“Meloni warns friend Badenoch against deal with Farage” ran a headline in the Times on Tuesday, as political editor Steven Swinford reported how the Italian prime minister had urged the Conservative leader to “be your own woman and stand your ground” against Reform.
Explaining that Kemi Badenoch had met Giorgia Meloni for an hour-long coffee in Rome, the paper detailed how the PM had advised the Tory chief “you’ve got to be yourself” and resist pressure to do deals with other parties. Meloni is facing a similar hard right challenge from Roberto Vannacci, a former army general.
Curiously, though – and as pointed out by New World contributor Mic Wright on his Substack – the piece is no longer available on the Times’s website, having mysteriously vanished (it is still linked to on its social media, though, and available to subscribers on its e-edition).
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Anyone clicking on the original link is now directed to a completely rewritten version of Swinford’s article, now headlined “I want to revive economy like Giorgia Meloni did, says Kemi Badenoch” and focusing on the much less interesting news that the Conservative leader would like to match Italy’s lower borrowing costs.
The original URL – ending /giorgia-meloni-kemi-badenoch-reform-advice – remains, however, and the comments underneath it feature people saying things like: “Sound advice. I could never vote conservative again if a reform [sic] coalition was on the table.”
What happened? A source told the Daily Telegraph that “[Meloni] never suggested to Badenoch that she should not ally with Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party. [She] has no reason to be hostile towards Farage and his movement… [and] did not enter and does not want to enter into domestic political dynamics and relations between British parties.”
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And now Reform chief whip Lee Anderson has picked up his crayon and written to the Times demanding to know what led to the original story being printed. The notorious truth-teller writes: “Further to your newspaper being forced to disown an entirely fictitious story which claimed that the Italian prime minister, Georgia [sic] Meloni, told the Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, during talks in Rome that Mrs Badenoch “should not do a deal with Nigel Farage” (24 August), I wonder if you would do your readers the courtesy of explaining the circumstances of this gaffe.
“Is Mrs Badenoch’s office guilty of giving a briefing to your political editor that was so over-enthusiastic it was in fact a lie (in which case why didn’t The Times check the veracity of the claim); or is the paper of record itself at fault for publishing what can only be described as fake news?”
A strange tale indeed. Perhaps something was lost in translation?
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