Last week I became an ex-subscriber to The Times newspaper. Here’s why.
Newspapers, real ones, have long been part of my life’s rhythm. The daily walk to pick one up, (in pre-internet days more than one); the pleasure of reading others’ views well expressed, chiming with one’s worldview – or not.
I’ve subscribed to The Times for years. I’ve admired its investigative journalism from the recent report into the disgraceful way workers at the company, Action Fraud, handled complainants’ cases to Andrew Norfolk’s painstaking work on the Rotherham child abuse scandal, and the other important abuse cases he brought to the public’s attention.
The Times tried, and generally succeeded, in being even-handed in its coverage of the referendum, opting to support Remain albeit rather half-heartedly on occasions which I put down to the fact that Michael Gove still had a ghostly presence in Times meetings, given he was a leader writer before he turned his attention to improving our schools at the expense of art, cookery and drama. (BTW who is looking after our creative industries, which according to YouGov contributed £101.5bn to the economy in 2018? They barely get a mention...)
After June 2016, the paper had to contend with the realisation that its readers, like many of its writers, had split into the Brexit camps. As time has gone on, these two camps have themselves splintered further and, unfortunately for Leavers and Remainers alike, the fundamentalists are now in power. The Times has shifted its position accordingly to the extent that it openly supports the current Prime Minister's vision, and the disgraceful turncoats in his Cabinet, (Gove, Raab, Javid and Rudd who'd all feigned disgust at a prorogue scenario a mere month ago...)
When I read The Times leader last Friday, August 30th, headline: ‘Calm Down’, I assumed it must be referring to Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings et al, and that it would roundly criticise their unconstitutional conduct. I soon realised that I was gravely mistaken when the sub-heading declared that: ‘It is wrong, and hysterical, to speak of a coup.’
If secretly planning the proroguing of parliament for the longest period in the past seventy-five years, lying that it was happening at all, while arranging a flight to meet with The Queen to obtain her assent before anyone discovers what you’re up to, is not a coup, what, pray, is it?
After faffing around on the phone to The Times (you can’t cancel a subscription online – although you can of course subscribe online), I learnt that as I’d paid a month in advance via direct debit the day before, I couldn’t cancel for another four weeks!
The loss of one subscriber to The Times is neither here nor there, except I couldn’t resist asking the helpful person at the end of the phone: “Am I the only one cancelling today as a result of this editorial?”
They understandably didn’t want to answer.
“You don’t have to speak, silence is enough.”
Silence was enough.
I then double checked how ‘coup’ is defined in three reputable dictionaries.
1. Collins: A brilliant and successful stroke or action. Also short for coup d’état.
2. OED: A sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.
3. Merriam-Webster: A sudden decisive exercise of force in politics.
All the above nutshell last week’s sudden and successful action to prorogue the UK parliament. Not to mention the subsequent move to stop 'rebel' MPs from standing at the next election.
Violence doesn’t have to involve tanks or gunshots – violence is also about threat and coercive control (think of the now-wider definition of domestic violence to include other forms of abuse). For example, seizing a special adviser’s private phone because she might have dared speak to her ex-boss, the former Chancellor. Then trying to discover if she was the culprit who'd leaked the government’s own Operation Yellowhammer report on the implications of a no-deal Brexit on the UK economy and services. Information, incidentally, which we the public have every right to see. She didn’t do either of these heinous acts. However, that didn’t stop coup-controleur-en-chef Dominic Cummings, from calling in a police officer, allegedly armed, to escort her from number 10. The third woman to depart since this administration moved in.
If I’m ‘wrong and hysterical’ in describing proroguing parliament as a ‘coup’, not to mention this government's subsequent threats to its own MPs, long may I continue to be wrong and hysterical. I regard the label as a badge of honour.
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