Andrew Wilson: Is the media now part of the No 10 spin machine?

When the sorry history of these vacuous and risible political times comes to be penned, this piece of Orwellian speak will sit proud amidst a pantheon of lies, invention, hypocrisy and institutional decay.

The twists and turns of the UK governing classes have been exhausting for even political anoraks to watch. We would normally rely on our Fourth Estate to help follow and interpret on our behalf. And it is true that the media has, in many instances, done a quite excellent job of holding power to account in news and especially comment.

But the work led by Peter Oborne on the Open Democracy website this week and in the coming days will leave many very senior, capable and respected journalists feeling somewhat uncomfortable in what he has drawn together into one place.

Oborne is an establishment iconoclast. As the former chief political commentator of The Telegraph, you would think him loyal to the institutions The Telegraph stands to conserve, not least the Conservative Party.

But Oborne has long been a man o’independent mind as his resignation demonstrated when he alleged his erstwhile employer was guilty of a “form of fraud upon its readers”. This was due to allegations of it altering editorial copy for commercial reasons.

This week on Open Democracy he wrote a substantial article outlining the role of some of our most senior journalists in our most respected media institutions.

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His view is that, by parroting a stream of quotes from unnamed “Number 10 sources” which may not be true, they are acting as effective patsies to the Government’s own spin operation. He concludes: “There is now clear evidence that the Prime Minister has debauched Downing Street by using the power of his office to spread propaganda and fake news. British political journalists have got chillingly close to providing the same service to Boris Johnson that Fox News delivers for Donald Trump”.

It bears reading to get the point. In an exhausting cycle of Groundhog Day news reporting on the apparently juvenile machinations of the governing machine, he identifies a stitch-up being perpetrated against critics of the Johnson regime.

This is very important because it cannot be waved away like the political criticism of the mainstream media is by many activists. Often it is wrong. Often it is shooting the messenger. But not always.

And when someone like Oborne is making the argument it, surely, highlights the depth of the problem.

The convulsions of Brexit have left many reasonable people feeling like inconsistent hypocrites at some point or another.

But like everyone else, the media itself has to emerge from its own bunker and the protective walls of defence it has built around itself. This is true of us all. We will not find progress until we stop throwing bricks and running behind our own barrier.

This country – these countries – are a million miles away from healing. Whatever happens on Halloween, Brexit will not be done. If Brexit is reversed after a People’s Vote, it will not be done. If we re-elect Johnson, Brexit will not be done. If Corbyn is PM, Brexit will not be done.

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Because whatever Brexit is – and I assume we can all agree that “Brexit means Brexit” is probably top of that Orwellian list of articulated verbal diarrhoea – what it isn’t is a moment in time that will soon come to an end. If it is anything it is the inarticulate holler of rage against, well something, by an important and sizeable minority of people that could have just as well have chosen something else.

Her Majesty the Queen will probably, in her quiet moments, breathe a sigh of relief that the monarchy has not become the focus of ire in the age of disappointment and seething. That said, one of her grandsons and his wife are doing their damndest to call the lightning to strike on their heads and all that travel with them, but that is another column.

And just as so many other institutions are floundering as they pick their way through the minefield of this era of tumult, so the media must rethink its purpose, position and way of business. There is close to no value in blaming a few individuals and declaring everyone else content. This is the growing consequence of a collection of calls, slights, misjudgements, errors, mistakes and culture.

If Oborne is correct, and he would appear to have a pretty important point to make, then the last thing the media should do is attempt a takedown, dismissal or, worst of all, ignore.

No matter what happens next with regard to the UK relationship with the European Union, the aftershocks and echoes will keep resounding through British public life. Because this madness is a symptom not a cause and is creating many symptoms and causes of its own. Someone is going to have to break the circuit. Only then will we truly be able to get on with the rest of our lives.

SCOTLAND'S TICKING TIME BOMB

AWAY from the maelstrom of Brexit madness, a report out this week demonstrated the ticking time bomb in Scotland’s public policy debate that is our demography. It ought to feature far more prominently in our discourse but just as the climate crisis is creating an obvious existential and generational threat, so too is our dependence on an ever small number of working people for an ever greater social need.

A reasoned debate would require us to understand a whole lot more about why this is and to recognise it is a coming crisis affecting almost all industrialised societies.

We ought to be talking about it more and about the choices it must create in how we organise ourselves and fund the services all of us will need. And – whisper it – this will require cross-partisanship around the longer-term strategies that we need to put in place yesterday.

Happily, this debate does provide a cheering thought for us all: we are probably the only Western democracy where no serious politician stands on an anti-migration platform. Across the parties, we all agree that we need to do all that we can to attract and retain talent to Scotland with all that this means.

It is inevitably true that many of the voting public remain to be convinced and are uncertain. But what a great start when the debate can begin with a reality check that all agree with an anchor on the common ground of liberal openness.

We give ourselves very little collective credit politically. On this, we must unite to celebrate what we share. And that is a loud and resounding “welcome to Scotland”. We need you, world.