Anyone else caught this interview with Armando Iannucci on Today this morning? It allegedly concerned parallels between story lines in his TV programme “In the Thick of it” and the current McPoison Gate. I noted that Armando was able to get the sly line in that David Cameron also has spin doctors around him and so the culture of spin and spite evident in the current case was likely to continue under the Conservatives. BBC subtext; they are all the same, Save gordon.
THOSE SMEAR MAILS – WHO IS TO BLAME?
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Don’t know if this has been posted already, but Nadine Dorries has written in the Independent today.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/nadine-dorries-i-have-become-accustomed-to-the-grubby-world-of-british-politics-but-nothing-could-prepare-me-for-this-1668011.html
”To the Prime Minister’s left, right and at his feet, the bully boys sit around the fire wondering whose life and career they can destroy next. And whilst they fiddle and concentrate their efforts on ensuring Gordon Brown retains office at whatever cost, Rome burns.”
Anyone with lingering doubts about Brown’s complicity in this have a look at Guido’s. He’s now going after Tom Watson. Watson along with the criminally stupid Sion Simon were the authors of the letter demanding Blair give a retirement date. Simon then did that grotesque video parodying David Cameron which Watson signed up to.
http://www.order-order.com/2009/04/tom-watson-has-previous/
More for the “impartial” Brown Broadcasting Corpse to worry about.
Not to be a stick in the mud….but don’t treat Guido Fawkes like some kind of freedom fighter. He has an agenda, like all of us do. It’s good he’s broken this story, and yes it does show up the problems with traditional media outlets, but this god-like worship some people have for Guido, and the way they hang off his every word, is rather frightening sometimes.
He’s been launching personal attacks on people for years, so it is a little ironic that he is now seen as a whiter than white saint to some. I’m not getting involved in the Labour V Tory spat here though; what Labour did is wrong, and there should be further investigation into what’s going on. Just saying that some people, on this site and elsewhere, hang off Guido’s every breathe a bit too much…
Fat Face Penguin Seal | Homepage | 14.04.09 – 5:32 pm |
Right at this moment in time he seems to be one of the few individuals, all of them on blogs, who are doing what MSM should be doing and are failing to do. Forget the BBC, they are totally out of the running when it comes to objective political reporting in the UK.
If you are referring to my comment above yours then you are mistaken if you construe my comments as approval of all he does or says.
Wonderful piece of clinical evisceration by Eddie Mair on PM this evening, the subject being a wriggling spluttering Ed Milliband desperately trying to defend Broon. Just quietly and courteously asked him all the questions I would have loved to ask, and reduced Milliband to a stammering incoherence. Credit where credit’s due!
(A reversion to type – the 5.30 news summary replayed his only coherent comment!)
Fat Face Penguin Seal: Utter crap. Guido has an agenda for sure. He hates all politicians.That’s it.
Seems a good one to me. Politicians like to dish it out, but can’t take it.
If they can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Guido is showing up the gutless press pack at Westminster for fawning fools, who are frightened to ask hard questions of politicians for fear of being cut out of the Westminster loop.
The real blame lies with the MSM who fail to provide the counterbalance to the spin doctors.
Well martin I agree he does add a different angle, a necessary angle. But there are growing no’s of people who rely on the likes of Guido (and maybe this site too, I don’t know). Whilst blogs add an angle, blogs represent a marginal voice, an extremist slant in some cases. These may complement our understanding of things when taken into consideration alongside the mainstream press, but when viewed alone, blogs distort reality as much as the BBC or Sky do. My point wasn’t meant as a criticism of Guido and co as such, I worded it badly maybe. I just notice that more and more people blindly trust that Guido and co. are acting in ‘our’ interest. They aren’t, in my view, doing that anymore than the BBC are. They do have their own agendas. Any analysis of Guido’s posts over a long period confirms his agenda and views cloud his judgement when it comes to issues he focuses on, and issues he ignores too. Hating politicans may be guidos ‘line’ but its a lame one; its like the 6th former who rallies against all authority. What guido does is to tap into the angst and alienation that many of us feel with modern politics and the media that conveys that politics to us. It is a decent read every now and then, provides some big scoops too. But it is not, for now anyway, an alterantive to the papers. It may produce stories they miss, but it does not replace them.
I wasn’t looking for an argument, I just have heard so much crap about blogs and Guidos supposed god-like status today that I felt I had to add my 2 cents!
What guido does is to tap into the angst and alienation that many of us feel with modern politics and the media that conveys that politics to us.
Fat Face Penguin Seal | Homepage | 14.04.09 – 5:53 pm |
Agreed, but people have to get their information from a number of sources.
If all the people (sheeple) of the UK had to go by was the BBC for the last 12 years then we’d be little better than North Korea.
For me I’m grateful that people like Guido, Ian Dale, Duncan Hannan, Dizzie et al, exist, otherwise the BBC would have brainwashed into believing Brown really was the Dear Leader. Just look at that grotesque shite that passed for an interview when the adulterer Andrew Marr conducted his cocksuckfest on Brown in that school library with the soft-tone subdued lighting, the even softer questions and the benign props.
Give me Guido any day.
Fat Face Penguin Seal: There is a difference. The BBC is a state broadcaster that is funded by all of us using a compulsory tax.
blogs vary, some are run by independents like Guido and Iain dale and some funded by political parties. So you’re not forced to pay for a blogger but you are the BBC.
That is the fundamental difference.
Bloggers have been very successful in the USA for breaking stories.
Bloggers are watching the media in a way their own management won’t.
That has to be good news.
TPO: Spot on.
F**k me!! Tom Bradbury on ITV says it could be terminal for Brown if he doesn’t say sorry.
Unbelievable!!!
Lets not forget the smear job Guardian/BBC/Labour did on Neil Hamilton and his wife.
JBH Where are you.
Ho ho. Watson has called in Carter-Fuck. he’s guilty.
Armando Iannucci is hardly a New Labour stooge. I doubt anything has taken the piss out of the current government as effectively as The Thick Of It. I think Iannucci is pretty contemptuous of politicians on all sides – much like Guido, you could say.
Fat Face Penguin Seal,
If the Beeboids did their jobs properly, Guido wouldn’t need to be on their shows, and he wouldn’t be getting the accolades. He has done good work on this occasion. If people are hanging on his every word, it’s only because he’s the one on top of this particular story. His partisanship really shouldn’t discredit the story itself, which is what the BBC is trying to do. Their defense of Derek Draper is really lame. Which one is the real partisan hack?
If the Beeboids hadn’t enabled McBride for so long by taking his talking points before going on air, none of this would have happened in the first place. In any event, many people here were fans of Guido long before any of this. Nobody has any illusions about what his angle is in the end.
I do think that some people are being a tad naive if they think that the Conservatives are blameless. Isn’t David Cameron employing Andy Coulson, former editor of the vile News of the World? This chap was in charge when that rag ran the earlier smear story about Mrs Osborne, back in October ’05. This was when Cameron / Osborne were running in the leadership race. He was also editor when we enjoyed the revelations about Sven’s secret affair and Blunkett’s love triangle.
He was eventually sacked when his royal correspondent did a few weeks at Her Majesty’s Pleasure following the Royal family phone tapping scandal. This creature is every bit as awful as Alistair Campbell.
And I’m afraid that if you lie down with dogs you’re going to get fleas!
Fat Face Penguin Seal | Homepage | 14.04.09 – 5:53 pm | #
————————————–
Well seeing as I don’t read Guido, I don’t think he is a god and I don’t know what issues he focuses on and which ones he leaves out. So enlighten me.
Also, please tell me what is wrong with tapping into alienation that people feel from their politicians. I cant personally see anything whatsoever to object to about someone doing that.
Why would you think that blogs are extreme and the BBC is not, or the government is not? I consider the BBC extreme, and the same is true of the government. Examples abound of their extreme biases on numerous issues.
Jeff: You have to judge a Dog by its actions not its bark.
Right wing blogs? Its the new attack-line. Since when was the revalation of the truth “right wing” activity?
They don’t get it. The fault line is showing, so many people now have acess to unfiltered opinion, and can decide for themselves what is true, from the evidence of prosecution and defence, as in the jury system.
Its not like only one side has the truth that worries them, its that the internet puts us all in the jury box. Which is the bastion of freedom.
I wish those gits that spend all their time and effort into spinning – would just put effort into sorting the economic mess out – oops sorry – theyre just misfit club joiners – who have never experienced the real world and if they had – somebody somewhere along the line would have smashed their fat gutless faces in..
it all feels a bit like Watergate – who knew what, when ?
Step by step it gets closer to the top guy.
If Watson goes, and it is looking likely, Brown is the final step ?
AndrewSouthLondon | 14.04.09 – 8:06 pm |
This is how they discredit people like Guido and those who are participating in the “Tea Party” protests in the US. It’s the exact same thing, and for the exact same reasons, done by people who behave in the exact same intellectually fascist way.
According the narrow minds at the BBC and the Leftoid blogs they read, anybody making noise against Dear Leader (take your pick which one) and certain beloved policies must be on the extreme right. It’s the same old song. They won’t accept the possibility of ordinary people acting out of their own convictions, without the kind of powerful backing they themselves get.
The BBC sees Guido as a Tory tool, essentially call him that on air, suggest that he engages in criminal activity, and that he’s part of some extreme-right rabble. All he did was air a grievance, but it was about something the government wanted to be kept quiet, so that the sheeple would just go along with it.
Replace “BBC”, “Guido”, and “Tory” in the above with Leftoid bloggers, “Tea Party” Protests”, and “Republican/Fox News”, respectively.
I say Leftoid bloggers rather than MSM, because the Leftoid MSM have tried to cover the story up, rather than smear the participants. The Leftoid blogosphere, on the other hand, has quite a bit of influence on political discourse in the US these days. So the attack on “Teabaggers” as they call us, is coming from the blogs, not the MSM. For the moment. That will change tomorrow.
But the methodology of both the BBC and their intellectual brethren on Leftoid blogs is straight out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” (scroll down to #7).
Key Rules:
2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.
Sound familiar?
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
Think of this one every time a Beeboid says, “Spellman”, like Nolan did to Nadine Dorries.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.”
The BBC has mostly given up on that today, but they spent the weekend doing it. Oh, Mr. Brown doesn’t need to apologize any more, we’ve drawn a line under it, Hazel Blears said it’s over and done with, etc. The Leftoids in the US are calling us “Teabaggers”, “wannabe revolutionaries”, and people who “don’t want to pay taxes” at all.”
6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
No comment necessary.
Most important of all:
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…
As in the way the BBC has treated Guido and Dorries.
“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’
They must be “Extreme right-wing” because they support one thing the BBC and Leftoids don’t.
“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.”
Says it all, really. (Yes, defenders of the indefensible, I’m aware of the irony. Ha ha.)
And guess who has connections to Alinsky and his methods?
Guido might get the biggest scalp of all..
late issue Evening Standard headline in London (saw it in Waterloo this evening)
“Brown is besieged by Labour big guns”
article:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23675514-details/Brown+is+besieged+by+Labour+big+guns/article.do
AndrewSouthLondon | 14.04.09 – 8:06 pm
yeah – dont get the “right wing blogs” thing either. as if its some sort of “conspiracy”.
Guido is a bit of a loose cannon. very much his own man.
he is a card carrying member of the Irish Progressive Democrats – if thats not maverick, i dont know what is..
David Preiser (USA) | 14.04.09 – 9:09 pm
good luck with the Tea Party.. heard that Hugh Hewitt is going to one as well. cant wait to hear his talk radio podcast about it…
correct me if i am wrong – but is the Tea Party thing about refusing to pay income tax to the Obama trillion dollar pork fund?
is this *real* resistance to this? just curious as i havent been following this one.
I do think that some people are being a tad naive if they think that the Conservatives are blameless.
Jeff | 14.04.09 – 7:26 pm
indeed jeff – we’re no fools. we are aware of that.
but lets stand back a bit and savour the moment as Brown is brought down by his own political spin. Yum – fucking delicious…
with rocking horse nappies on top.
He’s been launching personal attacks on people for years, so it is a little ironic that he is now seen as a whiter than white saint to some. I’m not getting involved in the Labour V Tory spat here though; what Labour did is wrong, and there should be further investigation into what’s going on. Just saying that some people, on this site and elsewhere, hang off Guido’s every breathe a bit too much…
Fat Face Penguin Seal | Homepage | 14.04.09 – 5:32 pm
you make some valid points. and i am aware of Guido’s background – as indeed are most folks on this blog. He’s no saint – and it is BECAUSE of that, that i am a fan. He’s human – like me. like you. Guido aint a hero, or a saint. He just struck lucky – and good f**king luck to him. Long may he dig up shit on the political class.
And none of it detracts from the joy of watching Brown digging deeper and deeper into the shit of his own making… and boy is it delicious.
The BBC will stop trying to close down the debate when ,and only when, it realises that the Labour party has had just about enough of Brown.
It will then swing all it’s efforts into pushing for a new leader.
The BBC is about power and it needs the support of the government, any government at all. Expect a sudden love in with Cameron if it looks terminal for labour.
Rule 1- The licence fee must be preserved at all costs.
There is no mission to inform just a will to survive
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/1895687/Gordon-Brown-strengthens-his-PR-team.html
Nicola Burdett: A former BBC producer, she has been given the brief of avoiding any embarrassing photographs of the Prime Minister.
Miss Burdett, 35, will work with Mr Brown on what the team agree is his physical awkwardness, giving him tips on how to interact with members of the public.
Dave S | 14.04.09 – 9:59 pm
will be VERY interesting to see how newsnight covers this this evening…
honestly , i can visualise the fisticuffs happening right now between Paxo (who is a bit of a ok egg.. i must admit) and the Beeboid Brownites…
oh boy – sky news are going full blast with this. watching it now.
Watch the bias.
BBC 1 yet another jock 9Ian Watson this time) spinning for McBogey. The Tories are milking this he spouts live on BBC1.
ITV Tom Bradby giving Liebour a right kicking using words like ‘disgusting’
Sky giving Liebour a kicking as well, although left wing Anna Botting will be interesting on the sky paper review.
archduke: Don’t think so. I think Paxo will be on the BBC/Nu liebour message tonight.
Liebour will read the BBC the riot act (well the TV tax anyway)
“…giving him tips on how to interact with members of the public.”
What a joke – and how much is this woman being paid from the taxpayer for this?
If he cannot communicate with the public – he should not be representing the public – isn’t that what MPs are supposed to do?
Modern politicians are a joke.
“Week after week MPs have been turning up but with almost no serious work to do. There is the odd Bill to be sure. But there is no legislative programme to speak of. Even the debates that are put on to fill in time are ones that deny MPs a vote. The whole exercise is vacuous.”
Frank Field.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23675514-details/Brown+is+besieged+by+Labour+big+guns/article.do
hmm.. i wonder why. does it start with a “E” and end with a “U” ?
Martin | 14.04.09 – 10:14 pm
Gavin Eisler is on.
maybe Paxo was read the riot act?
THOSE SMEAR MAILS – WHO IS TO BLAME?
I think some questions need to be asked, even though they should be asked in the sure understanding that an adequate or truthful answer is highly unlikely to emerge.
1. Who do civil-servants really work for, if not the elected government? Or put another way. What does working for the CROWN, in some notable present day cases, actually mean in practice?
2. Who do elected politicians really work for, as they clearly do not work in the interests of the common people, however they are all sworn to protect the interests of the CROWN?
3. Who does the BBC really work for, as they clearly hate the common humanity, and the truth, with an equal passion.
4. Who does Guido Fawkes really work for, because he certainly is not doing his own research, neither is he working alone, just for the cash, simply for the laughs, primarily for young chicks, a future role in the film or advertising industry, nor is he working for The Conservative Party, The lib/Dems, The BNP, UKIP, The Greens, or any other Irish or British established political party?
Politics is not just a product of organized crime and other forms of violent and extremely immoral activity. It is also a profoundly manipulated one, to such a degree, that many of the most manipulated, have little idea who or what is really manipulating them.
Any organization can be easily subverted. Only enough spare cash, and sufficient will to do is required.
In my opinion, all important and influential political entities are either subverted or cleverly and covertly manipulated or are about to be so.
Otherwise the organization would never have been allowed to gain a sufficient amount of sensible media/BBC coverage, in the first place.
It certainly would never be able to collect enough regular and reliable finance, to run its show effectively, unless the Big Money was behind it somehow.
We never did find out who exactly Deep Throat was, during or after he Watergate conspiracy. However there is much evidence that the individual was indeed a CIA agent, working at the highest possible level.
In fact if you think about it.
Who else but the CIA could possibly know what Deep Throat clearly knew. Who else but The CIA would have the confidence/front to spread real or otherwise gossip about what was supposed to be at the time the single most powerful man on the planet?
The answer is; there is no one or any material thing on the planet of theirs, more powerful then the people the CIA and similar others, work for.
This supremely powerful entity is not represented by God and it certainly is not manifested by any American President, nor British PM.
THEREFORE
Who or what is it, and why does our entire MSM, never give us more then the odd clue?
newsnight – Ed Miliband on.
He really is a robot. with duracell batteries.
It’s pathetic. The one eyed pimp has sent his whores out onto the streets.
Atlas shrugged | 14.04.09 – 10:45 pm
its a nice diversion Atlas.
let me enjoy my frivolity for just a week or two…
(of course it matters jack shit… but still it is rather nice to stick the knife into the One Eyed Manse )
Newsnight A Tory free zone AGAIN
matthew d’acona (?) and some other bloke on.
no blogger. the Beebs really do hate acknowledging that the story broke on the BLOGS and not the MSM…
martin -> indeed. noticed that.
where the fuck is the Tory party???
archduke | 14.04.09 – 9:45 pm |
correct me if i am wrong – but is the Tea Party thing about refusing to pay income tax to the Obama trillion dollar pork fund?
You’ve been lied to. It’s not about actually refusing to pay income tax – that’s the smear from the Left. Even VP Biden is getting in on that game.
We’ll pay our taxes. We just don’t want our hard-earned money poured into ACORN, bailouts for people who shouldn’t have bought a house they couldn’t afford, pork projects that aren’t intended to stimulate the economy in the first place, nationalized health care we can’t afford right now, and on and on. We especially don’t want our taxes to be raised just to pay for pet projects that wouldn’t get funded otherwise. These protests are about telling the politicians to stop, and try to undo this mess, or we’ll vote them out.
Further, this is also resistance to printing money and increasing our future tax burden. We can’t refuse to pay our children’s taxes today, but we can speak out against creating tomorrow’s tax burden in the first place. In one important sense this is a long-term struggle. It’s not necessarily just about being against one particular Obama policy. It’s much more than just “your guy lost – get over it”.
It’s important to remember that the Spendulus Bill was written by Pelosi, Franks, and Co. It’s just as much a product of a corrupt Congress dominated by extremists as of the White House. The Obamessiah saw opportunity in a crisis, and told them to create the spending plan. Plus, too many supine Republicans voted right along with it. These protests are about these people screwing us, not about us not wanting to pay taxes, full stop.
is this *real* resistance to this? just curious as i havent been following this one.
That depends on how you define “real”. If you’re looking for the kind of “resistance” we see at G20 summits and coal-powered stations, then, no. This is not the kind of resistance Leftoids have wet dreams about. This is real resistance to being screwed in that people who have never opened their mouths in their lives are now making their voices heard, because they don’t want the politicians to run wild at our expense. Anyone who’s telling you that it’s all meaningless if we don’t get violent or break the law somehow is very short-sighted and small-minded.
I would bet that the vast majority – if not every single one – who attend tomorrow will have paid their taxes. The message is that politicians need to dismantle this pork crap, not spend trillions we don’t have on things that won’t help the economy right now, not raise taxes even more, not threaten bank CEOs with inciting public violence against them if they don’t submit to government rule, and not attempting to dictate to private businesses how much they can pay their employees.
If the politicians – of either party – don’t listen up and back off, they will not be re-elected. That’s the only power they have, and it’s all they really care about. We can elect to take it away from some of them next year, so they better listen up.
It’s not partisan. Most of the people who attended the ones so far – and especially most of those who organize these things – have never done any form of political activism in their lives. The fact that a few Republicans and Fox News idiots have tried to jump on the bandwagon shows that they recognize what’s going on – not that they’re behind it. A couple of Republican groups are helping organize some things now because they see an opportunity as well. That’s a sign that this isn’t a fringe, non-story.
Make no mistake, though: we’re law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. Unlike most of the Leftoid protesters of various stripes. The real resistance will be at the polls. This is just getting the message out there. My sign will read in part, “Vote you out? Yes we can!”
The signs that say things like “Atlas is Shrugging” are about what happens when independent businessmen decide they don’t want to earn so much taxable income. If the government wants to use our tax dollars for crap, we’ll curtail business, start saving more and spending less, so the government gets less money to waste on pork and Socialist schemes. This is not about refusing to pay taxes and breaking the law, as sexy as that may sound.
The real tax-dodgers are currently in the Obamessiah Administration.
Here’s some reports and photos about a couple of recent protests. You can see for yourself what it’s about.
funny thing is about this story is that is exposes the political class for what they are.
think about it – and our loss of freedoms.
not able to photograph policemen? not a word.
the Civil Contigencies Act? not a word.
Arrested for protesting in front of the Cenotaph by reading out the names of the dead in Iraq? Not a problem.
but spread dirty emails about the political class – oh my – THATS a big fucking problem.
Also
hopefully before Chuffer comes out with his usual predictably rude and utterly pointless comments.
Just because a person is clearly certifiably paranoid.
Does most surly NOT mean the buggers are NOT out to get YOU, along with just about everything else a normal person holds dear. Because they are self apparently doing exactly that, or have already succeeded in doing so.
Watching Essler on Newsnight I did get the impression that the order has gone out.
Ditch Brown. From whom ,as Atlas would say, is the problem.
There is, as I have thought for some time, a counter revolution beginning in this country against the ruling elite and it is a grass roots revolution and entirely unpredictable.
Better try and head it off at the pass thinks the ruling elite. So get rid of the detested Brown. That will lower the temperature.
But all real changes share two key ingredients. They happen very fast and are completely unpredictable.
Cheer up Atlas I don’t think the idiots who think they are in control have any idea how they are going to handle the next week let alone the next century.
One question no on eseesm to have asked.
Just where is Our Beloved Leader when the S hits the fan?
If you believe that Hitler knew nothng about the killing of Jews, it was done by his henchmen without his knowledge, then you can also believe that Brown knew nothing of the proposed smear campaign.
Tea bagging is astroturf
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/lobbyists-planning-teaparties/