A friend of mine who now lives in Australia sent me a message last night.

“I’m just listening to Five Live now. It obviously gets no coverage here as no one would know who Hugh Edwards is. But yes, so weird that the Sun is trying to take a moral high ground when it’s lived off smut for years. And just totally about Murdoch trying to whip up a storm against the BBC. I don’t understand why people are ever against public broadcasting. I find it bizarre.”

I found that a really thought-provoking sentence. Why would people prefer to pay subscriptions for populist and vindictive journalism (where the paymasters are non-domicile tax dodgers) when they can receive a better news service through a license fee? The BBC has had its issues lately, especially when Boris Johnson tried to install a right-wing cabal but it is a case of ’twas ever thus. Governments of all parties have always tried to influence the BBC whilst they are in power. Johnson took it to another level and got caught out. His credibility is now in bits. In what could be a remake of the Meatloaf song, long-standing Tory members decided, “I will do anything for the Tories, but I won’t do that”.

Nuclear Attack on Public Broadcasting

It doesn’t stop there for Murdoch and his mob though. They are out to destroy public broadcasting and they don’t care how they do it. The Huw Edwards ‘scandal’ is a perfect case in point. It is increasingly apparent that this is not about morality, it’s about a nuclear attack on the BBC. The Sun thought they had enough ammunition to send the BBC into oblivion. The Sun knew the demographic they were appealing to. Former editor, Kelvin Mackenzie even admitted it in an interview many years ago when describing his readers.

He’s the bloke you see in the pub — a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he’s afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and weirdoes and drug dealers. He doesn’t want to hear about that stuff (politics)!’ 

Perfect Partners – The Sun and Double Standards

The Sun was hoping they had more on Edwards than their evidence suggested, so they ran with it. They hoped the BBC was going to rally around Edwards, go into denial, and frantically try to brush the allegations under the carpet. Wrong. The BBC played a blinder, they immediately suspended Edwards whilst they investigated the claims. When the police got involved they halted their investigation so as not to hamper the work of officers. They were open with their broadcasting of the allegations but adhered to employment law and duty of care to an employee until the full facts were known.

The Sun hates that sort of thing but they love double standards. A matter of weeks ago and several times during and after Brexit, they were claiming ‘Kangaroo Courts’ were out to get proven liar, Boris Johnson. Yet, morally upstanding journalists that they are, they were prepared to go full ‘Kangaroo Court’ when it came to Edwards. Homophobia, hatred of the BBC, and apathy towards mental health all came into play. These are all things that the barstool fascists that Mackenzie alluded to, love a bit of.

Faux Depression Awareness

With regard to Edwards, who knows what is going on in his life? We can all make baseless assumptions about his sexuality but as far as I can see, if it is not illegal, it’s no business of mine or anyone else, only his family. The BBC may have to make a decision about his conduct towards fellow employees and it may be that his problems have led him to lash out and bullying, which is clearly a disciplinary issue. What is immediately apparent, is that he is obviously in a desperate place that I wouldn’t wish on anyone apart from Rod Liddle.

Finally, I have seen memes going around, mocking Edwards for using depression as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Some of these have been shared by people who try to make themselves look decent by sharing posts about the tragedy of men’s mental health and the suicide rate in the under 50s. Make your mind up guys (it’s mostly men doing this) you either care about mental health or you don’t. Or are you the same people who clapped nurses on your doorstep and are now demanding the lazy fuckers get back to work? If so, you are, in effect, working for free as one of Murdoch’s boot boys. How sad is that?

If anyone is still in doubt about Edwards having mental health issues, click on the link below for an interview from spring 2022.

Edwards – Men’s Health

*When I was young, a copy of The Sun somehow ended up on our dining room table. My mother screwed it up and said something along the lines of “not having that rag in her house”. The same rule will always apply in this one.