Permission to Speak Sah!!

It's fitting, but also quite depressing that on the 50th Anniversary of Dad's Army (a TV programme about people that fought for the freedom of the country), that politicians are now discussing shutting down free speech and political discussion and eventually we'll have to use Jones' catchphrase in order to say anything.

After the Brexit referendum and the Trump election win, the supposedly liberal prograssive left (actually non of the sort) blamed their losses on outside influences, mainly Russia and their use of social media.

Now, it's very easy to blame Russia as a culprit, because all of those dodgy marketing notices to get about "you'll never believe what she said", or "Guess what this politician has been up to" variety are mainly hosted on Russian hosts. The reasons are cheap hosting for one and a weak adherence to regulations are another.

Guido's order-order.com website hosts in teh Rebublic of Ireland for a similar reason in that injuctions forbading release of information that apply to the UK, don't apply to Eire and so Guido is free to publish that which the UK-based media cannot.

There is no super-secret plot to destabilise governments, it's just business: businesses host crap sites cheaper abroad and they don't get regulated about spam as much.

"Fake News" is a term that has been done to death, but there are many interpretations of the phrase. Most people would say that fake news is untruths being stated as fact.

Basically fake news as promoted by the Elite is any news that does not follow their narrative. Truth doesn't come into it. Politicians and the news never tell the absolute truth. There will always be some spin, bias or slant to the information presented to the public. It's up to the public to inform themselves of the signs of this and peel away the half-truths to get at the real picture.

I always use the NHS as an example. On the Tory side they say they are putting ever more money into the NHS. Labour say that the NHS is suffering from cuts. In this instance both sides are telling the truth. How can that be/ You can't have cuts AND be putting more money into the NHS surely?

But both are correct, because more money IS going into the NHS budget but LESS of that money is getting to the front line and ending up in treatment.

There are several reasons for this, but the biggest is the NHS' legal bill. Incompetence and mistakes cost the NHS almost half it's budget settling lawsuits. But you never hear this news, why? Because it would kill the narrative of both side of the debate. Our adversarial politics likes to have opposing views: to make things black and white. Greyness has no place in politics because you can't rally the troops round fuzzy grey logic.

And this is where the latest discussions around fake news and the regulation of social media are going at the moment: Control of the Narrative. Politicians want control of the news from specific outlets, they want the message to be pure and unmuddied. They do not want alternative media outlets that can usurp the mainstream.