Yesterday the British Pensioner Trade Union Action Committee organised a tremendous John4Leader rally in Birmingham with about 150 pensioners supporting our campaign. When I got back the Press Association contacted me about the leak from Number 10 to the Sun that the Prime Minister was to announce today that some British troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq.
My reaction was that whilst I welcome any withdrawal of troops this was too little, too late and that what was needed was for the Prime Minister to bring forward an exit strategy, appealing to the rest of the world to assist Britain achieve total withdrawal of it forces. Any role for Britain in Iraq in the future can only be humanitarian, supplying doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and human rights advisers rather than soldiers.
It was good to get the chance to comment. Although our campaign has worked hard professionally and very creatively to get our message across in the national media it is obvious to anyone with any experience that we are strugglibg to breakthrough what some have described as a virtual news blackout. The lack of coverage is not for want of trying or from any lack of professional expertise in our approach. Also we shouldn't allow ourselves to sound paranoid. But the reality is that we are swimming against the tide and we just have to try even harder.
That is why it was good getting coverage in today's Guardian survey of leadership candidates on their attitiudes to the war in Iraq.
Try and get a copy to read. You couldn't find a clearer example of the difference between not just what we are saying in policy terms but also the complete straightforwardness and lack of evasion in explaining our policy positions in contrast with the performance of the other candidates.
Let's keep plugging away to get the coverage we deserve. If you can, start banging in those letters to the papers on our campaign and to the various radio and tv programmes calling for coverage of our campaign and fair access for representatives from our campaign to invitations onto programmes.
At times I am beginning to feel like a cult movie which is recognised and appreciated by anyone that has access to it but whom many have only distantly heard of rather than actually seen. Let's turn that round.
20 Comments:
Let's launch a Campaign 4 Fair Media Coverage 4 John!
It nothing short of disgraceful that the corporate media have tried to suffocate this campaign by ignoring it. In reality, the grassroots support for this campaign grows by the day.
Let's get the message out everyone!
McDonnell does not believe in freedom of speech.
It's laughable that he and his lackeys are complaining about a media blackout.
John McDonnell refuses to allow members of the party critical of him to post freely. Shame, shame, shame ...
See, I told you 'anonymous' was Sham! He's still annoyed that he's been banned for calling anti-war activists Baathists and Nazis.
Get over it and go away!
You can access Question Time quite easily by Googling it in and getting on the BBC website, where you can suggest a panellist.I have just done it.......
Question Time is produced by independent production company Mentorn. www.mentorn.co.uk
Its editor is Ed Havard and producer Justinna Pank. They also produce The Daily Politics. Get e-mailing ........and ignore the trolls.
Anonymous, please look at the comments section on the previous post: lots of critical messages are there, and left alone (actually some of them are rather offensive and pointless and I'd be inclined to remove them: they'd be removed from many blogs such as 'Labourhome', etc. without them being accused of censorship; they just have policies.)against 'trolling'.
That should have just said 'policies against "trolling"' and not had the odd .) in the middle!!! Sorry about that!
When Tony Blair made a statement in the Commons today about Iraq and the Middle East, where were all the Labour MPs who have been calling for items on Iraq to be on the Commons agenda? By it came to questions only Harry Cohen and Jeremy Corbyn seemed to be present from the Campaign Group. I am not criticising John who I know to be more active than anyone. But 2?
I recently suggsted John as a guest when I applied to go on the High Wycombe question time recently though they didn't invite me on though I had put that I could make it in London as well. None of us in Marlow got on though some from High Wycombe did.
You can tell I think that the media have been briefed not to mention John as The Daily Politics has changed it's tune (not that they were ever very good on it) - today the presenters (Jenny and Andrew) advoided mentioning any other candidates at all though even Kitty Usher who is insufferably Blairite admitted that there were "two other candidates". I think it was said that there might be a confirmatory ballot for Brown's coronation when they discussed the issue of democracy in this.
What democracy would that be now!!!
Words fail me and in my case they don't do that very often I'm afraid !! It has to be really bad before I can't think of anything to say!!
I also think the presenter of The World Tonight Caroline thingy stumbled over her words the other night when she said "It looks as though it will be Brown" or some such phrase and The Westminster Hour on Radio 4 has been useless such as doing an articel on political blogs without mentioning this one and then saying that what we need is a really good "radical" blog....
I really must ring in to complain though I know NUJ members have already been active in this respect especially re: The Guardian which I'm afraid I was boycotting again as I'm so fed up with it's Blarite line and the views of Michael White when he's does late night paper reviews on BBC News 24 etc and I'm on a tight budget so I just get The Mirror. I know I should read The Guardian for breadth and especially when there's something worth reading in it like today's article I can still buy it of course though it's a bit late tonight! Will have to look on the website.
Sham I'm sure all political websites have their dissenters so I'm afraid I just ignore what you write as the way it's written is not really relevant to the argument.
A friend of mine who is aware of Politics having worked for Ford in Essex and from the news generally but who wouldn't be the type to join a political party was aware that John was the first off the starting blocks to declare for the leadership election so I would take this as a good sign. No-one outside the Tories had heard of Cameron until he became leader and he's definitely NOT a cult figure though you can't say he isn't charismatic in his way, well he has a nice speaking voice and has obviously worked on his set piece speeches but of course the media have at least picked up on his lack of policy substance and the fact that there's opposition to Blairite policies yet they expect us to put up with the vacuum thus created which is absurd as there will always be a left wing in this country unless we are overrun by aliens or something or they totally ban anything socialist from the school curriculum...Actually in my case it wasn't mentioned till I did Politics at A level as my school history only went up to 1700! (Not very handy for understanding twentieth century world events!)
We must all keep plugging away with trying to get John on panels and complaining if he isn't or if the coverage is biased towards teh Brown camp or Miliband or other Blair sposored candidates and I think things may start to move after the local election results, I think Usher and co said something about June for an election today.
Good idea Susan - done it - i hope John gets on - i can't see any valid reason why they shouldn't have at the very least one of the two most popular candidates for Labour leader on (my guess is the most popular but that sounds like boasting maybe :-) ).
The responses to the questions by Reid and many of the others are pathetic. 'I'll be in meetings all days so can't answer' or 'i can't answer a hypothetical question' - well if they can't answer questions on a hypothetical war on Iran which everyone has known for years is highly possible then what use are they as MPs never mind party leader?
John was the only candidate to give clear and honest answers to every question.
The rest provided a mixture of refusing to answer and lying outright about the intelligence showing Iraq had WMDs - it didn't and they know it. The problems werent with the intelligence but with political manipulation of it.
Have just heard that Michael Meacher is to stand for Leader.A truly counter-productive and incomprehensible move.Any thoughts, comrades?
I hope the left of the party never, ever forgive Meacher for this. He could well be remembered as the man who finally killed off the Labour left.
Don't forget the actions of Alan Simpson in this. Another traitor to the cause.
I think Michael Meacher is basically decent - but his voting record shows poor judgement and not enough difference between him and Brown to make him a credible candidate to stand against Brown.
For that reason I doubt his decision to stand will make a big difference - John McDonnell is still by far the most credible candidate. It might be a mistake to attack Michael's decision too harshly - his supporters might well decide to back John in future if the recriminations are kept to a minimum.
To add to Susan's suggestion here are some other useful contacts to save you time finding them if you want to email to ask why John isn't getting as much coverage or as many interviews as Meacher when he has far more support among MPs (John around 35 - Meacher - not even the MP who nominated him apparently) , trade unions (ASLEF, the RMT , the FBU and the Broad lefts of the UNISON, the T &G and the CWU among others) and party members and voters inside and outside the Labour party.
Television news and current affairs programmes
Channel 4 news = news@channel4.com
BBC news programmes question forms = http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3960000/newsid_3961500/3961515.stm
BBC radio programmes questions =
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_3960000/newsid_3964500/3964513.stm
This Week = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/contact_us/default.stm
Tonight with Trevor MacDonald story suggestions - email = tonight@itv.com
ITV News - email = correspondent@itv.com
Question Time guest suggestions =
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/question_time/5180018.stm
Email addresses for sending letters to newspapers and magazines
Guardian = letters@guardian.co.uk
The Herald = letters@theherald.co.uk
The Independent = letters@theindependent.co.uk
Tribune (small magazine but many Labour MPs and trade unionists read it) = george@tribpub.demon.co.uk
New Statesman magazine = info@newstatesman.co.uk
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