Tuesday 8 October 2013

Even Guido gets it wrong sometimes...

Not only Guido, but his commenters too, as this post and the comments thread below illustrate. Unfortunately comments there are now closed, so I can't let them know...

Anyway, the main thrust of it all was the contention that the minister carrying the red box shown in the Google Street View snapshots in Guido's post was Jeremy Browne (Lib Dem) and that he had gone into the Hilton Hotel that he at first seemed to be passing. That assumption was apparently justified by the next view along Praed Street, where he does not appear. Where did he go? The only possible place was the hotel, surely?

Wrong! The key is in the 'Image Date' that is shown at the foot of the Street View imagery and which has been cropped from the views in the post. Those with the minister in-shot are dated April 2012, and those without him have a date of July 2008 – nearly four years earlier.

A few of Guido's commenters seem to have cottoned onto the fact that something wasn't quite right in the assumption, by they didn't spot the obvious (and conclusive) clue, so were somewhat negated by others' responses to them making other contentions or suggestions.

The likelihood is that the Minister (and yes, I too think it was Jeremy Browne) was heading to Paddington Station next door, probably to return to his constituency – which, as it is in Taunton (Devon), would be accessed from Paddington.

The reason I looked at this today, by the way, was because Mr Browne has been moved in the latest resuffle (announced yesterday), and at least one person has suggested that the reason for that was the Guido story. Unlikely, I know, but it can be useful to know the facts, so that's why I checked for myself.

Anyway: mystery solved – probably!

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