{"id":425202,"date":"2025-09-15T02:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T02:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425202\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T02:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T02:42:21","slug":"alastair-campbell-forced-to-apologise-over-fake-claim-about-donald-trump-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/425202\/","title":{"rendered":"Alastair Campbell forced to apologise over fake claim about Donald Trump ally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Tony Blair spokesman Alastair Campbell has been forced to apologise over a claim he made about slain political activist Charlie Kirk saying gay people should be stoned to death.<\/p>\n

The comment was made on ‘The Rest is Politics” podcast where Mr Campbell acknowledged “the guy’s died and it’s tragic … but it’s important we don’t lose sight of some of the views he expressed”.<\/p>\n

“They were horrific,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I remember one clip I saw of him saying … literal reading of the bible, gay people should be stoned to death.” <\/p>\n

Journalist Andrew Doyle posted the clip on X and called Mr Campbell out, saying: “No … Charlie Kirk categorically did NOT support the stoning to death of gay people”.<\/p>\n

“Will you retract this reckless and ignorant smear?”<\/p>\n

It prompted Mr Campbell to reply: “Apologies for this”.<\/p>\n

“I had seen a clip on social media which did not have the full context,” he said in a reply on X.<\/p>\n

\"Alastair<\/p>\n

Alastair Campbell apologised for not being extra careful before making the comments<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

“(I) had seen others making the same claim.”<\/p>\n

Mr Campbell, who served as former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman between 1997 and 2000, admitted “the full exchange shows it was a debate about Biblical interpretation, not a call for the stoning of gay people”.<\/p>\n

However, he added that “Kirk did have views with which I strongly disagree but this was not among them”.<\/p>\n

“Note to self – especially amid tragic and potentially deeply polarising events, be careful about social media, mis- and disinformation,” he concluded.<\/p>\n

\"CharlieCharlie Kirk was speaking at a campus event in Utah when he was killed | REUTERS<\/p>\n

The comments come after Mr Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University and led to the arrest of Utah-native Tyler Robinson, 22.<\/p>\n

Robinson is accused of murdering the political activist while he was speaking at the campus last week.<\/p>\n

In a video shared in the comments of Mr Campbell’s apology, Mr Kirk can be seen defending taking a question from an audience member who criticised him for accepting “anti-Christian, immoral lifestyles like homosexuality”.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk responded by asking whether the man was a Donald Trump supporter, which he said he was.<\/p>\n

“Are you sickened that he had a gay man speak at his convention?” Mr Kirk asked.<\/p>\n

The man replied “yes”.<\/p>\n

It prompted Mr Kirk to sternly say: “Well then you’re not a Trump supporter”.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirk said his personal position was that he was a Christian “first and foremost”.<\/p>\n

“Then an American, then a constitutionalist, then a conservative, in that order,” he added.<\/p>\n

“I believe marriage, biblically … is one man, one woman.”<\/p>\n

But, Mr Kirk said he didn’t believe in the “sort of rhetoric” which says there is “no place for gay people in the conservative movement”.<\/p>\n

“I do not believe that,” he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Tony Blair spokesman Alastair Campbell has been forced to apologise over a claim he made about slain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[528,12,285,3106,978,727,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-425202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-labour-party","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-uk-politics","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-us-news","14":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115206012574153737","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}