Thread by @pmdfoster

Been pondering a way of settling the veracity of my "Inside the #Brexit war cabinet" report earlier this week - which referred to meetings of Jul 29, Aug 1 and Aug 27.

Ask a Privy Councillor to read the minutes? Just to check I didn't get stuff wrong /1

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

Downing Street were very quick to make a specific denial of my sources saying Dominic Cummings had called the EU talks "a sham" - a "categoric lie" - but also to make a general denial about the rest. /2

I understand that at the private meeting with MPs, there were other denials about the "running down the clock" element, while the Aug 1 report of Geoffrey Cox was not denied - it was said that Mr Cox has now changed his mind. But plenty of doubt was cast on the reporting... /3

I think that's why so many MPs asked @BorisJohnson specifically about elements of the reporting in the Chamber yesterday. There the responses were rather more obfuscatory...for example /4

@BorisJohnson This from Stephen Doughty on whether David Frost did say the talks were for "domestic political handling reasons" at the Aug 27.

That, apparently, was "highly unlikely". /5

Hillary Benn, David Gauke, Anna Soubry asked similar question and got similarly woolly answers....but all of those meetings referred to in those reports are, of course minuted. /6

So perhaps a Privy Councillor - someone trusted, like say David Lidington @DLidington who voted with the Govt last night - read the minutes. Just to check there was nothing on running down the clock; ‘fantasy’ from the AG on 1 Aug or ‘domestic political handling’ on 27 Aug /7

@DLidington Only suggest since, as @SamCoatesSky pointed out, No 10 press office were pretty strong in their denials.. /8

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1168806010653413376?s=20

@DLidington @SamCoatesSky Of course, whether or not Dominic Cummings did, or not, say the EU negotiations was a 'sham' is not minuted, and therefore of course much more contestable.

But if the sources were, as it turned, accurate on meetings, that would bear on their credibility on that point too. /9END