Spectator Ukraine Deflection A DISGRACE

Former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil is terribly sensitive to any criticism of his role as the ultimate boss at the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, and yet more so when the mag’s love-in with the far right is pointed out to him. Brillo is swift to tell those passing adverse comment that his mighty organ carries many political viewpoints, and ever ready to shout FREEZE PEACH, characterising his detractors as advocates of censorship.

So it was that, when The Great Man told his adoring followers “Ex-German leader Angela Merkel condemns Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in ‘strongest possible terms’. Hypocrisy on stilts. Nobody did more than her to faciliate Putin aggression with her energy policies (huge dependence on Russia) + refusal to spend more on Germany’s ailing military”, and there was a significant dissenting voice, he was not at all happy.

Steve Peers pointed out to him that the Speccy had just published “We blew our chance to befriend Putin” by Rod “a smile, a song and a four-pack of Stella” Liddle, to illustrate a little more hypocrisy. Brillo came over all defensive. “So what? It’s his view. Not mine. I don’t agree with it. Doesn’t mean Rod shouldn’t be free to write it and the editor to publish it”.

Jonathan Portes had seen enough. “‘Editor-in-Chief’ of the Spectator [Andrew Neil] once again denies he has any responsibility at all for his magazine's continued advocacy of virtually *every* fascist and racist political movement in Europe, from Putin to Golden Dawn to Zemmour to Thierry Baudet to …”. This caused The Great Man to lose it.

“You're so right. Let's burn R Liddle at the stake. Along withe the Editor. And me”. To which Portes observed “Is [Andrew Neil] genuinely so stupid that he thinks saying ‘The Editor in Chief has responsibility if articles in his magazine repeatedly endorse and platform racists and neo-Nazis’ is the same as calling for state censorship? I doubt it. So he's just lying”.

Which leads on to the Speccy’s deputy editor Freddy Gray attempting to deflect from the mag’s far-right fascination (much of it under his by-line) by suggesting that the 46th President of the United States has done something wrong, before admitting he hasn’t. “Why the silence over Biden’s links with Ukraine?” he demands.

There's always a suitable image

What links might those be? After sneering that Biden’s speech last week was “one of his now all-too-familiarly infirm attempts to sound firm” (laugh? I thought I’d never start), he segues into “just because Trump dug for that dirt doesn’t mean that dirt isn’t there … when it comes to Ukraine and Biden it’s a game worth playing”. Joe had visited Ukraine SIX TIMES when he was Vice-President. Big deal. But then the Hunter Biden card is deployed.

Smearing him benefits one person right now ...

Gray wastes no time in telling us he was “a drug addict”. That’s the deputy editor of the mag that regularly platforms the loathsome Toby Young, ejected from the Groucho Club for drug dealing, and which gives a regular column to Taki Theodoracopulos, characterised by Private Eye magazine as Taki Takealotofcokeupthenos.

... no prizes for guessing who that might be

After more of that sneer-turned-up-to-the-max which will no doubt impress Gray and all those other clever people who talk loudly in restaurants, he admits “Let’s be clear: there is no evidence that the Bidens have been corrupt in their dealings with Ukraine”.

Which confirms that this was just lame deflection all along. We see you, Spectator people.

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Piers Morgan Not Racist Or Veering Right

Former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, well-known for his continuously thrown mardy strop at the Duchess of Sussex, his mardy strop at being called out by Alex Beresford, and his less than friendly encounter with Ash Sarkar, bridles at any suggestion that he may have a problem with people who are not white. And then, and then.

And what's more, Ron ...

Then, as Ronald Reagan put it, “there you go again”. Another person who is not white being gratuitously attacked by the host of upcoming Murdoch TV offering The All-New Percy Moron Show for the benefit of Himself Personally Now. “Biden doesn’t stand a chance in 2024 and neither does the epically unpopular and useless Kamala so unless Joe finds a new VP to succeed him soon the Dems can kiss goodbye to the White House” reads the headline, in a routine slice of mardiness and stinking hypocrisy.

Only last January, Morgan had told his followers “An amazing, historic moment. Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, and the first woman of colour, to be Vice President of the United States of America” before adding the hashtag #CeilingSmashed.

But now he’s been inducted into the Murdoch mafiosi. And will soon be appearing on the not-at-all-right-wing-and-shouty-with-it Sky News Australia, and of course Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). And so: “'Dumb and Dumber' is one of my favorite [sic] movies … I regret to say that President Joe Biden and his Vice-President, Kamala Harris are fast becoming the political equivalent of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne”.

And, as befits this mouth on stilts, there is more. “Barely a day goes by when one of them isn’t doing something worthy of abject mockery - from Biden falling asleep at the COP26 climate change summit”. Just fuck off. So Joe had a snooze. Unlike alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson who was fast asleep with no face covering.

Taking time off from attacking her ...

Go on. “And it’s not just me that thinks this”. Makes a change. “A truly shocking new USA Today-Suffolk University poll reveals crushingly bad approval ratings for Biden … the only real surprise is that anyone’s really surprised”. Like you weren’t last January, Percy. Have another try. “President Biden’s presidency is not yet a year old but is already in deep trouble”. Sorting out the mess left by your pal Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, eh?

So what’s the problem? Wait for it: “an insanely woke agenda”. Percy, you wouldn’t even know what “woke” means (clue: it’s not just a term of abuse). So who agrees with him? “As Joe Concha put it on Fox News”. He’ll be citing Tucker Carlson next. His pal Tucker Carlson who bangs on about The Great Replacement. But nothing racist about that.

... so he can attack her instead

Then he gives the game away, that game being that Morgan has veered an awfully long way to the right. He thinks Biden should ditch Ms Harris. “He could then appoint a new voter-friendly moderate VP”. Someone explain what makes Kamala Harris not moderate? Anyone? And for those who think Morgan hasn’t veered right, try this snippet: ”the current woke-crazed Democratic party”. Using Mail Online to set himself up for FNC.

Hello all those people who thought Piers Morgan laying into Bozo and his ministers meant he cared about ordinary people. This latest column shows just who he really cares about - Himself. And if that means veering to the right to make himself at home at Sky News Oz and Fox News, then he’ll do just that. Good Morning Britain is well rid of him.

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Jeremy Kyle Resurrection Hypocrisy

More than two years ago, ITV took the decision to axe the Jeremy Kyle show, to the great relief of all those who had hoped it would have happened rather earlier. This followed the apparent suicide of a participant who had failed a lie detector test to determine whether he had cheated on his partner. At the time, very few tears were shed at the departure from the screen of a genre which had made money by preying on the poor and vulnerable.

My own show on TalkRADIO, eh? Lucky, really

But now, if only to prove that no-one is beyond redemption, Kyle is become Lazarus, thanks to the advocacy of the Murdoch mafiosi. So it was that yesterday’s edition of the Super Soaraway Currant Bun proclaimed “Jeremy Kyle Exclusive … TV axe left me on anxiety pills … I Was Made Scapegoat Over Show Death”. As opposed to all those ordinary members of the public who have to actually work for a living.

So what’s his schtick? “He said last night it left him ‘completely devastated’, adding: ‘I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the house or even open the curtains … Kyle admits he thought stars complaining about their mental health struggles should ‘get a grip’ - until he found himself in similar turmoil … The axed presenter, 56, has told how he spiralled into depression after The Jeremy Kyle Show was binned following the death of a guest”.

Well, boo intercoursing hoo

There is more. “Jeremy … has broken his silence two-and-a-half years after his daytime show - where he confronted guests with problems - was cancelled”. And why might we b reading about this in the Murdoch Sun? “To mark his return to broadcasting, with a weekday drivetime show on talkRADIO”. That’s why. Pass the sick bag.

One hates to be a party pooper here, but Kyle, by his own admission, knew exactly what he was doing with that ITV show - playing ringmaster as the poor and vulnerable - often with their own mental health issues - were paraded as so many freak shows before the viewing public. One former ITV producer told the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr that “if they truly screened for mental health issues, there would be no one on that show. Almost everyone who goes on it has some sort of issue”. And it got worse.

Former first responder Paul Dadge, one of those on the scene in the aftermath of the July 7, 2005 terror attacks in London, revealed “Once contacted by the Jeremy Kyle team to go on a special around inspirational people. During convo the producer asked 1) Was I on benefits, 2) Was I known to Social Srvcs and ‘I'm sorry to ask you this and I know it's personal’ 3) Have you ever attempted suicide? Wasn't for me!” Well, well.

But now, after the passage of what the Murdoch goons must have decided is an appropriate period of time, back comes Jeremy Kyle, duly rehabilitated, while at the same time claiming to have been made a scapegoat, a victim of that myth that is cancel culture. While not even bothering to stop and think about all those participants on his shows down the years who may have had rather more than anxiety issues after their appearance.

Jeremy Kyle was more than happy to be the front man for a show that was, more or less, bear baiting TV. If the Murdoch empire wants to give him a show on ratings noise floor occupant TalkRADIO, they are free to do so. But they should not even begin to pretend that Kyle merits victimhood status. Because he does not. Not now, not ever.

And was it worth a Sun front page? Desperate times, desperate measures. Sad, really.

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Julia Hartley Dooda Goes Full Wacko

With Covid-19 infection numbers - and deaths - running at a worrying rate, and the possibility of another lockdown looming, the last thing the UK needs is more misinformation on the subject, more stoking of wacko conspiracy theories by the overmonied and inconsiderate. But, sadly, that is exactly what self-promoting TalkRADIO host Julia Hartley Brewer is now doing, during her latest exclusive and expensive holiday.

Ms Hartley Dooda wants us all to know that, while many in the UK live in poverty, she is lording it over us on the Caribbean island of Antigua. This is paid for by her line of work, which entails turning up at the studio of a weekday morning and shooting her mouth off without bothering to engage is such tiresome disciplines as research.

“Just 377 healthy people under 60 have died of Covid. That's not a typo. There are no zeros missing. 377. Yes, that's sad but we have locked down an entire country for a virus that mostly kills the very old & the very sick. The rest of us should be free to decide our own risks” she proclaimed, seemingly unaware that 60 is an odd age to draw the line.

After all, retirement age in the UK is now 66. But do go on. “And for the hard of understanding virtual [sic] signallers, that doesn't mean ‘to hell with the old and sick’. It means the Great Barrington Declaration was and is correct: help the millions of old & sick to shield while allowing the young & healthy (& our economy) to carry on living”. Ri-i-i-ight.

Those who disagree are stupid, unlike Herself Personally Now. Or maybe they aren’t, as the Great Barrington Declaration has been exposed as a denialist sham. Anyhow, she’s not finished. “These people are either totally disingenuous or wilfully stupid. It's hard to decide which sometimes. This one may be both”. Only she is qualified to judge.

As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. But, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, the number of Covid-19 related deaths for under-65s is around 7,500. And Two, as Dominic Pimenta, who you can tell as he’s a doctor, has pointed out, those “pre-existing conditions” includes any mental health condition, asthma, diabetes, any rheumatoid problem, gout, hernia and more - none of which are deadly on their own.

Moreover, as Sam Freedman has pointed out, “Does everyone quote tweeting this realise that there are almost 16m people over 60 in the UK? We're talking about close to a quarter of the population, not a few old dears waiting for God in their retirement home … That's not even including all the people with pre-existing conditions (many more millions). And ignoring the fact that younger people still need to use hospitals and can't if they're full of dying people”. So who is it that is being “wilfully disingenuous or wilfully stupid”?

The all too predictable fact of the matter is that Julia Hartley Dooda would rather not be inconvenienced by the current Covid-19 restrictions. So she embraces every crank and wacko out there who will tell her the pandemic is over, the Government has got it wrong, or that there is some miracle cure that doesn’t involve her not being able to please herself.

Once again, the crashing ineptitude and breathtaking arrogance of the Waitrose Katie Hopkins demonstrates that, for some who claim to be journalists, there is precious little journalism allowed to get in the way of their pampered, obscenely overpaid and out-of-touch lives. “Hard of understanding virtue signallers”? That would be herself.

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Harry Cole - Stateside Pants On Fire

As so often with those out there on the right, when it comes to needing cast-iron proof of their ineptitude, it is they who ride to the rescue and willingly serve it up. So it is with the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, the non-journalist who is now pretending to be political editor of the Murdoch Sun, who has proved he is indeed not a real journalist.

Master Cole worked his way up to the summit of stupidity yesterday, making base camp with “Nothing says we're not a bunch of lefties like writing a letter to the Guardian complaining about being called a bunch of lefties”. Lawyers going about their jobs and concerned about cabinet ministers endangering them by indulging in gratuitous hate speech are now “lefties”. Thus Cole confirms he is a mere propagandist.

Then it was onwards and, er, onwards to peddling misinformation on the Welsh “firebreak” lockdown. “Can we just pack this madness in. Offer an amnesty on idiocy” proclaimed one of the Sun’s many useful idiots. The Tesco mis-step was not investigated; no journalistic process was followed. He had his line to take. Then came the Pièce de Résistance.

“Biden says he's on course to beat George Bush ... oh dear”. The Murdoch press is backing Combover Crybaby Donald Trump in next week’s Presidential Election. Trump, so bent that he makes Richard Milhous Nixon, and even Al Capone, look like model citizens, is trailing Democrat challenger Joe Biden. The margin in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average is 9.4%, and Trump is also trailing in many swing state polls.

Indeed, Rupert Murdoch has privately said that Trump is going to lose. But his media outlets are still pumping out propaganda on The Donald’s behalf, and what Cole has endorsed is a claim that Biden could not remember his opponent’s name. The problem is that the story is a pack of lies, and the one who forgets names is Trump.

A real journalist would have stood the claim up first. Not Cole. The Sun article claimed “Biden appeared to stumble over his words in the interview with George Lopez, as he said the Democrat campaign was fighting against ‘four more years of George.’ His wife Jill then appears to quietly correct him under her breath, and Biden went back to saying Trump”.

Two things here. One, Biden said “George” because, as the Sun article says, he was responding to someone called George. And Two, his wife had no need to correct him. Deliberately taking something out of context to serve a pre-ordained agenda is not journalism. That is the craft of propagandists. And it gets worse.

Jim Cornelius responded to Cole with a Now This video compilation of Trump getting names wrong. He got rather a lot of names wrong. Elly Davis itemised some of those, as well as reminding us of Trump’s claim “I remember the names because I have a good memory … I remember names”. He doesn’t remember, though.

Not that Master Cole will concern himself with such details, though. He has done his job, carried out his orders. But he has not checked out the story before endorsing it.

That’s because he is not, and never will be, a real journalist. I’ll just leave that one there.

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Murdoch Meddling - Worse Than Russia

While our free and fearless press woke up overnight to the threat of Russian interference in the UK’s various democratic processes, with the Daily Mail being particularly righteous, one rather worse and indeed longstanding stain on our politics has remained untouched and untroubled, despite a BBC2 documentary which yesterday evening demonstrated its insidious infiltration of the body politic. But then, this is one of the press’ own.

The security agencies registered a threat from Russia in 2014. But 45 years before that, Rupert Murdoch, who was not born in this country and has never had the right to vote here - he is now a citizen of the USA - established his presence in the UK via his acquisition of the News of the World and Sun titles. He reassured the owners of the latter “he would publish a ‘straightforward, honest newspaper’ which would continue to support Labour”.

Within a decade, the Sun had become a rabidly Thatcherite paper. It only switched sides, to supporting a Labour Party led by Tony Blair, after Blair had won over Old Rupe. After Young Dave schmoozed the Murdoch circle, the Sun backed the Tories. Such was the fear instilled in politicians that they all wanted to pay fealty at the Murdoch altar.

This singularly unhealthy situation meant the Murdoch press got away with its indulgence in The Dark Arts. David Mellor suggested tougher press regulation; the flat where he met his mistress Antonia de Sancha was bugged and he was duly splashed all over the Screws and Sun, courtesy of Southern Investigations (prop Jonathan Rees) and “Fake Sheikh” Mazher Mahmood. Was it legal? Who cared? They could please themselves.

The Sun destroyed the career of Labour leader Neil Kinnock. It eventually destroyed the Tories’ John Major. It destroyed the chances of Gordon Brown. It was in the vanguard of destroying Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn. Meanwhile, those in the service of the Sun and Screws not only bugged, they entrapped, bribed, blagged, hacked, rifled dustbins, improperly accessed the Police National Computer, medical and bank records, doorstepped, put tails on their targets, then bullied, strong-armed and humiliated them in print.

When former Labour MP Tom Watson described the Murdoch empire as a “Mafia organisation”, he was right. When Gordon Brown claimed to have had personal information about him extracted for the Murdoch press’ use by blagging, he was also right, This organisation has not yet matched Russia on assassination, but otherwise is far more of a threat to the UK’s democratic institutions than Moscow.

Murdoch dislikes the EU; the UK is now leaving it. He (and, indeed, other proprietors) doesn’t want to adopt the Leveson recommendations on press regulation reform; the Tories have abandoned the promises they made on the subject. Had the phone hacking scandal not broken when it did, he would have taken 100% control of BSkyB - with the approval and even encouragement of Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary).

As Hugh Grant put it when interviewed for The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, “Murdoch’s a proper danger to liberal democracies … if liberal democracy is your thing”.

Liberal democracy is forever devalued if those elected allow themselves to become corrupted by interests who would rather subvert it for their own ends. Just a thought.

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Toby Young Goes Full Nazi

While most of the UK understands the very real risks of contracting Coronavirus, and moreover of passing on the virus to others, those out there on the libertarian fringe, now cast adrift by broadcasters who have belatedly realised the value of pundits who actually know what they are talking about, have begun jostling for position in the quest for More And Bigger Attention Seeking Gestures For Themselves Personally Now.

There are many variously undeserving contenders for Most Off The Wall Libertarian Idiocy, with the likes of Peter Hitchens, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, and of course Brendan O’Neill of Spiked, so called because it should have been many years ago, but upstaging them all today has been the loathsome Toby Young, going full Logan’s Run and declaring that, in order to preserve the economy, the old and vulnerable must die.

Tobes has accomplished his full-on Nazi eugenicist excursion in an article written for, and to its shame published by, The Critic, titled “Has the Government overreacted to the Coronavirus crisis?” QTWTAIN. But we do not need the link, as Tobes has set out his arguments, lame though they be, in a tediously long Twitter thread.

He wants to end the lockdown “on April 14th, the day after Easter Monday. Or if the Government must extend, by the following Monday so children can return to school after the Easter holidays” and goes on to tell “I make three main arguments. First, that the cost of the economic bailout Rishi Sunack [sic] has proposed is too high. Spending that kind of money to extend the lives of a few hundred thousand mostly elderly people with underlying health problems by one or two years is a mistake”. So spoke Tobes 94.

We are talking hundreds of thousands condemned to die a slow, agonising and painful death not unlike drowning - and we can see from available information that many of them will not be elderly. Moreover, the “one or two years” is bullshit. Many would continue to serve their country, and contribute to its economy, for decades to come. But do go on.

“Second, this isn't a trade-off between public health and economic health, but between saving lives now and saving them in the future. When economies contract, life expectancy declines, due to, among other things, a rise in poverty, violent crime and suicide. During the global financial crisis of 2007–09, the suicide rate in Europe increased by 6.5% according to the [WHO]”. Why is Tobes assuming continued economic contraction? Plus, 650 deaths by suicide in the UK versus hundreds of thousands by Covid-19. Ri-i-i-ight.

But more significant is his third argument. “There's growing evidence the [Imperial College] team over-estimated the demand for hospital care and under-estimated the surge capacity of the NHS. According to Sunetra Gupta and her team at [the University of Oxford], 50% of the UK population has already been infected. That means the demand for hospital care will be far lower than anticipated”. No. Just no. This is a total non sequitur.

Saying “I found some other research which says something different to the research the Government is following” does not mean there is “growing evidence” of anything. What it does show is that there are some out there on the right so desperate to polish their own specialist turds that they will say anything, no matter how outrageous, as a result.

The stupid is strong with this one. No change there, then.

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