Friday 24 April 2015

Unpublished Guardian letter on Labour`s fear

The excellent article by Nick Davies correctly urges politicians to 'protest against news organisations that print propaganda and call it journalism', but, sadly, their `chains of fear' explain more than mere reluctance to take on the likes of Murdoch.(At this election, British politicians can afford to speak out against Rupert Murdoch,07/04/15) In fact, there is a strong argument suggesting that the lack of boldness exhibited by the Labour leadership, for example, is the main reason for their party`s lack of lead in the opinion polls. After all, when Miliband did dare to organise the `sabotage of the Murdoch bid for BSkyB`, his poll ratings rose significantly.
      What a shame the aptly-named `chains of fear` have prevented Labour from pledging an all-out attack on the banks, when a large majority of the electorate consider them the true cause, both of the financial crisis, and the subsequent economic problems. The obscenely paid bankers in charge of their `profession` have shown themselves totally incapable of ridding their culture of greed, corruption and customer rip-offs, yet no radical proposals have emanated from Labour, even to participate in the EU`s Financial Transaction Tax!
  Similarly, Labour weakly attempts to defend itself from right-wing assertions that it is anti-business, when an offensive against business, and its current practices of forcing employees on to benefits because of low-pay, high profit strategies, and avoiding paying the correct amount of corporation tax, despite extremely generous rates, around eighteen percentage points below those American firms are expected to pay, would clearly reap huge electoral benefits. Hasn`t the penny dropped, yet, that the hemorrhaging of votes to Ukip, SDP and the Greens can partly be explained by the party being insufficiently dissimilar from the Tories?

     Nick Davies is right to castigate politicians for failing to stand up to Murdoch`s right-wing media empire, but don`t let us kid ourselves that this is the only example when courage deserts them. Would that it were so!

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