This graph tells you most of what you need to know about what passes for democracy in the UK today.
The shaded area at the right represents the period in which election law obliged the broadcasters to give fair and balanced coverage during the election campaign. The result is obvious.
Of course, it has not been that fair and balanced. We can identify four definite areas where it has been anything but. These are:
a) Demeanour towards different parties. Labour and SNP candidates were, as a matter of plain verifiable fact, interrupted far more often than Conservative candidates. That can be empirically verified eg both Paxman and Neil interrupted Corbyn over twice as often as they interrupted May. Qualitative analysis is trickier, but opposition candidates were in general treated with more scepticism and hostility, eg Keir Starmer being told by John Humphrys yesterday that he would not care about human rights if his own daughter had been killed.
b) Selection of the agenda. The Conservatives had different subjects they wished to concentrate upon, notably Brexit and security, and for the most part the media followed, in lockstep, this agenda. So Tories were quizzed mostly about the subjects on which they wished to be quizzed. Difficult subjects like the Tory relationship with Saudi Arabia were never raised. Labour however were quizzed ad nauseam about the IRA and lack of enthusiasm for nuclear holocaust, and very seldom quizzed on the NHS, education etc. With the SNP this was even more evident with a focus on almost nothing except a report on failings in the Scottish schools system, and zilch on Westminster, non-Holyrood affairs which are appropriate to this election. In the last week the media concentrated everywhere almost exclusively on security issues, as though nothing else matters.
c) Papers reviews. All broadcast media feature lengthy reviews of the national newspapers. As these are overwhelmingly owned by offshore billionaires and rabidly right wing, this gives an opportunity to further reinforce the right wing agenda
d) “Independent” commentators who are anything but. The paper reviews are one example of an area where “independent” commentators are almost always brought in to discuss the papers, and these commentators span the spectrum from UKIP to right wing Blairite. Throughout the election a very right wing commentariat was brought on to “assess” election news items. Uber-Tories like Alex Massie and Fraser Nelson appeared in this context, not allocated against Tory time share. Paul Mason is the only left wing individual I ever saw invited. This is reinforced by the appeal to the authority of right wing think tanks which are presented as independent and authoritative. The banker financed Institute of Fiscal Studies was frequently used, and we also saw bodies like Migration Watch, Policy Exchange and the Henry Jackson Society. None of this was identified as right wing comment or counted against Tory allocated time.
So the coverage was hardly fair and balanced, but despite this it was a great deal more fair and balanced than it normally is, because it was impossible for broadcasters to avoid giving a certain amount of unmediated time to Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon, and even to Caroline Lucas and Leanne Wood. The result of even this limited fairness was that collapse in the Tory lead.
Here is the important bit. This is not because Theresa May was below par, or Jeremy Corbyn was above par. The speeches of Jeremy I have watched have been a little below his normal standard, possibly due to overwork. May has always been this wooden. She is completely lacking in charisma and not very bright. Cameron kept her in position as a sop to the right wing of his party and precisely because he did not want a more capable right winger in high office.
No, the truth is that the media have been systematically selling us a lie for years; a totally false image they had portrayed of Theresa May’s competence and personality, and an equally false image of Jeremy Corbyn, had been drummed into people’s minds. Remember the only impression 99% of people had of either was what the media had told them. And it was a lie. It was a lie so blatant and obvious, that even the limited exposure to the truth over this past four weeks, with every attempt by the media to counterbalance that truth, has led to massive changes in the public perception of both May and Corbyn.
One reason I think Labour might do better than expected today are those likeability measures. It is the one marker which consistently goes with the winner. Blair was viewed as more likeable than Major, Bush more likeable than Gore, Cameron more likeable than Brown, Obama more likeable than Romney, Cameron more likeable than Miliband, and Trump more likeable than Clinton (that last is an extremely low bar). You can survive politically being viewed as less competent or even less honest. It is hard to win when nobody likes you. May now is viewed as significantly less likeable than Corbyn.
To return to the first graph, what we see is that political fortunes change massively when the mainstream media is obliged to give even a degree of fair exposure. But it is also evident that the sustained damage done over years of completely biased attrition, is probably too much to retrieve in a month. It further shows that the broadcast media is still extremely influential. “Independent” media is owned by offshore billionaires. The BBC hierarchy is openly Tory – the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the BBC Trust, the Head of News James Harding, Sarah Sands, Nick Robinson, Andrew Neil etc. are all open Tories.
A certain amount of free debate, and a tiny gesture towards balance, is allowed for four weeks every few years in the broadcast media. The print media does not do even that. In that four weeks, the people may start to change their views radically once the stream of propaganda carries some nuggets of reality, aided by social media. You cannot call this controlled exercise in temporary permitted dissent “democracy”. It is more a pressure valve in a system of corporate oligarchic control.
Get out today and vote against the Tories. In Scotland, SNP.
No sign of voter enthusiasm round here. The local corner shop is much busier than the polling station and its very much a Tory/Lib Dem marginal. I reckon people smell a rat, but they can’t bring themselves to vote Labour. Well I can and did. I checked the Labour candidate out, and she is definitely not a neocon – like the other two. If the neocons can’t get their vote out, then there may well be a surprising result – even round here.
I felt good about voting UKIP in the Euro elections, good about voting BREXIT last year, and good about voting Labour just now.
I’ve not done that for an exceedingly long time.
Tony
“I checked the Labour candidate out, and she is definitely not a neocon”
lol.
I’ll not try and prompt you to use reason Tony, I’m sure id would dull my day.
I think by the next election the power of the press will have faded. In the run up to this election people have seen how poisonous the media is. If the Tories get back in they might make excuses to fund a national press using spurious claims such as it isn’t only news they cover so they’re a social service (irony, eh!), but that doesn’t mean people will pick them up. I think by the next election the circulation of some of these hate-sheets will have declined so much they’ll have folded.
We may even see a campaign of boycotting the companies advertising in these rags similar to the BDS movement against Israel. If it’s done right it can have a direct and positive influence on the next election.
So,instead we will get our information from large US corporations financed by advertising and which spy on us and then pay no tax.
Will that make you happy ?
Hi Mr Murray I wonder if you have seen this it confirms what we all know about BBC Bias.
Evan Davis has let the cat out of the bag.
https://on.rt.com/8dt1
Sorry to hear this. I regularly submit formal complaints to BBC. My latest
Dear BBC Complaints
“June 5 Daily Politics 12.16pm recycled a 2015 clip already misused by BBC to suggest Corbyn was against a particular shoot-when-necessary action because he had said he was unhappy with a general “shoot-to-kill” policy. (Such a general policy may have led the RUC to shoot IRA suspects after long surveillance and a good prospect of peaceful surrender). Jo Coburn used clip as evidence both that Corbyn was unhappy with Saturdays’ armed response and that, in being happy with it, he had done a u-turn. It is evidence neither for one nor the other and cannot be both. Corbyn has never said he was against shooting people who seemed about to set off explosives
Corbyn has always adhered to a shoot-when- necessary policy. Monday’s Daily Politics misuse was a deliberate defiance of the BBC Trust. See
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38666914
They used to say the Church of England was the Tory Party at prayer. It’s a long shot, I know, but I hope on Thursday the BBC will be the Tory Party at bay.
George Brennan”
This things get politely answered by very polite computer. But I hoped that if there were enough complaints on any topic another computer would count them and put them to some complaints ommudsman. Evidently not. That Trust apology was not a response to a complaint from the public
The Tories are intent on using Brexit as cover for privatizing our free national health service, in an exemplar of the art of disaster capitalism. It’s all there in the Naylor Report – £10bn of public money to be spent priming NHS land and buildings for sale to United Health, a bankster-controlled private health insurance outfit, sixth-largest corporation in the Fortune 500.
Please watch and share this galling video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCOPZGtvnpo
If people do re-elect the Tories, they will be sleepwalking into disaster.
Interestingly quite often when the Tories say they will ‘give’ the NHS 10 Billion pounds, it is by allowing them to use ‘efficiency savings’.
Still find the lack of interest by posters in the Bob Quick saga mind-bogging as it is more damaging to May’s chances of being re-elected than any media bias, especially by the BBC.
I missed it tell me more?
Its probably something to do with this…but the Government issued a “D” notice so you can’t read the details in the photograph. Trowbridge probably has the inside goss and the original, but doesn’t want to be extradited and prosecuted.
“Police chief Bob Quick steps down over terror blunder”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/apr/09/bob-quick-terror-raids-leak
Don’t have either a goss or the origina,Tony.
Happy to be extradited to spill my guts about all Britain’s counter terrorism misdeeds.
Sorry about the double post but it is worth it, and the mods should fix their equipment,
Well, as I recall, Quick was forced to resign after he exposed a memo about Operation Pathway against Al Qaeda while leaving No. 10 back in 2009 about it after it had succeeded. I think that the miscue was used by the Tory Government as an excuse for getting the reduction of policing funds which made counter terrorism more difficult, and he opposed.
The whole episode was raised again when The Guardian had a column about it, mistakenly calling him Richard Quick, as I recall, and the newspaper then deleted it because he was allegedly trying to hide who he really was, or the paper deliberately did it to discount his claims.
When Bob Quick left the Met, its counter terrorism started going down the tubes as we have dramatically experienced.
Trowbridge,
I don’t see anything of any major interest there. There’s got to be more to it than that. If not, try reading Mark Curtis instead…either one of his recent articles – or even one of his books. He doesn’t beat about the bush – just lays it all down after very detailed research.
Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam Paperback – 22 Mar 2012
by Mark Curtis
Most people have absolutely no idea what is going on, cos they don’t read books, and are just glued to the telly and the trash in the Telegraph, Guardian and the Sun. They actually think these people are telling the truth….
Or they did…Even John Ward has “got it” now (well some of it).
Tony
Right, Tony, you don’t see any difference between effective cops like Bob Quick and Mike Todd, and the current ones!
Tony
More up to date information om Mark’s website pertaining to current terror attacks:
http://markcurtis.info/
Craig, I wonder if you might supply the sources for the graph at the top the post please.
I think this is it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United_Kingdom_general_election,_2017#2017
The YouGov stuff is at:
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/06/corbyn-vs-may-how-public-sees-two-leaders/
The media is biased, but part a major part of the problem is the disgraceful behaviour of the parliamentary labour party who slagged off Corbyn and refused to work with him. None of them would have done any better sgainst May.
Well, as I recall, Quick was forced to resign after he exposed a memo about Operation Pathway against Al Qaeda while leaving No. 10 back in 2009 about it after it had succeeded. I think that the miscue was used by the Tory Government as an excuse for getting the reduction of policing funds which made counter terrorism more difficult, and he opposed.
The whole episode was raised again when The Guardian had a column about it, mistakenly calling him Richard Quick, as I recall, and the newspaper then deleted it because he was allegedly trying to hide who he really was, or the paper deliberately did it to discount his claims.
When Bob Quick left the Met, its counter terrorism started going down the tubes as we have dramatically experienced.
Trowbridge
Re Senior police then and now..well to be honest, I think most of them try to do a decent job, in impossible circumstances. Some of them actually tell the truth as best as they can, and are forced to resign.
An interesting example is Tony Farrell, the Principal Intelligence Analyst of South Yorkshire Police, who was forced to resign. It was his job to review available evidence for his annual threat assessment against the people of South Yorkshire. He came to the conclusion that it was less likely that the events of 9/11 and 7/7 were al-Qaeda terrorist attacks than ‘false flag’ terrorist operations carried out by the intelligence services of western governments. He reported his concerns to senior officers. He asked for time to produce a new assessment that included the threat from intelligence services as well as al-Qaeda. His request was denied, and he refused to sign off the report – as he said it would be misleading.
At the subsequent employment tribunal. it surfaced in evidence that no police officer, no intelligence analyst, no police manager, and nobody on the appeal panel had checked the evidence that led Tony Farrell to revise his threat assessment.
He didn’t get his job back. There is an awful lot of disinfo about Tony Farrell on the web. So far as I am aware he is still alive – but you can watch this if you’re that interested. I can’t be bothered – the title is wrong (its a scouse joke) – but it does feature him speaking in his own words. I have seen him speak before. I hope he is O.K.. He is obviously a good man. He just didn’t find himself able to lie. I like people like that.
“7/7 2005 London bombings. Kollerstrom and Farrell Are Dead.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8NZhl-ogoY
Tony
Ah yes Tony Farrell, alleged Principal Intelligence Analyst of South Yorkshire Police who only became aware that the London bombings might be a false flag from watching videos on Youtube…
Rather suggests he wasn’t very good at his job.
Keeping an eye, ‘Kempe’?
Everyone becomes aware of things via different sources at different times. You seem to have an axe to grind.
Tony Farrell is indeed and honourable man.
Excellent Craig!!!
Brilliant, succinct analysis Craig. Thanks!
The most biased of all is the BBC.
We’re being made to register to watch BBC services online.
Would people, on this site, be prepared to openly publish details of their login?
I know I would and this would be a great way of undermining this.
How can the BBC make anyone register for anything?
If you want to register with the BBC then go ahead. If you don’t want to register with the BBC then don’t.
Does this really need explaining. If it does then maybe you are paying far too much attention to the BBC. Free your mind and just ignore them and they will go away.
Bugmenot.com is the traditional login sharing website, very useful! I will add some Beeb details should I ever register
I’ll just kick this through the window and see who calls the police –
Given that the Tory campaign relied from the outset and pretty well exclusively on asserting the strength and stability of the irresolute and vacillating Mrs. May, it would seem that unless she obtains a greatly increased majority (otherwise the exercise was a complete waste even of the Tories’ time and money) the knives will very shortly be out, and she will become Minister for Paperclips. She will be replaced by one of a choice of incompetent undesirables.
Now, many of us voted Labour, SNP, UKIP, Green, Monster Raving or, god help them, LibDem, on the explicit understanding that Mrs May would be, er, leading the country after a probable Tory victory. Some may even have voted Tory on the same understanding. Should we be presented in the next few weeks with Johnson, Gove or Rudd in the hot seat, I think we are entitled to demand another election…
Just sayin’
Indeed Ba’al, but look how well chumped we were with the Lib Dems back in 2010. They campaigned to the left of Labour, who were themselves of course to the left of the Tories (but not as much as we might have liked). The LDs did quite well, and what happened? They jumped into bed with the Tories and made them the government.
If that doesn’t count as a betrayal of the voters, I cannot think what would. Blair aside. They got a terrible return at the last election, yet don’t seem to quite understand why – and certainly have not apologised for this treachery. Clegg still appears to think his opinions matter, for instance, and is not being told otherwise.
Frankly, it’s thanks to the LDs and the traitors of the SDP that we’ve had Tories getting into power at all for the past 30+ years.
It’s going to be interesting seeing the Libs, whose campaign was based on anti-Brexit, and the Tories, nailed to the Brexit cross, returning to their marital bliss in order to form a government, if the exit polls are right. On the downside, there’s a strong possibility that the Blair Tendency of the PLP will keep many of its seats, and make life miserable for Corbyn. Still, he’s stuck it out bravely so far, and he’s not naive.
Some Tory (Cameron’s chief of staff Alex Dean, I think) was trying to push the case that if JC got into power, the “fact” that the “majority” of Labour MPs had expressed no confidence meant all sorts of terrible things. The absolute fact that the vast majority of actual Labour members were in favour of JC was a point Dean had insufficient time to go into.
Your original post above seemed to be asking how much we were willing to put up with. This is a betrayal of the Labour party we’re witnessing, because individual MPs deem JC too left wing for their liking. I think we ought to make it absolutely clear to these Blairite scum (if I might use the term) that it’s the interests of the members, and the voting public, which should concern them, and there are plenty of right wing parties they can join if they don’t like Labour.
My intention was in fact to take a gentle swipe at people who want to rerun referenda on the basis that they were misled as to the outcome. The bitter irony of which being that a very likely outcome of this election will be yet another bloody election soon. Sorry, sorry…
Being a parliamentary elections there would be no reason to question the result. After all this is =exactly what happened when Cameron resigned. We are not electing a President. However I sympathise with what you say as May has especially made the elections very personal.
“Mrs. May, it would seem that unless she obtains a greatly increased majority (otherwise the exercise was a complete waste even of the Tories’ time and money)”
Their majority was rock solid as Tories only rebel to the right and there isn’t much room to the right of May.
The main benefit for them is the extra two years to attempt to recover from the looming Brexit meltdown and/or steal as much they can before getting kicked out.
The whole system is a travesty of democracy. When you look at the number of voters in the last election it is obvious that the SNP is vastly overrepresented in Westminster with 56 MPs with 1.45 million votes and Lib Dems with one million more votes getting only 8 seats the same as the DUP of NI who only got 184,00 votes, the Greens got only one seat for almost as many votes as the SNP.. And as for UKIP with 3.8 million votes they got only 1 seat. Now whatever you think of the SNP, Greens, Lib Dems and UKIP, surely you can see that this is a crazy system that runs against all rules of fairness of representation. The system is flawed and rotten. That is even without addressing such things as an unelected upper house, based on a system of political patronage and a head of state who is also the head of the church and is hereditary. The oldest democracy is seriously in need of updating and if this is done the press will lose a little of power.
Lose a lot of power I meant.
Trouble is, whatever party is currently in power has absolutely no incentive to change the system that got it there.
And after all, the hugely popular LDs got their referrendum on an alternative voting system, as the reward for betraying their supporters. By then, the LDs were incredibly unpopular (and have been ever since), which allowed Cameron and the mass media to dismiss it as a silly idea. A poor turnout ensued, the status quo was duly cemented into place.
The SNP only stood in 59 constituencies, so to compare them with the votes another party got over 650 constituencies is not valid. Apples and pears. Do agree that first passed the post system is grossly unfair and I believe the SNP would support change, despite benefitting at the moment.
All the more reason to say this is unrepresentative as they only present a limited base of electorate which affects the whole of the UK not just Scotland.
SA, Agreed and shows the UK system isn’t fit for purpose. The daily mechanics of Westminster is childish and pathetic. A more representative house would require and encourage more constructive debate, with decisions also closer to what the public desire… definitely couldn’t be worse than the current, undemocratic debacle.
But it works, the oldest democracy in the world is still a democracy because it works and the countries in the world with most freedom are constitutional monarchies, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden constitutional monarchies it works as how counter intuitive it may seem it works and has stood the test of time.
People have all sorts of theories, theories are so often proven to be wrong, stick with what works.
OK it might work but it ain’t democracy.
It works? Are you being serious? Works for fuckin who?
Strange to me, Fred, is the fact that every single ‘Democracy’ in the democratic West is fronted by a millionaire at the very least. And often by multimillionaires and beyond. Now this makes me sort of-er-suspicious.
Here is a satellite photo of North and South Korea taken at night, one is a democracy and one isn’t, guess which is which.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AtnGkCb4w3g/Tu_Z6LdJvRI/AAAAAAAAQec/l1mBmlxwcRI/s1600/1207koreaelectricitygrikf0.jpg
The one that’s a democracy is the one with all the millionaires. I can spot all the Veyrons and C63 AMG’s by using my Nan’s magnifier. Rofl.
Excellent. Maybe we should all copy North Korea and save the planet. What a waste eh?
Sweden? Are you having a laugh?
Sweden is the most corrupt society on earth. All reasonable people should boycott Swedish products and shun all Swedes. Sweden needs to be isolated as completely as a sufferer of Ebola needs to be isolated.
North Korea, Israel, Hamas, Russia, Donald Trump, racists, communists, fascists, global warming. It does not matter. Whoever or whatever your personal bete noire is none of it comes close to Sweden.
Loony
My cousin has lived in Sweden most of his life. He seems to like it and he is very posh. Also a bloke I know who is both a very good musician, and I suspect a very good computer games programmer (though he keeps that quiet) has just moved there too.
It can’t be that bad, providing you wear reinforced condoms.
Tony
Can’t broadcasters run their own media their own way? You know: if, for instance, they decide a particular politician shouldn’t have the benefit of their platform, surely they can do what they want with their own?
Is Habbs on holiday? I think we should be told.
Although I don’t do Twitter I’ve just seen this on Twitter..”Southport & Ormskirk Hospital Trust Community Services will transfer to Virgin Care on 1st May 2017″ I didn’t know that.
Anyway I went to the “NHS” dentist today…My wife did tell me it was going to cost a fortune. To be fair its the first time i’ve been to the dentist for 15 years.The dentist was extremely nice (my wife didn’t like how I described her)
I said I want everything possible done on the NHS…She said yes OK, except this one tooth..She showed me the X-Ray. She said on the NHS all you can have is a denture – and caually mentioned for 1 tooth the Private charge will be £900.
That is where the rest of the Privatised NHS is heading if you voted Tory. There were all sorts of things I was thinking, but didn’t say, because I am much too polite. Causally at the end, I said well that compares with the real NHS who did a magnificent job of reconstructing my wife’s leg after she got run over by a car. It cost her NOTHING. There was No Charge.
Tony
There is enough information out there to provide everyone with information on what is going on.
This site for instance.
http://www.nhsforsale.info/
By name http://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers.html
Thanks for the Link Sharp Ears..A page to keep an eye on.
Total Chaos in Newcastle As Youngsters Turned Away Earlier Today were urged to head back in the last hour of voting, After the problems had been fixed.
Shocking Goings on
Brilliant Result on Exit poll – except I’m going to have to stay up all night now!!!!!!!!!!!
ITN exit poll predicts May has no majority. May to go. JC for PM? Turbulence ahead.
Con 314
Lab 266
LD 14
SNP 34
Others 22
Gideon is commenting in the ITV studio. With the ubiquitous Ed Balls. YCNMIU.
Just like to say a big thank you to Anon1 for his 3 quid to vote for Corbyn. It has made a huge difference.
They haven’t lost yet.
On BREXIT I went to bed thinking no chance. I got up at 6;30 and we’d blown the bloody doors off.
Indeed it is. It’s so bad it had to change its nick in case any of its troll mates saw it.
Zero hours.
NATO and their Gladio subsidaries are Again going to Be Furious with us Ordinary British People..”What the hell is wrong with The BRITS?”
Well maybe, we don’t like being terrorized by you eejits and now even more of us can see through your lies straight to your evil..and we don’t like it..
Thank you Mark Curtis & Thierry Meyssan. What you wrote has made a huge difference.
You have risked your lives to Research in Detail – the Truth and Publish it.
The Truth is Going to Win. It’s our only hope of survival.
http://markcurtis.info/
http://www.voltairenet.org/en
Tony
I think a lot of that 52% Brexiteered not only due to media influence, anti-immigration, etc,but because people instinctively know where peace rather than war lies, and know that the former has long ceased to have a helpmate in the EU. This is substantiated by what has happened in the Ukraine, Syria, etc, and also through the Trump Clinton farcical political contrick.
Your analysis is disturbing and even worse than I realised. But it begs my question: how to combat this? How to start breaking this down? Otherwise it makes me feel hopeless. Crowd fund Media reform coalition campaign? Private Members Bill? We can’t let this continue!
Another proof of flawed democracy. May visits Queen to get her blessing to form a new minority government with the backing of the DUP. No further details. Queen then says ‘that’s OK with me’ and May goes ahead.
So we have millions voting and telling May ‘ we don’t like your approach to Brexit’ so she continues to disregard the millions and gets the blessing of a hereditary unelected person to back her. And nobody seems to comment on this primitively way of British politics in the 21sr century!
the first graph has no sourve provided. Poor journalistic choice.
W.O.A.H.
when you break it down like that, it is just fucking outrageous!
I’m tempted to email this article to every single journalist in the UK press, but I have a feeling a lot of them will keep quite a close eye on this blog anyway..
god damn them all to hell.
This strengthens my recent thoughts of likening UK plutocrat press barons and BBC to kidnappers whose kidnapped – the UK public – have developed Stockholm syndrome.
A day after the election, BBCR4 ‘Toady’ programme discovered Tariq Ali for comment. Where was he, Anne Pettifor, Avinash Persaud, Prem Sikka, New Economics Foundation and, of course, many many others of the ‘non-orthodox’ during the campaign. Why were these people on every panel discussion and current affairs programme?
I often wrote to BBC programmes, always copy to Feedback to complain that it was reneging on its mandate to educate and inform. A large part of the fault may be to do with out-sourcing programmes, such as BBCTV Question Time produced by Mentorn Media (also does Robot Wars!). How can BBC monitor such company’s adherence to BBC Mandate at such arms length?
The damaging effect of over represented right wing media is almost certainly the biggest problem facing the advancement of progressive democracy in the UK.
I believe that if progressive politics is ever able to get a foothold within our so-caked democratic system, its first priority should be to legislate in such ways as to make it more difficult for the right wing press barons to operate without far greater restriction on their opportunities for bias and far greater punishment when they transgress.
Great article. Enjoyed reading.
Yeah.
Media is key.
A controlling media can control the whole narrative.
So you by-pass that. Both Trump and Corbyn did, and others.
Large large rallies directly to the public. Democracy, innit.
It’s a very very old media form, speaking directly to the public, within and among them.
And in social media now too.
The days of politics conducted in cosy BBC, ITN, Sky News studios etc, is over.
Important to understand that that was the way it was supposed to continue. That was the plan, and hence the massive investment in media in all its forms, from those heady early 90s globalist days on.
Basically the idea is that your neoliberal thieves, their piss-poor careerist political fronts, get an easy ride in media, and that’s all the meeting the public they ever do.
No tough questions. No questions at all really. Worth talking about. All fluff and nonsense. Media is simply advertising for globalist pimps and smearing of anyone who challenges that globalism.
But the media model busted and all the frauds were revealed.
Which is kinda where we’re at.
They’ve lost the young people.
No longer believing in their elders.
Which is not a satisfactory situation.
New management, Please!
Excellent. I often had thoughts along these lines during the election campaign – especiallly when listening
To Radio 4’s Today programme, and during the Paxman interview. It is good to see this systematic critique here. Keep up the good work!