Journalism Not Protest

1/7/2020 – Blog One

It’s Thursday May 28th and I am on talkRADIO, trying to explain as diplomatically as possible to Ian Collins, the host of the show, why I have spent 3 mornings in a row outside of Dominic Cummings’ house. TalkRADIO is owned by the Wireless Group, which is owned by News Corp, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. The host has spent the morning analysing why Emily Maitlis is wrong to criticise Cummings (everyone agrees) and why Cummings shouldn’t resign (mixed reception). Somehow, Ian and I manage a civilised conversation for 8 minutes, in which I’m given the space to heavily criticise Cummings without ever quite getting to the punchline, what I said and how he responded.

If you’re on this site, you’ve probably seen the video below of me asking Cummings the 2nd of 3 questions, if he knew there had been as many deaths recorded in the UK in the previous 24 hours as in Europe (excluding Russia) put together, and if he felt responsible. I spent the rest of the week sharing it relentlessly over Twitter, ending up with 5,000 views. Watching normal people react to it with shock and anger, as journalists and politicians saw it as – unremarkable I suppose. Just a man walking to a car while some guy with a phone camera on talks to him. The political class were either still thinking they could oust Cummings by picking holes in clearly fabricated stories, or moving on like it was yesterday’s news.

By the weekend, Labour politicians changed their names on social media to add #icantbreathe, referencing George Floyd, leading to unfocused lockdown-breaking protests. Just half a mile east of Mr Cummings’ four storey house was the Western Border of the stretch of North East London from Newham to Tottenham that had left it’s old residents behind. The 14 year construction site inbetween ‘winning’ the Olympics bid and finishing the new Tottenham Stadium. The ‘regeneration’ of placing the urban elite in £400k two bed flats next to the displaced and defunded local community. The area worst hit by Boris Johnson closing police stations and buying helicopters, as if this was an 80s Chuck Norris Action Movie.

The third of four days spent watching this man whose wife claimed he ‘worked 16 hour days’ leave around 8:30am, which must get him to the office for 9:30am at the earliest. How the first day he had spent 10-15 minutes building up the courage to leave the house…

That’s what talkRADIO will never understand, that attitude that his infected every newspaper, TV channel and political website in the UK. The only disruptive protestors present were the journalists.

Except they weren’t journalists, but photographers who each carried three cameras, each worth £10k+, we’ll get in the next post.