Kuenssberg had to issue a correction 20 minutes after Shapps’ lies
The BBC has been forced to issue a correction, after Tory MP Grant Shapps lied about former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Shapps appeared on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, where he sought to defend Boris Johnson’s disgraceful honours list, which included awards for those who were involved in Partygate as well as propping up Johnson’s disgraceful time in office.
Shapps tried to defend the system by suggesting former Labour PM Brown had also used the honours system to hand peerages to dozens of his supporters, claiming that the former Labour leader created 50 new peers when he resigned as prime minister.
He said: “I think Gordon Brown in his resignation list appointed 50 new peers – 50 new people to the House of Lords. We’ve seen a very small number from this current list.”
That claim is categorically untrue. Brown did not issue a resignation honours list at all.
At the end of Brown’s premiership a “dissolution list” was issued to mark the end of the 2005-2010 parliament, which created 29 Labour peers, 16 Tories, nine Lib Dems and one from the DUP.
Kuenssberg had to issue a correction 20 minutes after Shapps’ lies.
She said: “For all of you political pub quiz champions out there, you might have noticed already that Grant Shapps said that Gordon Brown had a resignation honours list.
“In fact, he had a dissolution honours list which actually gave rewards to members of all political parties.”
Yet another Tory lie exposed.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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