Election Day Press Shame

The day has finally dawned, when, if the latest poll is to be believed, Labour will sweep to a tally of well over 400 MPs, with the Tories facing something between annihilation and wipeout. The conclusion to the election campaign is as obvious now as it has been since Rishi Sunak went to see Brian in late May, his pals bet on the election date, and Labour were thereby alerted.

Turnout looks as if it may be on the high side: good. Sunak might, just might, provide the ultimate Portillo moment of the night as it looks possible that he could lose his seat. Five-figure Tory majorities are set to fall across the country, with at least one poll suggesting that Esther McVey in true blue Tatton could be a casualty. The Tories may end up with fewer than 100 seats.

If The Blue Team does worse even than that low bar, we could be looking at their being replaced as the official opposition by the Lib Dems. All of the foregoing is shaping up to provide excellent spectator sport after polls close at 2200 hours. But for one group of observers, there is a fear and foreboding in the air. They are the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press.

While the Murdoch Sun has done a screeching U-Turn during the week, going from attacking Labour to telling their remaining readers that Keir Starmer and his pals are actually the winning team, and the Sunday Times has also backed The Red Team, the daily title under the editorship of the deeply unpleasant Tony Gallagher has gone into fence-sitting mode.

Not so the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, which is pleading with any readers not yet asleep to back the Tories. The increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph has invented a Labour council tax raid. The Mail is trying to get readers not to back Reform UK. It is in a blind panic.

“Soaring taxes [no citation], uncontrolled immigration [no citation] … rampant wokery [meaningless drivel], betrayal of women’s rights [should be right up the Mail’s street, then], Net Zero mania [there is no mania], weaker defence [no citation], surrender of our Brexit freedoms [what ‘Brexit freedoms’ would those be, then?] - and votes at 16 to ‘rig’ future elections [is that in the Labour manifesto? I blinked and missed it]” And the “Supermajority” crap, too.

As well as the blatantly dishonest “You can stop it”. Right now, those Daily Mail readers with whom the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre had his imaginary “conversations” are queuing up at polling stations to vote out his preferred party of Government. After 14 years of ineptitude, corruption, waste, cronyism, cruelty, gaslighting, dishonesty, and rampant self-interest.

But what frightens the press more is that they have thus far failed to coax any assurance out of the Starmer team that there will be no return to Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, and the associated prospect of properly independent press regulation. No assurance that the press will be able to carry on behaving as badly as they see fit. Hence the panic, more lying, and scare stories.

Because a Government with a three-figure majority need not fear what all those obscenely overmonied hacks and pundits do in their efforts to derail whatever agenda is put before Parliament. If Labour triggers Leveson 2, not all the press lobbying in the Western world will stop it. Seeing what the press got up to for all those years will begin to turn the public’s heads. Good.

Worse for the press, the proliferation of poverty, those thousands of food banks, many working full time and still unable to make ends meet, will count against them. Why buy a paper when those who contribute to its production have so little understanding of how difficult life is for those hardworking people whom they claim to champion? They don’t care. Like the Tories.

The voters listened to the press, and their pals in all those Astroturf lobby groups. It got them a country that is in serious decline, a health service that is on its knees, roads that are literally falling apart, public transport that is either absent or expensive, a Police service that is mostly ineffective, and all they see is rich people filling their pockets. Then they see the press.

A press supporting more cruelty and more poverty. Don’t forget to vote.

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