I mentioned (THUNDERING LIARS Part 1) being vindicated by Britain’s old PRESS COUNCIL when I complained of a false report in THE TIMES. The morning the embargo on the Council’s adjudication was lifted I stayed at home with ‘flu and turning on Radio 4 was delighted to hear that the first item on the News concerned the Press Council.
I’m sure it will surprise you that the fact that THE TIMES had been censured for lying about events in Ireland was ignored by the publicly funded BBC and the capitalist Guardian, the Labour supporting Mirror and the Communist Morning Star? THE TIMES carried the Press Council statement. But there was no report of the adjudication nor any comment in the other British papers.
The IRISH POST weekly, published in London, then edited by the late Breandan MacLua carried the story and commented.
The BBC’s story arose from the photograph in a tabloid of a young, fit, and attractive pregnant married woman in a bikini. It was not scandalous, indecorous or indecent She had been married some months and her wedding had not been a secret. Her name was Diana. The Press Council was called in. Before ONE might say “DOWN, CORGI!” the Press Council condemned the paper and its adjudication was reported on by virtually every media organ in Britain and her territories.
A few months later, all on the one morning, THE DAILY EXPRESS, THE DAILY STAR & THE DAILY MAIL printed precisely the same lie which had earned THE TIMESIts reprimand. This time the lie was published in an attack on Ken Livingstone. A Mr Conlan in Liverpool, who had been in contact with me complained to the PRESS COUNCIL about THE DAILY EXPRESS & THE DAILY STAR. Nine months later THE PRESS COUNCIL upheld his complaint. I complained about the DAILY MAIL but, the PRESS COUNCIL dared not uphold my complaint because the lie Had gone out under the name of SIR HUMPHRIEY ATKINS, Secretary of State For Northern Ireland.
The DAILY EXPRESS and THE DAILY STAR editorially defended the lie. The Daily Mail buried a correction in about two lines, with no mention of Atkins.THE BBC, funded by licence payers, some of whom expect the truth from it, ignored the repeated lying.
Shortly thereafter the PRESS COUNCIL changed its name to THE PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION. Atkins also changed his name – to BARON COLNBROOK Then he became a member of THE PRESS COMPLANTS COMMITTEE. I understand that was a not PRO BONO PUBLICO move but that it was well remunerated.
I have heard on Radio 4 a few years ago a play suggesting that there was a plot in Ireland to welcome a German invasion and for de Valera to act as a collaborator. How any responsible broadcaster should commission or accept such a travesty is unbelievable. Never once did de Valera, by word, act, or omission, support fascist, francoist or Nazi ideas or conduct, or aggression by any powers, The Unionist IRISH TIMES, virulently anti-Fianna Fail editorially welcomed Hitler’s accession to power in 1933. Fine Gael, de Valera’s equally virulent enemies, adopted Fascist salutes, ideas and swaggering thuggery, championed the Fascist invasion of Abyssinia, and sent its own dupes to fight for Franco in Spain. De Valera was throughout his long political life a democrat.
The BBC also commissioned or accepted a programme called IRELAND’S HATED HERO. The hated hero was de Valera. Elected to lead 10 Irish Governments and to two seven year terms as Head of State Between 1919 and 1973, elected President of the General Assembly of the League of Nation in 1932, and President of its Council of Ministers in 1936. Out of office in 1948 De Valera received a hero’s welcome in newly liberated India, the world’s most populous democracy.
De Valera a hated hero?
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