{"id":526,"date":"2005-05-09T15:30:39","date_gmt":"2005-05-09T20:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/?p=526"},"modified":"2011-04-07T03:38:13","modified_gmt":"2011-04-07T08:38:13","slug":"labour-caught-redhanded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/2005\/05\/09\/labour-caught-redhanded\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour caught redhanded?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI think Dead Men Left<\/cite><\/a> is right when he suspects the “student Benjamin Virgo, 34” in this story<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nElsewhere in Bethnal Green, student Benjamin Virgo, 34, explained what had happened to him on Tuesday night. ‘On the way out to the corner shop to buy milk and bread I passed a couple of young guys. After I’d crossed the road they threw a bottle at me. They became more aggressive, so I reached for my mobile and started to call the police. They followed me into the shop and announced to the other customers and staff that I was a racist. Then, fists in my face, they ordered me to stop my call, reminded me that they knew where I lived and threatened to burn my house down. The police never came. George Galloway is now my MP.’\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nIs the same as the “Ben Virgo, 34” who is “studying classics at UCL” in this story<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nMeet the Virgos from Bethnal Green. Ben, 34, used to work in the City, but he gave it up to become a
\ndrugs counsellor, and now he’s studying classics at UCL. His wife Rachel teaches part time at a local
\nprimary school. They have three lovely children, Gilbert, five, Theo, three and Albany, one. They seem,
\nby all outward appearances, a rather ordinary domestic collective, but last week the media dubbed them “Labour’s rent-a-crowd” when they were pictured standing behind the prime minister and the chancellor at a poster launch. Elements of the so-called Virgo family, it transpired, had also appeared at a previous Labour launch. They were there, according to one commentator, as part of a “human shield of party activists” designed to protect Blair from journalists. The Daily Mail went so far as to described the atmosphere of the event as “redolent of the old Soviet Union”.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThe smoking gun turns up in the middle of the article:\n<\/p>\n

\n[…]It all began with a letter to their local MP, in their case Oona King, asking her to help them in their quest for a larger council flat.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nCoincidence? I think not<\/cite><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Dead Men Left is right when he suspects the “student Benjamin Virgo, 34” in this story: Elsewhere in Bethnal Green, student Benjamin Virgo, 34, explained what had happened to him on Tuesday night. ‘On the way out to the corner shop to buy milk and bread I passed a couple of young guys. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nu-labour","category-uk-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}