What now? Who do we believe? The police have been caught out telling porkies on a fairly regular basis - so why not about this? The whole affair seems to have come down to what wing of the commentariat you are on - the right wing law and order mongers must be wrestling with themselves. A Tory MP or the Police - like a squabble between your children - you don't want to take sides, but one of them must be lying? How can you be disloyal to either? . And on the left, the anguish of trying to decide which of them is the most repulsive: the Police surely - they have more power (I'm not saying Andrew Mitchell 7.0 is repulsive - although I have said that when I was younger there seemed to be a bit of a repulsion going on).
I'd come down on AM's side against the police, because they've got so much form - and evidently the power to affect the composition of the Cabinet. This is terribly bad news.
On a larger question, I suppose my real fear is that we are being controlled by lies. Obviously, to some extent we are, there are lies about the economy, about military and national issues. Some of these are "necessary" perhaps, but I am thinking about a more specific thing - the manipulation of opinion, and of political life, by deliberate untruths. However much we pride ourselves about our critical minds, about our inside knowledge of situations, it becomes difficult to resist the frequently repeated lie - that old adage about repeating lies louder and louder until everyone believes them is only too true.
The role of people who are effectively telling lies in the media is a troubling one. Columnists are employed by papers who simply churn out untruths - such as Simon Hoggart in the Guardian who is obsessed with windfarms. A lot of his "facts" seem doubtful, and he doesn't seem to understand that if we wish to protect the environment, certain forms of energy may be more expensive - it is the price we pay.
On climate change the BBC was being asked to defend its use of climate change deniers to comment on the issue - they said they had to use some occasionally, as they represented a minority amongst scientists. Regrettably climate change denial is very common amongst non-scientists (that idiot Nigel Lawson) so every time a climate change denier appears in the media the 60% of the population who wish it wasn't true all say to each other "There - see - that geologist said this has all happened before!" "Oh, well, that's all right then - my round I think."
Partly the problem is that for entertainment value, we need opinion - but because opinion occurs in newspapers it is easy to confuse it with news - when it is commenting on the news - and give it the status of fact... opinion is indeed cheap!
I'd come down on AM's side against the police, because they've got so much form - and evidently the power to affect the composition of the Cabinet. This is terribly bad news.
On a larger question, I suppose my real fear is that we are being controlled by lies. Obviously, to some extent we are, there are lies about the economy, about military and national issues. Some of these are "necessary" perhaps, but I am thinking about a more specific thing - the manipulation of opinion, and of political life, by deliberate untruths. However much we pride ourselves about our critical minds, about our inside knowledge of situations, it becomes difficult to resist the frequently repeated lie - that old adage about repeating lies louder and louder until everyone believes them is only too true.
The role of people who are effectively telling lies in the media is a troubling one. Columnists are employed by papers who simply churn out untruths - such as Simon Hoggart in the Guardian who is obsessed with windfarms. A lot of his "facts" seem doubtful, and he doesn't seem to understand that if we wish to protect the environment, certain forms of energy may be more expensive - it is the price we pay.
On climate change the BBC was being asked to defend its use of climate change deniers to comment on the issue - they said they had to use some occasionally, as they represented a minority amongst scientists. Regrettably climate change denial is very common amongst non-scientists (that idiot Nigel Lawson) so every time a climate change denier appears in the media the 60% of the population who wish it wasn't true all say to each other "There - see - that geologist said this has all happened before!" "Oh, well, that's all right then - my round I think."
Partly the problem is that for entertainment value, we need opinion - but because opinion occurs in newspapers it is easy to confuse it with news - when it is commenting on the news - and give it the status of fact... opinion is indeed cheap!
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