The news is lying to you — and Britain is falling apart behind the scenes
Every night, the lights are bright, the headlines loud — but the real news is missing.
While the media fixates on Trump, Farage and the Royals, Britain's children go hungry, families can't afford homes, and carers are exhausted.
In this video, I explain how the theatre of distraction keeps us angry but uninformed — and why we must reclaim the news for the Politics of Care: food, housing, health, and climate.
Watch, share, and join the conversation: it's time to stop funding the circus.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
If I understand the readers of my blog correctly, and you should be one of them, by the way, then they are fed up with the news as it is at the moment.
I get the impression that a lot of them, like me, are swearing at the screen on their television too often for comfort. And that, frankly, quite often they're simply turning off rather than face another news bulletin that might be best described as a theatre of distraction.
The lights are bright. There's the noise of relentless media churn, but the truth is the cast never really changes.
There's Trump and his latest fiasco.
There's Farage and his latest ridiculous claims.
And always, of course, the Royals, putting forward something else to try to distract us from the fact that, as a firm, which is what they like to think of themselves as, they're failing.
And whilst the show goes on and the noise continues, the country is quietly falling apart behind the scenes. And that's what really annoys me about the news media; we are not getting the news on what really matters.
There is a problem behind our news media. It's crowding out care and truth and responsibility and passing us nonsense dressed up as news on things that, at the end of the day, in very many cases, don't really matter. They're allowing failure to pass unnoticed, in other words.
And there are hidden crises that they aren't talking about. Take poverty, for example. Millions of children go hungry in this country, and we are the sixth-richest nation on Earth. Free school meals are still being denied to many children who need them. Only the very youngest get them as of right. And food banks are serving millions of people in this country who can't otherwise get a decent meal because their families are without the means to provide them.
This is the true index of national failure, but it very rarely gets reported unless one of those media stars, whether it be a prince or a politician who wants to get some attention for their good and worthy nature, goes to open yet another food bank as if that is a sign of virtue when they haven't even realised that what they're talking about is the whole failure of the system that keeps them in power.
And then there's the whole crisis of housing. Housing in this country is treated as a speculative asset, and not as a human necessity. Rents and mortgage costs have soared. Households are being pushed to their limits as a consequence. And there are quite simply far too few social houses. And then I read housing market commentators saying, "Oh, the problem is the government says it to build 300,000 houses a year, but no one can buy them, so why are we bothering?", without ever joining up the dots and realising the only person who can buy those houses and solve the problems of too many living in squalor that we face is the government itself. They must be the buyer, but no one is talking about that because, for too long, the assumption has been that houses are built for investors and not for families, and so a slow disaster is ignored every day by the nightly news.
Meanwhile, there's a crisis of care. The NHS is on its knees. It does not have enough money as a consequence of deliberate government policy, and people are still dying in corridors, which is utterly unacceptable. Meanwhile, social care is rationed and is almost invisible to most people, and another round of cuts will just make it harder to supply from hard-pressed local authorities, where there is nothing left to give.
Carers are exhausted, undervalued, and unseen, and many of them are vilified because they have come here as first- or second-generation workers. All of this is about ignoring the real needs of 'the politics of care', that can't compete in terms of the new spectacle as it's being created with the flashiness of those who want to be seen but who add no value, unlike those who pick up the elderly who've simply fallen over.
Behind the scenes, there's also another crisis, the one that has motivated me for so long, the climate crisis. The energy transition seems to have stalled. The media is attacking it. Every day, I get headlines from the Daily Telegraph saying how we are going to basically go to hell because we're trying to actually tackle the biggest crisis that our human race has probably ever faced, which is how we live within the planetary limits that this whole ecostructure that we live within on earth is imposing upon us.
We know that the 1.5 degrees limit, which we were supposed to comply with, has now passed. We can't stay within that now; the United Nations has said so. And despite that, ministers claim leadership in this whilst licensing oil fields. The contradiction is deliberate. They want to claim the benefit for providing us with future prosperity through oil, when actually what they're doing is condemning us to future overheating of our planet, which is going to make life impossible and deny us the opportunities we want, or that we want for those in generations to come.
Who profits from all this distraction? Well, of course, the populist does, the demagogue does, and the courtier does. People with power who want to avoid responsibility do. The City of London does, because it wants to deflect attention from what it is up to. Our politicians do because they don't want to talk about their failures; they only want to talk about their policy announcements, and not their achievements, or the lack of them. They thrive on noise but not results, and all the time that is the case, democracy withers in the glare of their spotlight.
The consequence is that accountability fades because the media is not doing its job. It is not holding these people to account and asking them, "What is actually happening and why aren't you doing anything about it?"
Public services do, as a result, decay all too quietly when there should be a vast amount of noise about why they're in the state that we are suffering. And real policies actually even disappear from view because nobody cares to give them attention.
What's the overall result? People are losing faith in democracy itself, and, of course, all of that paves the way for right-wing demagogues to try to take over power.
What must change then? We must look away from these artificial spectacles created by the news media, through their press releases, through their video opportunities, through their sound bites, through what the media decides is newsworthy, when in fact it isn't because of its hyperattention to the personality of a few, and the suffering of some as a consequence of crime, which is still a tiny actual threat to the well-being of most of us. And that they refuse instead to concentrate on the things that matter, which include food, poverty, housing, care, and climate, as I've talked about in this video. That refusal to question what is really going on is their failure in turn to participate in democracy. The media is refusing to deliver what we need to sustain the society in which we live.
So we must talk about a politics of care. I keep saying this, I know, but it matters because the politics of care begins with one question, which is: "What do people need to live well?"
We know that we need public investment and not austerity.
We know that we need to tax those with wealth more and not punish those in poverty.
We know we need an economy built around well-being and not on spectacle, and in particular, spectacle created by the wealthy to distract the rest of us from the fact that we are losing out because they are exploiting us.
The pantomime of this type of media has to come to an end. News has to be relevant again. The country is breaking while the circus of this news media round goes on, and attention has become the currency of power.
We need to stop funding that circus.
We need to stop giving these people the attention they crave because their own lives are actually so hollow.
What we need to do is reclaim the news so that it's about what's going on again. It shouldn't be about undermining us and destroying us, which too often it is, because that is the message that we are given, that our lives are not of worth compared to the people who are being talked about in the news media. And instead, we need to have news about real people doing real things for real benefit for each other in a way that guarantees an increase in well-being. That is what the news media should be talking about now. And because we aren't there as yet, what it should also be talking about is how we do get there, which is, of course, the task of a 'courageous state', something else that I talk about quite often.
And the courageous state is one that takes on power and wins, because it could if we wanted it to. And my point is that with the news media we've got, that's hard, and so we have to talk about the news media that we haven't got, or at least the news media that we haven't got which is put out on things like the BBC, and instead, talk about how we can create that news media ourselves, including through things like YouTube.
You have the power to change the messaging in this world. You can partake, you can deliver, you can talk about what matters. And if we all begin to do that, then we begin to get the news that matters to us all, which is how life gets better.
Poll
Loading ...Comments
When commenting, please take note of this blog's comment policy, which is available here. Contravening this policy will result in comments being deleted before or after initial publication at the editor's sole discretion and without explanation being required or offered.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
This is the real point I think Tony Judt was making in his book ‘Ill Fares the Land’, that we seem to have lost the ability to talk about real issues, and for that the media has to take it’s part of the blame.
Agreed
Interesting article here
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/10/crisis-charity-to-become-a-landlord-in-attempt-to-rectify-catastrophic-housing-in-uk
says it all really
There are a few obvious questions that The Chancellor isnt asking when she queries the welfare bill and of course nobody is asking her
Why are so many people falling ill and unable to work
Why isnt treating them so they can get back to work a priority
Why are so many people earning so little or have rents so high that they are dependant on means tested benefits
Thanks to you and your team for a most timely and percipient article!
“It is easier, and more lucrative, to fool peolple than to convince them that have been fooled.” (From Mark Twain)
Might it possibly help if democracy were conceptualised as having three classic ingredients?
1) Input
2) Process
3) Output
Alas, our current subversion of democracy fails on all three:
1) Unrepresentative elections contaminated by bribes of money and career prospects
2) Process – “If ever there is an Olympics for loutishness and avoidance of nation caring activities, the House of Commons would get, at least, a bronze.”
3) Semi-starving children, homelessness, semi-starved essential public infrastructure/services. etc., etc., etc.
Steve, I hope you won’t be offended but I’m going to post your response all over social media today- both pertinent and succinct!
For the sake of my well-being, I do not watch the news on TV or buy newspapers. I skim read The Guardian, The National Scotland and The Canary Newspaper online for headline news. However, as we are stuck in a Neoliberal world, the sense of things never changing is a deja vu I feel instantly. We live in a world where it is hard to trust or believe anything. It seems most communication is manipulative, distracting or trying to get us to buy something. It is why people seek alternatives like your blog or other outlets for sanity.
The management of the BBC has become too close to the government of the day. It is too close to those in political power to see the problems of political power. The heads of the BBC are their friends and acquaintances of power. Criticism which should be expected from a free and fair press is off the table. It is not coming. We are in a crisis of institutional management. They simply do not see the decline in services from their lack of responsibility. They put the blame onto something else – while they themselves are accused of left wing bias from those who are in power.
Today I’m watching the assault on the BBC from the right wing -as though it was not already very soft on the the effects of free market economics as you point out; and biased towards Israel. Last November 100 BBC staff signed a document saying the BBC was biased in its coverage of Gaza.
It may just be me but I think the BBC report in question got the gist right. even if the editing was not clum The thousands of people standing in front of Trump and hearing the whole speech took it to mean they should march to the Capitol and try to storm it to change the election result. People died.
Trump was impeached and 57 Senators out of 100 voted him guilty of incitement of insurrection. But the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote.
To have the BBC privatised because it was ‘untruthful’ about a man who lies and spread hate on an industrial scale is just…I can’t find the words.
And it looks like Trump is going to sue the BBC – no doubt aiming to bankrupt it. https://www.theguardian.com/media/live/2025/nov/10/bbc-tim-davie-resigns-bias-panorama-donald-trump-latest-news-updates
We also have the risk of getting an even more rightwing Director General. I certainly have no confidence that this Government will recruit an appropriate person
Good luck with that…
If I didn’t know better this could be a Green Party production! I stopped watching the so called news several years ago and got rid of my TV licence. It wasn’t good for my mental health and as you rightly say has become one but distraction. Sadly many of our older generation watch it and believe it. I’m with Zack that the reason so many think immigration is a big problem is the constant coverage.
Where is the coverage of families struggling to feed their children? My view remains you have to be pretty desperate to overcome the humiliation and go to a food bank and take what you are given. This is no reflection on the lovely person run such places but first you have to get a ticket from a government agency and then you have to admit you have so little money you need charity. No one wants to be in this position and I remain appalled that we now accept such things. I used to look at America’s situation and attitude to welfare in disgust, but we are now there. We expect parents to raise children on less than half the state pension that many complain is too little. I saw Gordon Brown speak on poverty several years ago. He was impressive, but it was sad that he never thought things would go backwards with many children once again living in real poverty.
Please carry on stating the truths in this video. It needs to get out in as many different ways as possible and reach as many people as possible.
Thanks
You might think Gordon Brown impressive Hazel, but it’s a Scottish Government not a Labour Government, which has achieved far lower poverty rates, especially child poverty rates, in Scotland, compared to the rest of the U.K. At least here we have the Scottish Child Payment of £27.15p every four weeks, and there is no limit to the number of children a family can receive it for. I’ll bet he didn’t mention that in his speech.
He was impressive in how he spoke. And I do believe he was the driving force in the more left wing policies under Blair. I live in England, now in the South West so don’t feel qualified to comment on Scotland.
I’m glad you’ve spoken on this issue. I read your blog before I attempt to read a newspaper. I watched the video. The last two minutes would make a great ‘short’ – Robert Reich does a few of these and I imagine they will draw in new viewers. Very glad to hear of lots of bird-watching.
Thomas is looking at making a short from that now…he tells me
You certainly fairly accurately depict my take on the easily available media. It is, as you say, essentially noise and distraction.
Like one of your other readers, I skim read the Guardian (too much trivia with one or two decent bits of reporting), read the National and have taken to trying to source more thoughtful pieces on political economy, etc. I have stopped watching the news on any channel.
Back to the Guardian – and the whole premise of an essentially ineffectual media – in today’s piece by Richard Partington he holds the neoliberal line about the importance of the bond markets – indicating they are the intimidator-in-chief of governments the world over – and that Rachel Rabbit needs to keep them onside. In fairness, he does state that “…the welfare-cutting bias in the City is simplistic, misplaced, and could condemn Britain to a worse trajectory.” However, for the average reader, his message gets lost amongst the – possibly apologetic- neoliberal dogma. There just doesn’t seem to be many in the mainstream media that are prepared to call things out as they are. Consequently, the public are misinformed and political choices via the ballot box are driven by self-serving soundbites by self-serving, inexperienced, ill-equipped politicians promoted by the media rather than by reasoned consideration of who might actually address the situation the country finds itself in.
Thanks
I had this exact same conversation in the pub last night. A fellow I hadn’t seen for a while, an older Irish gentleman, and after prompting asked me,
“Why is there so much about immigration in the news papers”,
my response was straight and instant,
“It’s what I call a WMD”, “Weapon of mass distraction”,
“If it is not immigration then it’s the Muslim’s, if not them, then it’s the feckless unemployed, the lead swinging disabled, trans rights, gender equality, etc, etc.”,
“All of which are there to distract you from the real issues like the cost of living, housing or energy costs, while you’re watching one hand the other is robbing you blind”.
He responded,
” But I do like a newspaper, I like good journalism and something to read”‘
I replied,
” I suggest you read Richard J Murphy, he has a blog with about 5 articles a day, if you want to know how money works or the state of affairs read those, and you can also follow him on YouTube”.
I thought this easier than explaining how things work and almost prophetic that you post this, this morning.
I hope he looks you up!
Cheers
Thanks 🙂
Great post Richard , especially in the light of the resignation of the BBC DG, in what some have termed as a ‘coup’ implemented by some internal people and outsiders including the Telegraph and Boris Johnson.
Your intriguing idea of some kind of grass roots media through Youtube ( owned by a global corporate) would seem terribly difficult to achieve.
A ‘public service broadcaster’ (which the BBC has never been) , genuinely independent of government – governed by an independent panel, would still seem to be worth trying for, although the likelihood of present politicians agreeing sufficiently to achieve it seems remote.
The resignation of Tim Davie has depressed me, as it shows me where the real power lies, at least in earthly terms.
Another news-related item was this Canary headline, about targetted “news” Hasbara videos aimed at those in Christian places of worship during services – geofenced identity-targeted politico-religious manipulation.
https://www.thecanary.co/skwawkbox/2025/11/09/israeli-propaganda-goes-digital/
As a digital privacy campaigner over a decade ago, I’ve seen all this stuff coming for a long time, but it is still profoundly depressing to see it in full swing, via Meta et al’s digital version of the ancient Colosseum – entertainment based on lies, destruction and exploitation via F/Book, TikTok, WhatsApp, Alphabet, YouTube, LinkedIn, and various search algorithms.
The truth is persecuted whenever it breaks through, with smears and threats, while lies are ushered into the best seats and magnified.
Imagine, if they can target churchgoers with geofenced hasbara, they can target a Taylor Swift tour, or a sports tournament, or a college campus. This is not anything fantastical, this is just Cambridge Analytica, Mk II, because we didn’t take Cambridge Analytica Mk I seriously enough.
Actually, I don’t swear at my TV, Richard, or my radio, for that matter – because I don’t watch or listen to corporate news any more.
No one has a legitimate excuse for being uninformed when there are so many reliable, thoughtful alternative sources of information – including this blog and its comments.
Thanks
These are all descriptors of a corrupt, failed British state; the media is just one part of it.
Agree with everything Richard and the other comments here, stopped consuming BBC media and most of the other operators output during the Brexit vote, they didn’t scrutinise the Leave vote propaganda hard enough for me. C4 News were a bit more circumspect in their reporting and questions to the main Leave vote protagonists but sadly it was insufficient. One of the things that gets my goat about TV and radio news is it’s over reliance of so called vox-pops, they are usually a complete waste of airtime frankly.
The avant-garde technique of disruption taken from the playbook of Putin see Adam Curtis’s film HyperNormalisation.