Thursday, 3 September 2015

Is the UK media really right-wing biased; the European Migrant crisis suggests not

So yesterday the Prime Minister makes some statements about the immigration crisis. Britain can;t take too many more he said, it send sthe wrong signals, we should really be dealing with things in Syria, Shcengen is the problem, etc. etc.

All perfectly reasonable positions to take.

Same day, Labour leadership candidate, Yvette Cooper says we should take 10,000 at least - not even specifying whether that was a day, month or year. Andy Burnham makes some noises about this sort of thing too, without allowing himself actual facts to use.

And lo, today, I read wall to wall media coverage about how the UK is not doing enough, UKIP are Nazis for not wanting to take a million Syrian refugees, Cameron is awful and we should be opening up the Chunnel to every passing Syrian. Not just the BBC and Guardian, but the Telegraph, Sky says Britain is shamed.

Al in all, a classic media somthing-must-be-done-panic. But it is a left wing stance here, accepting all immigrants, not caring about our own people or our way of life and putting internationalism first. The right-wing, conservatice view is branded as uncaring (in my view, it is very caring of the people who elected the Government over others with no claim) and linked to pure evil.

I don't buy the Country is dominated by a Righ-Wing press, the media elites are all Liberal and Lefty at heart these days. As soon as the Laboru Candidate picked a side, they happily followed it agains the Government line, same day and clear for all to see.


JS said...

Are internationalism and open borders a left wing stance ? I would have thought them at the very heart of capitalism..

MyThursdayName said...

@JS - indeed. In fact wasnt it the Institute of Directors who were prattling on about increasing immigration because of a 'skills shortage' recently? Cant have 'business' or the 'recovery' struggling now, can we?

It must be getting near impossible to be opposed to radical social reforms and opposed to mass immigration - the position CU holds.

Its not what he wants to hear though, is it? So I guess its fingers back in ears for another while la, la, la-la, la laaaaaa

Anonymous said...

The key issue is people trafficking. Some of these refugees have paid a lot of money - they are not poor - to get into the EU.

Each crisis just adds to the traffickers reputation as problem solvers. The Hungarians are trying to do the right thing by housing, feeding and identifying those who are refugees and those who are migrants.

If Greece wasn't the basket case it is, then they would have undertaken the role the Hungarians are being expected to undertake.

Merkel for all her reputation as a statesman seems to have lost the plot by apparently suggesting there should be free movement of EU citizens - and anyone that calls themselves a refugee.

If the EU can get a grip on the trafficking networks, the issue would become less of a crisis.

MyTwiceADayName said...

@Anonymous 3.40pm - If we werent engaged in proxy energy wars with Russia in eastern europe, the middle east and north africa we would have a fucking immigrant crisis, would we?

This whole balls-up is due to our actions.
Having that fuckwit Cameron breast-beating about dead children is puke inducing.
It was his support for the attacks on Libya which destroyed the government and security infrastructure that has allowed half of the arab criminal underworld to decamp there and smuggle with impunity.

It is western blind-eye-ism which allows ISIS to fund itself by selling oil and plundered artworks too.

Theres no existential issues at play here, no mystery, no theory to be tested.
It could be stopped in 6 months if the will was there.
But if it was stopped we'd be reliant on Russia for our energy and we cannot have that under any circumstances. The payoff is a few dead Arab kids and falling wages while asset prices are pumped and pressure kept on services - everyones a winner!

CityUnslicker said...

MTADname - Normally your comments are good but today they are poor. There is nothing capitalist about wanting totally free movement of people. Only if you are a marxist and think that the capitalist want that to drive down wages. And what is this radical social reform that I am opposed too?

It is crazy to want to destroy your own country by importing millions of foreigners to drive down wages and increase the burden on a stretched welfare state; if Germany wants that they are welcome to it.

As for it ALWAYS BEING OUR FAULT. This is a straw man, Libya I will accept was a silly as Iraq. Syria is the result of the Arab Spring, a revolt in the middle east against despots which has had, sadly, enitrely negative consequences due to the said despots (Saudi, Qatar) happily funding the undemocratic opposition.

It also has FUCK ALL to do with energy, another conspiracy crazed theory. Have you seen the price of energy; it has collapsed? Is this becuase the Middle East is now pliant due to conquest or Russia per chance? Er no, it has fallen for a huge range of reasons - the bigget one being over investment in production when prices were high.

The West does not buy Kurdish Oil, the whole lot is sold locally or to Turkey - shipments to the US are impounded. China buys a bit, becuase they dont give shit as we well know. The Western Governments do not buy art and where is the evidence it is western art buyers; more likely by far is oligarchs, chinese and indeed arabs.

Does the UK or US fund ISIS - no. Is the situation ver complex where some of our allies do - yes. Shall we side with Iran instead? Hmmm. It is not black and white at all.

Housing Syria in the UK becuase they want too is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when we did it with Poland, our growth has collapsed and welfare spending has increased since 2003. Cultrually diverse Syrians will do even more damage as they won't be able to easily work. Of course, I do not want the borders closed, not saying that - but Merkel wants 800,000 - that is just mad and will encourage more and more immigration. I did a post a few weeks back on sources and potential models, the UK cannot home another 50 million people in the next 2 decades but that is easily the amount of potential economic migrants and refugees who will want to come here.

DJK said...

I was also struck by the coverage in the last day or so. I expected the BBC to pull out all the stops to attack Cameron's speech, but the Daily Mail?

It's all very well to indulge in breast beating but why is it up to Northern Europe to solve the refugee crisis? How many Syrian refugees --- or Somalian economic migrants, for that matter --- has Saudi Arabia taken?

Electro-Kevin said...

Looks like civilisation in Britain is going to collapse under a Tory government then. 5 long years to go.

When it comes to refugees (with whom I sympathise) it really has got to the point of them or us now.

This country is now at risk of serious instability and conflict as we import all of the world's troubles - those fleeing middle east sectarianism arriving in a country with a large Sunni population will lead to divisions which will make Ulster look like a cakewalk.

Then there is the crime and the race rioting to come... oh god.

What have we done ?

DJK said...

As CU says, importing huge numbers of foreigners will end up destroying Britain and all it stands for (fair play, rule of law, tolerance, etc.) There are endless examples from around the world of different peoples forming a combustable mixture in one country. Indeed, one could go back to the original English --- economic migrants from Saxony and Denmark --- who drove the British out of their own lands into Cornwall, Wales and Scotland.

AndrewZ said...

What we're seeing in the media is a toxic mixture of narcissism and cynicism. The left are in full grandstanding mode, telling everybody how very very much they care about the poor Syrians. Labour are exploiting the crisis to attack the government because they know that the opposition can demand anything without having to take responsibility for the consequences. The media are reporting it as The Worst Crisis Ever because death and disaster sells newspapers and attracts viewers. No doubt the Guardian and BBC are pushing an ideological agenda but the rest are just trying to sell their product by any means necessary, no matter how cynical and dishonest.

Long-time lurker said...

I say, this is all rather worrying. Fifth-century Rome and all that, as Boris said.

I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity of emigrating to the US. Would now be a good time to start the paperwork? Or am I over-reacting?

Electro-Kevin said...

LtL - Not sure America is any better, though she has a lot more space.

Emigration ? Yes. It does seem a sensible idea. It seems quite clear that this isn't going to stop and it isn't going to end well.


Emma Thompson !

Telling little people to sacrifice more than she ever has or ever will.

dearieme said...

It's an invasion, and little surrenders will become big ones. The Aussies have the right idea. Or, come to that, the Israelis with their wall.

MyThriceDailyName said...

@CU - thank you for engaging with me on this issue as you ignored me on the September: Warning Signs post ( )

There are a few points to respond to, I'll try to be brief -

"And what is this radical social reform that I am opposed too?" - the govt needs to stop QE and allow the property and investment markets to tank. Providing welfare to those who demonstrably cannot manage their own affairs or investments is not only unfair but creates huge economic and social distortions. The main result of this is to inflate asset prices and cause Britons to become tenants and debt slaves in their own land to people who bought before them and whos investments have been guaranteed by a govt policy of stealing from the future. Combined with the policy of mass immigration (to bolster the policy) this is a retrograde move and returns a whole generation to serfdom.
The over-50s, the boomers, the land owners must be made to suffer the losses they have incurred. The younger generation are entitled to pick up the assets at firesale prices and move toward a new paradigm. Govt policy is deliberately preventing that.

I cannot believe you are this naive!
Do you think Capital gives a damn about nationhood?
I can see why you are conflicted, thats a childish view.
You do realise that Capitalism and Patriotism are not the same thing, right?
That they can stand in opposition in some circumstances?

What is happening here, CU, is that Capital - in the form of the Corporation - is challenging Patriotism - in the form of the State - for supremacy.

I understand that its difficult for you to process, to digest, but you simply must choose one or the other.

Ryan said...

I immediately suspected that the reason the allegedly right-wing press were leading on the "little boy drowned" story was because the Tories had asked them to butter up the public ready to accept many more of the migrants, in advance of being forced to do so by the EU.

Sure enough I see that Cameron has now decided to let far more Syrians in and the Germans and the French are pushing for a permanent EU migrant acceptance and sharing plan.

Seems like everyone is getting a say except the people that pay and the people that vote. Even the Guardianistas below the line are saying we shouldn't take any in at all. The Establishment in this country are entirely out of control.

Anonymous said...

I've commented before though maybe not here on, the subject of subjectivity and left wing bias pervading the organs of the fourth estate.

UK society has been, is dumbed down, newspapers just follow the smell.

Lack of education, our current prejudice for filling kids heads with zero education but lots of nebulous liberal dogma also modern Politically correct doctrines, weaved into a theme and then mendaciously injected into historical fact, so that, for example Mary Seacole is now raised up as some sort of Black Nightingale, a political embroider and light years away from the real historical truth. But that's what teaching has degenerated into here in British schools, where history and world facts are rewritten to suit a meme, I could go on - Germany and WWII is another phase of it.
So kids come into journalism...where there are no longer are there any hard and set rules and anything goes and most is unreferenced hearsay. Those old hacks, well those that are left, to a large extent, old style good investigative journalism has died the death.
Thus, the chief opinion formulators, the editorial line, the newspaper owners all drift [are nailed on] towards the new religion of liberal 'values' - multiculturalism is the headline and the subtext.
To add insult, the print media is a sea of feminized idiots pontificating long on, and of which they do not know much. Muse for a moment, who ever had the idea of employing the likes of Owen Jones as to be some sort of media sage?

Lamentably, who can name a half cogent scribe who is able to review and synopsize on current affairs, who does not in some way, shape or form - sympathize with the mood of Norf London Wankeratti?
Aaronovitch, Parris, Obourne, that jerk Dominic Sandbrook, Riddel and who else is there now at the Telegraph? All of them are either reluctantly half reformed Marxists or, have statist typed through them like a stick of rock.
I think the most disingenuous of the lot [UK newspapers] is, the Daily Mail, wherein it is clearly a statist Tory Euphiliac rag ie left wing in all but name and loves to blow its own trumpet on all manner of what it deems will play to the gallery - lukewarm anti EU showboating..... but underneath, there is no doubt of it, Dacre and Rothermere sup deep in the font of Brussels.

I don't know which way Murdoch blows, the graun is a Marxist mouthpiece and insofar as crass reportage goes the Mirror ranks with the Morning Star and with any left wing council 'Pravda'. Telegraph has gone over to the other side, the Independent is a joke and the Times is for touchy feely corporate/CoE alumni who pretend to a social conscience but really only do, pretending and love ya Mercedes.

So when a crisis erupts, so does the left wing press outrageous liberal bleeding heart hyperbole, that's not to say the Syria tragedy is not disconcerting but what can EUrope do - nothing and nothing is logically the best option. Know this, it will come to us all anyway, we'll all be refugees: when the cult of death kicks off in Europe - as the tide comes in and they will.

Finally, then there is the left wing media TV and Satellite channels, which is too much to report.

Anonymous said...

Anon - Which way does Dirty Des and his fleet street rags blow?

Anonymous said...

This has turned out to be another "Millie Dowler" moment for David Cameron. The death of a child, media hysteria led by the BBC and the Guardian, opportunistic Labour politicians, and Cameron's immediate palliative -- leading to the Leveson enquiry, months of bad feeling, huge waste of police time and taxpayers' money, and a final Report that threatened press freedom in this country.
And as with the "drowned boy" picture, the facts of the case turned out to be rather different than originally reported by the leftist media. Cameron's U-turn just makes him look weak and foolish, but the bad consequences this time will be for the British people to suffer, rather than just the Murdoch press.

CityUnslicker said...

MTDN - where is my argument against that social reform, we may differ on the implementation but the reduction in housing costs is of paramount importance to the Country and economy. Just becuase I think Land Value Tax is communism does not mean I am for the status quo. I like free markets, the state via planning and immigration has rigged the housing market.

Laban Tall said...

It's amazing. Cameron (in company with the US and all the Gulf States, though they send guns too) gives (our) money and training to 'the opposition' in Syria, who turn out to be worse than the Assad regime. The average Syrian was better off with Assad, nasty guy though he be.

So he stokes the civil war (always the nastiest of wars) in Syria - and the country becomes a basket case with millions of refugees, many of whom flee to Europe - then we have to take in the refugees that he's created.

Earlier Cameron had (in company with the US - do we see a pattern here?) given (our) military support, money, and training to 'the opposition' in Libya, who turn out to be worse than the Gaddafi regime. Gaddafi kept a tight rein (oil deal with Berlusconi) on illegal boat traffic to Europe.

Now the country's a basket case (do we see a pattern here?) and the traffickers only have to get 5 miles off Libya before the Royal Navy give them a free lift to Italy. Just got back from North Italy - there are thousands of sub-Saharan Africans there, a very visible presence in every city and even smaller towns like Vicenza. Sat in a Padova market a beggar was doing the cafe rounds telling people he'd just arrived from Libya.

This is not going to end well.

Laban Tall said...

Forgot to say - meanwhile, the Gulf States take in no refugees, and the Saudis are building an Israeli-style fence along the entire Iraqi border.

Charlie said...

It's just all so predictable. I'm only 34 and I think that even in my short lifespan, the country has become an utter sh*thole. Most of the people my age haven't had a single original thought in their lives and pretty much all of my friends are in the "now there's a pic of a dead kid, I'm bothered" group. To attempt any rational debate about the topic is to risk becoming a social outcast.

I try to tell myself not to worry about crap like this, but "f*ck this" moments are becoming all the more frequent. Thing is, where do you go?

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