Satire is dead
It is difficult to know where to start today but my conclusion is obvious; as someone once said, satire died the day that Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
So in the last couple of days we have had:
Boris Johnson in the Daily Mail accusing Sir Kier Starmer of sleaze.
The BBC 10 O’clock news leading on a Labour MP’s shocking and disgusting rental properties, when I can remember senior Tories telling whinging renters to “buy some bleach”, if their properties were covered in dangerous mould.
The Daily Telegraph suddenly discovering that the Royal Navy is falling apart at the seams and needs not only much more money, more ships but also massive investment in infrastructure and training. The RAF and Army are in the same state so I imagine they will “discover” this soon too, while still fighting any and all tax rises.
Tories comparing further restrictions on smoking with the Nazis, when they have just stood on a platform of banning smoking altogether.
And the expected criticism that Angela Rayner is undignified and demeaning to her office because she had a dance in a Spanish disco. At least Ms Rayner can dance, but it is strange that Michael Gove and Therese Coffey never stooped so low as to look embarrassingly bad at a disco.
Oh yes and some total tosh about Sir Keir removing a picture of Lady Thatcher.
What all this means is that despite a huge victory and a massive majority the right wing press is never going to give Labour any lee way or room to sort out the mess it has inherited. The attack dogs only know how to attack, they hate Labour and do not respect election results, their millionaire paymasters want blood, to shackle and hobble the government from the start and to smear it with anything it can no matter how weak the claim is.
The real shame is that supposedly independent and balanced media organisations like the BBC, pick up these stories and run with them. They try to hide behind the format of “questions have been raised” or the “government refuses to deny” bullshit. But they are just picking up and running with the headlines of the rags they read every morning, amplifying the ridiculous claims and smears and then claiming to just be reporting “genuine concerns”. Something they were strangely reluctant to do for the last 14 years.
It is lazy, unethical, hypocritical and biased and it needs to stop.
But Boris Johnson as the arbiter of sleaze? Come on, that is a real Kissinger moment.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
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Sorry to mention the "B" word here. Didn't we get Brexit because of "concerns about immigration" that needed to be "addressed".
And, as we know, if we don't first determine whether a "concern" is based in reality or fantasy before we address it, we can end campaigning for a remedy for a baseless concern. But I'm not sure we've yet learnt that treating baseless concerns as real can result in serious, long-term harm or permanent disability, or even death. A bit like treating serious illness in a healthy, well individual.
This behaviour is like kids in the playground. They know what they do, know it’s wrong so get their retaliation in as early as possible and accuse others of their own crimes. Bad enough in kids, pathetic and appalling in adults. Simply disgraceful in unaccountable organs like the tory press and especially in the BBC, which ought to know better (like when they let Lawson bang on about there being no climate change without any challenge in the alleged interests of ‘balance’)