It's with good reason the BBC is referred to round here by the name George Orwell coined for it - the Ministry of Truth. Yesterday's 10 p.m. Radio 4 news provided an archetypal example of what they mean by balance, when it comes to the EU.
The subject was about the 'democratic deficit' and whether this was peradventure growing, given the imposition of technocratic executives in various countries and the widespread opposition amongst the pitchfork-wielding peasantry.
If you were going to approach such an issue with balance, you'd want to get at least two different viewpoints from opposite sides of the debate. But if you are the Ministry of Truth, what you will do is get two slightly nuanced viewpoints from the same miniscule fraction of of the debate, that being the fraction believed in and supported by the political rump.
Thus we had some prick from the European Council on Foreign Relations and one of the grandees from the Low Countries, whose name I refuse to recall for the moment (the ex-Luxembourg PM or something, what's the fucking difference?).
This so-called 'democratic deficit' is acknowledged, but only as a technical difficulty. Sure, the hoi polloi are against the destruction of sovereignty and the hand-over of power to a junta of failed politicians, ex-maoists and child-molesters (AKA the Kommission), however the 'solution' is to find a way to mollify this opposition, rather than to take any heed of it. The notion that such opposition should in fact preclude any further consolidation of power in Brussels is alien to their thinking.
Pausing for a moment, I note that we, the people who want independence, have not got our act together. I see on some of the UKIP blogs, a broad degree of dissatisfaction with what their party is, or rather is not, doing. We really do need to have a coherent message and a vehicle for that message.
The subject was about the 'democratic deficit' and whether this was peradventure growing, given the imposition of technocratic executives in various countries and the widespread opposition amongst the pitchfork-wielding peasantry.
If you were going to approach such an issue with balance, you'd want to get at least two different viewpoints from opposite sides of the debate. But if you are the Ministry of Truth, what you will do is get two slightly nuanced viewpoints from the same miniscule fraction of of the debate, that being the fraction believed in and supported by the political rump.
Thus we had some prick from the European Council on Foreign Relations and one of the grandees from the Low Countries, whose name I refuse to recall for the moment (the ex-Luxembourg PM or something, what's the fucking difference?).
This so-called 'democratic deficit' is acknowledged, but only as a technical difficulty. Sure, the hoi polloi are against the destruction of sovereignty and the hand-over of power to a junta of failed politicians, ex-maoists and child-molesters (AKA the Kommission), however the 'solution' is to find a way to mollify this opposition, rather than to take any heed of it. The notion that such opposition should in fact preclude any further consolidation of power in Brussels is alien to their thinking.
Pausing for a moment, I note that we, the people who want independence, have not got our act together. I see on some of the UKIP blogs, a broad degree of dissatisfaction with what their party is, or rather is not, doing. We really do need to have a coherent message and a vehicle for that message.
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