Second is their left-wing bias. Hence the suggestion that no one has ever made outside the febrile minds of journalists that Mr Johnson should share power with assorted failures and has-beens, mostly of the left but including a Remainer or two to frustrate our EU trade negotiations. Yeah sure. We have a majority of 81. Good reason to let Tony Blair and John Major join the cabinet.
Thirdly is their hatred and envy of Boris himself. Emily Maitlis made her own dislike of the PM very clear in June of last year, when she chaired (appallingly) that ridiculous TV debate with Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and a jejune attention-seeking Rory Stewart, all perched on uncomfortable bar stools while Emily launched dig after dig at Boris.
Fortunately, they're stupid enough to imagine that using their privileged airtime to slag-off the PM, our government and the nation's response will rouse public anger against the government. Well, cretins, it's had exactly the opposite effect. Our little media heroes have been stunned at the ferocious reaction against them on social media. Peston, Kuenssberg, Maitlis, Boulton, Newman, Burley, Morgan and the Snows hardly dare venture onto Twitter these days - they're immediately destroyed by an enraged public. And this at a time when newspapers are facing severe challenges from loss of physical sales and online advertising, as is Channel 4, and the BBC is facing an imminent decriminalisation of the TV tax. Yep morons. You're facing nemesis.
The final straw is their failure to ask serious questions of China of the sort that Niall Ferguson asks in the Boston Globe - serious and searching questions on the origin of the Wuhan virus, the cover ups, the conspiracy and the disguising of the truth. Peston's stupidity, Kuenssberg's malice, Matlis's meretriciousness and all the rest trying to find gaps through which to shove needles at Boris whilst giving the PRC a free pass have not been missed by the public.
All of which is reflected in the latest popularity poll from JL polling for Times Red Box (9/4); China may be down -45%, but the media is close behind at -29%.
=====
The Boston Globe comes up fine for me, but for anyone missing the linked piece, Ferguson's questions are
First, what exactly was going on in Wuhan that led to the initial emergence of SARS-CoV-2? If, as first claimed but now seems unlikely, the virus originated from a bat at one of the disgusting “wet” markets (for wildlife intended for human consumption), which your regime inexplicably has not shut down, that would have been bad enough. But if it originated because of sloppy practices at the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, that is worse. It is insanity for research on potentially lethal zoonoses such as coronaviruses to be going on in the heart of a vast metropolis like Wuhan.
Second, how big a role did the central government play in the cover-up after it became clear in Wuhan that there was human-to-human transmission?
Third, after it became clear that there was a full-blown epidemic spreading from Wuhan to the rest of Hubei province, why did you cut off travel from Hubei to the rest of China — on Jan. 23 — but not from Hubei to the rest of the world?
Fourth, what possessed your Foreign Ministry spokesman to start peddling an obviously false conspiracy theory on social media and why has he not been fired?
Fifth, where exactly are Ren Zhiqiang and Ai Fen, to name just two of the Chinese citizens who seem to have vanished since they expressed criticism of your government’s handling of COVID-19?
Finally, how many of your people has this disease really killed?
26 comments:
Aye, there's no problem that cannot be solved by hating someone or other sufficiently, is there, Raedwald?
AGreed Raedwald; just as this crisis has shown into sharp relief (if it were necessary) the economic, political and moral shortcomings of the EU the same can be said of the MSM.
They have been mostly pathetic. I would make an exception for the Spectator which has much higher editorial standards and more eclectic columnists than most.
By the way the Dianification of the NHS is also highly damaging and is of course encouraged and feted by the damn' BBC as part of the same statist mechanism.
Whilst no one can fault the dedication and indeed courage of front line staff, the structural weaknesses o the system as a whole have contributed to making the crisis worse than it needs to be.
Those of us who have argued for years for a more decentralised approach can point to the performance of the German system as a fine example.
Hopefully there will be a reckoning at some point but the mindless adulation will make that a politically delicate task to undertake.
If the popularity of the Government has risen by 29%, then isn't that because people like what they have seen and heard about it in the media?
How else do they generally find out stuff?
The "TV debate with Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and ... Rory Stewart, all perched on uncomfortable bar stools."
Why did none of them say "Mz Maitlis, the BBC is very rich, has millions of pounds. It could have provided decent chairs. Who decided it not should not? Was there a committee set up? That we should sit like birds in the wilderness on these strange perches? To discuss things that are not unimportant?"
@JPM
You don't mention that the public are seeing members of the Cabinet and senior scientists daily in unedited broadcasts of some length.
The public are also seeing 'senior' journalists asking multiple questions in one opportunity in the same broadcasts, often ones that have already been answered or that some other journalist has already asked.
The public then have the information to form their own opinions about what is news and what is political point scoring. Political point scoring might be mildly interesting in ordinary times but not during a crisis.
Nothing to disagree with in this column, Raedwald.
The behaviour of the hacks on the broadcast media has been appalling. All they have done is ramp up the panic in the early days; asked fatuous questions during the daily briefing glory in the lockdown.
And why not? They're cock-a-hoop at getting the socialism they failed to persuade us to vote for last November.
"If the popularity of the Government has risen by 29%, then isn't that because people like what they have seen and heard about it in the media?
How else do they generally find out stuff?"
From the Downing Street Twitter feed. But I now tend to switch off when the idiots start asking silly questions.
Can't the media find some people who know something about microbiology, statistics, medicine, etc to ask questions ?
Don Cox
Other questions that require honest answers are:
What are the REAL death rates for Corona virus (not the totaled, all-inclusive-regardless-of-actual-cause deaths)?
What is the banks role in all this - what have they got planned for us that they're not talking about?
When will (or why won't) the Government issue a Sovereign currency, controlled by the Government, interest free, that relieves us from the banks usury and 'fake' printed fraud?
This virus FRAUD is bigged-up enormously by the media - with zero reference to 'normal' death rates and/or other annual viruses - and each and every announcement of shut down, restriction, closure, shortages, Government 'assistance' etc brings about yet MORE questions on WTF is going on and WHY are we being LIED TO about it all.
Covid death rates are almost invisible on a scale of ordinary day-to-day death recording charts. Hardly even a blip. Certainly nothing worth dismantling the worlds 5th largest economy over. Global nuclear conflict was something I kinda expected THAT to do.
Let's face it, when the BBC say 'anything' you know they're lying - much like when a politicians lips move. The more they preach about the Covid situation the more cynical I become and the use of the NHS and health carers to make the subject 'untouchable' is deplorable - disgusting.
We are now seeing the start of a breakdown in the supply chains. If you worried about wiping your arse before this started, think about how to feed yourself and your family as the supply chain problems worsens. They've even shut down places where you should be able to get the materials to grow your own food FFS! Get out there are buy what you can, while you can.
I predict the issuance of Government financial assistance by means of their own credit card within months. Welcome to the new digital world controlled by the same criminal banksters.
This is farce. Sheer and obvious collusion by .Gov and others. Stop excusing it for something else.
Well you've been demonstrating this pretty well since you first appeared on this blog!
Started to watch BBC Horizon billed as being "Real Science" of coronavirus.
Of course having seen over the years Horizon slide from being a serious programme, with real, not always photogenic, presenters to an extension of children's TV with pretty, both genders (There were only two in those days) teleprompter readers I was not expecting much.
It was worse. It could have been satire. Brass Eye style.
First it had foreground noise - drama dept. at a loose end - always a turn -off for me. Origin - bats, no other possibility, so video of bats, single, flocks. No explanation of exactly how it got from bags to humans. People in lab coats, except being modern were not all white. Very BBC drama dept multiple angle shots of people talking, pointing at coloured models of things, probably too small to have colour, and listener nodding wisely, from many angles. Then really poor video and audio "home movie" style of people not pretty enough to have full crews in attendance. The media really was the message. At that point gave up.
I learn more from bloggers in minutes.
Apologies for rant.
Remember they are only 10. Thus spake a newspaper magnate way back referring to the reading age of the UK public. Now some 30 years later the average is about 9 years. Sun readers make about 8 years but Graun/Torygraph readers 14 surprisingly.
The bottom line is that you can feed Jack & Jill Public a line of BS and they will swallow it. Politicians depend on it and in this globalised world they are better off not wasting education resources on the bottom of the pile - and they don't.
The better sort of journos work close to the wheels of power and can see clearly how the setup works (it stinks). For decent human beings this leads to a leftish bias, the money grubbers work go and work for those well known rightish rags. In the middle sits The Mail peddling bums, frocks, royals, slebs and baby bumps.
As for Boris, I'm sure his mum and Carrie love him. But he is just a tiny bolt in the system, easily replaced. What may be worrying his more right wing colleagues is that a brush with death may turn him into a decent human being, a sort of St Thomasene conversion. He will have to be watched carefully and replaced.
As for slagging off China. The US now has a competitor and is frit. Not of nukes but of losing money and status. The USA is behaving like an ageing beauty that sees a younger better model on the block. Hissy fits are us.
Meanwhile we have the lockdown conundrum. Do we let it rip or hang around for a vaccine or more likely 'slacken and hope'.
Good post,JPM we don't hate we just hold in contempt which is pretty much the default position regarding you of everybody who reads your comments.
Thud 10:04, "Good post,JPM we don't hate we just hold in contempt which is pretty much the default position regarding you of everybody who reads your comments.
Needed saying unfortunately.
Jum 09:25, "[Boris] is just a tiny bolt in the system, easily replaced. What may be worrying his more right wing colleagues is that a brush with death may turn him into a decent human being, a sort of St Thomasene conversion."
What? A St.Thomasene conversion would have him back in their arms having turned from his China-loving lefty liberal twaddle.
Doonhammer, 09:20, "I learn more from bloggers in minutes.
Aint that the truth. has been for at least 15 years, maybe even 18 or 20, although all the MSM started having their own "blogs" around the mid noughties, attached to their papers and magazines and the blogosphere was diluted somewhat. These days it's strong again.
P.S. Well said Raedwald. Any chance of a snippet or two from the Boston Globe piece, not keen to pay.
@ Jim
His Mum will, by default, love Boris and is doubtless pretty chuffed that he's the PM. Carrie, well I have my doubts about her loyalty; indeed the whole arrangement pongs. Let's just say she uses her influence in a way that's remarkably similar to Harry's spouse, green agenda stuff.
You are bang on the button about China/US, just an ageing tart that can't do diddly about the newcomer, especially when China owns them via their bond purchases.
No it hasn't escaped my notice that Germany, Japan and China have prospered by not engaging in armed conflict. That costs mega money and China is in effect helping the Yanks to bleed themselves dry. So much better to use your army to educate youngsters and to improve your technology, which is what N Korea is doing.
Trump knows this but has naff all wiggle room. But they're quite happy using Saudi to jack off all over the Yemen - and make a packet flogging them the equipment to do so. Likewise us, France and now Canada.
Span Ows - happy to oblige
Thank you.
Yes, very good and pertinent questions.
JPM said @ 07:35
'Aye, there's no problem that cannot be solved by hating someone or other sufficiently, is there, Raedwald?'
Yeah shoot the messenger mate, every fucking time. You need educating:
Chinese Doctor Shi Zhengli was part of a team that worked on a coronavirus project jointly with US doctors in 2014 before it was shut down by the DHS for being too risky. She was part of a team, including Doctor Ralph S. Baric, that published an article in a 2015 edition of Nature Medicine.
In the article they discussed bat coronaviruses that showed potential for human emergence.
After the US research project was shut down, Dr. Shi continued her coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.
The Chinese moved forward with the project and ran research and development in Wuhan at the Wuhan Virology Center. From Shi Zhengli’s papers and resume, it is clear that they successfully isolated the virus in the lab and were actively experimenting with species to species transmission.
It’s important to note that back in 2017 the US had solid intelligence about a viral leak in a high security Chinese virology R&D center that resulted in the SARS virus getting out and killing people:
It started when two workers at a Chinese CDC lab independently isolated and experimented invitro/vivo a SARS virus. In one of these sessions the scientists took a previously unknown variant of the SARS virus and moved it out from a BSL-4 high-containment facility into a low-safety diarrhea research lab where the two were working. Apparently, the virus inactivation process didn’t work properly and both were infected at the lab and then proceeded to infect other people outside of the lab.
This information provides a basis that contradicts the theory that COVID-19 is a variant that just magically mutated in a bat in the wild and then jumped to a human when they ate a delicious bowl of bat soup.
From all of the published research papers that relate to this project going back to 2014, it is clear that COVID-19 was already in a lab.
Steve
Normally, The Boston Globe is the go-to paper beloved by the lefty Biased BBC, especially R5Dead around 2:30am.
This post is surprising, and while I won't get past the paywall, thank you for this insight!
Oh, so it was just an accident, and not down to disgusting culinary practices in China then, Steve?
Well that's that - they're off the hook eh?
But if you don't buy the story about they're having beaten it pretty well, then I suggest that you read up on New Zealand, who are following WHO advise assiduously.
Or are they another nation of liars?
JPM said @ 21:07
'Or are they another nation of liars?'
Only one nation is lying mate:
Estimating the true number of China’s COVID-19 cases
https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/estimating-the-true-number-of-chinas-covid-19-cases/
As for the WHO, here's what the Australian's think:
Australia Stayed Ahead of Pandemic by Ignoring ‘Politicised’ WHO on China Travel Ban
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/10/australia-stayed-ahead-of-pandemic-by-ignoring-politicised-who-on-china-travel-ban/
Facts About WHO Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:
Tedros helped Beijing hide the severity of the Chinese Coronavirus outbreak. On January 14, months after health officials are believed to have detected the first case of the virus in China on November 17 of last year, the WHO was promoting a Chinese claim via Twitter that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission.”
Tedros is not a medical doctor.
Tedros is a member of the Leftist Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Tedros helped indebt Ethiopia to China.
Tedros named Robert Mugabe a WHO ‘goodwill ambassador’.
Steve
Come on, mention the EU. Have you given up on the most magnificent creations of the human intellect so easily?
Or is that China now?
JPM, 21:07, 10th April. "But if you don't buy the story about they're having beaten it pretty well, then I suggest that you read up on New Zealand, who are following WHO advise assiduously."
WTF? Are you not even trying now?
Like Mark writes, (22:34) was it really EU advice that saved them?
As someone who lives in New Zealand, let me put in my pennyworth. The Government has done the sensible thing of closing the borders to anyone who is not a New Zealand citizen.Any citizen who is returning from abroad now has to spend 14 days in quarantine in one of 14 designated hotels.(They are taken there and not left to make their own way.)
To date there have been about 1200 cases in a population of 5000000.and so fatower blocks and have r 4 deaths. Those dying have all been old and with underlying problems.As someone who is old, I do not want to get it, I can think of better ways to go.There are 4 distinct clusters of infection and these are being monitored closely. So far the lockdown is holding ,we are encouraged to get out and exercise but are asked to be sensible about it.
"Their Left-wing bias"
REALLY?
Let's see:
Times, owned by neofascist crook Murdoch, Sun, ditto, Torygrapaph, owned by mad Barclay Bros, Mail owned by ultra-rightwingers, ditto Express.
Leaves us with the Grauniad & the "indy"
Um.
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