Foxes Guarding The Henhouse

Just a brief one, but I feel this needs to go on record somewhere. It's only part of the wide shower of shit that is hitting a large number of fans, and probably the leaks of this information (from Whitehall and Government sources no less) are doing so to try and distract us - but I am pretty sure I can pay attention to corruption AND ever-rising Covid numbers at the same time, so.

The organisation Ofcom is Britain's official regulator for broadcast and electronic media. It covers TV, radio, telecoms; it is the adjudicating body when there are press complaints relating to television news, amongst other things.

In a breathtaking display of reach-around cronyism, Boris Johnson has decided to make Paul Dacre the head of Ofcom.

This is Paul Dacre.

Dacre has been the top of the Daily Mail totem pole for decades, having been made editor in 1992. Now if you know anything about the Daily Mail, or the Mail group in general, you will know that it is right wing to a degree that should make even the most wishy-washy centrist wince with discomfort. It is a rag. It has been referred to the Press Complaints Commission multiple times - and never really seemed to get punished very much.

I wonder if that's because Dacre was a member of the PCC for a decade, and following that was made Chairman of their Code of Practice Commission, a position he held for eight further years? Who knows, I'm sure.

Either way - you can probably ascertain his views on numerous topics by the way that the front pages ran under his guidance. Several fun topics include how everyone who didn't want Brexit was a "saboteur" or an "enemy of the state", and how several members of the Labour party were "terrorist sympathisers". He also has a specific set of guidelines on how women have to appear in photographs in the Mail, something that has attracted complaints, which are usually followed up with attack campaigns against the individuals that, um, didn't like him being sexist.

Oddly enough he and Boris Johnson apparently don't get on very well; Dacre once described Johnson as having "the morals of an alley cat", and accused him of having "a phalanx of minders to padlock his zipper".

His last year at the Mail, he was paid £2.5m.

He's not the only former editor of a massively right-wing newspaper being handed control of a swathe of the British media.

This is Charles Moore - or to be more accurate, Baron Moore of Etchingham.

Charles Moore loves Brexit and Donald Trump, he hates the BBC and the NHS, and he was a former editor of the Telegraph - a newspaper commonly called toe Torygraph due to its almost offensively obvious bias toward conservative and right-wing politics and attitudes.

Moore is a fan of banning muslims from travelling, and decided that two female members of the Labour party shouldn't win the leadership contest in 2015, because they were - quote - "grotesque". Not believing in climate change, Moore has called for a "bonfire of green regulations". He loves hunting, and he studied at Eton in the 70s, and he compared allowing same-sex couples any marriage rights to allowing people to marry their dogs.

He is, also, very soon to be made the chairman of the BBC.

It is notable that the Daily Mail covered this possibility like this:

So if all of a sudden all of the news channels start singing from the government's song-sheet, and anything questioning that particular angle gets sidelined, well... now you know why.

Thank you for reading. Support your humble author via Patreon or Kofi, or follow social media on the right. See you next week.

Why We Should Stay

On 23rd June we will vote on whether or not we should leave the European Union.

This is the source of some quite heated debate, frankly - and I am thrilled on one level that people are actually engaging in politics at all. That's a fantastic change. I asked for some quotes on my Facebook, some of which are presented below:

"either way it is the elite who win"

"In because our government wants to rewrite the human rights act, take away workers rights and dismantle the NHS."

"Out democracy over bureaucracy!!"

"To quote a Clash song...should I stay or should I go !!"

I will put my heart on my sleeve right now, for purpose of bias sweeping: I think we should stay, and this blog is in part to tell you why - but also an observation on the campaign on both sides.

I'm not going to touch the amount of waffle there is in the media. There's a hell of a lot. Nor am I going to really touch on the absolute shitstorm of somewhat inaccurate facts being thrown around as gospel both for and against - though I suspect in a couple of cases on the Stay side that is rather deliberate, such as in the case of the BBC.

Anyone who pays attention will notice that the BBC's somewhat left-centrist news has shifted to the right a hell of a lot in the past three years. Could this be because their previous head of news was forced out after some vague allegations, and replaced with a former News Corp employee? Given that they now often toe the same line as the Murdoch press, it's hard to imagine otherwise.

Pardon. I digress.

What I'm going to touch on is those apparently in favour of staying, and those apparently in favour of leaving.

A list of those who have expressed support for the stay campaign includes names such as basically the entire Labour and Green parties, several former Chancellors of the Exchequer (who have actual economic experience), and...

...well I never, David Cameron.

Why?

Anyone who knows Dodgy Dave must know that leaving the EU would be a huge feather in his cap. They've been decrying his party's actions for a long time. Their troublesome clinging to the Human Rights act and their awkward tenacity for worker's rights - it's kind of counter to policy.

So why is he voting to stay, when most of the rest of his party - the NEW Tories it bears mention, not the old school like John Major - are voting to leave? Notably Theresa May, Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson?

It's simple: he knows full well he is one of the most hated men in the country, and has said himself that he won't run in the next election. He's the perfect sacrifice.

It's the only reason he would publically condone something his friends and allies - including Rupert Murdoch - actively condemn. Even more so than the people actually making the policies that are killing and disenfranchising British citizens, the country HATES David Cameron, and will - like Pavlov's dogs - instantly go against anything he stands for.

Think about it.

If we as a nation vote to stay in then it is a final victory for him, a high point for him to end his career on. "At least at the end I could stick to my principles," he may say, as he waves and leaves Downing Street. A legacy. In 20 years, when we're not looking down the barrel of yet another recession, someone might look back and stay - hey, if we weren't in the EU, we might have had some serious issues. Bravo, David Cameron. Bravo. Release biography, make millions, retire to life of consultancy.

On the other side of the coin - if we vote to leave, then his party gets what it wants. He can slip out of the door having been shown it after supporting the Stay campaign, and leave the party in the hands of one of those folks that supported Leave. He's done a solid for his chums, and they won't forget it. Bravo. Release biography, make millions, retire to life of consultancy.

He wins both ways.

He's not the only fifth column, either. I mentioned the BBC earlier? Well, with their steadily more obvious right-wing leanings and the degradation of their brand as a news service, their apparent support of Stay by scaremongering Leave is going to undermine the Stay campaign significantly.

Which is of course exactly what Rupert Murdoch - you know, the BBC's head of news' previous employer - would want. He has his hooks in our government, and they love it; the less interference from outsiders, the better. He can't make a phone call and make the EU do his bidding - but he CAN engender some scurrying around from Tory HQ.

The same Tory HQ that will be making decisions on whether or not the BBC continues to exist - a BBC that is losing support daily in part down to its news direction; that old Thatcherite trick, to undermine while miming support, to allow failure, to declare unfit for purpose, and to monetise.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories. I believe the truth is right there if you look for it. It's not hidden in a huge web of deceipt and double-talk. All this that I have just told you is fairly simple, if you just look.

If we were to ever leave the EU, then it should be when our economy is strong, and we can easily weather the temporary hit that we are guaranteed to take in doing so. Negotiate from a position of strength. Right now - we don't have that strength. We like to think that we're the strong twenty-something that can leave any time they want and be just fine (which anyone living in this country will realise is just as much a fallacy, unless you have a REALLY good job). In truth, we're the frail old man, cantankerous and stubborn. We talk about how we can leave the nursing home any time we want, back in our day we did all this, we did all that, of course we'll be fine.

We think we're Dick Whittington. We're closer to Don Quixote - and if we keep going down the path of austerity, we'll end up as Weekend At Bernies.