Yes, it's well fishy
And the press wonders why its trust ratings have collapsed. I’ll just leave that one there.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6
Sunday, 28 June 2020
Yes, It’s The Pravda On Sunday!
How we laughed at Pravda and Isvestiya as they told us how Leonid Brezhnev was in rude health, when we knew that he was lurching from one health crisis to another before finally shuffling off and leaving a crumbling Soviet Union for someone else to sort out. We roared with laughter at Chinese state media telling us how remarkably fit Mao Zhedong was, not long before the old tyrant waved to his adoring public for the last time.
And we hoot with derision at Ri Chun-hee as she reinvents reality on behalf of the régime in Pyongyang. Yet we are supposed to take this kind of shameless personality cult revisionism seriously when it comes from our free and fearless press, and come from them it has this morning, in the shape of the Mail on Sunday, our very own Pravda.
The paper’s front page would not have been out of place in early 1980s Moscow, with its blustering faux patriotism. “Exclusive interview … Boris does press-ups for the MoS! As PM says he’s ‘fit as a butcher’s dog’ (and proves it) and is helping with nappies and night feeds, he announces massive revival plan … BILLIONS TO GET BRITAIN BOOMING”.
All hail the new record in tractor production! The sun shines over our motherland! The workers control the means of production! The struggle of the urban proletariat! The great leader sends the counter-revolutionary running dogs packing! In one mighty bound he emulates Vladimir Vladimirovich and Il Duce! Let us go forward with Himself!
No, sorry, this is total crap. The only surprise is that this week, it is political editor Glen Owen consigned to taking dictation, rather than his sidekick, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole. The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker might as well hand over production of the MoS to CCHQ. Or perhaps they already did.
Observers looked on cynically at claims such as “Boris on fatherhood, nappies and night feeds … I’M BOTH PRESENT AND INVOLVED IN A DETAILED WAY”. Mic Wright reimagined the headlines: “In the country formerly known as Great Britain, regime media reports on the leader's health, with a staged photo in which the premier, a rotund and often breathless ideologue, fakes doing press-ups for the tame reporter”.
Matthew Pudner added “a real journalist would have noted the flared elbows, flexed neck and arched back and duly recorded that the prime minister does not even lift”. Richard Bartholomew compared and contrasted the MoS with Chinese coverage of Mao’s swim.
But LBC host James O’Brien was not amused. “People will be checking the date on this front page for years to come while refusing to believe that the man doing the press-ups was in the midst of presiding over an absolutely catastrophic response to a national emergency that left thousands of people dead. It’s heartbreaking”. He then added more.
“Don’t know why but that press-up picture has really brought home the scale of the crises still to come. It’s taken four years flat to turn our lovely country into a clown car. And Johnson is barely out of the blocks”. Owen Gibson of the Guardian refused to take the MoS seriously: “Next week: Boris throws a shoe over a pub”. It would, to be fair, divert attention from all the fighting following that first all-day session since March.
And the press wonders why its trust ratings have collapsed. I’ll just leave that one there.
Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6
And the press wonders why its trust ratings have collapsed. I’ll just leave that one there.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6
"If you want to see what gets me out of bed in the morning, I look at the basic injustice "
ReplyDeleteWe don't even know he gets out of bed seven days a week. As for changing nappies, this is a man who won't admit how many children he has.
Injustice? What about austerity aimed at the poor, and which killed very many of them.
Perhaps he’s changed so many nappies he’s lost count?
ReplyDeleteIf the fat, lying slob styles himself as the "butchers dog" did he cock his leg up the nearest wall when he finished his staged "push-up"?
ReplyDeleteProstrate in front of his sovereign? Cummins?
ReplyDeleteNothing new in that bullshit.
ReplyDeleteThe same M25 propaganda clerks have been peddling it for 40 years.
Though I must admit that wants some beating for arslikhan.
I get the feeling that this coverage is going to be used as a way of clamping down on people with long-term illnesses from Coronavirus.
ReplyDelete'PM Boris has such a hard job and here he is doing press-ups! Meanwhile those lazy nurses & factory workers are claiming 'chronic fatigue/lung damage' and trying to scam the benefits system. Down with this sort of thing!'
Remember the Tory party's schtick over the past few decades has been using the tabloids to beat unemployed/disabled people over the head so they'd have an excuse to cut benefits. I don't for one second believe Boris and his crew are suddenly going to rip all that up and become Keynsians in favour of mass state spending on us peasants.
The British media has been staggeringly successful at politicising illnesses in a sinister way. Look at, say, stories about a celebrity with clinical depression. The celeb will explain how their appearance deteriorated, they didn't go out much, they started using drugs and 90% of comments will be along the lines of 'This is a terrible illness. Hope they get better soon'.
Meanwhile a story about an unemployed person with the same illness exhibiting similar behaviours and 90% of comments are 'He's just lazy that's his problem. Cut benefits and we'll see how 'so-called depressed' he'll be then!'
Is like a real-life version of Good Aids/Bad Aids from Brass Eye. Coronavirus victims may be in line for this treatment by Christmas if government eyes more austerity. Prepare the way with propaganda. Set the masses against each other. Is tricky at present as there's going to be a lot of unemployed and casting them all as scum in the press will produce a backlash. So start small and pick off certain groups.
My first thought on seeing that photo was to expect a chalk outline around the body.
ReplyDeleteGentlemen always support their weight on their elbows, just ask the umpteen compliant Debs who've seen this posture from this Priapic scumbag
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the press coverage when he drinks a glass of water.
ReplyDeleteMy only surprise was Ree Chun-Hee's British counterpart Laura Kuenssberg wasn't by Boris' side and lying underneath him when his fake press ups were staged.
ReplyDelete