Philip Schofiekd's career unwound this week. That has remarkably little impact on most people. Morning television on ITV and Skating on Ice were not most people's things. I think the media has given the issue far too much attention. There is too much of a whiff of homophobia for me to feel comfortable with the coverage.
Schofield's woes have been great news for Sunak, though. They have provided cover for his own career car-crashing.
Johnson continues to upstage and out-manoeuvre Sunak with ease when it comes to the Covid inquiry. The ability to be ruthlessly destructive has always been Johnson's one skill. Right now, he has found a use for it.
But it's not just the Covid inquiry. The economy is not working. Nor is much else. Just ask those trying to get about by train today. And Sunak has no answer to any known question.
The media are not giving this enough coverage, as yet. The fear that grips Sunak as surely as any grips Schofield is not being examined in as much depth. It's time that changed.
Sunak was responsible for Eat Out to Get Covid. People died as a result.
Schofield was, I hope, merely unwise.
One of these issues matters. The other is just a career that's come to a sticky end that will be hard for the people involved to come to terms with, but which they might. The media needs to get its perspective right.
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Eat Out To Help Out ran for about 31 days i think, and yes, the analysis has shown that it helped to spread Covid.
Should the people who helped to spread Covid in London in March 2020 also be held up to an enquiry, I wonder?
Trolling does not get more stupid than this.
I went to London.
I got Covid.
I knew within 2 days.
The household isolated for 14 days.
That is what responsibility looked like.
Philip Schofield eh?
What is it with us blokes?
Whether straight or gay, some of us just don’t seem able to keep the old ‘trouser snake’ under control.
What was it that the late Robin Williams said? ‘God gave men a willy and a brain – but only enough blood to run one at a time’.
But this is what we should interested in apparently – the human failings of a celebrity (and please tell me which women don’t know about that already?) and not the maladroit and callous machinations of a man who will never come to terms with the accountability of his post.
Philip Schofield is a pure diversion – plain and simple, that’s why!
Forgive the précis.
Schofield’s woes have allowed the media (consciously or unconsciously?) to provide cover for Sunak’s own career car-crashing.
The economy is not working. Nor is much else: Sunak has no answer to any known question
The media are not giving this enough coverage (consciously or unconsciously?),
The fear that grips Sunak is not being examined (consciously or unconsciously?).
Sunak was responsible for Eat Out to Get Covid. People died as a result
Schofield was merely unwise (& nobody died)
The media needs to get its perspective right.
I’d suggest that the media, as is, is functionally incapable of “getting its perspective right”. The UK meeja is Westminster-centred, a chums club where backs are mostly covered and everybody has very similar educational backgrounds (journos and politicos).
I have no idea who Schofield is & care even less what he did, professionally or otherwise. Sunak and co are a different kettle of fish. The fact that swathes of the meeja focus on the trivial rather than the substantive show that the aim of the Uk meeja vis-à-vis UK serfs & peasants is to entertain, trivialise and divert. They do this consciously, every day.
The comment by Stanley Baldwin on the press is quite well known – but usually truncated. Here it is in full. As relevant now as when he first said it. Baldwin was accused by the Express and Mail of being clueless about how to run the economy. “The newspapers attacking me are not newspapers in the ordinary sense. They are engines of propaganda for the constantly changing policies, desires, personal vices, personal likes and dislikes of the two men. What are their methods? Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker’s meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context…What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
I have nothing against harlots but I’m not sure I’d want to read a newspaper written by them. Sadly, in the UK today, with a few honourable exceptions, content is mostly written by (overly educated?) whores.
He was right
Apologies for the follow-up. Purely by chance I saw this (Novara) after I wrote the above piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snQkb8c6vXs
The core point (it opens with a critique of an FT journo) starts @ 03.20
I invite readers to listen – because it starts to answer the “why schofiled & not Sunak” question whilst confirming the “its all a big club” point.
& in the unlikely event that a Guardian journo is reading this: I’d rather pull my finger nails out than give money for your self-serving rag.
I get very angary with the ineptitude and stupidity of government. As a mining engineer of over 40 years I have spent many hours learning how to mine safety and economically, first from Cambourn School of Mines, then books technical magazines, formal lectures, mistakes (yes I have made them), fellow engineers (safety, mining, rock support, geology, ventilation, maintenance, pumping, conveyors, mobile equipment, and pumping). Now the Internet technical knowledge is much quicker and easier to find. I despise managers who think all they need is to how manage without any technical expertise.
The back up to poor ministers use to be experienced civil service but now the UK civil service is a faded shadow of it’s self. Pay has been fixed for many years and an increase in pay is only available by changing jobs. High fliers spend less than one year in a position before moving on. This results a lack of experienced incumbents and no experts. As the Tories despise experts this suits them very well.
In the mining industry we have the Inspectorate of Mines who over see mining and investigate accidents, I wonder is a similar statutory body for government would improve standards and reduce fatalities. This body would have to be completely independent from government.
I share your concerns
Going after Schofield is risk-free, but going after Sunak carries a risk because he can cause the press grief. Just like Harry and Andrew. Harry has been cast adrift and is an easy target. Andrew is wounded but still within the fold and the press need to be more careful.