Beating the bias: Corbyn just laid the smackdown on Murdoch’s latest smear
By
Alex McNamara
21st May 2017
There’s something in the air at present. Something building. One might even call it ‘momentum’.
It seems the tide could be turning for beleaguered Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn. As Theresa May’s public profile and credibility spiral ever further towards (hopefully) oblivion, Corbyn seems to be gaining confidence and interview prowess by the day. Britain seems to be slowly but surely waking up to the dangers present in the Tory manifesto. And even the continuing onslaught of smear by the right-wing press is wobbling. No longer can they win
everybody over – especially in the face of growing numbers coming forward to point out their bias, and to voice support for a Labour manifesto that
clearly has the interests of the British people at heart.
The result is that Jeremy Corbyn has narrowed the gap in the polls considerably. Even Tory-orientated papers have begrudgingly
reported as much.
Smackdown on Murdoch’s latest smear
This morning, Corbyn appeared on
Sophy Ridge On Sunday for
Sky News. It was a bold move. If some consider the BBC to inherently favour the Tories, the
Sky corporation under Rupert Murdoch could be considered their vanguard, and Ridge their ‘big hitter’. Or, as I was amused to see her described on Twitter, a
“bargain basement Laura Kuenssberg”.
Only this morning, she fell flat on her face.
As one might have predicted, the seasoned interviewer went straight at Corbyn with tabloid-based guttersnipes, as many have, that attempt to skew him as a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ – and/or exaggerate his involvement and discussions with IRA leaders.
Ridiculously, the best thing Ridge had to come at him with was an obscure in-house “Labour Party briefing magazine”. From 1984 no less, more than
thirty years ago. At best you could call it ‘clutching at straws’. But before viewers had a chance for the ridiculousness to sink in, Ridge launched straight into the attack she wanted to pursue, with what seemed very much a rhetorical question:
Were you General Secretary of the editorial board at that time when that was published?
Corbyn’s answer should have squashed the line of questioning like a bug:
No. I wasn’t even a member of the editorial board.
Whoops. End of discussion, right? Maybe the
Sky researchers got their facts wrong? Nevertheless Ridge ploughed on, virtually insinuating the Labour leader was lying. In fact, she asked three times, and each time Corbyn calmly stated he was not, qualifying:
I read the magazine. I wrote for the magazine. I was not on the editorial board.
Corbyn’s position on Ireland
That wasn’t going to deter Sophy Ridge. She had a narrative to spin, and orders from
Sky HQ on exactly what heart-strings had to be deplorably tugged upon to vilify ‘Comrade Corbyn’. Little technicalities like accuracy didn’t matter, so she ran with her planned line of smear questioning any way:
What is says in the article, just in the wake of the Brighton bombing – an attack by the IRA of course, intended to kill Margaret Thatcher, which killed five people: “The British only sit up and take notice when they are bombed into it.” How does that make you feel, knowing you wrote for that magazine?
Sadly for
Sky, Ridge couldn’t blame him, or link him to the editorial decision to publish the article as planned. Ridge instead had to make do with with the most laughably tenuous of links – speculating on how a vague and loose association with this thirty-year old memo should “make him feel”.
It was pathetic.
And Corbyn swiped it away like the paltry and ignoble ruse it was, with one of his best answers yet. Indeed, he gave a categorical answer that should (at least in theory) silence these pathetic snipes once and for all. He made his position VERY clear:
I didn’t agree with it. I don’t agree with that position. I’ve always wanted there to be peace in Ireland. I’ve always wanted there to be an accord, and eventually, in 1994 a ceasefire was agreed – that one disappeared, but a second ceasefire came in 1997. I’ve always wanted there to be peace, and I really welcome the Good Friday Agreement and all the achievements that it’s made since then.
****… not going as planned, is it Sophie? He’s not giving you much to twist there. Keep digging, maybe he’ll stumble.
“So why did you continue to write for that magazine then?”
Corbyn spelled it out. Again.
I wrote for the magazine on many issues, because it’s a magazine that reaches a number of people within the Labour party and the Labour movement. There are many things in many papers and many magazines with which I profoundly disagree. Does that mean I don’t engage? There are programmes on your station that I don’t really agree with, you probably don’t agree with them either. Isn’t that what open debate and journalism is about?
Ridge tries to cut him off. Corbyn doesn’t let her:
Sometimes listening to people that you don’t agree with does you good.
Smackdown. Ring the damned bell.
And this, only days after John McDonnell absolutely savaged the mainstream press with the
statement:
“We’ll issue journalists with thirty questions to ask the Conservatives. It will help improve your journalistic careers”.
Brutal, but fair.
Settling the matter
This should settle the matter once and for all, as even
The Guardian spelled out:
But what’s immensely sad, is far too few will see this interview with
Sophy Ridge On Sunday. And the tabloid press are already somehow trying to spin it as Corbyn “refusing to denounce the IRA”. Their reach is undeniably far greater, even though they’ll be talking complete and utter nonsense.