The Power of Headlines

Every now and then I take a look the Daily Mail just to make sure I’m correct in my belief that it’s a pretty powerful arm of the right-wing propaganda machine.   When I looked yesterday I wasn’t disappointed.  Two stories jumped out at me as misleading.  Not to say they were inaccurate but simply ‘misleading’.

Story one on the front page announced that the paper was launching a campaign to save our High Streets.  Very laudable, I thought. But then I read further. The Mail claim that the demise of High Street shops is caused by high business rates and taxes (with competition from the Internet coming later).    No mention of the fact that rates and taxes are collected by local and national government to pay for the infrastructure without which local shops wouldn’t be able to operate.  Boring things like roads, refuse disposal and police and fire services. Then, of course, book shops wouldn’t have many customers if the rates and taxes didn’t educate their customers. 

No mention of the fact that multinational corporations on the Internet or moving into our High Steets are very often able to sell cheaply because they have clever means by which they can avoid paying taxes.  No mention either of the fact that when  multinational chains like Starbucks move in rents go up, so landlords cash in but small local independent shops can’t compete.  

Story number 2:  NHS is being dragged down by all those people who are taking advantage of it.  To give the notion more credibility that opinion came from no less than the granddaughter of Clement Atlee who was Prime Minister when the NHS was born.  My guess is that the story has a semblance of truth about it but the main motive for publishing it came from the desire to drip, drip stories of the shortcomings of the NHS so that we will fall out of love it and open the door to the privatisation.  A very lucrative business that.  But, as the poor in the US know, not too good if you can’t afford health insurance.