Fake news
Arron Banks, who bankrolled the Brexit Leave campaign and is now under police investigation for election fraud, told C4 their news service was responsible for the fake news in the UK media. Oddly enough, some of us think C4 News have the only reporters likely to dish up a modicum of genuine enquiry on a daily basis. The people some of us think are responsible for producing fake news in the UK are mainly in the BBC, where reporters seem to be unable to produce a question that goes deeper than 'How are you today, Mr Farage?'
What right has Arron Banks got to intervene - I almost wrote interfere - in an election in the UK? None at all. He's just a voter, like the rest of us. But he has money. A lot of money and lots of political and media connections who like his money.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Brexit for me is that the opposition parties go on acting as if the political situation is normal and nothing has changed. They're all still playing by Queensberry Rule while the true manipulators of politics in the UK are people with not a bit of respect for the rule of law. Just an absolute determination to turn the UK into another Trump-style right-wing state. And I don't mean only elected politicians. Farage is as much a dupe of people like Banks as any other politicians. So are a lot of voters.
Meanwhile, a woman MP has been murdered in the street and Conservative MPs think it's okay to suggest the (female) prime minister is under some sort of death sentence and should bring 'her own noose' to a meeting of her party.
This is what's called in polite circles 'immoderate language.'
And it came from the USA. Donald Trump tells all media people - apart maybe from Fox News - that they are producing fake news. Not just that, he has actively encouraged people to hate reporters. I might even say to take violent action against them. His use of immoderate language has enabled him to fend of accusations of being in cahoots with Vladimir Putin, another politician who has waged constant war against the media. Having them shot, blown up in their cars, flung into jail on aptly-named 'trumped-up' charges.
The press is one of the few barriers the electorate has against people like Arron Banks. We rely on honest reporters to tell us what's happening - and to give us their interpretation of what it all means. It's interesting that the tone of a newspaper like the Daily Mail has changed since it got a new editor and is not quite as violently pro-Brexit as it was. The BBC employs a lot of reporters but it remains - as a 'state broadcaster' - a complete mystery to me. To be honest, I've no idea who is actually running the BBC. They seem to be unaccountable to anyone, constantly on the defensive when challenged, and - in that good old-fashioned expression - opaque.
The thing is we need the media to be transparent. And by 'we' I mean the large numbers of people who are not right-wing, not anti-immigrant, not anti-EU and not particularly happy to see the economy go down the tubes, as is happening now.
What right has Arron Banks got to intervene - I almost wrote interfere - in an election in the UK? None at all. He's just a voter, like the rest of us. But he has money. A lot of money and lots of political and media connections who like his money.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Brexit for me is that the opposition parties go on acting as if the political situation is normal and nothing has changed. They're all still playing by Queensberry Rule while the true manipulators of politics in the UK are people with not a bit of respect for the rule of law. Just an absolute determination to turn the UK into another Trump-style right-wing state. And I don't mean only elected politicians. Farage is as much a dupe of people like Banks as any other politicians. So are a lot of voters.
Meanwhile, a woman MP has been murdered in the street and Conservative MPs think it's okay to suggest the (female) prime minister is under some sort of death sentence and should bring 'her own noose' to a meeting of her party.
This is what's called in polite circles 'immoderate language.'
And it came from the USA. Donald Trump tells all media people - apart maybe from Fox News - that they are producing fake news. Not just that, he has actively encouraged people to hate reporters. I might even say to take violent action against them. His use of immoderate language has enabled him to fend of accusations of being in cahoots with Vladimir Putin, another politician who has waged constant war against the media. Having them shot, blown up in their cars, flung into jail on aptly-named 'trumped-up' charges.
The press is one of the few barriers the electorate has against people like Arron Banks. We rely on honest reporters to tell us what's happening - and to give us their interpretation of what it all means. It's interesting that the tone of a newspaper like the Daily Mail has changed since it got a new editor and is not quite as violently pro-Brexit as it was. The BBC employs a lot of reporters but it remains - as a 'state broadcaster' - a complete mystery to me. To be honest, I've no idea who is actually running the BBC. They seem to be unaccountable to anyone, constantly on the defensive when challenged, and - in that good old-fashioned expression - opaque.
The thing is we need the media to be transparent. And by 'we' I mean the large numbers of people who are not right-wing, not anti-immigrant, not anti-EU and not particularly happy to see the economy go down the tubes, as is happening now.
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