The West is attempting to manufacture consent for a ground invasion of Iran, just like it did with Iraq in 2001.

From supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine, to funding the arms industry, it is clear that the West has only one goal for the Middle East: unrelenting destabilisation founded on neo-colonialism.

This is no different to Iraq in 2003. At the time, journalists failed to challenge the US government’s narratives about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s links to al-Qaeda. Essentially, this failure is what created public support for the US to invade Iraq.

Iran war: how does the manufacture of consent work?

Manufacturing consent describes how a ‘free media’ – one without government censorship or fear of prison for journalists, and staffed by people who genuinely see themselves as holding power to account – still ends up producing systemic propaganda with a single, consistent message.

This can be inadvertent or intentional, and is usually done by letting the accounts of Western governments go unchallenged,

For example, in Gaza, instead of challenging statements from the Israeli government and military, or the US government, Western journalists just print the statements. They may as well be stenographers for state-run media.

Similarly, outlets like the BBC, Sky News, ITV, and Reuters frame Israeli attacks as ‘Palestinians killed’. They do this without mentioning who or what killed them. Did Darth Vader kill them?

Alternatively, when reporting on Palestinian deaths, they use the line ‘according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry’. This casts doubt on how many Palestinians Israel actually murdered.

Now, Israelis are dying from Iranian attacks. However, Western media do not report the deaths ‘according to the Likud-run Health Ministry’. They are presented as unquestioned facts. The tiny differences in language go a long way in shaping public opinion.

Additionally, the Israeli government has continuously told the world that it only targets Hamas in Gaza, despite carpet bombing the whole strip into oblivion. Western media have not challenged that narrative. This means that now Israel is getting away with the same lines about Hezbollah and the Iranian ‘regime’.

Media monopoly

Three companies control 90% of the UK’s newspaper circulation. These three companies are all owned by the ultra-wealthy.

And one man – Rupert Murdoch – owns around one-third of British newspapers. However, he also owns over 50% of Australian news outlets and some of the biggest news organisations in the US.

Murdoch is a staunch Zionist.

Benjamin Netanyahu once said:

Rupert Murdoch became a close friend to both me and Israel. He was always a staunch supporter of Israel and viewed it as the foundation stone of the free world in the Middle East. Israel has not had a better friend.

So, of course, when a billionaire and friend of Netanyahu, who also happens to be mentioned in the Epstein files, controls so much of the West’s media, how can we expect anything but a system which unequivocally supports the bullshit that comes out of our leaders’ mouths?

Deigo Garcia

Now, we have a situation where the Wall Street Journal have published an article stating that Iran fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at Diego Garcia, a UK/US base in the indian ocean.

Of course, it is typical of a corporate, Zionist-owned media outlet to put out that headline and then use a paywall to prevent people from reading who the actual sources are behind the claims.

Importantly, Iranian officials have denied that Iran was behind the attacks. Even NATO has said it “cannot confirm” Israel’s claim that the missiles were Iranian.

Yet, despite this, almost every news outlet between the UK and Mars published the same story, with no additional evidence, verification, or proof.

In the original article, the ‘sources’ are ‘multiple US officials’ – who are, of course, unnamed.

The article then quotes Iran Watch, which is part of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.

It claims that:

Iran has operational missiles that can reach 2,500 miles. Israel’s Alma Research and Education Centre put the top range for Iranian missiles at around 1,900 miles, but said there are reports of their weapons being developed with longer ranges. 

In 2015, Middle East Eye wrote:

WINEP is part of a vibrant “Iran watch” industry. Many of this industry’s players whipped up fear about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent chemical and biological weapons before the invasion of Iraq. Without displaying any signs of embarrassment about their past blunders, they are now posing as experts on the “threat” from neighbouring Iran.

The founder is Gary Milhollin. He is one of the same ‘experts’ who warned about Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, he said:

every Western intelligence service believes Saddam Hussein possessed a mass destruction arsenal.

So now, the Wall Street Journal has chosen to repeat the unverified claims of a man who we know lied about weapons of mass destruction. And they’ve done it behind a paywall, knowing most people will not be able to access the whole article. I don’t think I need to say anymore.

Editorial oversight?

The media has learnt no lessons in over 20 years. Outlets on both sides of the Atlantic have spent two and a half years whitewashing Israel’s crimes and ultimately created the exact conditions the terrorist state needed to further its Greater Israel project and invade both Lebanon and Iran.

Is the editorial oversight coming from Israel itself? Were the headlines promised to Israel 3000 years ago? Or are most Western journalists just lazy and publishing information without checking sources?

There is no surprise that in the last 24 hours, Israel has suddenly lifted its media censorship. And there can only be one reason for it – using the destruction in the videos as a tool to manufacture consent for whatever hell they’re planning next.

There is no justification for genocide, and every single time they repeat Israel’s claims, they further obscure and justify Israel’s and the US’s war crimes, and repeat the travesties of the Iraq war. 

Featured image via The Independent/YouTube

Amy Leversidge, General Secretary of the British Airlines Pilots’ Association (BALPA)

Every flight is a promise of something new. A deal struck, a market opened, a well-de­served holiday. Britain’s avia­tion sector is expanding, and the government’s ambition is for it to expand still further. More connections. More opportunity. More of what aviation, at its best, has always delivered.

Amy Leversidge, General Secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA), does not dispute any of that. What she wants parliamentarians to understand, however, is a problem hiding in plain sight: the profession that will power that future is, for many, simply out of reach.

Leversidge, who took over as General Secretary in January 2024, has a clear-eyed view of how pilot training in the UK currently works, and how badly it needs to change.

The problem begins with cost. Becoming a commercial airline pilot requires complet­ing a demanding training programme that can cost well over £100,000. Doctors, solicitors and civil engineers all face significant training costs, but have mechanisms to pay that sum back over years. For pilots, no such mechanism exists. Applicants must find the money themselves, largely in full and upfront.

An aspiring pilot has no access to the student loan system and high street banks have withdrawn career development loans for pilot training. What remains are a couple of airline-funded cadet schemes, massively oversubscribed.

“The largest cadet scheme gets 100 applications for every place. That is not a queue of people who should all be pilots, but among them are people who absolutely should be,” Leversidge says. “Unfortunately, there will be many great potential pilots among the 99 per cent who fail to secure a place on a cadet scheme, but they will be out of options, at the end of the road. They are simply priced out of being a pilot. Right now, we are forcing too many to take their talents elsewhere.”

If the sector that connects us to the world can’t draw on the full range of talent in this country, both growth and opportunity suffer

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Some assume this is a problem of standards, that the profession is rightly exclusive. Leversidge addresses this directly.

“When you are six or seven miles up in the air, you need absolute confidence in the pilots flying the plane. The training to become a commercial airline pilot is demanding and exacting, as it should be. Every pilot in the sky today has earned their licence, that must never change. The only hurdle we want to remove is the six-figure paywall.”

 “Aspiring pilots must have the skills, strengths, talent and determination to train and work as a pilot and have enthusiasm for aviation,” Leversidge continued. “Let’s not keep on that list of demands that they also need to have access to over £100,000 for their training. We don’t want to lose potential talent from our profession, and decision-mak­ers shouldn’t want that either, given the core air transport sector’s £14bn annual contribution to the UK economy.”

It hasn’t always been this way. Cadet schemes were once far more common­place. Banks lent money for pilot training. There were routes in for able, ambitious people who needed a little help to pay their way. Those routes have narrowed dramatically, leaving the profession accessible largely only to those who can self-fund.

“This isn’t a pathway, it’s a paywall,” Leversidge asserts.

The timing of this matters. Airport expansion will substantially increase demand for pilots in the years ahead. At the same time, the number of BALPA members reaching the mandatory pilot retirement age of 65 will double by 2030. With the vast majority of UK commercial airline pilots holding BALPA member­ship, that seems a reliable measure of the looming wave of retirements.

“I want MPs and peers to understand the scale of the opportunity we are missing,” Leversidge says. “The ambition the government has for aviation and the contribution it can make to greater economic growth in the future requires a skilled aviation workforce to deliver it. We need to be working together – BALPA, industry, the government – to ensure we are training the right number of pilots for the future, and that those training spots are secured on talent alone.”

A solution is ready and waiting. An apprenticeship for pilots has been designed, developed, and approved. It would allow airlines to train pilots through the apprenticeship system, making the profession accessible in the same way apprenticeships have broadened access across other skilled sectors. Some refine­ments will be needed to make it work for industry and pilots alike, and those conversations are happening, confirms Leversidge.

“The apprenticeship could genuinely prove a breakthrough, and we back it,” Leversidge says, “but BALPA is not wedded to one particular mechanism. Pilots are practical people, and BALPA just wants something that works. Whether that is the apprenticeship, access to student loans, more airline-funded schemes, or a return of bank lending, we are open-minded.”

The apprenticeship is currently on pause, though the aviation minister has stated to parliament that restarting it is a cross-government priority. “We know the goodwill is there,” Leversidge acknowledges, “but goodwill needs to turn into action, and soon.”

This issue cuts across two of the govern­ment’s central priorities: economic growth and widening opportunity. Aviation is one of the UK’s most powerful drivers of growth, but its ability to deliver that growth relies on a steady supply of skilled pilots. Right now, talented young people are being priced out of that profession altogether. Leversidge sums it up, “If the sector that connects us to the world can’t draw on the full range of talent in this country, both growth and opportunity suffer. That should worry everyone in parliament.”

“We are not asking for anything that doesn’t already exist for other profes­sions,” Leversidge makes clear. “We are asking to be treated the same.”

Aviation is full of promises, to the businesses that depend on it, the fami­lies it connects, the young people who dream of a career at its heart. Pilots stitch the world together, and BALPA believes that the profession deserves a funding system that reflects that. “Keeping those promises depends on whether we are willing to open the doors that funding reform would unlock,” says Leversidge, “and that is a choice that parliament and government can help make happen.”

For more information please email Stuart Bonar, Head of Public Affairs, at [email protected].

4 min read5 min

In my current roles as Chair of the National Building Safety Regulator and strategic safety advisor to Transport for London, I continue to have a direct involvement in construction, public, and workplace safety. The restoration and renewal of Parliament is therefore a matter of particular interest.

As we approach a critical decision about how to repair and preserve this magnificent building for the nation, I offer a perspective shaped by decades of experience in safety and risk management, including as a frontline firefighter.

The first point to acknowledge is my newfound understanding of why the building is such a difficult place to leave, even temporarily. Its history and role in our democracy render the decision before us both practical and, for some, existential in nature.

After a career responding to major incidents and addressing the aftermath of tragedies both large and small, I am convinced of the case for choosing a full decant of Parliament during restoration. Safety in ageing buildings never stands still and without significant further intervention, the risks escalate alongside the decaying fabric.

The cost of merely maintaining the status quo and remaining compliant with safety legislation could easily exceed the current annual expenditure of approximately £70 million. Especially if phase one works do not commence and a rational restoration choice is not made.

It is understandable that people compare this project to renovating a home while still living there. But that comparison is simply not reliable. This major restoration requires a large workforce, complex procurement and contracting models, and materials far beyond domestic scale. The standards for a heritage building that is also a heavily used workplace are significantly higher than a family home.

Parliamentarians insisting on robust change control and an accurate budget for the delivery process is both necessary and justified. Based on my experience of some of the largest infrastructure projects, this is set to be among the most complex and large-scale work sites in Europe – making such controls essential.

Furthermore, the work required to bring Westminster up to even basic legal compliance with building regulations is considerably more challenging and expensive than starting from a vacant plot.

Some have argued that if the Palace were truly unsafe, it would have been closed already, thereby casting doubt on the safety case for a decant. This oversimplifies how proportionate regulation operates in a heritage building of this size and occupancy. Regulation involves making almost daily informed decisions by weighing risks and accounting for the building’s ongoing deterioration. It also fails to factor in the increased risk during any chosen renovation programme.

As London’s Fire Commissioner, I oversaw the safety of 20,000 listed buildings. Westminster was the highest risk of all, due to its current state of repair and high occupancy – and all despite it being exceptionally well managed.

The fire loading in the Palace – the amount of combustible material – is extraordinary. Almost no other building in London compares; and its art, architectural features, and collections are priceless. On top of that, it is populated daily by thousands of staff and visitors, including disabled people and others who require additional support to evacuate.

In the event of a major incident, the London Fire Brigade would face difficult choices. Depending on the time of day the safe evacuation of many, many people would almost certainly take precedence over the preservation of the building. Just think about the scale and complexity of that task.

Compounding the fire loading risks are ageing electrical and other utility systems, ongoing hot cutting work as part of maintenance, frequent fire incidents, and access and layout challenges. Its continued safe operation is only made possible by regularly updated fire plans, engineering solutions such as sprinklers and mist sprays, and the outstanding daily work of dedicated safety professionals.

All these challenges come before the arrival of one of the largest renovation projects in the world, which will introduce additional access challenges for firefighting. My extensive experience of safety on construction sites leads me to the firm conclusion that I would not wish to remain on site when major works gets fully underway.

Some will likely disagree or view my concerns as excessive. As a professional firefighter who joined the London Fire Brigade out of a willingness to take risks rather than avoid them, my perspective is grounded in what I’ve experienced rather than caution for its own sake.

Sadly, things can and do go wrong – even in buildings or systems long considered safe enough. I have witnessed too many tragedies and counted out too many bodies to believe the unthinkable cannot happen.

In that spirit, I urge all colleagues across the Palace to make the rational decision: begin enabling works now, regardless of which final option is chosen, and make way gracefully for the renovations to proceed when the time comes.

Illustration by Tracy Worrall

4 min read10 min

Marking student work recently, I came across the claim that most Early Day Motions (EDMs) attract only one or two signatures. How can students get it so badly wrong? I blame the teacher.

Then I noticed that they had sourced the claim to the House of Commons website. They must be misquoting? But no. There it is in black and white: “In an average session, only six or seven EDMs reach over 200 signatures. Around 70 or 80 get over 100 signatures. The majority will attract only one or two signatures.”

Now the poor teacher really was confused. Had things changed recently? Because I know how to enjoy myself, I went to the online EDM database and checked. So far this session, around 10 per cent of EDMs have garnered just one or two signatures. Given its length, perhaps this isn’t an average session, but the EDM database goes back to 1989, and contains 59,000 EDMs; of those around 4,500 (eight per cent) had just one or two signatories. Whether it’s eight or 10 per cent, then, it’s not a majority. 

The source of the error, I think, is that older library briefings used to say that “quite a number will attract only one or a couple of signatures”, and at some point this has been mangled, with “quite a number” becoming “the majority”. See me after class.

What I wasn’t aware of until I looked into this – and this is a sign of things changing – was that that quote above is now also wrong at the top end. Of the 3,000 or so EDMs this session, how many have attracted over 200 signatures? Answer: none. There were also none in the whole of the last parliament.

It used to be true. Between 1989 and 2019, 452 EDMs attracted more than 200 signatories; that’s roughly 15 a year. But since 2019: nada. I am not entirely sure why.

The record-breaker, with 503 signatures, came in 2001-2. It urged the governments of India and Pakistan to seek to resolve their differences peacefully and to reduce the risks of nuclear conflict. Which is nice. 

The EDM database is another example of Kids These Days Having It So Good. When I first started out, you had to code this stuff by hand; now, you can get the data with a click or two of a button. The ground-breaking 1961 book by Finer et al that looked at EDMs as a measure of backbench opinion, an early attempt to treat parliamentary behaviour quantitatively, studied just one parliament – at a time when EDMs were far less numerous than today – and still took two years to produce. 

That book was the subject of a very sniffy review by Richard Crossman in the Guardian, dismissing it as “statistical gamesmanship” and “pretentious pedantry”. Anthony Howard in the New Statesman similarly put the boot in (“academic naivete can surely never have been taken further”). It was an early example of political practitioners meeting political science and not being overly impressed; it was sadly not to be the last.

Yet reading their reviews now, more than 60 years on, it’s difficult not to conclude they hadn’t slightly missed the point – and were just terrified of anything involving numbers.

 Of course, MPs sign (or don’t) EDMs for all sorts of reasons, many of them trivial, and on their own they don’t tell you very much about political opinions. But the patterns displayed en masse can still be revealing. More recent studies of EDMs, for example, have found links to gender, religion, marginality and so on. An individual EDM can sometimes be just noise; collectively however they are a signal. EDMs are often dismissed as parliamentary graffiti, but even graffiti can sometimes be revealing.

One of the authors of that study, the late great Hugh Berrington, mischievously began the follow up volume with a quotation from Crossman, taken from a debate in the Commons: “We have to be numerate as well as literate.”

A coda – Berrington is also the source of a much-loved quote on the psychology of top politicians: “If it is lonely at the top, it is because it is the lonely who seek to climb there.” Discuss. 

Further reading: S Finer et al, Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons 1955-1959 (1961); H Berrington, Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons 1945-55 (1973)