Plus ca change

The Government response to this story about the Climate Change Committee warning that its response to climate change is wholly inadequate is a classic illustration of how it trivialises everything, repeating tired slogans about a plan for change while changing very little.

Here's the scale of the problem:

Lady Brown, the chair of the adaptation subgroup of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the statutory adviser to government, said: “We are seeing no change in activity from the new government, despite the fact that … it’s clear to the public that the current approach just isn’t working. The country is at risk, people are at risk, and there is not enough being done.”

Here's the response: 

As part of our plan for change we are investing a record £2.65bn to repair and build flood defences, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses and helping local communities become more resilient to the effects of climate change such as overheating and drought.

Last year's Conservative manifesto said:

In 2020, we announced a doubling of capital funding into flood defences in England to a record £5.6 billion over 2021-2027. We will maintain this record flooding funding to continue to protect homes, farms and businesses.

This is £933m a year but the Tories spent £1.063bn in 2021-22. The Government spokesperson forgot to tell you that Labour's £2.65bn is over two years. Taking inflation into account, including what half  of it would be worth in 2026-27, any short-term increase on 2021-22 is marginal.

In February, environment secretary Steve Reed was quoted as saying:

This Government inherited flood assets in their poorest condition on record, as years of underinvestment and damaging storms left 3,000 of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 high-consequence assets at below the required condition.

So Labour's "plan for change" involves doing roughly the same as what led to this.

Woeful

This reasoned and analytical piece from Hannah Barnes the New Statesman on the Supreme Court's ruling on the meaning of sex under the Equality Act should make the hacks at the Guardian blush.

While they have focused on promoting victimhood to the point of scaremongering, Barnes not only takes a balanced approach, but shows that Starmer remains all at sea on the issue.

The response from Labour has been woeful. It took the Prime Minister six days to say he was “really pleased” with the “clarity” brought by the judgement. His spokesperson confirmed that Starmer no longer believed trans women were women. But the PM hasn’t condemned the threats made to women during the trans rights activist protests that followed the judgement, at which some carried placards bearing abusive messages, including “The only good Terf is a [dead] one” and “Bring back witch burning”.

She also skewers Labour for its attempts to rewrite history:

A Labour source told the Telegraph the judgement showed why it was “so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the common-sense position the public take on these sorts of issues”. This was, the source said, “one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect”. Really? Wasn’t it Starmer who, in 2021, called the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s statement “only women have a cervix” “something that shouldn’t be said”.

Of course, the Labour source wasn't really a source, just someone given the privilege of anonymity to spin a self-serving line with a scripted quote or two. 

By contrast, George Eaton's "interview" with Steve Reed in the same publication is an example of a hack phoning it in. 

To call it a puff piece would be to overstate the amount of effort that went into it.

But it is full of free hits for Reed with the lines he wanted to get across and devoid of challenge from Eaton, who no doubt has a long career of access ahead of him, after being cleared by the paedophile Peter Wilby over a scandal that should have ended his career.

He didn't say, she didn't say

This article The strange case of the writer landing A-lister interviews for local magazines about another murky corner of journalism is fascinating but ultimately unsatisfying and unsatisfactory.

It's pitched as a "strange case" piece because ultimately the hacks writing it, or their editors and lawyers, don't feel they can quite nail down the deception at which they are hinting.

But the big problem, in a story that is basically about transparency and whether hacks can be held accountable for claiming that someone said something, is that it is crying out for someone to say something on the record.

Instead, we get...

sources close to the would-be PM said

sources close to the stars involved said 

Some people the Guardian spoke to 

The Guardian understands 

The Guardian understands

the Guardian understands

sources close to the stars say

The Guardian understands

Bizarrely, the hacks claim that:

Following the trail of how journalists source their stories is, by necessity, a tricky business. Reporters do not reveal their sources as a point of principle, and when asked multiple times to confirm how he had landed these interviews, Bale declined.

Unsurprising though it is that hacks with such a line in "sources" would want to talk up the mystique of the hack's sources, this is utter bollocks. Bale is claiming to have on-the-record quotes from celebrities. Guff about not naming your source for such material is irrelevant.

The article does come close to hinting at what may be behind a lot of Bale's work:

It is clear that in the world of showbiz journalism, there are many ways to do business. There are, undoubtedly, agents, managers and sources who will brief on behalf of their high-profile clients in a way that can be spun up into interviews.

There's that word again, "sources". 

That hacks are taking quotes from PRs and attributing them to people they have never spoken to is one of journalism's dirty little secrets. If it is subject to a weird omerta, it's just another way the public gets misled.

Confused? You will be

Naga Munchetty's interview with Ed Miliband on BBC Breakfast this morning shows the media's obsession with painting some people as losing out from any change - and provides a reminder that the interviewing hack isn't always right.

She was picking up on a story in the Telegraph about zonal electricity pricing:

Ed Miliband is poised to approve changes that would mean households in the South pay more for electricity than those in Scotland and the North.

As Miliband tried to explain, this wouldn't mean that prices in the South would rise to subsidise people further North - just that some people might get a cheaper electricity because it doesn't have to travel so far.

But Munchetty struggled to understand that people paying more than others isn't necessarily the same as people paying more than they do now - that there can be winners without losers - and kept conflating the two concepts.

As a result, the interview just went round in circles and ended with Munchetty hoping for some clarity in the future.

There may be, but it may not be the explanation that hacks are looking for.

Doing McSweeney's dirty work

If you're a hack who regularly finds yourself doing the government's dirty work for it, you need to ask yourself if you are much more than a spin doctor, one step removed.

Despite some great journalism in the past, this is a question that Guardian political editor Pippa Crerar needs to start asking herself.

Take this piece of spin: Ministers privately ruling out scrapping two-child benefits cap and particularly the opening two paragraphs.

Ministers are privately ruling out scrapping the two-child benefit cap despite warnings from charities that a failure to do so could result in the highest levels of child poverty since records began.

Government sources said charities and Labour MPs who were concerned that wider benefit cuts would push more families into poverty should “read the tea leaves” over Labour’s plans.

We start off with a claim that ministers plural are saying something but they then become "Government Sources", who both/all have the same single quote attributed to them. 

Something doesn't add up. Then:

"The cap is popular with key voters, who see it as a matter of fairness,” one source said. 

Given that this - and the obsession with "key voters" - is a key Morgan McSweeney claim, we can probably assume that he is the plural ministers and the plural sources. But in any case, what evidence does Crerar give us that her mysterious sources speak authoritatively?

And there's the rub. If they aren't speaking on behalf of the government, the story is worthless, and if they are they aren't really sources. They are just getting a free hit to put scripted quotes into a newspaper to justify government policy.

Which brings us to education secretary Bridget Phillipson on BBC Breakfast this morning. She's not only an actual minister, but the co-chair of the government's child poverty task force.

Asked if the government has ruled out living the two-child benefit cap, she replied: "Our work is still underway; we've ruled out nothing in any area."

Has this shot down Crerar's story or is this just an example of government by cowardice, where she does the government's dirty work for it, helping it say one thing publicly and something else in public?

This takes back to the opening few words of her piece and indeed the headline. Are ministers "privately" ruling out scrapping the two-child benefit cap?

Almost certainly not. Even if it is plural minsters saying it, they are not doing so "privately". 

If you say something to a journalist with the clear intention that it gets into a newspaper, you do not do so privately.

The intro to the piece should probably read something like: "Someone in government is spinning a line to distract from warnings from charities that a failure to scrap the two-child benefit cap could result in the highest levels of child poverty since records began."

Client journalism in action

This article by Peter Walker in the Guardian ‘Cutting DEI won’t fill potholes’: Labour ready to play long game against Farage is presented as analysis but does little more than give unnamed officials a series of free hits with scripted attack lines.

The analysis "well they would say that, wouldn't they?" is conspicuous by its absence.

We are told what Labour aides “believe” Farage being grumpy about Labour attacking him on the NHS and closeness to Putin shows - that he “realises he is vulnerable on both issues”.

“He can try to airbrush history as much as he likes, but he said those fawning things about Putin on the record, and they have aged very badly,” one said. 

I'm not one for asserting what other people believe but I would speculate that Labour aides can believe their luck getting this stuff into a friendly paper. It happens all the time.

A Labour official, possibly the same one, gets another free hit to speculate with another obviously scripted quote about what might happen if Reform take control of councils:

“Saying you’ll cut diversity and inclusion to save money won’t cut it when you’ve got a council to run,” a Labour official said. “You can trim all the DEI programmes you like, but that won’t fill the potholes or magic up any SEND pupil places.”

And the free hits keep coming:

“We will keep punching the bruises over Putin and the NHS, and while it’s probably too early in the cycle now, at some point the issue of fiscal credibility will become more and more important,” the Labour official said.

“But ultimately it’s about us delivering on things that people notice, whether it’s the money in their pocket, GP appointments or potholes.”

Ultimately the point of the piece is for Labour spin doctors - for that's who they are - to tell supporters who think now is the time to panic that it isn't and that they have a cunning plan.

Modern client journalism in a nutshell.

Distasteful lecturing

This article from BBC hacks on football chanting is fascinating for the language it uses, and then backs away from, in defining the problem.

Chanting from Man U fans at the weekend is described as sexist and misogynistic, discriminatory, abusive and offensive.

Until we get to the issue of why the FA isn’t taking action:

There is a feeling that if the FA took action every time there was a distasteful song they would be charging a club virtually every game.

We're basically back to the football pundits' moronic response to players being rugby-tackled during corners - if you gave a penalty every time it happens, you would have a penalty ever five minutes - with no recognition that enforcement might actually change behaviour.

But also, look how the language has been allowed to change. The sexist, misogynistic, discriminatory, abusive and offensive chanting is now just distasteful.

Meanwhile, over on BBC Breakfast, culture secretary Lisa Nandy was obviously sent out to describe a possible buy British campaign as "lecturing" people, using obviously perjorative language.

To his credit, presenter Jon Kay responded that it wasn't really lecturing, was it, and she backed down.

I think it's a great response when politicians use exaggeration to make a point for interviewers to pull them up on it.

End of lecture.

Is Labour misleading the public over duty of candour?

The Guardian reports that ministers are planning to water down the "Hillsborough law" that Keir Starmer has repeatedly promised, which would impose a duty of candour on public bodies and officials: 

Despite Starmer’s promises, families have been told that the government’s new draft is based more on public authorities signing up to a charter, without strong legal enforcement, and does not include the funding for legal representation. A government media briefing last week that said the draft law could have led to civil servants being prosecuted for telling a white lie about being late for work to bosses has prompted fury from families, as it has always been clear that criminal sanctions would be for police or public officials misleading the public.

If this is true, it's typical of the way that Labour operates in power. Promises of transparency evaporate.

Not to mention spinning nonsense in the media to justify it. 

No irony there.

Who would believe it?

 This article by Rob Waugh on Press Gazette is not only a cracking piece of journalism; it also (as the author himself has said) sends you down a bit of a rabbit hole.

One of the suspect ubiquitous commenters, "Barbara Santini, a young London-based psychologist and therapist", apparently Whatsapped the editor with a threat to send in her lawyers and the assertion:

“I am an accredited consultant for Peaches and Screams and my credentials and professional affiliations are a matter of record.”

That's a sex toy retailer.

Anyway, the article cites a number of articles that the commentator who may or may not be real has been quoted in, including ‘When you walk together, you actually talk’: how daycationscan split-proof your relationships in the Guardian, albeit its Guardian Labs paid for content.

Here's the best bit:

Her thoughts are echoed by Barbara Santini, a psychologist specialising in relationships: “Walking together creates a rhythm that fosters synchrony (where you’re both in step), both physical and emotional. This shared pace naturally promotes non-verbal bonding, which is vital for emotional attunement. Additionally, the simplicity of walking allows couples to engage in unpressured dialogue, making it easier to address feelings, or simply enjoy each other’s company.”

Then there’s the sense of communion that comes from being together as you scale inclines, read maps and share sandwiches on windy summits.

Santini believes this is endlessly important for any relationship: “These shared achievements create lasting memories tied to positive emotions, cementing the relationship through mutual trust and accomplishment,” she says.

 It's bad enough hacks telling readers what someone believes, as if they can read other people's minds, but imagine credulously telling your readers what someone totally made-up believes.

Hello, it's me...after all these years

 Yes, it's been a while since I posted anything here. 

But since giving up paid employment to pursue my investigative journalism and creative fiction, I realised that a lot of the stuff I was banging on about all those years ago still applies - if anything, it's got worse.

Client journalism is as bad as it ever was, with many hacks not thinking twice before allowing the powerful to use anonymity to spread disinformation, or have a pop at their opponents through scripted self-serving quotes. Many even think it's ok to give 'sources' or 'friends' the right to reply.