Panorama journalist John Ware, fresh from his court victory against the Labour Party, takes apart the lies and distortions that the Corbynites and their supporters – Momentum, journalists like Owen Jones – promulgated in their determination to discredit him and his fellow reporters when they blew the whistle on Labour's problems with antisemitism:
A year ago, the Labour Party declared all-out war on the BBC. Why?
I was the reporter on a Panorama programme in which seven former Labour staffers blew the whistle about antisemitism in Corbyn’s Labour Party. They explained how they felt a growing factionalism had created a safe space for antisemitic views inside the party.
Labour responded by accusing me of having flouted journalistic ethics. I had, Labour alleged, knowingly promoted falsehoods and invented quotes. I had misrepresented and fabricated facts.
It was, the party claimed, all part of my “deliberate and malicious” attempt “to mislead the public.”
It didn’t stop there. The party accused the whistle-blowers of being motivated by “disaffection” with Corbyn and the Labour Left; they had “personal and political axes to grind” as opposed to actually believing what they told me about the toxic climate they said had enveloped the party under the Leader’s office.
These were remarkably stupid things for the official opposition to say in public. It is the BBC’s job to subject any political party to careful scrutiny – but it is particularly important for the BBC to examine the actions of the party that aspires to be the next government.
Most politicians recognise that such criticism is an essential part of a democratic society. How did Labour react? By imputing a malign, dishonest, conspiratorial motive to BBC programme makers….
A devastating indictment of the whole sorry bunch.