David Vance SubstackRead More
Did you see that Labour’s Deputy Leader Lucy Powell has declared that social media sites should be faced with restrictions during elections in a similar way to broadcasters? Powell, a close ally of Andy Burnham, the probable next prime minister, will seek to tighten the Representation of the People Bill to place legal duties on platforms such as X and Facebook during election periods
You can see where this one is going, can’t you? Labour hates the fact that we can scrutinise, fact check and in every other way challenge the claims it makes. This is particularly true over on Elon Musk’s X/Twitter where Sir Keir Starmer is one of the most heavily “community noted” politicians on X! Ideally, Labour would ban X from the UK but I think they know that would be a big problem with Trump, for now. So instead, we see senior Labour figures like Lisa Nandy, Media Secretary, flounce off the site last week and taking her entire Department with her. This is them setting the battle up.
Labour face a mountainous task at the next Election and they want to try and game the system so that they control what you read and hear. Ofcom is their preferred weapon of censorship and all the mainstream broadcasters must comply with what Ofcom proclaims. But Ofcom is also now fully weaponised to try and compel the social media platforms to comply with its wishes. Ofcom does what the State wants it to do, so the threat to our freedom of speech is very high and likely to escalate under Burnham.
I don’t really see HOW they can restrict free comment on X/Twitter other than by threatening huge fines. And President Trump will be waiting if that try that on. But we can all see that Labour fears us saying what we think, it has been a distinguishing characteristic of their time in Government. There are millions of people on social media and many have the lightning like ability to fact check the likes of Lucy Powell and Andy Burnham. Lies and half truth can be exposed, and to a huge audience. That can impact on a General Election and Labour know this. And want to stop it.
They want the world where the BBC is your source of truth and balance at Election Time. It’s their only chance to survive.
Truth is too dangerous for Labour.
