Conservative MP Sarah Dines unsuccessfully complained to press regulator IPSO over a Times column about “wild rumours” that Boris Johnson wanted to stand for election in her constituency of Derbyshire Dales.
The claim was made, presented as “rumours” and a “whisper”, by Matthew Parris in his Notebook column in January.
Parris wrote: “Wild rumours sweep the Peak District. The whisper is that Boris Johnson wants to scuttle from Uxbridge, the seat he represents, and stand for the constituency where I was once MP, and live now.”
He added that Johnson and Dines were on “excellent terms” and that the former PM had recently paid an “unpublicised visit” hosted by Dines to visit local Conservatives in the area.
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However Parris added: “On balance I doubt the rumours.”
Dines complained to IPSO that the article was inaccurate, arguing it wrongly implied she was planning to stand down from her seat, which she has held since December 2019.
She claimed that describing Johnson’s visit as “unpublicised” suggested it was “secretive” and “conspiratorial” as part of a “cunning plan” when in fact, she said, it was sufficiently well-known beforehand for a group of protesters to assemble. However IPSO noted Dines had initially accepted in correspondence that the visit was unpublicised.
Dines also said she had never been asked about the so-called rumours in three years, since two speculative and since-deleted tweets, and that she therefore did not believe they existed. She added that she had not been contacted for comment about the significant claim that she might abandon her job and her constituency, and described the claim as “misogynistic and absurd” as she asked for an apology.
Dines published a statement shortly after the article was published, saying she had previously “always enjoyed” Parris’ journalism but describing the claim as a “black and white falsehood” and the piece as “misleading and distorted”.
IPSO, however, agreed with The Times’ defence that the article was clearly labelled as opinion and that Parris was “entitled to express his personal views about rumours – which existed – concerning the former PM’s intentions at the next election”.
The publisher also said the article “did not allege nor hint that the complainant may be colluding in a plan to seat-swap and had in any case concluded that such a plan, on balance, did not exist”.
In its ruling, IPSO said: “It was not a news report nor was it presented as such; it was a clearly distinguished piece of political gossip, presented in a playful and light-hearted manner.”
The regulator also described the article as “tongue-in-cheek”, especially due to Parris’ suggestion that he would add to the “general merriment” of Johnson’s hypothetical election race by standing himself.
“Reading the article as a whole, the [Complaints] Committee did not consider the article reported as fact that Ms Dines would give up her seat to allow Mr Johnson to stand in her constituency; in fact the columnist himself suggested that this was unlikely,” IPSO said.
“The columnist had referenced the claims clearly as rumours that were unlikely to be true, and the complainant was not in a position to disprove that such rumours were in circulation; she was not aware of them, but this did not mean that they were not known to the columnist.”
IPSO also found there was no need for The Times to have contacted Dines before publication.
Read the full IPSO ruling here.
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