La la la la not listening can’t hear you la la la la
The closer the election gets, the more shockingly biased Associated Newspapers’ propaganda pamphlets – printed with ink that won’t rub off onto your bum-cheeks – become.
Dave Hill’s been behaving like a thoroughly professional journalist throughout this campaign, giving each candidate a fair hearing, carefully weighing up their policies’ pros and cons and reporting things as he finds them throughout. He certainly hasn’t come to his blog with any particular axe to grind, unlike, say, a certain blogger sitting very near my computer at this moment, who’s only too happy to grind an axe (or preferably to bury it in Boris’s head) at any opportunity.
But even non-partisan Dave lost his rag with the latest Evening Standard bias yesterday; I say ‘lost his rag’, but that is perhaps overstating things somewhat, given that the title of his article is merely "Tut, Tut, Evening Standard". (Mind you, I’ve just noticed that his permalink, i.e. the link I just put in, gives away that that wasn’t the title of his first draft!) But it’s clear that the Daily Mail group of newspapers, for so long desperate to be rid of Ken Livingstone, are hell-bent on getting their crony Boris [who, don’t forget, saved Andrew Gilligan’s career when he was sacked from the BBC by offering him a job at the Spectator] into City Hall, no matter what the cost to their journalistic reputation.
So, how would they cover last night’s Newsnight debate, which by common consent no-one did stunningly well in but Boris definitely lost, in their evening freesheet, London Lite?
The answer is that they:
- freeze-framed through the debate to find a still where Boris looked serious, Paddick looked reasonable and Ken looked a bit silly;
- mentioned, for the headline and opening, that (unlike a certain other candidate) Boris has pledged only to serve two terms as Mayor (which is irrelevant anyway when he couldn’t possibly get re-elected after four years of incompetence and gaffes);
- spent two-thirds of the article bigging up the pledges Boris has announced, which are a checklist of the things the Evening Standard has been moaning about in relation to Lee Jasper etc.;
- mentioned one single topic from last night’s debate, namely Ken’s promise to resign if he breaks his word by putting up the Congestion Charge for sub-band G cars if re-elected;
- somehow managed to segue this into a reference to a poll finding that Ken is the candidate considered least honest by the Londoners questioned;
- er…
- that’s it.
Seriously. No mention of Boris’s bus-based blathering, when Jeremy Paxman had to ask him the same question 12 times and still didn’t get an answer. Nothing. No coverage of the debate at all. This is a propaganda effort the Chinese government would be proud of.
They claim to be "London’s Quality Newspaper", but on the evidence I’ve been seeing, even despite its lightweight content and short articles, the only one of the big four to come close to deserving that title is thelondonpaper, which is at least even-handed in its treatment of the candidates in this election. Better to have one or two fair paragraphs about each candidate than 20 grossly distorted ones, after all.
Mind you, even thelondonpaper is short on coverage of last night’s debate. It goes some way to making up for this with an intriguing nugget of information about Boris’s fundraising:
It has emerged Johnson met up with old pals from the Bullingdon Club—an exclusive Oxford University set which includes Tory leader David Cameron—to appeal for funds for his campaign.
The Bullingdon Club, lest we forget, is renowned for its members’ disgraceful behaviour in Oxford. David Cameron and Boris Johnson were in the club together, and essentially what they did was:
- Book a posh restaurant, using an assumed name (their reputation preceded them);
- Turn up to dine – and get completely and utterly drunk;
- Smash up the place, causing as much damage as possible;
- Ask your rich parents to foot the repair bill to appease the distraught restaurateur;
- Repeat at will.
Another famous Bullingdon alumnus is Darius Guppy, by the way: a lovely bunch, all in all.
So now it sounds like Boris has been catching up with his fellow Bullingdon thugs to try to get cash out of them. Makes sense: after his woeful performance on Newsnight last night, his campaign is looking pretty damaged, so I’m sure they won’t mind throwing money at it to try to restore it. What’s good enough for a restaurant…
April 10th, 2008 at 23.48
I’m always amused to see earnest Evening Standard readers, the organ itself tucked under their briefcase arm, waiting at Kings’ Cross, Liverpool Street or Waterloo to get their train home. To somewhere miles outside London where there will be able to vote for no-one. Like Epping Forest. Let’s face it - most of Johnson’s mindless Evening Standard reading support base isn’t even eligible to vote here.
April 11th, 2008 at 01.22
I’m singularly surprised they didn’t mention Ken’s ridiculous witterings when asked about his campaign funding.
The bus story is old news.
April 11th, 2008 at 05.53
Surely the Standard is entitled to endorse any candidate that it wants? Nobody in their right mind would endorse Ken anymore, he is just too tainted with dishonesty. Hi shifty look when tackled about his funding was priceless and his remark “I dont want to know” sounded like it was so dicey he needed to distance himself. I am not saying it is dicey, although who knows, but that is what he made it sound like.
It was just like his remark when tackled about allegations of financial wrongdoing at City Hall. He said something to the effect that the amount being investigated is only 0.001 % of the billions budget. Ha ha, very funny Ken!
Don’t people who rip off drug dealers use that argument?
April 11th, 2008 at 08.09
I’m not in the business of defending Ken but it seems odd that people keep ignoring the logic of his argument about funding and persisting with saying he is concealing funders from us. He has explained on a number of occasions that he gets funded via his party so that he doesn’t find out who is funding him and therefore doesn’t feel any pressure to act differently in his job as a result. Indeed, if it’s true that that Asian businessman did give his 2004 campaign a big cheque, Ken’s system seems to work pretty well as I understand that Ken subsequently rejected the bloke’s planning application!
I don’t know what you’re on about with drug dealers but 0.001% of the budget doesn’t sound like a lot and certainly doesn’t suggest the current administration is ‘tainted with dishonesty’.
Back on topic, Boris is hardly an angel in the area of funding either, having accepted a gift of office space from someone who is also likely to submit a Mayor-level planning application in the next four years. Where’s the outrage over this?
And Angela, of course the Standard can endorse a candidate, but there is a big difference between decent journalism combined with an editorial endorsement, and producing a multi-page propaganda pamphlet masquerading as a newspaper. I imagine the Guardian will, in the run-up to 1 May, publish a leader column endorsing one of the candidates (I would assume Ken or Brian), and they’ve published a few anti-Boris articles on their Comment pages, but they’ve still carried balanced coverage of the major developments in the election campaign from all sides in their News pages. That’s journalism. What the Standard is doing is pathetic and all involved ‘journalists’ should be ashamed.
April 11th, 2008 at 09.01
What about all the free advertising Ken has been getting through Transport for London’s various campaigns and which we’ve all been paying for? You mention Boris going to his old college chums for money - why not? There’s no law against that. If we’re going to be even-handed here, Ken refused to reveal details of his campaign funds at all so I would say Boris is one up there. Probably he doesn’t want to admit he’s getting naff all from the Party as the Labour Party is close to bust and in fact, doesn’t need it anyway as he has been ripping off all the Londoners by campaigning, sub rosa, viaTFL - which we have all been paying for.
The Standard is the one paper which has consistently represented the concerns of Londoners e.g. regarding parking issues.
April 11th, 2008 at 13.24
The Standard representing Londoners? Hah! The Standard represents the small-minded views of the Daily Mail group that publishes it.