Category: Political

We are being lied to


Generally, I avoid Political Posts, but comes a time when you can’t just let it slide.

Yesterday, at the Cenotaph, it was reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson turned up with his hair unbrushed and his coat open and flapping. He stared around during the one minute silence whilst everyone else had their head bowed. He walked forward before he was due to do so and he presented a red wreath which he placed upside down.

Hardly respectful to those we choose to honour on that day. In the past, various Labour leaders have been sharply criticized, by the media en masse, for what has been deemed to be insufficient respect for this ceremony. I need hardly tell you there has been no such en masse criticism of Mr Johnson.

Once upon a time, the BBC was the envy of the world for its honesty and impartiality. Under Electorl Legislation, following the calling of a General Election, it is legally required to be neutral.

This morning, on BBC Breakfast News, coverage of the ceremony was shown. At the moment it fell to the Prime Minister to lay his wreath, the footagecut to Mr Johnson, his hair and apparel immaculate, place the wreath corrrectly at exactly the right moment, before cutting back to the rest of the ceremony. In this sequence, Mr Johnson was dressed differently from before and after, moved forward from a different place and carried a green wreath, instead of the red one in the other footage. This exactly placed footage came from the 2016 ceremony.

Why did the BBC conceal what happened and insert replacement footage of something three years before? If you listen to their explanation, it was a ‘production error’. Doesn’t everyone carry around with them news footage of old events and in error cut them into modern film shot less than twenty-four hours previously?

We are being lied to. We are the mushrooms in the old joke, because the BBC kept us in the dark in a General election campaign, and when such a blatant and shambolic trick was exposed, so disrespected their audience that they threw shit into our eyes.

Is this ‘error’ the only ‘error’ the BBC have made? You don’t have to be a cynic to answer that one when the crudity is blatant.

Journalism 101


One of the very best things about the New Musical Express in the Seventies was Charles Shaar Murray’s writing, about anything.

This is him today on Journalism 101:

If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the fucking window and find out which is true.

Man is still right.

Crap Journalism: Lies, political bias, slanting and Lies


I used to read the Guardian for years as the paper closest to my wet small-l liberal instincts. Now, I don’t trust it at all. Here’s one reason why:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/03/labour-mp-faces-deselection-threat-over-chris-williamson-criticism-ellie-reeves

Read the article. It explains that a pregnant Labur MP signed a letter issued by the Labour Party’s Deputy Leader Tom Watson (not, of itself, an impeachable offence but borderline crazy) about the current Chris Williamson crisis. This cause one semi-literate member of her local party to request a motion of No Confidence in her.

I’ll repeat that: one person.

Ms Reeves is 22 weeks pregnant. The Party has said that a) one request for a No Confidence motion means nothing, procedurally or constitutionally and b) as she’s pregnant, she wouldn’t face a re-election challenge anyway.

Yet the story is headlined that Ms Reeves faces ‘Deselection threat’ and contains  outraged quotes over the idea that a pregnant MP could ever be disturbed. In short, it’s a deliberate inflation of one powerless person’s opinion, a distortion, a misrepresentation, a LIE intended to blacken the Labour Party, with no more foundation that a headlined story that Ole Gunnar Solksjaer faces criticism for considering a selection issue between Marcus Rashford and me, after my mate wrote in to suggest he game me a trial.

In even shorter short, it’s bullshit. And there is no bias in English journalism, is there?

A man and his shopping bags


It’s been a week for anniversaries this week, though yesterday’s (26 years since Shane Warne delivered that ball to Mike Gatting)and tomorrow’s (Lara’s 501) are sporting anniversaries and, as such, are matters of great entertainment but of significance limited only to the sport.

Today’s is a different matter. I don’t mean the D-Day Landings in 1944, but another, more recent and equally resonant moment, thirty years ago today. A man whose name we never knew nor likely will ever know, carrying a laden shopping bag in each hand, stood in front of a line of tanks seeking to gain access to Tiananman Square, Peking (as we still called it then).

It is an image of extraordinary power that even today, thirty years after its failure to make any difference whatsoever, is still a reminder that force has to be opposed. That we have to stand in the face of what is wrong. Whoever he was, and whether he is still alive or was even allowed to live much longer that year, is, barring a reversal of stupendous proportions, a mystery that will never be answered.

But here was a man doing something a man could do and, in the process, becoming a pure symbol, someone we cannot and must not forget. A short man in stature, but one of the largest whoever lived in the shadow that he cast, unhesitatingly.

And a reminder of that unbelievable year, 1989, of Tiamanmen to Timsioara, that only those of us who lived through it can do more than just imagine it once happened.

228


According to a tweet yesteday by Tom Newton Dunn, Political Editor of the S*n, research by BBCPolitics is saying that the Prime Madwoman will lose next week’s ‘meaningful’ vote by a margin of 228 votes. Though the figures he then goes on to quote actually add up to a 227 difference (I nicked this story from our former bros at FTN, hi homeys!)

It’s interesting that Dunn quotes this story without challenge or snark, making it look as if he accepts the outcome, and indeed agrees with it which, as Political Editor of one of the most virulent B****t papers, not to mention a vile and repulsive cesspit of liars, he most certainly doesn’t. We  have to ask ourselves, is a most crushing repudiation of Theresa May coming?

Logically, such a defeat ought to spawn resignation and a General Election on its own. At the worst, it should spawn defeat on a No Confidence vote. It would after all be most perverse to crush so fundamental a Government motion then turn around and say that you think it’s doing a good job. But this is 2019 and we are well and truly down Alice’s rabbit hole.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, it would be so nice if Parliament gave Mrs May such a black eye just for the hell of it. Her monomaniacal act these past couple of years not only deseres it, it demands it.

(This was originally composed for today’s thread on a private Political/Social Forum of which I am a joint Administrator, only another post went up whilst I was writing it. Hence publishing it here. FTN, or FlyTheNest, is a public Political/Social forum you can all visit.)