As well as sneering at Corbyn for not having resigned, and left the way clear for the Blairites to continue their destruction of the welfare state, the NHS – they want to privatise that too – and the working class – Private Eye also got very snooty in its issue for the 5th-18th August 2016 about Corbyn supporters not taking Angela Eagle’s story that they’d broken the window of her constituency office. In a piece entitled ‘Shaken & Stirred’, the Eye fully backed the claim that the Corbynistas were responsible for the broken window, and for harassing Eagle generally. They also claimed that the internet peeps, who actually investigated it were ‘conspiracy theorists’ and called the ‘Truthers’, comparing them to the paranoids, who believe that it’s really the Americans, or Mossad, or whoever, who were really responsible for 9/11, rather than Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, backed by senior members of the Saudi government.
The Eye writes
Shortly after Labour leadership challenger Angela Eagle’s constituency office was vandalised, a “window truther” movement sprung up amongst more fervent Corbynistas.
This centred on a YouTube video which purported to prove that since the brick in question had actually landed on a shared staircase rather than the room her staff actually worked in (and where they had to disconnect the phones due to a torrent of abusive calls), Eagle was lying about the incident and “twisting reality to suite [sic] her own political agenda. The theory quickly gained ground online, alongside various “false flag” conspiracies that even had the MP lobbying the brick herself to discredit the saintly Corbyn.
On 22nd July the beleaguered Eagle spoke to the Daily Telegraph about the hostility she was facing, and said of Corbyn: “He has been stirring, he needs to be held to account.” Questioned on BBC Five Live that morning, the Labour leader was quick to deny it all. “I deeply regret the language that Angela is using,” Corbyn sighed. “As soon as I heard about the brick that was thrown through part of the building where her office is I called her…”
No stirring there then!
To which one could add: no lies and bias from Private Eye either. I’ve put up one of the videos that was made by the ‘window truthers’. Rather than being ‘fervent’ or wild-eyed fanatics, as the Eye would have us believe, they seemed entirely rational. For a start, they pointed out that the brick came through a window onto the building’s staircase. The Eye’s article states that the brick landed on a shared staircase, but does not correct the claim that it came through Eagle’s window. It didn’t. This is misleading. Other people, who lived in the area have pointed out that it’s actually prone to a high level of vandalism. Eagle saw no reason to comment on any of this, despite the fact that incidents had already occurred near the building. Neither did the Eye. We also have only Eagle’s claim that the Corbynistas were responsible. And she is, in my opinion, a proven liar. She claimed that she was subject to harassment at a meeting of her constituency party in Wallasey, including homophobic abuse. People, who were there, including the mother of a woman in a same-sex marriage, noted no such thing. She has offered no evidence that the brick was thrown by a Corbyn supporter. And nor do we have anything but her word, and that of the Eye, that the phones in her office had to be disconnected because she was receiving a ‘torrent of abuse’. She’s lied before. Without corroborating evidence, I see no reason not to view that as another lie.
They also insinuate that Corbyn was stirring when he phoned Eagle up about the incident. But we only have the Eye’s word on that. They don’t tell us what he actually said. He could have phoned to deny the incident and expressed his sympathies for her. We simply don’t know, as the Eye’s article doesn’t tell us. Probably because it doesn’t support their story that it was all due to Corbyn and his incitement of the mob. So more lies and half-truths.
And finally, there’s the small issue of the name the Eye deigned to call those people, who had the ghastly temerity to challenge Eagle’s line about the brick: ‘window truthers’. I don’t know anyone who’s called them that. It looks very much like a term either the Blairites or Private Eye has pulled out of their rectums to smear them.
So the article’s just a mish-mash of half-truths and insinuations, intended to discredit Corbyn in the Blairite’s favour. One upon a time the Eye was a critic of the Blairites, and their campaign to privatise education, the Health Service, and cut the welfare state and inflict workfare. Now it appears that they’ve changed their view slightly, and want to support on the spurious grounds that they’re the best chance against the Tories. Except they’re not. But the increasingly establishment Eye ain’t going to tell you that.
Here’s the video I put up a few weeks ago taking down her lies about the window. Watch it, and judge for yourself whether it’s the truth or not.
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 