The Tory plans to control the media are progressing. The latest is this, from The Times:
The BBC licence fee could be scrapped and replaced with a pay-to-watch subscription model under a Conservative government, Boris Johnson has said.
Speaking at a campaign rally the prime minister questioned whether the present funding model “still makes sense” in a digital world.
Channel 4 has already been threatened, of course. Now the BBC is under threat. How long can it be before ITV is in the firing line because it was an ITV journalist who had his phone taken by the Prime Minister yesterday?
What's the consistent theme? It's a man who wants, and thinks he will be, prime minister threatening the media to deliver a message that he wants by making a threat that they will have their licence to operate removed if they do not comply.
This is, of course, consistent with fascist behaviour, from the threats, to the denial of the right to free speech, to the intention to actually deny it.
But don't worry. I am sure that Johnson will manage to fund a free to air state propaganda service without difficulty to replace these rather annoying broadcasters who will not obey orders.
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By their top down nature, the large mainstream media corporations are ripe for influence and outside control, it is a wonder that some of them manage to provide a counter perspective at all. Nearly all of them are drifting into line with the prevailing narrative, but there is hope in that we can now derive news and other information from a variety of sources to compare and contrast the messages that we are fed.
There are dozens of blogs, feeds and other sources that appear to be growing organically and filling the void left by the BBC (slightly more balanced voices), however one issue is effective funding for all these contributors as I am sure you are aware Richard!
Hi Prof, i tried to restrain my resentment at the news media head honcho fronts on your previous post.
When the PM’s & policies are such obvious sham pinnochio puppets and the media personalities are the visible strings – it must be like coming round from a deep dream or a hypnotisation for many – to see what sime of us have been screaming about daily, for years.
Did you see a minion at the bbc breaking ranks yesterday?
https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler
Her 8 tweet thread on the tory brexit is concise and cutting.
And in the brouhaha – completely got sunk – and her feed went quiet.
Get Brexit done survives another day! Whether Katya Adlers career at the BBC or any msm does is another question.
———
As for the ICM poll reported yesterday – 24 hours later, their own site has not published it, so no raw data to debunk. What are they hiding?
I have experienced what it is like to be in a tyrannical situation
It was not abroad, it was in this country. The child support agency and the family courts. You may think the above two are nowhere near fascism or unjust. I will tell you straight they are or were as in the case of the CSA. The family courts are nasty and assumes fathers are guilty of all crimes listed, without any evidence whatsoever.
First the CSA wait for a year, till debts pill up then pounce like a tiger. The waiting is due to many reasons, one to maximise profit retention, two, the claim of the mother and three, the time of the claim it takes to process. The CSA harrasses fathers with letters phones them at work, then in the end takes most of their money off them , with a court order. That is it your guilty of abandoning your children, even if you have not, they did not care. No evidence, just a assumption, and that is that. That is tyrannical. But wait it gets worse.
The CSA took is 25% off your salary with a court order and then add arrears. So if you are on low income they leave you with 60% to live on. Surprisingly it was disaster as most father baulked at their tyrannical approach. It coast many men’s lives and increased violence towards women. The children were alienated from their fathers. The government wanted to claw back benefits, but what it did was to make sure people stayed on benefits. In the CSA handbook for 2005 I believe the CSA admitted it pushed so many fathers into poverty and they took so much money off them. They could not see their kids, even if meant only a few pounds.
Then you have to deal with the family courts. Their assumption is the mother is the best carer, please note it is based on no evidence. The fathers who want to see their kids need to prove why they want to. So the courts set up assessment centres where unqualified staff assess the father and then give the reports to CAFCASS social workers who rubber stamp it. A break in contact starts the whole process again. If you do not have enough money, tough it is not an excuse. For example if you pay your rent or mortgage. You are considered selfish and for not taking your children into account. If you do not pay above, it means you’re irresponsible and should be nowhere near the children. I kid you not, it is real it happen and it happens today in the UK.
The point is in that situation sends people to a horrible place mentally and they see the world is a completely different light. I had to look after my kids on a single person benefit payment, that is food, travel, heating, entertainment. Britain the place of justice and law and order – complete utter rubbish. It is a world of kafkaesque courts, no matter what you do it is not the right answer. Kids are alienated from one parent, and it lasts forever. I stuck through this horrible system and made sure i had contact with my kids. It cost me a lot in money and health. The children though are all doing good and will be a great bonus to society. Every single one of them will go to university and get a degree, they will get a good job. well I hope they will.
This was a training ground for the establishment, first they turned on who they regarded as fleckless. The tories from the right pushed this line and new labour with their feminist worldview acquiesced. Then when the tories came to power, they moved onto the poor, and the working poor. So in 2010 a tory minority government along the libdems mounted a sustained attack on the poor and working poor. This has moved on to the middle class with the increase in tuition fees. With the introduction of austerity the whole attack shifted to public services and any one claiming benefits. If your sick though you have to work till you die.
Now we have a hard right government who is aiming its crosshairs at the media ie the BBC, Channel 4 etc. They are also aiming at the courts, parliament anyone getting in their way. So the point i am making is people in power who want to gain power will attack the defenceless. Hitler did it with the jews, minorities etc and then attacked the who state and the people via oppression and then war. This what is developing now in the UK. All the attack lines are there, they have been carried out and will be carried out.
Boris threats to to the institutions of the state or the BBC are not fake, they real.
I admit I wondered whether to post this
I am aware the CSA is a blunt instrument
I am not convinced it makes your case
I really despair at the current state of politics and the dirty media campaigning of both parties. Hancock’s aide getting punched was nonsense and although i don’t deny the problems the NHS face i cant tolerate how Labour has tried to make political capital out of the situation..the little boy was actually in a private room (chairs no beds) the parents put coats on the floor and lied him down and took a photo. For the record he was sent home the following day. It just sums up the dreadful state of political propaganda and it is making many disillusioned with with this campaign. I cant bear to vote for any party it is that bad.
There was an excellent article in todays FT by Robert Shrimsley “the middle way has failed: UK moderates must win back Labour and the Tories”..it says the deeper the polarisation of the two main parties, the more unwilling voters are to take a risk. How else could the pitiful showing of the Greens be explained?
https://www.ft.com/content/a758592c-1a6f-11ea-9186-7348c2f183af?emailId=5def3cf86b97690004a63e35&segmentId=2f40f9e8-c8d5-af4c-ecdd-78ad0b93926b
Bluntly, you are lying
The local journalists who covered the story is furious with people like you peddling the Telegraph line
what is your agenda? Johnson’s fascism?
Well said Richard. The poster is plain wrong. David Wrigley, the NHS doctor who first posted the picture of Jack, the 4yo with suspected pneumonia who lay on the floor of Leeds Infirmary for 4 hours before being found a bed 13 hours after arriving at AE, also commented:
“This is a picture Boris Johnson doesn’t want you to see. It shows Jack lying on the floor of Leeds Infirmary for 4 hours last week. He has suspected pneumonia.
“There were no beds and the A&E staff couldn’t cope. You have a big decision this week. Please vote to stop this chaos”.
Obviously, we stop it by voting Labour (or ABC). The poster you reprimanded probably realises that and very deliberately lied – oh, and just incase Laura K is reading, I can assure her that Dr. David Wrigley is NOT a labour activist.
@Phil Mills
You really ought to stop watching Julia Hartley-Brewer before bedtime you know, it has severe side-effects, hallucinations are one.
Yesterday’s licence fee statement by the Conservatives was probably not planned. It’s not mentioned in their current manifesto, aka getbrexitdone marketing documents.
But isn’t the point, Richard, that the billionaire ‘free’ press simply makes ‘NEWS…. the Propaganda (service) of the Oligarch’ https://www.monbiot.com/2019/12/10/news-is-the-propaganda-of-the-oligarch/ AND that this is all that their political wing (the Conservative party) needs?
Nevertheless, threatening the BBC like this is foolish because – as election coverage and its coverage of Corbyn shows – the BBC does not COUNTER the right-wing billionaire voice, it AMPLIFIES it – thus assisting the oilgarch’s cause.
The threat to the BBC was no doubt from their emergency box of dead cats, ready to drop on the table in the case of any local difficulty.
But the point is, in our elective dictatorship, a government with a parliamentary majority can do almost anything it likes for five years, constrained only by what it can get away with.
Populist nationalist authoritarianism has not been banished, and doesn’t always wear jackboots. It can happen here, with easy solutions and an easy smile. This has been at least ten years in the gestation, since the global financial crisis. Be afraid, be on your watch.
May I suggest that, tomorrow, you repeat this from May, mutatis mutandis: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/05/23/there-is-only-one-thing-on-todays-agenda-please-vote/
I will be….
Prof don’t take my word as final and please have it checked. I’m of to a funeral for the rest of the day…
Finally the ICM poll being quoted last few days have published their data
https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ICM-Voting-intentions-Data-tables-06-09-Dec-19.xlsx
I suggest the amateur psephologists get on the case.
I am out for the day so won’t have time to look properly but at first sight it looks as if their selected group voted 7% more tory than Lab in 2017.
The actual difference in the election was 2.5% — So an over representation of 4.5%!
Their basic raw votes are shown as 35% tory, 31% Labour. A margin of 4%.
Remove the over representation and the raw difference becomes a 0.5% LEAD for LABOUR!
It is only by adding undecideds in an uneven manner and the initial over representation of Tory voters that the headline tory Lead is invented.
Subject to a fuller analysis and any major error on my part I declare
GAME OVER.
NOW YOU KNOW WHY THE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN HIDDEN AND SUCH A DIRTY ELECTION.
I have to say that I appreciate your sleuthing
I don’t believe an impartial news outlet is possible. We all have prejudices, opinions etc. which slant whatever we say.
BBC staff are not immune to this. They are flesh and blood like the rest of us.
The solution is to read everything with healthy scepticism. And to have a diverse media where different perspectives are openly disclosed.
I’m also not sure that the public should be compelled (at threat of imprisonment) to pay for one outlet to give others in a privileged position (ie BBC staff) a chance to spout their prejudices. Seems unfair.
The public is not ‘compelled’ to pay for one outlet. The TV licence is a licence to receive live television, from *any source* on a variety of devices. The myth that it pays only for our public broadcaster is a convenient one for governments, but a myth all the same. Like the myth that car tax pays for the roads… It’s really just another tax.
It’s clearly become an unworkable tax, which is a different matter altogether.
Sound reasoning Simon Martin, but the BBC is more than its New and Current Affairs department, and even though I scrupulously avoid unguarded exposure to that part of the corporation’s output, I’d defend the use of taxation to finance the BBC simply to have a channel that does not broadcast one in every three minutes as adverts. Life is too short and viewing time too valuable for 20 mins of every hour to be commercial-breaks and ‘messages’ from sponsors.
The Tories already have got a state and private sector propaganda service.
As for Darren Sharrock’s contribution my interpretation of it is that it gives us a vignette into a very dark world – the sort of world that helps people like Trump and Johnson to get a foothold. It’s about the retrenchment of State help even in relationship breakdowns where there are children involved and the state policy actually makes things harder for people which seem to me what has been happening. For CSA read Universal Credit and PIP? Maybe. Is the CSA a nudge policy to keep unhappy couples together and avoid the State paying out or a genuine attempt to look after the interests of the children?
If people are increasingly left to fend for themselves after conforming to the ‘rules’ of our new public institutions, then as things stand, the public sector will be being made purposefully unpopular – we’ve seen this manufactured consent before in the railway closures and other services we have lost. I think that this is the point Darren is trying to make.
Yes i totally agree with that,
If you think that Commercial bbc isn’t a regime mouthpiece that was subjected to gleichschaltung in the late 80s, you haven’t been watching.