There is a revolving door between senior
political broadcasting in this country,
and the ruling Conservative government.
Allegra Stratton who this weekend
would become the spin doctor,
for the conservative chancellor
of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak.
She's currently, or was, the
national editor of ITV,
before that she was the political
editor of Newsnight.
In that role she was responsible for
an interview with a single mum,
who was in work a benefit claiming
looking after her and her family:
"Your on Housing Benefit, you get help
from the state for your housing,
don't you think that you should
have possibly lived at home,
until the point at which you could
support your own house?"
This was an interview at the very
height of the benefit bashing,
portraying benefit claimants as all
a bunch of feckless scroungers,
to justify the Conservative assaults
on the welfare state,
with all the misery that caused
to so many people.
This interview was a hatchet job on a
woman in a very vulnerable situation,
it's very uncomfortable interview to
watch and it was so bad in its distortion,
and miss portrayal, falsely portraying
her as an unemployed person,
who was playing the system,
that the BBC had to apologise,
on Newsnight three months later:
"An apology on the 23rd of May during an
item on welfare reform we broadcast,
an interview with Sharene Thorpe that
unfairly created the mistaken impression,
that she was unemployed and wholly
dependent on benefits and suggested,
that she was living off the
state as a lifestyle choice."
Allegro Stratton is just the latest
example of this revolving door.
David Cameron, he hired the former
editor of the BBC 6 o'clock,
and 10 o'clock news
to be his spin doctor.
Theresa May, she hired Robbie Gibb
who was in charge,
of the political broadcasting of the BBC.
Or George Osborne who hired
the lead BBC political producer,
or Boris Johnson who hired as mayor
of London the BBC's former chief,
political correspondent
as his spin doctor.
This is a revolving door
and my word is it busy,
The government itself has its fingers
on the funding taps of the BBC,
it has this constant threat of privatisation
hanging over the corporation.
All of that allows it to exert huge
pressure on the corporation.
Let's think about our current crisis,
Britain is one of the worst
hit countries on earth,
it may well end up the worst
hit country in Europe.
Now Dominic Cummings sat on
the supposedly independent body,
the Scientific Advisory Group
for Emergencies SAGE.
And yet the BBC gave his wife
a slot on BBC Radio 4,
to discuss how kind an individual
Dominic Cummings is:
"He's an extremely kind man whatever
people assume to the contrary."
What kind of shit is that!
Is that is speaking truth to power?
Providing eulogies from the wife,
of one of the key advisors who has
many, many questions to (answer),
about a catastrophe which
has killed so many people.
Take our own horrific death toll,
the official death toll in hospitals
has now surpassed 20,000.
But, according to the Financial Times
based on excess deaths,
as analysed by the Office
of National Statistics,
it's likely to be over twice as many
well over 40,000 dead people.
In places like France for example they're
already integrating care home deaths,
in a way that we're not.
But are we talking about it?
Remember those scenes in Italy
when thousands were dying,
and it was portrayed as apocalyptic
and yet when it happens here.
it's almost being normalised.
Foreign news outlets are looking at
this country in horror as one of the,
worst examples of mismanagement
of this horrific pandemic.
But that is not being reflected by the
vast majority of our own media.
Take the daily press conferences
and press briefings,
where politician after politician can
perform as though they're statesmen like,
but with questions that don't get follow-
ups allowing them to evade questions.
The whole thing is a travesty
which is simply,
a PR exercise for our
governing ministers.
"We'll see you again no doubt at
the same time tomorrow"
When the Sunday Times in a genuinely
brilliant piece of investigative journalism,
revealed the disaster after disaster which
this government's responsible for,
leading to the unnecessary deaths
of thousands of people.
The response of Robert Peston he said he
was 'gobsmacked' by these revelations,
Robert Peston is known
for his close relationship,
with key Downing Street officials.
He himself was the first
journalist to be briefed,
about the herd immunity policy which
he wrote up on his own blog.
What does that tell us about the
relationship between journalists,
and the people who are
running this country?
We do deserve a media which is
independent of vested interests,
which is able and willing to
challenge those in authority,
without fear or favour
and arms its citizens,
with the information they need
to make informed decisions.
If there had been far more scrutiny of
the government's actions earlier on,
Is it possible the government would have
been forced to change course earlier,
and could that have helped
save thousands of lives?
That is why a press which genuinely
stands up to those with power,
is so important it quite literally can
be a matter of life and death.
Now Double Down News is one example of
a media organisation doing exactly that.
Independent and trying to get truths
which are otherwise ignored,
to as big an audience as possible.
So please, please support DDN
on Patreon it's in the interests,
of actually saving our democracy and
there are few things as important as that.
