Week 43 2013

Tendring Topics……on line

Our ‘free press’ and the politicians……. just who controls whom?

          I have been observing the current quarrel between ‘the press’ and all three main political parties with astonished fascination.  Our free press is, so its representatives insist, the envy of the civilised world.  It is the safeguard of our hard-earned freedoms and must be at all costs protected from interference by scheming politicians.  Ed Miliband’s recent protests against  the Daily Mail’s  vilification of  his father as an ‘enemy of Britain’ is, so it was claimed, an example of attempted interference; ‘Just what one might expect from the son of a committed Marxist’, was implied.

            I knew nothing about Ed Miliband’s dad until recently. However I now know that he was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany who subsequently served on a destroyer in our Royal Navy, and took part in the D-day landings on the Normandy beaches. That surely speaks for itself.  I am old enough to remember that the Daily Mail in the 1930s supported the Nazis in Germany, and Hitler and Mussolini’s pal General Franco in Spain.  I remember too the Daily Express, a newspaper with a very similar outlook to that of the Mail assuring us throughout 1938 and the early part of 1939 that ‘There will be no war this year – or next year either!’ There really wasn’t much to be proud of in our ’free press’ in those days.

            With regard to the present concerns of ‘the press’, my own anxiety is almost the exact opposite of theirs.   Unless UKIP triumphs in the next General Election, I don’t really think there is the least possibility of our press coming under government control in any way comparable with that of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or the USSR.   What is a matter of concern is the way – often quite blatant – in which the owners of the press have manipulated and bent the minds and wills of our top politicians.

            I have little doubt that the credit/blame (delete as preferred) for the creation of New Labour lies as much with Rupert Murdoch as it does with Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson.   Remembering The Sun’s boast that, ‘It was the Sun wot done it’ when in 1992 persistent vilification of Neil Kinnock by that newspaper led to an unexpected defeat of the Labour Government, Tony Blair and a few of his colleagues moved the Labour Party’s policies far enough to the right to win the approval of the head of News International.  While Tony Blair was in control, the Sun supported New Labour. Rupert Murdoch acknowledges his own over-riding influence on the political outlook of The Sun, but claims that the editor of The Times has complete freedom of action.  No doubt, but the editor of that once-illustrious publication is well aware of the owner’s views and would be very foolish to ignore them.

            He who pays the piper calls the tune.  On a much more humble scale, I had complete freedom of action when I wrote Tendring Topics (in print) for the Coastal Express. No-one even dreamed of telling me what I could, and what I could not write.  However my awareness of the fact that adverts from Estate Agents and Used Car Salesmen kept the free weekly on the road, made sure that any criticism in my column of either occupation was very limited and discreet.

            Mrs Thatcher courted the good will of Rupert Murdoch and other senior figures in the News International Empire. So did Tony Blair and so, to a greater extent than either of them, did David Cameron and senior members of his government.  John Major was an honourable exception – and John Major suffered for it at the hands of the The Sun.  Of course there were no written agreements between any senior politician and the rulers of the press.  It was just that they were all good friends and the political leaders knew what their friends’ views were (on Europe for example, on immigration, on anything that might cause inconvenience to the extremely wealthy) and bore them in mind when formulating party or government policy.  They were also, of course, well aware of which policies would and which would not produce positive headlines in the Sun!

            It is sometimes claimed that the newspapers have little effect on the way that people vote.  I simply don’t believe this is true.  The newspapers do influence public opinion, and can do so without publishing a single word that isn’t true.  Out of the thousands of newsworthy events that occur every day, most are probably politically neutral.  Of the ones that aren’t, the editor who wishes to succeed in his profession gives those that support the owner’s views, headline and ‘feature article’ treatment.  News stories that oppose those views are either ignored altogether or tucked away half-way down an inside page.   When did you last read a positive story about the European Union, about Green Energy or about the contribution that immigrants make to our economy in the Sun, the Daily Mail or the Daily Express?   Remember that the Sun, arguably the most noxious of the three, has over seven million readers – the largest readership of any daily in the UK.   Of course a sizeable proportion of those seven million believe every word they read – and vote accordingly.   

            Lord Leveson in his report, touched on the way in which newspaper proprietors and their senior staff may influence politicians but, as far as I am aware, offered no solution. I don’t believe that very wealthy individuals, who need not even be British citizens, should be able to control such a powerful means of moulding public opinion. Perhaps a national newspaper or regional newspapers, could be run by an organisation similar to the BBC, which (since it is criticised from both the left and the right) probably gets the balance of its news bulletins and discussion programmes about right.

            I wouldn’t like to see national newspapers under the control of politicians.  But they are at least answerable to us at election time.  I would prefer that to their being controlled by a foreign cosmopolitan billionaire, who is answerable to no-one but himself and owes no loyalty to Britain or to British traditions and culture.

The British Red Cross Society

          A few months ago Ingrid Zeibig, a German friend of mine, sent me a photograph that brought vividly to the forefront of my mind events of nearly seventy years ago when I spent eighteen months as a prisoner of war in Italy, followed by a further eighteen months in Germany.  Particularly in Italy, where I was in a large POW Concentration Camp in northern Italy I learned what constant nagging hunger meant and what could be its consequences.

       
           Now, my doctor would probably tell me that I am overweight. Then my face fell in, my ribs protruded, and my weight fell day by hungry day. Scarcely a week passed without one of my fellow-prisoners dying of hunger related disease.  During that time we had the opportunity of having our photographs taken and sending home to our parents or wives.  My mum took one look at mine and tore it up.  She couldn’t bear to look at the emaciated scarecrow I had become. What kept us alive and never completely devoid of hope during that dreadful time, was the delivery to the camp of food parcels from the British, or sometimes the Canadian, Red Cross Society.  Each parcel contained tins of meat or fish, dried or condensed milk, margarine, a tin of jam or honey, tea or coffee, sugar and biscuits.  We were supposed to get one each, every week, but in Italy delivery was very spasmodic and sometimes we’d go for weeks without a parcel.  Then, when they arrived, the Italian guards insisted on opening each parcel and piercing every food tin so that its contents had to be consumed almost immediately.  We all believed that this was done out of spite and envy but, on reflection; I suppose it was to prevent our saving food to eat if we escaped!

           

There’s Ingrid with a genuine World War II Red Cross Food Parcel originally intended for a hungry POW!  I could practically see – and taste – the contents.

In Germany things for me (though by no means everyone had the same experience) were much better.  I was at a small working camp. Our guards weren’t bad chaps, our rations were better (they realized that they wouldn’t get much work out of us if we weren’t better fed!), the Red Cross parcels came regularly and were distributed unopened. And, of course, when you’re working with food, as we often were, you don’t go hungry!  I have tried always to support the British Red Cross and have often thought of those food parcels and how pleased we were to see them.  The photo that Ingrid sent me was of her with one of those parcels!  She was visiting Colditz Castle (now it seems to be a museum) with a friend, and the parcel – just as I remembered them from my POW days - was among the exhibits.

            I received that photo some months ago but I was reminded of it last week when I learned that the British Red Cross was again distributing food parcels to the hungry – but this time to the hungry in our own country. And Freedom from want was one of the ‘four freedoms’ for which we thought we were fighting in World War II! How shameful that one of the world’s wealthiest countries – that can afford to give tax hand-outs to its wealthiest citizens and patrol the world’s oceans with nuclear submarines - has an underclass that depends on Food Banks and Red Cross Parcels for survival, that this winter will have to decide whether to eat or heat, and spends its coppers ‘having fun’ with the national lottery in the forlorn hope of escaping from soul-destroying poverty to extreme wealth!

           And top politicians have the effrontery to claim that we’re all in this together!

           

             

           

           

             

Week 49 2012

Tendring Topics......on Line

Be careful what you wish for!

          Do you remember how recently it was that we were all worried about Britain’s devastating drought?   Not much more than six months ago we were warned about the dreadful effects of a drier than usual autumn and winter.   It would, we were told, take weeks of steady rain to replenish reservoirs, fill rivers and bring underground water supplies to their normal levels. Quite early in the spring the use of hose-pipes for watering domestic gardens or washing the family car was banned in a great many areas.   We all yearned for soft refreshing rain.  In churches and places of worship throughout the UK rain was the object of many a heartfelt prayer.

            Oh dear!  What happened was like one of those fairy stories in which a wish is granted by an apparently benevolent witch.   The wish is fulfilled but with consequences that had not been foreseen.

            We had our rain, buckets of it, throughout a thoroughly wet summer.  Rivers filled and overflowed. Homes were flooded. For a brief period in some areas there were simultaneously hose pipe bans and floods!  Soon though the Water Authorities realized that they had, in a few weeks, received several normal months’ worth of rain.  Hose pipe bans were lifted and the faithful began to pray for a dry and sunny late-summer and autumn so that, at Harvest Thanksgiving services they could sing confidently, ‘All is safely gathered in, ‘ere the winter storms begin!’

But in many parts of the UK all was not safely gathered in, or at least harvest time had not brought the abundant crops for which farmers and gardeners had hoped. Autumn brought more heavy rain and now – at the beginning of winter – we have been having yet more.  Once again there have been flooded homes in the West Country, in Yorkshire and in the North-East. Some unfortunates have had their homes flooded three times in as many months.  This south-eastern corner of East Anglia, although having much more rain than usual, has escaped the floods.  Our Essex Sunshine Coast really is a good place to live!

New Year’s Day 1979. My motor caravan outside my bungalow in Dudley Road, Clacton. I hope that we don’t get a repeat of the weather!

What next?  As I type these words the sky has cleared but the temperature has dropped several degrees and the immediate weather forecast is ‘dry - but much colder!’   Oh dear, I do hope we don’t get standing snow.  It is the one circumstance guaranteed to keep my mobility scooter in its shed (or, as I prefer to put it, my ‘iron horse in its stable’!) and leave me house-bound!

I have distrusted forecasts of any kind on the front page of the Daily Express ever since in 1938 and early 1939 when their headline assured us that ‘There will be no war this year, nor next year either!’  In 2011 they kept up the tradition by forecasting icy weather just before that Indian Summer in October.  I have an uncomfortable feeling though that this year, as they forecast a bitterly cold and ice-bound winter – they may be right!

The Government - and the Press

I sometimes think that politicians must be made of sterner stuff than the rest of us.  During the past year we have seen disastrous failures in Government functions that, had I been the senior politician responsible for the department concerned, I would have felt demanded my immediate resignation.  However, the politicians concerned have simply shrugged their shoulders, blamed the disaster on the civil servants involved, assured the public that ‘lessons have been learned’ and carried on as though nothing had happened.

Reaction to the phone hacking and corruption scandal that has engulfed the press, the police and the politicians during the past year has been somewhat similar. All the press have been tainted but at the centre of the scandal was News International, a news media empire ruled by Rupert Murdoch, Australian by birth and a citizen of the USA by adoption.   Successive British Prime Ministers have courted his favour and that of his lieutenants in the hope of ensuring favourable headlines in the Sun, the News of the World and other publications under his control.   This hope was not unjustified.  ‘It was us wot done it!’ boasted the Sun after one of Mrs Thatcher’s electoral victories.

I have long believed that New Labour with its rejection of democratic socialism and traditional Labour Values and, in government, its willing acceptance of the leadership of the most right-wing American President of the last century, was created for no other reason than to persuade Rupert Murdoch to switch his media Empire’s political allegiance from the Conservative to the Labour Party and thus  make Tony Blair’s emasculated party ‘electable’.

David Cameron followed in Tony Blair’s footsteps, appointing Andy Coulson, one of Rupert Murdoch’s former lieutenants as his personal spin-doctor and becoming a close friend of News International’s Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks. Both these former employees of News International now face criminal charges in connection with alleged phone hacking and other scandals related to press abuse of its powers.

The Leveson enquiry investigated objectively and comprehensively the whole range of Press Activities, interviewing Rupert Murdoch and his senior lieutenants and former lieutenants,  Prime Minister David Cameron, Tony Blair and a great many others. David Cameron told victims of the phone hacking and other abuses of press freedom, that he would accept the verdict of the Leveson Enquiry in full, ‘unless it was completely bonkers’. As part of the verdict would inevitably criticise the Prime Minister himself for the closeness of his relationship with members of the News International organisation, I would have thought that his best course of action would have been to accept Lord Leveson’s verdict and recommendations in full, hurry through any legislation that might be necessary to implement those recommendations, and hope that the electorate would soon forget the whole sorry affair.

But that isn’t going to happen.  David Cameron has evidently forgotten his pledge to News International’s victims. While accepting Lord Leveson’s insistence on the need to have a strong and wholly independent (both of politicians and of those involved in the press) body to regulate press behaviour, he is strongly opposed to that body having the statutory underpinning needed to enforce its decisions.

The reason for this, so it is said, is to protect the freedom of the press – a future government might use any such legislation as a springboard to curb press freedom.  What total rubbish!   Does Mr Cameron really imagine that a government of the future determined to muzzle the press would give two hoots about decisions that might have been made a decade or so earlier?  Can you imagine Hitler, in 1936, having the least interest in whatever a democratic German government had decided in the 1920s?    In any case, how ‘free’ is a press where editorial policy and political direction of a large part of it are dictated by a cosmopolitan multi-millionaire with no roots here and owing no loyalty to this country, its culture and its institutions?

Until we give more thought to the ownership of the press we should worry less about having a government-controlled press and worry rather more about having a press-controlled government constantly ‘adjusting’ its policies in the hope of gaining a few more votes at by-elections as a result of positive headlines in the tabloids and the support of the press moguls!

Robin Hoods – in reverse

There is no field in which the members of the government have revealed what are, I fear, their true colours than that of housing.  It is there that their Robin Hood in Reverse policy of robbing the poor to benefit the rich is most clearly exposed.

In order to level off to some extent the difference between the proportion of their incomes that poor and very wealthy people pay in taxation, it has been suggested that there should be extra higher bands of Council Tax liability and/or an extra ‘mansion tax’ paid by those whose homes are valued at over £2 million.

Both ideas have been vetoed by David Cameron.  He really doesn’t think that those who have worked hard and saved all their lives for their homes, should be penalised for doing so. How many people who live in homes worth over £2 million acquired them by working and saving hard all through their lives?   You’d need to enjoy a salary of £50,000 every year for 40 years to earn £2 million, never mind save it!

When considering housing at the other end of the social scale, government attitudes are very different.  Council tenants, and tenants in receipt of Housing Benefit, are to be charged a ‘bedroom tax’ for every empty bedroom. No, they are not allowed to have a spare bedroom for occasional visitors. Those financially squeezed Daily Mail readers can’t be expected to subsidise the hospitality of ‘benefit scroungers’.

Never mind the fact that some of those tenants will be old people who have paid taxes all their working lives and are struggling to live on the state pension plus any benefits to which they may be entitled.   Others will be employed, but on or near the minimum wage.  They need the housing benefit, not for themselves, but to add to the wealth of rapacious landlords.  Nobody, says the government, will have to pay the bedroom tax.  There is the choice of moving into smaller accommodation (if they can find any) or taking in a lodger.

            A listener to the BBC’s Breakfast Programme, when hearing about the proposed ‘Bedroom Tax’, enquired how many spare bedrooms there might be at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country home, which is also publicly owned.