To my loyal reader

I just posted my 100th blog. I seem to have attracted one reader. Thanks a lot whoever you are. Please comment, anonymously if you wish.I hold no grudges and would like some feedback. Emojis will do if you're busy. I accept any spelling of 'bollocks/bollox'.

Guardian readers show the way (again)

Marvellous clash of understandings of ideology to day in el Graunidio. The paper itself has a piece admiringly profiling one L Kuenssberg,Chief Political Editor for the BBC. The overall tone is that L Kuenssberg cannot be 'biased' because she upholds journalistic values and is generally a very intelligent and overall nice person. a 'titan who would die for impartiality' as the subtitle puts it. 

The old charge of residual misognyny is trotted out (one reason for the withdrawal of a petititon to protest her actions -- although subsequent investigation, of unknown provenance, found not a single misogynistic comment). Kuenssberg has had to have a bodyguard to attend the Labour Conference it seems --although no-one has said what the threat actually is.

There is the old 'if both sides hate us we must be right' schtick:

Laura has hit a nerve with her reporting, quite rightly, because she has every right to hold everyone to account.”[said a friend -- but in whose name?]  ...Kuenssberg’s impartiality is constantly questioned, though she is accused of being both left-biased and pro-Tory [I have never seen an accusation of pro-left views -- but I have a limited reading of the news myself]

Then a hint about the methods modern journalists use (by another political correspondent also accused of bias -- and who was once a Tory candidate, I believe):

"if she says something, it’s not because it’s a hunch, it’s because she knows it’s true because she’s talked to people"

'True because she's talked to people'! How thorough! What an easy issue, truth is!

Another friend adds : "[she is] not one of those pain-in-the-arse type people you think are too much.”

Not one of those pesky experts then, who might not fit in with the mediocracy or cause dissent among the smart set (who have always hated experts) . The mediocracy have absolved her from criticism, of course, despite an unpleasant finding by the BBC Trust that she hasd 'misinformed 'people. That issue is highly illuminating in showing how journos can indeed avoid personal bias but still misreport (as below). The BBC seized on the first point to absolve Kuenssberg but ignored the second.

The Graun profile is rounded off with tributes to her hard work, competitiveness, desire to be right, but also her humorous side. A hard-working honest pro like us -- move along .

Years ago and far away, a group of troublemakers at the Birmigham Centre for Cultural Studies argued that personal qualities and personal adherence to journalist values is not the issue. The issue is the ideological context in which these values are set -- the unconscious and self-evident  notion of a valid grounding consensus about politics, for example that 'balance' is maintained between 'reasonable' positions only. That is only 'common-sense'.  Other terminology points to the 'habitus' journos share, as members of an elite -- their beliefs are unconsciously held (so accusations of bias are genuinely resented) , and capable of infinite extensions to new cases (their journalistic expertise and their unguarded comments).

As we have seen increasingly stridently, anyone who does not share that consensus can be mocked and bullied.The consensus is spelled out for the rest of it in horribly patronising summaries (a Kuenssberg speciality). Conversely, the journos claim to be speaking for the consensual 'silent majority' (a Newsnight speciality). The whole thing is a delightful 'mirror-structure' as a notorious French marxist once said.

Compare this to a set of readers' points about 'bias'. I would use different terminology of course, but they raise some relevant points.

The BBC should properly weigh up the rights of marginal voices like Lord Lawson to mislead its audiences about the risks they face against the rights of its audiences to receive accurate information about those risks.

...does political coverage really offer diversity?...A journalist’s life experiences offer foundations for their querying minds. A balanced media should be representative of all parts of our society.

the real problem is that across the board, mainstream and alternative, we have almost completely lost the idea of journalism as the first draft of history.

... I recall, a TV interview [Nick Robinson] had with David Cameron shortly after Cameron became PM. Cameron rolled out the Tory mantra that Gordon Brown’s Labour government had caused the global financial crisis. The camera panned to Robinson who merely nodded at this claim and made no attempt to question or dispute it. This falsity was repeated more recently by Andrew Marr in respect of his stated view that a Labour government couldn’t be trusted to manage the national economy ...Corbyn corrected Marr, pointing out that the global financial crisis was the direct consequence of irresponsible speculation of the US mortgage market by several US financial bodies, which collapsed as a result, and not the Labour government of the time. Marr, visibly irritated at being corrected in this way, responded with: “It doesn’t matter who caused the global financial crisis.” A remarkable response from someone claiming to be both a journalist and a historian.

The BBC’s importance in explaining complex subjects is constrained by the time allocated to the main news at 6pm and 10pm. Difficult subjects get snippets without time to provide context. Political and business reporters show little understanding of economics so are unable to explain that, for example, the monthly figures they have just enthused over have a wider context that is less positive ... Where are we to get a proper explanation of serious subjects on the BBC?

Spectator gets involved

An item in the Spectator (or rather its blog) -- an unrepentant piece by a Leaver, one Brendan O'Neill,  on the Geat Bus Slogan Debate. I say unrepentant -- it could have been written by me!

It claims:

1  Hardly anyone voted Brexit because of the bus slogan: 'The idea that that bus swung the referendum, that it duped the voting hordes, has become one of the great, and nasty, myths of the Brexit era'.

2. Johnson actually said in his Telegraph article that:

leaving the EU will give us more control over ‘roughly’ £350m a week, and it would be good ‘if a lot of that money went on the NHS...he didn’t say leaving the EU would boost NHS coffers by a tidy £350m a week. He said it would give us say-so over a certain amount of money, and we could choose to spend that money on health if we like.

3. Remainer media, including the Staggers, rendered that as a' one-line summary of Boris’s comments — leaving the EU would ‘result in £350m a week for the NHS [but this ] is directly contradicted by his actual comments' 

4. I have to get balanced here myself and say that the Boris comment is NOT exactly a direct contradiction of the Staggers summary --but it is a different emphasis, still, of course, a bit of spin. The blogger is right to say:

I know standards are slipping in the media, but journalists surely understand the word ‘if’? It’s a conjunction that signals something will happen if something else happens first. In this case if we make a choice to spend that wad of EU-released cash on the NHS. ‘If’ is not ‘it will result in’; ‘if’ is ‘it might result in...Even the bus, which I think was naff, didn’t make a cast-iron cash promise.

4.And

It’s remarkable that the kind of people who usually insist that public spending be well-aimed and used to assist the less well-off can be so cavalier about our pumping of 200 million a week into the EU. This Brussels black-hole suck on British cash will remind many Leavers why they voted against the EU: they see it as a distant, uncaring, filthy-rich oligarchy. Some people, I fear, don’t appreciate how ridiculous they sound to the struggling, everyday Brexiteer when they scoff: ‘Actually, I think you’ll find we only give the EU £200m a week…’

5. Finally:

The reason [Remainer media]  elevate this bus above all else, above all the other BS both Leave and Remain spouted last year, is because they genuinely think it turned voters. That it dazzled our little minds. That it duped the throng. It is so deeply patronising. And it is also a lie.. . Some people obsess over this bus because they cannot face the truth: huge numbers of people voted against the EU, not because they want more hospital beds, but because they wanted to upturn the arrogant establishment and revolt against politics as we know it. 

'Free' movement

The 4 great freedoms of the EU, that are so crucial and so indissolubly bound to the liberal connotations of 'Europe' include freedom of movement of people, perhaps the most 'liberating' of all for many Remainers (and, happliy, a major factor in easy tourist travel and the legendary cheap strawberries, this blog, passim).

I have always thought of Marx's sarcastic remark about the 'freedom of movement' the Scots crofters experienced in the C18 and C19 when they were 'liberated' from old feudal customs by the HIghlands Clearances. They were now 'free' to 'choose' to go to the slums of Glasgow, work in a sweatshop or starve on the streets. Or pack up and emigrate to the colonies, of course -- cross-border freedom of travel.

An article in the Grudina today by H Moir points to another dimension -- the wealthy can buy EU citizenship, in effect, and enjoy their version of freedom of movement, including freely dodging across national jurisdictions to escape tax and the law. They can buy all sorts of other citizenships too.They do this by investing various amounts in the country concerned.

The Cypriot government has raised more than €4bn since 2013 by providing citizenship to the global super-rich, giving them the ability to live and work throughout the EU in exchange for a cash investment. We know that among those who have availed themselves of this right are billionaire Russian oligarchs and Ukrainians accused of corruption. For the financially well-endowed, the deal is a bit of a steal: the Cypriots merely ask for €2m in property or €2.5m in company or government bonds....All we [Brits] ask is for a £2m investment. You can buy citizenship in Greece for €250,000, while Portugal’s “golden visa” scheme lets non-EU citizens gain full residency and unfettered travel rights across the 28 EU nations by spending €500,000 on a Portuguese property.

Other countries, like Grenada will do you a deal too, so you can enjoy reciprocal rights with lots of other countries. As a good liberal, Moir reminds us there are definite economic advantages in attracting inward investment, of course. Inhabitants of London, well used to such 'free movement'  might well also speak of things like the upwards pressure on housing and demands for services from having dodgy oligarchs roaming the streets.

Moir extends the analysis to make a point about ideology too: 

The very rich, the high net-worthers, don’t just see themselves as opportunists using their fortunes to gain themselves maximum flexibility. They see themselves as nomads for whom borders and nationality have little significance...In 2015, when complaints about our offer to high net-worthers led the British government to tighten diligence checks on who was applying and make it more difficult for them to plough funds into property for their own rather than societal advantage, applications plummeted. 

He ends the piece with this welcome note of realism amid the romance about moving about freely as a citizen of the world: 
 

Be wary of high net-worthers’ romantic notion of a world without borders. The benefits aren’t mutual, and the super-rich don’t like too many questions asked.

Lies,damned lies...

The latest maverick speech by B Johnson has renewed the focus on the internal Tory leadership struggles (because he did not 'authorise' the speech,and excited liberals think it is a way of reining in T May from making a really Remainy speech about the EU this week). It has also revived the Great Lie Hoohah. Johnson still claims we will not have to pay a sum amounting to £350m a week - the thing that stings Remainers most of all. The Guardian today mostly went with the leadership challenge issue

Various denunciations of the speech have ensued, with the usual internal stuff enhanced by including one from a statistician (wow!):

In a letter to to the foreign secretary, Norgrove [' the head of the UK Statistics Authority',] slapped down the use of the £350m figure, arguing: “This confuses gross and net contributions. It also assumes that payments currently made to the UK by the EU, including, for example, for the support of agriculture and scientific research, will not be paid by the UK government when we leave.”... It added: “It is a clear misuse of official statistics.”

Same old same old then. An opinion piece by the inevitable M. D'Ancona further rubbishes Johnson as a yesterday's man and mentions the Great Lie issue:

the fact [is] that the UK’s net payment to Brussels is much less (the excellent Full Fact site estimates that the actual figure is around £250m).

A mere £250m then! Peanuts. The 'excellent Full Fact site' is good though, and actually goes on with this:

In 2016 the UK government paid £13.1 billion to the EU budget, and EU spending on the UK was forecast to be £4.5 billion. So the UK’s ‘net contribution’ was estimated at about £8.6 billion.
Each year the UK gets an instant discount on its contributions to the EU—the ‘rebate’—worth almost £4 billion last year. Without it the UK would have been liable for £17 billion in contributions...

The Treasury and ONS both publish figures on the subject, but they're slightly different. The ONS also publishes other figures on contributions to EU institutions which don't include all our payments or receipts, which complicates matters....

We can be pretty sure about how much cash we put in, but it’s far harder to be sure about how much, if anything, comes back in economic benefits....The £156 million figure [a report in the Independent, apparently] is calculated after the rebate has been applied and after the ‘public sector receipts’ for that year have been subtracted. The £350 million accounted for neither of these things....Using these newer figures the amount we sent to the EU, after the rebate but before any money spent in the UK [NB accordingto EU policy, not UK policy] is counted, is £234 million per week. 

Incidentally, there is also an interesting graph showing trends over time: 

 

There is no discussion of the upward trend -- no doubt it is partly due at least to new memebers joining, all of whom have been net recipients? 

Back to days of wind and piss

The UK has released 5 'position papers' and another in draft form was leaked to el Grunadi on immigration policy in advance of the great debate on the  Reform Bill going on in Parliament.There are some really straw-clutching hopes that various Remainers will scupper the bill, advanced inevitably by the increasingly desperate-to-be-loved Nick Watt of Newsnight, a man who has schoolboy conjuring tricks that no-one wants to see.

The BBC seemed to have a plethora of 'why we should be worried' stories ,mostly relating to yesterday's news about a tighter immigration policy. An amazing spokesperson for the leisure and tourism business on Newsnight managed to argue both that the industry will be terminally scuppered if they can't get cheap labour with excess skills (like languages), and that her industry was innovative,dynamic, and an increasing source of interesting work for British people. 

Meanwhile the Guridan reveals to day that one of the major employers for EU nationals is -- domestic households [in my print edition -- couldn't find it on the web] . So it's a threat to cheap strawberries AND cheap domestic servants. God -- the horror!

The contents of the draft immigration papers seem pretty mild really, not really dissimilar to provisions for non-EU countries, and the Graun has to beef it all up with stories of symbolically hurt EU nationals promising to leave. The mild tone is repeated today in the EU's own position papers obtained by the Rudigan. Point one, 'likely to inflame Brexiters' is that the brand names of European produce be preserved -- French burgundy, Greek feta cheese and the like. How ghastly if we bought inauthentic alternatives by mistake!

Other tough demands include: 'Ensuring that any goods in transit on Brexit day would be subject to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice...A warning to the government that it must guarantee EU data protection standards on classified EU documents...Asking [sic] Britain not to discriminate against EU companies which are carrying out state-funded infrastructure projects'

The most problematic is the Irish border issue -- 'Brussels intends to say the UK should shoulder responsibility for the border'. As it has been a central issue in British politics now and then for about 250 years and has spawned really nasty violence, this is surely something that requires no EU nudging. Was the EU remotely interested before?

The impression I got was that the heat had gone from the issue, despite the routine exchange of insults about unrealistic thinking. The Graun and the BBC seem to have borrowed tabloid strategies to up their readership by repeating these pointless insults to 'inflame' the public.

In general, the mood seems more businesslike:

The plans had a mixed reception in Brussels. One source said there was anger and real frustration that the UK is going for a “hardcore domestic immigration policy”.
But many did not share this view. One usually outspoken politician, who closely follows Brexit, declined to comment, deeming the issue “a matter for the UK as a third [non-EU] country”. The issue came up at an internal meeting in the European parliament, where “there was a general sense that it was the UK’s sovereign decision to put in place a migration policy”, a source said.

Capitalism opts for business as usual -- quelle surprise!