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Not Dark Yet #267: The rite (and wrongs) of Spring

1/3/2018

4 Comments

 
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Last month’s absurdity of the Telegraph, the Sun, the Express and the Times revealing that Corbyn had contact with a Czeck spy came to an end with the groveling apology from Ben Bradley MP, but still lingers on in the mainstream press.
 
Despite, or rather because, Corbyn pointed out on social media that, although the charges were risible, they were indicative of the approach dictated by tax-exile press barons.
 
“Change is coming” he promised.

But yesterday, we watched as Channel Four News allowed Rees-Mogg to claim that Corbyn had voted against the Good Friday Agreement. (He didn’t. He voted for it and made an eloquent speech in its favour.)
 
Yesterday, we watched as, during Prime Minister’s Questions, the BBC scrolled a succession of tweets down the side of the live footage of Corbyn’s questions. The tweets were from someone called Carrie Symonds. You may not know the name. But you should. She is the Tory Director of Communications.
 
The BBC being as impartial as ever, right?
 
But that was last month, and it was winter. Today is the first day of Spring. We look forward with renewed hope, optimism and all that.
 
So the news today is … that Leveson Part 2, promised by Cameron and still not delivered, has been cancelled. The enquiry into corporate malpractice and corrupt relationships between press and police will not take place.
 
But that’s OK, because the Government “will take action to safeguard the lifeblood of our democratic discourse and tackle the challenges our media face today, not a decade ago.”
 
At the end of the Part 1 enquiry, The Right Honourable Sir Brian Leveson stated “that there is still a legitimate expectation on behalf of the public and, in particular, the alleged victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, that there will be a full public examination of the circumstances that allowed the behavious to develop and clear reassurances that nothing of the same scale could occur again: that is what they were promised. … I do not believe we are yet even near that position.”
 
As we have seen recently, we are not. And the malpractice continues daily. The bias, the bigotry, the fantasy is a regular part of my daily reading of the mainstream press and our daily listening and viewing of the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel Four.
 
But we are promised by the Culture Secretary that the ‘free’ press will be ‘safeguarded’. Action is promised to ‘tackle the challenges our media face today’.
 
Like the truth, for example? Like honesty, fairness, impartiality, objectivity? Because these  are these challenges for the media today.
 
If change is coming, let it be soon.
 
 
Today from the everysmith vaults: Those extraordinary sessions at The Supper Club in November 1993. Playing alternately the soundboards and some high quality audience tapes. As ever, am preferring the AUDs.
4 Comments
MichaelC
1/3/2018 17:12:20

I think I enjoy your rants more than your carefully considered stuff. So I enjoyed this particularly. And it's a subject that needs ranting about. The Tories have let it go for so long that they clearly hope no-one will notice and if they do not bother. You noticed. You're bothered. Here's to you mate.

Reply
Allan
1/3/2018 18:14:41

Max, see voxpoliticalonline.com, published this evening. Includes more info and the text of Tom Watson's response to the 'culture' secretary.

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SamT
2/3/2018 12:36:16

The issue is bigger than you suggest. Owners will always have a particular agenda and pursue it. This applies to the corporate Scott Trust as well as Murdoch, Barclay brothers, Rothermere. The crowd funded Sqawkbox sites must exist to redress the balance to some extent and the BBC held to account for its pushing of neoliberalism but when the editor of Today programme is overt Tory there is no hope. Not because she is who she is but because no one at the Beeb seems to give a damn. How many more times will Farage appear in Question Time or be interviewed on Today? That’s my rant!

Reply
David
2/3/2018 21:41:20

See The Guardian disagrees. No Leveson 2 should be given a chance it says. So there you are.

Reply



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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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