I had hoped that a week away would have spared me from a timeline full of media effluent about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. This is the party that lost the election, got rid of a deadbeat leader, installed a worse one and has launched "policies" that absolutely guarantee Labour will not win the next election under any circumstances. Why on earth would any of us care what it says or does?
If there is anything to take home from all this is that the media is singularly incapable of making the distinction between what it thinks is important and what is actually important. Before I went away the media reported Juncker's State of the European Union Address as a speech on immigration as a second rank story to the Labour leadership. This being the speech that defines the EU's agenda and priorities for the next year at the very least. The government of Europe makes what is essentially it's own equivalent to the Queens Speech and the media is barely aware it happened.
What we got from that particular speech was all the hints you could possibly want that not only is there no renegotiation under way, there is also a new treaty in the works, which will radically restructure the EU and Britain's rank within it, demoting us to a second class status with no return of sovereignty over trade. That's some seriously big news right there and yet on Sky this morning we saw Dermot Murnaghan and accompanying pundits speculating on the absolutely non-existent renegotiation as though it were something in progress - and whether there will be an early referendum. Had these people a scintilla of expertise between them, they would know full well that there is going to be no treaty revision and absolutely zero likelihood or technical possibility of a snap early referendum. This is just biff-bam blether in the only format the media can actually cope with.
What is worse, is that our politicians actually use the media as their means of staying informed, creating a perverse feedback loop or error, idiocy and outright fiction. Thus when the referendum actually heats up, the correct response to any politician pontificating on the matter is "go fuck yourself". The average MP is pretty thick and the ones who shine from that crowd shine only by contrast. Boris Johnson is an inbred dimwit but next to the lobby fodder on the back benches he might as well be Stephen fucking Hawking. They actually don't now the basics of what they're talking about. Not historically, not politically, not technically. We have idiots representing us who take their cue from a media run almost entirely by teenagers and those androgynous nodding Beeboids who can't keep their hands still when on camera. Their trade is sensationalised memes and gossip and we'd be better informed if it simply didn't exist. Our media in its current state is an absolute cancer on the political process.
When it comes down to the final question on the matter of EU membership their opinions are not welcome because this time we vote, not them. It is not their decision and none of their business and not one of them is qualified to speak on the matter. Even those supposedly on my side are thick as shit. Kate Hoey knows sweet FA about nine tenths of anything and John Redwood is utterly ignorant and completely derivative in the memes he uses (and routinely gets them wrong) - and because I know the origin of most of the arguments, and who got them wrong first, you can see the Chinese whispers game in play. Not even the great Daniel Hannan can be bothered to do his homework. The only saving grace our campaign has is the fact that the "Remain" spokesmen are equally ignorant and smarmy with it.
Having spent a week with family where the television is seldom off, I've gained a new insight into just how moronic television news is. Not only have they no expertise to call on, they are not even interested in seeking it. Honestly, what does Polly Toynbee or Dan Hodges know about anything apart from the petty manoeuvrings of their collapsing tribe? Why would anyone seek their worthless opinions? The mouldy loaf of bread I just threw out has a more qualified opinion on the EU than Nick Cohen or Janet Daley. What are these people even for except to fill air time?
My friends, if you are the type who does employ a television as part of your media experience, please keep in mind that when you watch the news you are in fact watching moving lights without substance or relation to reality - which actually ins't working to any kind of agenda other than its own self-gratification. If it had a political agenda of it's own it would demonstrate a degree of competence. It's not biased. It's just profoundly and astonishingly ignorant.
If bright lights and moving pictures is what you need to start your day off, save the politics until you get to a computer and instead switch over to Nickelodeon and watch Spongebob Squarepants, not least because of it's superior intellectual sophistication. You are more likely to find adult content with more penetrating political insight. Better still, switch the bloody thing off. They have had their say, they have nothing of value to add and we are better off without their malign influence and their collective incomprehension.
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