You will get it
Foxy Maugham seems to consider Ben Hunte a reliable source, and a Conservative peer warns him that the record shows he’s not.
The BBC had to remove large parts of Hunte’s article on the Keira Bell puberty blocker ruling after complaints of inaccuracies. Hunte left the BBC to work for Vice.
Foxy threw his weight around.
Not everyone is impressed with Foxy’s approach.
Heh, that says a lot by itself. For all its failings, it is much easier to write to a bias outside of the beeb. And someone should tell Jo that the burden is actually on Ben to substantiate his allegations against the EHRC.
I take it that “He has form” is a Briticism implying “He is dishonest” or “He is sloppy about fact checking”.
I hear that in the Brit mystery shows all the time. I infer it to mean “he’s got a record,” and “he’s done it before.”
I hear it/read it all the time too. I think it’s similar to “it’s a pattern with him,” but pejorative. It doesn’t seem to be said of good patterns. Native speakers correct me if I’m wrong.
Correct (#3 & #4). It has nothing to do particularly with dishonesty or fact checking. I think I used the phrase last time I commented here (to point out that Jimmy Carr had made jokes about Gypsies before). I didn’t realize that the meaning isn’t obvious outside the UK.
I didn’t either really. I suppose I simply assume that UK and US idioms are mostly familiar to most people on account of how we converse a lot.
“Got form” is most often used in reference to dodgy geezers who are known to have committed similar crimes in the past. It is derived from a racing term (horse, greyhound etc), when talking about the recent record of a competitor. Basically, what maddog said.
Dodgy geezers. I should have just said dodgy geezers.