So, have you heard the news? If you haven’t, you’re probably living in an isolated house high in the mountains with no electricity, although even then you’d still be getting the Irish News on your visits to the local shop for essentials.
I know this as I experienced it as a child, having spent most summer holidays with my grandmother in the Sperrins.
Along with the Irish News we had the radio – when you managed to get a signal – which told us of momentous events in far-flung places like London or Dublin. As with most farming homes, it was the weather forecast following the news which was of greater interest. For while men landing on the moon was impressive, it was equally important to know if the good weather would last long enough for the hay to be brought in.
- ‘My late Dad was such a prodigious smoker he would have needed a chimney on the top of his head’ - Jake O’KaneOpens in new window
- ‘Wearing casual clothes at funerals remains a peculiarly Catholic phenomena - I’ve yet to see anyone wearing a soccer top at any Protestant funerals’ - Jake O’KaneOpens in new window
- Jake O’Kane: ‘Big Brother has found a home in Scotland thanks to its new Hate Crime Act’Opens in new window
Today we live in a 24-hour news cycle, carrying the world in our pocket in the shape of mobile phones, so if Vladimir Putin farts in Moscow, we’ll know about it in a matter of minutes.
Some argue we’ve reached the apotheosis of both news-gathering and its dissemination, but they’re wrong. The problem lies neither with the availability nor speed of news but, instead, how to discern what is real from what is fake or fabricated for the purposes of propaganda.
Take, for example, the recent attack on Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner involving a house she owned over a decade ago.
Angela Rayner can take some comfort in knowing Ashcroft’s attack proves the Tories view her and not Keir Starmer as the greater threat. Unlike Starmer, Rayner will fight to bring an end to the Tories’ years of graft and cronyism
Initially Ms Rayner was branded a hypocrite for having bought the property through a ‘right-to-buy’ scheme, a programme which Labour no longer supports. When that accusation didn’t stick, it was then claimed she hadn’t paid enough capital gains tax when selling the property. This is contested by Rayner and tax experts who point out that even if any tax was owed it would, at most, represent around £1,500.
As such a derisory amount wouldn’t inflict the political damage hoped for, the attack then moved to a claim that she’d failed to fill in her proper address on the electoral register when moving home.
You may initially believe these accusations highlight a politician involved in a somewhat dodgy property deal - that is, until you learn the source of the story.
It originated in an unauthorised biography of Rayner called Red Queen?, written by billionaire Tory donor, Michael Ashcroft. His unflattering portrait of Rayner was serialised in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, with his accusations remaining top billing for weeks.
But when you delve into Ashcroft’s past, the accusations about Rayner take on a wholly different complexion. Having donated millions to Tory party coffers, he was rewarded with a peerage in 2000.
He subsequently resigned from the Lords in 2015 to concentrate on his businesses, but his time in Parliament was mired in rows about his ‘non-dom’ status and how much tax he did or didn’t pay in the UK. In other words, the man accusing Rayner of failing to pay £1,500 in capital gains tax had himself avoided paying millions - as much as £100m, according to political opponents - in UK income tax.
Rayner can take some comfort in knowing Ashcroft’s attack proves the Tories view her and not Keir Starmer as the greater threat. Unlike Starmer, Rayner will fight to bring an end to the Tories’ years of graft and cronyism.
Coincidentally, as the Mail attacked Rayner, Tory MP William Wragg was discovered to have been compromised in an online honey trap.
Having met a man on the Grindr dating site, he passed on intimate photographs of himself and the personal details of a number of other MPs. He confessed to being manipulated in the scam and quit as vice-chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, chair of a House of Commons committee and resigned the party whip.
So, a non-story about the deputy leader of the Labour party, instigated by a non-dom Tory donor, remains a convenient way to deflect attention from a much-more serious story about a sexually-compromised top Tory MP.
The lesson is clear: it’s no longer enough to just read the news, we must interrogate it and ask where a story originates and who it benefits. In the case of Angela Rayner, the beneficiaries were a beleaguered Tory party swamped by political scandals who remain bankrolled by the one per cent of the population.
