A snapshot of some of today’s headlines on Nick Clegg’s comments on MPs’ Pay is quite revealing. To refresh your memories, yesterday he told journalists at his new monthly press conference that he wouldn’t take the proposed rise himself, that he couldn’t control what other MPs so, but:
But I think all MPs, whatever status they hold, whatever position they hold, will know from their own constituents that there are millions of people in the United Kingdom at the moment who’ve had a remorseless squeeze on their living standards for some years now and that we’re asking millions of public sector works, in our schools, in our hospitals, to have their pay only increase by 1%. You know, MPs of whatever description at the end of the day are public servants paid by taxpayers. And that’s why I think it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to explain to the public why MPs should be treated at this time so very differently to their constituents.
Just look how differently this is covered by the press:
We’ve always suspected that Daily Mail journalists dip their keyboards in poison before writing about Nick Clegg. This rather backs that theory up.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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4 Comments
This is like what our local paper does. Lib Dems can do great work here, but then the paper puts some kind of Labour slant on it to rubbish it or even give Labour the credit. The media have a lot to answer for. They twist things to suit their own bias.
That top headline takes the biscuit though, twisting it into Clegg saying he’d let all MPs have a £10k pay rise. Nick Clegg has no control over whether MPs get a pay rise or not! Nick spoke against it, said if it was in his control he wouldn’t let it happen and he wouldn’t accept it himself. They should not twist things like this.
Having been a 3x PPC, I have come to expect nothing more or less from our ‘free’ press. So.. apart from moaning about it here and on Fb, what are we actually going to DO about it.? The public, our electorate (and even our own members), fall for their misrepresentations.. there is a constant dismissal of the LibDems, a deriding of our policies and a distortion of everything any of our MPs say. It is dishonest, fraudulent and should be illegal, especially when every time anyone suggests controls they bleat on about their ‘freedom’. Their agenda affects the direction of the country and public opinion far more than we are willing to accept, so there needs to be a shift in attitude.
Instead of mouthing support for the ‘value of a free press’ can we please have our senior people repeating the line ‘with freedom comes responsibility’ and ‘ we expect our press to serve the public honestly and honourably’. If they can’t perform to acceptable standards then they should be closed down.!
Well said peter.tyzack.
I have lived with the political distortion of the press for all of my adult life. In the 1980’s I was a constituency chairman and thought the tide had changed when the ‘Today’ newspaper came out in support of the Liberal Party and urged people to vote for it. Members will recall that within a matter of weeks the paper was cynically bought out and subsequently closed.
It’s about time that we made a public issue of this. Our enemies in the press are never going to give us a fair deal. Instead of being polite and reasonable with them in the hope that they will recognise us as such, we should make the public aware that we have not got a ‘free’ press. In fact we have, for the most part, a press which is owned and controlled by a few press barons with their own biased political agenda.
Every Lib Dem politician knows that this is the case. So what have we got to lose ?
Whilst the Daily Mail headline is untrue, just read Nick’s quote, way too long and boring and leaves plenty of room for it to be twisted.
This happens nearly every time he speaks, on LBC the Rennard issue, the Morrissey Report and the list goes on.
I can only assume he has never made a Focus leaflet