In addition to phone-hacking and all the other dubious practices employed by newspapers, one of the worst developments in our media over recent years has been the near total fusion of news and comment.
I pointed out recently Polly Toynbee’s description of the media herd in the press room after Ed Miliband’s conference speech, all getting together to decide that the line was a lurch to the left and a dive back to Labour’s bad old days. What he said was deemed by the media to be less important than what they thought he meant and what they thought about it.
Former editor David Blake posted a comment in response saying that in his experience of conferences, journalists rarely listened to speeches let alone spoke to delegates. They talked to each other, so that the man from the Mail asked the man from the Telegraph what he thought, passed it on to the man from The Sun, and the next day the broadcasters sat around discussing what they had said and describing it as ‘the mood’ or public opinion.
Since the conference, the news-comment fusion has gone even further, deciding that because they decided his speech wasn’t up to much, the public has decided he won’t be PM, and therefore what Labour says and does is irrelevant.
Even the serious papers, and even the one paper left that does not routinely fuse news and comment, gave little coverage to the new shadow cabinet. All part of the ‘they don’t count’ general tone.
Yet look at the FT today and the front page lead is an energy company breaking ranks with fellow suppliers by offering electricity for sale to any household supplier – thereby pre-empting one of the key moves in Ed’s speech. Look elsewhere in the media jungle and spot the U-turn on the issue I highlighted before the Lib Dem conference – the shocking loosening of requirements on citizens to get themselves on the electoral register.
Add in the damage Labour and others will do to the Health and Social Care Bill today, and you might conclude not for the first time the media’s news-as-comment portrayal of the world is both distorting and distorted.
I’ve commented here in the past that 90% of the British media
is right-wing.
If we look at the BBC, the
Tories have little control over them, so they claim it’s left wing biased.
However, if you look closely in how many Tories working for BBC
at present peddling their message.
Andrew Neil – Editor of the Sunday Times supported Margaret
Thatcher. At the University of Glasgow,
he was a member of the Conservative Club. He later worked for the
Conservative Party as a research assistant.
Michael Portilo – a former Conservative Cabinet Minister and
a Euro sceptic.
Nick Robinson – Political Editor was the President of
the Oxford University Conservative Association.
James Landale – Deputy Political Editor was a contemporary
at Eton of both David Cameron, and Boris Johnson.
Gyles Brandreth – a former Conservative Junior
Minister.
So Labour will never get a fair hearing until we get a
proper impartial media in this country. I really don’t even want any ex Labour
MPs working for the BBC.
And not forgetting Chris Patten, the Conservative grandee,
the chair of the BBC Trust. I’m not sure how
much control he has.
People who think that Ed Miliband did not say anything relevant are wrong, wrong, wrong.
American economist Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, says that Karl Marx was right.
Capitalism can destroy itself.
You cannot keep on shifting INCOME from labour to capital without having excess capacity and lack of aggregate demand.
This is now happening.
737 people own 80% of the world´s wealth, and there is not enough demand and growth.
So the whole system is collapsing. Immanuel Wallerstein, a leading world-systems analyst at Yale, has stated in Foreign Policy that we are NOT recovering from the Great Recession of 2008-09.
Our system has a shelf life, and it is coming to an end.
Eventually there will be INSOLVENCY in the public sector.
We are witnessing chaotic economic fluctuations which cannot be easily controlled by public policy.
There are structural problems in financial system.
His conclusion: the whole system is FALLING DOWN!
According to professor Steve Keen Great Depression is inevitable WITHOUT a radical change in policy.
He says that it is not changes in M0 (= base money created by central bank) that drives unemployment, but it is unemployment that triggers changes in M0.
Conventional economic theory tells that when central bank raises M0, private banks create more credit money (M1, M2 and M3) boosting economic growth and employment (“a money multiplier”).
The current crisis is caused by a collapse in debt-financed demand.
Aggregate demand in economy is composed of GDP plus the change in the level of debt.
Refinancing banks is a complete waste of money. It will not kickstart the economy because M0 money supply is NOT the determining factor.
The way to avert a Second Great Depression is to reduce the levels of private debt.
The losses from the coming Greek default will be up to 60%, or even more to banks and pension funds.
This will cause a chain-reaction.
Portugal will be the next domino to fall, followed by Spain and Italy.
Italy will cause a crash in whole Europe including Britain. The US and the dollar will also collapse.
The US dollar will be replaced as a global currency by IMF´s expanded SDR (Special Drawing Rights). SDR was created by IMF (a UN unity) in 1969 to supplement its member countries´ official reserves.
Its value is based on basket of four key international currencies, and SDRs can be exchanged for freely usable currencies.
Signal from the Greek default that sovereign debt is not SAFE will lead to a complete disaster.
Investors will pull their deposits, and set off bank runs across Europe.
To leverage the EFSF beyond EUR440bn would monetise European state debt.
Big international banks are now robbing whole nations in broad daylight.
George Monbiot has written that the biggest battle of the 21st century is between DEMOCRACY and COMPANIES.
Neoliberalism is anti-democratic. IMF supports neoliberal agenda.
Double-dip recession is now facing Europe. It will play havoc with debt dynamics.
EFSF itself can become a problem. EMU has deep structural problems.
Globalist elite now wants depression as it suits its plans for a world dominated by companies.
George Osborne´s plan A is based on unproven idea that by cutting government spending private sector will automatically flourish and create growth and 2.5m new jobs.
This is, of course, 24-carat rubbish.
Because of huge cuts, demand in the economy will vanish and the money spending cuts were supposed to save will simply vanish due to rising unemployment and benefits costs.
As an “added bonus” cuts in public spending will force Britons to borrow more to maintain their living standards making rebalancing of Britain´s economy impossible.
So plan A will only lead to stagnation or recession, not recovery.
Anyone can see this, so why IMF, OECD, the Bank of England and prominent businessmen have supported Mr Osborne?
Ed Miliband offered an alternative to all this. His alternative is based on moral economy based on social democracy and fairness.
This means more REGULATION and STATE INTERVENTION in the economy for economic security.
The wealth in this system will be more evenly distributed boosting growth and demand thus preventing the collapse of capitalism which the current neoliberal paradigm used by the Tory-led government is about to cause.
If this solution by Ed Miliband and Labour party is not newsworthy, then what?
Thank you Alastair, for this, I had come to the view that comments, conclusions and observations in the media about events are not necessarily an accurate reflection of the event.
I watched Ed Milliband’s speech and was amazed about its characterisation in the press. This sometimes filters to the general public, but I believe as the disaster called this government unfolds the reality will be difficult to spin or escape from. Please mark my words, Ed Milliband will form the next government.
In a strange editorial judgment on a day with so many big news stories, the BBC News Channel has just shown the whole of Paul Dacre’s speech to the phone hacking inquiry – an extraordinary defence of the worst of the British press which his own papers exemplify. (I noticed his hand was shaking. I’m not sure whether this was rage or if he’d forgotten to take his beta blockers).
Dacre said it was outrageous that reporters might be prevented from obtaining someone’s ex-directory phone number because of some spurious right to privacy.
So Alastair, I’m sure that you must have Mr Dacre’s ex-directory number in your contacts list. Would you be kind enough to email it to me as I would like to share with him my thoughts on his speech today and my views on the Mail newspapers? Or post it here so that everyone can participate in Paul Dacre’s open, unregulated utopia, free of nonsense like Human Rights.
Someone posted a photo on Twitter of an amused gaggle of correspondents agreeing their line immediately after Ed Miliband’s party conference speech. It was clear from that moment what the reaction would be. When is the lobby going to stop acting as a pack?
On the other hand, much as it sickens me, the present negative media coverage of Labour may not be such a bad thing for now, while Ed is still building his team and policies. What’s going to be of crucial importance is the coverage a year from now. By then, and with the best will in the world, Leveson is not going to be making much, if any, impact on the state of media concentration. Even while the inqury sits, and the new Communications Act is awaited, the Daily Mail hopes to expand its stable with a Sunday red-top. Meanwhile, News International seems to be planning its Sun on Sunday for the new year.
The good news is that the media reform lobby is growing in strength – not just on ethics but also on ownership and plurality. The recently established and (to my mind) excellent Co-ordinating Committee for Media Reform is preparing very detailed submissions to both Leveson and on the new Act. When the time comes, we should debate and, hopefully, support its proposals as vocally as possible. This really is a chance in a lifetime!
Why is it that whatever the theme you trot out your normal stuff about 737 people, neoliberalism and of course 24 carat rubbish? It appears that you have your speech already written and append some reference to Labour or to Ed M accordingly.
It seems that you’re hoping for us all to come together in some nonsense of a socio-economic workers’ paradise.
In the meantime Alastair, who knows a thing about these things (the media), has hit the nail on the head. But the sad thing is it was ever thus, trace the power of the press barons back through the ages, none of this is new.
The observation is true, but not surprising. The enormous increase in media formats, e.g. online and social media, inevitably leads to more opinion reports rather than fact-based articles. The latter need more time to be written, which is a competitive disadvantage for the journalist who is slower than the many who share their opinion in an instant. The consequence has to be that Politicians have to invest even more in building “trust” with the media, simply because he/she will be judged more on whether he can be trusted than whether what he says is true.
I agree with much of what you say, I’ve seen the way reporters behave myself at the Labour conference.
But just on the point of the electoral register. I’ve lived in the same place for years and for all that time I’ve been on the electoral register. Then, I got a letter through to update my electoral register details and forgot to return it. For six months now I’ve been off the register and for all that time the junk mail that I used to get has disappeared. Before someone asks, I always state I don’t want details going to third parties, but despite that the junk mail kept on rolling in.I am inclined to want to stay off the register just for that reason. It’s just nice not having to deal with it.
Just one thing you have missed AC, “ Red ” Ed’s speech was rubbish, even the Shadow Cabinet could not defend it on the News, they had no idea what Brutus Milbiand was taking about, also the Shadow Cabinet does not matter, great news to you, but you’re the third party in UK politics, there is the Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and Labour. Also why are you so supporting of Ed Miliband, he has junked the new labour email address, your creation, are you so tribal as Tony Blair once noted that you wont even defend your own creation, but then Ed Miliband did stab his brother in the back, do you still have loyalty to the New Labour Agenda of Tony Blair or are you selling him out to get in with Ed Miliband. As your former Master said, Labour is either New Labour or its finished, I guess your good at tactics, but not that great strategy, is that why you turned down the offer of a peerage from Gordon Brown, you could have been in the Lords fighting against the NHS reform, missed long term view AC. One could almost think that the real strategist for New Labour was Lord Mandelson, interesting though!
Labour is in the bind of knowing the next General Election is some 3 1/2 years away
Any dramatic policy announcements this far from the election will suffer a daily bombardment from the Tory supporting press and their value of “new thinking” will be long gone before people go to the polls.
However this doesn’t mean that the new shadow cabinet should continue to retire into their shells as the last one did. The Government’s economic policies iare being subjected to informed and qualified criticism but where is the criticism of the Government’s education policies ? Now that the destruction of the NHS as we currently know it will go ahead the damaging effects need to be critizised DAILY since the NHS will I foresee be the major battle line in the General Election in 2015
‘Marx was right’ keeps cropping up in your posts. Right about what? Was he right about Adam Smith’s Labour Theory of Value? Was he right in his analysis of the capitalist mode of production? Perhaps more importantly, was he right about the revolutionary historical role of the proletariat? It’s the latter that especially bothers me, because frankly I can’t see it. The proletariat has consistently shown itself either unwilling or incapable of acting out the historical role assigned to it by Marx and others, except briefly in very extreme circumstances, and I used to trot these out like a litany – Paris Commune 1870, Russia 1905 and 1917, Germany 1918, Spain 1936, Portugal 1975, etc. The trouble is that people get whipped up into action by a combination of circumstances and the presence of sympathetic intellectuals, but the democratic enthusiasm subsides, leaving a new elite of intellectuals in power who become anything but democratic. Lenin’s ‘democratic centralism’ becomes more centralist and less democratic. As for the latter, from 1917 to 1924, I used to trot out explanations for that too – proletariat exhausted by war and civil war, White armies, umpteen foreign armies threatening invasion, etc. Did the Bolsheviks have a chance? Maybe not, but I can’t help thinking there were internal factors involved in that particular ‘Thermidor’, though I grant that there wouldn’t have been the same kind of counter-revolution as happened under Stalin if Lenin and Trotsky had stayed in power. All very debatable of course, but repeating ‘Marx was right’ takes us nowhere.
Oh, is the phone hacking story no longer the “story of the decade” Mr Campbell?
On my return last week, I posted the following, without any comment from any of your sycophants:-
“Having been away, I have just read Red Ed’s speech. Er, um did you write it Al?Most sentences contain 3 to 7 words. Most rules of grammar have been ignored.”And let me tell you, if this Government fails to deal withthe deficit in this Parliament, we are determined to do so.” “You’ve been told all growth is the same, all ways of doingbusiness are the same. But it’s not””If we were in government now, we’d be cutting the costs ofgoing to university from a maximum of £9,000 to £6,000.”
Does he mean per annum, including living costs? Vote Labour, kids.
http://www.labour.org.uk/ed-mi…
before we all settle down to have a good scoff at what Cameron says in his speech, read Ed’s, digest and let us have a good debate on Education standards!”
You complain that people made up their mind without listening to the speech: they are anti Labour media, but you will not debate with those of us who have digested it.
Excellent post Olli, and will to be too close to the bone for many. It is quite baffling how the most technological countries in the last fifty years, US and Japan, is presently carrying an astounding amount of debt, but seem to carry on business as usual. The US must seem to itself it is immune to it, considering the continued amount of military spending, including space adventures, and so forth. However with Japan, last year’s event by mother nature may have woken them up to reality somewhat.
Also, the huge wars during the twentieth century seemed to have been a kiss of life to the capitalist system, you could say, as if it is a built in necessary factor for it to work, especially when considering how things were, on average round the World, in the 1930’s, post-1929.
Labour’s relationship with the media, in the recent modern technological age of communication, seems to be castigated no matter what they do – a damned if you do and a damned if you don’t atmosphere with the media, and seems an impossible fine line for them to walk. But the Tory’s can get away with any old crap. Liam Fox would have gone by now if he kicked with the other foot, politically.
“Eventually there will be INSOLVENCY in the public sector”.
Olli, just hold that thought. That is where we were headed. Bigger Government, nanny state, people on twice average earnings getting state handouts. Everyone gets a degree, everyone gets a cigar.
The coalition has rescued the country from Carey St, where, including the hidden borrowings in PFI, we were headed.
Blair recognised the need for our population to be massively retrained into technology and the need for education standards to be raised hugely. Unfortunately those around him fell short on delivery and standards fell. Huge amounts spent on school buildings represented a smokescreen, A level and degree standards are watered down.
The remainder of your “neoliberal paradigm” laden gobbledyspeak theory may impress the Labour hierarchy but it will be lost on the electorate.
Richard, as long as you keep insulting people with totally-unwarranted nouns like ‘sycophants’, your posts will continue to be treated with the absolute contempt they deserve. And when lecturing people on grammar you would be best advised to put your own house in order first. In particular your use of inverted commas needs some attention. Please distinguish between inverted commas and quotation marks.
Please explain “totally-unwarranted”, Dave?
‘Unjustified’. If your local library is still open I suggest you have a glance in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. It’s a good read. There are no ‘sycophants’ on this blog and I’m sure AC would not want any. You just want to believe that everyone else has the same two-dimensional mind-set as you. And please refrain from using inverted commas instead of quotation marks – how many times do you need telling?
You obviously do not want to get into any political discussion, Dave, but if you insist on prolonging this thread:-
“Totally-unwarranted” is not hyphenated.(per 20 volume OED)
“Mind-set” is not hyphenated.(per 20 volume OED)
“Inverted commas can be single – ‘x’ – or double – ‘’x‘’. ……..
There’s no rule about which to use ……” (per Oxford Dictionaries on line.)
“There are no ‘sycophants’ on this blog ……”Do you know that for a fact?
“………two-dimensional mind-set as you….” Top debater,Dave.
My sole reason for posting on this site is to get into political discussion. I can’t imagine why anyone would waste their time on it otherwise. Your comments don’t qualify as political discussion – more the embittered rants of someone incapable of stringing two logical thoughts in sequence.
Thanks for the grammar lesson though – I always find debate and disagreement about the rules of grammar a very interesting diversion from political debate..
Would you like to stand up and show your wherewithalls?
Don’t sling around a vague description of members (noted the ‘s’?) without bothering to identify just who (you think) the ‘sycophants’ are.
It’s cowardly.
BTW I agree with you re the inverted commas, I prefer singles to doubles, they’re more simple / less fussy; I also like spaces around strokes and I prefer that word to ‘slash’.
Blimey, what a stream of garble!
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I haven’t actually read / been aware that AC had been offered a peerage so am disappointed if one was and was turned down.
So long as any of HoC’s decisions can be stopped by HoL or, as we saw this week so long as their unpopular ones can be let through by HoL, we need GOOD representation there, no matter that someone might be called a hypocrite by wollies.
.
Haa it ever been described as such?
Hasn’t it rather been more of what was expected anyway?