Madrasa stains, or The Guardian takes a second bite at the cherry

Having run Robert Booth’s dodgy journalism on the front page of its Saturday edition, the Guardian today waived the opportunity to rely on blaming second string weekend staff.

It didn’t make the print edition (tomorrow?) but Booth has decided to reheat his story about the Young Britons’ Foundation, and its founder, Donal Blaney. Since even the Guardian draws the line at just reprinting the same story, the leftovers are spiced up with news of the resignation of James Cutts.

If your response to that name is “Who?”, you’re in good company. As Keep Right Online pointed out today, Mr. Cutts was hardly a major player, and for a supposed press officer he seems to be in need of the very training YBF offer.

Personally, I find it interesting that Cutts was supposedly unaware of Donal Blaney’s views until now. He’s not exactly new to politics – he was commenting to the BBC as Chairman of a CF branch back in 2001 – so he must be startlingly poorly informed. You might excuse Robert Booth on the grounds that he’s not a political hack (not much call for an architecture reporter to be familiar with conservative politics) but it’s more difficult to credit the idea of a CF-er of that long standing being unfamiliar with Donal Blaney and his blog.

The latest installment of this story has another point of interest, a comment from Gill Marshall-Andrews, Chairwoman of the Gun Control Network:

We are deeply disturbed that elements of the Conservative party are allying themselves with the organisation Young Britons’ Foundation, whose aims include liberalisation of gun laws, and that senior Conservative figures are espousing the views of this disturbing group

But hang on a second – since when was liberalisation of gun laws one of the aims of the YBF? I’d love to see Marshall-Andrews provide a source for that. You’re certainly not going to find anything on that topic on the YBF’s website. She goes on to say

Ordinary people in the UK are fearful of guns and do not want to see a return to the pre-Dunblane situation where pistol shooting was the ‘fastest growing sport’. Then we were clearly heading along the American road, a road we fervently hope that the Conservatives will not take us down again.

Now I’m even more confused. Had anyone – even the more strident Labourite – ever heard the Conservative leadership propose reversing the handgun ban? I mean, I have to assume that Gill Marshall-Andrews has, because otherwise she’s just scaremongering, and doing so with a specific political target (not that it’d be the first time the Gun Control Network has been accused of scaremongering).

Isn’t it a little odd that the Gun Control Network should be commenting on this story, given the lack of a direct link? Let’s just pause to note that Gill Marshall-Andrews just happens to be the wife of Bob Marshall-Andrews, Labour MP for Medway.

On a side note: Medway, as the political geeks among you will be aware, is a significant marginal. Bob Marshall-Andrews has a majority of less than 250 – reduced from over 5,000 in 1997 – and he’s standing down this year. His replacement, Teresa Murray, is expected to lose to the renamed Rochester and Strood constituency to the Conservative PPC, Mark Reckless, who, in a pleasing coincidence, is a close friend of Daniel Hannan MEP…a member of the YBF’s Parliamentary Council.

It’s a small world.

Anyway, perhaps to “Chairwoman of Gun Control Network” we should append “and wife of Labour MP”.

Not that you should assume that a wife necessarily has the same political beliefs as her husband (cf. the Bercows, Cherie Booth on human rights, Samantha Cameron – if you believe the rumours), but it does help to know the background.

All the background.

If you’re wondering why the Guardian would be reheating and reserving this kind of dodgy journalism, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. Way back in 2006, George Osborne vowed to move all public sector job ads from newspapers to a new official website. The biggest loser would be the Guardian, which earns millions of pounds every year from public sector recruitment adverts placed in its Society section.

This small conflict of interest – if the Tories get into power, the Guardian could go bust – has been noted before, but with the General Election coming up it is taken on a new importance. Marc Glendenning’s recent article for Conservative Home brought it back into the foreground.

The Guardian are clearly hoping that others will pick up this story, but so far they’ve been disappointed. It made the Telegraph website yesterday, but only as a comment piece from Martin Salter MP – a Vice Chair of the Labour Party. I’d talk about it, but James Dellingpole has already delivered a excellent response on the Telegraph today.

And the only other place which picked up the story? Cairo based IslamOnline.net, an English language Islamic news site.

Which makes me think that Robert Booth and the Guardian be back to try again on this story, and that we’ll see more thin innuendos gracing the front page.

Watch this space.

AMENDED 201003091349: Correcting a typo. Misspelled the word wife h-u-s-b-a-n-d… D’oh!