Who to listen to?

Yes - I agree about Obama. He was a radical by rhetoric but a centrist by results - not much actually changed. To be fair, it was inevitable that as the first black US President all sorts of hopes and expectations were bound to focus on him, and bound to be disappointed.

Macron is I think more culpable - rather like Blair: both promised a new politics, but ended up offering principally the same old, same old. I thought much the same about Biden too, but there are some signs that maybe he will perform - he has at least kept the radicals like the brilliant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on board, and influential.

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I follow discussions about the Ukraine war on BFM and LCI. Many people say these channels are biased, but frankly I cannot see it, they seem very intelligently presented and not at all biased to me, even if it’s clear the presenters want Ukraine to win. Any comments?
Certainly beats all the biased websites that most critics of these channels seem to prefer.
If I have access to it, I like Al Jazeera too.

Just to add to my post yesterday on Labour governments generally out-performing Tory ones (Who to listen to? - #19 by Geof_Cox) it occurs to me some might say ‘OK Labour achieves more progressive change, but what about the normal routine working economy - surely things like growth, public debt, the balance of payments, etc, are better under the Tories?’

But the facts are that they’re actually not. All the evidence points in precisely the opposite direction - Labour is simply more competent by pretty much any measure…

You really do have to ask why many Brits seem to think the Tories are, or at least have been, more competent, when any objective measure indicates exactly the opposite?

Honestly, I can only think of one answer: media bias.

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On Ukraine, I agree with John Pilger about what and who to believe.

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It’s doubly difficult because although there may be nuances in the rights and wrongs of it all, in war you can’t give succour to the enemy by recognising they may be 10% right. You can’t 90% kill an enemy soldier coming to rape your wife and loot your home (other examples of war crimes available).

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But you can recognise that not every enemy soldier is coming to rape your wife or loot your home, that in fact most enemy soldiers are just like you - human beings with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and children that they love, and that love them, and that you’re probably all in fact just caught up in somebody else’s war - and if you could just get an accurate handle on what it’s all about, beyond propaganda, maybe you’d stand a chance of stopping it, rather than perpetuating it.

Haven’t had chance to watch the video yet Fleur - but John Pilger has been a hero of mine from childhood, when I first read his brilliant stories in The Daily Mirror.

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You have been following the news recently? The Conservatives give the impression that they could not organise a party in a brewery. (Although they seemed to party in No 10 but we were assured that this was not a party.)

How ?

That will vary with the actual circumstances, won’t it? But I think knowing the truth is always going to be a better basis for action than a view derived from propaganda. That’s obvious, isn’t it?

But in the circumstances of the situation under discussion, how can individuals possibly make a significant difference? ‘Knowing the truth’ seems a sound basis for action, but by itself surely it’s insufficient to be effective.

Also given the preponderance of reports of Russian war crimes, even if one is being generous it seems as though soldiers have been brutalised by the system that they’ve lived under. So you’re talking about an encounter between members of two very different societies with different moral values.

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It was definitely ‘a work experience’

I have several bottles of Prosecco waiting for a similar experience this Christmas.

:clinking_glasses::champagne::clinking_glasses:

is composed of many very different individual situations, if we’re talking about individual actions.
It’s true of course that sometimes there is no available action that will make a difference in a particular circumstance, or that any action has negative consequences - but this applies whether or not we know, or tell the truth.
(I’m reminded of Sartre’s discussion (and real experience) of the morality of choosing to resist the nazis when this could lead not only to your own death, but that of your family too.)
To be effective, of course action requires many resources and externalities besides an honest and accurate knowledge of reality - so what? Are you arguing that its better not to see things as they really are?

Noooooo! That is surely what got us into this mess.

We took Putin at his word and for years thought he was westernising. We thought he was a good chap even as he amassed a militia on the border of Ukraine. Then, we were sooo surprised.

We think China is managing their billion people as they see fit, and we’re happy as long as they stay over there and don’t interfere or obstruct our workings. We’re not so pleased with their genocide of the Uyghurs but we’re not angry enough to do much beyond some sanctions and a cross face.

Maybe history will point to this time and record that this is when the West and democracy finally pivoted into action.

Or maybe the Russian or Chinese will be writing our history differently.

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No! I’m not simply arguing that

But rather,

It is only collective action that may make a difference in these particular circumstances and happily there appears to be an enduring collectiveresponse from NATO, the EU and at grassroots from the Ukrainian people

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People Power! :man_firefighter:t2::woman_artist:t2::man_mechanic:t2::woman_mechanic:t2::teacher:t3::cook:t4::guardswoman:t4::construction_worker_woman:t2::pilot:t4:

Listen to me. I’m always right.

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Starmer is weak as a leader of the opposition, but may well prove much better as a prime minister (he could hardly be worse than any of the last 4). As for opposing the Tories, er, the clue is in the name - opposition. But in truth they have gone much further than that and have led on so many issues that the government has subsequently U-turned on, eg windfall tax (still a work in progress) and several others.

And I am not a Labour supporter, BTW. Very much a floating voter who will almost certainly vote LibDem in the coming election (soon, please!) but that is based on local practicalities more than any deep affiliation with that party, especially under Davey, who makes Starmer look exciting.

I read much more than I listen, and have subscriptions to the Independent, Guardian, Times, i, Telegraph, Washington Post, Economist, Byline Times and Tortoise (I am sure I forgot a few like the Atlantic). And then I spoof the FT and others that are stupidly expensive to subscribe to - I have written to them suggesting they could get a much bigger pie (to use Truss’s phrase) if they introduced some tiered pricing.

Of the lot I like the FT most. The rest are all biased one way or another but the left wing bias is much more palatable than the right.

TV it is C4 News; far and away the best of the lot. I have turned away from the BBC for its pro-Brexit bias and its fear of the government, which has meant it has been emasculated. That and its inbuilt nepotism (rife in the media generally, to be fair) and ridiculous focus on “Stars” that are mediocre at best and glorified PR merchants at worst (step forward Ms Kuensberg). Today Prog in the morning in the background as long as I can stand it and my wifel loves JOB, whom I feel is smug and overrated and gets plaudits for stating the bleeding obvious.

C4News I think does strive for impartiality. Yes, a little towards the left but what is so terrible about caring about people?

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GB News.
Garage and Steyn bat for the U.K.
FR2 for balanced French news on to and INFO radio for continuous news stream.