The row over anti-Semitism has erupted yet again in the UK Labour Party, as predicted a few months ago by Miko Peled, the Israeli general’s son, who warned that:
… they are going to pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn…. the reason anti-Semitism is used is because they [the Israelis] have no argument….
It is perhaps typical in a time where a star of the fleshy celluloid wonder Baywatch, heavy in bust and known for her sexual adventures, should feature as a political voice. Pamela Anderson’s views are treated with judicious seriousness – at least in some quarters. Her association with Julian Assange has given needless room for columns on what, exactly, their relationship constitutes.
What a rotten guest, but then again, that was to be expected. Ahead of his visit to Britain, there was some indignation that US President Donald Trump should even be visiting in the first place. Protesters were readying their assortment of paraphernalia in anticipation. Walls of noise were promised. Trump, on the other hand, was bullish after his NATO performance, which did a good deal to stir and unsettle partners and leaders. On leaving Brussels, his singular account was that all partners had, in fact, agreed to a marked rise in defence spending.
There is a certain haunting similarity between the President of the United States and the now former foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson. This does not merely extend to mad, oddly positioned hair, and misshaped mullets. Both share a philosophy of upending the order and permanent disruption, impossible for those on their putative side of politics to measure, predict or contain.
On the eve of his visit to Austria, President Vladimir Putin told the press: Russia has not the least intention of sowing dissent within the European Union. On the contrary, it is in Moscow’s interests that the EU, its biggest trading partner, remain as unified and thriving as possible.
Should the media include positive editorial content secretly paid for by major corporations, as London’s Evening Standard newspaper has begun doing, according to new revelations?
Most of us instantly recoil from any blurring between editorial and advertising in the media. How would we know if what was reported was factual, truthful and newsworthy or there simply as public relations spin? How could we trust anything we read?
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, journalist Peter Hitchens commented last month on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR):
Dear Frankie Boyle,
I’d prefer not to be writing this as an open letter, but you didn’t leave me much choice: I can no longer engage with you on Twitter because you blocked me (and many hundreds of others, it seems) for criticising the first episode of your New World Order TV show on Friday.
