THE texts that led to the resignation of Paul Ovenden, Keir Starmer’s director of political strategy, were shown to BBC Newsnight two months ago, according to Paul Holden, author of the book that is the source of the revelations.
The texts, written eight years ago when Ovenden was a press officer in Labour HQ, contained gross sexual comments about Diane Abbott, Britain’s first black female MP and a regular target of racist and misogynist abuse.
Ovenden said he was “deeply sorry” for the texts, but described it as “chilling that a private conversation from nearly a decade ago can do this sort of damage”. Downing Street described the texts as “appalling and unacceptable”.
Nick Watt, political editor at BBC Newsnight, was first informed about the texts on July 17 this year, the same day that Abbott had the whip withdrawn for the second time following remarks that groups such as Jewish people and Travellers do not suffer prejudice in the same way as people of colour, according to Holden.
Watt was initially enthusiastic, and Holden provided him with photos of the texts.
Watt then went on holiday and when he returned, progress on the story stalled. Holden eventually set a deadline of September 3 for a decision by the BBC, at which point Newsnight opted not to run the story, claiming it did not have time to run the necessary checks.
ITV News was handed the texts just last week.
“I was amazed how quickly they moved on it,” Holden said. They asked to see electronic versions and “within a day” had verified them. “It was very obvious ITV was hungry for the story, whereas Newsnight was very slow on the uptake”
The Sunday National understands that Newsnight and two other news outlets were initially shown copies of the texts before last year’s election. At that time, verifiable electronic versions were not available.
Holden’s book, The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney And The Crisis Of British Democracy, is due to be published in November.
The Ovenden story broke early Monday afternoon after a number of publications were handed copies of the texts in what appeared to be an attempt to pre-empt the ITV scoop and to shape the story. He resigned that same day.
“Before summer, I had announced to some of my colleagues my intention to leave government,” Ovenden said.
“Though the messages long pre-date my current employment and relationship with the Prime Minister, I’ve brought forward my resignation to avoid distracting from the vital work this government is doing.”
Dan Hodges, who wrote about the texts in the Daily Mail, later posted on Twitter/X: “Starmer allies believe the Ovenden messages are a very small part of a far wider cache of messages that are in the hands of their opponents on the left. And are braced for further leaks.”
