Abuse, insults, threats; praise, thanks and encouragement: behind the scenes in the editor's office at The Yorkshire Post

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NB: When Mr Johnson was photographed inside Number 10 Downing Street raising a tumbler to a room filled with as many revellers as it was empty bottles of booze, it was illegal at the time. Such gatherings were being broken up forcefully by police officers around the country. It was 13th November 2020, and in that week alone 12,254 people died - 442 more than the week prior - and almost 2,000 deaths more than the national five-year average. 2,466 of those deaths were coronavirus related. Of the 2,466 deaths that were Covid-19 related, 2,170 of those people were killed by Covid-19 - it being cited as the underlying cause of death.

*Source: Office of National Statistics

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Should you wish to verify for yourself the source of the photograph upon which the advertisement is based, it is on page 46 of the Sue Gray Report - an official Government document held on the .gov.uk website. In her findings, Sue Gray said of the gatherings in Downing Street: "At times it seems there was too little thought given to what was happening across the country in considering the appropriateness of some of these gatherings, the risks they presented to public health and how they might appear to the public. There were failures of leadership and judgment by different parts of No 10 and the Cabinet Office at different times. Some of the events should not have been allowed to take place. Other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did."

So, onto the words used by 38 Degrees to annotate their recreation of the Prime Minister partying whilst people perished, laws which, remember, he created in order to protect people and to try to save lives - at least, that's what we were told; laws which meant thousands died alone with loved ones forced to say goodbyes through iPads, nevermind goodbyes to colleagues over Champagne and Cognac!

The advert's headline read: "Lockdown looked very different inside and outside Number 10." It went on: "This image of the Prime Minister partying is made up of people who stayed home to save lives."

Remember: as well as the emergency legislation put in place to save lives, millions of pounds of tax payers' money was quite rightly spent on hard-hitting national advertising campaigns designed to ensure every single one of us knew how deadly this virus was going to be should we not take it seriously. Almost all of the Government warnings in its campaigns stated: "Stay Home. Save Lives." Another read: "If you go out, you can spread it, people will die." And, tellingly: "If one person breaks the rules, we will all suffer."

So there you have the context against which the creative set itself and the words used to go with it, as well as transparency about who paid for the advertisement.

So, what happened next?

Well, the first thing to say is that the advertiser's message quite clearly resonated with tens of thousands of people. I know this because - as I do almost every night - when I posted the front page to Twitter late on Monday night, the reaction was instantaneous and in vast numbers. Many disagreed with the message, many more agreed with it. What is clear, though, is that people care strongly about the Prime Minister's interpretation of the lockdown laws that effectively put the nation under house arrest. So much so that the tweet in question has been seen over ten million times (10m impressions as of 3rd June, 2022).

The only words I used to accompany my tweet were: "Look carefully. Really carefully. What do you see?"

I chose my words carefully and after much contemplation. Why? 1) because of the way the artwork so cleverly uses the faces of law-abiding people, who sacrificed their freedoms for so long to save lives, to bring to life an example of the behaviour of the Prime Minister - and his colleagues - during lockdown; 2) because it was an advertisement that was clearly stated as being so, and not necessarily the view of the newspaper.

So, as promised, what happened next?

The criticism

Here are some of the messages I received, starting from the top with a note from the House of Lords and Conservative Peer Daniel Moylan who took issue with the front page, declaring: "Don't talk to me about The Yorkshire Post!" in response to someone named Ian Charles who was complaining publicly that he felt our front page was politically motivated.

Lord Moylan, in an interview with LBC, insisted that a media conspiracy was going on, and that journalists pointing out the findings of the Government's own investigations, backed in many instances by photographic proof, amounted to a 'politically-driven press campaign.' I challenged him: "Press campaign?" I asked. "He is the first sitting Prime Minister to break the law. He raised a glass - illegally - with friends, putting innocent people's lives at risk, when we were forbidden from the bedsides of our dying loved ones ... because he said so!"

He retorted, and note that he did not address the merits nor substance of my challenge to his conspiracy theory. Instead he said something that has troubled me all week, as I remain unsure quite what he means. He said: "He will be Prime Minister long after you have ceased to edit The Yorkshire Post."

Do please write to me if you have a view on what you think Lord Moylan may mean by that.

Malcolm Cowing - @CowingMalcolm - who in a separate tweet describes the lifesaving RNLI charity as "politicised water taxis playing a supporting role in the decline of our national identity!" said to me: "A once great newspaper taken over by a lefty editor! Now would be better described as the #YorkshireGuardian"

Andy Baptist - @andy_baptiste - said: "Nobody reads the Yorkshire Post anymore so it doesn't cost as much to advertise biased toss like this in it."

John Taylor - @JohnTay09512763 - wrote to me: "I see a man who worked his a*** off 24/7 during the pandemic saying farewell to a colleague. You f***ing vermin see a party!"

Rhona C Hartley wrote to me to say: "In my opinion, your cover page this morning, 31st May, was an absolute disgrace. It showed a political bias that was completely out of keeping with a newspaper’s purpose which is to report facts."

Ike Ijeh told me he saw: "A regional paper pretending to be a national one. The Yorkshire Post is no more a national paper than the Hackney Gazette and claiming otherwise bodes poorly for the level of editorial veracity to be found therein. Regardless I'm sure your readers appreciated the devastating front-page scoop of the PM holding up a cup of water."

A gentleman named Richard Willis wrote: "Love the caption 'people who stayed home to save lives', parroting the Government's own b*****t slogan which they clearly lapped up without any thought. Also love his [Mitchinson's] utterly smug profile picture, holding the PM to account by frowning at him while he’s talking (ps, I must be very important if I’m standing next to him)"

Bryan Tomlinson - @bryantom61 - told me: "[I see] A misuse of small pictures, whether the Prime Minister had a drink or not made no difference to the number who died of Covid19!"

Wildraar - @Wildraar - said: "I see he saw his colleagues every day for work and raising a glass in a doorway is no extra risk. Vaccines were brought in quickly and the pandemic was taken seriously."

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The praise

Imran Patel - @pimran786 - said: "This is so powerful I lost my dad to covid and I didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye. This image wow. The hospitals followed the orders passed from the health department which is part of the government. I was there on my knees begging to see my dad one last time and I was told “I’m sorry it’s not in our hands we are following government rules” those words still haunt me today!"

Geraint Smith - @Geraint_Smith - said: "I see a very clever idea realised with extraordinary skill to make an exceptional, potent, damning image. Bravo. Great page."

Paula Henley - @PaulaHenley7 - said: "Do as I say not as I do. Arrogance off the scale. For those saying he was simply doing his job, I was simply doing mine as were many others but in doing so we followed HIS rules! It’s just beyond words."

Adrian Littlejohn - @yorksfella59 - said: "I've read The Yorkshire Post for 50+ years (my dad had it delivered) and for much of the time it was a small-c, and often large-C conservative paper. Under James' editorship it has become a fearless voice for truth, neither right nor left, just honest!"

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In summary

I hope that little insight into my professional world, which all too often spills over into my personal life, is an interesting one for you to read. There will be few other places of work where people can pop their heads in to label you 'biased, left-wing vermin' without consequence but in my job it has somehow become commonplace to be abused like that, simply for turning up to work.

Equally, I suppose, there are few jobs where so many people can and will send unfettered and sincere thanks for the work you do and so it is to those people I dedicate this Insider+ edition as I have tried to dedicate the last 20 years of my working life as a local journalist: to the communnities I have been lucky enough to represent - large and small - since I walked into a newsroom as a wet-behind-the-ears trainee in October 2002.