uk politics
Is the Media Helping Richard Tice Sanitise Far-Right Responses to Immigration?
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Life is good for Richard Tice. The leader of Reform UK has it all: money, power, a beautiful girlfriend, and his own TV show. So why is he so angry?
It’s a question not asked by the media. In TV interviews, Tice is never grilled, but merely warmed by the light of the camera. Now Reform UK is polling at ten per cent, the party is being “taken seriously”. What that means in practice is not more scrutiny, but more attention — and the sanitization of a party of the far-right.
When the Office for National Statistics released new immigration data in November, showing a record 672,000 net migration in the year to June, Tice was invited on to the BBC and Sky News to offer his response.
In the same month, Tice was the subject of a respectful profile in the centre-left New Statesman. Nigel Farage, Tice’s friend and Reform UK’s honourary president, was beamed into seven million homes on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
Tice’s partner, Talk TV journalist Isabel Oakshott, appeared on the BBC’s ‘Question Time’, where she expounded Reform's unique policy of “net zero immigration” and defended Farage’s grumble in the jungle. " Tice was back on the BBC himself earlier this month, talking migration on Newsnight.
How has Tice used this newfound media interest? “These huge mass immigration numbers are changing the nature of our country”, he mused on the BBC’s 'Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday': “It’s making us poorer financially and it’s making us poorer culturally.” Culturally?
“I think that sense of Britishness”, he went on, “who we are, our heritage, our history, our Christian values and ethos.” Over on Sky News’ 'Sunday with Sophy Ridge’, Tice called for a “one in, one out” system of “net zero immigration” (there it is again), and claimed Labour and the Conservatives represent “two different forms of socialism”.
In all of these media slots, Tice was presented as a tough but serious voice on migration and a thorn in the side of Rishi Sunak. With his nice suit and polished media style, one could mistake Tice for a Conservative backbencher — a minority figure, but safely part of mainstream politics. Yet a glance at Tice’s social media, and his output as a host on GB News, reveals a different picture.
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It's on GB News that you'll see a hot fury at the state of modern Britain. In videos on Twitter (currently X), Tice glares out of the screen, eyes wide, finger jabbing. Against a Union Jack backdrop, Tice barks about the UK’s “con-socialist” government, “climate change nonsense”, and “open borders” immigration.
On GB News — a channel owned by millionaire hedge funder Paul Marshall and Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group — Tice often responds to the mildest challenge from guests or interviewers by yelling as if he’s been physically wounded.
When given free rein on GB News, he talks like this: “People want action, they want this stopped. Up and down this country, communities are having their lives, their high streets, blighted, by having these young men of military age being dumped into their communities, and there is a huge amount of suffering, of sadly resentment growing, people feel it’s unfair.”
It’s a bit rich to warn of growing public “resentment” when that’s so clearly your bread and butter. But the key phrase here is “young men of military age” — it smacks of race-baiting and incitement one suspects he would not have tried on the BBC.
When you add Reform’s pledge to “declare a national emergency” over people crossing the Channel in small boats, and its revival of Farage’s “breaking point” poster from the EU referendum, the picture sharpens. (It’s worth recalling that Tice helped to poison the Brexit campaign by co-founding Farage’s Leave.EU with Aaron Banks.)
If Tice is ever too cryptic, Reform’s co-deputy leader Ben Habib will spell it out for you. In a Daily Express article in August, Habib took up the US right’s holy war against Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies: “They are promoting people from different ethnic minorities, religious backgrounds and sexual preferences even if doing so would be to the detriment of their organisations and the exclusion of the ethnic majority.” Yikes. Habib goes on to call these alleged policies “an extreme form of socialism”.
Chatting migration on GB News the other day, Habib said: “We’re effectively being required, as the dominant culture in the country, to take the knee to these ethnic minority cultures, and ethnic religions.”
Note the term “take the knee”, which again borrows from the race politics of the United States, turning NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racism into a symbol of white humiliation.
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None of this should be a surprise from a party founded by ‘I’m a Celeb’ star Nigel Farage, who made a career out of racist scare stories, from his “Romanian crime wave”, migrants with HIV exploiting the NHS, to Muslim rapists attacking British women.
It doesn’t take much digging to find these quotes, which are not easily squared with Reform’s image as a normal party with reasonable concerns about immigration. The same goes for Reform’s claim to push for “common sense” on net zero climate targets, when its leader praises CO2 emissions as “plant food”, and as DeSmog has reported, all Reform’s donors this year are either climate deniers or have business in fossil fuels.
As for being an “anti-elitist” party on the side of ordinary people, how does this fit with its policies to crack down on non-existent electoral fraud by postal votes (another US import), to “abolish inheritance tax for all estates under £2 million, 98% of estates”, or to scrap the windfall tax on oil and gas companies? All of these are easy to find in the party’s manifesto, along with the false claim that “the vast majority of [asylum] claimants are economic migrants or from Albania under the oversight of their criminal gangs”.
But the good manners of British politics have the effect of sanitizing anyone, however crackpotted, who has some claim to legitimacy, whether that’s a job at a think tank or media outlet — or in Reform’s case, a bump in the polls.
Having nurtured the careers of every demagogue and chancer from Boris Johnson to Nigel Farage, hacks are almost eager to repeat their mistake. The media’s learning curve is long, and it bends toward potential fascists.
It’s also an indictment of the post-Brexit ecosystem, which has moved so far to the right that Reform’s racist demagogy and paranoid red-baiting can pass as normal conservative politics.
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In a country where the Government is keeping refugees in a prison ship, and trying to break international law to deport them to Rwanda, the Faragists are both a cause and an effect. Having scared the Conservatives into moving to the right, they shout from the wings and raise their demands.
The mistake was to grant their first premise, so that the question isn’t “Should we crack down on immigration?” but “Have we gone far enough to do so?” As British schoolchildren are taught in history lessons, you can’t appease the far-right. But that hasn’t stopped the British government from trying, and they’ve painted themselves into a corner with nowhere else to go.
Reform can’t be ignored. The issue is not whether its politicians and fans should be “platformed”, but how. If we’re going to be told Reform UK is electorally important, it’s beyond time its spokespeople were asked some proper questions.
For example, does Tice agree with his deputy’s babble about socialist plots against Britain’s “ethnic majority”? Why should anyone buy Tice’s pose as a champion of working people when he is paid by hedge funds and campaigns for dirty air, voter suppression and tax cuts for the rich? And what the hell does migrants being “of military age” have to do with immigration’s effect on housing and public services?
It's not clear whether Richard Tice is an angry man or just plays one on TV. But given his far-right agenda, perhaps it’s time journalists gave him something to be angry about.
Rishi Sunak Meets Murdochs More than NHS Figures in Latest Lobbying Revelations
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Rishi Sunak met media representatives more than any other sector of the UK economy between July and September, analysis by Byline Times shows.
The Prime Minister met senior executives from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire alone four times in the space of three months, compared to just once for NHS representatives.
Sunak met Daily Mail editors twice in that time, while meeting housing sector figures once. Several of the meetings were listed as “social”, meaning they are unlikely to have been minuted. That includes meetings with the departing News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, and separately, his son Lachlan who is taking over at the helm.
Every single one of the PM’s eight media meetings in that time is with right-leaning media outlets.
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Journalism professor and Byline Times contributor Brian Cathcart said: "These depressing figures reveal just how close the connection is between the right-wing billionaire press and our multi-millionaire prime minister.
"Forget democracy and forget parliament: this is where the real power in this country resides, and worse still, what we see is just the tip of the iceberg. Contacts of this kind are maintained at every level of Government and are so intensive it's impossible to say where press influence ends and Government begins."
He added that editors and proprietors who have "no democratic mandate" and whose own industry is in a "disgraceful and chaotic state" are listened to more by the prime minister than anyone else in the country.
And Tom Hardy from Extinction Rebellion's 'Tell the Truth' media campaign said the findings were "brazen", adding Sunak's meeting priorities reflected "how out of touch the Government is with a sentient electorate."
Hardy argues that fossil fuel interests and "the billionaire press" appear to be "pulling the strings": "Sunak will tell us that he is still committed to net zero or the health service but we all know what happened to Pinocchio."
Read the full meeting declarations for the three months over the Summer here.
Sunak’s Media Meetings - July-September 2023
- Date: 06/07/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of DMG Media
- Purpose of Meeting: "Informal media engagement to discuss the work of the Government"
- Date: 06/07/2023
- Organisation/Individual: The Spectator
- Purpose of Meeting: "Social Meeting"
- Date: 04/08/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Lachlan Murdoch, Co-Chairman of News Corp, Executive Chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation
- Purpose of Meeting: "Social Meeting"
- Date: 07/09/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Rupert Murdoch, Proprietor of News Corporation
- Purpose of Meeting: "Social Meeting"
- Date: 19/09/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Victoria Newton, Editor of The Sun, Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel 4
- Purpose of Meeting: The Sun's "Who Cares Wins" Awards
- Date: 26/09/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Ted Verity, Editor, of the Daily Mail
- Purpose of Meeting: "Informal media engagement to discuss the work of the Government"
- Date: 26/09/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Paul Goodman, Editor of Conservative Home
- Purpose of Meeting: "Informal political media engagement to discuss the work of the Government"
- Date: 30/09/2023
- Organisation/Individual: Tony Gallagher, Editor of The Times, Steven Swinford, Deputy Political Editor of The Times
- Purpose of Meeting: Dinner and meeting at Conservative Party Conference
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‘Rewilding is the Key to Upgrading Our National Parks’
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Earlier this month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – the world’s most respected environmental network – quietly and brutally downgraded the UK’s protected landscapes (which include our national parks). It followed a decade of "no evidence" that they are effective for nature recovery.
This news slipped under the radar of the established media, while simultaneously ringing very loud alarm bells in the ears of all conservationists, environmentalists and rewilders.
It stings all the more as it comes mere days after the announcement of a new national park as part of the Government's package of measures to improve public access to nature and reverse its decline. This was accompanied by a funding announcement of £10 million for existing national parks and protected landscapes over this year and next.
But those who work in, and for, national parks know all too well how negatively huge cuts in core funding have affected them over the last decade.
It is not simply a case of our national parks being downgraded due to lack of funding, though that is certainly a major factor. It’s more simple than that. There has long been a lack of clarity and a muddled approach to the purpose of our national parks and protected landscapes – what are they for and how should they be managed?
In one way, the answer is obvious: they exist to protect and restore nature. A YouGov survey commissioned by Green Alliance this year revealed that more than 70% of respondents thought the priority of national parks should be providing habitats for wildlife. This reflects polling undertaken by Rewilding Britain in 2021, which found that 83% of the public supported Britain’s national parks being made wilder.
But the reality, which the IUCN’s review so clearly demonstrates, does not reflect this.
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The majority of our national parks aren’t working to protect and restore nature, and haven’t been for some time. This is very concerning – not least because we all feel a strong collective pride for our national parks and want to see them flourishing, but also because our national parks and protected landscapes are crucial areas if we are to see 30% of land and sea protected for nature by 2030.
This is a key environmental commitment by the Government, one reinforced by the new Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Steve Barclay when announcing the new national park.
Our national parks and protected landscapes are prime areas for the Government to actively deliver on its promise. Yet the IUCN can find "no evidence" that the designations are effective for nature recovery. If we cannot protect and restore nature in our national parks, then our hope of doing so outside of them is practically non-existent.
So, what can be done?
First and foremost, the muddled approach to their role must be solved by giving all protected landscapes the overriding purpose of delivering nature’s recovery. This nature-positive approach will align with what most British people think they should be for and help shift our national parks from being largely unproductive landscapes to places where nature thrives. It would also deliver a multitude of knock-on benefits including tourism opportunities, new jobs and nature-friendly farming.
We know this works because there are already growing numbers of experienced farmers, landowners and conservationists pioneering a different approach in our national parks.
Wild Ennerdale, a rewilding project in the Lake District National Park, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. Since 2003, it has applied rewilding principles – allowing the landscape to evolve naturally – within the valley which had suffered from loss of habitat and biodiversity. Measures such as planting native trees, re-wiggling the river and introducing conservation grazers have transformed the biodiversity of the area. Bird species have increased by almost 20%, including the welcome return of the green woodpecker. The marsh fritillary butterfly, extinct in west Cumbria, has also returned; and wild juniper, reduced to 10 bushes in 2003, has increased by 10,000%. Last November, 70% of the area was designated a “super national nature reserve”.
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Rewilding Britain – a charity that aims to "tackle the climate emergency and extinction crisis, reconnect people with the natural world and to help communities thrive" – wants to see what is being achieved at Wild Ennerdale in all our national parks and, indeed, across 30% of Britain by 2030.
We want a richer, wilder, Britain full of the abundance of life where landscape-scale restoration of natural processes, habitats and species and sustainable, nature-led farming, forestry and leisure work hand-in-hand to benefit us all.
We want to see an inspiring, diverse mosaic of rewilding where nature comes first while delivering major benefits for communities – including opportunities for vibrant green economies, healthier air, water and soils, and improved health and wellbeing.
It’s not too late, but we need to act now.
People are at the heart of our national parks. Unlike the vast wildernesses of Yellowstone or the Taiga, almost 400,000 people live and work in Britain’s national parks, many having made the land their home for generations. They must be supported to lead nature recovery and have access to the tools and resources to create their own new nature-based economies so rural communities reap the benefits of a necessary, just rural transition.
Though the IUCN’s review has confirmed that our national parks and landscapes are not effective for nature recovery right now, we know they can be in the future and we know how. This is a world we know is possible – if we only choose to make it happen.
Revealed: Westminster Staff’s Second Jobs
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More than one in five MPs’ staff have received paid gifts or outside work in the last year – including from anti-climate change think tanks and major party donors, Byline Times can reveal.
This newspaper analysed the most recent register of interests for 'Members' Secretaries and Research Assistants' and identified 412 individuals who logged either gifts or outside paid work in the last year – 21% of all the staff listed.
Even after removing gifts, and the staff with partisan roles, like working as an advisor for their own political party nationally or serving as a local councillor, more than 100 staffers declared some form of outside employment.
One parliamentary staffer was working as the head of policy for the Global Warming Policy Foundation and Net Zero Watch. These twin campaign groups, based in Tufton Street, are some of the most vocal groups opposing the Government’s net zero plans and have been accused of spreading “misinformation and propaganda” about the issue.
The think tanks have also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from funds linked to the fossil fuel industry and even the controversial Koch brothers, according to an investigation by openDemocracy.
A Labour staffer was listed as working as a political advisor to Trevor Chinn and Martin Taylor, who have collectively donated millions of pounds to Labour and have provided extensive funding for the powerful internal party group Labour Together.
The group, a major driving force behind Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign, failed to disclose donations from millionaire venture capitalists and businessmen to the Electoral Commission, according to an investigation by The Times.
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Other roles listed included working for major banks, Christian lobby groups, or as a freelance producer for GB News.
Just more than half of the roles identified by Byline Times related to PR, communications, consultancy or advocacy groups that may have a vested interest in lobbying Westminster.
Dr Susan Hawley, executive director of transparency campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, told Byline Times: "Parliament should clearly be looking to tighten the rules to ensure that staff in MPs' offices are not becoming a back route for donations and influence from lobbyists and think tank staff, who get privileged access to parliamentarians and policy making by working there."
The overall figures may be higher than Byline Times estimates as staff only have to register work if “that occupation or employment is in any way advantaged by the privileged access to Parliament” afforded by being a staffer – meaning many roles may simply be left off if it is believed it is unrelated to their Westminster work.
It is also impossible to determine the money made by staffers from these roles as they are not required to disclose income as part of their declaration in the register.
There has been increasing scrutiny of second jobs and outside interests in Westminster in recent years – albeit mostly focused on MPs themselves – after a series of scandals involving MPs lobbying for companies they had outside work for.
Recent analysis by the Guardian found that MPs have been paid £10 million from second jobs and freelance work over the past year, continuing to rise despite promises of a crackdown in 2021-2022.
Last year, the Government ditched plans to cap MPs’ income from second jobs.
Michelle Mone’s Lawyer Distances Himself from Baroness’ Claim She Lied to the Press on his Advice
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The drama surrounding the truth – and counter-truths – of Baroness Michelle Mone’s dealings with PPE Medpro, and the lucrative government contracts seemingly derived from her back-stage lobbying, took a further turn this week when her lawyer appeared to distance himself from her public comments.
Earlier this month, the BBC reported that Mone had made an "error" by lying to the press and not initially telling the media of her involvement with the company. Crucially, it reported that “she initially denied involvement due to legal advice”.
When Byline Times asked her lawyer, David McKie, if he was aware Mone was lying about not being connected to PPE Medpro, Mr McKie instructed his own solicitor.
The lawyer of the baroness’ lawyer said he has “never advanced a factual position on behalf of a client without being (i) aware of the basis therefor and (ii) instructed to do so”.
PPE Medpro, the company at the heart of this scandal, is being sued by the Government for £122 million plus costs for "breach of contract and unjust enrichment". It had supplied millions of pounds worth of personal protective equipment – much of which was found to be defective – to the Government during the pandemic.
Mone has said the Government knew about her involvement with the company. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated he is taking the issue "incredibly seriously".
Much of the scandal has focused on Mone’s denial to the press that she was linked to PPE Medpro.
Last May, Mr McKie was asked by Byline Times whether Mone was connected to PPE Medpro. He said to report as such would be defamatory.
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When this newspaper challenged this, Mr McKie replied: “Your email now appears to suggest that the ‘legal threats’ are without substance and that our correspondence is therefore without merit or justification. That is not only defamatory of our client, but of us and indeed of her previous agents. If you report that explicitly or by implication, it will be actionable.”
This month, in the wake of Mone’s admission that she had lied all along, Mr McKie appeared to contradict her claim that she did so on his advice.
His lawyers, Livingstone Brown, told Byline Times: “Mr McKie was engaged to act on behalf of Baroness Mone… It is in the nature of the work that solicitors do to represent factual propositions on behalf of clients. Solicitors are bound by their professional rules to act with honesty and integrity; at all times, he has done so.
"Any publication which asserted or implied that our client had knowingly represented a false position to you or any other third party would be defamatory, and hence actionable. It would also be materially inaccurate, and hence infringe clause 1 of the Editors’ Code.”
Plurality and the Press: The Telegraph Takeover
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Press freedom is once again in peril, according to right-wing newspapers.
As part of a mass offensive recalling the heady days of reaction to the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the phone-hacking scandal, an editorial in the Mail on 28 November boomed that freedom of the press is a “democratic necessity” and among the “precious institutions and freedom which must not be compromised at any price” – while Charles Moore warned in the Telegraph on 24 November that “the nationalisation of a British national newspaper seems possible”.
What is the source of this renewed threat? According to Juliet Samuel in The Times on 22 November, it is the prospect that one of the UK’s major newspapers may be “effectively bought and controlled by an Arab dictatorship”.
More specifically, it’s the spectre of the Telegraph Media Group being bought by Abu Dhabi-backed Redbird IMI, a joint venture between the US private equity firm Redbird Capital, which is run by former boss of CNN and NBC News, Jeff Zucker, and International Media Investments (IMI), a vehicle controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and brother of the country’s President.
Much of the press coverage of this possible deal has been greatly distorted by the fact that the Daily Mail and General Trust is extremely keen to buy the Telegraph titles and News Corp to acquire the Spectator magazine, which is also part of the Telegraph Media Group.
Both parties are thus bitterly hostile to the deal, although less for the ostensible reasons given – national security and press freedom – than for rather less noble and more self-interested ones.
Scrutiny of the proposed deal has ended up in the hands of broadcasting and communications regulator Ofcom but how it intends to carry out its task has itself failed to receive the scrutiny it deserves.
On 30 November, Lucy Frazer, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN) under section 42(2) of the Enterprise Act 2002. This specifies two public interest considerations as relevant to the takeover: the need for accurate presentation of news; and the need for free expression of opinion in newspapers.
Ofcom has been tasked with preparing a report for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on these matters and will report back by 26 January.
There are a number of causes for concern but, in particular, the nature of the public interest considerations and the role of the Secretary of State in issuing the PIIN in the first place.
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The public interest tests which Ofcom is undertaking stem from amendments to the Communications Act 2003 at its pre-legislative stage by a committee chaired by Lord Puttnam, which was rightly concerned that this ‘deregulatory’ measure didn’t contain sufficient safeguards for media plurality. These amendments regarding accuracy and free expression of opinion were then incorporated into the Enterprise Act.
In May 2004, the then Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) issued guidance on the operation of the public interest merger provisions relating to the media, and these form the basis of the PIIN.
On accuracy, the guidance states that the impact of a possible merger is likely to be assessed by reference to the past behaviour of the company wishing to undertake the acquisition or by those controlling it. Also important are any measures the company proposes in order to preserve accuracy in news presentation.
Regarding free expression of opinion, the statutory guidance states that this concerns “the extent to which the transaction would affect the freedom of editors to operate without interference from the proprietor”. This will be considered in light of “any measures which the parties may have put in place to preserve editorial freedom”.
However, there is also a third test in the amended Enterprise Act, but for some reason this has been excluded from the PIIN, although it would appear to be highly relevant in this instance.
This stresses “the need for, to the extent that it is reasonable and practicable, a sufficient plurality of views in newspapers in each market for newspapers in the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom”. It does not refer only to the local or regional press: “each market” also encompasses the three market segments – downmarket, midmarket and upmarket – of the national press.
Of course, the “reasonable and practicable” qualification allows for all sorts of get-outs, and the guidance duly notes that the wording reflects the Secretary of State’s view that “although plurality of views in each and every market is the ideal goal of the regime, it may not be reasonable to require this in relation to a particular part of the market because of associated costs”.
But what is immediately noticeable about the two tests which have been included is just how limited they are.
This undoubtedly relates to their origin in the DTI, essentially a trade body concerned with economic matters, as opposed to the DCMS, which might have been expected to take broader cultural issues into account. And given press owners’ antipathy to any measure that might limit their empire-building, it would be surprising if they had not lobbied the DTI to keep the scope of these tests as narrow as possible.
Indeed, the House of Lords Communications Committee in its 2008 report 'The Ownership of the News’ complained that the public interest considerations for media mergers did not include “any requirement to establish that a merger will not adversely affect professional news gathering and investigative journalism” and recommended – in vain – that such a requirement should be included in the legislation.
It also expressed concern, equally vainly, that “the considerations for newspaper mergers are hard to measure objectively and are in need of review” and wondered how the accurate presentation of news could be considered and measured before a merger had actually gone ahead.
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When it comes to the matter of the “free expression of opinion”, Jeff Zucker has already promised to create an editorial advisory board that would uphold the independence of the Telegraph titles and the Spectator and emphasised that he has no plans to change their management or editorial teams.
However, history suggests that such undertakings count for nothing when it comes to the UK national press. As former Sunday Times Editor Sir Harold Evans stated at the Leveson Inquiry, Rupert Murdoch himself told The Times home Editor Fred Emery in 1981 that the guarantees of editorial freedom which he’d recently given in order to be allowed to purchase the titles were “not worth the paper they’re written on”.
Further conditions entailed that the two newspapers had to be run as separate titles under separate editors. However, in January 2019, News UK, citing changed market conditions since 1981, successfully lobbied for these to be relaxed, allowing the papers to share resources, including journalists. Two years later, the company equally successfully lobbied to be entirely released from these undertakings.
The DCMS consulted with Ofcom on whether these changes were in the public interest and it argued that they were, finding that “the UK newspaper market is currently reasonably plural” and, even in the event of a merger, “readers would still have access to a wide range of viewpoints”. There were also commercial incentives for the two titles to deliver accurate news in that “their ability to attract readers and advertisers is linked to their reputation for quality, accurate and trusted news”.
The papers’ many critics would vehemently disagree, and such a Panglossian view of plurality in the UK national press as a whole raises serious questions about whether Ofcom is adequately equipped to deal with the proposed Telegraph Group deal, and indeed press mergers of any kind.
Judging free expression of opinion in the press solely in terms of editorial freedom from proprietorial interference is extremely limited. No one who knows how newspapers work seriously believes that proprietors constantly tell their editors what opinions to express. Instead, they appoint editors and managers who know perfectly well what lines their proprietors expect them to take on the main subjects of the day and, in all likelihood, agree with them.
This is a process of allocative as opposed to operational control. It means that what many journalists would welcome most is freedom from editorial power.
In the case of the Telegraph, how such control works has been chillingly illustrated by its erstwhile chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, who resigned because stories about HSBC were routinely suppressed on account of it being an important advertiser and about Hong Kong, so as not to upset valuable Chinese interests.
It is also germane to Ofcom’s Pollyanna-ish views about the 'plurality’ of the UK national press that this ended his career not only at the Telegraph but in the rest of Fleet Street too. A similarly grim picture of lack of journalistic autonomy, based on interviews (inevitably anonymous) with practising journalists, can be found in the chapters by journalism academic and former journalist Angela Phillips in the edited collection New Media, Old News.
On the role of the Secretary of State in issuing the PIIN, it’s worth recalling that, in this respect, the Lords Communications Committee argued that this power should also be invested in Ofcom, because governments spend time building good relationships with powerful media proprietors. This is not necessarily wrong but it does raise a possible conflict of interest if the same people who want, and need, to stay on the right side of a media company, have the final say on that company’s business interests.
This is a particularly important consideration in the present case.
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That the Telegraph titles have consistently supported the Conservatives, both in government and opposition, is incontrovertible. However, under the ownership of the Barclay family, the papers, along with the rest of the Tory press, have increasingly thrown their weight behind the hard-right factions of the party. That the Government has tacked ever closer to these factions is surely not a coincidence.
For a government in a situation as fraught as the present one, press support is more than usually vital and it is thus perfectly reasonable to harbour the suspicion that the Secretary of State’s concern about the future ownership of the Telegraph titles and the Spectator may be, at least partly, motivated by fears about the future direction of three particularly valuable press allies.
It could also be the case that, given the current conflict in the Middle East, in which the Government, the Telegraph titles and the Spectator strongly support Israel, she may have concerns about how a newspaper owned by Abu Dhabi-backed interests might cover future conflicts in the region. In this respect, any fears might be well founded.
The UAE has a very poor record when it comes to press freedom. It is 145th out of the 180 countries included on the index compiled by Reporters Without Borders. And there are questions about IMI itself in this respect. For example, until last year, it owned the newspaper al-Roeya, but in September this was shut down just weeks after it ran a story about how Emiratis were struggling with higher fuel prices following the invasion of Ukraine.
Thus, for all the wrong-headedness in the way in which the free expression test is framed, there is actually a good reason for running it. But let’s not get dewy-eyed about the state of press freedom in Britain. As Robert Shrimsley put it in the Financial Times on 29 November: "Let’s spare ourselves the humbug of pretending that existing British media moguls are as hands-off and virtuous as a Disney princess is chaste. Individuals buy newspapers for status or power and invariably use them to advance personal or professional interests. And the roll call of UK press barons is hardly one to shout about."
And when the likes of Janet Daley in the Telegraph on 2 December state that “the power wielded by a state must be, always and without qualification, separate from the presentation and analysis of information in the public domain”, let’s remember that Ian Gilmour, a member of Margaret Thatcher’s first Cabinet, proclaimed that the press “could scarcely have been more fawning if it had been state controlled”.
Both of these judgements could just as easily have been applied to Boris Johnson and to Liz Truss in her early days in power.
And finally, let’s remember why Byline Times came into existence, as summed up in its motto: what the papers don’t say.
Julian Petley is a Honorary Professor of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel University London
Government Accused of “Destroying” Independence of UK’s Election Watchdog as New “Priorities” Imposed on Electoral Commission
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The Conservatives have sparked fresh fears over the independence of the UK's election watchdog as they published a new strategy for the Electoral Commission.
Democracy campaigners are concerned that the Government is eroding the freedom of the Electoral Commission, which regulates UK elections and donations, from ministerial interference, following the passing of last year’s Elections Act.
In a statement to the Commons, Simon Hoare, Minister for Local Government, said the Government was committed to a “secure, fair, modern, and transparent democracy”. But Ministers are now able to guide the watchdog’s strategy and priorities after pushing through legislation in 2022 despite strong opposition.
The Government’s priorities for the watchdog largely concern voter fraud, enhancing election accessibility, and boosting participation. However, critics point out that voter fraud is a rare occurrence in the UK. Instead, issues surrounding electoral malpractice by candidates and parties, and questionable political donations barely get a mention.
And despite concerns over the EC’s independence being raised in a public consultation this summer, the Government has chosen not to amend the draft Statement from June 2023.
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There are no mentions of electoral threats like artificial intelligence (such as ‘deepfakes’ intended to trick voters) or misinformation in the new strategy document.
Lord Rennard, a Liberal Democrat peer and vocal opponent of the Elections Act, has sharply criticised the move. He highlighted that allowing a Secretary of State to set a Strategy & Policy Statement for the Electoral Commission gravely undermines its independence.
This concern was echoed by eight of the nine Commissioners in a strongly worded letter to ministers.
Rennard also points out that the changes in the composition of the Speaker's Committee, now give the Conservative Party an effective majority in “scrutinising” the Electoral Commission.
The Electoral Commission's independence has been further brought into question following the effective ousting of Sir John Holmes, after the Commission investigated alleged illegal activities by a Conservative Party MP, Craig Mackinlay, in the 2015 general election under his tenure. Mackinlay was cleared of all charges but local staffer Marion Little, 63, was convicted of two charges related to fiddling election expenses.
Lord Rennard accused the Conservatives of altering electoral laws in their favour and hindering investigations into campaign finance breaches, and backed tougher action on electoral wrongdoing by the National Crime Agency in the wake of the clampdown on the EC.
Tom Brake, Director of Unlock Democracy, told Byline Times: “The government is at sixes and sevens on this. It can't on the one hand claim 'it is vital for the health of democracy that the UK have an independent regulator' whilst at the same time writing its Strategy and Policy Statement, destroying its independence.
“There is a simple course of action. Stop interfering with the Electoral Commission and let it set its own path.”
Dr Jess Garland, director of policy and research for the Electoral Reform Society, added that the group was concerned that the new policy “unnecessarily impinges” on the Electoral Commission’s independence.
“The statement before Parliament [last] week seeks to reassure on that point, but there is no guarantee of a similar approach in future. If the government intends to maintain the operational independence of the Electoral Commission then why do they need to set a strategy and policy statement in the first place?”
The Fifth Report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life was emphatic: “Those who have advocated the establishment of an Electoral Commission have been emphatic that it should be independent both of the government of the day and of the political parties. We agree. An Election Commission in a democracy like ours could not function properly, or indeed at all, unless it were scrupulously impartial and believed to be so by everyone seriously involved and by the public at large.”
The Government ignored and overrode the warnings. You can read the Government’s statement on the changes here and the new Government priorities for the Electoral Commission here.
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‘Get Brexit Done’ is now ‘Stop the Boats’: Is the Rwanda Bill the Conservatives’ Trojan Horse?
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One of the lines that stays with me from learning Latin at school is from Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid – “Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferrentes” ("I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts”). This line was uttered by the Trojan priest, Laocoon, who was warning that the Trojan Horse apparently gifted to the city of Troy by the departing Greeks might actually be a trap.
In similar fashion, I can’t help feeling that 'I can’t Trust the Conservatives, even when they obey the Law'.
A huge song and dance was made by the Government before last week’s first vote on its Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill that the legislation – just – stayed within the framework of the European Convention of Human Rights.
The Bill, if adopted, would allow government ministers to ignore temporary injunctions raised by the European Court of Human Rights to stop flights taking off at the last minute. However, it would still allow asylum seekers to launch legal appeals to argue that they should be spared deportation, if they can claim various special circumstances.
Supporters of the Government’s approach argue that the Bill goes as far as it can, without breaching international law – and that Rwanda itself would withdraw from the scheme if the UK went any further.
Conservative opponents of the bill, including 29 MPs from the right wing of the party, who abstained on the vote, argue that it does not go far enough and that the language should have explicitly ruled out the scope for any legal challenges to deportation, whether under domestic or international human rights law.
Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who resigned over his disagreement with Rishi Sunak’s migration policy, was even quoted (ironically, on Human Rights Day) as saying that the Government must put "the views of the British public above contested notions of international law" and that MPs are "not sent to Parliament to be concerned about our reputation on the gilded international circuit".
I feel a weary sense of déjà vu. This is Brexit, on repeat.
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Yet again, we have some members of the Conservative Party arguing that the UK needs to abandon another European institution – this time the European Court of Human Rights – in order to 'take back control' of immigration.
Yet again, they scapegoat others – on this occasion 'lefty lawyers' – for 'thwarting' the will of the people.
Yet again, they claim unique knowledge and possession of what that 'will of the people' actually is – though there has been no explicit vote put to the public as to whether they really do support the Rwanda scheme, even if it involves the UK derogating from some aspects of human rights law. Just as there never was any explicit indication in the EU Referendum that the British public wanted the most hardline break with Brussels, including departure from the Customs Union and Single Market.
Yet again, we have Conservative MPs misrepresenting the facts, to argue that the Rwanda scheme will brilliantly solve all of the UK’s immigration problems – despite the evidence that it will only ever be able to remove a few hundred migrants, at most, and only at vast expense; that it will do nothing to resolve the massive asylum claim backlog; and the fact that most immigrants to the UK come here legally, partly as a result of the Government’s own migration policies.
But then, Conservative MPs never acknowledge inconsistencies in their arguments, whether over Brexit or now over immigration.
Just like during the Brexit debates, Conservative MPs now are also happy to gloss over inconvenient facts regarding migration – such as that our health, care, agriculture and hospitality sectors are dependent on affordable immigrant labour, and that there are no 'safe, legal' routes for asylum seekers to come to the UK.
Instead, they waffle on about this being yet another issue of 'sovereignty'. Indeed, the Rwanda Bill goes one step further than Brexit, in deliberately overriding the Supreme Court’s judgment on Rwanda, to assert that Rwanda actually is a safe country. So now, not just laws, but facts, are whatever the British Government says them to be.
Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping are no doubt delighted to see members of the British political establishment adopt their practices of disinformation and disdain for international law. How much easier it makes it for them to continue gulling their own citizens, and defying international conventions and treaties, when they can point to a country like the UK – previously a stalwart defender of the international rules-based order – doing the same.
And just as during Brexit, so now, we have different factions of the Conservative Party tearing themselves to shreds, while critical national and international problems go unaddressed.
The hapless Sunak is in the role of Theresa May, desperately trying to hold his party together and risking pleasing none. The same Goldilocks dilemma prevails – his immigration policy risks being too hard for the One Nation group of MPs on the moderate wing of the party, but too soft for the so-called 'Five Families’ factions on the right wing of the party.
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Terrified of losing voters to Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, Sunak, like May, will keep trying to appease the migration hardliners, though they will never be satisfied until he has fully ruptured relations with the ECHR. Terrified of alienating traditional conservative voters in their constituencies, the centrist MPs will hold their noses and keep going along, putting party before principle, time and again.
The one advantage Sunak has over May is that it would be hard, even for this shameless party, to seek to replace him as party leader, without triggering a general election, in which – on current polling – many MPs would lose their seats.
But this is precisely why I sense a trap.
For now, Sunak can play the role of responsible statesman, doing his best to restrain the more extreme members of his party, and insisting that any British legislation should stay just on the right side of the law. If the legislation passes, and asylum seekers start being deported to Rwanda – even if it’s only a few dozen – he can make the case that his scheme works, and campaign in the general election for voters to back him, in order to allow it to continue.
But if the legislation falls, or squeaks through only to be defeated again in the courts, before any asylum seekers are deported, Sunak can switch tactics to campaign full bore in support of leaving the ECHR – on the grounds that he has exhausted all options and that his hand has been 'forced' into accepting the most extreme approach.
This ploy might not be enough to prevent Conservative defeat to the Labour Party, but it might be enough to save a few seats and to allow the party to keep posturing in hardline fashion on immigration, without ever having to suffer the embarrassment of the Rwanda scheme failing, or having to deal with the damaging wider consequences of leaving the ECHR, such as for the Good Friday Agreement, or our post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
Like the Trojan Horse, I believe the Rwanda bill is a set-up. 'Get Brexit Done’ is now 'Stop the Boats’. But, unlike the good citizens of Troy, I believe British voters will not let themselves be suckered a second time.
Never trust the Conservatives, even when they bring 'gifts'.
The Politics of Disability: A Forgotten Minister for Forgotten People
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The news last week that the Prime Minister had decided to do without a dedicated Minister for Disabled People came as a punch in the guts to many, with the journalist and campaigner Frances Ryan describing it as the "perfect final middle finger" from a dying Government which has spent the past 13 years "impoverishing and humiliating" them.
The announcement a few hours later – possibly in response to the uproar – of the appointment of Mims Davies as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, Health and Work (alongside her responsibilities in the Department for Work and Pensions for, apparently, social mobility, youth and progression) did little to assuage the hurt.
The awkward truth, however, is that whoever takes on this role, none of this will make much of a difference, largely because the Government’s record in this area is so lamentable.
Some context might be useful.
It was the disability pioneer Alf Morris who was Britain’s first Under-Secretary of State for Disablement in Harold Wilson’s 1974 Government. Margaret Thatcher’s administration tried to take disabilities seriously, and John Major’s even passed the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995. From 1997, there were some fairly effective ministers under Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown, as well as welcome initiatives such as 'Valuing People’, the white paper on learning disabilities, in 2001.
Since 2010, the role has changed status and responsibility five times with 10 different ministers and secretaries of state being appointed. Taking on responsibility for the lives of disabled people seems to be simply an early stepping stone in a ministerial career.
David Cameron’s experience as the father of a profoundly disabled young man may have shaped his personal priorities but, in 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities concluded that his Government’s breaches of the treaty were "grave" and "systematic". A further review in 2018 discovered that, while modest progress had been made, successive administrations were still failing in their core duties (as further evidenced by their refusal to even attend a key UN session this year to discuss their ongoing failures).
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The Government produced its 2021 National Disability Strategy (2021) in response, full of warm words, eager commitments and noble aspirations. What is striking is the emptiness at the heart of its recent Disability Action Plan for 2023-24. This boasts of the now discredited Down Syndrome Act (the flaws of which Ramandeep Kaur and I outlined in these pages), as well as the British Sign Language Act, the basic stipulations of which, a recent survey found, were ignored by more than half of government departments.
The challenges faced by disabled children and their families are getting worse.
Most of the commitments made in the 2014 Children’s and Families Act have not been delivered and the key reform – the replacement of the Statements of Special Needs by the Education and Health Care Plans (EHCP) – has been implemented in such a haphazard way that disabled children are consistently let down.
Thousands of families have found themselves involved in expensive tribunals (which they nearly always win) pitted against local authorities which plead poverty while spending (in 2022-23) an astonishing £92 million on legal fees.
The Government’s SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) review of 2021 – described as "a response to the widespread recognition that the system is failing to deliver" – was greeted by the Alliance for Inclusive Education as an "all-round failure", while Disability Rights UK insisted that the plans weren’t radical enough and that investment in the future was "wholly insufficient".
The revelation that the Department for Education had allegedly been instructed to cut the numbers requiring an EHCP by an arbitrary 20% stoked the suspicion that a disabled person is regarded by this Government as an expensive burden, not as a fellow citizen who may need some help.
Every month, we hear new stories of abuse, neglect and cruelty towards disabled people, especially in institutions supposedly set up to care for them. In addition to the many residential and supported living places deemed ‘inadequate’ by the Care Quality Commission, many learning disabled and autistic people are still confined in deeply unsuitable assessment and treatment units.
When the decision was taken to close them down in 2018, they held 2600 people; five years later, that number has only reduced by 20. Of these, 215 have been detained for at least five years, and a 135 for more than 10. These people have committed no crime and a government that genuinely cared about disabled people could have solved the problem.
The already perilous state of disabled people’s lives has been exacerbated by the triple whammy of Brexit, COVID and the cost of living crisis. The recruitment crisis in the NHS and the care sector has had a particularly negative impact on disabled people and, as the Office for National Statistics explains, disabled people were at significantly greater risk of death from COVID-19.
Indeed, according to Public Health England, mortality rates for learning-disabled young people with no significant comorbidities were six times higher than the average. Thus, when Boris Johnson declared in one of his breaks from partying at Downing Street that they should "let the bodies pile high", it was the disabled as well as the elderly that he was consigning to death.
The cost of living crisis has had devastating consequences for disabled people, who often need special equipment, personal assistance and reasonable adjustments to be able to live decent lives.
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But the fact that the new Under-Secretary also has responsibilities for "health and work" has caused concern – it suggests that the planned replacement of the Department for Work and Pensions’ clunky work capability assessments with a new system which will find more people suitable for work, is being actively pursued.
One activist dubbed this reform "a smokescreen for cuts" and it sometimes feels that disabled people might be tolerated so long as they can be employed. Otherwise, well, it’s every man for himself, frequently driving the less able into poverty, isolation and abject despair.
Even problems that could easily be resolved are left unattended. For instance, almost £66 million of state and private investments held in child trust funds set up for disabled children cannot be accessed by their beneficiaries because they lack ‘capacity’. A simple adjustment in the process could sort this out. But nothing ever happens.
And when it does, as in the change of tack over the planned closure of ticket offices at railway stations, it’s only in response to a massive outcry by some very vocal physically disabled campaigners. It’s never because the people making the original decision had thought through the impact.
This furore about the status of the politician responsible for the welfare of disabled people is possibly a distraction. After all, if (as is evidently the case but often ignored) disability is a fundamental part of the human condition, do we really need a minister with specific responsibilities? Or should all parts of government have to engage with disability as clearly mandated by the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and the Equality Act (2010)?
The real danger is that disability is regarded as a niche issue which only affects a small group who can easily be ignored. How do we ensure that the disabilities that so many of us experience is front and centre? We certainly don’t need any more ministerial photo ops, trumped up ‘listening exercises’ or the further erosion of our inalienable human rights.
The troubling fact is that most disabled people and their families feel that their lives are increasingly restricted and threatened. As they listen to powerful voices accusing them of being scroungers who must learn how to keep up in the great race of life, they sense the louring clouds of eugenics blotting out the sun, and ushering in a darker, colder time not just for them, but for all of us.
Stephen Unwin is a theatre and opera director, writer and teacher
Rape & Serious Sexual Offences Cases Now Represent Record One in Seven of All Trials in Courts Backlog
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Outstanding trials for rape and serious sexual offences have reached a record high and now represent one in seven of all cases in the crown court backlog – up from one in 11 just five years ago, according to data analysis by Byline Times and the Criminal Bar Association.
The backlog of almost 67,000 outstanding cases in England and Wales has reached its highest-ever level – more than double four years ago – and is continuing to rise, according to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics released yesterday.
The problem is most acute among those concerning rape and serious sexual offences (RASSO). In the past five years alone, the number of such cases awaiting trial has more than tripled to almost 10,000 – also a record.
Delays can leave women waiting many years for their complaints to be heard, which experts say risks them pulling out altogether, highlighting how some of society’s most vulnerable people are being “let down” by an “under-funded” criminal justice system.
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G, who had to wait almost two years for her rape case to come to trial, during which time the defendant twice broke his bail conditions and she attempted to take her own life, told Byline Times that the figures "make me feel physically sick".
“They make me feel unsafe in society and fearful for other women, such as my daughter, " she said. "But not only are the waits for trials huge, even if women get to trial, they don’t get a fair trial. I got to trial and I regret it. I was let down by the criminal justice system. There is no fairness in the criminal justice system. There is no ‘justice’ system. The saddest thing is I would tell women who are raped not to go even go to the police.”
The figures, which relate to MoJ data for July to September this year, show a 23-year record high for the overall case backlog of 66,547, making Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s March 2025 deadline of cutting the backlog to 53,000 cases appear increasingly unlikely.
This includes a record RASSO backlog of 9,792, which has more than tripled (226%) from 3,005 in December 2018.
That number has increased 5% (from 9,337) in just three months from the release of the previous quarterly figures in June.
The Criminal Bar Association says RASSO cases, which require specialist barristers and intense preparation, are “disproportionately impacted by long-term failure going back years” and are “symptomatic of an under-funded criminal justice system”.
Trials are often listed but not called due to lack of court time, lack of a judge or lack of a barrister to prosecute or defend.
And, as most RASSO defendants are bailed, their hearings tend to be heard after those with remanded defendants who need to have their cases heard quickest in part due to record prison population numbers.
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Tana Adkin KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “Complainants in rape and sexual offence cases need to know that they will receive sensitive and fair treatment in our courts and that their cases will not be delayed for years.
"RASSO cases require the most skilled barristers to conduct them, are witness intensive and require detailed and careful preparation at an early stage. Criminal barristers who specialise in RASSO are proud to prosecute and defend these often traumatic cases involving sometimes the most vulnerable of witnesses.
“However, we need government to respect and invest in the expertise of the barristers who chose this work.”
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “People who break the law must face justice, and these figures show crown courts are now dealing with the highest number of cases than at any point since 2019.
“This is a direct result of our decisive action to let courts run at full throttle – like lifting the cap on the number of court sitting days, keeping nightingale courts open, and investing more in our buildings to deliver a modern and effective justice system, including in magistrates’ courts where more than 90% of criminal cases are dealt with.”