No 10 and political journalists. Why isn't thus huge?

[Miljea]

huff post report so as not to frighten the horses..

But- I know Leave supporters were apparently prepared to swallow any 'discomfort' the proroguation caused them, as the smarter ones recognised that tide might turn on them, down the track; but where's the outrage about this?

I mean the selected ones, those hand-selected to further the propaganda, such as the Mail and Torygraph, even their journalists walked out in solidarity, perhaps recognising 'a step too far'.

I know it's frog boiling, incremental steps, so I'm aware such behaviour will become 'the norm' in the near future, but whatever side of that fence you sit on, there should be more outrage. 😡

Your link is broken but I assume it was about the not so honourable prime minister and Lee Cain excluding reporters from the Mirror, the i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, the Independent etc from an official briefing.

Its worse than Trump to try and avoid scrutiny in this way. It's absolutely shocking.

It fascinates me how so many voters aren't interested in this and think a new shift towards trying to silence journalists is ok.

This has really shown up tbe apologists. Frankly if it pisses off Laura K - who's coverage of Johnson generally annoys people who dislike him - then it must have been out of order.
Pathetic attempt to "do Trump". Yes, lots of journalists are annoying. Including lobby journalists. But this was next level dreadful. Considering the PM is an ex Journalist, it's pretty disgusting.

The fact that Johnson is not setting a tone that says to his team what kind of approach they should take - or he is, and this is it - shows how morally compromised he is. He's also either inept, or he meant to produce this kind of reaction. Neither is encouraging.

Straight out of Trump's playbook. It's deeply disturbing.

Most people won't care though. We are sleep-walking into a gradual destruction of democracy.

Have you got the link? I wasn't aware of this.

Working link

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/03/political-journalists-boycott-no-10-briefing-after-reporter-ban

I don't think the lobby system is terribly well known, so that might be contributing to lack of reporting - it would be important to the media itself, but they might not think it would sell papers

What do you expect after 30-40 years of slowly letting private money and big players grow ever more powerful and strip the public sector designed to protect public interest? It isn’t huge because all the mechanisms and people that would have protested and made it huge, safeguarding the public interest have LONG GONE.

Democracy requires safeguards, checks, balances, and information and they’ve all been stripped out in the name of thinning down the state and other sound bites. Britain is no longer a democracy, it’s an oligarchic empire. Enjoy it people, it’s what people have asked for for years.

Their beloved Thatcher just faced Libby journalists down via Bernard Ingham. This lot are chicken.

Libby ? lobby!!

The lobby system doesn't cost the public purse anything. It's organised by the press themselves. It isn't, and never has been, part of the public sector

But why isn't it huge?

There's a significant focus on NDAs and gagging in the press. So people seem interested in an individual employment context.

Yet an attempt to gag journalists nationally in this way goes largely unnoticed.

Perhaps we are just inured to immoral strategy now. If you think about it we've accepted lots of dodgy stuff:
• The Conservative party relying on £ million Russian donations.
• We've also accepted suppression of a committee intelligence report into Russian meddling that should have been published.
•Then under Theresa May there were similar attempts to keep normal impact assessments suppressed to conceal the negative effects of Brexit (remember David Davis saying the reports existed , then they didn't, then they did).
• Also the payment of billions to the DUP in return for votes was a bit shabby. We accepted that with little comment.
• Then there were new attempts to circumvent parliamentary processes many times including trying to avoid a vote on Article 50.

• Then there was suspension of parliament for an unprecedented length of time without consensus.
• Then Taxpayers’ money not party funds used to run Facebook campaigns directed at particular marginal seats for party political purposes.

•	Then we accept an adulterer as PM moving a young woman into No 10, and ignore the fact that he was previously sacked for lying twice and was willing to assist having a journalist beaten up. 

I think lack of integrity and transparency has now become the norm. So banning mainstream opposition journalists is expected and not really newsworthy.

Am I remembering rightly that May announced she was forming a government with the DUP's support without the trifling constitutional aspect of seeing the Queen first?

Admittedly having a written constitution doesn't seem to bother Trump much. I could blame 40 years of movies about 'mavericks who break the rules' which we all know in real life are dangerous and annoying. But yes, we have to blame ourselves really. If we tolerate this...

Thanks for the working link. I was trying to find a 'non-inflammatory' source! 😊

•The Conservative party relying on £ million Russian donations.
Your proof - thought not.

• We've also accepted suppression of a committee intelligence report into Russian meddling that should have been published.
No we haven't - government reports aren't published when Parliament has stopped for an election

^•Then under Theresa May there were similar attempts to keep normal impact assessments suppressed to conceal the negative effects of Brexit (remember David Davis saying the reports existed , then they didn't, then they did)."
That was May not Johnson

•Also the payment of billions to the DUP in return for votes was a bit shabby. We accepted that with little comment.
Part of the consequences of minority government

•Then there were new attempts to circumvent parliamentary processes many times including trying to avoid a vote on Article 50.
Yes but Bercow can't do that anymore.

• Then there was suspension of parliament for an unprecedented length of time without consensus.
Unprecedented since 1948 and common in the 1930s

• Then Taxpayers’ money not party funds used to run Facebook campaigns directed at particular marginal seats for party political purposes.
Proof? What about taxpayers funds used to leaflet the whole population about the benefits of the EU just prior to the referendum being called.

•Then we accept an adulterer as PM moving a young woman into No 10, and ignore the fact that he was previously sacked for lying twice and was willing to assist having a journalist beaten up.
What's that got to do with running the country. The alternative was someone who had never held a job outside politics and who is a fellow traveller of terrorists.

I agree it is shocking.

It wasn’t only the right wing press that were ‘allowed’ in though, the Guardian was one of the papers allowed in.

Don't think there's a need to find a non inflammatory source when the attempted ban itself was so inflammatory!

There has been a shocking acceleration of improprieties. It ranges from banning journalists, ignoring constitutional due process and personal immorality. Over the last 10 years the public have become largely accepting or indifferent.

For some reason the public's indifference and hypocrisy that bothers me most is this! :

2011- Ed Miliband (who was happily and faithfully unmarried) had to marry as a result of public pressure. The Daily Mail constantly pointed out that he was the first-ever leader of a major political party "to live with his family out of wedlock". This was a constant criticism.

2019- Just 8 years later the public endorse a man moving into Downing Street on an unmarried basis with an OW who is his daughter's age and there is no negative reaction at all.

Perhaps love island is responsible leading us to lower moral standards in many respects!

Errrr sorry - proof of the Russian donations to the Tory party? It's well known and accepted.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-tory-donors-named-in-secret-report-z98nqpkx0

theferret.scot/russian-donors-conservative-party/

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/tories-russian-money-report

www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/revealed-russian-donors-have-stepped-tory-funding/

www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/investigation-reveals-nine-russian-business-people-donating-to-conservative-party/10/11/

Yes, the fact no one appears to care is the most worrying aspect.

And people's expectations seem so low somehow that there is little interest in even explaining why the electorate don't care!

I've tried to find out how many of my DDs student age friends care about journalism being suppressed. It seems her friends at least, don't care very much as their focus is more on Youtubers etc.

It's very worrying that people don't care about journalists and reporting being filtered.

If Corbyn had won and jettisoned or restricted the Daily Mail and the Telegraph can you imagine the response then?

lonelyplanetmum - I hadn't realised that. It's an interesting parallel with Clinton being impeached for immoral sexual relations with one woman, and Trump about to escape impeachment for publicly endorsing sexual harassment of all women and reducing their rights, to public indifference or so the Economist claims. We no longer hold our leaders to moral standards.

ExEUCitizen
Yes it's amazing how the public do forget. I'd forgotten that comment Trump made in a recording that time. He was talking about some married woman wasn't he and how he could just start snogging her if he wanted..I just googled it-he said :

"I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab em by the pussy. You can do anything."

So why did the US electorate including women still endorse him?

Why do we accept a government that thinks gagging journalists is fair game?

I blame live island - it lowers our standards.

I'm hoping that this stupid move of Cummings will massively backfire on him and the right-wing press like the DM and Telegraph will start trying to take him out while retaining Boris

Looks like it did backfire on him, as all the papers are now talking about his 'feud' with Symonds who supposedly believes that he is making Johnson look bad (pretty sure he manages that on his own, but anyway)

Cummings now filmed today saying that PJ Masks would do a better job than the cabinet. Johnson has really got himself caught - either of him could destroy him if he exiles them but they both can't stay.

This could be very entertaining. At least some compensation for the misery of having to suffer 5 more years of tory nastiness and bungling