The Spectator’s Notes | 5 January 2017

‘My deep concern is that because of changed ways that news is now gathered, collated, packaged, delivered and displayed, the country can often find itself in… the tyrannical grip of the massed media… which could seriously threaten the political health of the United Kingdom as a Parliamentary democracy.’ This is from a letter I have received from Field Marshal Lord Bramall. Lord Bramall has reason to complain, since he was recently, in his nineties, the victim of preposterous child abuse allegations, invented by the fantasist ‘Nick’, fanned by the media, and wild-goose-chased by the Metropolitan Police. His complaint, however, goes much wider, including how the British media misread the Arab Spring and thus Syria. He wonders what should be done. When I was an editor, I could never answer such questions well. I said that the media should try to get news out rather than suppress it, but this didn’t justify publishing everything always.