on media


Spluttering bile at the horror of Labour


The right-wing press should cut the apoplexy, says Raymond Snoddy The cronyism allegations stem from


L


ess than three months into a Labour government after 14 years of what many would see as


Conservative misrule, the right-wing newspapers are in full cry. There was barely even a honeymoon moment before the storm of cronyism, sleaze and scandal broke over the head of new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer. Psychologists might recognise a nice example of displacement theory. Newspapers such as the Daily Mail,


Daily Express and Daily Telegraph happily turned a blind eye to Conservative cronyism, sleaze and scandal on an industrial scale. The Times and The Sun have been more factual and balanced; they have effortlessly transferred their bile to Labour, not put off by the marked lack of evidence of any serious misdemeanours. The newspapers criticising the


‘tensions’ in Downing Street created by Sue Gray, presumably being the chief of staff Sir Keir wants her to be, were silent as Dominic Cummings virtually ran the country while Boris Johnson completed a book. The prime minister is accused of being in the pockets of the trade unions because crippling strikes were quickly settled. The previous government failed to negotiate meaningfully with either junior doctors or train drivers; the cost of settling was less than the cost of the damage done to the country. One area where the prime minister


has been strong – dealing with extreme- right riots – is turned into a negative because prisoners were released early to make room for sentenced rioters. It is forgotten that the Conservatives already had such a policy in place and the crisis in the prison and judicial system was the result of years of underfunding.


Sir Keir wanting a few of his outsiders in government, something done by many administrations over the years. Then there is the great Lord Waheed Alli scandal or, as the Mail and Express dubbed it, ‘glasses for passes sleaze’. While it would have been wiser if Sir


Keir had paid for his own glasses and the suits also paid for by Lord Alli, it is absurd for the papers to suggest any connection with a temporary parliamentary pass and the £20,000 involved. The ‘scandal’ is reminiscent of the great Starmer pint and curry Covid issue and the Angela Rayner two houses affair. Both involved page after page of coverage, day after day, and the waste of thousands of hours of police time yet resulted in no action. It is difficult to think of any reason


why Sir Keir or even Sue Gray should not have given a Labour peer of more than 25 years’ standing a temporary pass if he had business to conduct in Downing Street. Perhaps the biggest ‘scandal’ of all


that has excited the Tory-supporting press is that Labour has deliberately exaggerated the parlous state of the public finances to justify new taxes. That overlooks the fact that official figures announced during the election campaign showed that the national debt had risen to its highest level since 1962 – higher than during the pandemic. According to the Tory press, the


£22 billion black hole simply does not exist – even though the Office of Budget Responsibility is investigating former chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s budget forecasts involving such a sum. LBC presenter James O’ Brien aptly summed up the campaign – in particular by the Daily Mail – against Sir Keir and the Labour government:


“


“Page after page of spluttering vitriol” designed to denigrate Starmer “for not much at all.” After all, this was the paper that not only justified ‘the depravity and incompetence’ of Boris Johnson when prime minister but also gave him a lucrative column after he had been removed by his colleagues. “What will they [the Mail] have left if/


There was barely a honeymoon moment before the storm of cronyism, sleaze and scandal broke over the head of new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer


when he [Starmer] really messes up?” O’Brien asks. There are areas where Labour can be criticised. The removal of winter fuel allowances from 10 million pensioners seems too broadly drawn and will cause hardship to too many. The biggest flaw in Starmer policymaking is one the right-wing press will never criticise him for – not in the most obvious way anyway. Starmer is turning a blind eye to the biggest black hole of all: the annual £100 billion cost in lost output of Brexit, according to Bloomberg, and the resulting £40 billion hit to the public purse. Starmer is still insisting the Brexit issue is settled when it is clearly not, with a growing majority happy to rejoin the European Union. He is even against rejoining the Erasmus scheme that allows young people to study in the EU. Political expert Sir John Curtice has argued that Starmer had nothing to fear from Red Wall seats and that he would have got a larger share of the vote had he supported joining the single market. Sir Keir should be criticised for all of the above, but not by the Brexit- supporting press which is accusing him of Brexit betrayal for largely symbolic trips to Germany and France. In that – as in many things – the


right-wing press have still not come to terms with the prospect of at least five more years of Labour government. And, as they continue to splutter their vitriol, they face increasing irrelevance.


theJournalist | 09


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28