The Wonder Of Momentary Interest

England 3 Wales 0. And that, apart from an occasional caution on the possible shortage of free range turkeys this Christmas, a new Alzheimer’s drug, and fewer than half the UK population now identifying at Christian, is almost all the front page news on offer today. Momentary Interest has replaced reality as news. Which suits our free and fearless press just fine.

Why Marcus Rashford, who scored two of those goals, is especially well known - advocating for free school meals - is not told. That would mean the press having to admit that there is increasing poverty, and especially child and food poverty, across the country (the Express gives more prominence to Phil Foden, who scored the other goal, but they’re not racist, honestly).

The identity of hacks writing up what was supposed to be a sports story was also interesting: The Murdoch Sun’s front page lead, with its banner headline “RASH BANG WALLOP!”, is attributed to chief reporter Nick Parker, he of handling a stolen mobile phone infamy. Parker has also featured on Zelo Street helping the Murdoch mafiosi stoking hate against the GRT community.

So readers Look Over There, including those few hardy souls who, for reasons best known to themselves, tune in to Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”). So they won’t have seen Calvin Robinson, a host at the broadcaster, putting a photo of Enoch Powell in his Twitter bio, and quoting from Powell’s infamous 1968 “Rivers of Blood” Speech.

And, Looking Over There, they won’t see stories which even the Mail is carrying (but not on the front page) suggesting “Suella Braverman 'failed to act' on warnings about diphtheria outbreaks at migrant centres across mainland Europe … The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control issued an alert more than seven weeks ago urging governments to step up measures including vaccination against the infection”

Nor will that vast majority of the population that has wedded itself to the motor car have seen the effects of rail operator indifference and ineptitude that leave those who commute by rail stranded, having to take taxis, and arriving home rather later at night than they had intended. But they will know that those taking strike action are the root cause of it all (they’re not).

Worse, they won’t know why people take industrial action, because not only has that been edited out of much press coverage of disputes in favour of demonising union leaders, but also that the press now has its own Squirrel! event to cover its tracks. England won - what’s your problem?

A winning national football team is like manna from heaven for most of the press, because most of the press backs the Tory party, and right now, all that the Tory party stands for is continuing infighting, a refusal to admit reality into any and all policy discussions, and a rather more serious refusal to take the blame for fouling up the economy on their watch.

Moreover, with most papers now just tabloids, a football photo can fill the entire front page on its own. Cuts out doing actual journalism, which, given decades of running down staff numbers, is another win. And not many churning out the football stories are willing to confront the obvious corollary: what happens when there is no more England football good news?

Because that would mean telling readers that there is a cost of living crisis - anyone who does their own shopping knows that a week does not pass when one or more items in the basket or trolley has increased in price, and often by non-trivial amounts - which does not affect all those obscenely overpaid star hacks and columnists. It would mean letting reality into the room.

They wouldn’t object to majoring on the “less than 50% identify as Christian” story from this morning, mind. Even though most of them would run a mile rather than behave in anything like a Christian manner. Like football, Christianity is something they love to talk about, but not practice.

But only football can be guaranteed to be the momentary interest by which the proletariat is diverted from its struggle. The country is truly screwed.

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