This afternoon, I received a pitch email with an unusually pointed opening. “Dear Sir/Madam,” it began. “I am writing to invent a story.” This, I assume, was some kind of translation error, but it’s possible, given what is shaping up to be the theme of the day, that it was actually an admirable profession of honesty about its author’s desire to get some more fake news out there into the world.
Anyway, about that theme. I’ll keep it brief because it’s complicated, depressing, and we’re all going to die, but over the last day and a bit the following things have happened. The Yorkshire Post published a story about a four year old boy with suspected pneumonia who lack of beds had forced to sleep on a pile of coats on a hospital floor. Some Tories were dispatched to the Leeds General Infirmary, where they met some protestors from Momentum. A Tory walked into a protestor’s arm, unnamed “senior Tories” briefed journalists including ITV’s Robert Peston and the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg that terrible violent lefties were now hitting Tories on the campaign trail, and the journalists tweeted the news…
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