The BBC’s ever-impartial Chief Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg danced the night away with Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove, before facing off against him in a “rap battle”, during a 2am jolly at Tory Party Conference, it has been claimed.
This is according to The Telegraph’s Dominic Penna, who portrays an extraordinarily chummy scene between the BBC “journalist” and the very people she is supposed to scrutinise, during a late night karaoke session at the Conservative Party’s annual conference in Manchester.
Writing on Twitter, Penna claimed:
“Laura Kuenssberg and Michael Gove had a dance-off and rap battle as one Tory MP sang Ice Ice Baby at karaoke last night”
Penna also went on to claim that Kuenssberg’s BBC colleague, Lewis Goodall – who is currently the Policy Editor on Newsnight – attempted to sing the ABBA hit Dancing Queen, before making fun of the Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner’s recent comments about “Tory scum” – stating:
“Kuenssberg’s BBC colleague Lewis Goodall then gave Dancing Queen his best shot — after quipping: “Have we got any Tory scum in the audience?”
Michael Gove was filmed dancing with his Tory colleague Tom Tugendhat a little while earlier:
Michael Gove and Tom Tugendhat are having a *great* time on the dance floor at Tory conference. pic.twitter.com/pYGz8AzK2m
— John Johnston (@johnjohnstonmi) October 6, 2021
Unsurprisingly, people weren’t exactly impressed by the news that high profile “journalists” for the UK’s supposedly impartial public broadcaster were apparently chumming it up with the government:
https://twitter.com/sazmeister88/status/1445874093857730563?s=20
https://twitter.com/higgyC/status/1445882294783315969?s=20
If you were in any doubt about the impartiality of the BBC take a look at Laura Kuenssberg shaking her tail feathers with Gove! She is part of the 'Party'! https://t.co/dMHCRMfTS3
— linda m tomlinson (@tomlinsonlindam) October 7, 2021
BBC political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, having a nice old jolly with Gove at tory conference. Dance-off. Is this for real? https://t.co/TOlURU6QYd
— Unrepentant Kaite ☮️ (@LazyDropOut) October 6, 2021
Mysteriously, Penna has since deleted his viral tweet.
The BBC has been dogged by accusations of pro-government bias in recent years, with their coverage of the 2019 General Election – where the corporation made numerous “mistakes”, all of which just happened to benefit Boris Johnson’s Tories – coming in for huge criticism.
In addition, Boris Johnson’s appointment of two Tory cronies – Conservative Party donor Richard Sharp, and former Tory candidate Tim Davie – to the BBC’s top two positions, hasn’t exactly increased public trust in the corporation’s impartiality.
From now on we shall be referring to our public broadcaster as the “Tory-run BBC”.
We’re very much looking forward to right-wingers getting upset at a *literal fact*.
(BBC’s new Director General Tim Davie was a Tory candidate and the new Chairman Richard Sharp is a Tory donor)
— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) January 12, 2021
And now, given Laura Kuenssberg’s latest antics at Tory Conference, it’s safe to say that the BBC’s reputation won’t be improving any time soon.
UPDATE: The BBC has since claimed that the story is “completely untrue” – but refused to give any further details.
In addition, The Telegraph issued an afternoon newsletter which rebuked their own reporter’s account of the evening – but gave very few details as to how exactly Penna could have possibly got the story so wildly incorrect:
this is from the Telegraph's email newsletter this afternoon pic.twitter.com/sboIfvwzV5
— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) October 7, 2021
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