I had this email from the internet activists at Megaphone earlier this morning. It announces a new internet tool they’ve devised which will show people the harm the cost of living crisis is doing in their area.
‘David,
This government’s failure to deal with the cost of living emergency is taking a heavy toll.
Many families can’t afford to eat or keep warm this autumn. Rent and mortgage costs keep going up.
The Prime Minister may have reversed her disastrous mini-budget — but there’s still nowhere near enough help for families.
Today, we launch a new tool to show the disastrous impact of the government’s inaction in every constituency in the country. Just put in your postcode to see the damning results where you live:
We all want to live in a country where working people make enough to live on, and thrive.
By getting the general public outraged, on-side and signed up to take action, we can force the government’s hand.
That’s why we’re building towards a mass lobby of parliament and rally in Westminster on Wednesday, 2 November.
We will demand better, and we will win.
In solidarity,
Anthony,
Megaphone UK'[
I’ve no problem with publicising this internet tool. As Barry and Savile Kushner show in their book, Who Needs the Cuts, austerity wasn’t dictated by economic circumstances. It was a conscious choice by the Tories to impoverish ordinary people. And the Tories are still pursuing austerity, whatever they said about lifting it. According to today’s news, 25 per cent of families are ‘food insecure’, which is a posh way of saying they don’t know whether they’ll be able to eat or not. In a developed country like Britain, this is an obscenity.
This is another video from mad internet right-winger Alex Belfield. As I’ve said many times before, Belfield is extremely right-wing. He’s very firmly against immigration, especially Afghan refugees and the migrants trying to cross the Channel, whom he calls ‘dinghy divers’. He thinks the NHS can be improved by selling it off, while the opposite is true: the NHS is in the state it’s in because of piecemeal, continuing privatisation. His videos are full of rants about university educated ‘whippersnappers’ and ‘Guardian-reading, champagne-sipping, oyster-eating Nana Manchushi types’, a sneering reference to BBC newsreader Naga Manchetti. He’s also like to see the Beeb privatised. Unfortunately, after the gross bias the Beeb has shown towards Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and the way it has supported austerity, as shown by Barry and Savile Kushner’s Who Needs the Cuts?, part of my is inclined to agree with him about this. But this is genuinely alarming, and I think Belfield is right to put it up.
It shows a young man, presumably a scientist, with a Scandinavian accent talking about two computer chips he’s had implanted. One contains his Coronavirus information, the other his medical and personal details. These can be read by apps on mobile phones, although the personal information is strictly confidential and can’t be accessed by any phone, unlike the Coronavirus. Belfield is very strongly opposed to the lockdown and Covid passports. I think he’s put it up as a warning of the direction this policy could take. And I think he’s right in this very specific circumstance.
Years ago I read a book warning about the dangers of the emerging surveillance state. This included biometric electronic passports and identity cards containing personal information. I think Blair was planning to introduce them, but the idea was shelved. Obviously it’s been bubbling under these past few decades and whoever’s behind the idea is still keen to have it introduced. I think it’s a dangerous encroachment on civil liberty, made all the more so by the fact that this version would be implanted in your body. I’m aware that we chip our pets, but humans aren’t animals. This goes too far in giving the state access to people’s personal information implanted within their own bodies. It’s too much like some of the scenarios from dystopian science fiction.
And I might be a bit superstitious here, but it also reminds me of the end times prophecies of the Christian Fundamentalists. From the 1970s onwards they were particularly suspicious of bar codes, because they supposedly contained the test numbers ‘666’, the number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation. Just as those loyal to the Antichrist would have the number on their hand and forehead, so they claimed that people would be forced to carry barcodes there on their bodies. This isn’t quite that, and the inclusion of the numbers ‘666’ is an urban myth, but it’s close enough to make me feel a bit uncomfortable even though it’s probably nothing and definitely not a sign the End is Nigh.
Implanted identity chips are a terrible idea and are a further assault on personal liberty. It all looks reasonable, but I fear it would be the thin end of the wedge.
Great piece today by Tim Fenton, the sage of Crewe, demolishing some of the massive untruths told by Nadine Dorries, our new Culture Secretary. He starts off by reminding us all the Nads is no stranger to telling porkies. In 2006 she wrote a piece for Conservative Home containing the remarkable fact that every member of Liverpool council in 1955 was Tory. Did I say fact just then? Well, it was in the sense of Donald Trumps ‘alternative facts’. The real composition of Liverpool council at that year’s elections was 53 Tories to 65 Labour. She also said that there were eight MPs for the city at the time, all of whom were Tory. This is another falsehood. Liverpool had nine MPs, three of whom were Labour.
Now she is telling falsehoods about the BBC. The Corporation, she insists, must take action over breaches of impartiality. But former Groan editor Alan Rusbridger points out that Ofcom have found zero breaches of impartiality. He then says he has too much respect for her to accuse her of lying, and hopes she will produce some hard evidence to back up her assertions.
Steve Barnett of the University of Westminster also put the correct figures for the proportion of Beeb staff who went to private school. Nads has said that it’s 50 per cent. The actual figure is 11.5 per cent of all staff, and 17.5 per cent of the leadership
Zelo Street also quotes Peter Walker, again of the Groan, who said that Nads complained that those criticising her appointment as culture secretary were mainly people who benefited from nepotism. She also believes that the ‘groupthink’ at the Beeb excludes northerners and people from the working class. As the Street points out, this is a bit rich coming from the woman who employed two of her daughters at taxpayers’ expense. He also compares the Tory cabinet with the backgrounds of two of the Beeb’s favourite personalities:
“Meanwhile, the Tory cabinet is two-thirds privately educated, the BBC’s leading news anchor (Huw Edwards) was state-educated and his parents weren’t employed by the Corporation, and its leading sports presenter (Gary Lineker) began his working life helping his late Dad Barry – who ran a fruit and veg stall on Leicester Market.”
In actual fact, I think the Beeb is biased. The Kushners pointed out in their great book, Who Needs the Cuts?, that the Beeb uncritically assumed that Austerity was justified and gave ample space to those economists and politicians who supported it. Dissenting voices, especially from the trade unions and other groups, were excluded or, if they did appear, shouted down. Analysis from the media monitoring groups at Edinburgh and Glasgow unis found that Conservative ministers and figures from industry and the City were far more likely to appear on the news than Labour politicos and trade unionists. And the Beeb showed massive bias in its treatment of Jeremy Corbyn, in which it supported the actions of the Thatcherite plotters and staunchly pushed the lie that the party was institutionally anti-Semitic. As, of course, did the rest of the media. If Ofcom didn’t find any breaches of impartiality there, then it probably doesn’t say much about the organisation’s own lack of bias. But whatever, the watchdog hasn’t found any bias against the Tories.
These figures also undermine mad right-wing YouTuber Alex Belfield’s own attacks on the Beeb. Belfield claims he was forced out of the Beeb through a mixture of jealousy – certain star broadcasters were envious he got more listeners than they did – and contempt for his background. Belfield says he’s a working class lad from a pit village. As opposed to his former colleagues at the Beeb, who were all middle class and university educated. Well, they may have been. Not having gone to private school doesn’t necessarily mean that you are working class. Many of the peeps who are state educated are lower middle class. And possessing a university education doesn’t necessarily exclude members of the working class. Way back in the early 80s the student grant was still around to support students from poorer backgrounds. That’s been ended, but higher education has been massively expanded to include 45 per cent plus of the population. Which must surely include members of the working class.
But since before the days of David Cameron the Tories have been trying to pose as the real representatives of the working class, as against the university educated, left-wing elites. Tweezer opened her first cabinet meeting by saying that none of them were members of the elite. In fact, damn near every single one of them was a millionaire. As for attacks on university education, there’s a massive streak of anti-intellectualism amidst the parties of the right. The attacks on university education are there to inspire prejudice against anything a university group might say criticising Tory policy. But it ain’t just universities that the Tories hate. Some of us also remember the remark of a Tory MP about opera: ‘What’s opera? A fat Italian, singing in Italian, dressed as a woman.’ Well yes, a fair number of the great operas were written by Italians in Italian. But not all are exclusively sung by Italians of a certain weight, despite Pavarotti. And I don’t think all of them involve crossdressing. But it shows the prejudice of a certain type of Tory towards high art.
But once again, the Tories have been caught lying again. And unfortunately, once again it’s no surprise.It’s a pity Keef Stalin is trying to copy them in his leadership of Labour.
According to next week’s Radio Times, for 20th-26th April 2019, Radio 4 are due to broadcast a programme questioning the notion of journalistic impartiality, ‘Call Yourself an Impartial Journalist?’, hosted by Jonathan Coffey. The blurb for the programme by Simon O’Hagan on page 138 of the magazine runs
In a febrile political age, fuelled by social media, the BBC has felt the heat as possibly never before – guilty, in its accusers’ eyes, of failing to reflect the full spectrum of opinion over not just Brexit but such culture-wars issues as transgenderism. With the BBC due to publish a new set of editorial guidelines in June (the first since 2010), Jonathan Coffey explores the idea of impartiality and whether any sort of consensus around it is possible. Contributors include the Spectator columnist Rod Liddle, the BBC’s director of editorial and policy standards, David Jordan, and Kerry-Anne Mendoza, the editor of online media The Canary.
The programme’s on at 11.00 am.
I don’t think there’s much doubt about the Beeb’s political bias. Academics at the media monitoring units of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff universities found that the Beeb was twice as likely to seek the opinions of Conservative MPs and financial experts as Labour MPs and trade unionists. Barry and Savile Kushner also describe how the Beeb pushed the austerity agenda in their book, Who Needs the Cuts?, to the point that the opponents of austerity were rarely invited onto their news and politics programmes to put their case. When they were, the presenters actually tried to silence them, even by shouting them down. And years ago Tony Benn in one of his books said that the Beeb considered itself impartial, because its bias was largely slightly to the left of the Tories at the time, but way to right of everyone else.
There could be some interesting things said on the programme, particularly by the excellent Kerry-Anne Mendoza, but my fear is that it’s going to be like the Beeb’s programme, Points of View, and just be an exercise in the corporation justifying itself and its own bias.
The Beeb has been hit with several scandals recently about its right-wing bias, and particularly about the very slanted debates and the selection of the guests and panel in Question Time. Members of the audience have been revealed as UKIP and Tory plants, the panels frequently consist of four members of the right against only one left-winger, chair Fiona Bruce intervenes to support Conservative speakers and repeat right-wing falsehoods. When she and other members of staff aren’t making jokes for the audience against Diane Abbott, of course.
In this eleven minute video from Novara Media, presenter Aaron Bastani exposes the anti-Labour, anti-socialist bias across BBC news programming. He begins with Brexit, and a radio interview by Sarah Montague of the Beeb’s World at One and Labour’s John Trickett. Trickett talks about how they’ve been to Europe, and suggests changing the red lines and forming a consensus. He is interrupted by Montague, who tells him that May’s deal has been struck, and gives Labour the customs union they want. She asks him why Labour would not support it. Bastani points out that the government is not in favour of a customs union. If they were, the Irish backstop would not be an issue. Does Montague not know this, or is she laying a trap for the opposition when now, more than ever, it is the government that needs to be held to account.
The Beeb’s Emily Barnett asked a simply question of Labour’s Emily Thornberry the same day. Barnett states that the EU have said that it’s May’s deal, and asks her if she has any evidence that they’re open to another deal. Thornberry replies with the letter Labour had written to the EU, with its entirely viable suggestions. Barnett repeats that they aren’t supported by the EU. Thornberry responds by saying that Michel Barnier said that it was an entirely reasonable way they could have negotiations. Bastani points out that Barnett’s assertions aren’t true. Guy Verhofstadt, Michel Barnier and Donald Tusk have all welcomed Labour’s suggestions. Tusk even told May that Corbyn’s plan could break the deadlock.
Bastani states that it isn’t just on radio that there’s bias, where basic facts are not mentioned or denied and where there is a great emphasis to hold Labour to account than the government. He then goes on to discuss the edition of Newsnight on Tuesday, the day before those two radio broadcasts, where presenter Emily Maitlis talked to the Tories’ Nadim Zahawi and Labour’s Barry Gardiner. This was the evening when May’s withdrawal agreement was voted down for the second time, but it looked like there was a tag-team effort between Maitlis and Zahawi against Gardiner. He then plays the clip of Maitlis challenging Gardiner about what will be on Labour’s manifesto. Gardner replies that it will all be discussed by the party, which will decide what will be put in the manifesto. Maitlis rolls her eyes and then she and Zahawi join in joking about how this is ‘chaos’. Bastani says that the eye roll was unprofessional, and states that the Guardian talked about it because it was anti-Labour. He goes on to describe how Maitlis has form in this. In 2017 she tweeted a question about whether the Labour party still had time to ditch Corbyn. She’s not impartial and, when push comes to shove, doesn’t have much time for democracy. He plays a clip of her asking a guest at one point does democracy become less important than the future prosperity of the country.
Bastani goes on to discuss how the Beeb had a live feed outside parliament during the Brexit vote. This was, at one point, fronted by Andrew Neil, who had as his guests Ann McElroy from the Economist, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Matthew Parris. He submits that this biased panel, followed by Maitlis’ eye roll and the shenanigans the next day by Barnett shows that the Beeb’s current affairs output simply isn’t good enough.
He then moves on to Question Time with its terrible audience and panel selection. He says that there is an issue about right-wing activists not only getting access to the audience, but to the audience question, but on last week’s edition with Owen Jones the rightists asked five questions. Bastani states that the purpose of Question Time is to show what the public thinks beyond the Westminster bubble. But if the audience is infiltrated to such an extent, then what’s the point. He also argues that it isn’t just the audience that’s the problem. You frequently see the panel set up four to one against the left. There may be some centrist figures like the economist Jurgen Meyer, who voted Tory, but in terms of people supporting a broken status quo against socialists, it is anything but a fair fight. And almost always there’ll be a right-wing populist voice on the panel, whether it be Isobel Oakeshott, Nick Ferrari, Julia Hartley-Brewer, and their function is simple. It’s to drag the terms of the debate to the right. You almost never see someone from the left performing the same role.
He goes on to discuss how some people believe that since in 2017 election, the Beeb has recognised some of its failing and tried to correct them. Forty per cent of the electorate is barely represented in our television and our newspapers. Bastani states that he finds the changes so far just cosmetic. You may see the odd Novara editor here and there – and here he means the very able Ash Sarkar – but the scripts, the producers, the news agendas, what is viewed as important, have not changed. This is because they still view Corbynism a blip. They still think, despite Brexit, Trump, the rise of the SNP and transformations in the Labour party and the decay of neoliberalism, that things will go back to normal. This is not going to happen as the economic basis of Blairism – the growth that came out of financialisation and a favourable global economic system and inflated asset prices – was a one-off. This was the basis for centrist policies generally, which is why the shambolic re-run with the Independent Group is bound to fail. And there is also something deeper going on in the Beeb’s failure to portray the Left, its activists and policies accurately. Before 2017 the Beeb found the left a joke. They would have them on to laugh at. In June 2017, for a short period, it looked like it had changed. But now we’ve seen the Beeb and the right close ranks, there is class consciousness amongst the establishment, who recognise the danger that the Left represents. They don’t want them on.
The radical left, says Bastani, has made all of the right calls over the last 15-20 years. You can see that in innumerable videos on social media with Bernie Sanders in the 1980s, Jeremy Corbyn in the Iraq demonstrations in 2003, or even Tony Benn. They got everything right since 2000. They were right on foreign policy, right on the idiocy of Iraq, right about Blairism, as shown by the collapse of 2008. They were right about austerity and about the public at large being profoundly p***ed off. mainstream print and broadcast journalists missed all of this. They want to be proved right on at least one of these things, which means they have a powerful incentive to prevent Corbyn coming to power and creating an economy that’s for the many, not the few. Corbyn represents a threat to Maitlis and her colleagues, because it’s just embarrassing for them to be wrong all the time.
This is a very good analysis of the Beeb’s bias from a Marxist perspective. In Marxism, the economic structure of society determines the superstructure – its politics and culture. So when Blair’s policies of financialisation are in operation and appear to work, Centrism is in vogue. But when that collapses, the mood shifts to the left and centrist policies are doomed to fail. There are many problems with Marxism, and it has had to be considerably revised since Marx’s day, but the analysis offered by Bastani is essentially correct.
The Beeb’s massive right-wing bias is increasingly being recognised and called out. Barry and Savile Kushner describe the pro-austerity bias of the Beeb and media establishment in their book, Who Needs the Cuts? Academics at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities have shown how Conservatives and financiers are twice as like to be asked to comment on the economy on the Beeb as Labour MPs and trade unionists. Zelo Street, amongst many other blogs, like Vox Political, Evolve Politics, the Canary and so on, have described the massive right-wing bias on the Beeb’s news shows, the Daily Politics, Question Time and Newsnight. And Gordon Dimmack posted a video last week of John Cleese showing Maitlis how, out of 33 European countries polled, Britain ranked 33rd in its trust of the press and media, with only 23 per cent of Brits saying they trusted them. Now that 23 per cent no doubt includes the nutters, who believe that the Beeb really is left-wing and there is a secret plan by the Jews to import Blacks and Asians to destroy the White race and prevent Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson getting elected. But even so, this shows a massive crisis in the journalistic establishment. A crisis which Maitlis, Bruce, Barnett, Montague, Kuensberg, Robinson, Pienaar, Humphries and the rest of them aren’t helping by repeating the same tired tactics of favouring the Tories over the left.
They discrediting the Beeb. And it’s becoming very clear to everyone.
Yesterday Mike posted up a piece reporting that the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, was investigating the Beeb for bias, and it wasn’t looking good for Auntie.
Mike began his article with his tweets criticising Jo Coburn of Politics Live for continuing describing the attack on Corbyn as an egging, when in reality the Labour leader had been punched in the head. He also noted the contradictions in its reporting of the anti-Semitism witchhunt in the Labour party. On the one hand he was being berated for his lack of leadership and doing too little, while on the other he was supposed to be personally interfering. These two assertions together violate one of the fundamental laws of logic discovered by Aristotle, the Law of Non-Contradiction. But logic and reason don’t matter a jot to the right-wing media.
The broadcasting regulator has said that its investigating the Beeb because people are worried about fake news on the internet. The Beeb has a central role in providing trusted news, but people feel that the beeb’s television and radio news is less impartial than its other news output. And so Ofcom is examining in detail the Corporation’s delivery of its first Public Purpose, the first point of which is
“to provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them. The BBC will provide accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming of the highest editorial standards so that all audiences can engage fully with issues across the UK and the world.”
The BBC has a very long history of right-wing bias. During the miners’ strike in the 1980s they reversed footage of the police attack on the picket line at Orgreave to make it appear to show the miners’ attacking the police. The Kushners in their book Who Needs the Cuts show how the Corporation marginalises those politicians, trade unions and activists, who reject austerity in favour of its promoters. When dissenting voices do appear, they will be talked over or shouted down by the presenter. Studies by Scots academics have also shown that the Corporation prefers to interview Conservative politicians, bankers and industrialists about the economy than Labour politicians and trade unionists. And the Corporation’s coverage of the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn has been massively one-sided.
None of this is remotely surprising, considering how the Beeb’s newsroom is stuffed with Tories, like the Macclesfield Goebbels Nick Robinson, who was head of the Tory association at Manchester University.
The Beeb should face some tough questioning over its bias, and it’ll be very interesting what Ofcom concludes.
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