{"id":807,"date":"2020-03-20T12:20:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T12:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/?p=807"},"modified":"2020-03-21T19:07:28","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T19:07:28","slug":"uk-media-headlines-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/uk-media-headlines-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Media Headlines Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Dad\u2019s Army by Roger Corman<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Published: 20 March 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was sat here looking at and listening to a Boris\nJohnson coronavirus briefing video courtesy of Stun media and was struck by how\nsimilar in language and tone his address was to a script from Dad\u2019s Army<\/em>.\nThere was something immediately quaint, old-fashioned, vaguely pompous,\nwonderfully ineffectual and really quite reassuring in its anachronistic\nnature. I thought, who is it who is writing the British government\u2019s speeches?\nThey must be relatives of David Croft and Jimmy Perry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compounding this image of retrospective Britain with\nIts \u2018Back to the Wall\u2019 are escalating media analogies that seek to couch our 21st<\/sup>\ncentury plight in the bulldog-spirited language of Captain Mainwaring. Be\nhonest, now, Boris would make an excellent Captain Mainwaring. In fact, he does!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here, sadly, is where all similarities end. For,\nin spite of the media hype, \u2018Britain in times of national emergency\u2019, \u2018never\nsince World War II have we been faced with a crisis of this magnitude\u2019 and talk\nof \u2018wartime rationing\u2019 and \u2018putting things on a wartime footing\u2019, at a time\nwhen the establishment should be working together, working for the common good,\nfighting the enemy like a \u2018well-oiled war machine\u2019, the Opposition and its\ncrony media seem exclusively focused on political gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know all this stuff about the opposition party\u2019s\nmain role being to question the government of the day and hold them\naccountable, but there is holding them accountable and grabbing them by the\nballs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is understandable that in our hour of need we\nshould attempt to evoke the indomitable spirit of wartime Britain. Consider\nthis extract from a Reuters article*:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Britain has\ncalled for a national effort to tackle coronavirus similar to the one which\nhelped it survive the Second World War<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur\ngeneration has never been tested like this,\u201d Hancock wrote in the Sunday\nTelegraph<\/em>. \u201cOur grandparents were, during the Second World War, when our\ncities were bombed during the Blitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday our\ngeneration is facing its own test, fighting a very real and new disease. We\nmust fight the disease to protect life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This desire to fall back upon the genuine community\nspirit that bolstered morale on the home front and infused the British civilian\npopulation with survivalist stoicism during WWII is understandable; ask any\n1940s\u2019 event enthusiast, living history group or re-enactor and they will tell\nyou why ~ it was <\/em>our finest hour ~ but if we are going to do it, we\nought to do it properly, and to do it properly not only do we need a united\nfront politically but the full co-operation and alignment of the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"UK<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Sensationalist, overdramatised, sleazy, reaction-seeking, we have been brought up with and expect this sort of shite-mongering nonsense from the tabloids, and we have learnt to dismiss and trash it (they should never have disallowed the use of newsprint as something to wrap our chips in, ahhh well, come the bog roll shortage). We expect these comic strips to assault our equanimity with panic-seeking headlines of \u2018killer bugs \u2018and the numbers of dead \u2018soaring\u2019 \u2014 they need people to click on their online sites to convince their advertisers that they have wasted their money wisely (I should know, I worked in advertising-based publishing!), but even with its inexorable shift to the pit of the penny dreadfuls, the dumbing down and partisan bias, surely we should be able to expect something better from our so-called quality media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UK Media Headlines Coronavirus<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Consider the following headlines, which were compiled\nfrom two UK left-leaning online newsfeeds over a 24-hour period:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘I’m losing faith in the leadership’: an NHS doctor’s story<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this most desperate hour, Britain desperately needs better than Boris Johnson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government is sending mixed messages. Johnson’s coronavirus briefings may make things worse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boris Johnson is struggling to inspire trust on coronavirus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As this crisis engulfs UK business, Sunak’s ‘whatever it takes’ is falling far short<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is more, but I am sure you get the picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could be churlish at this point and thank our lucky\nstars that we have old Boris at the helm. Just imagine what it would be like if\nthe other lot had won the election. The first lockdown would have been at\nNumber 10 and the second in the House of Commons as such vital questions to do\nwith equality issues surrounding coronavirus were thrashed out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is bad enough that it is blatantly ageist, but is\nit sexist, is it inciting racial and religious hatred, are there any LGBT\nissues to be delicately skirted (is that the right word?), and what about\nRights?! ~should we really force people to have the sense to self-isolate and\nnot buy a mountain of bog rolls? Would anything and everything passed in the\nHouse of Commons be blocked in the House of Lords and would rich individuals\nwith vested interests stymie the process of government by launching legal\nchallenges in a suspiciously biased Supreme Court?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The answer is probably not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, most would agree (and this is evident from the change of political fortunes in the UK, Europe and America) that Liberalism is on its way out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lost adherents need to be brought back into the\nelectoral fold (baahhh, get the analogy?), and to do this it is necessary ~\nthey think it is necessary ~ to embark upon a war of attrition against the\ngovernment ~ specifically against Johnson ~ similar in vitriol and\nrelentlessness to that waged by the Liberal establishment against Trump:\nattack, discredit, belittle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of dismay, we should feel pity: Trump,\nBREXIT, the EU in meltdown, the abject failure of socially engineered Britain,\nthere is nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. What\u2019s the expression ~ shit or bust? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not a conspiracy theorist. If I was, I would suspect my retired scientist friend and his junior biochemistry set far more than I would a cartel of vanquished idealogues. But the fact remains that in \u2014what is the expression?\u2014 times of national emergency, party politics need to be placed on hold. As for the partisan media, manipulating, plotting, and scheming, expending energy on how to put the government in a bad light in order to wrest the seat of power for the unelected and unelectable \u2018when all of this is over\u2019 is at best ineffectual and at worst morally divisive. People are scared; people are dying. They deserve better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference<\/strong>
[Accessed 15 March 2020]
*<\/strong> https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-health-coronavirus-britain\/britain-set-to-isolate-over-70s-as-coronavirus-deaths-rise-to-35-idUSKBN2120DG<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Postscript:<\/strong>
[Accessed 19 March 2020] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article that the The Independent<\/em> and The Guardian<\/em> can learn from?
https:\/\/www.itv.com\/news\/2020-03-19\/uk-very-close-coronavirus-test-to-reveal-who-has-had-covid-19-with-no-symptoms\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A headline from RT news recently, which, even in these dire times, managed to put a smile on my face, albeit with a \u2018gallows humour\u2019 shadow:
Religious procession in Russia against Coronavirus is CANCELED due to Coronaviru<\/strong>s
https:\/\/www.rt.com\/russia\/482946-coronavirus-religious-procession-canceled\/ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Copyright \u00a9 2018-2020 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dad\u2019s Army by Roger Corman Published: 20 March 2020 I was sat here looking at and listening to a Boris Johnson coronavirus briefing video courtesy of Stun media and was struck by how similar in language and tone his address was to a script from Dad\u2019s Army. There was something immediately quaint, old-fashioned, vaguely pompous, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[69],"tags":[210,207,208,209,206],"class_list":["post-807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meanwhile-in-the-uk","tag-boris-home-front","tag-coronavirus-spirit-wartime-britain","tag-hancock-second-world-war-blitz","tag-liberalism-dying","tag-uk-media-headlines-coronavirus"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t