DEMOCRACY is in danger. Don’t just take my word for it: Justice Secretary Jack Straw says the same, and so does Tory shadow minister Caroline Spelman. So, too, do the men and women of a House of Commons all-party Select Committee.
The difference is that they have just started saying it. Whereas YOU read it here first. Last November, to be precise.
The wee headcount that Prime Minister Gordon McGrumpy has called for next month pales into insignificance alongside the fallout from these words I wrote before Christmas:
“I pay council tax to have my rubbish removed, potholes paved over, our children educated and our old people cared for.
“What I DON’T want from Northumberland County Council is a 32-page, glossy, full-colour monthly propaganda magazine which threatens the existence of local independent media while providing only extra pulp for the recycling plants!”
Trinity Mirror, the publishing company that owns, among other properties, The Journal, has recently taken up cudgels against council freesheets but let’s get something straight: I hold no particular brief for a company that is big enough and rich enough to fight its own battles.
What DOES concern me is the threat to freedom of speech if our political controllers also take control of the means of communication and muzzle criticism.
Jack Straw said this week: “I am on the side of the papers, not the councils. Local papers are of fundamental importance to the workings of our democracy.” Caroline Spelman, Conservative shadow local government secretary, said newspapers “risk being driven out of business”.
Ironically, this month’s Northumberland mealy-mouthpiece (it contains not a single objective criticism, only praise and propaganda for the council’s plans) fell onto my doormat (and, expensively, onto 144,000 other doormats county-wide) at precisely the same time as a Culture Media and Sport Select Committee report tore such phoney propaganda sheets to shreds..
The Office of Fair Trading has been asked to investigate the damage such publications have on democracy, foisting as they do a ratepayer-subsidised alternative to independent and frequently critical local newspapers which are struggling to survive the global recession.
Indeed, not content with foisting its one-eyed spin-sheet on the populace, Northumberland’s newspaper nonentity is now touting for advertising.
Without revenue, local newspapers perish. And without local newspapers, so does democracy . . .
TALKING of democracy, the political jokes have already begun. Here’s my current Number One:
Gordon Brown dies during an official visit to Israel. The undertaker tells British Embassy staff: “You can have him shipped home in state for £5 million or you can bury him here in the Holy Land for just £500.”
Without hesitation the ambassador elects to have the PM shipped home, whatever the cost to the nation. “But why?” asks the undertaker. “It would be wonderful for him to be buried here and you could use the £5million to help settle the national debt or pay for the Olympics.”
“Yes,” said the ambassador, “But two thousand years ago another man died and was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead.
“We just can't take the risk!”
THEY were at it hammer and tongs the moment the news broke: Steve the ex-bobby was sniping at Klondike Barry, Robbie the lawnmower man from Spittal started laying off bets around the bar while the Byreman wanted the Red Lion renamed using a neutral colour “to prevent trouble”.
“But surely,” I pleaded, “We can agree to differ until the general election campaign is over?”
“Who the hell cares about the election?” said Iain the landlord. “It’s Sunderland and Newcastle together in the Premiership WE’RE arguing about!”
BY the way, I KNEW technology had finally won the Man v. Machine contest when my brother Richard called me after the clocks went forward to see if his digital watch had made the adjustment unaided.
I had to go and check the microwave to find out!
The difference is that they have just started saying it. Whereas YOU read it here first. Last November, to be precise.
The wee headcount that Prime Minister Gordon McGrumpy has called for next month pales into insignificance alongside the fallout from these words I wrote before Christmas:
“I pay council tax to have my rubbish removed, potholes paved over, our children educated and our old people cared for.
“What I DON’T want from Northumberland County Council is a 32-page, glossy, full-colour monthly propaganda magazine which threatens the existence of local independent media while providing only extra pulp for the recycling plants!”
Trinity Mirror, the publishing company that owns, among other properties, The Journal, has recently taken up cudgels against council freesheets but let’s get something straight: I hold no particular brief for a company that is big enough and rich enough to fight its own battles.
What DOES concern me is the threat to freedom of speech if our political controllers also take control of the means of communication and muzzle criticism.
Jack Straw said this week: “I am on the side of the papers, not the councils. Local papers are of fundamental importance to the workings of our democracy.” Caroline Spelman, Conservative shadow local government secretary, said newspapers “risk being driven out of business”.
Ironically, this month’s Northumberland mealy-mouthpiece (it contains not a single objective criticism, only praise and propaganda for the council’s plans) fell onto my doormat (and, expensively, onto 144,000 other doormats county-wide) at precisely the same time as a Culture Media and Sport Select Committee report tore such phoney propaganda sheets to shreds..
The Office of Fair Trading has been asked to investigate the damage such publications have on democracy, foisting as they do a ratepayer-subsidised alternative to independent and frequently critical local newspapers which are struggling to survive the global recession.
Indeed, not content with foisting its one-eyed spin-sheet on the populace, Northumberland’s newspaper nonentity is now touting for advertising.
Without revenue, local newspapers perish. And without local newspapers, so does democracy . . .
TALKING of democracy, the political jokes have already begun. Here’s my current Number One:
Gordon Brown dies during an official visit to Israel. The undertaker tells British Embassy staff: “You can have him shipped home in state for £5 million or you can bury him here in the Holy Land for just £500.”
Without hesitation the ambassador elects to have the PM shipped home, whatever the cost to the nation. “But why?” asks the undertaker. “It would be wonderful for him to be buried here and you could use the £5million to help settle the national debt or pay for the Olympics.”
“Yes,” said the ambassador, “But two thousand years ago another man died and was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead.
“We just can't take the risk!”
THEY were at it hammer and tongs the moment the news broke: Steve the ex-bobby was sniping at Klondike Barry, Robbie the lawnmower man from Spittal started laying off bets around the bar while the Byreman wanted the Red Lion renamed using a neutral colour “to prevent trouble”.
“But surely,” I pleaded, “We can agree to differ until the general election campaign is over?”
“Who the hell cares about the election?” said Iain the landlord. “It’s Sunderland and Newcastle together in the Premiership WE’RE arguing about!”
BY the way, I KNEW technology had finally won the Man v. Machine contest when my brother Richard called me after the clocks went forward to see if his digital watch had made the adjustment unaided.
I had to go and check the microwave to find out!
First published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne, April 9, 2010
Isn't it depressing when you go to the trouble of posting stuff on a blog and no-one bothers to leave a comment?
ReplyDeleteParticularly when you take a look at other people's clearly inferior blogs, and note that every entry seems to move at least a dozen simpering idiots to leave paeans of praise to the author's wonderful insights and way with words.
Lucky, then, that you have been around long enough not to need your ego massaging in this rather pathetic way.
Of course, you might just be talking to yourself (a hazard once when reaches a certain age) or the, er, distinctive title you have chosen for your blog might be putting readers off (hard though I am sure that must be to imagine).
The important thing is not to install that Sitemeter gizmo which counts your visitor numbers, as it breeds resentment if you find that lots of people are reading your stuff but not liking it enough to leave the odd word of encouragement. I can't tell you how I know that.
Anyway, good column, as ever. I enjoyed it. Keep up the good work. All the best.
Keith