
It is unclear what Tory MP Damian Green’s made-up job title – First Secretary of State – means but within its remit there appears to be the task of testing the popularity and feasibility of policy intent. To do this he throws down some half-baked garbled ideas in a newspaper column or radio/TV interview without explanation, detail or any answers to immediate queries, and he and his colleagues observe how the ideas are received and how they develop.
Of course, Green’s objective is to push policy proposals into public view laden with bias, misdirection and suggested conclusions. His tactic is a common one borrowed from the right-wing think-tanks. The tactic emphasises the Tories’ lack of confidence in their ideas: They are unable to present a policy plan coherently and ready for analysis and interrogation, so they slip it out as a pseudo-opinion piece packed full of crooked sign posts.
Fake plans about fake fake news
Earlier this week Christopher Hope (apologies) promoted some such thoughts of Green in the Telegraph (apologies): Green fakes out. Comments below in italics are Green’s words followed by my Jacksons. (1)
“The point is that our political discourse needs to be better than it currently is, an argument that will not be lost on many people in this room whose livelihoods are under threat from unscrupulous blogs and websites that have no regard for any attempt to check the truth like the Canary, Breitbart, SkwawkBox.”
Current “political discourse” is Theresa May and her colleagues dodging every question put to them by journalists and opposition MPs, and openly laughing in parliament at the lives destroyed by Tory policy.
Green has grouped left-wing media sites with the corporate-funded far-right racist anti-Islam Breitbart site; he did this as a deliberate and childish insult to the former.
The “many people in this room” that Green appeals to are journalists from right-wing newspapers owned by multi-million pound tax-dodgers; to describe left-wing sites as “unscrupulous” compared to those divisive rags is purposeful fraud by Green.
“If mainstream politicians and journalists start to behave like Twitter trolls and then democracy is in danger.”
Right-wing newspapers and right-wing TV and radio are already full of professional trolls and screaming heads and Tory MPs behave like brats in parliament and online every day.
“I know there is a long history of insulting our leaders from Gillray cartoons onwards and I have no expectation or desire to go back to the era when journalists politely asked prime ministers if they wish to add anything else at the end of an interview.”
Well, the current prime minister never answers a damn question from any journalist.
“But I do think that we need to respect each other motives, and treat each other’s views with courtesy, whether we are on either side to the Commons chamber or even on either side of the much bigger chasm of politicians and journalists.”
No-one with any humanity should respect the “motives” of the Tories. Any respect or courtesy toward a Tory is the same as obedience.
“If we don’t, then we risk feeding an atmosphere of increasing hatred which at the most horrible of extremes led to the killing of Jo Cox.”
The Tories promote division, including promoting racism, every day. It is a key facet of being a Tory.
Jo Cox was killed by a far-right extremist who opposed her liberal views. The “many people in this room” that Green mentions earlier are partly responsible for the promotion and encouragement of far-right anti-liberal views; the current Tory government is equally responsible. However, Green is using Jo Cox’s death as a spurious excuse to attack left-wing news sites.
Green’s objective is to attack independent left-wing media. He and his Tory colleagues are aware of the rapidly increasing popularity and the successful arguments of such news outlets and their contributors. The Tories are very fearful of the genuine challenge to the right-wing pro-exploitation’s domination of political discourse. The fear is redolent in every word by Green quoted in the Telegraph.
Green’s comments are ram-packed with lies, misdirection, libel and conclusion sign-posting. His tactics are as reprehensible as Donald Trump’s. He wants to stifle or shut down left-wing criticism of the Tories while leaving the right-wing media free to promote Tory agendas. The extent of how low he is prepared to stoop in his dishonesty, fraud and confidence trickstering is shown by the fact that he unashamedly used the murder of Jo Cox in order to make a spurious point.
The same article has further recent quotes from Damian Green.
“Everyone, before they go in studs up on a political opponent, needs to think long and carefully about who they are talking to.”
Tories are not “political” opponents, they are opponents of humanity. Tories are gimps of wealth terrorists. Tories exist to fleece the British people in order to fill the bottomless off-shore accounts of financial gangsters. Tories are deliberately destroying the health service, state education, the police service, the fire service and housing in order to mutate them into conduits to transfer taxes into the grubby hands of crooks in private “healthcare,” private “security,” etc. The only way to communicate with a Tory is assertively, aggressively and with no heed paid to their confidence tricks, their con tricks and their relentless lying.
“It might play well with your own troops to give your opponent a big kicking on the latest microsite but perhaps it behoves us all to ask: ‘Who is reading it and what are they going to do next?’ “
The right-wing newspapers, Tory websites and Tory-backed right-wing think-tanks are full of lies and rabble-rousing rhetoric designed to create division, prejudice, anger and violence, but Green libels the left-wing sites instead.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the language of political discourse and the descriptions political opponents use against each other has become markedly worse in my time in the House.”
Well, yes, by the Tories and DUP. Hoards of Tory Bratboys laughing and mocking whenever an opposition MP asks a question or raises a point about the devastating effects of Tory violence on the British public.
Fearful Tories
Fear is the key facet of Green’s motivation to attack the left-wing news sites. He fears what is being said and he fears how well and how widely the opinions on said sites are being received.
The Tories are comfortable with most of the mainstream newspapers, radio and television, they have the threat of charter renewal hanging over the heads of the BBC executives, and they are assisted by streams of warped and dishonest opinion pushing from a large mob of right-wing think-tanks, but they cannot control (at present) the ideology, content and analysis of the independent left-wing media. The fear of not being in control is eating at the Tories’ composure.
Authoritarian bans of free speech never appear suddenly. They creep up unnoticed. They are prepared, in advance, via misdirection, dead cats and word-fraud. In the quoted comments above, Green purposefully gave a false account of the effect of the left-wing news sites while simultaneously erasing the fact that his criticisms and (fake) observations apply much more readily to mainstream right-wing newspapers (who support the Tories) and/or the behaviour of Tory MPs.
Green’s intent is clear. However, his tactics are so obvious, so clumsy and so instantly refutable that he is, ultimately, just another Tory clown.
Related blogs (each opens in a new window)
Screaming Heads and Professional Trolls
If you have a Tory friend now is the time for your friendship to end
Tory Bratboys in Parliament
Murder or Social Murder? Grenfell, disability benefit cuts and NHS destruction
Tories and campaign abuse
British Values? No, there are human values and Tory values – mutually exclusive
Notes
(1) Jackson = Samuel L. Jackson = retort.
[…] politics: Intimidation of politicians Tories preparing to censor revolutionary politics: Bew Report Damian Green Fears Left-Wing Media Tom Watson’s (aborted) fake news inquiry Transparent politicians and transparent media are […]