In and Out of Control

Not very remote control, in some cases.

It is not about whether you agree with No More Austerity, and it beats me what Russell Brand of the Libertarian Right was doing there. It is about whether you think that 50,000 people marching through central London is not news.

The BBC can find the only Scottish football fan in Brazil. It can report perhaps a thousand people demonstrating in Iraq. It can bang on about Labour and owls for days on end.

It can report as news the fact that Nigel Farage has drunk a pint of beer in a pub, or the proceedings of some football tournament up the Amazon which "England" is no longer in, and in which no other part of these Islands has had any part from the beginning.

But 50,000 people outside its own front door? Not a word. That is not negligent. That is deliberate.

The same is of course true of ITV News and of Sky News. Like them, the BBC also ignored a huge demonstration, the largest in the history of Manchester, in support of the NHS at the last Conservative Party Conference.

Then as now, while honourable mentions on both occasions go to Channel 4 News for saying anything at all, the hero of the hour was RT, with its very extensive coverage indeed. RT has become the only way of knowing what is going on in the United Kingdom.

It needs to watch its step. Press TV lost its British licence for daring to report a demonstration that the pocket media had blacked out.

Some other "reason" remains the official line. But we all know the real one. It will be interesting to see how long that lasts, as the situation in Iraq unfolds.

Ofcom, meanwhile, refused to consider my complaint when Fox told its viewers in Britain to support the EDL. Rupert Murdoch rules.

Andy Burnham's promise to repeal the Health and Social Care Act ought to be huge news. But that could only happen if anyone had ever bothered to tell the electorate about the Health and Social Care Act in the first place.

If the BBC, ITV and Sky told the electorate about the NHS privatisation now giggled off as a fait accompli (to absolutely no broadcast publicity whatever) by someone called Jane Ellison of whom no one had ever previously heard, or if they told the electorate about the never-ending fiasco that is the Iain Duncan Smith whom Question Time had to ensure a free ride, then Labour would be 20 or more points ahead.