The Labour Party wants to give the BBC even greater prominence than it already enjoys.
Britain’s retreat from free speech has been going on for decades. But the pace of its state-backed muzzling of opinion has picked up in recent years. The radicalized centrists who constitute the U.K.’s establishment are panicking that online opinion is disrupting their narrative. This could be tricky, because that storyline — from the beneficial effects of mass immigration to the necessity of net-zero — is daily becoming more detached from anything that can be passed off as reality. Appallingly. Britain’s Tories, whether out of (past?) center-left sympathies or — and this still seems to apply under their latest leader — nanny-statism, have gone along with this. Sometimes, Britain’s Conservatives are the left’s fellow travelers; on others, merely useful idiots.
But it is not enough to smother dissent. The “correct” story has to be transmitted wherever and whenever possible, sometimes subtly and sometimes not.
This time counts as a “not.”
From the Daily Telegraph:
Sir Keir Starmer wants to force social networks and video platforms to make BBC content more prominent.
Under plans to further restrict private media firms, news from public service broadcasters would be given priority to fight “disinformation”.
The Telegraph reports that, according to Britain’s state censor, Ofcom, “Three-quarters of young people aged 16–24 mainly consume news through social media.” “Mainly” might be doing a bit of work here, but the next few words in the Telegraph‘s report illustrate the depth of the establishment’s concern:
More than half of all British adults list social media as one of their main news sources.
So, social media’s merely being “one of” the principal news sources is deemed to be a reason for state intervention. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that BBC content often makes its way onto social media too.
Naturally, Starmer cites the spread of “misinformation” and “disinformation,” terms that, along with “for the children,” are beloved by authoritarians on the make.
Not satisfied with that, Starmer’s Sturmtroopers are throwing in a few more moral panics:
Government sources fear that trustworthy news outlets are increasingly undermined by the growth of content promoted by algorithms and sometimes generated by artificial intelligence.
AI — Check
Algorithms — Check
If Starmer steps down (which could happen soon), his successor is most unlikely to change course. The authoritarian effort to spread fear of “algorithms” is telling. It reflects an exaggerated belief in a high level of human manipulability. In reality, roughly three-quarters of Britons distrust the news they see on social media. Authoritarians’ faith in human manipulability reflects their self-regard (they, of course, are more than mere meat puppets) and fuels their determination to be the manipulators.
And so the Labour Party wants to ensure that the BBC, Britain’s leftist state broadcaster, is handed even greater prominence than it already enjoys.
The BBC (July 2025):
The BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25 published today (15 July) reveals that we are informing, educating and entertaining 94% of UK adults on average, every month, and we remain the number one brand for media in the UK. . . .
74% of UK adults use BBC News on average per week — well ahead of the next nearest provider.
36% of 12–15-year-olds in the UK follow the news with the BBC, which is higher than any other organization.
And, of course, a good number of those tuning in to the BBC do so online, either directly or (as mentioned above) via social media. But that is not enough, apparently.