I have probably spent too much time listening to the media appearances of politicians over the last 48 hours, but doing so has been interesting. There is a decided change of mood.
Laura Kuenssberg did not defer to Truss on Sunday, and her last question to her, asking “Who elected you to do this” was direct, and very pointed.
Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning did not display his usual Tory colours. His questions were understated, but could be as they were very direct, and far from accommodating of her.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy was straightforwardly angry when interviewing Kwasi Kwarteng on Channel 4 last night.
Nick Robinson was less obviously angry with Truss on Radio 4 this morning, but it was the undercurrent of the whole interview and never far from the surface.
And from my own experience, Jeremy Vine was in the opinion of others who heard it much more accommodating of my ideas than usual when I spoke on Radio 2 yesterday. I got more of the time allocation than usual.
What does all this represent? It could be a coincidence. It is, more likely, a feeling amongst journalists that they are dealing with a profoundly unpopular government that does not represent the people of this country who they are free to attack as a result, which is what they are doing.
I hope so. We could do with journalism that holds all politicians to account again.
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Gordon Brown this morning. Telling us exactly what these Tories are up to.
The higher rate tax U-turn isn’t a change in strategy. Let’s not forget:
1. £19bn corporation tax cuts
2. Doubling tax-free giveaways on share options
3. £2bn for employees who declare themselves self-
employed
4. £1bn tax cut on dividends
5. Bankers’ bonus free-for-all
6. No new energy windfall tax
By rejecting a new windfall tax, the chancellor is effectively handing billions to oil and gas tycoons.
Meanwhile the typical family on Universal Credit face losses of up to £2,000 a year if, as seems possible, the government links benefits to earnings not prices.
It’s all there in Britannia Unchained: the pound can collapse, borrowing and mortgages can soar, pensioners can freeze, kids can go hungry, as long as the economy is ripe for venture capitalists freed from regulation and, ideally, tax.
It’s as if the rich sensed an opportunity after Johnson to go large – a government that it could get in its pocket; a democracy so weak.
Like piranha’s smelling blood in the water.
Let us hope that you are right and that the new scepticism lasts.
What I’m waiting for is for Labour to get in, and then for the ‘journalists’ to identify and call out their Neo-liberals bullshit too.
Then we’ll see some REAL change perhaps.
Or is it that Senior Tory party leaders have had a quiet chat with the journalists to give them the go ahead to give her a hard time
I suspect if the new leader was a party favourite then the shackles would still be on
The party elected her
Perhaps the MPs have been emboldened by the indeterminate, but strong public opinion – and anger – to declare unilateral independence from the Conservative Party membership (frankly an unrepresentative and eccentric misrepresentation of mainstream British political or economic opinion, on any measure). The PM and Chancellor discover they cannot command a majority in Parliament through the support of the membership.
All very well in the circumstances, perhaps; but also perhaps a distrubing insight into the real (dangerous, irresponsible) nature of Political Party: as a maater of palin fact. Party, as I keep insisting is mere faction: unleashed.
You may be correct Richard, but I still see very little repugnance for a Tory party that has displayed the same arrogance and psychopathic morals as is found amongst the most profoundly anti-social and dishonest occupants of UK jails.
Like Simon Jenkins in the Guardian the criticism appears confined to what might be referred to as technical political issues, the same approach they used to discuss a moral cretin like Johnson.
Particularly with London based journalists, not ruining their career prospects by upsetting Murdoch, Lord Rothermere or the Barclay family always seems to be the primary consideration.
You mist be watching through different glasses to me right now because I can see it
I see it as the media leaping onto the bandwagon so that they can say that they were instumental in challenging her lunacy so that real Conservative values can be brought back.
Shades of the period 1995 through 1997 when the Tories were mired in sleaze & hypocrisy & the MSM decided that they liked the look of that nice Mr B.Liar. Obviously worse this time since the Tory “project” has moved along somewhat since then.
The danger is if Liebore wins by a landslide, PR gets kicked into the long grass and we get the Tory party circa 1994 in terms of policy. Starmer cannot be trusted – the promises he made before being elected leader, he broke . This leaves the open question: can anything the man says be trusted? Possibly not. In turn – what role the MSM in holding Starmer to account? It’s fine attacking a wounded (& hopefully dying) tory party – but what about those waiting in the wings wanting to pick up the pieces?
I guarantee even if the tories get wiped out – they will be back – within +/-12 years. The antidote to this is PR.
And what better way to bring PR in than to prorogue Parliament!
The English Conservatives, the most successful political party in European history at winning elections for the last 200 years is now, unusually, facing the abyss of electoral meltdown. Greater than 1945 or 1997. This unthinkable position, even say 3 months ago, has come as a great surprise for anyone who follows “current affairs” or has an interest in the general wellbeing of British, or for that matter, global society and environment. The main reason for the Conservatives’ “success” has been the massive corporate funding they receive, not always “transparent”, dwarfing with other parties. They therefore must be slaves to the major corporations and multinational giants and billionaire class. At last, their mask of democratic pretensions has slipped, and the empress and her underlings have been found with no clothes, their evil greed exposed by a formerly compliant media. Even the Daily Mail is floundering to find headlines to justify the Tories’ total failure. Where do we go from here? The growth of protest and NGO activism as encouraging but unfortunately receives very little media attention. Let’s hope the current wave of strikes and protests will finally influence the changes needed for and equitable and ecologically sustainable economy and society.
A la Bill Hughes – we have had reports of Russian demonstrations, Iranian demonstrations, Chinese demonstrations, but not a peep on R4 on the substantial Enough is Enough etc demonstrations in UK last weekend. Seems we are in a ‘managed democracy’. Very carefully managed and overwhelming propaganda on Ukraine, but not a peep asking is there anything we could have done or can do to help end this slaughter – not obvous Russia can be ‘defeated’ ,even now.
The media have clambered onto the bandwagon to be more ‘objective’ and ‘critical ‘ following Tory factionalisation from the latter part of the BJ regime.
They are still slavishly following the ‘covid is all over’ line – as another wave of illness breaks and we have had 24,000 covid deaths this year and other deaths post-covid higher than should be.
90% of r4 news coverage and comment through this whole year has been with Conservatives – current , or past, or advisors or commentators – agreeing, disagreeing or commenting. The subliminal message – Tories can provide their own opposition – only Tories matter. Their polling is now disastrous – but what goes down in a couple of weeks – could come back.
Labour dont seem to have grasped the magnitude of the challenge they face with the media’s prescribed narrative – ‘vote Labour – we’ll put your taxes up’. They really have to work out how to organise resources to rebuild NHS, raise incomes, invest in Green New Deal. And impose their narrative. No sign so far.
I find it hypocritical that journalists are at last challanging politicians more freely. So this is what it takes. I think it just shows how they normally just prop up the status quo and some parts of the electorate just sleepwalk through it
My sense too – Krish GM on Ch4 has always been pretty direct which goes a long way to explaining Tory desire to privatise them. However Nick Robinson on successive days was far more challenging of Kwarteng and Truss. I have the feeling that they have just had enough of the bluster, evasion, and lying. The massive shift to the far Right of Truss’s mob combined with their gross incompetence may have been the straw on the camel’s back.
What I’ve not heard is a fundamental challenge of their claim that low tax for the rich and deregulation automatically leads to higher growth. It’s a wholly discredited approach but none of the interviewers seem to have picked that up. It was Trump’s approach, increasing debt and inequality, and Biden has done pretty much the opposite. I think I’m right in saying that he has explicitly dismissed trickle down economics.
Meanwhile Starmer is doing just fine. He still has to persuade those red wall voters to come back. Given events in Ukraine he is quite right to distance the party from those who have long had an unhealthy admiration for Russia, and denied its long pattern of brutal colonialism. Over the years I don’t doubt that Corbyn’s long-standing loathing for the West did not go un-noticed and undermined whatever desirable policies may have been put forward. Yes I’d like Starmer to be more progressive on say Brexit but as ever, it’s the art of the politically possible.
Interesting comment on National Preservation
We’ve had 10 years of austerity where the poorest have suffered most, but now with mortgages increasing and energy being so expensive, it’s now starting to move up and affect those who weren’t as badly off before. Possibly it’s now impacting on those in the media who have to report on this stuff?
Journalists have (big) mortgages so are probably starting to feel the pinch as well
I think you are right. I think there really needs to be a cultural discussion about impartiality and how we perceive it. As any social anthropologist knows, we are all perceiving through cultural biases but instead of acknowledging and discussing how we are doing the discussing we just hash around claiming impartiality