Drat it!
I spotted a pair of Lewis Goodall tweets this afternoon which, even by his standards, were outrageously opinionated - Boris-bashing tweets in response to the Spectator's Fraser Nelson saying that Boris Johnson is a centrist Tory who has shown the way for well-mannered conservatives (who think like Fraser) to overcome right-wing populism.
Former Labour activist Lewis (now Newnight's policy editor) attacked both Spectator Fraser and PM Boris 'from the Left', tweeting something to the effect that Boris was a law-breaking right-winger who'd done nasty populist things last year.
It was another very bad batch of Lewis Goodall tweets, bias-wise, and I intended to transcribe them as another gob-smacking Gotcha.
But, alas, while on the verge of doing so, I got drawn away by family and friends for a few hours and on getting back to the internet found that Lewis had deleted the jaw-dropping tweets I'd seen. And then the wine flowed and my memory became befuddled.
And he'd also deleted a follow-up tweet. (Goodness knows what it said).
What to do?
What to do?
The moral of this story: As a blogger you should always screengrab biased tweets while you can, lest they get deleted...
...Ah but, seriously, just as I was about to post this (live blogging!), and after trying everything to re-find that original tweets in recent hours, I've just spotted a left-wing Twitterer saying that Lewis was "100000% right!!!" and, praise be!, he's screengrabbed the original Lewis Goodall tweets.
Bingo!
The third deleted tweet is still missing, but the first two can now be transcribed:
So that's what Newsnight's Lewis Goodall tried to vanish down the memory hole by deleting his tweets.
Did he realise that he'd gone too far, bias-wise? Or did someone at the BBC instruct him to delete these tweets?
...Ah but, seriously, just as I was about to post this (live blogging!), and after trying everything to re-find that original tweets in recent hours, I've just spotted a left-wing Twitterer saying that Lewis was "100000% right!!!" and, praise be!, he's screengrabbed the original Lewis Goodall tweets.
Bingo!
The third deleted tweet is still missing, but the first two can now be transcribed:
- For a good proportion of last year, the government pretended it would break the law if it had to. Think its fair to say, it's not a conventional centrism.
- Moreover a key part of the government's susccess [sic] in the election was centred on running against Britain's political institutions. Whether that's right or wrong, good or bad, that is a key tenet of populism.
So that's what Newsnight's Lewis Goodall tried to vanish down the memory hole by deleting his tweets.
Did he realise that he'd gone too far, bias-wise? Or did someone at the BBC instruct him to delete these tweets?
I think he had a phone call. Who from? Fran perhaps. She might be going for the Big One, and doesn't want any political rows with the Conservatives spoiling her chances of securing the top job.
ReplyDeleteDeleting tweets is more the province of over-loquacious actors and pop stars. It reflects badly on his judgment that he is having to censor himself!