The claims are in other papers today, too. But they had unravelled just after 2100 hours yesterday. Cummings whistled the press poodles. And they fell for it - again.
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Sunday, 27 September 2020
BBC + Ofcom Dead Cat UNRAVELS
It was said of the Murdoch Sunday Times, in the days after John Witherow first became editor, that some of its lead stories did not make it into the next day before unravelling. In the case of the infamous Michael Foot “Agent Boot” splash, the unravelling came on the morning of publication. Today’s ST has beaten even that record: today’s front page lead has already unravelled, to the shame of political editor Tim Shipman.
Yesterday evening, Shippers told the world “Boris Johnson has asked former Mail editor Paul Dacre to run the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. Charles Moore is close to a done deal to be BBC chairman”. He then overreached himself by adding “Dacre will use Ofcom job to tackle BBC bias and bureaucracy - but will also go after internet platforms who peddle fake news”. There are two glaring howlers in that second Tweet.
One, Ofcom does not have the power to “go after internet platforms”. And Two, Ofcom does not have the power to tackle alleged bureaucracy. Broadcasters can structure their organisations as they wish. This is a dead giveaway, and highlights one of the media establishment’s current failings: not interrogating its sources properly, or even at all.
The impression was already being given that the Dacre and Moore claims were yet another effort by chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings to sling a big enough dead cat on the table to “win” the next iteration of the news cycle, and of course “trigger the Libs”. And that impression was only reinforced when Peter Oborne examined the ST claims and concluded that they did not stand up to scrutiny.
“Keep everything in proportion. Dacre would have even less power at OFCOM than Moore at BBC. This is a smart piece of news management to distract media attention from the mishandling of Brexit, the Covid tragedy and looming economic disaster. Don't fall for this confected row” he told, before concluding that the story was not a serious one.
“This is feeding Dacre to the papers to distract attention from lockdown etc. Read the story carefully. Our friend 'No 10 sources' and our other friend 'Whitehall sources' loom large. Note the application process hasn't been opened for either job. Translation: load of bollocks …I smell Lee Cain, former Daily Mirror chicken man, at work here. Maybe he's the Whitehall source and Cummings is the Downing Street source”.
This was then underscored by Peter Riddell, who is currently Commissioner for Public Appointments, reminding us “Public competitions for the new chairs of the BBC and Ofcom, both regulated by [the Commissioner for Public Appointments], have not yet been launched. Each will involve a Senior Independent Panel Member to provide assurance of a fair and open process as in the Government’s Governance Code”.
Shippers and his fellow hacks appear to have taken dictation from the Polecat and his pals, while failing to interrogate those sources, to produce a story that suits the Murdoch mafiosi, but looks too good to be true. Because it is too good to be true.
The claims are in other papers today, too. But they had unravelled just after 2100 hours yesterday. Cummings whistled the press poodles. And they fell for it - again.
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The claims are in other papers today, too. But they had unravelled just after 2100 hours yesterday. Cummings whistled the press poodles. And they fell for it - again.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet7
Top Six - September 27
So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I’ve now given up trying to find any more domestic stuff to do later. So there.
6 Checkpoint Charlie Moves To Kent A land border in England - you won Brexiteers, get over it.
5 Hartley Dooda Covid Denial Shame Self promoting TalkRADIO host spreads a “false positive” scare - but convinces nobody.
4 Private Eye And Establishment Capture Its latest attack on Hacked Off - sounds like a press hit job.
3 Labour Fawkes Briefing Shame Briefing a Tory smear outfit before telling the MPs who were sacked - bang out of order.
2 Isabel Oakeshott - Oh What A Giveaway Among the Covid denial whining - giveaway moment on Brexit Party millions.
1 Bozo In Italy Did our alleged Prime Minister really have a sneaky weekend in Perugia?
And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!
5 Hartley Dooda Covid Denial Shame Self promoting TalkRADIO host spreads a “false positive” scare - but convinces nobody.
4 Private Eye And Establishment Capture Its latest attack on Hacked Off - sounds like a press hit job.
3 Labour Fawkes Briefing Shame Briefing a Tory smear outfit before telling the MPs who were sacked - bang out of order.
2 Isabel Oakeshott - Oh What A Giveaway Among the Covid denial whining - giveaway moment on Brexit Party millions.
1 Bozo In Italy Did our alleged Prime Minister really have a sneaky weekend in Perugia?
And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!
Saturday, 26 September 2020
Bozo Poverty - Cue The Nanoviolin
The attempts to make all those people who are Just About Managing have sympathy for alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his having to live on a mere £160,000 a year may be starting to grate, such are the blatant double standards on show, but what is clear, as the Daily Mail has got out the king-size onion once more, is that voters are being softened up for Bozo’s imminent departure from 10 Downing Street.
That today’s whingefest may have Bozo’s blessing should not be in doubt, after the name of Andrew Pierce (speaking as a gay man) appeared on the by-line. Pierce does not call himself @toryboypierce for nothing, and the headline tells you all you need to know. “Who'll bail out Boris? Johnson has taken a vast pay cut to be PM, his ex-wife Marina Wheeler is 'cleaning him out' in expensive divorce, he's unable to afford a nanny - and is forced to pay for every No10 meal himself”. No-one is forcing him to pay for anything.
He has to pay when someone else does the cooking - rather as you or I would have to do on visiting a restaurant. If he could be arsed doing his own cooking, he wouldn’t have to, but then, Bozo is terminally lazy at most things, so he’s more than likely never bothered to figure out so much as heating a can of baked beans in the microwave.
But on ploughs the Mail. “Can it really be true that with a salary of £150,000 Mr Johnson does not have enough spare cash to host a few friends to help him unwind from the cares of office? Certainly in recent weeks there have been increasing murmurs about his financial plight and its effect on both his physical and mental well-being”. Yeah, right.
Tell that to all those folks who have to buy their kids second-hand school uniforms, can’t afford a car and don’t have the money to eat out. But do go on: “at Downing Street, while Boris has the services of a cleaner, there is no housekeeper. There is no nanny for Wilfred because, says a friend, 'they can't afford one’”. Do without like ordinary folks, then.
We then read “Boris's divorce from long-suffering QC wife Marina Wheeler pivoted on the finances … The settlement with his former wife is estimated to have amounted to around £2 million. As a close friend of Boris told us: 'He was cleaned out.’” Marry a lawyer, repeatedly cheat on her, father the odd sprog along the way, repent at leisure.
And talking about his various partners, there is this nugget: “He has to support Carrie, who is not working”. Many young mums would have arranged child care and returned to work. Not Ms Symonds. And we are supposed to sympathise with Bozo for this? Especially when she’s caught lording it at a 5-star hotel in the Italian lakes with her pals last week?
Still, let’s see where the Mail is driving this one. “The danger for Johnson is that gossip about his financial position could make him vulnerable … Unlike his predecessor Theresa May, whose banker husband Philip was highly paid, and David Cameron who was well off through marriage and family connections, Boris has no other income to fall back on”.
Really? Yes, really: “Of course, if he were to stand down as Prime Minister his money problems would be solved at a stroke”. So we’re expected to accept that, having been gifted the job he always wanted, Bozo can just turn tail and run when the UK’s in the mire.
How’s that trust being repaid, first time Tory voters? Don’t all shout at once.
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He has to pay when someone else does the cooking - rather as you or I would have to do on visiting a restaurant. If he could be arsed doing his own cooking, he wouldn’t have to, but then, Bozo is terminally lazy at most things, so he’s more than likely never bothered to figure out so much as heating a can of baked beans in the microwave.
But on ploughs the Mail. “Can it really be true that with a salary of £150,000 Mr Johnson does not have enough spare cash to host a few friends to help him unwind from the cares of office? Certainly in recent weeks there have been increasing murmurs about his financial plight and its effect on both his physical and mental well-being”. Yeah, right.
Tell that to all those folks who have to buy their kids second-hand school uniforms, can’t afford a car and don’t have the money to eat out. But do go on: “at Downing Street, while Boris has the services of a cleaner, there is no housekeeper. There is no nanny for Wilfred because, says a friend, 'they can't afford one’”. Do without like ordinary folks, then.
And talking about his various partners, there is this nugget: “He has to support Carrie, who is not working”. Many young mums would have arranged child care and returned to work. Not Ms Symonds. And we are supposed to sympathise with Bozo for this? Especially when she’s caught lording it at a 5-star hotel in the Italian lakes with her pals last week?
Still, let’s see where the Mail is driving this one. “The danger for Johnson is that gossip about his financial position could make him vulnerable … Unlike his predecessor Theresa May, whose banker husband Philip was highly paid, and David Cameron who was well off through marriage and family connections, Boris has no other income to fall back on”.
Really? Yes, really: “Of course, if he were to stand down as Prime Minister his money problems would be solved at a stroke”. So we’re expected to accept that, having been gifted the job he always wanted, Bozo can just turn tail and run when the UK’s in the mire.
How’s that trust being repaid, first time Tory voters? Don’t all shout at once.
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Dawn Butler Cop Sympathy Triggers Bigots
Early yesterday morning, a suspect was brought to the custody centre at Croydon Police station. During a routine search, he produced a firearm and fatally shot Sergeant Matiu Ratana before turning the gun on himself. That suspect is now in hospital. Sgt Ratana, known as Matt, was 54 years old and only two months from retirement.
Amidst all the questions as to how anyone could get as far as a custody centre while still in possession of a lethal weapon has come an outpouring of sympathy for a very popular officer. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Priti Patel later stood together to observe a minutes’ silence.
Among the politicians responding to the news was Brent Central’s Labour MP Dawn Butler, who told “This is so shocking and very very sad news. My heartfelt condolences go out to the officer and their family and friends and to all the officers at the station who I hope are getting the support they need at this traumatic time”. This had one galvanising effect: it galvanised every intolerant racist known to the social media universe.
Like a “Leaver from Birmingham who cares about democracy and doesn’t mind a few cakes” asserting “The left are to blame, particularly Kier Starmer, Dawn Butler, Nadia Whitmore [sic], Sadiq Khan etc. All supporting terrorist organisation BLM during violent protests in London”. That’s quite a big reach going on there. And there was more.
There was “Esther K”, whose bio includes the Transatlantic racist snipe “Came for the Kung Flu”. This account’s many contributions included “Make no mistake … Dawn Butler didn't simply falsely accuse the police of racism. She LIED about being racially profiled”.
And someone called Julia, “Wedding Florist. Essex Girl. Brexiteer. Libertarian”, cheerily telling her followers “Dawn Butler taking a well deserved hiding after tweeting her condolences about the murdered Police Officer”. Then came the animal lovers.
Like one asserting “Believer in free speech. Love animals”. But not a lover of people who aren’t white. “Why don’t you pause for a minute and consider why so many people are calling you a hypocrite? Just a moments self reflection … nah, it’s because they’re all ‘racist’ innit?” Meanwhile, “Esther K” was gaining support.
From Ann Sheridan, “Doglover, philosopher, monarchist & Tory”, responding “& now a brave policeman has been killed because #Leftwaffe activists like [Dawn Butler] make the police reluctant to search suspects. [Labour] are the enemy within”. Dog lover.
On the same page was Deb King, “live to be kind” and “Early Years Specialists. Believes that respect breeds respect”. How kind and respectful is Deb? “Sack Dawn Butler she has blood on her hands. Police too frightened to do their jobs properly because of her disgraceful propaganda stunt on the stop and search story. Your [sic] a disgrace Kier for having her as a Labour MP. Will not vote Labour ever again”. Not very kind, actually.
Nor was Maureen Dalby, “Love animals and living in rural Irish countryside with my husband and dogs”, who added “So why did you give such a hard time to the poor police officer who stopped you and your friend recently? Stop & Search needs to be increased … we have now seen the consequences of not doing so. Ask yourself, what's a little inconvenience compared to a life?” All without having any evidence to hand.
But it’s one of those Uppity Black People on the receiving end of the torrent of hatred and abuse, which makes it all right. And whatever you do, don’t call them racist.
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But it’s one of those Uppity Black People on the receiving end of the torrent of hatred and abuse, which makes it all right. And whatever you do, don’t call them racist.
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Andrew Neil Leaves BBC With Heavy Wallet
Just three weeks ago, Zelo Street asked if the Beeb had binned Brillo. Now we have the answer: Andrew Neil is to leave the BBC later this year, staying to anchor coverage of the US Presidential Election in early November. Did he jump? Was he pushed? Does it matter? What does matter is that his next berth is already being shamelessly promoted by those out there on the right, and discussed widely elsewhere.
But why? Neil is 71. He already has a range of other calls on his time, not least overseeing the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine. He has made his name, and indeed his fortune, and could happily retire to France (residency permit permitting). Write another volume of memoirs, walk round to the cash desk, job done. But that would be to reckon without Brillo’s vanity, and his faux pretence to be an outsider.
There had to be another big payday, whether he needed the money or not. He had to show that he was still strong. He cites “sterling efforts by new DG to come up with other programming opportunities”, but this has a hollow ring about it. More likely is that someone else waved a bigger wad of dosh at him than the Beeb was prepared to yield.
So, as the Guardian reported yesterday evening, “Andrew Neil is launching a 24-hour, TV channel to rival rolling news from the BBC and Sky. The broadcaster will be the face and chairman of GB News … As well as being appointed chairman, the 71-year-old broadcaster and former Sunday Times editor will host a flagship evening programme”.
And GB News is already familiar to those who look in regularly on Zelo Street: as I noted last month, banging the gong for this new enterprise has been Robbie Gibb, whose tenure at the BBC did so much of the damage. A source that sounded rather like him told the Mail on Sunday “The channel will be a truly impartial source of news, unlike the woke, wet BBC. It will deliver the facts, not opinion dressed up as news”. Ho ho ho.
The nuances of Brillo's new deal are explained
Go back to Neil’s time as editor of the Murdoch Sunday Times: the ineptitude that caused the paper to lose Mordechai Vanunu, their key source for the story about Israel’s nuclear weapons capability. The insistence that HIV had no link to AIDS. The trashing of the Insight team’s reputation in an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to discredit Thames Television’s documentary Death on the Rock, and its key witness Carmen Proetta.
All that is left is Brillo’s reputation as an interviewer. But for the foreseeable future, GB News will be such an insignificant presence that it will have to rely on its pals in the media talking up its content and packaging up video clips to garner interest in its product. Who is going to stop by and be interviewed if hardly anyone is watching?
The new entrant will burn money at some rate - as Sky News has done - with its USP that it’s fronted by an ageing media insider whose industry pals think is some kind of star.
But Brillo will have his wallet well stuffed in the process, so that’s all right, then.
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Friday, 25 September 2020
Private Eye And Establishment Capture
It is not my business to tell Master Emmanuel Strobes and his team what to put in their magnificent organ, and so I do not. What is the business of anyone and everyone who cares about the future of genuine independent journalism is the nagging thought that Private Eye magazine, that freest-spirited of British publications - and for that reason loved even by those who do not always agree with it - had succumbed to establishment capture.
What fires that thought is the attitude the Eye has to the Hacked Off campaign, and those who support it. Both want to see good independent journalism flourish, even among the wreckage of partisan hackery, proprietorial interference, lobby group Astroturfing and wanton propaganda. They may not agree on press regulation, but, so what?
So the attacks on HO from the Eye continue, with the latest, in issue 1531, veering into the realm of the pointless. Under the guise of “Libel News”, readers are told “Hacked Off’s declaration that ‘the press should be held to standards which protect the public, strengthen democracy and safeguard freedom of expression’ is about to face a severe test”.
There is more. “Veteran BBC journalist John Ware is suing one of Hacked Off’s collaborators [this should read ‘supporters’] for the ‘seriously defamatory’ accusation that his reporting is prejudiced - and rather than defend the BBC, Hacked Off supporters are lining up against it”. The piece continues in similar vein.
Two things here. One, the BBC is not the press, and Two, the BBC is not involved in the legal action described. Therefore no-one is “lining up against” the Corporation. Nor is anyone involved in that action resiling from the assertion which the Eye claims is “about to face a severe test”. Ware was trenchantly criticised by Paddy French of Press Gang. Ware claimed he had been defamed and instructed lawyers. French is defending the action.
That is all. But instead of leaving it at that, French and his legal team get a casual smearing: “Clearly they have an interest in discrediting Ware and Panorama”. No. Just no. Ware has begun proceedings. They are being defended. Worse still, we then read that “Many have tried, but no one has yet been able to lay a glove on Panorama”. And no one is trying to: a defamation action is being defended (for the third time).
After including Justin Schlosberg in the smearing (why?), the piece concludes by telling us how old French, his QC, and Ware are, as if this is some rabbit cleverly extracted from a hat for our entertainment. It’s pointless. Try as I might, it is impossible to see any good reason for the article’s publication - save to serve the press establishment.
Because that is what the article screams at me. It is the press establishment patronisingly lecturing me, and all those other Eye subscribers. And when I open my copy of the Eye, I don’t want to see the press establishment sneering at me from its pages.
Another thought occurs: many other Eye readers may not want to see the press establishment sneering at them from its pages, either. I’ll just leave that one there.
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Someone standing on your foot, Ian?
So the attacks on HO from the Eye continue, with the latest, in issue 1531, veering into the realm of the pointless. Under the guise of “Libel News”, readers are told “Hacked Off’s declaration that ‘the press should be held to standards which protect the public, strengthen democracy and safeguard freedom of expression’ is about to face a severe test”.
There is more. “Veteran BBC journalist John Ware is suing one of Hacked Off’s collaborators [this should read ‘supporters’] for the ‘seriously defamatory’ accusation that his reporting is prejudiced - and rather than defend the BBC, Hacked Off supporters are lining up against it”. The piece continues in similar vein.
That is all. But instead of leaving it at that, French and his legal team get a casual smearing: “Clearly they have an interest in discrediting Ware and Panorama”. No. Just no. Ware has begun proceedings. They are being defended. Worse still, we then read that “Many have tried, but no one has yet been able to lay a glove on Panorama”. And no one is trying to: a defamation action is being defended (for the third time).
Because that is what the article screams at me. It is the press establishment patronisingly lecturing me, and all those other Eye subscribers. And when I open my copy of the Eye, I don’t want to see the press establishment sneering at me from its pages.
Another thought occurs: many other Eye readers may not want to see the press establishment sneering at them from its pages, either. I’ll just leave that one there.
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Italy - Bozo Wasn’t, But Carrie Is
After two newspapers, and at least three eyewitnesses, claimed that alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson had been seen passing through Perugia Airport the other weekend, the Downing Street machine wasted no time in debunking the story. Bozo had not been there, it was someone else, and he’d been in the UK.
Moreover, he’d been in the UK with Carrie Symonds, still billed as his partner and fiancée, even though the wedding that was supposed to have happened in August, er, didn’t. Those red wall Tory MPs could breathe easily once more; Bozo had not been lording it over on what John Sweeney called the Russian mountain, at the Lebedev Palazzo Terranova.
But while he hadn’t been to Italy, Carrie has. As Hardeep Matharu of Byline Times put it, having seen the splash in Mail Online, “In the week Boris Johnson told Britons the UK was in for another six months of misery, his fiancée Carrie Symonds has been staying at the £600-a-night Grand Hotel Tremezzo at Lake Como in northern Italy with three girlfriends”.
Yes, while Bozo was telling the hoi polloi that they were in for another six months of misery, his partner was lording it with her pals in the Italian lakes. As the sub-heading put it, “As Britons are warned the UK faces months of misery by Boris Johnson, his fiancee enjoyed leisurely walks along the waterside promenade and made use of used the hotel’s £300-an-hour launch to go sightseeing”. Sister paper Metro put her on today’s front page.
How much of a piss-take is that? Mail Online thinks it’s a pretty serious one. Hence they have turned over every last detail. “During her luxury getaway the new mother was seen cutting a casual figure in a £325 blue checked cotton gingham dress by Ganni and black Superga trainers (those come in at around £70 a pair, thanks)”.
A sharp-eyed British holidaymaker had spotted Ms Symonds and her pals walking the promenade last Monday, and that sighting sent the Mail off in hot pursuit. The report makes sure we get the hint: “Although Italy was at the epicentre of Europe's first wave of coronavirus infections with most of the northern parts in lockdown, there are currently no travel restrictions from the country to the UK”. But where was Bozo?
“The last time Boris and Carrie were seen together was at Wilfred's Christening at Westminster Cathedral's Lady Chapel on September 12. On Sunday Boris attended [the] Battle of Britain service at Westminster Abbey without Carrie”. It’s that heavy a hint.
And while an increasing number of Brits can look forward to less money coming in, and even looming unemployment, some of them may remember “Carrie and her friends embarked on a two-hour speed-boat tour of the lake. The party made use of the hotel’s £300-an-hour launch to see the various castles, stately homes and waterside villages that have made this Alpine location one of the world’s most prestigious holiday destinations”.
Which will make those red wall Tory MPs, trying their best to sell restrictions and curfews to an increasingly irritable electorate, less than totally thankful.
You voted for a real man of the people? You were had for mugs. And never forget it.
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But while he hadn’t been to Italy, Carrie has. As Hardeep Matharu of Byline Times put it, having seen the splash in Mail Online, “In the week Boris Johnson told Britons the UK was in for another six months of misery, his fiancée Carrie Symonds has been staying at the £600-a-night Grand Hotel Tremezzo at Lake Como in northern Italy with three girlfriends”.
How much of a piss-take is that? Mail Online thinks it’s a pretty serious one. Hence they have turned over every last detail. “During her luxury getaway the new mother was seen cutting a casual figure in a £325 blue checked cotton gingham dress by Ganni and black Superga trainers (those come in at around £70 a pair, thanks)”.
Como, taken from Brunate. Ms Symonds and her pals have been staying out of town
“The last time Boris and Carrie were seen together was at Wilfred's Christening at Westminster Cathedral's Lady Chapel on September 12. On Sunday Boris attended [the] Battle of Britain service at Westminster Abbey without Carrie”. It’s that heavy a hint.
Seems like only yesterday ...
Which will make those red wall Tory MPs, trying their best to sell restrictions and curfews to an increasingly irritable electorate, less than totally thankful.
You voted for a real man of the people? You were had for mugs. And never forget it.
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Thursday, 24 September 2020
So Farewell Then Harold Evans
Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street are, on occasion, told that our free and fearless press has fallen a long way from the days when decent investigative journalism was the rule rather than the exception. Just how far that fall has been can be seen from the career of Harold Evans, one of the greatest of editors and a titan of good journalism, who has died at the age of 92, and who edited the Sunday Times in the 60s and 70s.
Harold Evans: the greatest of editors
Evans made the kind of journey that today would be unheard of: he went from editing the Northern Echo, based in Darlington, to the ST at the time the title was owned by Canadian magnate Roy Thomson. Editors of national titles today are more often appointed for their connections and their ideology, rather than there being any consideration of their ability.
Thomson gave Evans a totally free hand; there was no proprietorial direction or interference. Nor, of course, was there any on the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre at the Daily Mail, but Evans would not have had any truck with the idea of writing the headline before the story had been brought in. Thus the fall of journalism over the years.
Nor would Evans have indulged in the kinds of righteous vendettas that the Mail, as well as the Murdoch press, pursue and have pursued for so many years, and against so many victims. His kind of journalism was exemplified in the ST’s exposure of shameful behaviour by the Distillers Company over the drug Thalidomide, use of which had led to so many mothers giving birth to children with stunted limbs, heart defects, blindness and more.
Evans also doggedly pursued the story of Turkish Airlines flight 981’s loss shortly after departing Paris’ Orly airport in March 1974. The McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 aircraft’s rear left cargo door had blown open at altitude, with the subsequent decompression collapsing the cabin floor, severing the control cables and rendering the aircraft uncontrollable. 346 souls perished in the accident. The cargo door’s latch had not been properly secured.
Worse, McDonnell-Douglas had been warned about the potential for such an incident before the aircraft went into series production. Worse still, an American Airlines flight had suffered a similar failure, but had managed to land safely. The lawsuits following the Turkish Airlines crash were some of the most expensive ever.
But Evans fell foul of the new dispensation at the ST: Rupert Murdoch was not a benign proprietor. So he left the UK and forged a new career in the USA. That was not all: after the phone hacking revelations, Evans gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, where he passed severely adverse comment on the Murdoch mafiosi.
He also said “Murdoch’s News International came to think it was above the law, because it was”. He was right, but this, as with his support for the Leveson recommendations, went against the iron code of press Omertà ; that is why so many in the media establishment are not giving Evans’ passing the kind of attention it deserves.
As former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger put it, Harold Evans “gave journalism a good name”. How many of today’s editors can aspire to that standard, when there is so little investigative work, and so much agenda-driven propaganda?
How far the press has fallen from the heyday of Harold Evans.
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Checkpoint Charlie Moves To Kent
Once the borders were more, well, newsworthy: Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse, the Glienicke Bridge, and in the fiction of Smiley’s People, the Oberbaumbrücke. Spies were exchanged, the military squared up to their counterparts on the opposing side, tension hung in the air. Not now: the latest land border - and it will be, we are told, heavily policed - concerns the M2 and M20. Fog on the Medway, Kent cut off, Crown loses Dover to foreigners.
You think I jest? This from the Independent. “Police will patrol the Kent border to turn away lorries without an ‘access permit’ in a bid to ease Brexit border chaos, it has been revealed. Michael Gove said officers will use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras and ‘other means’ to block drivers - in what will be seen as an ‘internal border’ in the UK”. I warned you English, we know how to deal with counter-revolution!
There was more. “The move would try to ensure ‘constituents are not inconvenienced’, he told MPs, after warning of 7,000-long lorry queues and two-day delays to cross the Channel”. Lisa O’Carroll of the Guardian confirmed the news. “Gove confirms a de facto internal border in Kent - rephrasing previous tweet (this is something transport industry been v worried about) Truckers will have to have a ‘Kent Access Permit’ to get into the county says Gove”. Kent will become a Restricted Area. Bit like Gorky.
She added “This Kent Access Permit will be issued once [a] trucker has completed their paperwork. But sources in industry say it is impossible to implement unless police patrol the Kent border. They have asked govt to explain this. This is first time govt has said police will be used”. Will there be watchtowers? A kill zone on either side? Escape tunnels?
The opportunities for ridicule were endless. Katherine Piper mused “I love that Nigel Farage’s ‘village pub in rural Kent’, which is within the M25, comes under Bromley council, and is served by the TfL R8 bus from Orpington station (except on Sundays) is now a border area. Be careful what you wish for, I guess”. Karla Farage being sprung by The Circus across the Gravesend to Tilbury foot ferry? Netflix will be casting that one soon.
One Tweeter looked at the map and observed “All those sylvan suburban roads going from Orpington towards Knockholt. Hawley's Corner is at the junction of *five roads*, more or less all of them on or near the border between London and Kent”. So, Hawley’s Corner, “The town motto can be 'Like Basel But More Communist And No Rhine’”.
Alexander Clarkson of King’s College London had a question. "Say you're an Amazon delivery driver, do you need a special [Kent Access Permit] for any deliveries inside the Kent Buffer Zone?” The newly-formed Kentish Independence Party had the answer to that: “we're proposing a simplified arrangement where we nick bits off Surrey and London”.
It’s all very Oder-Neisse line and South Tirol all of a sudden. Will sympathetic EU member states arrange air drops of croissants, Belgian chocolate and artisan cheese to the beleaguered lorry park inhabitants? Will Shepherd Neame be able to brew enough Spitfire and Bishops Finger to enable the locals to drown their sorrows? Will comfortably-off Londoners complain that the Rotten Kentish are hogging their wine production?
It would be funny if it were not so tragic: “Oiky” Gove and his pals have fouled up, they knew this would happen, and lied to the electorate anyway. Has the penny dropped yet?
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It would be funny if it were not so tragic: “Oiky” Gove and his pals have fouled up, they knew this would happen, and lied to the electorate anyway. Has the penny dropped yet?
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet7
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