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Saturday 30 May 2009

Deliberate, or Coincidence?

Whilst listening to the radio this morning & hearing a discussion about the current MP's expenses scandal, here in the UK. A thought suddenly struck me. Have these revelations been carefully planned, time wise?
What do i mean?
Well, here in the UK we are due to hold elections next week, June 4th to be precise. These elections are primarily for the election of members to the European Parliament. There are also some Local Council elections as well. But, the European elections are getting nearly all of the publicity.
Now, it is pretty well known that the newspaper that has been publishing the revelations about MP's expenses, The Daily Telegraph, has right of centre political leanings. And, it will also not be news to many of us, that the vast majority of people who's political views lean to the right are, normally, not very well disposed to the UK's membership of the European Community.
There are exceptions to every rule, of course. But, i believe this holds true in this case.

One of the main outcomes of these expenses revelations, has been a drifting away of public support from the three main political parties, Labour, the Conservatives & the Liberal Democrats. Who hold the vast majority of seats at Westminster.
The political parties who appear to be benefitting from this drift of support, are the smaller fringe parties. None of whom, i believe, have any seats at Westminster & are therefore not caught up in any of the current scandal.
With the notable exception of the Green Party, the other fringe parties are mostly all anti-Europe. Especially the parties who stand to gain the most out of all the fallout at the European elections. Notably the UK Independence Party & the British National Party.

Can you see where i'm going with this yet? I suspect you're ahead of me. But, i'll explain anyway.

It is widely thought that at the European elections, on Thursday, the fringe parties will get a bigger than usual share of the vote & therefore more than the normally expected number of seats in the European Parliament. This is because voters will either not vote at all, or they will use their vote as a protest against the three main parties. Something i will quite probably do myself. But, not only for that reason i hasten to add.
The main consequence of this will be far more Euro-sceptic members, from the UK, in the European Parliament.
Another possible consequence, will be hardening of anti-European policy from the main political parties, especially from the Conservatives. As they try to appeal to those disgruntled voters who deserted them for the anti-European parties at the Euro elections.

So, the question is.
Did the Daily Telegraph plan the timing of this so that the scandal was out in the open before the Euro elections? Thereby ensuring that a far bigger than normal anti-European vote was cast by the electorate.
This is an outcome that the Daily Telegraph would normally be quite happy with.
They could quite easily have held back the stories about MP's expenses until after the elections. The Daily Telegraph had already purchased the story from their source & it was therefore not likely to be published by anyone else. And the official announcements on MP's espenses were not due to be published until July.

So, was it a deliberate ploy?

I'll let you decide...

2 comments:

  1. There are no coincidences. Now, whether the timing was purely the agenda of the Daily Telegraph, or whether there's somebody else behind timing the leak of the info who knew he'd find a friendly ear at the Daily Telegraph, you'll never know. But pure coincidence? I really doubt it.

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  2. Well Ken. I do know that the story had been offered to other newspapers before the Daily Telegraph paid for it. So, i don't believe that the seller had an agenda, other than money & wanting the story "out there".
    I'm not sure i can say the same for the Daily Telegraph though.

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