The Tawdry Secret

Tom Watson spoke in Parliament today about the power of the media - and the threat posed to democratic institutions. Your thoughts and comments please to info@washminster.com

Unparliamentary Announcements

One of the criticisms made of (all) British Governments, is that they sometimes make announcements to the media, before informing Parliament. The House of Commons Library has produced a list (with inbuilt links to the statements themselves) of occasions on which the Speaker has commented on such extra-parliamentary policy announcements.

It is available here.

British Newspapers

There is an old story which seeks to explain the choice of newspapers by individual British readers. It actually has the ring of truth!

"The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country. The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country. The Times is read by people who actually do run the country. The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country. The Financial Times is read by people who own the country. The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country. The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is. The Independent is read by people who know the government runs the country, and The Sun is read by people who don't care who runs the country so long as they have big tits."

For a more authoritative account of this, watch the video