There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
How they made us doubt everything
A new series looking at the war on truth that began in the 1950s shows that it's not the propaganda efforts of foreign states that threatens humanity — it's corporate PR, writes IAN SINCLAIR
Just as concern about smoking and health led to industry competitors working together to save their businesses, following the Kyoto Protocol committing states to reduce the carbon emissions, Exxon and others poured millions into climate change denial
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
“THE twentieth century has been characterised by three developments of great political importance,” Alex Carey noted in his seminal 1995 book Taking the Risk Out of Democracy, “the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”
The Australian writer’s analysis is well illustrated by the engrossing 10-part BBC Radio 4 series How They Made Us Doubt Everything.
Presented by Peter Pomerantsev, author of the 2019 book This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, the series looks at how corporate public relations firms engineered doubt about the connection between smoking and cancer in the 1960s and then used similar tactics to manufacture doubt about climate change.
More from this author
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
New releases from Allo Darlin’, Loyle Carner and Mike Polizze
New releases from Toby Hay, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars
As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion
