Energy Bill Propaganda Won’t Work

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press is looking down the barrel of a gun marked Labour Victory: this has spooked it in serious measure and the resultant panic can be seen in today’s front pages. They may be able to manipulate Keir Starmer; they may not. It’s the uncertainty they don’t want, the thought that trifles like democracy could loose their hold on the UK.

Hence today’s headlines, with the Mail, and the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, leading the way. Energy bills may at long last be about to fall, although they would still be at a level way above what they were when the supposedly wonderful Tory party headed up by Young Dave and his jolly good chaps wormed its way into what was then mere coalition back in 2010.

The Express goes with “ENERGY BILLS TO TUMBLE”, while the Mail, which pays better and employs more hacks, manages more words as it tells “With European gas prices dropping back to levels not seen since before Ukraine war … ENERGY BILLS TO FALL £450 AS CAP IS SLASHED”.

Do go on. “HOUSEHOLDS will soon see energy bills fall by £450 in a fresh sign the worst of the cost of living squeeze is nearing an end”. Both papers juxtapose this alleged news with photos of disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and third wife Carrie, the latter in the advanced stages of pregnancy. The message is straightforward: it’s OK to vote Tory again, and don’t forget that victory back in 2019.

However, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, the media establishment still sees Bozo as an asset to his party. He is not. Johnson almost fouled up London, with Sadiq Khan - much vilified by many right-wing pundits for trying to sort out the mess he inherited - being pilloried for actually wanting to improve matters. Bozo is forever tainted by Partygate.

And two, just for all those obscenely overpaid hacks and pundits who don’t have to worry about such trivia, energy bills are not the only worry for those actually inhabiting the real world outside the media’s hermetically sealed bubble. There is still galloping food price inflation, lack of affordable housing, tuition fee debt, and the decline in so many of our town centres.

That’s before those swing voters at whom this lame propaganda is being targeted consider Tory attempts to remove the right to protest, the voter ID rule which was all too obviously intended as a form of disenfranchisement, the cruel, crude and wasteful attempts to demonise refugees, and a disturbing lurch towards the far right and nationalist bigotry.

On top of all of that comes the continuing fallout from Brexit, with more and more of those who were conned into voting Leave realising they’ve been had and the only way to recover the mess is going to be, sooner or later, to ask the EU nicely if they might be cool with us rejoining the Single Market. Because until and unless we do, the UK is irredeemably screwed.

None of that, of course, appears on those unpersuasive front pages. That’s because the intention is to garner votes for the Tories, and the press can’t do that by admitting the truth. Worse, their spin is increasingly irrelevant: the Tories are now revisiting the mid-90s, when nothing they could do would lift their poll ratings off the floor - more and more voters have had enough.

Worse still, the economy was doing far better in the run-up to the Tory drubbing in 1997 than it is now. But no amount of good news could have saved John Major. Not after all the sleaze revelations. Now, there is not only sleaze, but rampant corruption and a blatant contempt for the general public - exemplified by their hero Bozo turning 10 Downing Street into Party Central.

Finally, another thought enters: the vast majority of voters are not fools. A point will come, with the certainty of night following day, when more and more of them will realise that following the press’ bidding has impoverished them, and impoverished their country. Voting Tory, voting Leave and voting Bozo has screwed them over. They won’t forget that come the next election.

The press will have to do better if it wants another Tory election victory. The good news is they most likely can’t. Just rejoice at that news.

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