Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Meet Dominic Slack-Oxley: the biggest source of fake news in Britain

Allow me to introduce Dominic Slack-Oxley. Never heard of him, I hear you cry. Oh but you have. You hear from him every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news. Slack-Oxley is everywhere. More than Facebook or Vladimir Putin, he is the most reliable source of fake news in Britain.

When you read about ‘Downing Street sources’ saying with absolute authority that Boris Johnson would never send a letter to Brussels to extend the Article 50 deadline, only for him to do just that, Slack-Oxley is to blame. When political correspondents boast of their exclusive access to ‘Number 10 sources,’ ‘Government sources’ and the ‘Prime Minister’s official spokesman,’ they mean Dominic Slack-Oxley is using them to push out the latest propaganda line.

Like many fantastical fictions, Dominic Slack-Oxley is not one man but many. A part of him is Robert Oxley, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, and a former spin-doctor for Vote Leave.

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