Even as Britain’s battle over its EU divorce bill rages
amidst confusing claims and counter claims, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is
attracting fresh attention. Johnson, who is the chief guest at the London based Indian Journalists Association dinner on 15th
August, is being accused of telling ‘a
lie’ and misleading the British public
in the run-up to last year’s referendum, over his claim that the EU was costing Britain
pounds 350 million a week. That money, he and his fellow Brexiters said, could
fund the ailing National Health Service for a full year. Johnson was often pictured
beside the Brexit battle bus during his
countrywide campaign tour.
Figures released by the
government’s Treasury department say that Britain’s net payment amounted
to about half that or pounds156m a week,
after taking into account the EU’s payments to Britain.
Labour MP Wes Streeting, a member of the Treasury Select
Committee, said: “It is now plain to see
that this claim was a lie, plain and simple... It is time for the leading
lights of Vote Leave to hold their hands
up and apologise for misleading the public.
“We do not send pounds
350m a week to the EU and therefore will not have pounds 350m a week to spend
on the NHS or anything else.” The claim
was a central plank of the Brexit drive.
One of the latest divorce bill cost figures doing the rounds
which suggests a bill of pounds 36billion. It has been swiftly attacked by some and downplayed by others.
While the Prime Minister Theresa May herself is still on holiday, her office
spokesman plainly said: “I don’t recognise it (figure).” As other issues like the free movement of
workers or the number of years for the transition arrangements remain
unresolved, Gunther Oettinger, the European Commissioner for budget and human
resources, has insisted that the UK “must honour its obligations” made as a
member of the EU. “London will have to transfer funds to Brussels at least
until 2020.”
Striking a note of realism, Sir Simon Fraser, Britain’s
former Foreign Office Permanent Secretary, observed that splits within the
cabinet were damaging Brexit talks. “I
don’t think (the negotiations) have
begun particularly promising, frankly, on the British side.”
Media Mogul Rupert
Murdoch is seldom
away from news headlines. Currently his empire is being investigated over his 11.7
billion pound bid to acquire 100 per cent control over Britain’s Sky news TV
network, 39 per cent of which he and his sons already own.
The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is
investigating into Murdoch family’s suitability to buy Sky after allegations of
sexual harassment at 21st Century Fox television owned by the group in the USA. Labour MPs in the UK
and campaign group Avaaz have criticised
an earlier inquiry by media regulator Ofcom which had cleared the family as
“fit and proper” for the ownership. The scandal over the hacking of the phone
of the murdered school girl Milly Dowler
which led to the closure of Murdoch owned top selling Sunday paper News of the World also led to the
dropping of the Sky bid then.
As if that was not enough, the Fox News report on the murder
of a Democrat party aide, Seth Rich, in Washington last year has led to
allegations of right-wing bias in the presentation of the incident. Right-wing
media groups were alleged to have blamed Seth Rich for leaking Democrat emails
to Wikileaks. The Fox report was alleged to have implied that Seth Rich had been killed by Hillary Clinton supporters
as revenge..
Wading into this welter of allegations, Britain’s former
Labour leader, Ed Miliband, said: “ Six years ago people vowed that the anguish
caused to the grieving families like the Dowlers by the Murdoch empire would
never be allowed again. Now in 2017 we see another grieving family - the
parents of Seth Rich - also suffering deep anguish at the hands of the empire
without so much as an apology. If ever an episode showed why the Murdochs should not be allowed more control of our
media, it is this.”
Critics of the Murdoch bid fear the UK’s Tory government is
likely give it green signal.
Murdoch senior has also been drawing attention in the theatre
world. His Sun newspaper’s birth
and its circulation battle with the Daily Mirror is the gripping stuff of a
play titled Ink which has just
finished a short but highly successful run at London’s Almeida theatre. It’s a
peep into the mind of not just the paper’s owner but also of his chosen editor
and indeed the entire editorial and managerial team.
Starting a tabloid daily in 1969 in England, the colonial
journalist Murdoch (played by Bertie Carvel) from Australia, the ‘sheep
country’, hires a northern English
journalist aptly named Larry Lamb ( Richard Coyle). Both cut a good hearted on-stage
joke of ‘Sheep and Lamb’ joining hands in the new venture. Happily peppering
their dialogues with a few F words, the bumptious duo start their show over a
lobster dinner and a select bottle. They carry their project of disrupting the
street (Fleet Street, London’s historic newspaper hub now reduced to a bankers’
bazaar bereft any trace of news ink). By Jove, they not only disrupted the street, they have transformed pop
tabloids into a new species.
The battle with the Mirror was rapidly won with the introduction of Page 3 display of the female body in ever
different poses. The picture stories are embellished with big headlines
and sharp, short, sexy captions. The Mirror
tried to fight it off with the
addition of a new free magazine in old, sensitive style. But the Sun won the battle hands down with
its saucy stories or as Editor Larry
Lamb winds up the play with his secret
of success formula: “People want stories.”
However, years later
down the line Murdoch’s Sun has lost the circulation race to The Daily Mail, the ultra-right-wing
tabloid. Murdoch’s Sun is now trying
to fight back by bringing part of Page 3 to Front Page itself. But the Mail is hitting back by bringing a slice of its own sexy product
to its Front Page. Interesting times ahead, as the Chinese say.
Tailpiece: Seven Roman
Catholic priests, dressed in black robes and dog collars, walked into a pub in
Cardiff but were refused service by the manager who took them for a bunch of fancy dress
party jokers. Recognising something was amiss, the pub’s deputy manager stepped in with an apology and
a round of drinks - for free – for the holy seven.
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