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<address class="entry-title"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://www.medialens.org/2020/an-illusion-of-protection-the-pandemic-the-criminal-government-and-public-distrust-of-the-media/">https://www.medialens.org/2020/an-illusion-of-protection-the-pandemic-the-criminal-government-and-public-distrust-of-the-media/</a><br>
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<h1 class="entry-title">An Illusion Of Protection: The Pandemic,
The ‘Criminal’ Government And Public Distrust of The Media</h1>
<div class="mh-meta entry-meta"> <span class="entry-meta-date
updated">18th May 2020</span> <span
class="entry-meta-categories">Alerts</span> </div>
</header>
<figure class="entry-thumbnail"> <br>
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<p>Any notion that the UK government actually considers that its
primary responsibility is to protect the health and security of
the country’s population ought to have been demolished in 2020.
The appalling death toll that continues to mount during the
coronavirus pandemic is largely rooted, not merely in government
‘incompetence’, but in criminal dereliction of its core duties in
a supposedly democratic society.</p>
<p>The UK has the highest death toll in Europe, and the second
highest in the world (the US has the highest). On May 12, the
death toll from official UK figures exceeded 40,000 for the first
time, including almost 10,000 care home residents. A study by
academics at the London School of Economics estimates that the
actual death toll in care homes is, in fact, double the official
figure: more than 22,000.</p>
<p>Government ministers have been scrambling to protect themselves
from such damaging facts by spouting empty rhetoric. Health
Secretary Matt Hancock actually declared on May 15:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Right from the start we’ve tried to throw a protective ring
around our care homes. We set out our first advice in February…
we’ve made sure care homes have the resources they need.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke, author of the bestselling
book ‘Dear Life, Your Life In My Hands’, rejected his deceptive
claim:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘This is categorically untrue. Care homes were left without
testing. Without contract tracing. Without PPE [personal
protective equipment]. Without support. You can deny it all you
like, Matt Hancock, but we were witnesses – we ARE witnesses –
and believe me you will be held to account.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is important to note that the coronavirus death toll is even
higher than official figures because people are dying from heart
disease, cancer, strokes and other illnesses that would otherwise
have been treated had there been no ongoing pandemic. Chris Giles,
the Financial Times economics editor, has been tracking the number
of total excess deaths, issuing regular updates via Twitter. He
noted that ‘a cautious estimate’ of excess deaths linked to
coronavirus up to May 15 was an appalling 61,200. The FT has
published an extensive analysis here with regular updates.</p>
<p>University of Edinburgh researchers have estimated that at least
2,000 lives would have been saved in Scotland – a staggering 80
per cent of the total – if the government had introduced the
lockdown two weeks earlier. Rowland Kao, professor of epidemiology
and lead author of the study, said there had ‘definitely’ been
enough information about the coming pandemic in mid-February. If
the lockdown had been imposed across the whole of the UK on March
9, rather than March 23:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘you would expect a similar effect to the one seen in our
research on Scotland.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, there would have been an 80 per cent reduction in
the death toll across the whole of the UK: around 26,000 lives
saved (assuming the official undercount by May 3 of 32,490
fatalities). This is a truly shocking statistic and a damning
indictment of the Tory government.</p>
<p>Countries outside the UK have looked on aghast while the pandemic
death toll here rose quickly, given the advance warnings of what
was happening abroad, notably in Italy and Spain. Continental
newspapers have been highly critical of the UK government’s
response to the pandemic. The German newspaper Die Zeit noted
that:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘the infection has spread unchecked longer than it should have.
The wave of infections also spread from the hospitals to the old
people’s homes, which could also have been avoided. The
government is now trying to pretend to the public that it has
the situation under control.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant told its readers:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘the British were insufficiently prepared for the pandemic,
despite the presence of expertise in this area. The country has
been catching up in recent weeks. Much of the harm has already
been done.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In France, Le Monde said:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Despite Europe’s worst mortality, probably too late entry into
confinement and a blatant lack of preparation, the British have
so far supported Johnson.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here in the UK, honest and responsible journalism would have made
it clear, regularly and prominently, that many deaths were
avoidable and a consequence of damaging government policies
including:</p>
<ul>
<li>the imposition of ‘austerity’ in past years</li>
<li>the deliberate corporate-driven break-up of the National
Health Service</li>
<li>the government’s lack of preparedness for a pandemic</li>
<li>the belated move to lockdown and the present rush to ‘open up
the economy’ and send children back to school</li>
</ul>
<p>If we had an actual functioning ‘mainstream’ media, it would be
holding this disgraceful government to account, properly and
comprehensively. BBC News, as the country’s well-funded ‘public
service’ broadcaster, would be to the fore of critical and
forensic journalism. In a piece published on the progressive <em>ZNet</em>
website, Felix Collins dissected the government-friendly
propaganda campaign in the UK media, including the BBC:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘On April 10, as UK daily deaths became higher than any
recorded in Italy or Spain, media coverage led with Boris’
recovery [after being in intensive care], while BBC News’ main
headline was about the “herculean effort” of the Government to
provide NHS with PPE. Subsequent headlines featured nurses
describing treating Johnson as “surreal”, something they’d
“never forget” and that he was “like everybody else”;
orchestrated artificial grassroots support to boost public
opinion about Boris and his government seem likely. The notions
of supporting the country and supporting its leader are being
conflated.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a small concession to the damning truth, BBC News aired
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician from the
University of Cambridge, who was granted a moment on the Andrew
Marr Sunday programme to call the government’s daily press
briefings ‘completely embarrassing’. They are ‘not trustworthy
communication of statistics’ and no more than ‘number theatre’.
But this was a deviation from the broadcasting norm which has
regularly seen BBC correspondents, notably political editor Laura
Kuenssberg, serving up meek accounts of the crisis on prime-time
BBC News at Six and Ten. An article in the Economist was actually
titled, ‘The BBC is having a good pandemic’, even as it quoted one
unnamed senior BBC journalist who let slip that:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘the [BBC] bosses are keen that we come out of this with the
sense that we looked after the interest of the nation, not just
our journalistic values.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In effect, there should not even be the pretence of
‘impartiality’, but a shoring-up of state propaganda by the BBC on
behalf of the government. In fact, this has long been the reality
of BBC performance ever since BBC founder John Reith wrote in his
diary during the 1926 General Strike that ‘they [the government]
know that they can trust us not to be really impartial.’</p>
<p>One welcome exception was the Panorama programme investigating
the appalling lack of preparation for the pandemic; not least the
inadequate provision of PPE for NHS staff and workers in care
homes. But, in yet another sign that any dissent will not be
tolerated, Tory Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden then attacked the
BBC for straying momentarily from the state-approved script.</p>
<span id="more-4839"></span>
<p><strong>‘You Dropped The Ball Prime Minister. That Was Criminal’</strong></p>
<p>Piers Morgan has been a strong and sustained voice challenging
government ministers about their policies in his role as a lead
presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, and on his Twitter
account which is followed by over seven million people. In a
devastating indictment of the government, Morgan wrote:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘the virus isn’t like Brexit.</p>
<p>‘It’s not a political ideology that can be open to debate, or
an argument that can be won with buffoonery, bluster and
Churchillian soundbites.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morgan has been so robust in his challenges to the government
that ministers, including Boris Johnson, now appear to be afraid
of being interviewed by him, refusing to appear on ‘Good Morning
Britain’. As journalist Peter Oborne observed:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘It is disgraceful that the Johnson government boycotts a major
national TV news show during a national emergency.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morgan went further:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Once we allow the Govt to boycott news outlets like @GMB for
asking ministers tough questions, it’s a slippery slope to a
totalitarian state. Other news organisations should share our
disgust at this, because they could be next. Or they will soften
criticism to avoid a ban…’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The latter, no doubt, as anyone who has heard of the propaganda
model or read ‘Manufacturing Consent’ will be well aware.</p>
<p>In anticipation of Boris Johnson’s much-trailed speech to the
nation on Sunday, May 10, ludicrous celebratory press headlines
appeared a few days in advance: ‘Hurrah! Lockdown Freedom Beckons’
(Mail), ‘Happy Monday’ (Sun) and ‘Magic Monday’ (Daily Star). This
highlighted widescale press subservience to the government’s
foolish and dangerous agenda of getting the country ‘back to work’
as soon as possible, putting working-class employees, those most
dependent on public transport, at particular risk.</p>
<p>Indeed, when Johnson actually delivered his speech that Sunday
evening, having been carried aloft by heaps of hype from
billionaire-owned newspapers, he declared:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home,
for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be
actively encouraged to go to work.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But, as Tom London warned via Twitter:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘People will be bullied, threatened, starved back to work when
it is not safe and they are risking their lives and the lives of
those they are close to. Neoliberalism has reached its pinnacle
of selfish individualism sacrificing the lives of others to feed
its greed’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The muddled and deluded address to the nation was greeted with
confusion, scepticism and even derision in many quarters, with the
Mirror saying on its front page: ‘Lockdown Britain: It’s chaos’.
The prime minister’s speech was, however, acclaimed by the usual
suspects of the extremist press, including the Mail, Express and
Sun, as well as by the more ‘respectable’ billionaire
Murdoch-owned Times and billionaire Barclay brothers-owned
Telegraph.</p>
<p>The Mail waxed lyrical about the prime minister setting out ‘the
first steps to free Britain’, while cautioning, ‘Boris keeps
handbrake on’. The Express, as though copying and pasting from the
same government press release, headlined ‘Boris: our route to
freedom… in baby steps.’ The Telegraph, also reading from the
government ‘freedom’ script, went with: ‘the long road to
freedom’.</p>
<p>Rational commentary had to be found elsewhere. Richard Horton,
Lancet editor, tweeted after Johnson’s speech:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘My interpretation of Boris Johnson this evening: the pandemic
of COVID-19 in the UK is much more serious than we have been led
to believe. Johnson was unusually serious, fists clenched, no
jokes about squashing sombreros.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Horton made additional critical comments in a series of tweets,
then concluded:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Finally, you saw our Prime Minister preparing his defence for
the public inquiry: “We didn’t fully understand its effects.”
I’m afraid that argument won’t succeed. A PHEIC [Public Health
Emergency of International Concern] was called [by the World
Health Organisation] on January 30. And then you dropped the
ball Prime Minister. That was criminal. And you know it.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recall the now infamous ‘Superman’ speech that Johnson gave in
Greenwich on February 3 when he extolled the supposed virtues of
competition and ‘free’ trade, even in the face of the alarming
threat of the pandemic. Here is the relevant extract, available on
the government’s own website:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when
barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new
diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire
for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational
to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then
at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is
willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of
exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent
spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its
cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the
populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each
other.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Never mind ‘bizarre autarkic rhetoric’. What is truly bizarre is
that as late as February 3, when Johnson was ignoring WHO advice
and wider medical calls to ‘test, test, test’ and to move into
lockdown, and during a period when he missed five emergency Cobra
meetings, he was proclaiming inanities about Superman. (For an
excellent detailed timeline of events, see the regularly updated
resource by Ian Sinclair and Rupert Read). Instead, Johnson’s
focus – if he can ever be accused of possessing ‘focus’ – was on
Brexit and avoiding any measure that might impinge on ‘free
trade’. </p>
<p><strong>Suppressing Evidence Of Public Distrust Of UK Press</strong></p>
<p>Last month, as pandemic-related deaths mounted alarmingly, a Sky
News poll unsurprisingly showed deep public distrust of British
television and newspaper journalists. Only 24 per cent said they
trust TV journalists, while 64 per cent said they do not, giving a
net score of minus 40. Meanwhile, a mere 17 per cent said they
trust newspaper journalists, while 72 per cent said they do not,
giving an overall net score of minus 55. The figures were tucked
away at the bottom of Sky’s article.</p>
<p>Also last month, a Press Gazette poll showed that around half of
those who responded believed public trust in journalism had fallen
since the outbreak of the pandemic (around one third believed it
had risen, and the rest said it had remained the same). Press
Gazette also reported that a new survey by PR firm Kekst CNC
showed a collapse in confidence in the media in the four countries
surveyed: the UK, US, Germany and Sweden. The UK and Sweden both
saw the biggest fall in confidence in the media with a net loss of
21 per cent. Moreover, a special report by Edelman Trust Barometer
covering ten countries, including the UK, showed that journalists
are the least trusted source (43 per cent) for information about
the pandemic, below ‘most-affected countries’ (46 per cent) and
government officials (48 per cent).</p>
<p>Of course, this lack of public trust in the media is not limited
to coverage of the pandemic. Given the narrow-spectrum right-wing
and establishment press dominated by rich owners, and edited by
compliant editors with ideologically-aligned views, and given that
BBC News so often slavishly conforms to UK press reporting, it is
no surprise that overall British public trust in the media is so
low. In fact, a recent extensive annual Eurobarometer survey by
the European Union across 33 countries reveals that the UK
public’s trust in the press is once again rock bottom, even below
the former Soviet Union countries of Lithuania and Latvia. As
Brian Cathcart, a professor of journalism at Kingston University
in London, observes, it is the ninth year out of the past ten that
the UK has been last.</p>
<p>The survey results were met with the usual tumbleweed
non-response from the British press. Our search of the ProQuest
newspaper database yielded just one passing mention in the
national press by Alan Rusbridger, former Guardian editor,
referring to <em>last year’s</em> survey. (Inevitably, Rusbridger
also praised the BBC for its ‘all-round and in-depth excellence’
on coronavirus coverage.)</p>
<p>As Cathcart said:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘so predictable that an industry with an appalling trust
problem chooses to address it by suppressing the evidence of
distrust.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But then, press ‘freedom’ is a cruel sham; only highlighted even
more sharply on the recent World Press Freedom Day. UK Foreign
Secretary Dominic Raab had the temerity to tweet his support:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘a strong and independent media is more important than ever for
transparency.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Peter Oborne rightly highlighted Raab’s hypocrisy, pointing out
the glaring case of Julian Assange:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘The Wikileaks founder continues to rot in Belmarsh jail as the
US demands his extradition on espionage charges. If there was an
ounce of sincerity in the foreign secretary’s claim that he is a
supporter of media freedom, he would be resisting the US attempt
to get its hands on Assange with every bone in his body.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oborne also lambasted the British press:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘British newspapers will not fight for Assange. Whether left or
right, broadsheet or tabloid, British papers are agreed on one
thing; they’ll fall over each other to grab the latest official
hand-out about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his
fiance Carrie Symonds’ baby. Or the new Downing Street dog. </p>
<p>‘They will, however, look the other way when it comes to
standing up for press freedom and Julian Assange.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He added:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘How pathetic. What a betrayal of their trade. Client
journalism. An inversion of what newspapers stand for. If the
British foreign secretary is two-faced about a free press, so
are British newspaper editors who say they care about press
freedom. With even less excuse.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lancet editor Richard Horton, mentioned earlier, says that the
British government’s response to the pandemic is ‘the biggest
science policy failure in a generation’. As noted at the outset of
this media alert, this has not been mere government incompetence,
but a fundamental failure of its supposed commitment to protect
the public. The truth, of course, is that the government is
‘elected’ to represent the elite interests of its principal
backers: financial muscle and corporate power, backed by its
propaganda wing misleadingly labelled the ‘mainstream’ media.</p>
<p>A longstanding feature of the state has been its reliance on
secretive state and military institutions working hard to preserve
the status quo. You may recall the threat of a military coup from
a senior serving UK army general in 2015 should Jeremy Corbyn ever
be elected Prime Minister. In December last year, investigative
journalist Matt Kennard reported that UK military and intelligence
establishment officials had been sources for at least 34 major
national media stories, following Corbyn’s election as Labour
leader in September 2015, that had cast him as a danger to British
security.</p>
<p>As Noam Chomsky has long pointed out, supposedly democratic
states regard their own populations as the state’s greatest
threat, even in so-called ‘free’ societies:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Remember, any state, <em>any</em> state, has a primary enemy:
its own population.’</p>
<p>(Noam Chomsky, <em>Understanding Power</em>, edited by Peter
R. Mitchell and John Schoeffel, The New Press, 2002, p. 70.)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is why surveillance of the public is such a priority for
governments, as we have previously observed (e.g. here and here).</p>
<p>In a recent in-depth article as part of the exemplary <em>Declassified
UK</em> series, Kennard and Mark Curtis note that:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘There is money and power in identifying Russia and cyber
attacks as the key security threats facing Britain — but not in
addressing the more important issues of pandemics and climate
change.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Former heads of UK intelligence agencies are personally profiting
from the ‘revolving door’ between government and business, report
Kennard and Curtis. They cite examples: </p>
<ul>
<li>Former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove has earned more than
£2-million from a US oil company.</li>
<li>Another former MI6 chief, Sir John Sawers, has earned £699,000
from oil giant BP since 2015.</li>
<li>Sir Iain Lobban, former head of GCHQ, has become director or
adviser to 10 private cyber or data security companies since
leaving office in 2014; his own cyber consultancy is worth over
£1 million.</li>
</ul>
<p>Kennard and Curtis write:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Since 2000, nine out of 10 former chiefs of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ
have taken jobs in the cyber security industry, a sector they
promoted while in office as key to defending the UK from the
“Russian threat”.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They add:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘The British government has been told for over a decade that
the “gravest risk” to the country is an influenza pandemic,
which its National Security Strategy identifies as a “tier one
priority risk”. Yet the security services have largely ignored
health threats, despite claiming they are guided by the UK’s
security strategy.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If successive UK governments were genuinely serious about
boosting the public’s security, they would be working flat out to
protect the population from pandemics and climate breakdown. But
then they would be protecting the interests of the majority. And
that is not why they are in power.</p>
<p>DC</p>
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