Thread by @MarcusJBall

1/22
GLOBAL EXCLUSIVE: Prime Minister Boris Johnson misled the public about the severity of his Covid-19 condition.

Now that we have all had a chance to process #Partygate it is time to reveal what I'm calling #Deathgate.

A multimedia THREAD from Stop Lying In Politics Ltd:

2/22
We request that you do not write replies to this thread until you have first carefully engaged with ALL the information & polls below which cover a complex investigation over two years.

IMPORTANT: St Thomas’s Hospital and their excellent NHS staff are NOT to blame.

3/22
What were we told about the severity of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 condition?

We were previously told that his condition was so severe that his doctors had prepared to announce his death.

Watch this:

4/22
Did @BorisJohnson really make this claim?

If not, did the PM benefit from this claim that he did NOT correct for over two years?

Watch this:

5/22
Confidential Poll: At the time that it was reported, did you believe that the Prime Minister’s condition was so serious that his doctors prepared to announce his death?

6/22
Why I began to question what we had been told about the severity of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Covid-19 condition.

Part one:

7/22

Part two:

8/22
The ITU consultant I spoke to also told me that a Covid patient who had been close to death would likely have a recovery profile that included lung damage and difficulty speaking at length.

Putting Mr Johnson's 5 minute speech to camera after leaving hospital into issue:

9/22
Confidential Poll: At the time that these stories were first published did inconsistences like these bother you?

10/22
I decided I had to investigate.

St Thomas’s did confirm he’d been admitted there so I was wrong to suspect that. It wasn't the best written tweet!

But, I was right about something.

https://twitter.com/MarcusJBall/status/1250013018634756098?s=20&t=bth3_6mApPU-S53MkVzsGA

11/22
It was clear that at @piersmorgan certainly didn't approve.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1250127433820405770?s=20&t=bth3_6mApPU-S53MkVzsGA

12/22
And @BarristerSecret was of the view I had misunderstood the FOI Act.

https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1250131871813550080?s=20&t=bth3_6mApPU-S53MkVzsGA

13/22
Was I a "stupid twat" who didn’t understand the FOI Act? Or was I onto something?

As far as I know, nobody has ever used the FOI Act to successfully request a search of somebody’s medical records before, certainly not a PM’s. But that’s exactly what we did.

Watch this:

14/22

So, did St Thomas's Hospital hold any evidence of preparations to announce @BorisJohnson's death?

Watch this:

15/22
But what if the recorded preparations/strategy/or contingency plans to announce the Prime Minister’s death had been deleted? Or what if they were made vocally?

Luckily, the hard work had already been done. Read these emails for the answer:

16/22

NOW: The results of our investigation appear to have caused the PM to pull a complete communications narrative U-turn.

Feeling lost? This is your summary video!

Watch this:

17/22
Why would PM Johnson have pushed the story that he almost died when actually, according to him now, his condition was“...really mild...”?

A reminder of some context from @ByDonkeys :

https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1282915698604376064?s=20&t=Qi3OsLvXEBCE4aSljEaZlw

18/22
Could a severe health threat cause once critical journalists and members of the public to completely change their attitude?

@piersmorgan was trying to do the right thing here. Was he used?

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1247252373564727301?s=20&t=T4iIYVzm1YwRm0ygT-W7Yw

19/22
It was this article from @rachshabi writing for the @nytimes and this front cover from @PrivateEyeNews that hit me the most. For me, they captured my concern.

20/22
Confidential Poll: After you heard that the Prime Minister almost died and that his condition was so severe that his doctors were preparing to announce his death, did you feel more sympathetic towards him &/or less angry about his failings at the beginning of the pandemic?

21/22
Confidential Poll:

For you, was #Partygate or #Deathgate a bigger abuse of the public trust invested into the duties and powers of our public office holding Prime Minister by bringing his office into disrepute?

22/22
That's it for this one. THREAD END.

If you'd like to find out more about us and our work you can read about why we prosecuted Boris Johnson in 2019:

https://twitter.com/MarcusJBall/status/1530340497486667778?s=20&t=v8RlghplZDyjU7dSkf3tmw

STATEMENT from @GSTTnhs
I don't think any of us blamed St Thomas's for putting the PM into the ICU. It was surely the right decision. He's the leader of the nation and it was in the public interest to put him there just in case he needed to be ventilated eventually.

Just in case you don't know what this is about:

https://twitter.com/MarcusJBall/status/1533804069994766336?s=20&t=rSWBJVozRzmk-MVG6WsNtw