Andrew Gilligan: Is He Boris Johnson's Little Helper?

Boris Johnson's little helper Andrew Gilligan has yet another smear story in The Standard today. Under the headline Ken aide "breaks rules over election website" Gilligan shows no such thing. Do go and have a read and see how many deliberate mistakes you can spot.

As Mark Twain might have said confronted with this rather than Victorian science: "the wonderful thing about Gilligan's journalism is the huge return of conjecture one gets from such a small investment of fact".

Conjecture, innuendo, smears and in the case of the headline what is on the face of it arrant rubbish. Essentially the new facts in the piece are these:

1. Three web domains were registered all pointing to a campaign website;
2. Apparently registered by a web design company;
3. One that like dozens more has had some GLA or LDA contracts;
4. They used their own postal address;
5. But the contact name of one of Ken's advisors was given;
6. The registrations were made at 11:37 on Friday 13 July;
7. On that date at that time the advisor was working at City Hall.

Sadly, so far at least, The Standard have not published the comment I left three hours ago.

What is the accusation exactly? That someone spent 10 minutes and 5p of council tax precept on a private 'phone call while at work? No it's not even that really is it? You don't know when the call was made or from where or by whom do you? Or that someone else didn't use their name and contact details at 11:37? This is thin Mr Gilligan. Just an excuse to repeat other smears and half stories. It is very thin indeed. Are you actually working for the Boris Johnson campaign yourself? Is that true? Getting paid by The Standard but actually working for BoJo? Sweet.

As indicated above various other stories are rehearsed incompletely. That there was an issue in 2004. That there had been an investigation on grants. And so on. Without indicating the results. Smearage plain and simple.

For all I know this guy has spent five minutes of work time and either a mobile, a web browser or 5p of landline registering these sites. Then again there are many other possible scenarios to explain the facts. Such as: the web design company registered the site. Then there is of course the implication that this design company has been favoured in some way in the past and is returning that favour. But that's odd you know. Because as I say in the rehearsal of the facts above many companies will have won contracts from the GLA, LDA and related accounts.

Coming hot on the heels of the pile of steaming Martin Bright polemic on Channel 4 last night - including of course a reminder of the Standard/Finegold's action against Ken, though not that it collapsed - this shows basically how Ken's enemies know that there is literally NOTHING GOOD ABOUT BORIS versus the Mayor of London's Job. So instead of attempting a positive job selling that gaffe prone clown they are trying to nail Ken with flimsy "investigations" and flagrant dishonesty. Like that presumptuous headline of theirs.