BBC political editor Chris Mason is just another in a long line of establishment shills at the broadcaster – following on from his infamous predecessor Laura Kuenssberg. However, at least the latter was a bit better at covering up the fact she was little more than a mouthpiece for the state. Mason inadvertently exposed during BBC News at Ten how corporate journalists like him help push the establishment’s line (and manipulate the rest of us into voting for its politicians) – even when it comes to war, armageddon, Keir Starmer, and the general election.
Push the button for the general election, Starmer
On Monday 3 June, BBC News at Ten host Fiona Bruce was presenting a segment on the Labour Party campaign. She said:
Keir Starmer says if he becomes PM he would be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend the UK.
We can hear you collectively groaning. This is because the ‘if I was PM I would of course kill us all by firing our nuclear weapons’ is becoming a mainstay of general and party leadership elections in recent years. Theresa May did it in 2017. Liz Truss did it in 2022. They all wheel it out thinking it makes them look patriotic – when in fact it makes them look idiotic.
However, on 3 June Mason actually exposed all these politicians as being even more idiotic; something he probably didn’t mean to do.
Mason was at the press conference where Starmer said:
[Nuclear weapons] a vital part of our defence, and of course that means we have to be prepared to use it.
But Starmer didn’t say this off the cuff.
Mason: stenographer for the state
Oh no, he didn’t. It was Mason who asked the question in the first place – giving the BBC its headline. He said, all the while looking down at his pre-prepared notes:
Keir Starmer, you could be prime minister next month. If circumstances necessitated it, would you authorise the firing of nuclear weapons, yes or no?
So Starmer seemingly wasn’t going to mention ‘pressing the button’, until Mason asked him.
This is not the first time the Labour leader has said this. But notice the pattern. Because as World Socialist Web Site documented, every time Starmer says ‘yes, I’ll push the button’, it’s in response to the question from a corporate journalist.
You would be forgiven for thinking ‘well, maybe it’s Labour briefing these hacks to ask this’. However, casting our minds back to the last decade appears to show different.
Of course, it was the same for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. A journalist asked him in 2016. Corbyn said no, setting in motion a ferocious backlash from the right of the party. Fast forward to the 2017 general election, and another one of Mason’s equally state-servile predecessors, Andrew Marr, asked Corbyn again. However, this time the then-Labour leader dodged answering properly.
So, establishment lickspittles like Mason are just as war-mongering as the politicians they perform metaphoric fellatio on. However, there is an ironic twist with all of this.
Whose nuclear weapons?
For years, corporate hacks (or stenographers, depending on who we’re talking about) have pushed, pushed, and pushed some more on pushing the button. In reality, though, it’s been well documented that the UK’s nuclear weapons are reliant on the US for their production and maintenance.
This makes the UK using them a grey area, due to the ‘politics and diplomacy’ of it all. While the UK technically has independent control over its nuclear weapons, as a Defence Select Committee report noted, the only time we’d probably fire ours would be to:
give legitimacy to a US nuclear attack by participating in it.
Second invasion of Iraq, anyone?
Starmer: my dick is the biggest and I can wave it the hardest
The point being, Mason and his ilk know full well the geopolitics of the UK’s nuclear weapons. But instead, they choose to manipulate the public into voting for which establishment politician in a suit can wave their dick the hardest – all in the name of some colonial-era notion of patriotism, and some easy headlines.
Maybe Starmer should just press the button when he becomes PM, and put us all out of our misery.
Featured image via the Canary
