Press Baron's news outlets blocked

Boris Johnson condemns Extinction Rebellion protesters

YESTERDAY it was reported that Boris Johnson had condemned the Extinction Rebellion protesters for trying to silence free speech after they blocked access to three printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch. The blockade affected the distribution of several national newspapers – including The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph – which arrived late on newsstands on Saturday. Mr Johnson labelled the protests ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that a free press was ‘vital’ for holding his Government to account for its actions on climate change. He tweeted: ‘A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.’

More than 100 protesters – who accused the papers of failing to report on climate change – used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside three press sites in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and North Lanarkshire. Police said 72 people have now been arrested. Home Secretary Priti Patel accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on democracy’. She wrote: ‘This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion. This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable.’

Yet do we have a free press?

In his book 'THE PREVENTION of LITERATURE' [Polemic, No.2 January 1946] George Orwell wrote: 'In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are its theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate, practical enemies, monopoly and bureacracy. Any wrter or journalist who wants to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the concentration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio anf the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nearly for nearly every writer to earn part of his living by hack work, the encroachment of official bodies like the M.O.I. [Ministry of Information] and the British Council, which help the writer to keep alive but also waste his time and dictate his opinions...'

Orwell was writing in a time of war, but can the typical journalist today claim to be free and independent of the press barons like Murdock etc?

Boris Johnson has condemned Extinction Rebellion protesters for trying to silence free speech after they blocked access to three printing presses owned by Rupert Murdoch. The blockade affected the distribution of several national newspapers – including The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph – which arrived late on newsstands on Saturday. Mr Johnson labelled the protests ‘unacceptable’ and pointed out that a free press was ‘vital’ for holding his Government to account for its actions on climate change. He tweeted: ‘A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. ‘It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.’ More than 100 protesters – who accused the papers of failing to report on climate change – used vehicles and bamboo structures to block roads outside three press sites in Hertfordshire, Merseyside and North Lanarkshire. Police said 72 people have now been arrested. Home Secretary Priti Patel accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on democracy’. She wrote: ‘This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion. This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable.’

Shadow International Trade Secretary Emily Thornberry told Times Radio she was concerned for older readers who may have missed out on their daily dose of news. She said: ‘I don’t really know what it is that is expected to be achieved and I know that for many older listeners it’s very much part of their daily life, getting their paper delivered in the morning and I just think it’s wrong.’ A free press is vital in holding the government and other powerful institutions to account on issues critical for the future of our country, including the fight against climate change. It is completely unacceptable to seek to limit the public’s access to news in this way.— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) September 5, 2020 This morning people across the country will be prevented from reading their newspaper because of the actions of Extinction Rebellion.This attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable. https://t.co/3DfasjD6sS— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) September 5, 2020 The Sun accused the protesters of carrying out an ‘attack on all the free press’. Today’s Sun carried an opinion piece by Sir David Attenborough calling on Brits to do more to tackle climate change. The piece was commended by Carrie Symonds, Mr Johnson’s fiancé, who said the protest was an own goal. She wrote: ‘I care about climate change and biodiversity a massive amount but preventing a free press to spread this message further is just wrong. Not to mention all those small businesses that rely on being able to sell newspapers.’

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/05/boris-johnson-blasts-extinction-rebellion-for-unacceptable-protest-against-newspapers-13227269/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

While owned by News Corp, the presses also print other titles such as the Evening Standard. Extinction Rebellion co-founder Gail Bradbrook wrote an opinion piece for the Standard the day of the protests, leading some to accuse the organisation of hypocrisy. The co-founder of XR actually wrote a column for the standard yesterday before hurrying over to blockade their printing presses https://t.co/SsiqohUYUN— Martha Gill (@Martha_Gill) September 5, 2020 A good day to #buyanewspaper A free press matters to all of us who value a free society. They mustn’t be silenced by an intolerant minority. pic.twitter.com/r3r3ksGkbN— Robert Jenrick (@RobertJenrick) September 5, 2020 Extinction Rebellion defended the blockade by accusing the papers of not paying enough attention to climate change. A spokesman said: ‘We are in an emergency of unprecedented scale and the papers we have targeted are not reflecting the scale and urgency of what is happening to our planet. ‘To any small businesses disrupted by the action this morning we say, “We’re sorry. We hope that our actions seem commensurate with the severity of the crisis we face and that this day of disruption successfully raises the alarm about the greater disruption that is coming”.’

Yesterday's men (& woman) back Mr. Coyne,

 as Coyne Calls for a Unite union Clean Up

CALLING for a 'clean up' of the Unite union Gerard Coyne, one of the candidates in the Unite election for General Secretary, wrote on his Blog:

'Your union takes more than £150 million of subscription money from members every year. I do not believe there is enough openness about how your money is spent. You deserve better, so I will give members like you oversight of Unite’s finances. Vote Gerard Coyne now and clean up Unite.'

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Meanwhile, on Wednesday 5 April 2017 three former union bosses; Roger Lyons Former general secretary, Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union; Bill Morris Former general secretary, Transport and General Workers Union and Margaret Prosser Former president, Trades Union Congress wrote a letter to The Guardian:
'We believe that strong unions are essential to public life and that they are both the best and the last defence of working people against abuse and exploitation. With Brexit adding to the pressures on working people and injecting huge additional instability into the economy, it is essential unions are able to exert the maximum industrial strength....
'Our labour movement always needs to be engaged in renewal and in searching out new ideas and new methods to advance its aims. Gerard Coyne is the candidate who can do most to deliver new ideas and reinvigorate our movement at a supremely difficult moment.'

 Gerard Coyne 'bringing union's name into disrepute'?

There have been criticisms from Coyne that has annoyed Len McCluskey’s supporters, for whom loyalty to the union means not bringing its name into disrepute.
McCluskey, a former employee in Liverpool’s dockyards, has the advantage of a national profile, as well as being a formidable operator at branch level.
His campaign has won the largest number of nominations ever, including from defence workers at the Faslane and Coulport naval bases in Scotland and the Barrow shipyards in Cumbria – despite Corbyn’s opposition to Trident renewal.

Voting ends on the 19th, April, and Coyne has a tough fight before him.  Rupert Murdoch's The Sun newspaper may be backing Coyne, but the Mirror and Morning Star have lined up behind McCluskey.  Most of the apparatus and officers of the Unite union have been seemingly marshalled behind Len McCluskey.
Supporters of Coyne believe there is still a chance of victory, if they can get a higher turnout of Unite’s 1.4 million members to vote.  The low turnout in union elections – 15.2% voted in the 2013 general secretary contest – hands disproportionate influence to its radical activists, many of whom may see McCluskey as too rightwing.

Ian Allinson condemns 'treacherous role of some union officials' 

The third candidate and shopfloor activist, Ian Allinson, may take votes from McCluskey.  On the blacklist in the British building trade, Ian Allinson has said:
'It is great that Len McCluskey has backed calls for an enquiry, but the gap between the blacklisted workers’ view of the evidence and his own is worrying. 
'McCluskey says: “While new evidence has unfolded in the High Court proceedings it is not the case that this evidence points towards present or previous union officials”.
'It is hard to believe that the employers’ blacklist could be as extensive and long-lasting as it was without the treacherous role played by some union officials.'

Commenting on the recent Unite / UCATT merger Mr. Allinson calls on Unite to clean out the stable: 'UK construction workers have, for the first time, the possibility of being organised in one big united union, apart from small numbers of workers in GMB.  However, if the merger takes place at a purely formal and bureaucratic level, the chance to extend real democracy and rank and file control would be lost.  Worse still if we missed the chance to clean the Augean stable of the complicity and corruption which has robbed union activists of their livelihoods and wrecked families.'

Rank & File labelled 'A Cancer'!

Len McCluskey has been in office as the General Secretary of Unite sine 2011, yet what has he done about the alleged crooked officials in the union?  We know from what is being said by the lads on the job, is that many believe that the blacklist in the British building industry is alive and kicking!
When the rank and file make achievements and score victories it is often in spite of the officer class rather than because of them.  But it is often the officer class that claims the credit.
As Ian Allinson has pointed out:
'Construction activists have shown that grassroots democratic movements, the Construction Rank and File and the Blacklist Support Group, have begun to make officials accountable as well as building the beginnings of a real fighting union at workplace and sector level.'
Very often the rank and file campaign has been denounced by the officer class, and it was once describe as 'a cancer' by one trade union functionary still in office. 
Coyne is right the Unite union needs cleaning up!  More precisely it needs an officer class that is answerable to to its members.

Objectivity, the BBC & the British Media

The Broken BBC: From Public Service to Corporate Power

Extract: Whatever the logic or feasibility of that model, it is fair to say that BBC News24 in no way achieves any ideal of a discursive space free from market motives. Instead it repeats and mirrors existing institutional power dynamics. Formally, the channel is a twin of Rupert Murdoch�s Sky News. Its editorial values are so identical that viewers get exactly the same hierarchy of news stories, at the same time of day, and predominantly from the same ideological viewpoint. The channels even screen their weather reports simultaneously, and each have �newspaper preview� segments, also broadcast at the same time. Like Sky, the BBC is happy to define itself in relation to the right-wing press but almost never allows comparison with the diversity of other national public sector-based global news broadcasters�France 24, or Russia Today (RT), for example�to throw the validity of the �new� BBC project into question. The BBC�s �newspaper preview� also almost exclusively features guest commentators from the oligarchic print media, rather than representatives of civil society, thereby ensuring further ideological conformity and continuity. This hegemonic homogenization with the right-wing press is even more dubious given, as Goldsmith�s College professor James Curran has pointed out, �according to the 2010 Eurobarometer survey, the British public was the least disposed to trust its press, out of a total of 27 European countries.�4 A more recent poll by YouGov ranked the British press as the most �right-wing� and �biased� in Europe.5 What, then, are the broader characteristics of the new BBC, and how representative is it? In its ideological assumptions and structural representations, News24 is resolutely pro-business and pro-market. A definitive study led by Mike Berry of Cardiff University notes that �on BBC News at Six, business representatives outnumbered trade union spokespersons by more than five to one (11 vs 2) in 2007 and by 19 to one in 2012. On the issues of immigration and the EU in 2012, out of 806 source appearances, not one was allocated to a representative of organized labor.� When covering the 2008�2009 banking crisis, �opinion was almost completely dominated by stockbrokers, investment bankers, hedge fund managers and other City voices. Civil society voices or commentators who questioned the benefits of having such a large finance sector were almost completely absent from coverage.�6 The corporation�s journalists pursue this pro-business, free-market ideology to the point of blatant hypocrisy and even self-destruction. In February 2014, a BBC journalist cross-examined then-Labour leader Ed Miliband about the lack of privatization plans in the Party�s public-sector proposals. This is a common theme in BBC news interviews. In the previous week, Hard Talk presenter Stephen Sucker berated the Indian finance minister for subsidizing the country�s farmers. Though editorially critical of other, less well-paid workers receiving public sector incomes, the issue of BBC funding and its own journalists� ample salaries, similarly supported by taxes and public spending, seems to present no quandary to its reporters. Obviously, none of this accords with the ideal of a public sphere separate and free from vested interests. Nor is this ideological positioning some accident compensated for by the diversity of representation in other parts of the network. The larger consequence of the invention of News24 is that, again, diversity of provision has been throttled by the imposition of a post-Fordist, core-and-periphery management structure. The BBC�s other channels either take their bulletin newsfeed from the main news channel, or have their output homogenized around the editorial dictates and demands of the core control location. Full article: http://monthlyreview.org/2016/04/01/the-broken-bbc/

Street of Shame Shit-house Rats Smell a Story

LAST Thursday, Dispatches on Channel Four ran a hour long program entitled 'The Paedophile MP: How Cyril Smith Got Away With It'; since the story of Sir Cyril Smith the former Rochdale M.P. (1972-1992) broke last November some in the media with eyes like shit-house rats have suddenly spied a story and are now busily trying to grab the credit.  The latest claim came from the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn who said in his column that 'when the police launched the Jimmty Savile inquiry a year ago, I suggested they might just as well re-open the case of another novelty Northern nonce, Cyril Smith.'

 

Talk about being wise after the event and jumping on the bandwagon.  As John Walker, who was interviewed on last Thursday's Dispatches program, in a leading article in the current Summer/ Autumn issue of Northern Voices (NV14) observes:

'The Rochdale Observer “discovered” a story, a story they had been sitting on for 30 years, as did the Manchester Evening News.  Granada TV and the BBC followed suit and even the Daily Mail, claimed credit for “investigating” the story, towards the end of November (2012).'

Mr. Walker was an editor of RAP (the Rochdale Alternative Paper) the journal which first outed Smith back in May 1979.  At that time RAP published the allegations of some of Smith's victims while he was secretary at the Rochdale hostel for boys at Cambridge House.  Following publication Smith slapped an injunction on Mr. Walker and RAP, and John Walker writes:

'There was not a serious national news outlet that did not have a copy (of RAP), and knew that we had a compelling, legally cleared, material to back our claims... Smith bullied them into inaction.'

None repeated the story except for Private Eye, who, like RAP, invited Cyril to sue.  Smith never did that and it was suggested on the Dispatches program by someone who was involved with Smith at the time that he feared being exposed if he had sued.  John Walker in his Northern Voices' story writes:

'I would argue that there is not a serious national political journalist in Britain over the age of 50 who has not been aware of the Smith story for 30 years.'

Mr. Walker insists: 

'The recent re-emergence of the 1979 RAP story owes its appearance to Northern Voices... [t]his magazine kept the Smith story running and led to Westminister political blogger, and former Rochdale lad, Paul Waugh picking it up, last November.'

On the Dispatches program John Walker poured scorn on the national press involvement, or lack of it, in the Smith case, and praised Private Eye, as he wrote in NV14:

'...none of this would have happened without an inquisitive and awkward independent press...  while the might and wealth of Murdoch, Trinity Mirror and other press empires have remained silent...  While Levenson has huffed and puffed about a responsible press, over recentmonths, it has been the determination of a free, independent and radical press that has finally exposed the behaviour of a hypocritical monster; while many of the more mighty power-broking media magnates have been restrained by big-boy bullying.' 
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The current printed issue of NORTHERN VOICES No.14, is now available for sale - see below. This issue N.V.14 has an in-depth and exclusive report by John Walker, a former editor of the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) on the full history of Cyril Smith's antics with young lads. RAP was the first publication to go public on this in May 1979. You can obtain a copy by writing or contacting the people whose details are below:
Postal subscription: £5 for the next two issues (post included). Cheques made payable to 'Northern Voices' should be sent c/o 52, Todmorden Road, Burnley, Lancashire BB10 4AH.
Tel.: 0161 793 5122.
email: northernvoices@hotmail.com

Leveson & the Price of Press Freedom

RECENTLY the editor of 'The Oldie', Richard Ingrams, responding to the Leveson report, said that in order to get to the truth a journalist ought to be always willing 'to break the law!' Years ago, Bernard Levin wrote that a journalist to do a proper job must be prepared to be 'irresponsible'. Conversely, on the 1st, March, 2013, Peter Good, on the libcom web site wrote: 'Hiding behind the shield of “Free Speech” to exclude acts of licence fits well with the age of the Levenson (sic) report.... Freedom (as opposed to license) carries a degree of responsibility.'

Richard Ingrams is a Tory and High Anglican who used to edit Private Eye, and Bernard Levin was a Jewish journalist on The Times and The Spectator, and both are arguing for freedom of the press and media. Oddly, Peter Good, that curious thing an English 'anarchist', seems to be happily trying to place restraints on freedom of the media.

Is it possible for the press and media to have too much freedom? Peter Good clearly thinks so, and he writes '(t)he reptiles of the Murdoch press ruthlessly hacked into peoples' private lives and publicly re-shaped the most lurid details.'

We don't have to condone the methods of the Murdoch press and media to worry about the placing of further statutory laws on press freedom.  Our laws on defamation, and to some extent our Contempt of Court laws, are already regarded as Draconian. The problem of the Murdoch media has more to do with the problem of ownership than with that of freedom or licence.

Professor Mick Temple in a chapter in the book 'After Leveson' writes:
'Senior politicians have for too long responded like Pavlov's dogs to the temporary obsessions of newspapers like The Sun and Daily Mail, and are so afraid of powerful press barons like Rupert Murdoch that they openly court their approval and support in return for policy pay-offs.' 

The thing is that governments, institutions, parties, 'anarchists' and any other political tendency, must at all times be ready to have what the northern anarchist Jimmy Pinkerton called 'the floodlight of publicity' thrust upon them. And when that happens, as in the case of Bob Miller and his obituary, we should all remember what George Orwell wrote: 'If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.'

I do hope that I am not misrepresenting Peter Good's position. Hitherto, I had always understood him to be a civil libertarian on matters of press freedom, but it could well be, as Jimmy Pinkerton also said, 'That in the same way that Christianity doesn't depend upon the Christians; so anarchism doesn't depend upon the anarchists'.  In England, it may well depend more on the likes of High Tories like Richard Ingrams and Private Eye.  Certainly, judging by the recent conduct of socalled 'anarchists' in this country at bookfairs in both Manchester and London, and the shyness of publications like Freedom in dealing with the these issues, we must conclude that they are as frighten as the politicians in dealing with Murdoch when it comes to the bully boy in London who is behaving like a latter-day Arturo Ui.

Tony Blair: 'I had a friend called Faust ...'

YESTERDAY, The Mail on Sunday ran a headline declaring 'Blair Bid To Silence MP Who Exposed Murdoch' followed by an article claiming 'Tony Blair urged Gordon Brown to persuade the Labour MP [Tom Watson] who led the campaign to expose the News of the World phone-hacking to back off ...' It is reported that Gordon Brown refused to do this, but in a two-year long struggle Tom Watson MP, by employing parliamentary privilege, has played a crucial role in challenging Rupert Murdoch's company News Corporation over its use of phone-hacking at the News of the World. The Mail on Sunday further alleges: 'Mrs [Rebekah] Brooks begged Blairite ex-Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell to help "stop this madman Tom Watson" - and also sought help from her friend, Mr Blair.'

In the paperback version of his autobiography 'A Journey', published last month, Tony Blair writes: 'In June 1995 we had further outraged sensibilities by accepting an invitation ... to address Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation conference on Hayman Island in Australia ...' Mr Blair explains his decision to accept Rupert Murdoch's offer thus: '... the country's most important newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to the Labour Party, invites us into the lion's den. You go, don't you?'

Of Murdoch, Blair wrote that he found him to be an 'enigma' and that the more he got to know him the more he felt this. Blair's judgement of Murdoch was that '[i]n the end ... I came to have a grudging respect and even liking for him.' Blair concludes that although he does not share Murdoch's views on Europe, social policy or gay rights, he he admired his 'balls' and 'outsider' attitude to the Establishment.

Curiously, after these comments on his early experience of Murdoch on pages 96, 97 and 98, and despite what we now know of the intimate relationship between Blair, his New Labour government and Murdoch and his acolytes, there is surprisingly little further reference to Murdoch in Blair's autobiography until we get to page 655, and the time of Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's coronation. On page 655 Blair writes: 'There was no contest for the leadership ... John Reid could have stood, but the Murdoch papers, I fear at Rupert's instigation, just wrote him off ...' Blair considers: 'This is where Gordon's strategy of tying up Rupert [Murdoch] and Dacre [editor in chief of the Mail Group] really paid off - any likely contenders didn't get a look-in; they got squashed.'