So, for this Day Editor at least, another year starts and, in my case, in a country ill at ease with itself, the United States. It’s an insular and curiously transactional politics here, where the impact of its leadership is seen mostly in terms of what America does to others rather than in terms of how it is perceived by allies and enemies alike. There is no room for doubt or uncertainty in the minds of the radicals soon to be running this country.
Which inevitably brings me to the recent antics of Elon Musk, whose astonishing firehose of untruths and bombast on X, aimed at the politicians he feels he has bought and paid for, and those in other countries by whom he feels threatened, have done so much to alienate his “customers” internationally. There is clearly something wrong with him, or perhaps there always was and we just hadn’t appreciated it. But his apparent desire to overturn democratically elected governments that displease him isn’t going to go away anytime soon.
Labour seem determined to humour him, which is evidently going to fail. When someone is as astonishingly wealthy as Musk is, and so unused to being refused, he has no need to play by any of the usual rules of debate. And with a media platform under his control which is increasingly a meeting place for some of the most unpleasant elements of our society, the risks that individuals or groups act to advance his beliefs and wishes are genuine. As he has seemingly become more and more radicalised, so has his ability to radicalise others.
I was followed on Bluesky yesterday by a group calling for X to be banned in Europe. Now, whilst that might seem tempting, as a liberal I find myself unconvinced by the idea. However, it is hard to see how anyone who believes in our democracy gains much from engagement with X these days. Once upon a time, whilst it was imperfect, it did at least offer tools that allowed you to better judge the information being published, with the blue tick system offering a sense of reassurance of quality and veracity. But Elon destroyed that early on in his reign and his increasingly erratic biases have both encouraged the most unpleasant elements to run riot whilst stripping from the rest of us the power to shut them out of our curated timelines. What saved him for himself for a short time was the absence of a competitor with the necessary credibility and weight of users. That may have changed, although many of us are “once bitten, twice shy”.
I held on for longer than many, which might reflect my use of X as a means of getting updates on things that interest me – sport, politics, news, travel, rather than a broadcasting means. But I’ve now sought to download my Twitter archive as a prelude to giving it up for good. I am, if you like, using my power as a consumer to tell Elon that he now owns a medium which fails to offer anything I want or need. That’s his problem, not mine.
I want my government to properly regulate him and all similar media, protecting my rights and freedoms as a citizen, something that he probably won’t like. But then, people like Elon Musk tend to have a very partial view of freedom, in that they want unlimited freedom to impinge on mine.
Watching Ed Davey rather politely deal with the issue of Musk’s engagement with British politics did offer a sense that there is a workable approach to the problem, especially given the polling which suggests that British voters aren’t favourable towards him (Musk).
And, if British politicians can come together in agreement that his behaviour threatens rather than enhances our democracy, then there is a realistic hope that he’ll give up and move on. But, if he finds a way to legally give money to the political party of his choice, all bets are off.
Given my lack of faith in our body politic though, I suspect that we’ll be suffering from his ill-advised, ill-informed commentary for a while, with right-wing politicians hoping to “ride the tiger” long enough to persuade voters to give them a shot at power.
Let’s hope that the rest of us are smart enough to build a more solid set of democratic guardrails before that happens…
* Mark Valladares is the Monday Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice.
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26 Comments
It’s always a concern if a government decides to regulate a social media platform. Who deems what is suitable or not . Musk’s bizarre and outlandish tweets , can’t hide the fact that virtually most of the legacy media has failed to give coverage on such a serious subject, until now. That, ultimately, are what governments really afraid of.
Mark Valladares…Labour seem determined to humour him, which is evidently going to fail.
Labour had sensibly decided not to fuel an on-line panto (oh, yes, he did, etc)… However, listen to Starmer’s speech this morning..An apology is forthcoming but…
The food of publicity gives Musk power as the media suck it all up.In the election the party got plenty of coverage thru Ed’s antics To increase our media coverage and to counter the never ending negativity of the media can the party create new ‘feel good’ stunts to change the direction?I can start it off with a mock snowball fight!
Another thought re ‘good vibes’ is bring forth Jennie and assistant to the fore.The human element.
Someone on Radio 4 yesterday (who has been observing Musk for some time) said Musk is primarily concerned about himself and money, so one tactic should be for organisations (like BBC) to stop using X as a channel for people to make comments. I feel most people here don’t like Musk at all, but more importantly for us is the following and publicity given to Farage.
It remains to be seen whether Musk’s latest attack on Farage will cause a decline in Farage’s following or a rise; I suspect it will be the latter, especially given the disillusionment with other parties here and his tactic of fielding more local candidates who will appear really friendly to voters. That has already started to happen in my area.
Musk has posted on his X website: “Starmer was deeply complicit in the mass rapes in exchange for votes. That’s what the inquiry would show.”
Musk is clearly ill informed and such remarks show how deluded Musk is about the whole issue.
His argument is that Starmer was “complicit” during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions and his motivation to not act was… ‘because he wanted votes’.. In a political career Starmer had not even begun?????
Rather than banning Twitter/X as a whole, would it be feasible for the UK govt. to ban Musk’s corrosive tweets?
I would have thought if Starmer chose to sue him for libel in an American court he could become extremely rich.
Musk’s Tweets are inflammatory, offensive, and deeply wrong. What it has ignited is an issue that’s been largely ignored by the media.
Yet again we’ve had inquiries that have failed in holding those in authority to account, for an abject failure of duty . The stories from the victims, in regards to those that should of protected them, are horrific. Sadly , it’s taken many right wing individuals on twitter to raise those concerns, & use it for their own agenda.
Without that , we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
@Craig Levene: You are wrong; the issue of grooming gangs has NOT been ignored by the media at all. It comes up frequently, especially when members of such gangs are brought to justice (which has happened in no small part due to reforms in process put in place by Keir Starmer when he was DPP). “Tommy Robinson” nearly derailed one grooming gang trial by filming it. The cynic in me thinks that was his intention — he and his kind WANT the gang members to be at large because bringing them to justice personalised their guilt making it harder to blame whole communities for it. Also Labour promised (before this war of words) to implement the findings of the Jay inquiry (you know, the inquiry that Musk and Farage have been calling for apparently unaware that it already happened), while the Tories sat on it while in government.
I do have a concern that the media seems to wish to refer to ‘grooming gangs’ rather than use the more accurate phrase, ‘rape gangs’. Why would there appear to be a collective desire to seem to reduce the perceived seriousness of all the abuse that was occurring by using a milder term ‘grooming’ rather than ‘rape’?
Alex you are broadly right, the real issue (scandal ?) now isn’t yet another enquiry but to actual implement the findings of the enquiry that has already happened.
Trouble is this isn’t the only enquiry where people have said “ lessons have been learnt” and the report filed with no further action being taken…
Alex. It pains me to say it, but Robinson was highlighting this issue in Luton and beyond for many years. As have others . The media coverage has never been on a similar scale to what we’ve seen in regards to BLM. As we can see from the responses across the media , many were unaware of the scale, & that those in authority failed in a duty of care. People are rightly asking why haven’t those individuals faced any disciplinary or court proceedings .
It’s the minimum those victims deserve.
@Craig Levene: “Robinson” was highlighting it? Really? Only for the purpose of stoking up hatred, and ignoring the fact that most groomers are white and probably include many of his supporters (they are the type, let’s face it). He had absolutely nothing to do with the process of bringing them to justice, which (may I remind you) he nearly derailed by filming a grooming gang trial and sharing it on social media. I don’t know whether he knew that his actions could have caused a mistrial; this could have been what he wanted, in order for him to be able to say that the “establishment” was letting the gangmen escape. Whether it was or not, they show at best indifference on the part of Yaxley-Lennon to the victims of the gangs, and that he really doesn’t care about bringing the perpetrators to justice. Please do NOT give him any credit for drawing attention to the issue, he deserves none. Besides his politics and behaviour mean we should not give credence to anything he says on any issue at all. There are principles that are more important than any cause.
@ Craig Levene,
We should give credence to a career criminal who offers no solutions for the victims whilst targeting a minority of those responsible for such vile acts?
I think not.
And whilst you may “hate to say this”, you keep doing so, hardly the action of a (at best) neutral commentator.
Mark; As odious as he is, and for his own political ends, it’s a fact that he was one of only a few highlighting this issue. My main argument is that those in authority failed these victims, and none to my knowledge have faced any consequence for their inactions. Such is the scale of those failings , you only need to read the victims horrific testimony to ask yourself why that is.
Just for the avoidance of doubt, the organisations that work with victims of grooming gangs want absolutely nothing to do with “Tommy Robinson” or anyone similar.
Those that say there is no further need for another inquiry should read Lucy Allan’s ( mp Telford 15/24) latest statement on the issue.
Absolutely shocking.
@Thelma Davies
I disagree.
There is plenty of evidence already about these grooming gangs.
Having another enquiry is just a means of kicking a very urgent problem into the long grass. Which would result in more victims and delayed justice for existing victims.
The police and any other authorities involved need to get on with dealing with these gangs now.
@Peter Davies: Surely Starmer would sue in the UK; besides this country’s notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel law (making it a popular libel tourist destination, although lately courts have begun striking out exiguous cases), the UK would actually be the appropriate forum as it’s to do with his reputation in the UK rather than in the US or anyone else. Maybe the payouts would be higher in the US, but it’s also more difficult to win a defamation case there; remember that Musk successfully defended a US libel case after baselessly calling someone a “paedo” on the basis that it was some sort of local slang and therefore fair comment. That defence seems unlikely to fly in the UK. Any damages would be small change to the billionaire though. Does the UK still have a criminal libel law? That would hurt Musk more.
@Thelma Davies
The former chair of child abuse inquiry (Prof Alexis Jay) also disagrees with you…She says another enquiry would only delay action and calls, instead, for the recommendations in 2022 report on child sexual abuse in England and Wales to be implemented..
However, Nigel Farage is setting up his own enquiry
@Nonconform. What the enquiries haven’t done, is hold to account those in authority that contributed to the victims suffering by not acting swiftly enough, or in many cases, not acting at all. That is what many people are finding it hard to understand, as to why this was allowed to go on. A public inquiry can compel those to take the stand, under oath, & explain their conduct in office. Surely the victims deserve no less ?
@ Thelma,
That’s because enquiries aren’t about “holding people to account”, they’re about establishing what went wrong and what needs to happen to reduce the risk of such things happening again.
The Jay Report did an excellent job in that respect, and perhaps if we got around to implementing its recommendations, we could actually make some progress.
But it isn’t clear to me what you expect to have been done to whom that hasn’t already been done. If you mean punishing a bunch of social workers who were probably overworked and under resourced, then you’re probably too late.
The Labour government should invoke the Monroe Doctrine in reverse: “Hands Off Britain”! It needs to take urgent action to ban foreign donations to our political parties, while limiting the amounts that UK billionaires can use to undermine our democracy.
Could we label Musk a threat to national security given how he publicly advocated for a coup against the British government?
@Mark. It’s obvious reading the testimony of the victims , & the resulting local enquiries in Rotherham, Rochdale, and Telford. That individuals in senior positions within the Police Force , Children’s Services , and Local Authorities , failed in a duty of care to those victims , who went onto suffer vile and horrific abuse. This isn’t about targeting hard pressed social workers . It’s about getting justice for those victims , and holding those senior individuals responsible for the abject failure of their departments and position.