Priti Patel And Murdoch Bang To Rights

Fascism, in its 20th Century incarnations, was not merely authoritarian and vicious with it, it was highly corporatist. This was as true for Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler as it was later for the régimes led by Francisco Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar. It is this thought which comes to mind when considering the latest revelation concerning Priti Patel, inexplicably made Home Secretary by alleged PM Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Ms Patel has already shown worrying signs of authoritarian behaviour, especially with the proposed security bill which will clamp down on the right to protest. Now has come news that she is, like all those Fascist leaders of the last Century, highly corporatist - to the extent of lobbying for those Corporations’ business interests.

I’d already considered that her intervention in the publication of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel’s report may have been at the prompting of the Murdoch mafiosi. This suspicion was only heightened when it was confirmed that the Metropolitan Police had no objection to the report going out. Now we know that Ms Patel and the Murdoch empire are marching in lockstep - to the extent that she has been caught lobbying for it.

A Byline Times report has told that she “lobbied a chief constable to end an Extinction Rebellion protest that was blocking a newspaper print works owned by Rupert Murdoch”. This was the so-called Printworks protest in September last year. There was more. “The demonstration at the news-printing site at Broxbourne on 4 September last year stopped three-and-a-half million copies of national newspapers, including the Daily Mail, the Sun, The Times and the Telegraph, from being distributed”. And more.

“Priti Patel and the Prime Minster were said to be ‘taking an interest’”. To the extent that “Superintendent Edward Wells, who had been called out to deal with the demonstration, told St Albans Magistrates Court that the Assistant Chief Constable of Hertfordshire, Owen Weatherill, had told him of a call from Priti Patel to Hertfordshire Chief Constable Charlie Hall during the night-time protest by the climate change activists”.

What might have been the reason for her call? Ah well. “According to [Raj] Chada [who is representing some of the protesters], the ‘Gold Command Log’ from the night showed that: ‘At 23.51 the Prime Minister and Home Secretary were already taking an interest… At 00.56 the Home Secretary was on the phone seeking an early intervention and early removal of the protestors’”. She was trying to intervene in Police operations.

That Ms Patel was batting for Murdoch is merely confirmed by the Sun’s coverage of the protests, one article claiming “BRITS were left furious this morning as Extinction Rebellion protesters launched an attack on the free press by blockading printworks”, and another tellingly putting pressure on Police with “COPS were branded ‘weak’ today over their failure to stop Extinction Rebellion protests that blockaded printworks”.

And that security bill was presaged by another Sun outburst from October howling “PROSECUTORS let two Extinction Rebellion protesters off with a slap on the wrist - despite a print blockade costing millions … CPS lawyers chose not to pursue them for compo”. They also told how Ms Patel “has launched a full review”. Nudge, nudge.

Priti Patel may not be irredeemably corrupt. But you can see it from there.

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