‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred.’ ‘The Press has power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.’

Facts? I’m King Murdoch. Facts are what I say they are!

‘Comment is free, but facts are sacred.’ Wrote C P Scott of the Manchester Guardian in 1921. 

These fine sentiments, expressed by a pillar of the establishment, which Scott was and who saw value in Zionism, nevertheless contained an integrity which has long been ground into the mud by a bigoted, prejudiced, feral pro-capitalist media, who ruthlessly uses its dominance of news outlets to prolong the rule and increase the wealth of the capitalist class currently represented by May and her thieves kitchen.

In 1931, Stanley Baldwin, ironically a Tory prime minister who had upset some powerful newspaper owners whose aim was to replace him with someone more pliable, declared:
‘Their methods are direct falsehoods, misrepresentation, half-truths, the alteration of the speaker’s meaning by publishing a sentence apart from the context…What the proprietorship of these papers is aiming at is power, and power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”

Since then the Press has degenerated beyond any thing so described. Today’s media outlets have poisoned today’s political discourse with a ferocity against which the criticism of Baldwin pales into insignificance. Centre stage are the false accusations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Any serious evaluation of the right wing character of Zionism, or criticism of the Israeli State killing machine, or even a mild suggestion that perhaps Israel could be seen to be a racist state, is deemed the most heinous form of anti-Semitism.

Of those attacking Corbyn, Dame Hodge springs to mind. Using foul language, unacceptable in any serious political discourse, this charming lady screamed at Jeremy Corbyn ‘you are a f…… racist’. If these remarks had been directed at her by JC or one of his supporters, if not publicly hanged, the media would have screamed for their immediate expulsion, and the ‘left dominated’ NEC would have rushed to oblige.

Instead, this foul-mouthed dame is lionised by the same media and afforded generous air time to peddle her phony charges of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, with fulsome support from a toxic anti-socialist amalgam which includes Progress’s (a party within a party?) John Mann, who is driven by an apparent manic obsession with expelling Labour Party members with whom he may disagree, supported by Tom Watson who believes that any LP organisation expresses a view with which he disagrees should be closed down.

The BBC ‘flagship’ Newsnight programme has long abandoned the sentiments expressed by CP Scott. To watch presenter, Torquemada Kirsty Wark, in full anti-Corbyn mode is a sight to behold, with her gimlet-like eyes fixed on her prey, holding a sheaf of phony examples ‘proving’ that the Labour Party is rife with anti-Semites. Unfortunately, Labour representatives subject to this interrogation, instead of rejecting the charges usually agree that there is a ‘problem’ and protest that they have put ‘robust’ systems in place at a huge cost to the Party to root out the anti-Semites. So far this has included Jewish comrades who dare to criticise the barbaric murder of the Netenyahu killing machine whose snipers gun down unarmed men, women and children, who are protesting at the appalling conditions they are forced to endure on the West Bank which is akin to an open prison.

The anti-Corbyn amalgam is comprised of the capitalist Press with Murdoch and the Mail leading the slavering pack, but it also includes those allegedly ‘sympathetic to Labour’ the Guardian and the Daily Mirror; the audio and TV outlets, with the BBC playing a role no different to the Murdoch-controlled outlets. These platforms are made available to any one of the 172 Blairites in the PLP whose eager fangs are forever ready to close on Jeremy Corbyn’s windpipe.

Labour spokespersons when confronted with these phony charges of anti-Semitism so far have fallen in to the trap set for them. Instead of going on the offensive, they accept them and bend over backward to apologise, and then throw the insatiable witch-hunt machine a sacrifice in the vain hope that the appetite of the beast will be satisfied. The opposite is the outcome. They will never accept anything less than the crushing of Corbyn and the policies he espouses and on which he was re-elected as leader, and they are emboldened with each retreat by the Labour leadership.

For instance, a Labour spokesperson was recently interviewed on the BBC ‘flagship’ Today programme. Grand inquisitor John Humphreys quoted Margaret Hodge as complaining that the atmosphere in her LP branch was ‘toxic’, implying that Hodge was the victim of anti-Semitic sentiments. Instead of simply answering that it was Hodge’s baleful dismissal of rank and file opinion which had created the ‘toxic’ atmosphere, he immediately declared this unacceptable and he would look into it. Thus accepting that it wasn’t Hodge that was the problem, but it was the Corbyn-supporting Party members. This readiness to conduct themselves in terms dictated by the anti-Corbyn amalgam leads to retreat and could fatally wound Corbyn if it continues.

It is time for a calm, sober assessment of the character of the deranged ongoing witch-hunt. Jeremy’s leadership body should issue a statement confirming that there is indeed a strategy, plan or conspiracy, call it what you will, of forces hostile to socialism, who are poisoning all political discourse with the specific objective of destroying Corbyn, confusing the mass of working people, and deflecting their attention from the ongoing and ferocious implementation of the most savage programme of austerity any government has implemented since the National/Tory government of 1931.

It’s not too late for Jeremy Corbyn supporters to go on the offensive. The time to start is now.

Tony Mulhearn

ARMS

This post first appeared on Tony's own blog - link to the right - and is reproduced with his permission.