Trussed Up – how the Daily Mail screws with the national conversation

Trussed Up: How the Daily Mail tied itself in knots over the Tory leadership

 

On 7 July last year, The Other Half and I were travelling home from a holiday on Rügen, Germany’s largest island, which is on the Baltic. As we piled into the taxi from our holiday home to head to the railway station, we caught the radio news.

 

The words ‘Boris Johnson’ featured highly. Our driver told us that it was top of the German news cycle. “Boris Johnson ist total verrückt!” I exclaimed, finding it the best my limited German could manage (translation: ‘Boris Johnson is totally crazy’).

 

He howled with laughter. I rather like to think that he later shared this with friends over a beer, as an anecdote of what at least what one Brit thought of Johnson – and could even convey it in German.

 

It was four hours back to Hamburg. But on an excellent German train, with excellent onboard wifi, that ensured we were glued to the slow-mo car crash taking place back in London.

 

By the time we got home, Johnson was no longer the prime minister.

 

Hurrah!

 

Or perhaps less so.

 

For three utterly exhausting months, the country had to watch – helplessly – as The Conservative and Unionist Party first elected a new leader, then dumped her after she screwed the economy, and then found a quick way to choose a third leader (and second unelected prime minister).

 

And a crucial part of that farce was played by the Daily Mail – ‘the voice of Middle England’ – which loves to pretend that it represents ‘common sense’ etc.

 

Liz Gerard is “Long in tooth and sometimes claw, old poacher turns gamekeeper to watch the Press”, as per her Twitter profile. She has had a journalistic career of over 40 years, including 30 as a night editor at The Times.

 

Here, she has done a detailed analysis of the Daily Mail over that quarter of a year, illustrating its massive influence over Tory MPs and members.

 

It is, in effect, a diary, charting the opinion columns and leaders surrounding the issue.

 

Those of us who are aware of what the Mail is like might not be expecting to be surprised. However, what Gerard has done reveals the absolute precision of a real sub-editor (traditionally paid better that reporters on ‘The Street’ for being more literate etc) and shining a light on how the Mail works against democracy.

 

Concentrating on this specific, tumultuous time, she shows precisely how the Mail terrifies Tory MPs. And indeed, she hardly needs to make much extraneous comment – when you see/read the Mail content in this condensed way, it’s very clear what a danger this is and how much sheer hypocrisy there is.

 

I grew up in a rabidly Mail home; I know what this paper does. What Gerard has done here is brilliant in making it so clear just how the publication works against democracy, the public and political debate.

 

I have never read as many parts of Mail editorials as in the last two days reading this book – and never has it been clearer that so much of it is hysterical, pearl clutching with little relation to reality.

 

Gerard has done us all a favour – reminding us just how bad the Mail is, how and why. It is a malign influence on the country’s life. Read this – and spread the word about why and how.

You can buy the book here. 

You can follow Liz over on Twitter twitter.com/gameoldgirl.

The Tories care about people? Well, some of them don't

If anyone ever tells you that the Conservatives don’t care about people, ignore them. The Conservative and Unionist Party most certainly care about people. 

Or at least, some members of the Conservative and Unionist Party care about some people.

 

Unfortunately, if you fall outside the select band, then it really is a case of ‘screw you’. 

 

And the past few weeks have offered two perfect examples of that.

 

At the end of September, I received an email, ostensibly from the secretary of state for health, Sajid Javid MP, on the basis that I had been advised to shield last year, when the pandemic got into full swing.

 

Let’s be entirely clear: I had cancer in 2018. “Had”, in that I am currently still free of it after major surgery – and a massive thank you to my GP practice and my local hospital for ensuring that checks have continued throughout the pandemic – though it could still come back.

 

I have high blood pressure (only diagnosed in 2019, so I’m going to blame the bleedin’ Tories) and I’m overweight.

 

But not exactly being at death’s door. I have had just two days off sick during the pandemic, continuing to work full time throughout, from home – and indeed, being part of a very small team that has won an external award for the work that we have done during that same pandemic.

 

Though of course, if you read the Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph or other such publications, you’ve probably been told that nothing like that has happened and that anyone working from home hasn’t been ... well, working.

 

For more clarity: although I live in a very small flat, I’m fortunate enough to be able to work at home with a decent physical set up, as I’ve previously been a freelance journalist, self-employed. The OH, though never freelance, was also in the same position in terms of his ability to work from home, prior to his retirement in June 2020, which was planned 12 months before.

 

But let’s consider Javid’s email advice to those who had been shielding – in other words, those who had been described by their own GPs as “extremely clinically vulnerable” to COVID-19.

 

“You should continue to follow the same general guidance as everyone else,” it declares. This can be found at https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus. But “in addition to any condition specific advice you may have been given by your specialist in recent weeks ... as someone with a health condition you might also want to think about extra things you can do to keep yourself and others safe.”

 

Okay ... so what might those be?

 

“This could include:

• considering whether you and those you are meeting have been vaccinated – you might want to wait until 14 days after everyone’s second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine before being in close contact with others;
• considering continuing to practise social distancing if that feels right for you and your friends;
• asking friends and family to take a rapid lateral flow antigen test before visiting you; 
• asking home visitors to wear face coverings;
• avoiding crowded spaces.”

So, these are things to “consider”, right?

 

To start with, there is no mention of clinically vulnerable people – or members of their family – being expected to travel to workplaces.

 

There is a sense that those who are ‘genuinely’ clinically vulnerable will be old, retired and not with members of their household expected to attend an external workplace.

 

Still, I suppose it made a change from the paper snail-mail letters ‘signed’ by “Matt” [Hancock] and Robert Jenrick.

 

However, it is a total abrogation of any responsibility for public health from the health secretary. 

 

A couple of weeks ago, having been informed that I must be in the physical workplace at least two days a week, I sat in a room for a hybrid meeting, where the social distancing was not what it should have been. Given my personal circumstances, I was very close to freaking, walking away from the physical meeting and joining it online.

 

I have heard the argument that I need to learn to live with the risks. Yet this seems to assume that I need to learn to live with me increasing the risks to my partner too. That is ethically appalling.

And all it would have taken was for the UK government to say that, if you had shielded last year, then if remotely (there's obviously a joke here) possible, it would be best to continue working from home.

 

Instead, people have been put into an invidious situation whereby employers can demand they do something that increases the risk – not only to themselves, but to others in their household who don't get to make that choice.

And of course, at the time of writing, COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths are rising.

 

And nobody saw this coming as a consequence of ‘Freedom Day’.

 

However, this is not the only example of the state of the UK’s government. Just before the start of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was challenged in a television interview on how to measure his promised ‘levelling up’ between the country’s regions.

He answered: “I’ve given you the most important metric – never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes – look at wage growth.

“Wage growth is now being experienced faster by those on lower incomes. It hasn’t happened for 10 years or more. That is what I mean by levelling up.”

As it happens, the claim about wage growth is a lie – but then again, his lips were moving – but what a thing to openly state: that life expectancy, falling in the UK for those not as well-to-do as the prime minister, and cancer outcomes* don’t matter.

 

It’s almost like the Conservatives ... some Conservatives ... really don’t give a flying one about the masses.

 

* Just a note to say, let’s not forget that, while his then wife was being treated for cancer, Boris Johnson was busy shagging another woman.

** And another note to say that the cartoon used above is from @chrisriddell50, and I hope he forgives me for using it here.