On a windy, overcast August evening last year, I joined a group of (I’d guess) 100 or so people who had gathered in one of Brighton’s less attractive squares to hear an MP talk about Modern Monetary Theory. 1

The speech was informative and rousing, the audience enthusiastic. Many came up to the speaker afterwards, group photos were taken. It had the feeling of a celebration. 2

A police car with two uniformed officers was to one side of the square, but there was no visible trouble and the atmosphere was, if a little tense, not in any way subdued. 3

The reason we were gathered in the square, and not inside a venue, was that the booking had been cancelled, re-booked elsewhere, cancelled again, re-booked a third time and then cancelled a third time, all within the space of a few hours. So we stood in the square. 4

On the basis of a fraudulent misquotation of a line in a speech he’d made some time earlier, the speaker had been hounded by a vociferous and angry mob, who had sought to prevent him speaking. 5

The three venues, one a chain hotel, had cancelled because of this angry mob, representatives of which had threatened violence if the event went ahead. Phone calls had been received. 6

A local MP (though his constituency is not in Brighton) told me in an email: ‘Whatever calls the hotel received were not made upon my instruction or on my behalf... 7

'...but from members of the Jewish community who are upset that an MP suspended by the Labour Party with allegations of anti semitism over them is being welcomed by our city.' 8

It took Sussex police 12 months to respond to a Freedom of Information request about this incident. When they finally did - one day after the final, *final* deadline, after which they would have been in contempt of court - there was nothing. 9

An officer had attended the hotel, had been told no complaint was being made, and had taken no further action. 10

The calls from ‘members of the Jewish community’ the MP told me about had, surprisingly, not taken place at all! There was no record of them. They never happened. Quite how the MP knew who had made them and why - when they apparently weren’t made at all - is far from clear. 11

So we have a situation in which a hotel cancels a booking because of phone threats, the identity of the callers and their motivations known to a local MP, which threats then, inexplicably, according to the official record, simply cease to exist. 12

It’s magic. 13

To call this ‘puzzling’ would be polite. ‘Incoherent’ would be appropriate, and I don’t think ‘obvious nonsense’ would be overstating the case. 14

The local MP has been contacted for comment but has not, as yet, responded.

I’ve made a further Freedom of Information request to the police, which will no doubt take another 12 months and then reveal more things that never happened. 15

It’s a little mystery and, I strongly suspect, will remain one.

And it all happened a long, long time ago.

All forgotten about now.

Shhhh.

ENDS