One of the right-wing press’ favourite moments from the General Election campaign was to crow long and loud at shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott when she couldn’t remember her figures during an interview with LBC host Nick Ferrari. How they crowed! It was “The Car-Crash Interview Everyone's Talking About”.
The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog sneered triumphantly “Diane Abbott, the Shadow Home Secretary remember, has a new policy committing Labour to putting 10,000 extra police on the streets. Could she explain how it works to LBC’s Nick Ferrari? No. Spectacularly”.
At the Daily Mail, the odious Quentin Letts (Let’s not) gleefully sniggered “How can we even start to convey Diane Abbott’s broadcasting bungles yesterday morning? The silences were so long, it was hard, as a listener, not to yowl and implore the referee to stop the fight and summon stretcher-bearers. Big Diane herself just kept staggering on, ever deeper into the mire”. Note the “Big Diane” smear.
The Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun were in their element: “LABOUR were branded clueless today after Diane Abbott made FOUR humiliating mistakes in a car crash interview about the party’s Election vow to hire more cops … The Shadow Home Secretary was ridiculed after claiming Jeremy Corbyn’s promise to recruit 10,000 extra police officers would cost about £300,000 - equal to a salary £30 a year”.
Labour figures having trouble with their figures were, from that point, said to be “having a Diane Abbott moment”. Even after Ms Abbott had first been absent from the campaign, and then confirmed to have a long-term health problem - she has recently been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes - the sneering and snorting hardly abated. But, the press wanted anyone and everyone to remember, they weren’t being partisan, sexist or racist.
All of which might put them in what Spike Milligan once called A Very Difficult Position, after our Foreign Secretary (no, don’t laugh) Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson presented himself before the inquisition of Eddie Mair on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme yesterday afternoon. How about tackling racial disparity in the criminal justice system?
“Well there are measures, I believe in the bill on the courts which I think is supposed to address some of those issues … And I think that one thing in particular that we’re looking at is … um … measures to … hang on a second … There are all sorts of measures that we want to take to ensure that we do not discriminate against everybody and … er … I think you’ll find that the Prime Minister has been strong on that in her response particularly to the attack in Finsbury”. He couldn’t even repeat “Finsbury Park” correctly.
So where were all those august media movers and shakers? Where was the forthright denunciation of bumbling Bozza? The Fawkes mob managed a brief mention, but only to slag off John Prescott. Otherwise it was mostly silence in the right-wing press.
Not that there is one rule for an outspoken black woman of the centre-left, and another for a thuggish, privileged and white male toff of the centre-right. Perish the thought!
That right wing press also extending to the BBC. Considering both interviews happened on their station you would think there would be more coverage than a fleeting mention in a 10pm news report.
ReplyDeleteBBC News?
ReplyDeleteThat the one whose Director of News is former Murdoch employee James Harding?
Now why should a right wing propaganda organisation that employs Neil, Kuentssberg, Pienaar, Marr, Robinson, Smith and Davis (for just a few) be fair to anyone more than an easy target suffering from diabetes?
Notice they rarely invite or take on John McDonnell ever since he made a complete twat of Marr by speaking directly to the camera and the public instead of falling for Marr's rigged "questions". And then followed it up by making an ever bigger twat of the utilities company water thief, tory Damian Green.
While McDonnell has been brilliant BBC News has been, well, just a bunch of lying right wing twats really.
It's true Dianne Abbott had a bad time in that interview but she's put it right since with her explanation. Nor does a moment of forgetfulness diminish her abilities or the decency of her intentions. So for a moment she "failed" at the bullshit of "public relations imagery". Who gives a shit?
Johnson on the other hand is what he's always been and always will be: A far right Bullingdon Gang public school boy with the intellect of a moth and the "principles" of a guinea pig. Which means the far right press and broadcast news will try to make him out as a bumbling "character" instead of the dead brained utter arse hole he is......Yes, just the kind of "personality" to be protected by the Beeb News jobsworths. I bet Harding and co. think he's the bees knees. You know, like Berlusconi or Hermann Goering.
How long before Johnson claims to be diabetic?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, Dianne Abbott is still a 'left-wing' Labour politician who sent her kid to a public school, 'because he' (11 yrs old) 'wanted to go there'.
ReplyDeleteCredibility shot a long time ago.
The only "credibility" that's "shot" is a political party and its "leader" who each day look more like the hypocritical far right gobshites they truly are. In spite of the "public relations" bullshit they peddle through their monopoly owned media.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of the latter, I can't be the only one to notice a sudden TV influx of tory women with fixed smiles and "reasonable" words......Well, in that unreal world that will be classed as "pr strategy" - a bit like the illegal tory call centre in Neath......The weirdest tory female has to be "baroness" Altmann, a peculiar woman with a permanent "tan" and grin each as false as the other. Now why would that gaggle of false bonhomie suddenly appear? Wouldn't have anything to do with "image" would it? As in, "For fuck's sake let's repair the damage caused by the Maybot and Bozo."
By comparison to that gang of lying hypocrites Abbott is a paragon.