Hard to believe how many times @Newsweek has had to put out corrections. A thread.

For some non-Covid news, and as a bit of recent political history, I’ve been released more than 100 pages of internal press office communications relating to the Home Office’s fried chicken box saga.

You may remember back in heady 2019 that there was an uproar after the government provided takeaway boxes with anti-knife crime messages to chicken shops around the country.

The campaign faced an immediate backlash, with critics questioning why fried chicken shops — stereotypically associated with young black communities — were being targeted by the Home Office for this campaign against knife crime.

The emails I’ve been released show that privately, officials admitted that the outcry risked angering the communities the campaign was trying to reach out to.

A briefing prepared by a Home Office official highlighted that they were “unsure what could be done publicly” to rebuff the criticism, and that the campaign’s focus on chicken boxes had created a perception that the campaign had “publicised racist stereotypes”.

1./ Oh look! @ScotlandLgb have started 2021 as we mean to continue: opposing gender identity nonsense. We responded to a letter from the lavishly funded lobby group @LGBTIScotland. They’d complained about our ads in the Herald with a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions. 👇

2./ Tim Hopkins claimed @ALLIANCELGB doesn’t even represent a minority position among LGB peeps. Rich given Equality Network itself isn’t a representative body. It’s more a job creation scheme funded by the Scottish govt to keep lobbyists like Hopkins from the dole queue.

3./ The govt funnels tax payers money into Equality Network’s coffers so it can then lobby for the anti-gay, misogynistic and child harming policies the politicians would be a tad embarrassed to champion otherwise. I wonder why Tim i$ so worried about u$. 💷💷💷

4./ We pointed out we’ve thousands of passionate supporters after just a year; which is a better track record than the fruitcakes at @stonewalluk who after 30 years are set on destroying the legal definition and therefore effectively the protections for same sex attracted people.

5./ They’re no longer really a gay organisation; more a trans obsessed cash machine that takes lucre from the likes of Goldman Sachs in effect to campaign for under 16s to be deprived chemically of a healthy and normal puberty. “Acceptance By Hormone Disruption”?