The Dulwich Horror

Citizen archivists and the secret history of modern Britain

Many years ago, I worked on a project about the BBC’s handling of immigration, a pamphlet commissioned by the recently departed and much-loved Peter Whittle. The typical Beeb news cycle of the 2000s went something like this: a Conservative would say something vaguely controversial, like ‘I don’t think we should have a zillion immigrants coming here every year,’ and Radio 4 would lead with a story about ‘Tory MP in race row’, providing half a dozen news slots as each tiny development kept it in the cycle. Some representative of civil society (i.e. a taxpayer-funded ‘charity’) would condemn the politician in question, followed by the Home Affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, always guaranteed to support the government on the subject just as the KPRF always supports the Kremlin on matters of real importance. Dark allusions would be made to the Second World War, inviting listeners and viewers to reflect on ‘where this all leads’.

Journalists especially enjoy the thrill of the chase, going after an errant politician who has been caught lying or ‘done a racism’, until one of their spears takes him down. ‘Rigmarole’ – the day-to-day drama of Westminster gossip – is the essence of political journalism, but it was clear that the people running the BBC’s news department were sympathetic to the government line. It always worked: the Tories gave in and apologised, and the impression was reinforced that there was a clear Overton Window in place, outside of which ‘there be Hitlers’.

The story about Nigel Farage’s schooldays, and the alleged racist comments he made, illustrates how different our political world is from those heady Noughties days of libertine sexual mores, free-flowing comedic offensiveness and political conformity.

Just as teenage boys of the 2000s guffawed at rape jokes on Sickipedia, I can well believe that the teenage Farage of the 1970s said outrageous and offensive things, and also that such comments were fairly common at the time. I can also believe that his classmates, now coming out in force, didn’t much think about the matter until much later, when half-remembered schoolboy conversations gained post hoc meaning.

Veteran broadcaster Michael Crick calls it ‘the biggest crisis of Farage’s career’, but I’m so sure: in the 2000s, maybe, but not now. It may alienate minority voters, but they’re hardly his core support, and I imagine that it will have very little impact among the 30 per cent of the population so filled with despair they will make Farage prime minister. To those who hate him, and who dread his rule – including, quite clearly, many journalists – it will confirm their opinion that he is a bad person, but the ability of the media to shape the narrative has hugely declined.

There are just too many ‘news cycles’ going on, the media diet has fractured, and everyone’s concentration span has been shattered. Enough voters now get their news from social media, and live in their own bubbles, that mainstream journalism can just be ignored. The Today programme’s influence, once seismic, has sharply declined as listening figures have collapsed. Declining newspaper sales may be compensated by a larger online presence, but they’re competing with a far larger market able competing in the attention economy. All of this may be bad for our democracy, but it’s the reality.

More importantly, and following the lead of Trump, who was able to resist the media’s attempts to use shame by being utterly shameless, Right-wing politicians have learned that there is no point in apologising and conceding when faced with media storms; your core vote won’t care, and liberals will feel more, not less, inclined to punish you. Even when you’re bang to rights, enough people will think that a biased media is out to get you, which hardly seems unreasonable when in this case they are demanding that politicians apologise for things they said as a schoolboy.