The Land of Lost Opportunity

It's amazing how the media can tie themselves in knots over presumed breaches of codes and principles, where no such breaches have in fact have occurred, and no actual offence has been committed. Viz the smoke & mirrors Sue Gray nonsense and the confected outrage over Gary Lineker's tweets about the Tory asylum and immigration bill, which continues to smoulder on, even in the left-leaning press, let alone in the more rabid organs of the hang-'em and flog-'em brigade. If Lineker was a reporting journalist for the BBC, then some modicum of neutrality and even-handedness in such matters would be expected of him. But he's not: he's a football reporter and pundit: the only neutrality one might reasonably expect of him is simply not to favour one football team's fortune over another, on air. Tweeting about his personal views on the current government in no way impacts on his day job, his ability to do it, or his credibility as a commentator. End of. Although, the fact that he is the BBC's highest paid employee actually says more about our collective value systems and mindset than anything else, methinks.

As for the overblown reportage of those comments, though, I can only say that his remarks are not all that wide of the historical mark, but to interpret that he views the current Tory government as Nazis, is just plain ludicrous. The most inflammatory language to date has issued from the current and previous Home Secretary's mouths. Read your history: the rise to power of despots and dictators in the modern era always starts with words and the media: the escalation from the amplification of a seemingly innocuous(!) societal xenophobia, to the imposition of those ideas as justification for rather more sinister acts, is but a step away. Drip, drip, drip. Once you convince a population that their unfounded fears, rooted in simple prejudice against 'the other', are real, and as such are 'the truth', then you are one step further towards repeating history's most egregious errors. Whatever your view, a simple textual analysis will tell the true story of it all. We have all been gradually sleep-walking into the past. Memories are a generation thin, and we need to reflect on the real truths of history: although I fear that we are rapidly losing the ability to distinguish those truths from the lies peddled by the self-serving forces of government and commerce.

As for this government's ludicrous and frankly offensive moves to pass this vile bill, one can only reflect that if their intention is to put people off from making these perilous journeys to our shores - which this bill can't and won't - surely it would be better, simply, to publicize widely in the world's press just how shit the state of this country really is? Why would anyone want to move to a place with a crippled health and social care system, and where most people are struggling to survive on incomes derived from working several jobs at a time? Why would they come to a country where the cost of living is now beyond the means of half its population? Why would they come to a country where the government has consistently attempted to curtail the unions, voter rights and the right to protest openly against policies that directly affect they, the people who elect the government in the first place? Why on earth, indeed...