At the moment, the British media is full of ruminations about the decision of that august publication The Sun to endorse David Cameron and the Tories at the General Election next year. Shows you what I know. I thought they supported them already, and had done for some time.
It doesn't surprise me they're endorsing Cameron, however, any more than it surprised me when they endorsed Blair and Labour in 1997. Blair, then, was offering a refined, apparently (though it was largely spin) socially conscious version of Thatcherism. He'd also spent a bit of time sucking up to Rupert Murdoch, who owns The Sun, and according to ex-employees dictates its agenda.
Murdoch endorses political parties who will help him further his immoral, rapacious business agenda, and Brown's slight, but nonetheless detectable, move left this past year, not to mention his famous Presbyterian moralism, makes him less of a potential ally to Murdoch than Blair was in 1997. And Cameron is a Tory, plain and simple. His instinct is to let Capitalism take its own course, without any intervention, whether it be ideologically or morally motivated.
Does The Sun have the power to influence the British voter to the extent that it can change an election result? Of course it does. It's a moronic newspaper, but it is deft with its propaganda. The half-truths and lies it spreads seep into the national consciousness like poisoned gas.
Do you want your vote to be dictated to you by a multi-millionaire whose only interest lies in getting rid of awkward legislation that stops him from controlling the whole of the media, and making more and more money in a world scarred by desperate poverty? That's something you must decide.
But I'm not going to be anybody's corporate shill.
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