Covid Inquiry And Press Bungs

With the reporting from the Covid Inquiry, what can be seen developing is a further example of the power of the press resting not only on what they choose to publish, but what they do not. This has been exemplified by the highly selective reportage on testimony from former chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings, which I touched upon yesterday.

Bozo brings us something fishy ...

Dom’s appearance before the Inquiry was bad news for disgraced formerly alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, exposing, together with testimony from fellow Downing Street insider Lee Cain, what many already knew: that Bozo was totally unfit for high office. But this could not be admitted by The Great Man’s pals in our free and fearless press.

Hence the Mail, no doubt under the less than benign direction of the paper’s legendarily foul mouthed editor-in-chief Paul Dacre, and the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, dumping on the Polecat as a means of taking attention away from their man. But there was another reason not to look too closely at Cummings’ testimony, which concerns all major titles.

And that is the B-Word, as in Bungs. Dom told the Inquiry this: “I did not see evidence that the PM was using Covid contracts to enrich himself or his friends. The only exception concerned bunging cash to the media, an episode that has, unsurprisingly, been barely covered by the media”. There was more.

“He did not ask me or Lee Cain to do this. He said he wanted to bung money to Lebedev/Osborne and that Osborne had been begging for cash. I said I thought this was an extremely bad idea. I overheard him telling a senior official to bung them cash and my understanding was this happened as part of a general bung to the media which has never properly been investigated”.

As Professor Brian Cathcart put it today, “Days into lockdown, our mostly billionaire-owned national press was begging Boris Johnson for a special subsidy. This week at #CovidInquiry Dominic Cummings shed a little more light on what happened next”. He went on to tell “What actually happened was a multimillion-pound subsidy dressed up as a public information campaign called 'All In, All Together'. Ministers (Gove, Sunak) admitted at the time it was a subsidy but later tried to pretend it wasn’t”. There was more.

... and this is, more or less, how it works

“They refuse to say how much of our (taxpayers') money went to boosting the bottom line at papers owned by Murdoch, Lebedev, Rothermere & the Barclays … how this crew barged their way to the front of the national queue for help was never explained … no value-for-money test, just a bung”.

He notes that both the Guardian and Mirror got a share of the bung, too. The Covid Inquiry has not yet shed sufficient light on this: as Josiah Mortimer has told in a Byline Times article, “Coronavirus ‘bungs’ - believed to be worth over £100 million - that Boris Johnson gave to newspapers during the pandemic are facing fresh scrutiny as independent media organisations and campaigners urge the COVID Inquiry to examine the payments”. Do go on.

“Evidence presented to COVID Inquiry chair Baroness Hallett, by groups including the Independent Community News Network (ICNN) and the Public Interest News Foundation (PINF), suggests that the decision to give the taxpayer money to some of the biggest newspaper publishers was made without appropriate process or proper oversight of the costs involved - and came following lobbying from editors directly to then Prime Minister Johnson”.

There was more. “While the initial agreement was for £35 million for its first three months, the scheme lasted beyond the first lockdown, with articles appearing into 2022. The ICNN and the PINF believe that the final cost may have approached a staggering £200 million - a figure a Government source has strongly disputed, although for unstated reasons”.

Bozo has form for being an easy touch: While London Mayor, he gave up TfL’s subsidy as part of a settlement with Osborne when the latter was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Our free and fearless press has not reported this, and would be exceedingly reluctant to do so, for obvious reasons.

Tens of thousands died; the press had other priorities. Like more and bigger paycheques for themselves personally now.

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 becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton