‘Miliband ‘ghosts PM by refusing to take his calls’’, reported the Times on its front page on Wednesday, deploying oddly Love Island-style language to report that the energy secretary had declined to take calls from Keir Starmer.
The paper claimed the pair had fallen out in a row over defence spending, with Ed Miliband taking umbrage at demands he cut his department’s budget to fund the military. It said that Starmer “tried to contact Miliband repeatedly but did not receive a response”.
Suggested Reading
Sky’s the limit as Jess Phillips returns to podcasting
Sources apparently told chief political commentator Patrick Maguire and political editor Steven Swinford that “Starmer and Miliband were barely on speaking terms and that the prime minister was ‘furious’ about what he regarded as the energy secretary’s ‘betrayal’”. This apparently refers to claims Miliband is being lined up to serve as Andy Burnham’s chancellor if the Greater Manchester mayor wins his by-election in Makerfield.
Alas for readers of the print edition of the Times, one key factor was missing in the story – that a scheduled call between the two men had been postponed for the entirely understandable reason that Miliband’s mother, the activist Marion Kozak, had just died.
Kozak, a long-standing human rights campaigner and an early CND activist, passed away last month, aged 91, and Miliband was on bereavement leave.
Suggested Reading
Guardian swallows Robert Jenrick’s asylum lie
A paragraph has since been added to the Times’s story online, stating: “We have been asked to make clear that a proposed call on May 29 between Starmer and Miliband was rescheduled by mutual agreement as the energy secretary was on bereavement leave after the death of his mother. We are happy to put this on record.”
Given that it took two journalists to uncover the “ghosting” story – the same amount it took to reveal the Watergate scandal – you might think one of them might have put in a call to Miliband before filing their story. But perhaps Rats in a Sack is just too old-fashioned…
Most popular
We are failing: Rod Stewart, Morrissey and the indescribable hell of the late gig cancellation
A history of Brexit in 256 disasters
The 13 people most to blame for Brexit
Burnham, Binface and the sexist plumber: A guide to the Makerfield by-election candidates
