Murdoch-Wade posse crash Independent's office – that's pretty uncool, isn't it? Rattled News International heavyweights respond to Cleggmania with visit to Simon Kelner's office
James Murdoch: displeased.
Things are hotting up. Hours after the traditional British election egg was thrown at David Cameron's shoulder, we learned this morning that James Murdoch and his enforcer, Rebekah Brooks, nee Wade, burst their way into the offices of the Independent to give executives a hard time.
Gosh, that's pretty uncool, and may suggest that expensive suits at News International are rattled by Cleggmania, which could leave them out in the cold if the Tories fail to win on 6 May.
What seems to have upset them are ads that the Indy has been running along the lines of "Rupert Murdoch won't decide this election – you will." Brooks apparently rang Simon Kelner, the editor-in-chief and now chief executive of the Indy to complain that dog does not eat dog in Fleet Street.
That means that editors and owners do not attack each other in person – not their politics, their finances or their private lives. Remember the running battle, later patched up, between the Daily Mail and the once-mighty Daily Express over the former's habit of referring (correctly) to Express owner Richard Desmond as a pornographer? That sort of thing.
Anyway, it's fun, not least because Freud Communications did the Indy's redesign. And who is Matthew Freud married to? Why, to James's less impetuous sister, Elisabeth Murdoch. Small world, eh?
Anyway, the Brooks-Murdoch posse turned up at the Indy's HQ – now housed in the Mail's London premises, the old Derry and Toms department store in Kensington High Street, got past security and appeared unannounced and uninvited on the editorial floor.
"They barged in and Kelner had to take them into an office where discussions took place. Rebekah was observed in gesticulating mode," says my source. The incident was mentioned on Radio 4's Today programme, where Trevor Kavanagh, a Sun guru, was found to be unbriefed about the whole thing.
Lively times. As noted here yesterday, and articulated forcefully in this week's Guardian by David Yelland, an ex-Sun editor, the Murdoch empire may be badly caught out if David Cameron does not become prime minister. Don't these people know that I still think he will?
Never mind. The "Kill Klegg" bandwagon gathers pace this morning, as we all knew it would. All the day's fresh allegations end up in later editions of the Mail, which has a very efficient news Hoover. Thus:
• He is guilty of a "Nazi slur," says the Mail, because in 2002 he wrote on the Guardian website that the British now have more of a problem than the repentant and prosperous Germans because of lingering "delusions of grandeur".
Mike's verdict: Oh p-u-u-l-eeese, if the Mail can't smear him better than that it might as well hand the job over to the usually-inferior Telegraph.
• Talking of which, as the Guardian reports, the Telegraph has dug up an odd story about how Lib Dem donors paid regular £250 payments into Clegg's own bank account, apparently to pay a researcher. Clegg says it was all declared.
Mike's verdict: That's a bit better than the Mail's yarn.
• Among other charges in the Mail today is that Clegg had TV coaching for the big debates; that Lib Dem candidates say nasty things about rival candidates and project different policies to different target audiences; that officials of the party gave their MPs advice on how to maximise expenses claims; that Vince Cable's plan to curb tax avoidance is optimistic according to experts; and that Clegg himself got a bit shirty yesterday.
Mike's verdict: That all sounds like a political party at work to me.
The interesting question is whether any of this mud sticks or whether voters decide that it's them, not Rupert Murdoch or the Mail's own editor – Paul Dacre – who decides the election.
Women Labour helpers knocked to ground by Tories John Prescott team attacked in Poplar; man led away in hand-cuffs
I have just been told that two female Labour volunteers were knocked to the ground in a scuffle in Poplar after they were attacked by two men in Prescott masks. Their identities were allegedly subsequently revealed as Tory council candidates, one of whom is allegedly called Martin Coxall, who is now in police custody.
From a Labour source:
Two men barged the crowd around John Prescott in Poplar on his walkabout and hit one of our female volunteers and knocked her to the ground and barged another female volunteer knocking her to the ground. Their masks were pulled off and they are Tory council candidates. One of the men is Martin Coxall who was taken away in hand-cuffs by the police.
From John Prescott on Twitter:
Tory council candidate in Poplar Martin Coxall attacked two women in scuffle trying to get me. Expect this from BNP not Tories
I heard something about that on Sky news, but not that they were Tory candidates! That's some going...
I've managed to sort the Flash Media Encoder to work with the TV stream, so the quality will be pretty good. I'll start with Eastenders as a live stream (starts at 7:30pm, in about 2 hours) and then switch over for the debate.
i've just seen the debate is on sky3 which is on freeview, although i'll pop into the chat as well - the last debate was really boring. with this on foreign policy it should be slightly more interesting - clegg has said some good stuff in the past on the plight of the palestinians, plus i'm sure he'll get hammered for his stand on trident ( which a load of army bods backed yesterday in a letter to the times ). he supports the afghan war though
'Sun' censored poll that showed support for Lib Dems
The Sun newspaper failed to publish a YouGov poll showing that voters fear a Liberal Democrat government less than a Conservative or Labour one.
The Liberal Democrats accused the newspaper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, of suppressing the finding. The paper, which endorsed Labour in the past three elections, declared its support for David Cameron during the Labour Party's annual conference last October. Like other Tory-supporting papers, it has turned its fire on Nick Clegg over his policies, pro-European statements and expenses claims since he won last week's first televised leaders' debate.
YouGov also found that if people thought Mr Clegg's party had a significant chance of winning the election, it would win 49 per cent of the votes, with the Tories winning 25 per cent and Labour just 19 per cent. One in four people Labour and one in six Tory supporters say they would switch to the Liberal Democrats in these circumstances. The party would be ahead among both men and women, in every age and social group, and in every region. On a uniform swing across Britain, that would give the Liberal Democrats 548 MPs, Labour 41 and the Tories 25.
The Liberal Democrats hope the long-standing argument that supporting them would be a "wasted vote" is breaking down following the surge in support for them in the past week. However, even the most optimistic Liberal Democrats do not expect to win the election.
The party has taken comfort from YouGov's unpublished finding that more voters would be delighted by the formation of a Liberal Democrat government (29 per cent), than by a Tory government (25 per cent) or a Labour one (18 per cent).
Only 21 per cent would be dismayed if a Liberal Democrat administration were formed, compared to 45 per cent for the Tories and 51 per cent for Labour. A Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, which would delight 14 per cent of people, would be a more popular outcome than a Conservative-Liberal Democrat one (9 per cent).
The Liberal Democrats are angry that The Sun did not publish these figures. Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, the party's Treasury spokesman, said: "The numbers show that half the country cannot stand Gordon Brown and that the other half can't stand David Cameron. I wonder why The Sun wouldn't share this news with its readers.
"We always knew...that when people believe the Liberal Democrats can win, there is a big jump in our support. In 90 minutes in the first debate, Nick Clegg tore open the two-party straitjacket which has stifled British politics for the last 80 years. Now, at last, people can vote for what they want, not against what they fear."
The Sun declined to comment last night. On the day the poll's findings were published on Tuesday, it focused on the Tories moving into the lead in the share of the vote and said there were signs that the Liberal Democrats' surprise surge was on the wane. An editorial comment said: "Mr Clegg is the political equivalent of a holiday romance. An exciting fortnight's flirtation so long as you don't ask too many questions. We cannot gamble the nation's future like that."
However, Sun journalists said YouGov's extensive daily poll always contained too many findings to publish. On Monday, the paper ran a front-page story saying the Liberal Democrats had taken the lead, based on the previous day's survey.
Peter Kellner, the YouGov president, said in a commentary on the unpublished poll that it was no longer outlandish to ask whether Mr Clegg could end up as prime minister. "The answer is probably no – I'd put the odds at 10-1 against – but longer-odds horses have won big races in the past," he said.
Mr Kellner added: "Not only is a Lib Dem government the most popular option; it is the one that frightens voters far less than any other option. If the Lib Dem bandwagon is to be halted and sent into reverse, Labour and the Tories must do far more to persuade voters that a vote for the Lib Dems would be seriously bad for Britain."
Another poll published yesterday suggested that the Liberal Democrats' advance has proved more damaging to the Tories than to Labour.
According to the Ipsos MORI poll for Reuters, the Tories have achieved a 5 per cent swing from Labour since the last general election, in 2005, in Labour-held marginal constituencies. That suggests Britain is still heading for a hung parliament, with the Tories as the largest party.
The poll, conducted between 16 and 19 April, showed support for Labour fell to 36 percent compared with 41 per cent two weeks ago, while Tory support dropped to 32 percent from 38 per cent. Liberal Democrat support jumped to 23 per cent from 11 per cent.
The swing to the third party comes mainly from voters who were previously not sure they would vote.
The truth about those smears against Clegg
Claim: Liberal Democrat donors paid up to £250 a month into Nick Clegg's personal bank account (The Daily Telegraph, yesterday).
Truth: Despite the front page headline Mr Clegg did not break any parliamentary rules, and the cash – which the party said helped pay for a researcher in Mr Clegg's office – was declared in the Commons register of members' interests. The Daily Telegraph says he made separate claims under his office allowances budget to cover staffing. The Liberal Democrats say the story is "wrong in fact" and have produced paperwork to back up their assertion.
Claim: Clegg lobbied for "lax" EU bank laws (The Daily Telegraph, yesterday).
Truth: Before becoming an MP, Mr Clegg had a brief spell as a lobbyist for GPlus. Its clients included the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was attempting to amend EU directives. Mr Clegg did work on the RBS account, but did not lobby "externally" on its behalf. GPlus said last night that Mr Clegg worked for it two days a week for about eight and a half months.
Claim: Clegg made a "Nazi slur on Britain" and said the British have a "more insidious cross to bear" than Germans over the Second World War (Daily Mail, yesterday).
Truth: The comments were made in a newspaper article by Mr Clegg in 2002 when he was a Euro MP. Written after two Germans working in a call centre in Swindon went to an industrial tribunal to protest about the abuse they suffered, it argued the British still laboured from "anti-German mania". He concluded: "All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off."
Claim: "Clegg refused to return a £2.4m donation to the party from convicted fraudster Michael Brown" (The Sun, Tuesday).
Truth: Brown's donations in 2004 – the biggest in the party's history – have hung over the Liberal Democrats for years. First, there were questions whether Brown's company, 5th Avenue Partners, was a genuine UK business. Then in 2008 Brown was charged with fraud and money-laundering and fled bail. He was convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven years in jail. Despite the conviction, the Electoral Commission has concluded the donations were permissible because the firm "was carrying on business in the UK" at the time and the Liberal Democrats had no need to return the money.
Claim: The Liberal Democrats have "flip-flopped shamelessly" on Afghanistan (The Sun, yesterday).
Truth: This is based on a party conference motion last year which said ministers should focus on "concluding the Afghanistan mission" and called on the UK to end the "military first" approach to the country. However, motions passed at party conferences are not binding and the party's foreign affairs spokesman, Ed Davey, told delegates the party supported the war. Its manifesto stops short of setting a timetable for withdrawal and says the Liberal Democrats will be "critical supporters of the Afghanistan mission".
Claim: Britain's security would be risked by Liberal Democrat policy to scrap our Trident nuclear defence (The Sun, yesterday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrats' manifesto does say they would "rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system" to save £100m. However, they also say they are multilateralist, not unilateralist. Former leader Sir Menzies Campbell favours replacing Trident with cheaper, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles which could be stationed on smaller Astute-class subs. This would mean Britain would remain a nuclear power with a seat at the UN Security Council.
Claim: Liberal Democrats' "crazy" immigration policy would give jobs to asylum seekers (Daily Express, yesterday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrats propose an amnesty for failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who have been here for 10 years and not committed any crimes. This is controversial because of fears it could encourage illegal immigrants to try their luck in Britain in the hope of triggering a further amnesty in the future. The Liberal Democrats would also introduce a regional points-based system to allow migrants to work only where they are needed. It would be backed up by "rigorous checks on businesses and a crackdown on rogue employers who profit from illegal labour".
Claim: The Liberal Democrats would free 60,000 convicts (Daily Mail, Wednesday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrat manifesto does promise to "introduce a presumption against short-term sentences of less than six months – replaced by rigorously enforced community sentences which evidence shows are better at cutting reoffending". The Daily Mail claimed that in 2008 "no fewer than 58,076 people were sentenced to a prison term of six months or less". The Ministry of Justice said the real figure was 55,333. The Liberal Democrat policy would spare offenders from going into prison; it would not "free" prisoners.
Claim: Clegg is posh (The Sun yesterday).
Truth: His half-Russian banker father sent him to one of Britain's smartest prep schools, Caldicott; he went on to Westminster School and Cambridge. A friend is quoted as saying: "His father was an incredibly wealthy banker with loads of houses – in London, in the Chilterns, a French chateau, a ski chalet in Switzerland... I think." So true – but then so is David Cameron.
also the bbc's nick robinson on his blog yesterday regarding all the tory papers leading with those anti libdem stories;
I now learn that political reporters from the Tory-backing papers were called in one by one to discuss how Team Cameron would deal with “Cleggmania” and to be offered Tory HQ’s favourite titbits about the Lib Dems – much of which appears in today’s papers.
Missing the joke... Tories ask for help from comics who mocked them
The Conservatives’ advertising agency have asked a bunch of comedians to produce a party political broadcast for them – after watching them mock Samantha Cameron.
M&C Saatchi approached production company Clever Pie after their viral mockumentary Leaders’ Wives was published on the BBC website. The sketch included stand-up Sarah Kendall as Sarah Brown, forever tweeting, and Lucy Montgomery as well-bred Mrs Cameron, trying to learn how to be more common.
Isabel Fay, one of the founders of Clever Pie and co-writer of the video, said they were surprised by the approach from Saatchi – but had to turn it down. Fay, who also played Nick Clegg’s wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez in the spoof, said: ‘We never expected a call from the Tories’ advertising agency asking our company to co-produce a party political broadcast for them. Of course we said no, as everyone involved in Clever Pie is entirely politically ambivalent and don't even care if this country goes to the dogs.
‘We also portray Nick Griffin’s wife as a Nigerian Matriarch, but sorry, Nick, we can't help you either.’
MEDIA ALERT: THE ART OF LOOKING PRIME MINISTERIAL - THE 2010 UK GENERAL ELECTION
On April 15, news media broadcast the first of three live, 90-minute “prime ministerial debates” between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the leaders, respectively, of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. By the end of the second debate on April 22, the word ‘Iraq’ had been mentioned a total of five times over the course of the three hours of discussion.
One day later, April 23, a wave of bombings in Baghdad were reported to have killed 58 people and wounded more than 100. Seven people also died that day in a series of bombings in the western town of Khalidya. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8639223.stm)
As usual, the carnage was mentioned in passing - presented as routine in the way of a traffic snarl on the M25 - and then forgotten. By the end of the following day, the death toll had risen to 85 with hundreds seriously wounded from a total of 16 bomb attacks.
Over the previous week, the BBC reported, “US and Iraqi forces said they had killed three al-Qaeda leaders”. For our media, there never has been an indigenous nationalist resistance movement opposing the illegal occupation of Iraq, just “al-Qaeda”. (In Afghanistan they‘re called “Taliban”. In an earlier time they would both have been labelled “Communists”) Iraq under Obama is still very much at war and very much under occupation.
Also on April 23, the World Socialist Web Site published an interview with Iraq war veteran Josh Stieber, whose infantry company can be seen in the harrowing “Collateral Murder” video posted by WikiLeaks showing a July 2007 US massacre of civilians, including two Reuters staff, in Baghdad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0). Stieber commented:
“When I started to see the way the video was framed and the discussion flowing from it, I guess I was surprised too at how extreme it was made out to be. Coming from my background, I can see why the common viewer could see it as pretty extreme, but for me it wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary.” (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/stie-a23.shtml)
He continued:
“One policy that we had that was fairly similar or even more extreme than this was that if a roadside bomb went off then we were supposed to shoot anyone standing in that area. So it pretty much got to the point that the philosophy was to out-terrorize the terrorists. We were told that we needed to make the local population more afraid of us, so that maybe if they see someone trying to plant a bomb they’ll try and stop them rather than having to face whatever we might do afterwards.”
Stieber was asked if an aim of his training was to dehumanise the Iraqi people:
“Yes, this was a definite part of it. We’d have battle cries like ‘Kill them all, and let God sort them out.’ They’d have us sing very dehumanizing songs as we were marching around, talking about killing women and children. There were so many things that were designed to eat away at your common humanity and to stop you from thinking in those terms.”
Yesterday, the BBC reported that an officer of the regiment detaining Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel worker who was tortured and beaten to death by British troops, said his soldiers held the view that “all Iraqis were scum”.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/27/baha-mousa-inquiry-soldiers)
In the first prime ministerial debate, Iraq was mentioned twice, in passing, both times by David Cameron. He noted that “over the last decade... we have had the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan” and “We brought in helicopters from Iraq.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_04_10_firstdebate.pdf) That was the sum total of mentions in the discussion.
In the second debate, ostensibly on foreign policy, Iraq was mentioned three times in all, each time by Nick Clegg, who said:
“We shouldn't be facing allegations of complicity in torture, we shouldn't have invaded Iraq.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/23_04_10_seconddebate.pdf)
Clegg added:
“Clearly, the principle of the reason why we went into Afghanistan, why I supported our mission in Afghanistan, unlike the illegal invasion in Iraq, is to keep us safe.”
Clegg also argued the need to “equip our troops so they don't get so terribly overstretched, as they were in fighting two wars on two fronts in Iraq and in Afghanistan”.
It is easy to become desensitised by the lack of sincerity, honesty and moral concern in the mainstream - even Clegg‘s level of dissent can seem impressive. But in the five years since the last UK general election, Iraq has continued to be torn to shreds - four million refugees continue to live in traumatised exile and misery, afforded negligible media coverage. Iraq is one of the great criminal acts and human disasters of modern times. Gordon Brown - who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote the cheques to fund the war - is directly responsible. David Cameron is also deeply complicit. While it is true that the Liberal Democrats opposed the war, they discontinued that opposition the moment British troops began fighting. By any reasonable standard, Clegg’s unwillingness to seriously address these issues was shocking.
During the second debate, the three leaders were asked: “Given our involvement in Afghanistan, if there is another multinational operation to remove Al-Qaeda or another terrorist group from a failed state, would the UK participate?”
Revealing everything about what would be in store if he gained power, Clegg followed up on his comment that Britain had intervened in Afghanistan “to keep us safe”:
“So, from that principle, if we need to do that again, we should.”
Brown responded:
“To keep the streets safe in Britain, we have to take on Al-Qaeda wherever it is.”
Cameron was more evasive:
“I would want to think very carefully what's in the national interest, what will make us safer here in the United Kingdom?”
He waffled about the need “to plan properly” and to use the “proper equipment” - clearly, the answer, again, was ‘Yes’.
Clegg then responded to Brown and Cameron’s comments:
“I think everyone is agreed that if we were to do this again, which is Stuart's question, we need to make sure that we've got the right equipment, the right resources.” After all, “then maybe you can equip our troops so they don't get so terribly overstretched”.
The pragmatic concern, then, in the wake of the limitless havoc we have unleashed on Iraq and Afghanistan, is the risk of overstretch and lack of resources. This is the familiar psychopathology of a political establishment for which the Western monopoly on high-tech violence is just too valuable to be seriously challenged.
Afghanistan was mentioned 19 times in the first debate, 31 times in the second. The words ‘civilian’ and ‘casualty’ or ‘casualties’ were not mentioned in either discussion. There was not a single reference to civilian suffering in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
All three leaders were of course tireless in praising “our very, very courageous servicemen and servicewomen” (Clegg), “our dedicated forces, our professional forces” (Brown), “the bravery of our forces... you're just blown away by the professionalism of these people.” (Cameron) All were keen to emphasise that they had been to Afghanistan.
But the indifference to the suffering of our civilian victims exposes the lie of the alleged concern for “our forces”. Journalist and comedian Mark Steel explained:
“(A)nyone who is deeply moved by one set of tragedies while ignoring, and even justifying, those on the other side, in reality is not genuinely touched by either. It's just an arm of their propaganda.” (Mark Steel, ‘What's Going On?’, Simon & Schuster, 2008, p.25)
Battle Of The Body Language
The lack of honest discussion is par for the political course. In the first three weeks of campaigning for the 2001 general election, the communications research centre at Loughborough University found that there had been “little sign of real issues" in media election coverage, where "few issues make the news" (Peter Golding, ‘When what is unsaid is the news,’ The Guardian, May 28, 2001). Issues like the environment, foreign policy, poverty and defence were "all but invisible" (Golding, email to David Edwards, June 10, 2001), following the pattern of the 1997 and 1992 elections.
Even after the carnage in Iraq, after it had become obvious that Tony Blair and other senior Labour leaders had lied in order to manipulate the British public into supporting war, Iraq comprised just 8 per cent of media reporting during the 2005 election campaign, as compared to 44 per cent for “electoral process”, 7 per cent for “asylum” and 5 per cent for “taxation”. (See David Deacon et al, ‘Reporting the 2005 U.K. General Election,’ Communication Research Centre, Loughborough University, August 2005)
The indifference is a sign, not of national unity or political consensus, but of a form of political oppression. As even the liberal intellectual Timothy Garton Ash writes in the Guardian of the three main UK political parties, “the differences between them on international affairs are astonishingly small”.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/21/questions-leaders-britains-role-world)
Nevertheless, given the collapse in mainstream political credibility, the media is naturally keen to hype the prospect of imminent radical change. Nick Clegg is the big story following his confident performance in the first prime ministerial debate. A Guardian editorial declared in response: “All change for new politics”:
“Get used to it. The whole 2010 general election changed on the night of Thursday 15 April. It may now stay changed until polling day... politics has changed. There is a new electoral reality. And about time too. And doesn't it actually feel rather good?
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/20/general-election-2010-poll-editorial)
The Times agreed:
“The spark provided by Nick Clegg on Thursday night has become a fire that has set the general election campaign alight and changed the political landscape. People who think of themselves as anti-politics are now expressing a keen interest in what are very much political issues.”
(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7102182.ece)
Will Hutton wrote in the Observer: “This is becoming an epic and crucially important general election.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/25/proportional-representation-voting-will-hutton)
An April 16 Independent leader came closer to the truth:
“Mr Cameron's uncharacteristically stiff and nervous performance left Mr Brown unchallenged in appearing prime ministerial...”
(http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-finally-an-electoral-opening-for-threeparty-politics-1947241.html)
The nonsense about “appearing prime ministerial” indicating that “the new electoral reality” was more a matter of style than substance, as Garton Ash acknowledged:
“The eyes have it. And the nose. And the hand gestures, the body language, the way you look into the television camera, the perception of a less-known newcomer challenging the ‘old parties’: everything, in fact, except the detail of your policies... this week will be less about what they say than about how they say it.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/21/questions-leaders-britains-role-world)
As ever, then, we have elections, but little genuine politics. More sobering still, elite Westminster School and Cambridge University-educated Clegg “isn't an outsider at all”, Seumas Milne notes in the Guardian: “Along with what he calls the ‘old parties’, the Liberal Democrats are an integral part of the political establishment, in Westminster and across Britain. Personally, Clegg is part of the free-market 'Orange Book' right of his party, which overlaps heavily with the dominant New Labour and Cameron wings of the other two main parties.”
The Orange Book (Profile Books, 2004), to which Clegg contributed, called for the Lib Dems to shift to a more pro-market agenda promoting less state regulation. Milne continued:
“There is already a three-party coalition in support of cuts, privatisation and the war in Afghanistan, as last week's debate showed, which doesn't reflect public opinion.”
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/21/breaking-electoral-mould-toxic-stitchup)
This cross-party consensus clashes mightily with the fact that 64 per cent of British people think the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and the fact that 63 per cent want all British troops withdrawn by the end of the year.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8530761.stm)
Alas, Milne - the elite Winchester College and Oxford University-educated son of former BBC director general Alasdair Milne - is himself no “outsider”. Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook notes that Milne is one of just four “dissenting voices” writing in the mainstream: “in Britain's supposedly leftwing media we can find one writer working for the Independent (Fisk), one for the New Statesman (Pilger) and two for the Guardian (Milne and Monbiot). Only Fisk, we should further note, writes regular news reports. The rest are given at best weekly columns in which to express their opinions.” (http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/081007_intellectual_cleansing_part2.php)
Moreover, “none of these admirable writers - with the exception of Pilger - choose or are allowed to write seriously about the dire state of the mainstream media they serve”.
Milne can protest political indifference to public opinion all he likes, but he is not free to discuss the extent to which his newspaper, and he himself, is “an integral part of the political establishment” - token gestures aside, that debate is simply not allowed.
Liberal intellectuals build whole careers boldly declaring what +must+ be done to put the world to rights, while blithely ignoring the fact that their own work bolsters a media system that consigns their words to utter irrelevance. The bolstering effect of this handful of dissidents is huge, as media managers are well aware. Cook notes of Robert Fisk: “All the evidence is that the Independent might have folded were it not for his inclusion in the news and comment pages. Fisk appears to be one of the main reasons people buy the Independent”. Indeed “the editors realised that most of the hits on the paper's website were for Fisk's articles”.
At election time, analysis of prime ministerial bearing is fine, but issues that should clearly be at the heart of any rational discussion are nowhere to be found.
There is no serious analysis of the tectonic interface between the giant global corporations that control the economy and the handful of parties that control politics. There is no exploration of the formal and informal ties and alliances that bind these parties with the state-corporate establishment. After all, why +do+ the main parties offer such similar policies on the big issues? Why +do+ voters consistently have no option in choosing parties opposed to waging war on “failed states” at the behest of the United States? Why are we restricted to such an obviously pre-filtered set of choices despite the equally obvious dissatisfaction of the overwhelming majority of the population? How do powerful elites manage to ensure that they retain control no matter who wins? What is the role of the corporate media in preventing the public from interfering with corporate control of society?
The excellent New Left Project website recently posed a question to us and several other commentators:
“Events in recent years have seen the left’s analysis vindicated - in practical and moral terms - on the major questions of the era: from foreign policy to economics to climate change. Yet there is no serious left alternative at the coming elections capable of winning the contest and forming a government. In practical terms, what can we do in the absence of that alternative, in the here and now? And what can be done to build such an alternative for future elections?” (http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/election_roundtable/)
We responded:
“The only way to develop a space in which non-corporate, dissident movements can grow is by undermining the authority and prestige of the corporate media - particularly ’liberal’ false friends such as the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent - and by empowering non-corporate media communicating facts and ideas that are so consistently excluded.
“How futile it is to pour time and energy into building green, anti-war and human rights movements while ignoring the massive corporate media system that has evolved to render those movements irrelevant. The internet has changed so much - with the input of even tiny resources (by mainstream, and even left, standards), organisations like Democracy Now!, Real News and Media Lens could have a serious impact and open a door through which progressive movements and even parties could move and flourish. Change is possible - but this unprecedented opportunity is currently being missed on the left.”
This is even more obvious to us now than it was when we started Media Lens nearly nine years ago. The corporate media continue to have a (somewhat attenuated) stranglehold on what can and cannot become widely known, on what is or is not politically possible. In the age of the internet, it really doesn’t have to be this way. The stranglehold can and must be broken by public support for non-corporate media alternatives.
Lib Dems' secret plan for high street cannabis cafes
Cannabis cafes would be permitted under secret Liberal Democrat plans.
A leaked policy document calls for the decriminalisation of the drug in an approach even more radical than Amsterdam’s.
The paper also suggests allowing possession of cannabis, social supply to adults and cultivation of the plants for personal use.
It follows an internal party vote that commits the Lib Dems to making it ‘no longer a crime for the occupier or manager of premises to permit someone to use cannabis on those premises’.
The party’s constitution binds its leaders – in power – to implement votes carried at annual conferences.
The Tories, who unearthed the policy document, said the policy would go further than the Dutch model of turning a blind eye to ‘cannabis coffee shops’.
Cafe owners could allow customers to smoke the drug outside or buy ‘hash brownies’ and vaporised cannabis.
Chris Grayling, Tory Shadow Home Secretary, said: ‘Lib Dem policy on drugs is deeply worrying.
‘When you look at the detail of what they want to do it’s quite clear that they want to be soft on crime and want to sign up to more and more powers from Brussels.
‘I have spoken to countless people whose lives have been wrecked by hard drugs.’
Nick Clegg has also come under fire for suggesting heroin and other drugs should made legally available.
The Liberal Democrat leader claimed that criminalising drug use was restricting ‘individual freedom and civil liberties’ – and argued that drug offences should not lead to jail.
While serving as an MEP, Mr Clegg complained it was unfair that drug users were being pushed to the fringes of society.
He said heroin – currently a Class A substance – should be made available to addicts under medical supervision.
He signed a motion calling on EU member states ‘to take measures to make the fight against organised crime and trafficking in narcotics and psychotropic substances more effective, by establishing a system of legal control and regulation of production, sale and use of currently illegal substances’.
Last night, a Lib Dem spokesman said: ‘We will always base drugs policy on the independent scientific advice of experts.’
* The Liberal Democrats are on course to see their number of MPs soar at Labour's expense, a poll revealed yesterday. The ICM/Guardian poll shows the party's vote is increasing more strongly in Labour-held marginal seats than in Conservative ones. They could end the election with 80 MPs - the most since 1923.
this would be the greatest thing ever although its in the daily mail so its probably bollocks to scare mail voters into not voting lib dem. but i still might plan out my cannabis cafe and museum just in case
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