Email Campaign by We Own It Against Channel 4 Privatisation

I got this email yesterday from anti-privatisation, pro-NHS organisation We Own It about the government’s latest sell-off. They’re planning to privatise Channel 4. Their email explains that this is disastrous because Channel 4 are one of the few media outlets holding them to account. At the same time they have been instrumental in producing quality television, which is funded through the channel’s advertising revenue. The government’s proposed privatisation is such a terrible idea that even many Tories are protesting against it. To counter it, the organisation is asking people to write to their MPs using a form letter they have devised. Here’s the email:

“Dear David,

There is absolutely no reason to privatise Channel 4, but the government is planning to do it anyway.

You can take a quick, easy action today to stop them in their tracks.

Take action now

Why is this so important?

Channel 4 News is one of the few news programmes that really holds this government to account, on issues from the NHS to the climate crisis. In fact, that’s probably a big part of why the government wants to privatise it. 

(Remember when Boris Johnson failed to attend the Channel 4 leaders’ debate on the climate crisis, and they replaced him with a melting ice sculpture?)

If you want decent news coverage at the next general election, please take 2 minutes to email your MP, ESPECIALLY if they’re a Conservative.

Email your MP now

Privatising Channel 4 would be an incredibly destructive act that would damage the UK film and TV industry. The creation of Channel 4 is the reason why the independent sector in film and TV exists today.

This matters 

• For the quality of programmes and films that get produced
• For young people trying to enter the creative industry
• For the UK’s reputation in the world

There is no problem that privatising Channel 4 is the solution for.

Channel 4 has a unique business model, making a profit from advertising that it reinvests in good programming and nurturing talent. Channel 4 now has offices in Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow and Bristol, so it helps with the ‘levelling up’ agenda, boosting investment and jobs all around the country. They also support local production companies and outreach programmes in Cardiff, Belfast, Bournemouth, Norwich, Wolverhampton, Preston, Doncaster, Corby and Leicester.

That’s why wherever you are in the UK, Channel 4 is a good thing for your area.

Take 2 minutes to take action now

Lots of Conservatives have come out against the proposed sale of Channel 4. Many celebrities, including very right wing ones, have too. This means we have a chance of persuading the government that privatisation is a bad idea.

As Kirstie Allsopp has said, the plan to privatise Channel 4 is incredibly destructive. “I am a fiscal conservative and I’m naturally conservative-leaning and I find [the sale of C4] to be a betrayal of conservatism. It’s bonkers…I stood outside St Pauls when Margaret Thatcher’s coffin went by, and she would be spinning in her grave if she knew what this government was intending to do. Because C4 produces money, it produces jobs, it fosters talent, it brings out the best in people, and it’s very British.”

If you have a Conservative MP, it’s so important that you take this action! Your MP is EXACTLY who we need to shift. You will see that the template email is aimed at appealing to MPs like yours. Please send the text as it is, to maximise the chances of doing that! Thank you.

If you don’t have a Conservative MP, your MP can still really help to raise this issue up the agenda.

I want to stop the Channel 4 sell off

Last time the government tried to privatise Channel 4 they failed – partly because of the campaign we were part of to stop them. 

Let’s win again this time around and protect this much loved, publicly owned asset.

Thank you so much.

Cat, Alice, Johnbosco, Matthew, Zana and Anna – the We Own It team

PS Thank you so much for the incredible response to our Halloween action to protect our NHS from the Health and Care Bill! If you’ve let us know that you’d like to take action locally, we’re getting your action packs ready at the moment and we’ll be in contact with you via email. Get in touch if you want to get involved – there’s still time!”

I’ve supported their campaign, and duly sent a message to my MP because of the reasons they’ve laid out in their email. It’s not just the government that Channel 4’s held to account. They also gave Mark Regev a hard time when during the bombardment of Gaza. Regev tried to tell the British public that if they sent aid to Gaza through Israel, it would still get there. John Snow knew he was lying and told him he was. Which shows that Channel 4 has more backbone when it comes to tackling Israeli lies and atrocities than the rest of our craven media, or at least, they did then.

Channel 4 was set up in the 1980s to be an alternative to BBC 2. News was to be a particularly important part of its programming, and this has been consistently extremely good, even to Tories like former Mail columnist, now scribbling for the Times, Quentin Letts. The broadcaster was also going to offer programmes to minorities and groups not served by mainstream broadcasters. Hence when it started off it broadcast an adaptation of the Indian national epic, the Mahabharata, and a season of Indian films, All India Goldies. I also remember it having a news series of reports from Africa, fronted by Black reporters. It also helped launch a new generation of Black comedians with the series Desmond’s. And then there was the awesome Max Headroom. Unfortunately, the quality did decline in the 1990s as the programme chiefs made it more mainstream, though even then it did broadcast quality material like the American import, Fraser. And it does support the British film industry, or what remains of it. If you’ve seen a British film, or a British/Irish co-production in the past few years, chances are that it’s also been co-produced by Channel 4 films. Kirstie Allsopp is wrong about Margaret Thatcher not wanting it privatised. There were several times when the Conservative government tried to sell it off, or sold shares in it but it hasn’t been totally privatised.

Now it seems it will be. For the same reasons the government is trying to privatise the Beeb. Because both are obstacles to private TV stations that don’t have a public service commitment, and particularly because they’re obstacles to the grasping power of Rupert Murdoch.

I’ve supported this campaign and emailed my MP as requested because I don’t want the channel privatised. If you feel the same, please do so.

19 Years Ago Private Eye Revealed New Labour Plans to Privatise NHS and Education

One of the good aspects of Private Eye that has kept me reading it – just about – is the way it has covered the deep and pernicious connections between the political parties and big business. And in their issue for 15th-28 June 2001, right at the beginning of Blair’s second term in government, the Eye revealed his plans to privatise the NHS and the education system in the article ‘How the New Government Will Work’. This ran

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are in two minds: should they privatise the entire delivery of public services or just some of it? To help them decide they are consulting the best minds money can buy.

For a start, Downing Street has a report from the Blairite Institute for Public Policy Research. It recommends that private firms deliver health and education on the widest possible scale. The report, a final paper from IPPR’s “Commission on Public Private Partnerships”, claims that “the crucial ingredient that the private sector possesses and the public sector needs is management.”

The report was paid for by the Serco “institute”, a front for the firm which privately runs a slew of Britain’s prisons and immigration detention centres, including the grim “Doncatraz” Doncaster gaol. Serco failed to win the air traffic control privatisation precisely because of worries about its management.

The report was also supported by Nomura, Japanese bank with a big interest in private finance initiative-style (PFI) deals: Nomura’s management of army housing under PFI has been lamentable. KPMG chipped in to support the report as well. It is not a disinterested party either. KPMG advised on 29 hospital PFI schemes, and many other deals outside health.

The giant accountant’s role in these hospital sell-offs has only come under indepdent scrutiny once: at Dartford and Gravesham hospital. The national audit office (NAO) found that, despite KPMG’s “healthcare” advice, the new hospital probably made no financial saving but did cut beds drastically. KPMG’s own fees were originally tendered at £152,000. It finally billed the NHS for £960,000. For good measure, the Norwich Union, which also put millions in PFI, invested in the IPPR report too.

Martin Taylor, chancellor Brown’s friend who used to run Barclays Bank, acted as “commissioner” in drawing up the IPPR’s advice. He is perfectly suited to the job: as an adviser to Goldman Sachs he is in the pay of a multinational bank which wants to make a profit out of Britain’s poor. Goldman Sachs is involved in PFI: it originally funded the PFI buy-out of all Britain’s dole offices.

As the “honorary secretary” of the Bilderberg group, Taylor is also involved in the secretive corporate schmoozing of big name politicians (he signed up for Bilderberg originally alongside Peter Mandelson). And when he ran Barclays, he showed his “secret ingredient” was disastrous management. Under his stewardship the bank lost £250m gambling in Russian financial markets, and had to stump up £300m to bail out the absurd American “hedge fund”, Long Term Capital Markets.

Eventually Taylor was ousted by a boardroom battle in November 1998 before he could cause more damage. Now he’s decided to help the public sector.

The treasury meanwhile wants to take a second look at IPPR’s prediction about the efficiency of privatisation. In particular chancellor Brown wants to test the idea that the private sector gets greater productivity out of employers through “reskilling”, “efficient shift systems and better motivation” – rather than low pay, poor conditions, long hours and casualisation.

To test the theory he will commission a study by the Office of Government Commerce. This office in turn also has a private manager: Peter Gershon, Britain’s highest paid civil servant on £180,000 a year, plus performance benefits and a three-year contract.

He was formerly chief operating officer at British Aerospace. But far from being expert in efficiency, BAe is best at massive cost overruns, project failures and non-competitive tendering. The managers in charge of the Tornado, Bowman Radio and Type 45 destroyer programmes – all plagued with late delivery and technical problems – reported directly to Gershon.

Since then, Serco have become notorious for their massive inefficiency and the inhuman conditions at the prisons and detention centres they run. One of the most notorious of the latter was Yarl’s Wood, which was so atrocious the asylum seekers rioted. And I don’t think that was only one either. I also remember the outrage that the government’s sale of the army barracks to Nomura caused.

Goldman Sachs and Lehmann’s Bank caused the 2008 world banking crash, ushering over two decades of cuts and austerity, which has made conditions for the poor even more worse. For those who are managing to survive the low pay, monstrous levels of debt, and the almost non-existent welfare state. This has forced millions of people onto food banks to keep body and soul together, and hundreds of thousands are suffering from starvation, or ‘food poverty’ as the media now delicately put it. And I forget what the death toll from this is, it’s so high.

As for low pay, poor conditions and job insecurity – that all increased under Gordon Brown, and has increased even more so under the Tories, as it all keeps the working woman and man down, cowed and fearful, in her and his place.

And the Bilderbergers will be familiar to anyone interested in conspiracy theories. They were some of the ‘Secret Rulers of the World’ covered by Jon Ronson in his documentary series on Channel 4 of the same name.

I dare say some of the names involved in the privatisation agenda has changed, but you can bet it’s all going to come in with Starmer, despite his retention of Corbyn’s election manifesto. ‘Cause that was popular. Now it looks like he’ll undermine it by starting to ignore it.

And we’re back to Blairite misery, despair, poverty and starvation again. Except for the multinationals and their utterly talentless managers. It all looks pretty good for them.

Revealed! Torygraph Readers Really Do Think the Aristocracy Are Biologically Superior

I’ve blogged several times about the Social Darwinism that underlies much of Conservatism. They share the Nazis’ belief that the upper classes are biologically superior to the rest of us, and so deserve their dominance in society, the economy and politics. Going through an old copy of Private Eye from 22 years ago, Friday 11th December 1998, I found a very revealing quote in their article ‘Readerwatch – The Daily Telegraph’ opposite the ‘Street of Shame’ column.

This was about 2/3 of a page of quotations from the Torygraph’s readers complaining about the state of the world. Much of this consisted of attacks on the decline in modern sexual morality, the EU and the Speaker wearing a white mackintosh to the Cenotaph at Remembrance Sunday. Oh yes, and Prince Charles showing ‘deplorable bad taste’ in inviting Peter Mandelson to his fiftieth birthday party. Which I think is fair comment.

But some of the most revealing comments are about Blair’s proposal to reform the House of Lords, which at the time included the abolition of the hereditary peerage. One of those outraged by this was Professor Richard Porter of Doncaster, whom the Eye quoted as follows

Professor Richard Porter of Doncaster attacks the Blairite fascist junta from a scientific angle. “Hereditary peers are most deserving of a vote in the Upper House. They embody the best of both nature and nurture. The extraordinary genes of some long forgotten ancestor may now be diluted, but those that remain must give them a slight edge over the rest of us.”

I’ve been haunted by that quote for years, and wondered where it was. It explains so much, like how the vile Toby Young could turn up at a eugenics conference at one of the London universities, rubbing shoulders with real Nazis and anti-Semites. It explains Dominic Cummings and the herd immunity, which simply regards the mass death of the elderly from Covid-19 as merely a cull. Or the same attitude towards the disabled, the long-term unemployed and those at the bottom of the economic and social pile. They’re ‘useless eaters’, as Mike reminds us the Nazis called them, ‘lebensunwertigen leben’ – ‘life unworthy of life’.

Unfortunately, the most visible counterargument to this pernicious, destructive, murderous entitlement is Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for the 18th century, who just about embodies every defect that comes from such privilege. But for some reason the Tory right loves him, which proves just how warped this country has become.

Vox Political on the Vacuity of Owen Smith and the Strategic Silence of the Blairites

Mike has put up a couple of very chilling articles about Paul Mason’s speculation of where the anti-Corbyn rebels in the Labour party will try to take the coup next. Mason points out that they are largely silent in defending or promoting Owen Smith. He notes that Smiffy was one of those Labour politicos, who sounded left-wing when their real political views were on the right – neoliberal economics intended to keep the Labour party under the control of big finance, the big pharmaceutical companies and the merchants of death. He goes on to state that at the Gateshead and Doncaster hustings, both broadcast by the Beeb, it became evident that Smiffy doesn’t believe in anything. There was no clear indication when he became converted to soft-left Corbynism, but without the unpleasant bits challenging capitalism and big business left out. He speculates that Smiff, and Angela Eagle before him, is only there as a kind of placeholder, to remove Jeremy Corbyn and the Corbynites from control of the Labour party, after which the resources of Progress, Saving Labour and Tomorrow’s Labour will be used to bring the party once more under corporate control.

See: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/08/20/paul-mason-on-the-silence-of-the-blairites/

Mason goes further and suggests that the next phase of the coup will come after the special conference on the 24th of September. The Blairites are formulating new polls to show that the public prefers Theresa May to Jeremy Corbyn. They will then draw up a list of constituencies which they claim will be lost to Labour come a general election. This will be conveniently leaked to their friends in the right-wing press. Then the bullying and intimidation of Corbyn by Labour’s backbenchers will begin anew, with Smith smiling approvingly, but not taking part, and making disapproving noises occasionally castigating such intimidation. They will then start more legal actions to get their grubby mitts on the party’s name and assets. This is what the establishment of Saving Labour and Tomorrow’s Labour is for. By Christmas, Mason predicts, they will have engineered a split in the Labour party to remove Corbyn’s 300,000+ supporters. As for Smith, he will be discarded. They never took him seriously, and he was never anything more than a tool to prise Corbyn out of office.

See: http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2016/08/20/is-this-the-blairite-battle-plan/

This is just purely destructive, but it shows the power of corporate big business in New Labour. It also shows, as Mike points out, the sheer irrationality of the Blairites that they are prepared to purge the majority of the party’s members, and even sabotage its electoral chances, just to keep control. It doesn’t matter how many times the accusations of anti-Semitism and misogyny are refuted, they keep being repeated. Just like Goebbels demanded they should be in his strategy of using the one big lie.

This is disgusting, and shows why the Blairites themselves should be removed from power. They should never have been given it in the first place.