There is a revolving door between senior political broadcasting in this country,
and the ruling Conservative government.
Allegra Stratton who this weekend would become the spin doctor,
for the conservative chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak.
She's currently, or was, the national editor of ITV,
before that she was the political editor of Newsnight.
In that role she was responsible for an interview with a single mum,
who was in work a benefit claiming looking after her and her family:
"Your on Housing Benefit, you get help from the state for your housing,
don't you think that you should have possibly lived at home,
until the point at which you could support your own house?"
This was an interview at the very height of the benefit bashing,
portraying benefit claimants as all a bunch of feckless scroungers,
to justify the Conservative assaults on the welfare state,
with all the misery that caused to so many people.
This interview was a hatchet job on a woman in a very vulnerable situation,
it's very uncomfortable interview to watch and it was so bad in its distortion,
and miss portrayal, falsely portraying her as an unemployed person,
who was playing the system, that the BBC had to apologise,
on Newsnight three months later:
"An apology on the 23rd of May during an item on welfare reform we broadcast,
an interview with Sharene Thorpe that unfairly created the mistaken impression,
that she was unemployed and wholly dependent on benefits and suggested,
that she was living off the state as a lifestyle choice."
Allegro Stratton is just the latest example of this revolving door.
David Cameron, he hired the former editor of the BBC 6 o'clock,
and 10 o'clock news to be his spin doctor.
Theresa May, she hired Robbie Gibb who was in charge,
of the political broadcasting of the BBC.
Or George Osborne who hired the lead BBC political producer,
or Boris Johnson who hired as mayor of London the BBC's former chief,
political correspondent as his spin doctor.
This is a revolving door and my word is it busy,
The government itself has its fingers on the funding taps of the BBC,
it has this constant threat of privatisation hanging over the corporation.
All of that allows it to exert huge pressure on the corporation.
Let's think about our current crisis,
Britain is one of the worst hit countries on earth,
it may well end up the worst hit country in Europe.
Now Dominic Cummings sat on the supposedly independent body,
the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies SAGE.
And yet the BBC gave his wife a slot on BBC Radio 4,
to discuss how kind an individual Dominic Cummings is:
"He's an extremely kind man whatever people assume to the contrary."
What kind of shit is that!
Is that is speaking truth to power? Providing eulogies from the wife,
of one of the key advisors who has many, many questions to (answer),
about a catastrophe which has killed so many people.
Take our own horrific death toll,
the official death toll in hospitals has now surpassed 20,000.
But, according to the Financial Times based on excess deaths,
as analysed by the Office of National Statistics,
it's likely to be over twice as many well over 40,000 dead people.
In places like France for example they're already integrating care home deaths,
in a way that we're not. But are we talking about it?
Remember those scenes in Italy when thousands were dying,
and it was portrayed as apocalyptic and yet when it happens here.
it's almost being normalised.
Foreign news outlets are looking at this country in horror as one of the,
worst examples of mismanagement of this horrific pandemic.
But that is not being reflected by the vast majority of our own media.
Take the daily press conferences and press briefings,
where politician after politician can perform as though they're statesmen like,
but with questions that don't get follow- ups allowing them to evade questions.
The whole thing is a travesty which is simply,
a PR exercise for our governing ministers.
"We'll see you again no doubt at the same time tomorrow"
When the Sunday Times in a genuinely brilliant piece of investigative journalism,
revealed the disaster after disaster which this government's responsible for,
leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people.
The response of Robert Peston he said he was 'gobsmacked' by these revelations,
Robert Peston is known for his close relationship,
with key Downing Street officials.
He himself was the first journalist to be briefed,
about the herd immunity policy which he wrote up on his own blog.
What does that tell us about the relationship between journalists,
and the people who are running this country?
We do deserve a media which is independent of vested interests,
which is able and willing to challenge those in authority,
without fear or favour and arms its citizens,
with the information they need to make informed decisions.
If there had been far more scrutiny of the government's actions earlier on,
Is it possible the government would have been forced to change course earlier,
and could that have helped save thousands of lives?
That is why a press which genuinely stands up to those with power,
is so important it quite literally can be a matter of life and death.
Now Double Down News is one example of a media organisation doing exactly that.
Independent and trying to get truths which are otherwise ignored,
to as big an audience as possible.
So please, please support DDN on Patreon it's in the interests,
of actually saving our democracy and there are few things as important as that.