Letter from Andy Ford
Just before the election Private Eye ran a story pointing out the presentation of former Conservative political operatives as political commentators in the mainstream press. And what a circular and self-satisfied little world was revealed.
Top of the pile was Allegra Stratton (private school, then Cambridge), she of the ‘non-party parties’ video, who was allowed to use her platform as a columnist for Bloomberg to diagnose the twin Tory toxins of Liz Truss and Partygate as obstacles for Rishi Sunak. She should know, as one of the people going to the parties! And helping to cover up the parties. Bloomberg felt no need to mention that her husband, James Forsyth, was Rishi Sunak’s political secretary.
Liz Truss’ former chief speechwriter, Asa Bennett, was in the Daily Express to explain the “method in the Prime Minister’s madness”, while in the Mail on Sunday, Steve Hilton (private school then Oxford), ex-Director of Political Strategy for David Cameron, was predicting “a bigger upset than John Major in 1992” for Rishi Sunak.
Craig Oliver (Stirling Grammar, then St Andrews), architect of the Brexit referendum as Director of politics and communications for Cameron, was in the Sunday Times putting forward his views on how Rishi could win by “having nothing to lose”, and even the blue-chip Financial Times gave space to Camilla Cavendish (private school, then Oxford) to bemoan the cronyism that could cost the Tories the election – when she accepted a peerage from Cameron to become Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice, after serving as as his director of policy.
None of these people would get out of bed for less than £100,000 a year. Compare their worthless and self-serving vapourings with the value of the work done by a care assistant on a night shift looking after elderly and demented patients, and you can see the topsy-turvy values of capitalist society. They are nothing better than pens for hire, what Peter Oborne calls “client journalism”.
More cronyism in the media – Tories appoint a former senior staffer to the BBC Board, who then intimidates a journalist trying to report inconvenient facts, who refuses ‘client journalism’ – and ends up leaving. Respect to Lewis Goodall.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jul/21/bbc-tory-witch-hunt-lewis-goodall-newsnight-journalist