Media bias highlighted by Watson vote affair

Write to: Viewpoints, M.E.N, Mitchell Henry House, Hollinwood Avenue, Oldham, OL9 8EF Or email: viewpoints@men-news.co.uk

MEDIA coverage of the recent Labour Party Conference – and particularly the Tom Watson affair – certainly exposed the bias and limitations of modern British journalism.

Objections about Mr Watson’s anti-Labour-party behaviour engendered 38,000 petition signatories of no confidence in him on change.org, though despite the large numbers demanding an election of the position of deputy leader, this was mysteriously censored.

This was supported in May by an open letter of mass signatories again expressing no confidence in Mr Watson and similarly demanding an election of this post which was also censored by the media.

The largest constituency Labour Party – Hornsey & Wood Green – followed by many others also voted en masse in July demanding an election of this post, once again media coverage censored this.

Given that Mr Watson wouldn’t submit to the democratic election process that Jeremy Corbyn was willing to engage in – accommodating the challenge of Owen Smith inside a mere 18 months after his first leadership election win – delegates even planned to ‘shun’ and boycott the hall, when Mr Watson spoke at conference. Having omitted all these details the public was suddenly deluged in sensationalist media ‘outrage,’ when the Party at the end of its tether had to consider abolishing Mr Watson’s position altogether.

Indicative of the bias and double standards employed in the coverage, it’s worth noting that among the establishment critics of party scrutiny of Tom Watson, was Ed Miliband who hypocritically was himself willing to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections – though once again you wouldn’t have been reminded of this by the media. Gavin Lewis, Manchester