Micronews

Earlier this year Bozo Johnson's communications chief, Guto Harri, threatened to unleash a newspaper vendetta against the BBC in retaliation for its 'biased' coverage. The examples listed in the email are bizarre in their microscopic focus. Don't bore yourself unravelling the logic behind this, there is none, except that the Tories are using the current political juncture not to govern judciously and fairly in difficult times but to drastically gerrymander the terms of politics for the foreseeable future. If the Mayor of London is allowed to micromanage his (or her) coverage in supposedly independent mass media, we are living in a truly sick society.

But there's more, and it's more interesting. How can this be a plausible threat, for the Mayor of London to use the right-wing press to bring down the British Broadcasting Corporation? Have you been following the Leveson inquiry? This week's theme of investigation is the links between the political and media elite: it should be revealing (Tony Blair was today's star witness, according to him phone calls to Rupert Murdoch in the run up to the Iraq war were "nothing odd").

And finally, if you need any more evidence, just how thick these theives are, Guto Harri is now the communications director for News International.

A small illustration of the Tory agenda

The next boss of the BBC must be a Tory, according to the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said the guarantee of funding from the licence fee left BBC staff with "an innocent belief that everything in life should be 'free'".

He said: "No wonder – and I speak as one who has just fought a campaign in which I sometimes felt that my chief opponent was the local BBC news – the prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the left."

 

On this face of it this is hairy-assed nonsense (and bloody cheeky, firstly, because he had the slavish backing of most of the mainstream press, including all the papers in London, secondly, because this is a man with a definite naive sense of entitlement, whose idea of a jolly jape is to pretend his chief election rival is a concierge). It's utter gibberish not a million miles from the hard-right guff about 'cultural marxism'. But this is the Tory agenda. Their aim is to use as much of their time in government to go about rigging the terms of political debate for the next generation. The BBC is a throughly establishment establishment, for example, a senior figure from MI5 is always on the Board of Directors. But it is not right-wing enough for the Tories.

Airport delays could be solved by "a bit of racism"

But, because it's Jeremy Clarkson saying it, it will be ironic racism, and we'll all laugh heartily, like yuppies pissing on a homeless teenager. I do wonder what it's going to take to bring Clarkson down? Does he need to say something like: "I would like to see sections of the current population shot or gassed based on their skin colour, nationality, political opinions, physical fitness or level of income", before someone who is in charge of something says, "hang on a minute... that's not on". These are mere pipedreams. If he said that the Director General of the BBC would just shrug and reply: "he earns lots of money through DVD sales, what'd you want me to say?"

That time again...

The results of this week's BBC Question Time Bullshit Bingo, as curated by Keith Watermelon (remember this week was a Triple NHS rollover):

• The phrase "irresponsible strikes..."
• Blatant racism from one or more of the panel.
• Pretending everyone on housing benefit is unemployed.
• "The mess left by the last Labour government..."
• "Wealth creators" as synonym for employers.

How did you do?

Land of Chocolate

David Cameron hires a man to deal with press and public relations. He hires a man who used to work for News International as a journalist, a smart move. Communications Chief is a high profile role, just ask Alisdair Campbell: despite being given warnings about about employing this former journalist, David Cameron goes ahead. So long as he never asked said former journalist "so, is there anything I should know, anything from your past that might prove embarrassing or, who knows, maybe incriminating...?" David Cameron is not party to any crime.

David Cameron has a neighbour. This neighbour IS a journalist with News International. This neighbour is also a friend. The friend of David Cameron gets a new horse. The friend is understandably very proud and invites people round to see it. When David Cameron went round to have a ride on it he was not aware that it was a police horse lent to said journalist. Meanwhile, in a totally unconnected set of events, said journalist is suspected of bribing civil servants and police officers in return for information. So long as David Cameron never said "so, I see you have a new horse, that's interesting, where did you get it from...?" he cannot be party to any corruption.

David Cameron likes to eat, who doesn't? But he is a busy man. He has to have someone to arrange dining partners for him. Who wants to dine alone? But the people who arrange dining partners for David have a preference for Tory party donors suggest that the more you donate the better your access to David Cameron is and that £250,000 is the kind of money you need to sway government policy. So long as David Cameron never says, "hey, you've done so much for me, and you've been such good company while I've swallowed these canapes and drunk this champagne, is there anything I can do for you...?" he's not a corrupt scumbag for hire.

In other news David Cameron lives in the Land of Chocolate.

Bourgeois adjudicator finds bourgeois advocate not guilty of anything - shock

So why are we circling round this story like a dog round some tasty vomit? Here's a clue.

Jeremy Clarkson prompted more than 30,000 complaints when he said on BBC1's The One Show that striking public sector workers should be shot. But media regulator Ofcom has cleared the programme of breaching broadcasting regulations, saying viewers should be familiar with the Top Gear presenter's "provocative and outspoken nature".

Yes, folks, you could have expected Jeremy Clarkson to say something disgusting and right-wing about striking trade unionists, just as much as you'd expect the broadcasting establishment and press to back him to the hilt... but that's missing the point. Why should we expect it? Why should people have to put up with it? Jeremy Clarkson is a symptom, albeit a prominent symptom, of the coarsening of public life. Thanks to people like him public debate has become ever more scabrous and deceitful (e.g. Clarkson, in between calling for ironic death-squads, had the gall to describe public sector pensions as "gold-plated"... last year Clarkson earned more than £2 million).

What is going to be done about this decline in public debate? Clarkson certainly hasn't given pause for thought... why would he? We need to teach the upper class yahoos who rule us some manners... more strikes more frequently would help.

But there is another dimension to this. Jeremy Clarkson has provocative and outspoken views... really? So what? I have provocative and outspoken views. Many, many people have provocative and outspoken views. Why does a supporter of the hard-right English Democrats get a free pass when, for example, a Labour party councillor is suspended for liking rambunctious facebook statements regarding Margaret Thatcher and the IRA...? A rough example, but you get the picture.

In this world coarseness, prejudice and abuse is allowed, so long as its directed downwards.