I need to say some preliminaries at the outset. This is not my response to the latest whacking from bits of the media. It is not a whinge about how unfair it all is. As I always say, it's an immense privilege to do this job and if the worst that happens is harsh media coverage, it's a small price to pay.
Not a whinge eh Tony, well it walks like a duck, talks like a duck... And anyway the worst that happens is, with any luck, you will be up before a war crimes tribunal.
A free media is a vital part of a free society. You only need to look at where such a free media is absent to know this truth. But it is also part of freedom to be able to comment on the media. It has a complete right to be free. I, like anyone else, have a complete right to speak.
I think he was hoping that people with their goldfish-like attention spans would have forgotten about this bit of the speech when later on he said
...The regulatory framework at some point will need revision...
...But under the new European regulations all television streamed over the internet may be covered by OFCOM...
...I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair...
So not such a complete right to be free at all then.
It is that the relationship between politics, public life and the media is changing as a result of the changing context of communication in which we all operate; no-one is at fault - it is a fact; but it is my view that the effect of this change is seriously adverse to the way public life is conducted; and that we need, at the least, a proper and considered debate about how we manage the future, in which it is in all our interests that the public is properly and accurately informed.
Ah of course, we need a debate. Tony, your government does not do debates, you don't trust us (quite rightly) to give the right answers so you lie, cheat, pretend that debate has been had, ignore 2,000,00o signatures on a petition against road pricing or 2,000,000 people marching against the war as "unrepresentative of public opinion". Hell's donkeys only today we have Tessa Jowell saying about the piece of shite that is the Olympic logo "It's staying no matter what you think, so fuck you!" so don't give me this debate bollocks. What you mean is "you bastards in the fourth estate are really chapping my balls now you caught us with our pants down yet again so we're coming for you, you wankers."
We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media ... but such an attitude ran the risk of fuelling the trends in communications that I am about to question.
God he's such a weasel he could just turn up at Anthrocon and all the furs would go "Wow! great weasel costume!" So you threw fuel on the media fire and now you're all upset 'cos you got burnt. I'll just send the for waaaahbulance shall I?
I would only point out that the Hutton Inquiry (along with 3 other inquiries) was a six month investigation in which I as Prime Minister and other senior Ministers and officials faced unprecedented public questioning and scrutiny. The verdict was disparaged because it was not the one the critics wanted.
No, it was disparaged because it was obvious to every life form from amoebae upwards that it was a complete and utter whitewash you mendacious cunt.
We devote reams of space to debating why there is so much cynicism about politics and public life. In this, the politicians are obliged to go into self flagellation, admitting it is all our fault.
Of course it is your fault. You are the ones doing the lying, cheating, covering up and pissing our taxes up the wall. You are the ones saying "let's have a debate" and ignoring what people tell you. You are the ones promising referenda and then not holding them when it becomes obvious that the people are going to give the "wrong" answer. The press are reporting this, and they are doing it more efficiently and we are becoming more cynical more efficiently too.
And, believe it or not, most politicians come into public life with a desire to serve and by and large, try to do the right thing not the wrong thing.
Actually I am prepared to believe you there. I would however question how long they are in the job before the drug of power overcomes them and they become the venial, self serving pustules on the arse of humanity that they all seem to be.
My view is that the real reason for the cynicism is precisely the way politics and the media today interact.
Absolutely true. Like I said, you lot lie and cheat, the press reports this, we all get cynical and don't believe a fucking word you say. Wouldn't you agree Tony?
We, in the world of politics, because we are worried about saying this, play along with the notion it is all our fault.
Obviously not.
So I introduced: first, lobby briefings on the record; then published the minutes; then gave monthly press conferences; then Freedom of Information
This would be the freedom of information legislation that you're trying to exempt yourselves from would it? Just asking, not being cynical or anything.
None of it to any avail, not because these things aren't right, but because they don't deal with the central issue: how politics is reported.
No Tony, none of these work because again these are just more talking shops where you hand down the latest diktat to the proles. People don't listen because they are sick and tired of you continuing to bullshit them.
If you are a backbench MP today, you learn to give a press release first and a good Parliamentary speech second... The sooner we recognise this, the better because we can then debate a sensible way forward.
There's that debate we're going to have, just as soon as we 'fess up that it's not the politicians' fault of course.
[The Media] are not the masters of this change but its victims. The result is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by "impact". Impact is what matters. ... It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.
Ah this is clever. See what he did there. It is the media's fault because they are, of course, partly in the entertainment business and driven by a need to make sales and hence profits. But you see we can't blame them because they are victims. In Blair's Britain everyone has to be a victim of some kind because victims need help, help from the state; we'll do your thinking for you, don't you worry.
News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light. Second, attacking motive is far more potent than attacking judgement. It is not enough for someone to make an error. It has to be venal. Conspiratorial.
Problem is Tony you and your coterie of fuckers would never, ever admit to a mistake. It could never be your fault. When did you last see anyone from NuLabour stick their hands up and go "OK, I fucked up, I'll resign" So with that in mind we are forced to question motive.
I'll skip bit about the "feral beast" if you don't mind as it was just a bit of window dressing to get a headline and doesn't really add anything to what he was saying. Instead we'll jump forward a couple of paragraphs to:
So - for example - there will often be as much interpretation of what a politician is saying as there is coverage of them actually saying it. In the interpretation, what matters is not what they mean; but what they could be taken to mean.
Well if it were possible for any of you to actually say something clearly without spin or obfuscation then this would not be necessary. When your government habitually tells half truths and open lies can you blame people for actually trying to work out what you actually mean when one of you opens their festering gobs?
This leads to the incredibly frustrating pastime of expending a large amount of energy rebutting claims about the significance of things said, that bears little or no relation to what was intended.
Tough titties, reap the whirlwind.
Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism. But it is supposed to be separate. Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course.
Leaving aside for the moment that the concept of "truth" is something completely alien to you Tony and which you would not recognise if it stuffed a spiked horse dildo down your throat this is, with respect, utter crap. News is always written with some form of opinion or bias, no matter how small and it always has been. The simple choice of words gives a news story a slant. You were in law once, when you were in court I'll bet you picked your words carefully to slant the "facts" in the direction to show your client in the best possible light. Journalist and news editors are no different and never were; something to do with being human I think.
The metaphor for this genre of modern journalism is the Independent newspaper. Let me state at the outset it is a well-edited lively paper and is absolutely entitled to print what it wants, how it wants, on the Middle East or anything else.
That Robert Fisk must really, really piss you of, eh Tony?
The final consequence of all of this is that it is rare today to find balance in the media.
Translation: The media are not saying what I want them to say, therefore they are biased.
"Some good, some bad"; "some things going right, some going wrong": these are concepts alien to today's reporting. It's a triumph or a disaster. A problem is "a crisis". A setback is a policy "in tatters". A criticism, "a savage attack"
"Look I keep putting out press releases saying how wonderful things are and you never print them. Why don't you like me any more?"
Talk to any public service leader - especially in the NHS or the field of law and order - and they will tell you not that they mind the criticism, but they become totally demoralised by the completely unbalanced nature of it.
No, try talking to the people who actually work in the NHS or in Law and Order and they will tell you that they are totally demoralised by the constant meddling from government and endless, idiotic tick-the-box targets whose only purpose is for you to spin the next "best year ever" story to... the media!
It used to be thought - and I include myself in this - that help was on the horizon. New forms of communication would provide new outlets to by-pass the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media.
Ah yes, but they went and gave those new outlets to the very people you had been shafting all these years and so not surprisingly...
In fact, the new forms can be even more pernicious, less balanced, more intent on the latest conspiracy theory multiplied by five.
Yep, we all turned on you and gave you a bloody good shoeing as well.
At present, we are all being dragged down by the way media and public life interact. Trust in journalists is not much above that in politicians. There is a market in providing serious, balanced news. There is a desire for impartiality.
And your evidence for the above is?
And there is inevitably change on its way. The regulatory framework at some point will need revision. The PCC is for traditional newspaper publishing. OFCOM regulate broadcasting, except for the BBC, which largely has its own system of regulation. But under the new European regulations all television streamed over the internet may be covered by OFCOM. As the technology blurs the distinction between papers and television, it becomes increasingly irrational to have different systems of accountability based on technology that no longer can be differentiated in the old way. The distinction between balance required of broadcasters but not of papers remains valid. But at some point the system is going to change and the importance of accuracy will not diminish, whilst the freedom to comment remains.
You read it here first folks. I will bet you a pound to a penny that in the very near future the first rumblings of regulating newspapers will come creeping out of Westminster. You will have to be "balanced" which, of course, means "print what we say". And after the papers, they'll come for the blogs.
It is sometimes said that the media is accountable daily through the choice of readers and viewers. That is true up to a point. But the reality is that the viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to measure what they are being told.
And the "Objective" view is of course whatever NuLab tells you it is.
I am not in a position to determine this one way or another.
Not after the 27th you're not.
I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair.
"You are enemies of the state, you will be regulated against."
The damage saps the country's confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.
You are an impediment to what Tony wants to do which is always the "right decision" of course. All the guff about "country" and "institutions" is balls, what he means is "You lot have rumbled the fact that my government is a lying, corrupt bunch of slimeballs and wankers and so I'm going to make sure you let get fucked over."
What an evil little twat he is. Him and his sorry excuse for a government can't go fast enough
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