EU Referendum: Leave.EU Gets It Wrong Again.

My previous post about Leave.EU's ill-advised tweet regarding Guy Fawkes suggesting they were advocating murder attracted some criticism not least from commenter AndrewZ who noted:

You will only damage your own credibility with that kind of hyperbole.

My comment in response outlined the danger to the leave movement when it makes such comments:

People's true feelings are often expressed using humour. We remember the 10:10 video campaign which featured people being blown up. They said it was a joke but Franny Armstrong's subsequent comments showed she clearly meant it.

More importantly though, the EU referendum has a huge number of vested interests riding on it. Therefore when we enter the campaign proper (particularly if polls show a strong leave vote) then the fight will be very dirty.

The leave.eu is going for official designation and if it wins it will come under sustained and vigorous attack. -no-holds barred. If it produces tweets like that then they will be condemned across the establishment in precisely the language I have used above.

Dismissing it as silly is no excuse, there's going to be no prisoners taken during this fight and the criticism leave.eu will face with tweets will leave this blog piece looking mild by comparison.

It's a warning to Banks' of what he can expect

And so it proves on Remembrance Sunday again resulting from a tweet posted by Leave.EU:

Campaigners who want Britain to leave the European Union sparked a furious row today after using Remembrance Day poppies to attack Brussels.

Organisers of the Leave.EU campaign were branded 'shameful', 'disgraceful' and 'disgusting' for posting a tweet which said suggested staying in the EU would 'give up values for which our ancestors paid the ultimate sacrifice'.

Critics said Remembrance Sunday should not be used to score political points before the tweet was deleted.

I didn't anticipate such evidence to back up my previous post would happen so soon.

And this is how a referendum will be played out - every misguided tweet will be highlighted, reported and taken out of context. Deleting said tweet by Leave.EU is an admission that it is portraying itself as a bunch of amateurs.

This referendum is going to be a brutal fight, yet both of the leave campaigns attempting to win official designation are showing a worrying lack of appreciation of this reality.

EU Referendum: Media Bias

During the 1975 referendum all the newspapers bar one – the communist Morning Star – supported EEC membership. Such positive support in the media for staying in the EU would be almost identical today, liberally sprinkled with FUD, as illustrated above, with possibly the dubious exception of the Daily Express. Even the likes of the supposedly eurosceptic Daily Mail has made it clear, in editorials, that it supports EU membership:

Let the Mail lay all its cards on the table. This paper has no desire for Britain to pull out of Europe — and particularly not at a time like this, when withdrawal would add immeasurably to the uncertainties threatening our recovery and rocking the confidence of the markets.

The economic FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) has already started in earnest. Courtesy of the BBC across it's broadcasting outlets we have this from Bank of England governor Mark Carney:

[He] has said that the UK should hold its EU referendum "as soon as necessary".

"We talk to a lot of bosses and there has been uncertainty whether it's for the election or the referendum," said Mr Carney on the BBC's Today programme.

Analysts fear businesses may delay making investments while there is uncertainty over Britain's future in the EU.

"FUD, FUD glorious FUD" means that if we are to win a referendum, it is essential to negate it by making it clear that the UK will remain in the Single Market post exit for the time being as to make it economically neutral. It remains our only hope of clearing the first hurdle required to ultimately win.

But it’s certainly obvious that it will be a significant challenge in trying to overturn the message of the establishment, media and FUD, all of which will be heavily funded. Not least because the eurosceptic movement is so divided with no coherent message.

Certainly this was the experience of the early 1970's with our entry into the then EEC where pro-market lobby groups were co-ordinated under the umbrella of the European Movement part funded by the EU Commission to act as an integral part of the government campaign.

Efforts were made, by the Heath government, to bring the media on board particularly the BBC where eurosceptic presenters were dismissed in favour of more sympathetic ones. Less competent or more divisive spokesmen were chosen by the media, and the BBC, to represent the "out" campaign for negative effect.

We are, therefore, in danger of being greatly damaged by FUD, and currently we are losing the FUD war - it's being created faster than can be responded to by various media outlets including blogs. Richard North notes:

Talking yesterday to a senior politician, he observed that the "out" campaign should already have a rapid rebuttal unit up and running, to deal with this sort of thing. To my mind, it is an indictment of Ukip, which should already be equipped to handle false claims.

Thus the "out" campaign is going to have to establish its own permanent rebuttal units to monitor and counter media FUD. This was a tactic very successfully adopted by New Labour in the lead up to their landslide victory in 1997. Peter Oborne's book on Alastair Campbell observes (page 134):

[Campbell] put into effect the new electoral technology which New Labour had imported from the United States: the giant media war-room, the 24 hour monitoring of television, radio and press outlets, a rapid rebutal serivce, a savage clampdown on MPS and Shadow ministers who spoke out of turn...Labour's ferocious internal discipline was the key to its success.

In stark contrast to the [Tories]...Labour MPS were prevailed upon to limit their public utterances to the bland platitudes imposed upon them by the party machine.

...what gave Labour complaints the edge was that they were inevitably well-researched and sensibly focused. The vigilance was extraordinary. Roger Mosey, then the editor of the Today programme, recalls: 'If you had a line that Labour didn't like on the 6.30am bulletin you got called instantly. Often Labour complaints had some substance...if there was a glimmer of an inaccuracy they were onto you.'

This gives an indication of the ruthlessless required to win a referendum, particularly if the odds are stacked against us. The internet and social media becomes the key.

In addition with newspapers we have a complaints procedure, which obviously anyone can use. Post-Leveson what was the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has now become the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and we will address the significance of this with a subsequent piece.

Here we will concentrate on television broadcasters. The 1975 referendum, being the first nationwide poll of its kind in the UK, presented broadcasters with hitherto unknown dilemmas of balance and responsibility. Up to that point, in general elections, broadcasters used the existing strength of parties in MPs, or in votes, at the last election as a guide in establishing the priorities of the coverage.

The White Paper of February 1975 offered no particular formula or solution, instead its 'advice' was one of hope rather than one born out of regulatory oversight (page 19):

4.9 The Government are confident that the IBA and BBC will exercise editorial discretion designed to ensure that there is a fair balance between the opposing views in news and feature programmes. The broadcasting authorities may also decide to run a series of short "referendum broadcasts" analogous to party political broadcasts. In this way an equal number of short periods of television time would-be"made available to the main campaigning organisations in the two or three weeks before polling day.

The Government would welcome such an initiative.

Whereas in 1975, the government was "confident", hardly an endorsement of rigorous oversight, now we have regulatory authorities in place regarding the impartiality of broadcasters.

With the establishment of the Ofcom under the Communications Act 2003 and the establishment of the Electoral Commission under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 the broadcasting oversight is more structured which means that crucially it is an avenue where we can complain. Ofcom provided examples of this oversight during the Scottish referendum.

With regard to Ofcom, broadcasters should ensure that they comply with Section Five: (Due Impartiality and Due Accuracy and Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions):

To ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality. To ensure that the special impartiality requirements of the Act are complied with.

And broadcasters also have to comply with Section Six (Elections and Referendums) of the Code:

To ensure that the special impartiality requirements in the Communications Act 2003 and other legislation relating to broadcasting on elections and referendums, are applied at the time of elections and referendums. 

In addition, there is the prohibition of political advertising in Section 321 of the Communications Act 2003:

(2) For the purposes of section 319(2)(g) an advertisement contravenes the prohibition on political advertising if it is:

(a) an advertisement which is inserted by or on behalf of a body whose objects are wholly or mainly of a political nature;

(b) an advertisement which is directed towards a political end; or

(c) an advertisement which has a connection with an industrial dispute.

(3) For the purposes of this section objects of a political nature and political ends include each of the following:

(a) influencing the outcome of elections or referendums, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere;

This applies to the multitude of local television and radio outlets with the exception of the BBC which is overseen by the BBC Trust.

In the 1960's JFK embraced the relatively new medium of television to great effect, this in contrast Barack Obama who embraced the new medium of the internet in 2008. His internet campaign was crucial to winning the Presidency.

We can therefore learn the lessons of using a new medium to try to keep the old medium of broadcasters "honest", or by simply by-passing them. Thus in the UK we can embrace the internet in the same effective way and with regulatory bodies in place over the traditional legacy media  the internet allows us as individuals to facilitate a campaign to ensure some resemblance of impartiality. The simple use of Twitter has worked before

Thus unlike 1975 we now have the internet and everything that comes with it; smartphones, Twitter, Facebook and forums. The establishment no longer has a monopoly on information. Scotland revealed the significance of this development. The independence campaign was a dry run of how an EU referendum would be conducted and it showed comprehensively that unofficial campaigns centered on social media was very powerful.

By using the internet to lobby regulatory bodies, each one of us can make a small but significant difference.

Daily Fail

Understandably the Daily Mail has its main story the sad death of Michael Payne, father of of Sarah Payne who was murdered in 2000. Given his death is attributed to alcohol abuse it's more than a little insensitive to run with this story directly underneath:

Demolition

Despite on a personal level having a great view of the Didcot cooling towers coming down, for some reason I failed to capture decent footage on my mobile phone. Thus instead I've uploaded footage from a mate who was camped in a field nearby (1:05 mins in):



Interestingly the Express noted on the demolition that:

About 1,000 earybird [sic] spectators gathered to watch the fall of Didcot power station, which has stood in Oxfordshire for more than 40 years.

Yet the 1,000 'earlybird' figures put forward by the Express were contradicted by the Daily Mail, the Independent and the Guardian which reported identically:

Hundreds of locals are thought to have defied the guidance issued by power company RWE npower to stay away from the site and watch the demolition via a webcam livestream.

Given that the power station can be seen for miles around, the figures reported spectators gathering to view the demolition are undoubtedly completely wrong. The area where I chose to watch the spectacle was standing room only - filling up from midnight onwards five hours before the actual event.

Plenty of other areas surrounding the power station were the same in terms popularity. Thus there was no way of accurately judging the number of locals given the scale of the viewing area which amounted to a large part of the county.

Again we see a media not interested in facts just making up spectators figures to suit lazy journalism.

My Party Won The Euro Elections

By a complete landslide the party which I was part of but for whom I did not vote won the Euro elections. I was a member of the 65.8% of voters who declined to participate to send any more MEPs to what is a very lucrative (for those elected) but largely pointless Parliament.

Much though instead is being made of the party which came a very distant second - UKIP. It does demonstrate the utter pointlessness the Euro elections have for UK voters, and contempt for domestic parties in general, that not only did most not bother to vote, but of those who did many were prepared to vote for a party which has no policies...at all.

By dismissing the 2010 manifesto as "drivel", yet failing to produce a new manifesto in its place and to have no EU exit plan, UKIP officially has no policies by its own admission. Voters' are effectively dismissing the Euros as irrelevant by lending their votes to UKIP safe in the knowledge it won't actually change anything.

Therefore the Euros are rarely a guide to how parties will fare in general elections. UKIP won 4,352,051 votes, nearly 4½ times its 2010 general election vote. Experience shows that when it comes to the more serious business of general elections the UKIP vote will undoubtedly be squeezed hard. For example in 2009 it won 2,498,226 votes in the Euros which then dropped to 919,546 in 2010.

But while being the Official Monster Non-Policy Policy Party will have little effect on its performance in the Euros it will pose a very significant and potentially damaging problem for UKIP in 2015.
 
Leading up to the Euros UKIP came under a great deal of inevitable smearing regarding alleged racism, homophobia and anything else the papers could conjure up (or received as briefing from the Tories forensically searching social media sites). Clearly though the tactic didn't work and it's rather nauseating to see the rapid about turn in newspaper editorials as a result, particularly this from the Mail:

Instead of addressing voters’ genuine concerns on mass immigration and the corrupt, power-hungry EU machine, the big three parties believed they could defeat Nigel Farage with smears and lazy accusations of ‘racism’.

The Mail – while, we repeat, carrying no torch for Ukip – warned that such arrogant, cack-handed tactics would backfire, and so it proved.

The smears though did have some effect, albeit one that is probably marginal according to UK Polling Report:

Together those two [polls] make it look pretty conclusive that the attacks on UKIP did damage perceptions of the party. More people think the party and Farage are racist. However, it does NOT necessarily follow that it damaged their vote – it could just have served to further entrench negative views amongst people who didn’t like UKIP anyway.

As a consequence of the limited damage done, we can now anticipate that there will be a change of tactics, assessing instead the performances of newly elected UKIP councillors and highlighting the lack of substance within UKIP policy.

Here the real danger lies - a party of no substance will be quickly exposed and will be damaging. We have already seen the consequences of this with Suzanne Evans' recent incoherent interview over UKIP policy (or lack of) on UK exit. We suspect that a number of newly elected councillors, representing a party without policies, will fare little better under more intense scrutiny either.

Meanwhile as Richard North notes despite what the "citizens of the EU" say the march of integration continues. Nothing amply demonstrates this better than the Lib Dem Andrew Duff losing his seat. Duff was the co-author of the Fundamental Law of the EU - the next step forward in EU political integration via a new Treaty. Losing his seat will have no bearing on the progress of this. Barroso says as the results were being declared:

"It is now of the essence to have a clear understanding on political priorities for the next political cycle, so that a proper institutional transition according to the treaty rules demonstrates the Union's capacity to act".

In other words it's business as usual for the EU. As Complete Bastard observes: 

The people are no closer to the levers of power, and we are no closer to leaving the EU. 

UKIP's lack of policies will ensure this will remain the case.

Losing The EU Referendum

Let's not beat around the bush, without a fully worked-out policy and strategy on how to leave the EU any referendum on EU exit will be lost for those who wish out. It's as simple as that. And should the "outers" lose it's game over for at least a generation, probably more. We won't have another chance - it won't be a "best of three".

We don't actually need to have a referendum - there was no referendum to enter the EEC (EU) - and there needs to be no referendum to leave. Yet we must acknowledge that the reality of current political momentum which suggests strongly that our exit will hinge very decisively on one being called.

So should a referendum be called, we face an extremely unfair fight against a pro-EU and ignorant media (including the Express and the state broadcaster), an unfair fight against all of the main political parties, an unfair and dishonest fight against FUD and the need to overcome the "status quo" effect which has an inbuilt advantage of around 20%.

It's imperative therefore that there should be a reassuring policy on EU exit which attempts to alleviate any concerns. This involves invoking Article 50, parking the economic issue temporarily via EFTA/EEA membership, and campaigning on the political (democracy) issue alone giving us a fighting chance.

On Article 50 at least we thought that the UKIP's position was settled when Farage confirmed at least twice that the Article would have to be invoked. But despite being a one man party he clearly isn't in total command when UKIP literature is being distributed contradicting him in the run up to the Euro elections.

Such confusion and a lack of available policy on UKIP's website means the "Life on Mars" option is still alive and kicking as Witterings from Witney notes:

Yesterday evening The Boiling Frog and I spent some time on twitter trying to convince three Ukip supporters that that which they were tweeting was pure fantasy. We were presented with statements such as the old canard that repeal of ECA 1972 meant the UK was free of EU membership; that abrogation of ECHR would mean the EU would promptly rescind the UK’s membership of the EU; and that a new trade agreement could be placed on the table within 24 hours for signature. In our attempted ‘debate’ matters are not helped when it is suggested that I should Go and smoke another spliff – leave it for the rest of us to sort out the mess; neither when I am called a supercilious tit in the comments to this post. Such ignorance is indeed a tad terrifying. 

That somehow 40 years of integration and hugely complex international agreements can just be undone in 24 hours really does defy belief.

More crucially failure to confront the nature of our exit by UKIP inevitably leads to split messages. And split messages don't win referendum campaigns, in the same way split parties don't win elections as per the 1906 General Election when the Conservatives lost by a landslide which was largely attributed to a party split over free trade.

The lack of a policy by UKIP leads this rather incoherent interview with UKIP councillor - who defected to UKIP from the Tories - Suzanne Evans. She was asked by Andrew Neil on the BBC's Sunday Politics if UKIP had published a "roadmap" if the vote was a yes to leave.

Suzanne Evans response was; "wouldn't that be great?" Well yes it would actually, which begs the question why has it not been done?

Some argue that UKIP is an "amateur party" with limited funds in contrast to others, but that of course is no excuse. Seventeen shortlisted entrants to the Brexit prize produced papers on precisely that issue within four months including one from a 15 year old boy. A damning indictment on UKIP's failure to produce one in twenty years with well-paid MEPs.

As Christopher Booker observes in the Sunday Telegraph:

It is equally disturbing that a party founded on a desire to extricate us from the EU should have no properly worked-out policy for how this could be done. Ask Ukip what are the practical steps whereby we could achieve a successful exit from the EU, and the answer is little more than a blank stare and empty platitudes. 

Andrew Neil pressed Suzanne Evans further on whether UKIP had a "roadmap". Her answers remained very unconvincing stating that she's "not a legal expert on this" and that "we could come out quickly or there's a longer route as well". Then the question put to Suzanne was "but have [UKIP] published any of that detail". The response being;

"well...not, not that I have read but there are ways to do it..."

Then Suzanne continues that UKIP want to revert back to 1975 to "what people voted for". This despite the EEC was never an economic project nor a common market. The Treaty of Rome makes this perfectly clear:

"Determined to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe"

With Suzanne's statement to effectively revert back to a "golden age" that never existed she then gets caught out...Andrew Neil rightly asks her that the vote in 1975 involved the "free movement of people" which goes against a party which is now chasing the BNP vote on immigration. What a mess...

No doubt some will see this as another gratuitous anti-UKIP piece. My philosophy though was always been clear right from the outset when I joined the party - "my loyalty is to the cause not to any party". In its present guise UKIP are damaging the cause and for that reason I can no longer support them.

UKIP's current stance will lose us the referendum, the choice is increasingly becoming clear; it's either the party or EU exit. The two are no longer compatible.

Dark Souls

Well that didn't take long... With the tragic murder of a teacher by a 15 year old schoolboy, it was always inevitable the legacy media would attempt to find a link with video games or films. And thus it has come to pass. Blimey a 15 year old boy plays violent video games "exclusive", which probably applies to the vast majority of teenage boys.

You would think after the moral outrage 30 years ago over so-called "video nasties" the press would have given up by now. But no.

As it happens I currently have a copy of Dark Souls in my PS3, so if any readers were to learn of a disillusioned blogger going on a manic rampage through the House of Commons very soon at least we will all know the reason why...

Bob Crow

Naturally it is with a little shock to learn that the RMT leader, Bob Crow has died suddenly this morning – though I guess the manner of his passing is not entirely surprising. Many words undoubtedly will be expressed about his legacy which means there is little I could add that is of use to the extensive coverage that will ensure.

Typically for a rather forthright chap he divided opinions and so he does in death, going by the torrent of comments – split as they are by so-called “left” and “right”. Londoners obviously will probably have more passionate views than others.

Yet many of the venomous comments on the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph website seem to have forgotten that, like him or not, he was against the EU and our membership of it. He saw the insidious organisation for what it is and its impact on the working class members he represented.

Given his often uncompromising stance on other issues undoubtedly his eurosceptic views were genuine, as illustratrated by the No2EU party which he led, unlike the views of the more Judas goat like politicians we have become used to.

And so in that sense that's how this blog would like to remember him by.

Happiness Is A Warm Gun

As inevitable and predictable as the sun rising in the east, each time new technology emerges what subsequently follows is "moral panic". An irrational fear of the unknown. Naturally such scares sell newspapers – it promotes the idea that essentially we are all desperate to be serial killers, but the only thing that prevents us is the lack of technology. It’s similar to the phenomenon detailed in the book “Scared to Death".

This has been a common theme that exposed itself with massive clarity with the advent of cinema, home videos and computer games.

A classic example was the issue over the content of videos in the 1980s. Campaigner Mary Whitehouse notoriously gave a presentation to MPs in 1983; showed a compilation of highlights of so-called video nasties where many of the scenes of films, she objected to, were taken out of context and edited in such a manner as to create maximum impact. The result of her campaign was the 1984 Video Recordings Act.

It was an example of moral panic, one which culminated in this infamous Sun headline ten years later (pictured below), just after the conclusion of the trial regarding the tragic murder of Jamie Bulger, despite that no evidence existed that the film "Child's Play 3" had any relevance in case whatsoever. The judge had simply made it up:

Another example has been computer games. I always remember that the Daily Mail once had a full page spread complaining about the computer game Goldeneye, a best selling game on the Nintendo 64, inspired by the James Bond film of the same name.

“Die, die, die” was the headline, as it reported that a two year old boy said those words as he played the game. A headline that was shocking I’m sure...until we realised that his hands weren’t big enough to grasp the controller and so play the game properly and that the article was describing level four. Which meant that the 2 year old boy had to know terms like; “install covert modem” and “find data allocation tape” in order to progress through the game to get to level four. Less a problem in society, more an example of a boy genius.

With this mind we come on to new technology such as 3D printers and their potential ability to produce guns, as noted by this headline in Telegraph:

Sir Peter Fahey, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, told Sky News that the weapons were a “new phenomenon”, but said his officers were determined to prevent them making it onto the streets.

Earlier this year concerns were raised that the printers – which construct everyday solid items using very thin layers of plastic – could be used to make a gun containing no metal parts.

One can see a future "moral panic" in the making. I'm sure that 3D printers can make guns, but to complain is to assume that weapons cannot be made out of other relatively innocuous items.

For example a rocket launcher can be made out of a drainpipe and a model rocket, a weapon can be made out of very hot coffee laced with ridiculous amounts of sugar, a very effective crossbow can be made out of a wooden coat hanger, some wood, a couple of clothes pegs and an elastic band.

As the 1970’s film Scum (3:33 mins) clearly shows, a sock and a couple of snooker balls can also be very effective. It always amuses me that despite extremely strict security clearances and checks in UK airports they give out free newspapers as you board the plane – which can then be turned into a Millwall Brick.

Thus with 3D printers we can clearly envisage and predict another "moral panic" and a Daily Mail front page outlining the dangers of people...having such technology at home.

Nothing ever changes...

Hating Britain?

Apparently Ed Miliband and the Daily Mail have got into a right spat about the former father's political views. The Mail rather bluntly accuses Ed Miliband's father as; ‘The Man Who Hated Britain’. Mr Miliband objects to the attack on his father's legacy.

I have no wish to make a comment on the current dispute other than to suggest if you accuse others of hating your own country, democracy and the attack on British traditions, it's best not to publish stuff like this:

Let the Mail lay all its cards on the table. This paper has no desire for Britain to pull out of Europe [EU]...

New Pope

"We have a new Pope" writes the Daily Mail:

Who's this "we" you speak of...?

Life Imitates Art...

Last Week Matt from the Telegraph had this...

Then from the Mail today we have this:

Obviously we should always treat newspaper reports with caution but it comes to something when a cartoonist is effectively reporting the news rather than making a joke of it...

Control C + Control V Journalism

Currently the main headline on the Daily Mail website is the one pictured above. Topical you would think given that a fluttering of snow has fallen in this country in the last few days.

In 2010 the BBC reported this:

Reading carefully one notes a familiarity of phrases.

Dare Not Speak Its Name

If you look at the above picture, published in the Daily Mail, you'll spot a very big clue, one that even the government acknowledges, as per this (specifically page 12):

(d) information specific to the licence issued, numbered as follows:

4. (a) date of issue of the licence;

(b) date of expiry of the licence or a dash if the licence is valid indefinitely under the provision of Article 7(2)

6. photograph of the holder;

Yet amid the outrage not once does the Daily Mail even mention it:

More than two million motorists are unwittingly getting behind the wheel with an out-of-date driving licence that could land them with a fine of up to £1,000, a survey reveals today.

The problem stems from drivers wrongly believing that the photo-identity card they carry is for life. In fact, it must be renewed every ten years.

This, say insurance experts, is causing confusion and could  also render drivers’ insurance policies invalid.

Apparently the Daily Mail is a Eurosceptic paper.

"A Powerful Reputation For Accuracy"

So says Lord Leveson, regarding journalists:

During a speech at the University of Melbourne, he insisted there was an important difference between mainstream journalists with "a powerful reputation for accuracy" and bloggers and tweeters who were "no more than electronic versions of pub gossip".

Yet in the last 24 hours has been extensive coverage across the media - using cut 'n paste' - highlighting a video purporting to show a Golden Eagle trying to snatch a young child. The Daily Mail went as follows:

Kidnapper from the skies. The terrifying moment a golden eagle 'swooped down and snatched up a toddler' as he played in the park.

That same link now has headlines that have changed depicting a different story thus pretending it was right all along - because the footage is a fake. So much for accuracy, as this blog in the Guardian points out:

Shame on you, Guardian, for sharing fraudulent video with an unsuspecting public, thereby promoting misunderstanding of birds and fear of nature.

It goes onto detail the reasons why it's clearly a fraud - it obviously isn't a Golden Eagle and the baby looks suspiciously like a doll - before concluding the piece as follows:

All this evidence, taken together, means that this video is a golden teaching moment. It also means that the Guardian blew it by posting this video without including any analysis from a video expert as to whether it's real or ... artificially manufactured. Further, the Guardian blew it by not including comments from either an ornithologist or a birder as to whether this video portrayal is even plausible.

This is irresponsible journalism. By posting this video, the Guardian is actively promoting and reinforcing the public's misinformation and fear of birds of prey, and further alienating the public from nature. Publicly sharing this fraudulent video without any expert commentary serves to undermine the education and conservation efforts of many excellent organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the British Trust for Ornithology.

Ouch. Good to see Leveson was such a master of his brief.

Misleading

Following on from the Leveson Report, Newsflash from the UK has nicely spotted this from the European Commission political officer Marie-Madeleine Kanellopoulou, based in the EU's office in Westminster (ex Tory HQ) reported as saying,:

"We are following the Leveson inquiry to see the outcome. In the UK we have to deal with a very euro-sceptical British public and that's not helped by the hostile audience in the British press.

We want to engage with the media, with stakeholders and non governmental organisations.... but repeated mis-representation in the media was making communication of the true facts about EU policy difficult...

We are trying to rebut EU myths in the press but it is not easy because the Press Complaints Commission has a limited remit".

Apparently it's all the newspaper's fault we're Eurosceptic, if only they could make the media more compliant, we'll all be happy Europeans. Funny thing also about so-called Euro myths is the EU's rebuttal of them are ironically myths, we've been here before.

But then this has never been about establishing the truth.

A Bun Fight

Today some report by a Lord, a member of the establishment, will recommend legislation by other members of the establishment, to regulate the press - also members of the establishment - who will then moan that fellow members of the establishment shouldn't tell them what to say.

Despite that, members of the establishment known as the press who have for years self-regulated themselves on behalf of other members of the establishment, known as the government, preventing the consequences of many polices entering the public domain, or at least limiting the damage, in publicity terms, will complain that their right to 'bias by admission' should not be regulated by other members of the establishment.

Other members of the establishment, aka Cameron, will defend members of the establishment known as the press because it is in his interest to do so on behalf of the establishment known as the Government.

Further members of the establishment, will gloat in the demise of another membership of the establishment even though they employed a rampant peadophile, and were defended by other members of the establishment. Phone hacking, being a complaint brought about by members of the establishment, will complain that the establishment infringes on their privacy but also uses the said same establishment to further their careers.

But at least the comforting factor is that all members of the establishment agree with membership of another establishment.

Meanwhile the rest of us are fucked....

Deserving Better

It's Remembrance Sunday this weekend so undoubtedly, and rightly so, will be numerous articles on the many reasons why we should remember them.

An example being this article in Daily Mail showing Pathe footage from WW1 of soldiers suffering from the disturbing effects of shell shock.

What a shame it is then that the Daily Mail couldn't do the footage proper justice with a decent original piece rather than lazily copying and pasting large chunks of it from a BBC article in 2004

Royal Scandal

World Exclusive: Newly wed couple found sharing time together in a state of partial undress. See pages: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,21,23,24,
25.30,31...

Real news has gone AWOL. 

And not just news either. Much fuss is being made over whether two footballers who don't like each other will shake hands before the match. The sense of perspective needed was articulated by the QPR manager Mark Hughes:

"When I saw the list of [predicted] questions [from the press officer] that I was likely to have to answer today, there were nine on the handshakes and one on Hillsborough," Hughes said. "Ridiculous."

You get more grown up politics in Tintin

Weak, Weak, Weak

The Mail has an exclusive interview today with Cameron where he wails that the Lib Dems are holding him back from things he would like to do:

Mr Cameron singled out human rights law, reform of workplace rights and support for marriage as areas where Tory principles are being held in check but urged senior MPs growing tired of coalition not to ‘waste’ the next three years.

And so continues the running theme that beneath that Cameron veneer is a real Tory waiting to emerge if only events didn't conspire against him. If only the Lisbon Treaty wasn't passed before the election he wouldn't have had 'to let matters lie there', if only he had won the election, he could have thrown off the 'cuddly Tory' coat and reveal his inner Thatcher, if only he wasn't 'forced' into a coalition with the Lib Dems, he could have done all those things he wants to do but can't. If only... The joke's wearing a little thin.

However it wasn't the Lib Dems that forced Cameron to detoxify the Tory brand which included aspirations of being the greenest government ever and to stop banging on about Europe. Nor was it them that meant Cameron reneged on a cast iron referendum promise, nor putting a 3-line whip on a petition for an in/out referendum, nor for Cameron to break his party's long-standing commitment to pull Britain out of the EU's Common Fisheries Policy in 2006, nor trying to 'bury the Right' by ditching Tory policies faster than the Lib Dems could list them in 2010.

But apparently he wants us to believe that it's now those pesky Lib Dems - who lost 5 seats in 2010, who only make up 16% of the coalition and who are rather reluctant for an immediate General Election - that are tying poor old Dave's hands. Perhaps Dave thinks 'tail wagging the dog' headlines will make him look Prime Ministerial and statesman-like. It doesn't, it just makes him look weak, shallow and unprincipled - a fitting and accurate epitaph to his Premiership.