Running Scared Of The Mood In The Country…

Steve Richards in ‘The Independent’ had a little whinge yesterday about how dashed unfair it was for people to attack the beloved Leader and his team of dedicated, hard-working ministers:

…I have not observed so much hypocritical, sanctimonious hand-wringing since the last time a parochial story about the interplay between politicians and the media erupted.

Sounds a little bit scared, doesn’t he? Is he feeling the hot breath of redundancy blowing into his cozy media world, I wonder?

The answer seems to be ‘Yes’:

…The entire New Labour spin operation and the timid policies that accompanied it were set up not out of arrogance but from a defensive fear of being destroyed by newspapers and now the internet.

Or to paraphrase: ”We had to destroy the good name of politics in order to save it…”

On the Guido Fawkes website Brown is described as the Prime Mentalist and portrayed as bonkers. If you happen to be an ally of the Prime Minister, or indeed the Prime Minister himself, you might wish to put a slightly different point of view.

Conveying a different point of view can be a risky business. We have reached one of those phases where anyone in the media who defends the government is ridiculed or attacked, a reverse police state.

You mean, the little people have found a voice, and aren’t prepared to simply listen, silent and rapt, at the feet of the media pontificators anymore? Quelle horreur!

And to describe this state of affairs as in any way ‘a police state’ is to miss the point so spectacularly as to make people wonder just why they ever believed that the media pundits held all the answers…

When Draper set up the website Labourlist he became an immediate target of right-wing sites. They were quite open about why they were attacking him. He was supporting the government and they regarded this as unacceptable. They pointed out, rightly, that sites like the brilliantly innovative ConservativeHome contained criticism of the Tory leadership.

But what they did not acknowledge was that there are plenty of places to go if you wish to find strong support for the Conservatives' leadership. There is almost nowhere to find anyone putting arguments that highlight the positive impact of some government policies.

And that’s all the fault of those wretched blogs, isn’t it, Stevie-boy?

It’s got nothing to do with the fact that this government is the worst on record, announcing policies for that five-minute soundbite that are then discarded as soon as everyone realises they are totally unworkable, while they stuff themselves with every perk going, use the police as their personal bullyboys to cow the opposition and, when caught smearing political rivals, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to an apology?

The easiest column to write is an attack on Brown. You are part of the pack, safely protected by hundreds of other articles and blogs all making the same points and you know you will be showered with praise for your boldness.

You don’t seem to wonder why there are so many articles on Brown’s incompetence. None of them, after all, are untrue.

Is it possible that the circles you move in aren’t showing you the real picture of the well-earned contempt in which he (and his rotten government) is held by the vast majority of the people?

Will some newspapers and the bloggers turn on Cameron and the Conservatives if they win the next election? It depends on what the government is like.

Ah, maybe you do understand after all…

Obo and Iain Dale also lay into this cretin too, each in their own inimitable style.