Comrade Corbyn: A threat to free speech

CYNICALLY posturing as a defender of journalism in his speech to the Edinburgh TV Festival yesterday, former Morning Star columnist Jeremy Corbyn praised reporters who challenge ‘unaccountable power’ and ‘expose things the rich and powerful would rather keep hidden’.

Forgive the Mail for taking Mr Corbyn’s platitudes with an extremely large pinch of salt. For when it comes to stories about his shameful past, the Labour leader appears altogether less keen on Press scrutiny.

Indeed, Labour’s response to this paper’s story about his attendance at a ceremony which honoured the fanatics who masterminded the Munich massacre was full of obfuscation and spin.

And only minutes after uttering those warm words yesterday, Mr Corbyn refused to answer straightforward questions about Brexit. So much for believing in journalists holding the powerful to account!

Indeed, this is the man who, when challenged over his Cold War contacts with a spy from Communist Czechoslovakia, responded with a menacing threat to Press freedom. His deputy, Tom Watson, accepted £540,000 from press-hating former F1 boss Max Mosley and together they have backed pernicious changes to the law which would drive many newspapers out of business.

Isn’t the truth that Mr Corbyn regards as the enemy news outlets which fail to subscribe to his hard-Left politics and relies on an army of Twitter propagandists to peddle his distorted worldview? As for his proposal to tax internet giants to fund journalism ‘cooperatives’, who will decide where the money goes? Will it be Mr Corbyn’s critics who benefit or websites run by his fellow travellers?

Meanwhile, his plans for BBC staff to reveal their social background are the politics of class resentment in their purest form. Where does it end? With journalists being elbowed out because they’re too middle class?

For anyone who believes in free speech, and the public’s right to know, the prospect of this unreconstructed Marxist in Downing Street is chilling indeed.