Media Lens on Starmer

I really must gather my thoughts, so easily distracted by “events dear boy, events”, for the next thrilling instalment of US control of global energy? In the meantime – and apropos my post, The king is dead. Long live the king! – here’s yesterday’s searingly accurate Media Lens antidote to the anodyne poppycock served up by corporate media in respect of Britain’s foot-draggingly outgoing prime minister.

Whitewash: Media Silence Over Starmer’s Gaza Legacy

On Monday, Sir Keir Starmer was given a largely respectful farewell by the ‘mainstream’ media, portraying him as a ‘decent’ man who put his country first. And now the same news organisations are burnishing Andy Burnham’s credentials to enter 10 Downing Street without actually submitting his record or policies to proper scrutiny.

Starmer’s appalling record as Prime Minister was barely touched upon in his political obituaries. In particular, his complicity in the Gaza genocide was virtually whitewashed out of existence; notably by the BBC and the Guardian.

But first, consider this selective overview of his two years in power since his ‘landslide’ victory at the 2024 General Election. (With just one-third of the electoral vote, fewer than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour achieved in both 2017 and 2019, Starmer’s Labour won around two-thirds of the parliamentary seats because of the absurd first-past-the-post UK voting system):

• • On his election as PM, Starmer ditched the ten pledges he’d made during his Labour leadership campaign which had deceptively presented him as a left-leaning, progressive successor to Corbyn whom he had called his ‘friend’.
  • He attempted to court right-wing Reform voters by adopting the language of the notorious Enoch Powell in warning that ‘mass immigration’ had done ‘incalculable damage’ to the British economy, and that the UK could become an ‘island of strangers’.
  • He attacked pensioners, people with disabilities, families on low income with more than two children (until he did a U-turn following a huge public backlash), and migrants.
  • Against strong advice, he appointed Peter Mandelson, a close friend of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, as UK ambassador to the US.
  • He waged war on the left wing of the Labour Party, suspended Jeremy Corbyn and many others, including numerous Jewish members.
  • He undermined trial by jury and, unjustly extending the definition of ‘terrorism’, proscribed Palestine Action and oversaw the arrests of more than 3,000 peaceful protesters, many of them elderly or with disabilities, opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
  • He continued to arm and support Israel during the genocide despite his obligations under the Genocide Convention to take immediate action to prevent it, welcomed Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who had used genocidal language against the Palestinians in Gaza, approved visits from Israeli military officials and thwarted calls for a ceasefire. He also allowed the RAF’s Akrotiri base in Cyprus to be used for spy flights over Gaza, sharing intelligence with Israel that was likely used to attack targets in Gaza.
  • Infamously, he even declared in a live radio interview with Nick Ferrari that Israel ‘has that right’ when asked about Israel denying electricity and water to Palestinians in Gaza and, days later, tried to gaslight the public that he had not actually said that.

The list could go on and on …

Read the complete piece – its prime target our systemically corrupt media, without whose three years of gaslighting genocide Starmer’s up-to-the-neck complicity would have been impossible – on the Media Lens substack …

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