National Disgrace

It was with huge relief that I learned last week that the BBC's prime time interview with Boris 'The Fat Bastard' Johnson had been cancelled as that Laura Kuenssberg had 'accidentally' e-mailed him her briefing notes.  It is beyond my comprehension that the BBC would ever think that anyone would want see a man who had to resign in disgrace as Prime Minister and who was found to have lied to parliament interviewed in prime time - we'd all had enough of him long before he left office.  More than that, as a licence fee payer I object to having my licence money spent on helping that fat slob to publicise his self serving and, let's face it, completely made up memoirs.  Really, if he was happy lying to parliament then he's going to have no qualms about publishing a pack of lies, now is he?  But the past few weeks have seen the British media bending over backwards to allow this egotistical mound of blubber air time in which to try and justify his shambolic conduct in government.  Why?  We're all well aware of the facts, that his Brexit deal has been a disaster, that he and his government completely mishandled the pandemic, to the extent that people died unnecessarily and that he spent much of his time in office lining his own pockets via contributions to the costs of everything from holidays to redecorating his flat, from wealthy party donors.  The man's a national disgrace, not say embarrassment and should be consigned to the dustbin of history.

But these attempts to rehabilitate Boris Johnson - who, if it not for the existence of Liz Truss, would hold the title of Britain's worst ever prime minister - are par for the course for the UK's right-wing dominated press, so I really shouldn't be surprised.  They've spent every day since the election relentlessly trying to trash the new Labour government, launching personal attacks on its senior figures, so it seems only logical that, as a follow-up, they'd try to resurrect one of their fallen heroes.  ('If only Boris was still PM, everything would be alright').  On one level I can almost admire their ingenuity in finding a negative spin to put on every Labour policy - today, of course, it's all been about how bad for UK businesses the government's modest proposals to reinforce some workers' rights will be, (do they really think that's a line which is going to fly with most working readers/viewers who probably voted Labour because their basic rights had been so eroded by the Tories?).  As for their hand-wringing over the fact that the OAPs winter fuel allowance will no longer be universal is quite something coming from the people who happily supported the last government's failure to act to curb soaring fuel bills.  (It also ignores the fact that the value of the fuel allowance hasn't increased since it was introduced, while average pensions have risen significantly.  Plus, those 'poor' pensioners they are featuring on their front pages wailing about how they'll have to choose between food and heat would, if really that poor, still be eligible to apply for the fuel allowance as a means tested benefit.  But why print facts when you've got misinformation instead?).

While I expect this sort of nonsense from the right-wing press, it is disturbing to see the BBC get so nakedly caught up in it all.  It's not just that Johnson interview that never was, let's not forget their political correspondent Chris Mason making Sue Grey's salary public - his subsequent floundering around trying to justify it as being, somehow, in the public interest because she was earning more than the PM, was painful to watch.  As was his failure to mention that Simon Case, head of the civil service and appointed by Johnson, also earns more than the PM, as does Mason himself.  It just came over as an obvious slice of partisan reporting, deliberately aimed at derailing the new government before it had even got properly started - hardly in the spirit of the politically neutral reporting the BBC, as a public broadcaster, is meant to pursue.  Perhaps the BBC's apparent downer on the new government and its eagerness to 'hold it to account', is a reaction to the justifiable criticism that it spent fourteen years giving the Tories pretty much a free pass in that regard.  Clearly, they aren't as scared of  the possibility of a Labour government retaliating via the threat of budget cuts than they were of the Tories.  Or maybe it is because the Tories spent fourteen years packing out the BBC's senior ranks with its own supporters?  Time for a purge, perhaps?