Tuesday 21 December 2010

Repeating a 'Cri de Coeur'

Courtesy of Autonomous Mind and his '5 Star Blogging', my attention is drawn to this post from the Adam Smith Institute in an article highlighting the continuing problem about who governs our nation:
"Stranger still, the media are silent. Surely who governs Britain is a newsworthy topic? Cameron talks tough but actually goes along with whatever Merkel and Sarkozy agree, e.g. the EU budget and the transfer of Financial Services lawmaking to Brussels. He definitely does not want the gap between his EU bluster and his achievements exposed in the media. The Lib Dems, naturally, favour closer integration within the EU legal system with no questions asked. Andy Coulson is doing for Cameron what Alastair Campbell did for Blair. Mark Thomson has admitted that the BBC is soft on the EU and this can be interpreted as deliberately keeping the sovereignty issue out of the headlights. If someone does not wake up the media, this will not be our country any more."
I can do no more to reinforce the ASI's plea in respect of waking up the media, than to draw reader's attention to this post and this from November this year. It has been shown that the blogosphere does drive the media content - witness the many instances where the media have written about subjects that have been commented upon by bloggers days previously, or where bloggers have shown that what the media has written is either totally incorrect, or biased.

At present we no more have a free and informative press than did the USSR or the Third Reich. Our 'so-called' journalists are dependent on their income for access to government ministers and MPs, therefore they are faced with the situation whereby should they write or broadcast anything detrimental to that minister's or MP's good name or actions, their income will abruptly be halted - hardly conducive to a free and informative media.

We, the public, are fed 'pap' by our media - invariably 'cut & pasted from government statements - aided and abetted by surveys which now appear almost weekly showing Labour leading the Coalition where public voting intentions are concerned. FFS, we are 7 months into what is supposed to be a 5 year parliamentary term! Is it any wonder that a party, whose mismanagement of our economy during the last 13 years, is considered the better alternative when that public are not properly informed of the previous government's past record? It cannot be purely due to the public's memory only having an attention span of 6 months - can it?

Following the Cable 'affair', this evening we get the following appearing on Twitter:
" House Of Twits
RT @ There isn't an MP in Parliament who will trust or speak with any openess to anyone they don't know well ever again."
In effect what Dorries is stating is that, like the media with their public, she will not be 'transparent' with any of her constituents with whom she is not previously acquainted. Is Dorries not supposed to be 'open and honest' with those she has been elected to represent?

In one respect the ASI is slightly 'behind the times' - when our media is 'muzzled', or just plain incompetent; when our elected representatives do not feel able to be open and honest with those who pay their salaries; when our Prime Minister admits in Parliament that he is powerless to stop any future UK participation in bail-outs until 2013 and that 'snippet' is not reported in the media; when the immigrant and criminal population appear to have more 'rights' than those of the indigenous population - then this most definitely is not our country any more!

5 comments:

john in cheshire said...

WfW, I agree. And one obstacle that must be overcome is that of provenance. For whatever reasons, I believe that if something is not in the MSM, then the general public do not regard it as being important, and will consequently will not form an opinion about it.

Witterings from Witney said...

This post answers your comment on my previous - and your comment to this post is unfortunatey so true!

Anonymous said...

Frankly I think in the end we all fuck off to somewhere warm and leave the immigrants to it.

Never did much like this country anyway and its political system is shit, its NHS is fit for dogs and the education system is such that it will only adequately suffice third world status.

As those Northerners on the TV programme might say nolikyfukofi

Witterings from Witney said...

Anonymous: Oh dear, we are not a very happy bunny are we?

Much as I would like to go somewhere warm, I am going nowhere until some retribution has been dished out!

Autonomous Mind said...

Many thanks for the hat tip. Much appreciated!