Probe into STV’s ‘Korean-style propaganda’

STV is probing how ‘North Korean propaganda’ style videos of children praising Nicola Sturgeon for ‘keeping them safe’ during the Covid-19 crisis were shown on its social media feed.

The channel’s digital team posted a series of clips at the weekend before removing them amid a political backlash. Critics compared the footage, reportedly filmed by parents and sent to the broadcaster, with propaganda films backing Kim Jong-un.

The clips featured boys and girls lauding the First Minister for her handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

Labour MP Ian Murray tweeted: ‘Scotland has 5th worst death rate in Europe. How about the broadcast media do their job and scrutinise.’

And viewer Mary Galbraith wrote: ‘It really is akin to North Korea where uncritical praise of the Dear Leader looks like this.’

STV’s head of news Steven Ladurantaye initially tried to defend the footage before admitting the clip should not have been published.

A spokesman for STV said that the incident was being ‘looked into’.

NO apology, no regret, no resignation. Just a grudging admission that things might have gone better had he fessed up earlier. Dominic Cummings doesn’t do repentance or humility or resignation.

And he certainly didn’t do a good job yesterday of convincing the nation that his violation of the coronavirus lockdown was justified.

It was a surreal piece of theatre that took place in the garden of No10, traditionally the arena for strategic political announcements.

There was Mr Cummings, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, his belly crammed full of humble pie force fed to him by the Downing Street press office, trying to defuse a scandal that is threatening to engulf the entire Government and derail the fight against Covid-19.

And how did he do? The Duke of York’s car-crash interview concerning his friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein springs to mind.

A painful mea culpa that was not a mea culpa – an extended exercise in grudging self-justification extracted with a jemmy from a subject who simply can’t see what the fuss is about.

At the height of the epidemic, Mr Cummings drove 260 miles with his wife and son to a family-owned cottage in County Durham, flagrantly disregarding the message he himself devised: Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives. And by his own admission, while there, he and his family embarked on a 60-mile round trip to a beauty spot near Barnard Castle – on his wife’s birthday.

This was his Pizza Express moment. Prince Andrew, it will be painfully recalled, used his attendance at the Woking branch of this restaurant chain as an alibi during his television grilling over Epstein. Mr Cummings’ excuse for his outing – punishable by fine if without good cause – was no less improbable. He was, he said, testing his eyesight in preparation for the return drive to his home in London.

As credulity was stretched to breaking point, we learned that Mr Cummings had taken the decision to decamp to an entirely different part of the country on the spur of the moment without bothering to consult Mr Johnson, who was sick with Covid-19. The reason for the trip was fear for his son’s welfare if he and his wife fell ill.

This was a dilemma of the kind faced by millions of people during the lockdown. Except that they stayed put.

Did he regret the decision? No. Would he apologise? No. Had he offered his resignation for undermining a crucial public health campaign during an epidemic that has so far claimed 37,000 lives? Fat chance.

This charade – a hastily concocted damage-limitation exercise – took place in the Rose Garden. As temporary civil servants, special advisers are meant to be neither seen nor heard in public. But Mr Cummings is no ordinary special adviser.

Until now, he has been Mr Johnson’s principal strategist, the supposed guiding intelligence behind Brexit and the General Election. There he sat, a thorn between roses. A thorn in the side of the Prime Minister, who an hour later was advising the public to keep washing their hands. Mr Johnson took his own advice and washed his hands of Mr Cummings. The public, he said, would have to make up their own minds about the aide.

Imagine, God forbid, that the Government is forced to announce a second lockdown. How could it be enforced if a man who flouted the current one is still in power?

Clearly, the PM has adopted a new mantra as an act of political self-preservation: Stay away from Cummings. Protect yourself. Save one’s skin. For his own good, and the good of the country, he must divest himself of his turbulent lieutenant, and solve this problem, once and for all.