Starmer’s investigation into Josh Simons’ spying exposed as sham – by Josh Simons

Keir Starmer has promised an ethics investigation into his front-bencher Josh Simons’ now-exposed responsibility for the hard-right ‘Labour Together’ sabotage group’s spying on journalists. The promise was exposed as (yet another Starmer) scam almost as soon as it was uttered. The icing on the cake is that the person who exposed it was… Josh Simons.

Josh Simons: whoops

Josh Simons accidentally sent details of what Starmer is actually doing to a general WhatsApp group for Labour MPs – from which they were promptly leaked. While Starmer’s public front was to open a “formal investigation”, what he was actually doing was reassuring Simons that he had nothing to worry about and that the ‘investigations’ would reach a foregone conclusion:

Josh Simons, the Labour minister facing calls to be sacked over his alleged role in a smear campaign against journalists, appears to have accidentally sent details of his case to a Labour MPs’ group chat, including that he had been reassured by a senior Labour figure that the investigation into him has concluded he didn’t break the ministerial code, and that Keir Starmer will ask his ethics adviser to conduct a “fast” further probe into the matter.

A leaked message hastily deleted from a group chat showed Simons, a Cabinet Office minister and former director of Labour Together, apparently sharing details of the investigation into him. The message included the information that the Prime Minister will ask “Laurie” – Laurie Magnus, Starmer’s Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards – to “look into” his case, but that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team “did find I had not broken the code”.

Large order of whitewash to Number 10? Apparently, but now Simons himself has spilled it all over his boss’s (probably donated) posh shoes – the taste of which the incompetent Starmer is surely by now intimately acquainted with.

Featured image via the Canary