Last month Rats in a Sack reported on how the Daily Telegraph had raised a few eyebrows with a first-person piece decrying Labour’s imposition of VAT on private school fees, headlined “We earn £345k, but soaring private school fees mean we can’t afford to go on five holidays”.Doubts about the story grew when the accompanying picture of the family turned out to be a stock photograph previously used to promote a dental surgery in Delaware, the University of California’s Center for Child Anxiety and a Holiday Inn in Singapore. And sceptics doubted whether a family of high earners (supposedly named Al and Alexandra, with a daughter called Ali) would really have a two-year-old called Barry.
Now the story has turned out to be the work of a hoaxer, with the Telegraph apologising, and admitting: “After publication it became clear that during his conversations and other communications with us the case study had provided us with false information… it is clear that our internal processes were not strong enough on this story and we are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.”
