024 and Starmer's resignation in 2026.

So, to make this clear: there was a massive scandal because plans were put in motion to stop questions being asked about McSweeney's unlawful failure to declare money... and now the public broadcaster is failing to ask McSweeney questions about the money. Has the media learnt nothing from the Mandelson scandal about what happens when you don't properly scrutinise political actors?

And here's some things McSweeney and Robinson did talk about, but which doesn't bear scrutiny:

1. Starmer didn't just take some suits and glasses as 'freebies' during the election campaign. He took over £100k in freebies between 2021 and 2024, more than every Labour leader since Tony Blair combined. In addition to free clothes, Starmer took football tickets, tickets to watch the horse racing, and free holiday accommodation for his family from a billionaire. One of his football freebies was donated by a company that had only just been forced to pay a £11m settlement because the installed faulty and potentially flammable cladding on tower blocks in Gosport. Taking these donations means that Starmer had conflicted himself on key areas of policy even before he was elected.

2. Both McSweeney and Robinson quickly collude in claiming that Sir Keir Starmer didn't say that Israel 'has that right' to shut off water, fuel, food and electricity to Gaza. But we've all seen the video, where what Starmer has said is utterly plain. Multiple Ministers went on air to defend the statement thereafter. Does the BBC really think that huge numbers of Muslim councillors immediately left the Party by mistake, because they can't understand plain English?

3. McSweeney has said that Labour Together was 'neutral' during the 2020 leadership election. But Labour Together, and its key associates, have said repeatedly since 2022/2023 that LT backed Starmer's leadership bid. You can find these comments on the Wayback Machine in about two minutes.

4. McSweeney says he never intended to rid the Party of Corbynism. There are now multiple accounts, including from the country's leading political editors and journalists, about how McSweeney crafted and distributed strategy documents, including a plan called 'Operation Red Shield' and a 2017 SWOT analysis, that set out plans to undermine Corbyn's leadership and install a new leader who would 'renew' the Party.

5. This is not the first time that McSweeney has spoken to the media. Instead, it is the first time he has let his comments be attributed to him in public. Multiple journalists have spoken about how he was the source of stories damaging to his opponents. While he was Chief of Staff at Number 10, he was meeting with the editors of the major UK newspapers more regularly than Number 10's own head of comms. We know this because transparency regulations means that these meetings are recorded and can easily found on the gov website. This man has shaped our media discourse, and our political epistemology, in profound and disturbing ways. It is utterly disingenuous to claim that this is the first time he's spoken to the media.

[Helen Day @LBFlyawayhome]

When I was growing up, space exploration was BIG.
Books, music, TV, the news …

But nobody did it better.

[Helen Day @LBFlyawayhome]

Ladybird Book of Trees, 1963
Walnut and Dogwood
Artist: SR Badmin

[Bradford Cat Watch Rescue @BCWRkittens]

New arrival at Bradford Cat Watch Rescue and Sanctuary.
This is Loo.
We were contacted this teatime by Bradford council staff as a cat had been dumped in a carrier in the ladies toilets.

[Blind Cat Rescue @BlindCatRescue]

#COTD Charity is a blind kitty who loves to lounge outside on her Kuranda shelves. You can typically find her napping or cuddling with one of her roommates. She loves belly rubs and laying in the toy bed when there’s catnip in it!

Read More: https://t.co/yACS1naEyx

[Battersea @Battersea_]

Don't scroll past without saying hi to Sir Loves-a-Lot! Can you believe this charming guy has been with us for over 8 months? 🙀

Sir Loves-a-Lot needs a patient and calm home. Please share to help him find his person! 💙

Learn more about him here: https://t.co/Z0Xgz7zZw7

[Robert Allotment cat,now helped by Janet & Amanda @AllotmentCat]

(Amanda)

I'm sharing this news about Rainbow Day today.

Uncle David made this poster for us and he's done a really good job, hasn't he?

It's going to be such a special day and I hope to be there too .... but I'm not promising.

Betty would like you to let her know if you are coming because spce is limited (I don't know what that means but I'm sure it makes sense)

[Helen Day @LBFlyawayhome]

Other work of the Ladybird artists.
‘Countisbury Hill’
Artist: SR Badmin

[Carl Bovis @CarlBovisNature]

Grey Heron flypast! 😀
Taken recently at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset. 😊🐦

[Toby Hadoke @TobyHadoke]

Some words on the lovely Kay Patrick - Doctor Who actress, Corrie director and so much more:

https://t.co/Kf6RsCr2Q1

[Earth-ed @Animalww26]

With a Red Weather Warning in place for Wednesday and Thursday please keep yourselves, your furry family and wildlife safe 🐾

[Niall Harbison @NiallHarbison]

If you like the dogs I share and they cheer you up daily, I’d love you to watch this one video.

I only do this once a year and never ask any other time.

You can support here and if you can’t sharing this video helps 🙏 https://t.co/Roftrb3ZWW

[Help2Rehome Scotland @H2RScotland]

Teddy is still waiting for a new home, can you please share to help him on his way?
It’s proving quite difficult to find a male only home for this lovely fella. 🐾

[Carl Bovis @CarlBovisNature]

Canada Goose family on the river. 😍
Taken last week at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset.

[Carl Bovis @CarlBovisNature]

A Robin keeping an eye on me at RSPB Ham wall last week. 😍😊🐦

[Help2Rehome Scotland @H2RScotland]

0 enquiries today for Coco. Can you please share? We cover the whole of Scotland and will also consider homes further afield too.

In most cases we can arrange a home check anywhere in the UK and help with transport if suitable. No one is ruled out due to distance or where you stay.

Please email [email protected] or feel free to give us a call tomorrow between 10am and 4pm on 0330 133 4594 if you can offer Coco a new home.

[Cloudymamma @cloudymamma]

Roses Roses Roses 💕🌹 💕

Beautiful Dog Roses cascading down in great abundance

#RoseWednesday

[George The Stourbridge Junction Station Cat @TheStourbridge]

From pencil to paint.

From wool to watercolour.

From schoolbooks to station walls.

Meownself has been recreated in countless ways, but every version tells the same story:

One cat, loved by many. 🧡🐈

I am so very fortunate, thank you friends 🧡