Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

The Government trick voters into believing they're all FOR free-speech & AGAINST "nanny-state" interventionism.

But the Right has a recurrent obsession with pro-censorship, anti-free-speech legislation, & make repeated attempts to control what people see & hear.

I'm going to put to one side the BANNING of teaching of anti-capitalist views in schools, the concerning "free speech" measures introduced to CONTROL debate in Universities & the disproportionate obsession with antisemitism between 2015 & 2019, as I've written about these before.

Following the original video nasties moral panic in the mid-1980s, Mary Whitehouse & other right-wing reactionaries, supported by the frothing right-wing press, campaigned to ban some horror films available on video, & tough legislation was introduced restricting choice.

By 1994 Britain had the strictest film & video censorship laws in the Western world, but an amendment to the criminal justice bill sought to BAN the sale/rental of ALL videos that “present an inappropriate model for children or are LIKELY TO CAUSE PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM to children.”

While the vague & absurd formulation "likely to cause psychological harm" was unworkable, it was designed to appease right-wing reactionaries who saw video nasties as symbolic of all that was wrong with 'decaying' modern culture.

What impact to newspapers have on public opinion?

Prior to this, opinion polls in the run-up to the 1992 election suggested a hung parliament or a narrow Labour majority, yet the Tories received what remains the largest number of votes at a UK general election in British history.

What role does the press play in elections?

27 year later, & a new Government bill will create a “knowingly false communication” offence designed to criminalise those who send or post a message they know to be false, with the intention to cause “emotional, PSYCHOLOGICAL, or physical HARM to the likely audience”.

It doesn't matter that this formulation is absurd & unworkable, because that's not what it's for: imho, it's designed to fuel the culture war, divide voters, demonise progressive views & show SYMBOLICALLY that the Govt is all about 'action & solutions' - regardless of reality.

This bombastic & divisive rhetorical style has been a very effective strategy for the Right.

Julian Petley argues the video nasties panic illustrates "the quite remarkable power which a stridently populist press has managed to exert over the British political class for decades".

Do politicians believe that the opinions expressed by right-wing newspapers reflect public opinion? Or are these the opinions to which politicians are most highly sensitised & thus liable to react to in policy terms?

Either way, what the public actually thinks counts for little.

It's tragic how little representation there is in public discourse of the debate about the nature of the relationship between the right-wing press & politicians.

Where does the power really lie?

What influence do press barons exert?

What is the true nature of the relationship?

#Leveson gave us a glimpse behind the curtain, but then #Leveson2 was abandoned - why?

The Right are quick to defend their "free press", but when you have widespread lies & deception occurring in a democracy, then you don't have genuine consent: it's a non-consensual process.

When you then add the full range of incentivisations, the behind closed doors meetings, coercions, lobbying, conflicts of interest - the proximity of the right-wing news media to the Government, & a PM who worked for the Telegraph AND Spectator, Britain looks very undemocratic.

NOW is the time to raise the alarm about the lies, the endemic #ToryCorruption, the billions squandered in #ToryCronyism, the antidemocratic legislation around protest, the selling of our data, & the attacks on our legal system & the Electoral Commission.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1371265895868272641