Read all about it

I don’t want to come across all David Icke, like, but my levels of cynicism have been building in recent days about what’s really going on with the so called fight against Covid-19. The virus is very real to us, having lost the closest of close relatives in recent weeks, as well as assorted friends and relatives and friends of friends, if you know what I mean. I’m now at the point where I think we are being played by a calculated government spin machine and I don’t like it.

The Sun ‘newspaper’ is little more than an arm of propaganda for the establishment, that establishment being the government and the wealthy individual who owns it. You don’t get any more establishment than that. The illiberal elite, I call them. Today, the Sun leads its front page with what is beyond doubt government policy, even though it has not been announced to us via parliament or through any other way for that matter.

Tom Newton-Dunn, the Sun’s political editor, has revealed ‘exclusively’ that Tuesday 26th May will be ‘back to work day’. That’s what ‘Boris’ wants, according to Newton-Dunn, and given that the Sun has been the mouthpiece of the Conservative Party, aimed specifically at working class voters, since 1979, they are not taking a punt. This is what is going to happen.

In the carefully scripted presentation Johnson gave at his press conference comeback on Thursday, it was clear that there was kite-flying going on. Johnson’s chief political advisor Dominic Cummings ensured that the PM did not stray from the script and dropped big hints that soon we would all be back at work, wearing masks and keeping our distance. The Daily Telegraph, long time supporter and indeed recent employer of Johnson, added its own spin by suggesting that the ‘two-metre’ rule could be ‘relaxed’ because it’s usefulness has been questioned. Put the Sun and Telegraph stories together and you can see it’s very obvious what’s happening. The Times adds that middle class commuters will be subject to temperature checks when they start reusing buses and tubes. Same thing.

I am increasingly of the view that the media in general has been desperately poor and ineffective throughout this deadly virus. The government’s dithering and delays have cost many lives, the lack of adequate PPE supplies have been little short of scandalous, the initial ‘herd immunity’ strategy was quietly abandoned when it became clear 500k people might die and the lack of testing has been a disgrace. We are even encouraged to believe that the government yesterday reached 100k of daily tests when all that happened was that the government posted out 40k home testing kits to bump up the numbers.

It’s all very well saying ‘we’re all in it together’, although reports in the Guardian and Mirror today show people in the poorest areas are dying at twice the rate of those living in the richest areas. And I can no longer go along with the idea of supporting the government ‘because they are doing their best’ when it is clear their best is hopelessly inadequate.

The Sun, the Mail, the Express et al are playing us for fools. They are not so much holding the government to account, as surely a genuinely free press would do; rather acting as propaganda agencies for government.

We’re being played, my friends. We elected the politicians to serve us, not for us to serve them. We keep being told we have a free press. Where is it?