This was an election of two illusions.<\/span><\/p>\n The first helped persuade much of the British public to vote for the very epitome of an Eton toff, a man who not only has shown utter contempt for most of those who voted for him but has spent a lifetime barely bothering to conceal that contempt. For him, politics is an ego-trip, a game in which others always pay the price and suffer, a job he is entitled to through birth and superior breeding.<\/span><\/p>\n The extent to which such illusions now dominate our political life was highlighted two days ago with a jaw-dropping comment from a Grimsby fish market worker. He said<\/a> he would vote Tory for the first time because \u201cBoris seems like a normal working class guy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Johnson is precisely as working class, and \u201cnormal\u201d, as the billionaire-owned Sun and the billionaire-owned Mail. The Sun isn\u2019t produced by a bunch of working-class lads down the pub having a laugh, nor is the Mail produced by conscientious middle managers keen to uphold \u201cBritish values\u201d and a sense of fair play and decency. Like the rest of the British media, these outlets are machines, owned by globe-spanning corporations that sell us the illusions \u2013 carefully packaged and marketed to our sectoral interest \u2013 needed to make sure nothing impedes the corporate world\u2019s ability to make enormous profits at our, and the planet\u2019s, expense.<\/span><\/p>\n The Sun, Mail, Telegraph, Guardian and BBC have all worked hard to create for themselves \u201cpersonalities\u201d. They brand themselves as different \u2013 as friends we the public might, or might not, choose to invite into our homes \u2013 to win the largest share possible of the UK audience, to capture every section of the public as news consumers, while feeding us a distorted, fairytale version of reality that is optimal for business. They are no different to other corporations in that regard.<\/span><\/p>\n Supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury, Lidl and Waitrose similarly brand themselves to appeal to different sections of the public. But all these supermarkets are driven by the same pathological need to make profits at all costs. If Sainsbury\u2019s sells fair trade tea as well as traditionally produced tea, it is not because it cares more than Lidl about the treatment of workers and damage to the environment but because it knows its section of consumers care more about such issues. And as long as it makes the same profits on good and bad tea, why should it not cater to its share of the market in the name of choice and freedom?<\/span><\/p>\n The media are different from supermarkets in one way, however. They are not driven simply<\/em> by profit. In fact, many media outlets struggle to make money. They are better seen as the loss-leader promotion in a supermarket, or as a business write-off against tax.<\/span><\/p>\n The media\u2019s job is to serve as the propaganda arm of big business. Even if the Sun makes an economic loss, it has succeeded if it gets the business candidate elected, the candidate who will keep corporation tax, capital gains tax and all the other taxes that affect corporate profits as low as possible without stoking a popular insurrection.<\/span><\/p>\n The media are there to support the candidate or candidates who agree to sell off more and more public services for short-term profit, allowing the corporate vultures to pick hungrily at their carcasses. The media\u2019s job is to back the candidate who will prioritise the corporations\u2019 interests over the public\u2019s, quick profits over the future of the NHS, the self-destructive logic of capitalism over the idea \u2013 socialist or not \u2013 of a public realm, of the common good. The corporations behind the Sun or the Guardian can afford to make a loss as long as their other business interests are prospering.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not the Sun wot won it, it\u2019s the entire corporate media industry.<\/span><\/p>\n The real revelation of this election, however, has been the BBC, the most well concealed of all those illusion-generating machines. The BBC is a state broadcaster that has long used its entertainment division \u2013 from costume dramas to wildlife documentaries \u2013 to charm us and ensure the vast majority of the public are only too happy to invite it into their homes. The BBC\u2019s lack of adverts, the apparent absence of a grubby, commercial imperative, has been important in persuading us of the myth that the British Broadcasting Corporation is driven by a higher purpose, that it is a national treasure, that it is on our side<\/span><\/p>\n Please don't tell me Laura Kuenssberg, the BBC's political editor, didn't know about the postal ballot rule. She broke the law and did so wilfully because <\/p>\n 1) she's politically partisan (as she's demonstrated over and over again) <\/p>\n 2) she knows she'll pay no price for her crime https:\/\/t.co\/rJnFMjUDrh<\/a><\/p>\n — Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) December 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nMedia wot won it<\/h2>\n
BBC\u2019s role exposed<\/h2>\n
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