On the anniversary of D-Day, for the first time in British history, a far-right party with the fascist heritage of Hitler and Mussolini has won parliamentary seats from the British electorate — not one, but two. We can point to the economy, we can point to disillusionment with 12 years of Labour, we can point to the long established media xenophobia when it comes to European elections, but everyone must now admit that this is above all a result of the Daily Telegraph’s intensive campaign over the last month and a half to discredit mainstream politics in this country, using to the maximum the exclusive access it (allegedly) bought to a story which was, morally speaking, the property of another journalist, and, legally speaking, the property of the taxpayer.
As I said on BBC yesterday, I absolutely believe that the story should have come out, and I absolutely believe that MPs who have committed fraud should go to prison, while MPs who have organised their expenses in such a way as to game for a profit at the expense of the tax payer should resign from the House.
I also believe that this crisis has been handled badly. If the Speaker had had any sense, he would have released all the information about all the expenses the day that the story broke.
And yet, and yet. By milking the expenses scandal to the uttermost, and ensuring that it and it alone controlled the news to maximum effect, the Daily Telegraph has wiped out a generation’s already faltering confidence in its elected representatives. The Telegraph may argue that it has not tarred every politician with the same brush, but the result of its revelations is that all politicians are tarred. Go onto the streets of any town or city in the UK wearing a rosette of any of the major parties, and you will quickly hear people say ‘You’re all the same’. The Telegraph will certainly argue that it did not intend to mislead the public. But the result is that the public were misled. The Telegraph may argue that it did exactly what was necessary for a free press to survive. But the reality is that it did the opposite: in this story, at least, which has dominated the news agenda in the run up to the elections, we have seen not a free press, but a monopolistic press.
The result — and I do not remotely wish to claim that this was the Telegraph’s intention, although I would strongly argue that they should have foreseen it — is that fascism is once more on the rise in Britain, electorally stronger than at any time in British history.
Who now can claim that the Daily Telegraph, in so doing, has helped democracy?
