Labour appeal to broadcasters over stories which ‘unravel’

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Get our free View from Westminster email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Labour has written to broadcasters appealing for them not to repeat stories briefed by the government to Tory-backing newspapers until they have checked them for accuracy. The letter accuses Boris Johnson and his senior adviser Dominic Cummings of having a strategy of “organised deception”, with the aim of getting favourable but misleading stories on the air, even if they later unravel. The letter, from Labour’s election co-ordinators Andrew Gwynne and Ian Lavery, is understood to cite two stories which were picked up from newspapers by national broadcasters only to be questioned by impartial experts: - A £1.8 billion “cash boost” for the NHS which was announced during the summer, only for the Nuffield Trust and other think tanks to point out that £1 billion of the money was cash already held by health trusts which the government had prevented them from spending; - A claim during the Conservative annual conference that the government was building “40 new hospitals”, which later turned out to involve funding for six reconfigured hospitals, with a further 34 given the chance to bid for a share of £100 million in “seed funding” to pay for design and planning of potential new building projects. open image in gallery Labour election co-ordinator Andrew Gwynne “It is concerning for us because the dominance of Tory newspapers to filter this stuff through places massive pressure on broadcasters to follow it up.