Ken Loach speaks out against the BBC and the Guardian
JVL Introduction
A fascinating interview with Ken Loach in Equal Times looks at his filmmaking and his socialism and the intimate connection between them.
It has been picked up by Andrew Pulver in the Guardian, reposted below, and highlights Loach’s bitter criticism of the BBC for its “absolutely shameless role” in getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn.
But the Guardian too, comes under strong attack, being described by Loach as a “joint offender”.
Loach’s comments have not been edited out of Pulver’s report. On the contrary, while not headlined like Loach’s attack on the BBC is, it is honestly reported with a stinging quote from Loach himself.
A sign of better times at the Guardian? Let’s hope so!
This article was originally published by the Guardian on Fri 16 Dec 2022. Read the original here.
‘Absolutely shameless’: Ken Loach says BBC helped ‘destroy’ Jeremy Corbyn
Director says media has ‘rewritten history’ to expunge ex-Labour leader and attacks Starmer regime for ‘manipulating the rules’
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Well said Ken. If only others who are also able to use their voice, would speak up. It’s either they have also believed the propaganda being put out or they are too scared to raise their heads above the parapet. Either way it’s very sad.
Like Ken Loach, and many others, I left the Labour Party when Blair was in power. I also rejoined when Corbyn became leader. Sadly, again ,like Ken, I am no longer a member. The BBC journalistic bias against Corbyn was so consistent, and skilled, that I eventually changed the habit of a lifetime and watched the news on ITV which I judged to be much more balanced. The political ethics of the present Labour Party central leadership and organisation is tragically reflective of the political gutter in its attack on alternative voices. The sad thing is that those at the centre will most likely be at the centre of government after the next election. The trouble with the apparent success of manipulation is that it feeds itself. I now embrace the unthinkable and believe that the Left should form an alternative party. Yes, I know the arguments against, but in the medium term the future may lie in the Left being part of a future coalition, where it will have more influence in a country where the centre of political gravity is to the Right, in all its forms. It will hasten the arrival of proportional representation as only the Tories would have a vested interest in the present system. I think the public would demand PR.
Yes, Terry Rees, my journey has been much the same as yours and I have sadly come to the same conclusion. Surely yesterday’s news about the fine and honourable Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi (courtesy of Skwawkbox, who amongst others predicted what would happen the moment she was elected to the NEC) must be the final straw for those clinging on and thinking Starmer’s Labour Party could ever be a place for socialists.
The function of MSM in this Neo-Liberal Capitalist Society is to manufacture consent…………allowing government & powerful insitutions to do whatever it wishes. Food & warmth banks; the low paid gig economy; cost of living crisis; war in Europe; the elimination of Socialism; the social cleansing of Palestine; homelessness; plastic pollution & climate emergency; the killing fields of Covid ‘in care’……..would anyone else like to complete the picture? Apathy & acceptance are a MSM bi-product. Enough is enough? Instead, we are given a platform for Matt Hancock’s pantomime or the never ending soap featuring Megan & Harry, or the demonisation of ‘Lynch the Grinch’ ruining Christmas. The 4th Estate is actively working against the interests of a healthy democracy & time to question ownership & control of the ‘percepton’ industries.
I see that Corbyn has a new cap, one that it will be harder for the media to manipulate so that it looks like the one worn by Lenin.
I just did a search to see if this was covered by any other MSM outlets, and there’s an Independent article covering it, which was re-posted on yahoo news (which I have no idea about the number of people it potentially reaches). But I also came across the following from July, 2019, which I don’t recall, and must have missed it at the time:
‘Millionaire socialist film director Ken Loach could face legal action after jibe that BBC Panorama investigation into Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis was a ‘dishonest hatchet job”
In a motion in Mr Loach’s name, passed by his local Bath Labour Party branch last week, the director savaged the BBC.
‘Allegations were made without evidence or corroboration and were unchallenged by the interviewer,’ said the motion, adding: ‘Grainy exaggerated close-ups of Corbyn and sinister music when he appeared are manipulative and were used crudely to present Corbyn in an unfavourable light.
‘This was a dishonest hatchet job with potentially undemocratic consequences, revealed in its closing line asking for an alternative leader to replace Jeremy Corbyn.’
Last night, Labour resumed its attack on Panorama, claiming it ‘pre-determined the outcome of its investigation and misrepresented the evidence to present a biased and selective account’.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7268421/Ken-Loach.html
Ken can sleep easy, nothing defamatory there.
As always, Ken Loach speaks the truth.
As always it’s truth from an honourable and principled position on the Left.
Ken has always been on the right side of history.
I also left Labour at the time of the Iraq war and rejoined to support Jeremy Corbyn, who, for a brief few years offered us the hope of something better.
I consider that the colonisation of the Labour Party by, and on behalf of the rich and powerful is irrecoverable – For the few, not the many.
On all the major issues, Starmer stands on the wrong side of history.
Starmer – a member of the Trilateral Commission – the international arm of America’s foreign-policy aim to run the world.
Starmer – Fully in support of NATO’s campaign in Ukraine.
NATO – the military arm of American foreign policy in Europe.
What has happened to Labour’s traditional support for peace and justice ?
Maybe Jeremy Corbyn still holds the answer.
Our impotence and inability to change the Labour Party demands that we find a better platform.
The alternative is to allow Starmer a free-ride to No.10 on the back of Tory failure.
Tragic !
Julia, I very much doubt that anyone (on the left) has been ‘clinging on’ because they were thinking and/of hoping that Starmer might change, but there are a number of reasons why left-wing members remain in the party, despite all that Starmer and Co have been doing. Where there are left-wing MPs, left-wing members stay in the party so that they can vote for them if need be, to be re-selected. And despite whatever Starmer and Co do, or don’t do, there are of course local issues that CLP members can campaign for, or against etc. and get publicity precisely because they ARE the local LP/CLP.
AND, if you’ve been a member and involved in your local CLP for many years, then it’s very much a part of your life and who you are, and there is of course the social aspect of it – ie people who are on the same wave-length as you and, as such, have a similar outlook on the world, the universe and everything, and who you regard as good friends.
Like me it seems Ken may not have been a regular reader of the Grauniad during this period … apparently about a thousand anti-Corbyn articles (!) which probably had more influence over “liberal” opinion than the Panorama program and a few other twisted interviews and headlines on the BBC website.
The only thing I disagree with in Ken’s interview is where he says Corbyn has been erased: he hasn’t, if for no other reason, the Tories and even Starmer still keep going on about how much of a threat he is.
I’m not sure when it was that I first came across JVL and their website, but I’m pretty certain it was sometime in 2018. And that is obviously the reason why I didn’t see the following excellent article posted in October 2017 (which I just happened to come across whilst doing some research), along with numerous excellent comments (and direct responses to comments), which are also worth checking out:
‘Ken Loach responds to Jonathan Freedland’
https://jewishvoiceforliberation.org.uk/article/ken-loach-responds-jonathan-freedland/
Allan Howard:
The Guardian covered it and mentioned his criticism of the Guardian.
I am talking about the print edition.
Hope this helps.
He’s right, totally and completely right. I went off Question time and Have I got News for you because of the smears and lack of representation of Jeremy Corbyn. I no longer have any respect for the BBC or the Guardian a rag I would consider only good for right winged middle classes. It certainly is not for the working classes or anybody with any intelligence,being more on par with the Torypapers, the Times and the Telegraph.
The Panorama programme about alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party was nothing but a stitch-up. I am surprised it was screened in its existing form and the Ofcom claim that it was “impartial” is inexplicable.
No one could be certain that there was no antisemitism in the Labour Party but there is no evidence it is worse than elsewhere, particularly amongst the right and racists. Since its founding the Labour Party has stood against racism and discrimination. Many campaigners for Palestinian rights are now excluded from the Party though they are amongst the most vociferous supporters of equal rights. Criticism of Israel’s denial of equal rights is for them inevitable, and is perfectly reasonable. Amnesty International has recently published a very measured and carefully researched report about Israeli apartheid. Does Panorama, Ofsted and Keir Starmer consider Amnesty racist and antisemitic? That stretches credibility beyond breaking point.
The whole system has been rigged stuffed full of right-wing Tory supporters from BBC news editors to journalists throughout the media and the organisations that are meant to regulate the media. Now even the Labour party is stuffed full of Tory puppets and the Liberal Party both leaders of each were knighted by the Tory party democracy is a farce.
I just discovered last night, by chance, that Sorry We Missed You is on BBC Iplayer, and is available to watch for another month.
Like many others, I too left the Labour Party when war criminal Tony Blair took the country to war in Iraq with no intention of EVER rejoining. That was until I came across Jeremy Corbyn making a speech at Tolpuddle prior to the Labour leadership election in 2015. After watching the rest of Jeremy’s speeches and televised debates, I rejoined the Labour Party to vote for him – at long last a politician who could be trusted who gave us hope for the future of this country. Jeremy winning outright was a huge shock to the right-wing of the LP. This is when the conspiracy to oust him started to take shape. The BBC gave a platform to Luciana Berger, Margaret Hodge, Ruth Smeeth, Louise Ellman, yob John Mann, Jess Philips, Wes Streeting, John Woodcock, Ian Austin and others who were never off the ‘Today’ ‘World at One’ and ‘PM’ programs tell the world that Jeremy Corbyn was an Anti-Semite. I emailed these people on a regular basis letting them know they were lying. They reported me to the Governance and Legal department (disreputable people as was proved in Labour’s leaked report) warning me that I could be suspended. I immediately responded to justify everything which I had said about these people so was then informed I would not be suspended. I left anyway because the Labour Party which I joined in 1958 was now not a democratic Labour Party. The ‘fake’ Panorama program: I watched Ella Rose during the undercover reporting by Al Jazeera in “THE LOBBY” boasting about the training she had received in Israel which she planned to exercise against Jackie Walker and then achieved her goal. She then left or may have been pushed from the Israeli Embassy then became a director with the Jewish Labour Movement after which she appeared in the Panorama program almost in tears because of the pain she had suffered at the hands of the anti-Semites in the Labour Party – you couldn’t make it up – what a hypocrite.
I watched the right-wingers in the Labour squirm when they were asked if they had read or were aware of the ‘Labour leaked report’ ‘The Forde Report’ and ‘The Labour files”. Their response was all we now need to know about the corrupt undemocratic Labour Party under Keir Starmer and David Evans.
Very encouraging to hear Ken Loach speaking out, it gives one hope for the future because I believe that truth prevails.