So is the Tel worth keeping out of the hands of dastardly Forrins? Sadly, one look at the rest of today’s front page tells you the answer, and that answer is a resounding NO. Gone is the paper of record, its reputation trashed by pursuit of profit and the abandonment of any delineation of News and Comment. Consider three items teased or discussed on that front page.
We see Dan, Dan The Oratory Man having another go at the NHS, in his effortless stuck record manner. Hannan has been telling stories of, shall we say, variable veracity on the subject since before Zelo Street started up, which means for at least fifteen years. If keeping the Tel away from Jeff Zucker and his backers means keeping Hannan, it ain’t worth it.
Nor is the peddling of climate change denialism dressed up as “News”, as in the headline “Councils in ‘antidemocratic’ dash to beat Net Zero targets”. This piece is underpinned by “Research by … Climate Debate UK”. Yeah, they only want a debate about it! FREEZE PEACH!! Let’s hear from CDUK, then.
“New sales of petrol and diesel cars are set to be banned, and ordinary people are being priced off the road [doesn’t follow - no citation]. The domestic gas boiler is due to be replaced with expensive and inferior heat pumps [pejorative - no citation], requiring extensive retrofits of our homes at yet more expense [no citation]”. Got any actual evidence?
“Governments, technocrats and ideologues pursue ever more intrusions into our lives, with plans to control our diets and change our behaviour [flat out lying]. Smart meters will ration our energy use through time-of-day pricing, and will switch off our appliances at the push of a button in some far-away office [more lying]. We are going to be confined to ’15 minute neighbourhoods’ [and yet more lying]”. So that’s NO actual evidence, then.
CDUK then pull another whopper by claiming dissenting voices are being shut out, when, with the assistance of the wacko part of our free and fearless press, dissenting voices are all we hear. And with the main headline in today’s Tel, it gets worse. “Sunak: I’ll cut tax by curbing welfare … Help for taxpayers in spring to be followed by additional pledges in run-up to election”.
Which means, as Adam Bienkov of Byline Times observed, “So a plan to cut support for some of the poorest people in the country in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest four per cent of estates”. Many of those on Universal Credit are also in work. What is Sunak proposing? Hitting the disabled, the long term sick, and carers? More likely, this is what the Tel is pushing.
Moreover, the idea that Tel equals News is for the birds. As Dave Hill of OnLondon put it, “The [Telegraph] is more and more closely resembling a rogue media organisation - extremely misleading ‘stories’ if not outright lying and a sinister far-right political agenda”. It’s no longer a newspaper, but yet another propaganda outlet, filled with falsehood and misinformation.
Which means it’s not worth saving. Sold to Mr Zucker and his pals!
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
4 comments:
If you're ever introduced to a corporate media "journalist" just punch it in the mouth immediately*. You'll only want to do it later to the bought-and-paid-for twat.
*This is of course a disgraceful suggestion and to be ignored at all costs.
So I went and looked at https://climatedebate.co.uk/ on my phone
Its a dumpster fire. No info about their privacy policy etc.
And with no address info, I wonder if its another 55 tufton Street "grassroots" org?
Edward Rennie is listed on Companies House as the controller of CDUK; worth a second look at this Blue Labour fella. From Labour Councillor (albeit one not entirely beloved of his Ealing constituents, (on account of bunking off for five months) to front page of a rabid right wing Telegraph in just under a decade.
CDUK's other 'significant controller' is Ben Pile, aparrently well regarded by Delingpole and a self described 'libertarian'. Which might explain the Tel being aware of what is frankly a micro group which does little other than recycle common net zero talking points, and not that energetically or even cleverly (eg international wildfires being nothing to do with climate and all to do with evil arsonists - you know the sort of stuff).
The Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator have spent more than 40 years cheering on the acquisition of everything that mattered in this country by all and sundry, including several deeply unsavoury foreign states as such. They howled against the Leveson Report on the grounds that absolutely anyone should be able to own a newspaper and to publish whatever they pleased in it. They have been wrong on the first score, but they were right on the second.
Telegraph Group writers are mostly doing it as a joke, and half the joke to them and to half of their readers is that the other half does not realise that it is a joke. But while it would do for a fairly pricey monthly magazine, a combination of fogeyish news stories with funny pictures, and affected reactionary opinions such as the return of pre-decimal currency because there were references to it in nursery rhymes, is not a viable model for a daily newspaper than could also carry a Sunday paper and a weekly magazine. Yet this is a profitable endeavour.
You see, it is the spooky scare stories that pay the bills. Having bought the paper for a daily dose of amusing hats in one context or another, people will then read everything else in it, in order to get their money's worth. Anyone who stumped up enough cash could have that arrangement, and either the Emiratis simply have more money than our own spooks, or the spooks no longer feel that the Telegraph audience is worth cultivating, or they would have no serious objection to what BRICS Arabs might place before the gin and gymkhana set, or any two of those, or all three of them. Yes, that's it. All three of them.
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