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Tuesday 17 March 2020

Boris Proves Owen Jones Right

As if the media class had not already disgraced itself enough during the Covid-19 outbreak, off it went again yesterday, only to be pulled up sharp by another intervention of reality. This time it was journalist and campaigner Owen Jones whose actions started off a torrent of sneering, only for him to be proved right once again.
On Sunday evening, Jones had a thinking out loud Tweet where he asked “We need to all unite around 5 demands the government must agree to implement during the coronavirus crisis. What should they be?” It soon became clear that what he was thinking was not what the vast majority of the media class was thinking. Because they were not considering anyone else, and especially not those at the bottom of the economic food chain.
So it was that Robert Colville of the CPS - a superb example of an economically unproductive individual - sneered “Demand one: listen to medical and epidemiological experts not online activists. Demands two-five: see demand one”. He’s all right, Jack.
Jones reminded him “You can afford to snark about people using their platform to address the crisis facing low paid, insecure workers who can’t survive on statutory sick pay or face redundancy, because you [have] a well paid job at a think tank funded by wealthy donors whose identities you are hiding”. For Colville, the world is still excellent.
Trying to straddle the issue, with eye-watering consequences, was the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges: “One thing I would say - although [Owen Jones] and [Grace Blakeley] et al are going to spend the next couple of months launching ritualistic attacks on the Government, Ministers are going to have to get a grip on the economic side. Branson's ‘take 8 weeks paid leave’ won't cut it”.
Jones had two things to say to that. “I’ve spent the day with a delivery driver, and a cleaner paid poverty wages to clean government buildings, neither of whom can live on statutory sick pay. It’s not ‘ritualistic attacks’ to demand our government act to stop millions like them being driven into extreme hardship”. Oh, and “it's 8 weeks UNpaid leave, and I hope you'll now use your platform to draw attention to the huge social crisis threatening millions of workers, rather than whatever tittle tattle you've picked up from a drunk Tory minister in a Parliamentary bar”. OUCH! And the Tweeter known as James in Germany had more.
[Owen Jones] is making the point that very large sections of the population are about to become borderline destitute. Why are you mocking and vilifying him for caring about those people? More to the point - why don’t you care about those people?” Quite. Colville and Hodges demonstrate how selfish, featherbedded and out of touch the media class really is.
And then alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson proved Jones’ concerns in spades, by advising against visiting pubs, restaurants, theatres, cinemas and arts venues. But not mandating closure of them. Paul Brand at ITV: “Massive problem for restaurants, pubs, entertainment industries. Government says don't go, but has not enforced closure, meaning none of them can claim insurance. One event organiser tells me: ‘If they don't enforce any closures then pretty much the whole arts will go bust.’

This morning, Sunny Hundal has concluded “Anything less than a Universal Basic Income isn't going to be enough, it looks like”. Owen Jones’ concern is spot on. Once more.
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6 comments:

Jonathan said...

Well well chickens have come home to roost very early since Bozo the Clown's elevation to 'King of the World'.

Now unless he and the police want hoardes of justifiably angry citizens marching down Whitehall v.soon demanding their government provide them with a reasonable income whilst the enforced shutdown takes place then they may find a contagion across London.

Hate to tell people 'I told you so'...
Things would be much different under Jeremy Corbyn as PM. But people listened to lies, false antisemtism claims, claims of terrorist appeasement...
What did Jeremy do, he took it on the chin, never moaned, never his away in a milk fridge, never evaded Andrew Neil or difficult questions.

But Bozo did, and look now..

Anonymous said...

I warned many months ago that matters would get much worse. All the balloon needed was a pinprick.

Well, inevitably here it is.

But it can get yet worse again, starting with martial law.....and then......

This has been slowly developing for 40 years. An evil osmosis ignored, if not encouraged, by cowering "journalists" inside the M25.

Britain 2020, one seriously fucked-up country with a far right urfascist government quite prepared to let its citizens die en masse.

grim northerner said...

BRENDAN O'NEILL IS SMARTER AND COOLER THAN ALL OF THEM 👍

Sam said...

These overpaid media pundits seem oblivious to the fact the advertising industry also faces the same financial crisis as corporations begin slashing budgets and print media owners may decide some of these goons have to be booted as I doubt no reader buys a newspaper to read their waffle rather they are a collection of Phil Spaces.

Unknown said...

All the arguments over the last few years mean nothing we need to pull together. Government alone is not gonna solve this . We all have responsibility to help the vulnerable around us . If your healthy and fit and not sick there will be lots for us to do, help at getting goods to people help out at the NHS ect. STOP THE POLITICAL POINT SCORING. This isn't helping we will get through this but only if we stick together

OldGreyWig said...

Sorry sunshine, but a lying, dishonest hack of a prime minister and his crony government have yet to earn the right to be taken seriously,or to be respected. People who do the right thing will do it less for Queen and Country and more for those whom they care about - mates, friends, and family. No-one unless they've had a frontal lobotomy could forget that Humoty-Dumpty was a member of the Conservative governments who used Austerity to remake the economy in their own social darwinian image, and destroyed much of the faith and trust they could have in government through repeated policy failures the years they have had in power. So, the Emperor has no clothes, and truth must be told.