Tory lies, media bias and hope of real change

Labour just had its best day of the general election campaign yet. While Jeremy Corbyn drew huge crowds as he toured South West and West Midlands seats, Boris Johnson was confronted with evidence of the NHS in crisis. When asked by an ITV journalist to look at a photo of a child who was forced to sleep on the floor due to a lack of beds – the one splashed across The Mirror frontpage yesterday – the Prime Minister refused. He then pocketed the phone. I’m sure you’ve all seen the video already: it has now been viewed 9.4 million times on Twitter alone. Perhaps more importantly, it was shown first on BBC News at Ten.

Boris Johnson was branded a “disgrace” by Labour for his reaction. The problem for the Tories is that this kind of extremely odd behaviour taps into what the public already thinks of Johnson – that he is unrelatable and lacking in compassion – and therefore it cuts through. In order to distract from the story, those busy anonymous Tory sources got to work.

They told political editors – Laura Kuenssberg, Robert Peston, etc – that a Labour activist had punched Matt Hancock’s advisor outside Leeds hospital. And because Tories are given the benefit of the doubt despite repeatedly lying, and because journalism now often consists of tweeting something unverified as quickly as possible, those journalists duly relayed the claim on social media. Without a video proving the punching story wrong, the false reports would never have been corrected.

Labour insiders and activists are pleased that the NHS is dominating as the key political issue in these last few days of the campaign. The election broadcast also highlighted the voices of NHS workers and the words of American actor Rob Delaney, whose Labour-backing video went viral recently. There are still lots of undecideds and persuadables out there, and the Johnson clip could sway crucial voters in marginal Leave seats. And even if they don’t endorse Corbyn, they may stay home, feeling unable to cast a ballot for Johnson.

This is not the only reason that the Labour left in particular took heart from Johnson’s bad day. Many concluded that the public will be even less trusting of the mainstream media in the long term, and less likely to be taken in by Tory lies after this terrible campaign. But the tricky challenge for Labour is ensuring that this apathy doesn’t infect the left and lead to widespread disillusionment, which could make everyone less hopeful. That is far from ideal when Labour’s offer to the country is based on hope.

John McDonnell’s speech yesterday acknowledged that years of austerity have had the effect of “limiting people’s horizons”. Can we call out Tory lies and media bias without undermining hope of real change more generally?

Sienna @siennamarla

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