It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.
The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.
This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.
The report doesn't say the media mentioned is an exhaustive list of the media that failed to disclose ties to the arms industry, which is what you're assuming.
You mention the Guardian. I took one of the names listed in the report, Richard Barrons, and quickly found an article in the Guardian where he's quoted but his ties to the arms industry are not disclosed: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/20/britain-def...
Not quoted as saying that there should be some sort of budget or spending increase, which is the sort of evidence being presented in this report, but merely some historical context statement about how the armed forces had been 'right-sized for the era'; and with his political ties also mentioned.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if AOAV had a blind spot with respect to The Guardian. However, that doesn't show one; and they did do lists of news media for several of the 19 (e.g. Richards) indicating that they aren't just picking 1 example publication for each person. Which is why I'm still inclined towards this telling us that there is a certain subset of U.K. publications in which this occurs.
If they hadn't mentioned Nation Cymru I'd be inclined towards this telling us that the report is highly London-centric and not reflective of 'U.K. media'. But they did.
I'm sorry, that's a real stretch. It's apparent to anyone reading what his comment implies.
And this is far from an isolated case, if you think the Guardian is an exception. We're all technical here, easy to use Google search and look up the names in the report and see how often the Guardian and the other "better" papers disclose the arms industry links. (Oh and the political party he's affiliated to isn't what's under discussion here.)
No, You're the one stretching things. If you want to provide an example from The Guardian that actually works, and it is as easy to do so as you say, go ahead. As I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a blind spot, given who is on the staff and the byline of this very piece. But you haven't here.
Rather, you've showed an article where the primary complaint of the headlined report, that the potential biases of a commentator or a source are not made apparent, does not apply because the bias of the person quoted, that xe is politically connected to the government whose actions are being scrutinized in the piece, is very much given as context.
As the person suggesting that the Guardian is somehow an exception in the UK media, I think the onus should be on you to prove it. I merely pointed out that the report did not say any such thing, and gave you an example from the Guardian showing them doing exactly the same thing.
I'll give you more examples, but here's a challenge for you: Can you find examples of the named people in the Guardian where their arms industry links are clearly disclosed?
Nick Houghton
From the report:
> In an article in the Daily Mail dated 2 April 2024, Baron Houghton backed the Mail’s campaign to increase defence spending. There was no mention made of his various vested interests.
The Guardian, also with no mention of his vested interests[1]:
- "Ukraine is being asked to fight a proxy war against Russia on behalf of Nato without being given the means to win it, Nick Houghton, a former head of the armed forces, told the Lords today."
- "Houghton also called for higher spending on defence."
Nick Carter
From the report:
> "Sir Nick has been quoted across various publications re-increasing defence spending, with only reference to his military status.”
The Guardian[2]:
- "The promises to bolster the defence of the Arctic came as British former head of the armed forces General Sir Nick Carter called for greater European cooperation to deter Russia and support Ukraine."
> the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times
Indeed. These are pay-to-play propaganda and should not be accorded the dignity of "newspaper". Peter Oborne's resignation from the Telegraph is still worth reading: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152
GB News has emerged out of the Reform movement, which in turn is the child of UKIP. And there are good grounds to think UKIP was bankrolled in part by Russia. It's covered in part by Carol Cadwallader in the excellent "Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring". Alexander Udod (A Russian diplomat) seemed to be the handler for senior UKIP figures.
It's just statistically more likely. The UK has a lot of Russians and somehow even those who were notionally sanctioned as Putin's puppets found it easy to obtain special case exemptions or conveniently happened to have transferred key assets to somebody who wasn't sanctioned coincidentally as it happened. Russia being "broke" is a macro-economic idea, the Russians involved are wealthy.
As with the drug trade lawyers are happy to take £££ of your obviously stolen Russian cash to help you argue that you and that money are legitimate. And if you lose? Oops, the payment to the lawyers is magically exempt so they keep that. The incentives to work for people who you know are crooks are very strong, just need to get cash up front because when anything goes wrong they're suddenly penniless and have never met you.
That's the stupidest thing about Trump's lawyers. These guys must have represented crooks before, so he's not different on that score, but why did so many of them not demand cash up front?
Yes, and I was slightly disappointed, from a statistical point of view, that they didn't tell us how many people they excluded from the original sample for this reason. That could have told us things.
If (say) they threw out 967 to leave those 33, then one possible explanation that that leaves the door open for is that journalists are so used to there being no conflict of interest, it being the case the majority of the time, that they don't check in the minority of cases where there is.
I suspect that they didn't throw out anywhere near as many as that, though. But, still, I would have liked to have been told the figure.
How much of that is down to the Guardian being disinclined to air views seen as pro military? Or not asking the sorts of questions where such views would naturally be called upon. For example a left publication is less likely to be concerned about a(n alleged) lack of military readiness.
Why? From afar my vague impression of LBC is that it's talk radio opinion slop, even if it puts in some effort to avoid the cartoonishly-far-right conservatism endemic to that genre.
Not wrong, that format requires a regular parade of guests with some kind of subject matter expertise, and if it's a military or national security topic, most of those subject matter experts are inevitably from a military or at least military policy background.
Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter?
Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more.
The majority of UK experts will probably have opinions that align with UK ethics/morality/society and urge options that benefit the UK state and it's allies. I would assume that would be an absolute given too.
When I watch Chinese citizens give their expertise on matters, I know that it will probably align with the Chinese state and benefit them (as opposed to strictly the UK state). Have people lost all of their critical thinking skills?
The listed supposed conflicts of interest mostly aren't any clearer than the baseline assumption "ex generals will generally favour more defence spending" which anyone with more than two brain cells should already be working on.
How is an General Everard being a patron of an armed forces charity, a software company enhancing onboarding experiences, a skills training company or even an "informal network of strategic thinkers" who write blogs likely to influence his defence spending views more than being a general?
It's not like it's standard journalistic practice to provide the entire resume of any other type of commentator.
Definition of conflict of interest: a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust.
Army generals are in a position of trust, we assume they're acting in the public interest. Whether that's for more spending, more war, or less.
Here's an ex general's view on war and military spending:
> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Eisenhower
The point is, there's clearly a problem if the public are getting opinions on this stuff from people who now have undisclosed private interests.
Shouldn't the public know that the former army general telling them that military spending needs to increase, now has the following roles?
> Paid positions included working part-time as a strategic advisor for Schroders bank, plus advisory roles at Helsing – a German AI defence start-up – and an insurance firm. ...spends 30 days per year “as a thought partner for Tony Blair in his role as Executive Chairman” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. ...is chairman of Equilibrium Gulf Limited, which advises the crown prince of Bahrain on the autocratic country’s notoriously brutal interior ministry.”
If somebody is discussing about defense in the media the viewers/readers should know that the person works for the defense industry in a commercial role.
Presenting them merely as experts because they are "former X" creates a false impression of impartiality.
For talking heads/opinion you have, I would say, two choices:
- Retired people with historic experience. The longer since they were actively involved in the sector, the less useful they will be of course. There is also going to be something of a demographics bias here.
- Currently employed people, and given their primary skillset is "Defense industry expertise" I'm going to posit that they always have a commercial role in the defense industry. Maybe there's some subset with a non-commercial role or a purely political role... but both of those have their own implications too
I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism. It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum.
There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.
Whilst not commenting on that, a fascinating quote from the article you are replying to is:
"Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian’s celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations."
This tells you something about why you might feel that way.
I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident.
That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all.
That the term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal should be context enough as to their motives and constraints.
The reformed DSMA notice system which replaced the D notice system in 2015 is somewhat more specific on what should not be reported. I think that's fit for purpose now. And it's still not legally binding. It's an agreement. Thus it does not break press freedom should the notice be found unethical or covering something up.
I sort of disagree with this. I bet if you asked liberals and progressives in a country like America for a foreign newspaper they read -- if they do read one -- in most cases it is probably the Guardian. So it may be only the best of a bad bunch but it does have that reputation.
Never thought of it from that perspective. They should read multiple sources too. BBC as well, which once the articles have settled, are quite good. (just ignore the breaking stuff which is dubious sometimes)
It's an interesting fact. I have been surprised at how often The Guardian sneaks in to stuff that is otherwise overwhelmingly North American sources only. The Legal Eagle channel on YouTube has cited The Guardian a few times that I have seen, for example. And they even present it seemingly on the assumption that they don't have to explain to their viewership what The Guardian is. They just slap it on screen the same as they do the Washington Post or Politico or some such.
Don't know if it's just my settings (spoiler: I read the Guardian) or it's by tracking IP addresses, but at least for me, when I go to the Guardian, it defaults me to a US-specific home page. I assume British people see a different page, with more coverage of their government.
Well sure, of course they should. I'm just telling you how it is. All anecdotal, but in my experience, if you ask a liberal or progressive American for a foreign newspaper they sometimes read, at least four times in five, they will tell you the Guardian. They don't see that as "only getting their news from one source." They see the Guardian AS one of their "multiple sources," because at least it's "not from here."
Edited to caveat: of course, if you ask an American what foreign newspaper they read, most of the time we will say none. But if we do, it's probably the Guardian.
The BBC used to deride Sky for being "never wrong for long", but the race to "break the news" changed that. If the news is about something that happened today it's barely worth looking at.
Personally I get my general news from "The Week" magazine each week, which occupies half an hour on a Saturday morning. It has a selection of articles from across the UK and international press, cut down to give an idea. This week I see ones from The Observer, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and the Spectator. There's a coverage of america, with input from the NYT, Washington Post, National Review, New Republic, Bulwark and Politico. Elsewhere coverage of Cuba includes stuff from Global and Mail in Toronto, Diaro de Cuba and El Salto in Madrid and 14YMedio in Havana.
The Guardians role in modern UK society is to launder right wing talking points through a few layers of progressive sounding rhetoric so that the average person on the street can say "Well if even The Guardian agrees, maybe there is something to it."
And based on the earlier concept by Walter Lippmann, first expressed in his 1922 book Public Opinion, which arguably birthed 20th century putatively impartial professional journalism.
"Ex UK military members discover the private sector pays 10-20x more" underlines the title, but yes, media should disclose it. But even if they were "just" retired ex-military, their bias would be the same (being a member of the UK military).
What you're seeing there is churnalism; journalists just want to get a piece printed and move on. Sometimes the whole piece comes from a source that benefits from the piece being printed, not just the expert. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
Sometimes the expert benefits just by being in the news, see for example NPR banning the expert they quoted 77 times, law professor Carl Tobias. Mainly because he'd write to them offering his opinion on the topics of the day, and as he is a law professor, even if the topic isn't law, NPR journalists couldn't help but accept his quotes to pad out their articles. https://www.mediaite.com/media/nprs-new-rule-for-2026-stop-q...
One thing I've seen a bit in Norway, and which is relevant this month, is opinion pieces by "concerned parents" that get their writing into national news, but a quick search show that they're often head of some bigoted organization. Of course they should be entitled to their opinion and be able to express it as any other, but the news papers not disclosing this is unethical imo.
There was recently in Swedish media an article about harassment of Jews in Sweden and the guy they talked to was a member of a Zionist organisation who advocates for that Jews should move to Israel. It is fine to interview him, but such a clear conflict of interest should have been disclosed.
Well of course, if you're a concerned parent or concerned person of any kind in Norway, the first thing you do is start an organization. There are even some who start many, in the hope of cross-pollination.
What's more extreme to me is people like NRK's economy commentator Cecilie Langum Becker, who I read today went over to a lucrative job as communication chief in Aker. A corporate PR person by trade, for 8 years, she had front page space every day to push austeritarian, interest-scold propaganda that would make The Economist blush. So good of our public broadcaster to promote voices we rarely hear from in the media /s.
Actual grass roots organizations, even for unsympathetic causes like anti-pride, worry me less than the whole Orkla-Schibsted consensus.
I think you are underestimating these grass roots groups. Some of them are supported by foreign inyerests who want to undermine trust in the government.
So we are told, but generally I don't buy it. Certainly not just for moustache-twirling "destabilization" purposes. If foreign interests bother with fringe Norwegian issues, it's because they get something directly from it. It may of course be that e.g. Israel gives support of various kinds to groups like SIAN or MIFF, or Russia to groups which are critical of Norwegian military support for Ukraine. But even that doesn't give us right to dismiss these groups as insincere - it's quite a way from that to actual front groups and astroturfing.
Either way, I think the focus should be on the "respectable" corruption, not on unhinged noisy attention seeking outsiders.
> Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Doctors commonly have kickback arrangements to prescribe specific medication. Sometimes it's the correct course of action they just always go for the particular brand, other times it's the wrong course of action but they prescribe it anyway for the kickback (the OxyContin scandal comes to mind).
Pharma reps "bribing" doctors prescribing habits is a thing, for sure, and varies in degree by country.
This is a separate issue for media reporting on (say) new tanning treatments that are endorsed on screen during traditional "news hours" in undeclared infomercial segments that feature "independant" medical experts gushing over benefits of perineum UV treatments.
Frequently both the company that paid for the faux news segment and the guest experts that also benefit fail to have fiscal interests disclosed.
Doctors prescribing drugs recommended to them by pharma reps should disclose that connection.
On a media "news" program:
Producers of media programs should disclose any connection "experts" they interview on a subject have to the financial returns or funding of that subject.
10-20× more in private sector for senior leadership/advisory role sounds reasonable, but still, I wonder if some part of that compensation stems from the fact that the person is availing him/herself as an asset of influence, i.e. can be used to push narrative through media while posing as independent, credible expert. Needs further research and/or A/B testing I guess.
Well yeah when you hire at a senior level it goes unsaid that you're partially hiring for that persons influence. The labour value alone would not reflect such a high price.
> These individuals had also been quoted, featured, or otherwise used as commentators in UK media coverage of defence, conflict, or national security issues.
If they are promoting defence spending or plugging their employers products that's bad, but using their experience to comment on the Iran war or Ukraine, or Russian/Chinese Spy networks doesn't seem that bad?
In 17 of the 19 detailed instances, it is stated that they are promoting increases in budgets and spending. The two others are reported as speaking with different conflicts of interest.
It's not the message spoken that is at issue here, it is the lack of disclosure of the connection of "the expert" to those that benefit (or suffer) from the message.
A correct analogue would be 'The expert stating that more should be spent on treatment X was employed in the NHS five years ago and currently runs/directs/consults for a business selling supplies for treatment X.'
> "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
from any media outlet quoting that "expert", yes. I'd also like the circumstances of their departure to be mentioned, should that be relevant to the claims.
I expect it as such things are also expected by the press council of the country I'm in, even though it can be an uphill battle getting such compliance.
It absolutely is sinister. Everything about the military is, when you decouple the rhetoric from the actions and consider what it is that those organisations actually do.
Much less than 5-10 years ago, and orders of magnitude less than the Russian military.
The pressures of fighting an existential war plus the demands of the public in a democracy have closed off most typical avenues for corruption, forcing a focus on battlefield results and effective supply to the front-line.
Nobody in the Ukrainian military is advocating for military spending for corrupt reasons, but for the country to remain independent in the face of a Russian military invasion.
What compelled you to write this? It's just a random point having no relationship to what you're replying to. Why have you typed this and pressed "reply"?
To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist.
At some point you have to ask, is it really for defense, if you're bombing someone a quarter of a planet away? Are you really protecting your people at home by doing that, and are they happy their money is being spent for that instead of eg. healthcare, education, etc.?
And the same UK taxpayer money is now being spent to ferociously defend Ukraine, and in turn European interests. That same UK taxpayer money is spent to promote freedom of the seas for global trade, whether it be the Hormuz, the Malacca Strait, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, the Baltic or the Horn of Africa.
Defence spending is only as good as the government that controls it, but you can't be serious if you're discounting the importance of military readiness at all times, given the world we live in.
The UK's military spending has always been much more justifiable, especially given that the country actually spends a lot on education and healthcare too (and I will argue that both of them are some of the SOTA systems in the world currently, in spite of their challenges).
You can't just skip the currently present and urgent defence requirements because they're "politically sensitive" and then go twenty years back to support your point.
But even if you want to do that, why don't you go just a couple more years further and argue that Bosnians should've been left to be genocided?
Yes, the military is fed by the one thing all cultures have in common - their susceptibility to warrior narcissism - and indeed in the modern age any military is little more than a criminal murder-class protected by a thin line of paper.
However, murder is meat. Wars feed people. Not often the 'right' people, but the moment one starts drawing another such thin line about who and who doesn't deserve to be fed, the narcissist demon draws closer and so then, is the warrior devil justified.
Anti-war rhetoric is unpopular, it is true - but there is more of it out there than most people realize, or else we'd all be ash already. Warrior narcissists are only given the space for such identity by quiet, humble peace-makers. Get louder about making peace and stay proud about it.
Well, lets see .. the invasion and destruction of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Afghanistan, Syria .. the violence in Somalia .. the genocide of Gaza, and now ethnic cleansing in Lebanon.
You can say as many stupid things as you want, until the war crimes are prosecuted, the war criminals will continue to get away with war.
I think it should always be disclosed. Even when they aren't explicitly advocating for a direct benefit to their company, their overall analysis is colored by their interests. The defense industry is going to amp up risks of an aggressor, downplay the risk of appearing to be aggressive, downplay non-military foreign policy strategies etc. Allow the defense industry to influence how we think about foreign events is certainly going to influence how we think about policy and spending.
In the context of Julian Assanges' treatment by UK media, and his subsequent disassembly at Belmarsh, who cares what they have to say about Russia or China.
Nick Carter
Chris Deverell
James Everard
Nick Houghton
Mark Carleton-Smith
Rupert Jones
Richard Kemp
Stuart Peach
David Richards
Patrick Sanders
Richard Shirreff
Sir Peter Wall
Ben Wallace
Alan West
Penny Mordaunt
Greg Bagwell
Richard Barrons
Tim Collins
Richard Dannatt
Media Outlets Named:
The Telegraph
Daily Mail
Express
The Independent
iPaper
The Sun
LBC
Sky News
Times Radio
Channel 4 News
how can anyone trust any media report? Even if it is reported from multiple outlets? In the US the sum is around 39 billion dollars for pharma advertising, nevermind our military-industrial complex, as well.
How can any media that has underwriting or advertisers actually do genuine reporting? Ask yourself this!
The only way to really report on the "news" is to not be supported by advertisers or underwriting.
I've known this since Dr. Naji Dahi's class in 2002, with upkeep by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, as well as having worked for ABC and a KKR Joint that's all up in "media".
This is the biggest illusion of the media. They portray themselves as informing in an independent way. But any quick analysis will show that they can only report what their clients let them. And in the West their loyalty is to wealthy families and big corporations in the US and Europe.
i used to have a great way to sum this all up but i stopped arguing with people via that medium so i have since forgotten my spiel. It's not that the media will lie, necessarily - although let's not pretend they're above lying - it's the editorial staff get to choose what runs and what doesn't. If there's a new study saying acetaminophen or whatever is actually more dangerous than we thought, it won't get air on normal media for a long time. Hard to get earnest reporting on wars when defense contractors are a major underwriter, hard to report on businesses when most of them are at least partially owned by the same companies that own the media outlets and/or are major advertisers.
I really need to sit down and think for a while to remember how i used to explain this, because it nearly always got a "oh... that kinda makes sense... dang"
While I'm neither a Brit, nor a professional historian, my understanding is that corruption - meaning everything from foot-dragging delivery to inferior & defective goods to exorbitant prices to outright theft - is an ageless problem in the UK military equipment & supplies business. And it was an ageless problem before the Acts of Union (1707, England & Scotland) had even created the UK. And it has rather often been a problem at such scale as to have serious strategic consequences.
(Not that the UK's gov't actually required outside corruption to ruinously squander military budgets. Try asking a naval historian about Britain's post-WWII aircraft carrier construction & refit fiasco.)
My point: News sources failing to flag defense sector conflicts of interest is a minor & downstream fuss over mediocre journalism. The real problem, from the PoV of someone who really cares about the UK and its future, is that Britain both wastes vast resources and punches far below its weight, due to its massive defense sector corruption & incompetence.
I wish we had a requirement for every corporation (non-profit, for profit, or politician) to disclose any and all “links”. The fact that there is so much resistance to that notion should tell people all they need to know about how toxic the people’s relationship is to these entities.
It's also a problem because who controls those media? So the taxpayers are at the least two times at a disadvantage here, private interests funding private media, to then set the agenda of reporting very selectively - or not at all in certain areas.
The problem isn't good honest journalism can't be done. Think from the point of view a good critical news story, if that news story is gonna disadvantage a powerful entity, that entity will do everything in its power to discredit and stop that news story from publishing. This is also the reason why I like social media, Game Nexus does so much impactful reporting on hardware.
what's wrong with the defence industry? If we're going to require disclosures, require them for everyone: tech, pharma, energy, NGOs, lobbying groups, former regulators, academics with industry funding, the lot ..
"our country isn't ready for war" is more difficult to disproof than "solar panels only last for 15 years", so while I agree that disclosures should go for every conflict on interest, it makes sense that the research focused only on this portion of them
i dont buy it ..if the concren is undisclosed affiliations, then study all undisclosed affiliations .. instead we get a defence only study, because "defence industry ties" are assumed to be inherently suspect ..
Regardless, when the topic is national security, defence- ector experience is often exactly the expertise you want... not some acadmic or commie whod rather we not
1. Calling it the "defense sector" is already quite biased. Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. Or just call it the "arms industry" etc. If we were less charitable, we could well call it the "war industry".
2. Reading the article we note there's quite some overlap between arms industry links and links to Israel's fundraising and lobbying circles. I wonder whether UK media discloses those links.
The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs like Russia, or diplomacy through violence. In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. So no, it is in fact the defense sector.
What countries have a defense sector, if the UK doesn't?
Iraq and Afghanistan might disagree with your first point.
Last time I looked Iran and the UK are quite some distance from each other, and Iran has inexplicably neither been launching missiles at the UK, nor threatening to, and is apparently not even capable of it.
So the justification for these "defensive" bombing runs on Iranian mountain sites from Fairford remains mysterious.
The UK's arms industry is - like most things associated with the establishment - an exercise in turning privilege into cash, so it's not a surprise to see Senior Figures doing the media rounds in establishment narrative factories like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail.
Readers with the money and connections to make a difference already know how the game is played.
Readers who don't should perhaps be allowed to keep their happy fantasy that the UK isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as a mercy.
Iran attacked the British base in Cyprus with drones so has directly attacked British territory. Iran has also been sponsoring terrorism in the UK. Iran has also attacked an American base on British territory.
> one of the most corrupt countries in the world
A ridiculous exaggeration given what a lot of other countries are like.
Helping the aggressor with its offense or defense during the aggressive acts is taking part in the aggression. States have international obligation to not engage in or promote aggression and to not take part in it. UK voluntarily took this obligation on itself.
I guess it's debatable whether the drone attack was proportional. I'd say that attack on clearly military installation of active ally is proportionate. Bombing bases in Britain would be more appropriate I think, since that's where the bombers that attacked Iran flew from and were loaded with weapons.
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles.
Claiming that the UK doesn't support diplomacy through violence then transitioning into this gem has to be one of the wildest juxtapositions I've seen this year. Do you classify the US strikes on Iran as uniformly offensive or defensive in nature? Or do you think there is a mix? How would you classify a US bombing run on anti-air defences in the opening phase of the conflict?
The UK has only allowed the US to use their air bases to strike Iranian offensive capability and intercept missiles launched towards middle eastern cities. Iran bombed an airport in Kuwait yesterday, for example.
It's pretty obvious how the the UK's actions vs. Iran's, or even the US's, are different.
Yeah, "striking offensive capability" of a country is aggression and the country that strikes, and it's helpers are all aggressors and in the wrong as far as intl. law goes. You need to work on understanding how causality works. What happened yesterday has no bearing on what happened 2 months ago.
If UK/US wanted to be in the in the clear they could have asked UNSC to authorize use of force against Iran.
Nope. The UK only responded after its own territory had been struck, as had that of allies in the region who were not part of the US and Israel’s actions.
Its role has been entirely defensive, and legal under international law as part of the right to self-defence.
Context matters. Did the UK start a war with Iran? Or did the UK decide to hit surrounding countries (France, Norway, Netherlands, etc.) to destabilise the region and target an Iranian airbase in Spain?
I would assume there's a bunch of countries around Iran that appreciate UK's help in intercepting missiles.
I would assume there's a bunch of countries around Iran that don't appreciate the US starting a war of choice.
Iran attacked countries that played absolutely no role in the US and Israel’s attack on it, including some (like Oman) that have been fairly closely allied to the regime.
That goes far beyond what’s permissible in international law in response to an attack.
In my view the US and Israeli attacks on Iran were illegal, reprehensible, and deeply stupid. But that doesn’t mean Iran is allowed to do whatever it wants afterward, especially to countries not directly involved in hostilities. In this case Iran has also broken international law.
They have been trying to kill people in the UK for years. And have been funding proxies everywhere, some of whom have attacked the UK. We're not really even involved and I find it hard to agree with this point.
However it should have been dealt with earlier rather than latent bombing.
I do and I agree with him. Iran is just one of many on a long list of supporters of terrorism which includes the US, the UK and Israel, plus many more countries like Turkey and Russia.
Maybe not directly. In 1947, it became the Department of the Army, and in 1949 the Department of Defense. Bernays was working on Engineering of Consent at the time, and applied psychoanalysis was very subtle compared to simple Orwellian name changes. For example, Bernays wanted to get women to smoke cigarettes.
> The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
Not directly, mostly; and not through land grabs. The age of land grabs is pretty much over - but imperialism lives on in different form - including massive military interventions and covert operations for manipulating or replacing regimes, more that properly conquering and settling lands.
Today's UK is not an independent empire of this kind. It used to be; but now it is relegated to being a junior partner in its alliance with the US empire, mostly, and with the EU, to a lesser extent. This is reflected in its top 10 arms recipients, e.g. for 2024 [1]:
Saudi Arabia, £14bn
United States of America, £8.3bn
France, £5.2bn
Qatar, £3.5bn
Italy, £2.8bn
Oman, £2.5bn
Turkey, £2.3bn
India, £2.3bn
Norway, £2.2bn
United Arab Emirates, £1.7bn
and there are also arms Israel for about £0.572bn; and the arming of Ukraine, a cooperation with both the US and European powers, as part of NATO's struggle against Russia.
The UK also sends troops as part of US imperial interventions, e.g. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There are also UK-dominated or UK-only interventions abroad, but mostly if we go a few decades back [2].
The UK has allies in the region. Kuwait was bombed just yesterday. And a UK airbase was targeted.
Are you arguing that the entire world should never provide aid to other countries? Surely you're just calling for imperialist powers to gobble up the planet piece by piece.
I guess schoolgirls were naughty and saying bad words about the UK, hence arming the American planes with bombs to use on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
You are quite the hypocrite to call the UK not a imperialistic country. They are probably the greatest of them all. They have far more blood on their hands in foreign interventions than Russia and China combined. In fact they are still occupied with abuse and destruction throughout the world. You are naive and victim of propoganda for not seeing this.
>The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
It has centuries of exactly that at a global scale, and continued post-war neo-colonial land grabbing and pressuring, plus eager participation in all the imperialist games of its larger brother.
What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation. The UK currently has fewer military personnel in Iraq than it has in, say, Germany. And Britain doesn’t control the Iraqi government.
>What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation.
Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.
That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.
My post wasn’t defending the Iraq war. It was just pointing out that the war was not a land grab. Iraq is not now a part of the UK or US (in contrast to the situation with Russia and Crimea, for example).
For anyone else interested, negotiations that could lead to the US leaving Iraq and fully returning control to the Iraqi people are also going swimmingly, according to reports.
The US military presence in Iraq is already far smaller than its presence in Germany and many other countries. Certainly, the US is a global superpower (albeit a declining one) that exerts influence via its military strength. But Iraq is not occupied by the US any more than Germany is.
It’s hard to say. What would happen if Germany demanded that US forces leave? Germany undoubtedly has the right to do this. I don’t think anyone can say what would happen with any confidence, as it’s quite an outlandish scenario. My guess is that, ultimately, US forces would leave, NATO would collapse, and relations between the US and Germany would decline precipitously. But hey, actions have consequences. This does not mean that Germany cannot get rid of US forces if it wants to; it just means that it doesn’t want to because it would be a bad idea.
> Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War
Which links to a page about the war:
> Iraq was aided by [...] the United States, the United Kingdom,
> After years of military and economic losses, decreasing morale, intensifying Iran–U.S. relations, and little international action against Iraqi attacks on Iranian civilians, Iran agreed to a ceasefire with Iraq under United Nations Security Council Resolution 598.
The question is completely different from the point I was making. "X did bad things on their own" and "Y had absolutely no relationship with X at any point" are two points so blindingly obviously different that I'm having a hard time accepting that you are genuinely confused about the difference.
It's a motte-and-bailey fallacy that starts with countries and leaders having relationships in a global, interwoven world and ends with excusing a blood-thirsty dictator as if they had no agency.
I think something Brits don't fully understand is the extent of our vassalage under the US.
We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.
Ok, but you can say the same for the US. It also has vastly more troops in Germany than Iraq, and it also does not control the Iraqi government. And the less said about Afghanistan the better. So where is the land grab?
One does not need to dictate every item of policy to control a country, one just needs to ensure that there's alignment on strategic issues. I think this was America's key point of learning when it took over the reins of the European empires after WW2.
In Germany, historically the strategic issue was anti-communism, but now it serves as a military logistics hub; in Iraq, it's about trade in oil in dollars and access to Iraqi oil fields for US companies.
The UK is more complex and more total, ranging from support in the security council, to access to markets for US goods and services, to stationing of US troops and hardware. Most of our economy is geared up for the benefit of US investment funds.
Any government, whether it be Germany, Iraq or the UK, which tries to alter any of these fundamentals will quickly find out the extent to which their land has been grabbed.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.
It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much.
Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country.
I don't believe that it really changes the fact that yes, US troops occupy the UK, Germany and Iraq, and many more. The most substantial deployments, e.g., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and until recently Iraq and Afghanistan, were very much the product of invasions. At the time of those invasions, many of those on the receiving end would have very much felt on the receiving end of a land grab. It's just their grandchildren have been conditioned to view this state of affairs as natural.
The general pattern is "bomb the bejesus" [2] out of a country. Plant base. Install a friendly government and ensure a favourable operating environment for US interests. The UK is an exception in that it wasn't bombed by the US, but the upshot is the same. We're a wholely-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a giant aircraft carrier on the other side of the Atlantic -- as the US's latest adventure in Iran has clearly demonstrated.
You may quibble over the "land" in land-grab, but the strategic bits (e.g., oil fields, bases) are very much owned, and the territory as a whole controlled by pliant governments.
I don't think it's fair to compare US foreign policy to actual imperialism as practiced by the Soviets, the British, etc. The US does not maintain colonies, and, as you point out, does not even attempt to exert total control. Pursuing your interests and forcing total political and cultural domination are not equivalent. The US is more than happy for Germans to be German, Japanese to be Japanese, etc, as long as US interests are prioritized. This is clearly not the case for other major powers.
Nations (and people) exist in an ecosystem, and so will always behave accordingly, and always in their own interests. There are some emergent properties of ecosystems, one of which is that optimal behaviour is to acquire the maximum you are physically capable of defending, not the minimum that you need to survive.
It's perfectly reasonable for the US, the big fish in the pond, to leverage its advantages accordingly, and to the maximum. It would be a disservice to the US people if it did not. Smaller fish should indeed be glad that the big fish is as placid and strategically (rather than ideologically) motivated as it is, given the historically experienced alternatives.
>The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
Just because Britain couldn't afford it anymore. And after bloodshed, in India, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Not out of the bigness of their heart.
And the post-colonialism never ended. The same grabby hands get everywhere they can get.
And why exactly are those "small overseas territories" unquestionably retained? "No biggie, just an island here, an island there, and island there, some land in here"
I’m willing to acknowledge those locales probably remain British territories, at least some of them, as an spect of projecting force, in addition the to historical quirks.
I probably don’t know enough.
And, ultimately, it would be nice if everyone got along and was generally content to stay in their lane.
Would the former British colonies be doing better or worse had they never been colonised? Quite possibly better. We’ll never know. At least some of the former colonies have failed spectacularly. That’s probably a good enough reason to never try any of that again.
I’m trying to steelman your arguments here Mr coldtea. Not only that, I have also raged against what happened in a similar manner from time to time.
> Would the former British colonies be doing better or worse had they never been colonised?
It's not necessarily correct to assume that they failed because they were previously colonised by the British. Should we have instead allowed other powers to colonise them? That is the only realisitic counterfactual here. Can we truly say the world would have been better off if the British had not colonised various countries, for example when it came to waging the Second World War?
* weapons sales for offensive usage (eg: The UK government admits that Saudi Arabia has used UK weapons, made by companies around the UK, in its attacks on Yemen.)
He is quite correct though. By calling it "defence" industry, it is insinuated that this is always a moral right use of arms. In reality one would have to look on a case by case basis to see which use really qualifies as defence. In many cases I would not call it defence, for instance, if money is used to overthrow other governments and so forth. Or the Falklands War as an example - technically one could claim the UK had to "defence" its territory, but at the same time one has to question the use of colonies in the first place.
The Falklands weren't colonised by the British in the way you probably mean. They were settled by them - the people of the Falklands are the descendents of British settlers.
Why wouldn't you call a military action to stop Argentina invading them "defence"?
"war industry" is still very charitable! If you have any standards that distinguish a war from indiscriminate killing, they probably violate those standards in a large proportion of their business.
When I said "If you have standards" I did not specify what those standards are. So I said "probably", because I have to guess you have similar standards to me. If you do, then you can drop the "probably".
As the other commenter correctly guesses, you only have to open the news to find examples. Iran, Palestine, Iraq (way back when). Most "wars" are not really wars these days, they're just exercises in western aggression.
“This research does not suggest that any individual cited in this report deliberately concealed their commercial affiliations from journalists. Rather, it highlights a recurring failure by news organisations to disclose potentially relevant industry interests when presenting former senior military figures as independent expert commentators on defence, conflict, and national security issues.”
“Of course, holding private-sector roles after military service is both lawful and commonplace. This is not the point of this report. Rather, the concern highlighted here is about the UK’s media.”
“The findings presented here do not argue that the individuals identified are acting improperly, nor that their analyses lack merit, however we assert that the public has a right to full and relevant information when evaluating expert commentary, particularly where it involves lives, public expenditure, and international security.”
“It is important to note that this report does not allege wrongdoing on the part of the individuals identified, nor on the part of the publications presented within the pages of this report.”
Practically every third paragraph reiterates this.
They are anticipating a flood of complaints from various well-connected groups and individuals that it's an unfair hit piece. They want to be able to point to all the "Hey, we didn't say this ACTUALLY MATTERED" disclaimers they front-loaded it with.
Except they said that it actually matter. The reason they didn't said that all those people with a potential conflict of interest lied is that it's not necessarily true. After all the article didn't reveal some secret conspiracy, it higlited the use of not disclosing some public, easily accessible informations by some media outlets, which are the ones to blame
Source? The UK has been extremely vocal about defending Ukraine's sovereign rights and has spent a lot of money supplying it with defensive equipment.
Russia despises the UK. The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people, just like the US does. Just like most of Europe does. It is the fringe view and not reflected in state policy.
You are of course correct. I completely forgot about him. Jeremy Corbyn could probably be lumped in as an elected official. There is a pretty virulent form of left wing in the UK who argue that Russia is good because it's imperialism is somehow justified (I think it boils down to anti-NATO sentiment.)
> obvious bias
The rise of a few right parties with sympathy to Russia was on my mind. Although that talk has seemed to have quieted with more national issues taking up breath.
It is interesting that any US-centric article causing political flame wars immediately sinks here, but anything generating similar "debate" on UK issues is allowed to sit on the front page, accumulating hundreds of comments. I don't think the conversation here is evolving in way that HN tries to foster, so hopefully this one is shadow-flagged (or however the internal mod tools work) soon.
It seems the same goes for international media to some extent.This example passed as nothing although it should have been everywhere: The general reportedly stated that the UK Ministry of Defence could stage a "mutiny potentially up to a coup d'état,if Jeremy Corbyn -as a potential Prime Minister) attempted to Leave NATO.
https://monthlyreview.org/articles/anatomy-of-a-propaganda-c...
It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.
The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.
This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.
The report doesn't say the media mentioned is an exhaustive list of the media that failed to disclose ties to the arms industry, which is what you're assuming.
You mention the Guardian. I took one of the names listed in the report, Richard Barrons, and quickly found an article in the Guardian where he's quoted but his ties to the arms industry are not disclosed: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/20/britain-def...
Not quoted as saying that there should be some sort of budget or spending increase, which is the sort of evidence being presented in this report, but merely some historical context statement about how the armed forces had been 'right-sized for the era'; and with his political ties also mentioned.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if AOAV had a blind spot with respect to The Guardian. However, that doesn't show one; and they did do lists of news media for several of the 19 (e.g. Richards) indicating that they aren't just picking 1 example publication for each person. Which is why I'm still inclined towards this telling us that there is a certain subset of U.K. publications in which this occurs.
If they hadn't mentioned Nation Cymru I'd be inclined towards this telling us that the report is highly London-centric and not reflective of 'U.K. media'. But they did.
I'm sorry, that's a real stretch. It's apparent to anyone reading what his comment implies.
And this is far from an isolated case, if you think the Guardian is an exception. We're all technical here, easy to use Google search and look up the names in the report and see how often the Guardian and the other "better" papers disclose the arms industry links. (Oh and the political party he's affiliated to isn't what's under discussion here.)
No, You're the one stretching things. If you want to provide an example from The Guardian that actually works, and it is as easy to do so as you say, go ahead. As I said, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a blind spot, given who is on the staff and the byline of this very piece. But you haven't here.
Rather, you've showed an article where the primary complaint of the headlined report, that the potential biases of a commentator or a source are not made apparent, does not apply because the bias of the person quoted, that xe is politically connected to the government whose actions are being scrutinized in the piece, is very much given as context.
As the person suggesting that the Guardian is somehow an exception in the UK media, I think the onus should be on you to prove it. I merely pointed out that the report did not say any such thing, and gave you an example from the Guardian showing them doing exactly the same thing.
I'll give you more examples, but here's a challenge for you: Can you find examples of the named people in the Guardian where their arms industry links are clearly disclosed?
Nick Houghton
From the report:
> In an article in the Daily Mail dated 2 April 2024, Baron Houghton backed the Mail’s campaign to increase defence spending. There was no mention made of his various vested interests.
The Guardian, also with no mention of his vested interests[1]:
- "Ukraine is being asked to fight a proxy war against Russia on behalf of Nato without being given the means to win it, Nick Houghton, a former head of the armed forces, told the Lords today."
- "Houghton also called for higher spending on defence."
Nick Carter
From the report:
> "Sir Nick has been quoted across various publications re-increasing defence spending, with only reference to his military status.”
The Guardian[2]:
- "The promises to bolster the defence of the Arctic came as British former head of the armed forces General Sir Nick Carter called for greater European cooperation to deter Russia and support Ukraine."
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/oct/31/uk-pol...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/11/ukraine-war-br...
Moving the goalposts. I don't see anything in the methodology of the original study filtering for views favorable to the defense sector.
> the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times
Indeed. These are pay-to-play propaganda and should not be accorded the dignity of "newspaper". Peter Oborne's resignation from the Telegraph is still worth reading: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152
And The Times and The Sun aren't even British. They're owned by News Corp which is American
And The Telegraph is about to become German
GB News is quite likely Russian ultimately lol
GB News has emerged out of the Reform movement, which in turn is the child of UKIP. And there are good grounds to think UKIP was bankrolled in part by Russia. It's covered in part by Carol Cadwallader in the excellent "Sergei and the Westminster Spy Ring". Alexander Udod (A Russian diplomat) seemed to be the handler for senior UKIP figures.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/26/timid-incompet...
Why Russian? They're broke. Why not Chinese?
It's just statistically more likely. The UK has a lot of Russians and somehow even those who were notionally sanctioned as Putin's puppets found it easy to obtain special case exemptions or conveniently happened to have transferred key assets to somebody who wasn't sanctioned coincidentally as it happened. Russia being "broke" is a macro-economic idea, the Russians involved are wealthy.
As with the drug trade lawyers are happy to take £££ of your obviously stolen Russian cash to help you argue that you and that money are legitimate. And if you lose? Oops, the payment to the lawyers is magically exempt so they keep that. The incentives to work for people who you know are crooks are very strong, just need to get cash up front because when anything goes wrong they're suddenly penniless and have never met you.
That's the stupidest thing about Trump's lawyers. These guys must have represented crooks before, so he's not different on that score, but why did so many of them not demand cash up front?
LBC certainly falls within the "usual suspects"
The survey excluded veterans with no commercial ties. Maybe those publications not mentioned used them instead.
Yes, and I was slightly disappointed, from a statistical point of view, that they didn't tell us how many people they excluded from the original sample for this reason. That could have told us things.
If (say) they threw out 967 to leave those 33, then one possible explanation that that leaves the door open for is that journalists are so used to there being no conflict of interest, it being the case the majority of the time, that they don't check in the minority of cases where there is.
I suspect that they didn't throw out anywhere near as many as that, though. But, still, I would have liked to have been told the figure.
How much of that is down to the Guardian being disinclined to air views seen as pro military? Or not asking the sorts of questions where such views would naturally be called upon. For example a left publication is less likely to be concerned about a(n alleged) lack of military readiness.
> I am surprised to find LBC
Why? From afar my vague impression of LBC is that it's talk radio opinion slop, even if it puts in some effort to avoid the cartoonishly-far-right conservatism endemic to that genre.
Not wrong, that format requires a regular parade of guests with some kind of subject matter expertise, and if it's a military or national security topic, most of those subject matter experts are inevitably from a military or at least military policy background.
Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter?
Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more.
The majority of UK experts will probably have opinions that align with UK ethics/morality/society and urge options that benefit the UK state and it's allies. I would assume that would be an absolute given too.
When I watch Chinese citizens give their expertise on matters, I know that it will probably align with the Chinese state and benefit them (as opposed to strictly the UK state). Have people lost all of their critical thinking skills?
> Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action
That's exactly the issue
The listed supposed conflicts of interest mostly aren't any clearer than the baseline assumption "ex generals will generally favour more defence spending" which anyone with more than two brain cells should already be working on.
How is an General Everard being a patron of an armed forces charity, a software company enhancing onboarding experiences, a skills training company or even an "informal network of strategic thinkers" who write blogs likely to influence his defence spending views more than being a general?
It's not like it's standard journalistic practice to provide the entire resume of any other type of commentator.
Definition of conflict of interest: a conflict between the private interests and the official responsibilities of a person in a position of trust.
Army generals are in a position of trust, we assume they're acting in the public interest. Whether that's for more spending, more war, or less.
Here's an ex general's view on war and military spending:
> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. - Eisenhower
The point is, there's clearly a problem if the public are getting opinions on this stuff from people who now have undisclosed private interests.
Shouldn't the public know that the former army general telling them that military spending needs to increase, now has the following roles?
> Paid positions included working part-time as a strategic advisor for Schroders bank, plus advisory roles at Helsing – a German AI defence start-up – and an insurance firm. ...spends 30 days per year “as a thought partner for Tony Blair in his role as Executive Chairman” at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. ...is chairman of Equilibrium Gulf Limited, which advises the crown prince of Bahrain on the autocratic country’s notoriously brutal interior ministry.”
You're asking that question in 2026?
If somebody is discussing about defense in the media the viewers/readers should know that the person works for the defense industry in a commercial role.
Presenting them merely as experts because they are "former X" creates a false impression of impartiality.
For talking heads/opinion you have, I would say, two choices:
> How the UK Security Services neutralised ‘The Guardian’ newspaper (2019) (dailymaverick.co.za)
> 3 points by indigodaddy on June 2, 2023 | past | 1 comment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170406
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-u...
I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism. It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum.
There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.
Whilst not commenting on that, a fascinating quote from the article you are replying to is:
"Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian’s celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations."
This tells you something about why you might feel that way.
That's what happens when you employ someone on their political stance (CND poster girl) rather than their editorial integrity...
I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident.
That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_l...
That the term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal should be context enough as to their motives and constraints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJW_v_Guardian_News_and_Media_...
Fair points.
The reformed DSMA notice system which replaced the D notice system in 2015 is somewhat more specific on what should not be reported. I think that's fit for purpose now. And it's still not legally binding. It's an agreement. Thus it does not break press freedom should the notice be found unethical or covering something up.
I sort of disagree with this. I bet if you asked liberals and progressives in a country like America for a foreign newspaper they read -- if they do read one -- in most cases it is probably the Guardian. So it may be only the best of a bad bunch but it does have that reputation.
Never thought of it from that perspective. They should read multiple sources too. BBC as well, which once the articles have settled, are quite good. (just ignore the breaking stuff which is dubious sometimes)
It's an interesting fact. I have been surprised at how often The Guardian sneaks in to stuff that is otherwise overwhelmingly North American sources only. The Legal Eagle channel on YouTube has cited The Guardian a few times that I have seen, for example. And they even present it seemingly on the assumption that they don't have to explain to their viewership what The Guardian is. They just slap it on screen the same as they do the Washington Post or Politico or some such.
Don't know if it's just my settings (spoiler: I read the Guardian) or it's by tracking IP addresses, but at least for me, when I go to the Guardian, it defaults me to a US-specific home page. I assume British people see a different page, with more coverage of their government.
Well sure, of course they should. I'm just telling you how it is. All anecdotal, but in my experience, if you ask a liberal or progressive American for a foreign newspaper they sometimes read, at least four times in five, they will tell you the Guardian. They don't see that as "only getting their news from one source." They see the Guardian AS one of their "multiple sources," because at least it's "not from here."
Edited to caveat: of course, if you ask an American what foreign newspaper they read, most of the time we will say none. But if we do, it's probably the Guardian.
Breaking News Broke News
The BBC used to deride Sky for being "never wrong for long", but the race to "break the news" changed that. If the news is about something that happened today it's barely worth looking at.
Personally I get my general news from "The Week" magazine each week, which occupies half an hour on a Saturday morning. It has a selection of articles from across the UK and international press, cut down to give an idea. This week I see ones from The Observer, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and the Spectator. There's a coverage of america, with input from the NYT, Washington Post, National Review, New Republic, Bulwark and Politico. Elsewhere coverage of Cuba includes stuff from Global and Mail in Toronto, Diaro de Cuba and El Salto in Madrid and 14YMedio in Havana.
I have actually worked for the BBC. It all went downhill when they moved to media city in Manc. Bit of a disaster for staffing.
The bbc never reported on the pedophiles in their midst and they are the good ones.
Yeah that is totally unforgivable.
The Guardians role in modern UK society is to launder right wing talking points through a few layers of progressive sounding rhetoric so that the average person on the street can say "Well if even The Guardian agrees, maybe there is something to it."
A worthless rag of a paper.
fascinating article thank you for posting. Everyone should read this!
Manufacturing Consent continues being relevant
For the unfamiliar.
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
And based on the earlier concept by Walter Lippmann, first expressed in his 1922 book Public Opinion, which arguably birthed 20th century putatively impartial professional journalism.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)#Manufact...>
"Ex UK military members discover the private sector pays 10-20x more" underlines the title, but yes, media should disclose it. But even if they were "just" retired ex-military, their bias would be the same (being a member of the UK military).
Media in general is poor on declaring any and all bias of their various interviewed "experts".
Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Automotive experts promoting car brands (that they receive advertising and influencer dollars for).
etc.
What you're seeing there is churnalism; journalists just want to get a piece printed and move on. Sometimes the whole piece comes from a source that benefits from the piece being printed, not just the expert. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism
Sometimes the expert benefits just by being in the news, see for example NPR banning the expert they quoted 77 times, law professor Carl Tobias. Mainly because he'd write to them offering his opinion on the topics of the day, and as he is a law professor, even if the topic isn't law, NPR journalists couldn't help but accept his quotes to pad out their articles. https://www.mediaite.com/media/nprs-new-rule-for-2026-stop-q...
One thing I've seen a bit in Norway, and which is relevant this month, is opinion pieces by "concerned parents" that get their writing into national news, but a quick search show that they're often head of some bigoted organization. Of course they should be entitled to their opinion and be able to express it as any other, but the news papers not disclosing this is unethical imo.
There was recently in Swedish media an article about harassment of Jews in Sweden and the guy they talked to was a member of a Zionist organisation who advocates for that Jews should move to Israel. It is fine to interview him, but such a clear conflict of interest should have been disclosed.
I would argue it's not fine to interview him when (from the sound of it) he literally works for a hostile foreign intelligence agency
Many parts of Norway are much less functioning than many Norwegians understand. The media sector is one of them.
Well of course, if you're a concerned parent or concerned person of any kind in Norway, the first thing you do is start an organization. There are even some who start many, in the hope of cross-pollination.
What's more extreme to me is people like NRK's economy commentator Cecilie Langum Becker, who I read today went over to a lucrative job as communication chief in Aker. A corporate PR person by trade, for 8 years, she had front page space every day to push austeritarian, interest-scold propaganda that would make The Economist blush. So good of our public broadcaster to promote voices we rarely hear from in the media /s.
Actual grass roots organizations, even for unsympathetic causes like anti-pride, worry me less than the whole Orkla-Schibsted consensus.
I think you are underestimating these grass roots groups. Some of them are supported by foreign inyerests who want to undermine trust in the government.
So we are told, but generally I don't buy it. Certainly not just for moustache-twirling "destabilization" purposes. If foreign interests bother with fringe Norwegian issues, it's because they get something directly from it. It may of course be that e.g. Israel gives support of various kinds to groups like SIAN or MIFF, or Russia to groups which are critical of Norwegian military support for Ukraine. But even that doesn't give us right to dismiss these groups as insincere - it's quite a way from that to actual front groups and astroturfing.
Either way, I think the focus should be on the "respectable" corruption, not on unhinged noisy attention seeking outsiders.
You don't buy the idea of a comically diffuse goal? That seems to be the end state of most major organisational committee meetings
> Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Doctors commonly have kickback arrangements to prescribe specific medication. Sometimes it's the correct course of action they just always go for the particular brand, other times it's the wrong course of action but they prescribe it anyway for the kickback (the OxyContin scandal comes to mind).
Pharma reps "bribing" doctors prescribing habits is a thing, for sure, and varies in degree by country.
This is a separate issue for media reporting on (say) new tanning treatments that are endorsed on screen during traditional "news hours" in undeclared infomercial segments that feature "independant" medical experts gushing over benefits of perineum UV treatments.
Frequently both the company that paid for the faux news segment and the guest experts that also benefit fail to have fiscal interests disclosed.
Try TainTan™ Today!
Oh, I just meant it's not just "quack doctors" doing it. it's a fairly common practice.
In a doctors suite:
Doctors prescribing drugs recommended to them by pharma reps should disclose that connection.
On a media "news" program:
Producers of media programs should disclose any connection "experts" they interview on a subject have to the financial returns or funding of that subject.
10-20× more in private sector for senior leadership/advisory role sounds reasonable, but still, I wonder if some part of that compensation stems from the fact that the person is availing him/herself as an asset of influence, i.e. can be used to push narrative through media while posing as independent, credible expert. Needs further research and/or A/B testing I guess.
Well yeah when you hire at a senior level it goes unsaid that you're partially hiring for that persons influence. The labour value alone would not reflect such a high price.
> These individuals had also been quoted, featured, or otherwise used as commentators in UK media coverage of defence, conflict, or national security issues.
If they are promoting defence spending or plugging their employers products that's bad, but using their experience to comment on the Iran war or Ukraine, or Russian/Chinese Spy networks doesn't seem that bad?
In 17 of the 19 detailed instances, it is stated that they are promoting increases in budgets and spending. The two others are reported as speaking with different conflicts of interest.
Does it say that in the full report somewhere else? I can't find that in the text.
I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.
>I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.
When all you know is a hammer...
Today, the UK's Navy for example is so diminished due to cuts by successive governments, that it would struggle to defend even Britain's shores.
See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBe_36XfZb4
UK military capability is not what perhaps persists in some people's imaginations, even compared to say 20 years ago.
Britain does need to increase military spending.
"People who have seen the state of the military first hand are saying that we need to fund the military" is not really shocking or sinister.
It's not the message spoken that is at issue here, it is the lack of disclosure of the connection of "the expert" to those that benefit (or suffer) from the message.
Do you expect the same standard to be applied to the NHS? "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
A correct analogue would be 'The expert stating that more should be spent on treatment X was employed in the NHS five years ago and currently runs/directs/consults for a business selling supplies for treatment X.'
I expect this:
> "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
from any media outlet quoting that "expert", yes. I'd also like the circumstances of their departure to be mentioned, should that be relevant to the claims.
I expect it as such things are also expected by the press council of the country I'm in, even though it can be an uphill battle getting such compliance.
It absolutely is sinister. Everything about the military is, when you decouple the rhetoric from the actions and consider what it is that those organisations actually do.
This is a luxury belief that requires the privilege of being unbombed. I invite you to explain this to Ukrainians.
You can't deny Ukrainian military suffers from deep corruption.
Much less than 5-10 years ago, and orders of magnitude less than the Russian military.
The pressures of fighting an existential war plus the demands of the public in a democracy have closed off most typical avenues for corruption, forcing a focus on battlefield results and effective supply to the front-line.
Nobody in the Ukrainian military is advocating for military spending for corrupt reasons, but for the country to remain independent in the face of a Russian military invasion.
What compelled you to write this? It's just a random point having no relationship to what you're replying to. Why have you typed this and pressed "reply"?
It's the UK we're talking about here.
To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist.
At some point you have to ask, is it really for defense, if you're bombing someone a quarter of a planet away? Are you really protecting your people at home by doing that, and are they happy their money is being spent for that instead of eg. healthcare, education, etc.?
And the same UK taxpayer money is now being spent to ferociously defend Ukraine, and in turn European interests. That same UK taxpayer money is spent to promote freedom of the seas for global trade, whether it be the Hormuz, the Malacca Strait, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, the Baltic or the Horn of Africa.
Defence spending is only as good as the government that controls it, but you can't be serious if you're discounting the importance of military readiness at all times, given the world we live in.
The UK's military spending has always been much more justifiable, especially given that the country actually spends a lot on education and healthcare too (and I will argue that both of them are some of the SOTA systems in the world currently, in spite of their challenges).
You can't just skip the currently present and urgent defence requirements because they're "politically sensitive" and then go twenty years back to support your point.
But even if you want to do that, why don't you go just a couple more years further and argue that Bosnians should've been left to be genocided?
Are you arguing the UK involvement in Bosnia was to defend the UK?
Yes, the military is fed by the one thing all cultures have in common - their susceptibility to warrior narcissism - and indeed in the modern age any military is little more than a criminal murder-class protected by a thin line of paper.
However, murder is meat. Wars feed people. Not often the 'right' people, but the moment one starts drawing another such thin line about who and who doesn't deserve to be fed, the narcissist demon draws closer and so then, is the warrior devil justified.
Anti-war rhetoric is unpopular, it is true - but there is more of it out there than most people realize, or else we'd all be ash already. Warrior narcissists are only given the space for such identity by quiet, humble peace-makers. Get louder about making peace and stay proud about it.
I don't know how you can post something this stupid after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Well, lets see .. the invasion and destruction of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, Afghanistan, Syria .. the violence in Somalia .. the genocide of Gaza, and now ethnic cleansing in Lebanon.
You can say as many stupid things as you want, until the war crimes are prosecuted, the war criminals will continue to get away with war.
How do you propose to prosecute Vladimir Putin? Will the UK send some unarmed police officers to arrest him?
I think it should always be disclosed. Even when they aren't explicitly advocating for a direct benefit to their company, their overall analysis is colored by their interests. The defense industry is going to amp up risks of an aggressor, downplay the risk of appearing to be aggressive, downplay non-military foreign policy strategies etc. Allow the defense industry to influence how we think about foreign events is certainly going to influence how we think about policy and spending.
There's lots of indirect ways to promote "defence" spending, such as promoting more involvement in a conflict.
In the context of Julian Assanges' treatment by UK media, and his subsequent disassembly at Belmarsh, who cares what they have to say about Russia or China.
In the context of Assange turning out to be russian mouthpiece. Well deserved.
This justification for state violence is false.
TL;DR
Military Experts Named:
Nick Carter Chris Deverell James Everard Nick Houghton Mark Carleton-Smith Rupert Jones Richard Kemp Stuart Peach David Richards Patrick Sanders Richard Shirreff Sir Peter Wall Ben Wallace Alan West Penny Mordaunt Greg Bagwell Richard Barrons Tim Collins Richard Dannatt
Media Outlets Named:
The Telegraph Daily Mail Express The Independent iPaper The Sun LBC Sky News Times Radio Channel 4 News
how can anyone trust any media report? Even if it is reported from multiple outlets? In the US the sum is around 39 billion dollars for pharma advertising, nevermind our military-industrial complex, as well.
How can any media that has underwriting or advertisers actually do genuine reporting? Ask yourself this!
The only way to really report on the "news" is to not be supported by advertisers or underwriting.
I've known this since Dr. Naji Dahi's class in 2002, with upkeep by Adam Curry and John C. Dvorak, as well as having worked for ABC and a KKR Joint that's all up in "media".
This is the biggest illusion of the media. They portray themselves as informing in an independent way. But any quick analysis will show that they can only report what their clients let them. And in the West their loyalty is to wealthy families and big corporations in the US and Europe.
i used to have a great way to sum this all up but i stopped arguing with people via that medium so i have since forgotten my spiel. It's not that the media will lie, necessarily - although let's not pretend they're above lying - it's the editorial staff get to choose what runs and what doesn't. If there's a new study saying acetaminophen or whatever is actually more dangerous than we thought, it won't get air on normal media for a long time. Hard to get earnest reporting on wars when defense contractors are a major underwriter, hard to report on businesses when most of them are at least partially owned by the same companies that own the media outlets and/or are major advertisers.
I really need to sit down and think for a while to remember how i used to explain this, because it nearly always got a "oh... that kinda makes sense... dang"
While I'm neither a Brit, nor a professional historian, my understanding is that corruption - meaning everything from foot-dragging delivery to inferior & defective goods to exorbitant prices to outright theft - is an ageless problem in the UK military equipment & supplies business. And it was an ageless problem before the Acts of Union (1707, England & Scotland) had even created the UK. And it has rather often been a problem at such scale as to have serious strategic consequences.
(Not that the UK's gov't actually required outside corruption to ruinously squander military budgets. Try asking a naval historian about Britain's post-WWII aircraft carrier construction & refit fiasco.)
My point: News sources failing to flag defense sector conflicts of interest is a minor & downstream fuss over mediocre journalism. The real problem, from the PoV of someone who really cares about the UK and its future, is that Britain both wastes vast resources and punches far below its weight, due to its massive defense sector corruption & incompetence.
Tip of the iceberg. The Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office, among others, determine the direction of BBC news.
I wish we had a requirement for every corporation (non-profit, for profit, or politician) to disclose any and all “links”. The fact that there is so much resistance to that notion should tell people all they need to know about how toxic the people’s relationship is to these entities.
In other words: institutionalized corruption.
It's also a problem because who controls those media? So the taxpayers are at the least two times at a disadvantage here, private interests funding private media, to then set the agenda of reporting very selectively - or not at all in certain areas.
The problem isn't good honest journalism can't be done. Think from the point of view a good critical news story, if that news story is gonna disadvantage a powerful entity, that entity will do everything in its power to discredit and stop that news story from publishing. This is also the reason why I like social media, Game Nexus does so much impactful reporting on hardware.
what's wrong with the defence industry? If we're going to require disclosures, require them for everyone: tech, pharma, energy, NGOs, lobbying groups, former regulators, academics with industry funding, the lot ..
PS: the UK is not the state of California.
"our country isn't ready for war" is more difficult to disproof than "solar panels only last for 15 years", so while I agree that disclosures should go for every conflict on interest, it makes sense that the research focused only on this portion of them
i dont buy it ..if the concren is undisclosed affiliations, then study all undisclosed affiliations .. instead we get a defence only study, because "defence industry ties" are assumed to be inherently suspect ..
Regardless, when the topic is national security, defence- ector experience is often exactly the expertise you want... not some acadmic or commie whod rather we not
1. Calling it the "defense sector" is already quite biased. Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. Or just call it the "arms industry" etc. If we were less charitable, we could well call it the "war industry".
2. Reading the article we note there's quite some overlap between arms industry links and links to Israel's fundraising and lobbying circles. I wonder whether UK media discloses those links.
The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs like Russia, or diplomacy through violence. In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. So no, it is in fact the defense sector.
What countries have a defense sector, if the UK doesn't?
Iraq and Afghanistan might disagree with your first point.
Last time I looked Iran and the UK are quite some distance from each other, and Iran has inexplicably neither been launching missiles at the UK, nor threatening to, and is apparently not even capable of it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm120x4lzxo
So the justification for these "defensive" bombing runs on Iranian mountain sites from Fairford remains mysterious.
The UK's arms industry is - like most things associated with the establishment - an exercise in turning privilege into cash, so it's not a surprise to see Senior Figures doing the media rounds in establishment narrative factories like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail.
Readers with the money and connections to make a difference already know how the game is played.
Readers who don't should perhaps be allowed to keep their happy fantasy that the UK isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as a mercy.
Iran attacked the British base in Cyprus with drones so has directly attacked British territory. Iran has also been sponsoring terrorism in the UK. Iran has also attacked an American base on British territory.
> one of the most corrupt countries in the world
A ridiculous exaggeration given what a lot of other countries are like.
Helping the aggressor with its offense or defense during the aggressive acts is taking part in the aggression. States have international obligation to not engage in or promote aggression and to not take part in it. UK voluntarily took this obligation on itself.
I guess it's debatable whether the drone attack was proportional. I'd say that attack on clearly military installation of active ally is proportionate. Bombing bases in Britain would be more appropriate I think, since that's where the bombers that attacked Iran flew from and were loaded with weapons.
Iran has been funding terrorist networks who are active in the UK and has taken direct action against UK citizens before on numerous occasions.
They are also allied with Russia who are doing the same.
They aren't some innocent party here. Geopolitics is complicated and not some black and white good guy bad guy mechanics.
To add some pretty hard data to this: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/fiona-and-irans-role-in-the-...
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles.
Claiming that the UK doesn't support diplomacy through violence then transitioning into this gem has to be one of the wildest juxtapositions I've seen this year. Do you classify the US strikes on Iran as uniformly offensive or defensive in nature? Or do you think there is a mix? How would you classify a US bombing run on anti-air defences in the opening phase of the conflict?
The UK has only allowed the US to use their air bases to strike Iranian offensive capability and intercept missiles launched towards middle eastern cities. Iran bombed an airport in Kuwait yesterday, for example.
It's pretty obvious how the the UK's actions vs. Iran's, or even the US's, are different.
Yeah, "striking offensive capability" of a country is aggression and the country that strikes, and it's helpers are all aggressors and in the wrong as far as intl. law goes. You need to work on understanding how causality works. What happened yesterday has no bearing on what happened 2 months ago.
If UK/US wanted to be in the in the clear they could have asked UNSC to authorize use of force against Iran.
Nope. The UK only responded after its own territory had been struck, as had that of allies in the region who were not part of the US and Israel’s actions.
Its role has been entirely defensive, and legal under international law as part of the right to self-defence.
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability ...
Reminds of the old joke, "What propaganda? We don't have propaganda."
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability
If Iran struck all of the UK's missile factories and military bases, would it be considered a defensive or offensive action?
Context matters. Did the UK start a war with Iran? Or did the UK decide to hit surrounding countries (France, Norway, Netherlands, etc.) to destabilise the region and target an Iranian airbase in Spain?
I would assume there's a bunch of countries around Iran that appreciate UK's help in intercepting missiles.
I would assume there's a bunch of countries around Iran that don't appreciate the US starting a war of choice.
I can't tell if your first sentence is a joke or not...
Iran.
It didn't attack anyone until it was attacked.
It has been defending itself.
Iran attacked countries that played absolutely no role in the US and Israel’s attack on it, including some (like Oman) that have been fairly closely allied to the regime.
That goes far beyond what’s permissible in international law in response to an attack.
In my view the US and Israeli attacks on Iran were illegal, reprehensible, and deeply stupid. But that doesn’t mean Iran is allowed to do whatever it wants afterward, especially to countries not directly involved in hostilities. In this case Iran has also broken international law.
They have been trying to kill people in the UK for years. And have been funding proxies everywhere, some of whom have attacked the UK. We're not really even involved and I find it hard to agree with this point.
However it should have been dealt with earlier rather than latent bombing.
You could easily be describing the UK, Israel, and the USA, lol.
Anyway, I live in the UK, and I don't swallow the same propaganda as you.
Which bit is the propaganda?
Do you know any actual Iranians? I do!
I do and I agree with him. Iran is just one of many on a long list of supporters of terrorism which includes the US, the UK and Israel, plus many more countries like Turkey and Russia.
I made exactly no comments about other countries or a comparison. That is a different argument.
Defending those launching illegal strikes is still offensive, in both meanings of the term.
The UK was defending its allies who had not launched illegal strikes, but were themselves attacked by Iran in contravention of international law.
war is peace etc etc
"Department of War" was renamed as "Department of Defense" because Edward Bernays (the greatest propagandist who ever lived) said so.
Maybe not directly. In 1947, it became the Department of the Army, and in 1949 the Department of Defense. Bernays was working on Engineering of Consent at the time, and applied psychoanalysis was very subtle compared to simple Orwellian name changes. For example, Bernays wanted to get women to smoke cigarettes.
> The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
Not directly, mostly; and not through land grabs. The age of land grabs is pretty much over - but imperialism lives on in different form - including massive military interventions and covert operations for manipulating or replacing regimes, more that properly conquering and settling lands.
Today's UK is not an independent empire of this kind. It used to be; but now it is relegated to being a junior partner in its alliance with the US empire, mostly, and with the EU, to a lesser extent. This is reflected in its top 10 arms recipients, e.g. for 2024 [1]:
Saudi Arabia, £14bn United States of America, £8.3bn France, £5.2bn Qatar, £3.5bn Italy, £2.8bn Oman, £2.5bn Turkey, £2.3bn India, £2.3bn Norway, £2.2bn United Arab Emirates, £1.7bn
and there are also arms Israel for about £0.572bn; and the arming of Ukraine, a cooperation with both the US and European powers, as part of NATO's struggle against Russia.
The UK also sends troops as part of US imperial interventions, e.g. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There are also UK-dominated or UK-only interventions abroad, but mostly if we go a few decades back [2].
[1] : https://www.thenational.scot/news/24272310.uk-arms-exports--...
[2] : https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uks-83-military-intervent...
Defensive missions? Was the UK under attack?
The UK has allies in the region. Kuwait was bombed just yesterday. And a UK airbase was targeted.
Are you arguing that the entire world should never provide aid to other countries? Surely you're just calling for imperialist powers to gobble up the planet piece by piece.
I guess schoolgirls were naughty and saying bad words about the UK, hence arming the American planes with bombs to use on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
They still own Falkland Islands.
Who "owned" it before? There were no people on that land before it was settled.
I don’t know terribly much about it. Wikipedia says that the British Government decided to colonize it in 1840.
Why did British people decide to move from the Northern Hemisphere to this island? Because the climate looked similar?
And yes, here is a dispute between a historically imperialist versus a settler state. It’s weird.
You are quite the hypocrite to call the UK not a imperialistic country. They are probably the greatest of them all. They have far more blood on their hands in foreign interventions than Russia and China combined. In fact they are still occupied with abuse and destruction throughout the world. You are naive and victim of propoganda for not seeing this.
>The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
It has centuries of exactly that at a global scale, and continued post-war neo-colonial land grabbing and pressuring, plus eager participation in all the imperialist games of its larger brother.
I mean, just mentioning "Tony Blair" is enough...
20 years since he was in power...
What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation. The UK currently has fewer military personnel in Iraq than it has in, say, Germany. And Britain doesn’t control the Iraqi government.
>What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation.
Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.
That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.
My post wasn’t defending the Iraq war. It was just pointing out that the war was not a land grab. Iraq is not now a part of the UK or US (in contrast to the situation with Russia and Crimea, for example).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military...
For anyone else interested, negotiations that could lead to the US leaving Iraq and fully returning control to the Iraqi people are also going swimmingly, according to reports.
The US military presence in Iraq is already far smaller than its presence in Germany and many other countries. Certainly, the US is a global superpower (albeit a declining one) that exerts influence via its military strength. But Iraq is not occupied by the US any more than Germany is.
If Germany wants the US to leave, do they have to negotiate to get that to happen?
It’s hard to say. What would happen if Germany demanded that US forces leave? Germany undoubtedly has the right to do this. I don’t think anyone can say what would happen with any confidence, as it’s quite an outlandish scenario. My guess is that, ultimately, US forces would leave, NATO would collapse, and relations between the US and Germany would decline precipitously. But hey, actions have consequences. This does not mean that Germany cannot get rid of US forces if it wants to; it just means that it doesn’t want to because it would be a bad idea.
Saying that it's the invasions that created civil wars and suffering in Afghanistan and Iraq is just exceptionally ignorant. Here's a taster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Ba%27athist_Ir...
For all their failures, the allies never bombed cities with nerve agents.
Your page says:
> Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War
Which links to a page about the war:
> Iraq was aided by [...] the United States, the United Kingdom,
> After years of military and economic losses, decreasing morale, intensifying Iran–U.S. relations, and little international action against Iraqi attacks on Iranian civilians, Iran agreed to a ceasefire with Iraq under United Nations Security Council Resolution 598.
So they basically did.
I don't think anyone engaging in a good faith discussion would make the conclusion you just made.
Why not?
What do you think an llm would say if you asked it:
> Did the US and UK support Saddam Hussein when he was using weapons of mass destruction on Iranian civilians?
The question is completely different from the point I was making. "X did bad things on their own" and "Y had absolutely no relationship with X at any point" are two points so blindingly obviously different that I'm having a hard time accepting that you are genuinely confused about the difference.
It's a motte-and-bailey fallacy that starts with countries and leaders having relationships in a global, interwoven world and ends with excusing a blood-thirsty dictator as if they had no agency.
I think something Brits don't fully understand is the extent of our vassalage under the US.
We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.
Ok, but you can say the same for the US. It also has vastly more troops in Germany than Iraq, and it also does not control the Iraqi government. And the less said about Afghanistan the better. So where is the land grab?
One does not need to dictate every item of policy to control a country, one just needs to ensure that there's alignment on strategic issues. I think this was America's key point of learning when it took over the reins of the European empires after WW2.
In Germany, historically the strategic issue was anti-communism, but now it serves as a military logistics hub; in Iraq, it's about trade in oil in dollars and access to Iraqi oil fields for US companies.
The UK is more complex and more total, ranging from support in the security council, to access to markets for US goods and services, to stationing of US troops and hardware. Most of our economy is geared up for the benefit of US investment funds.
Any government, whether it be Germany, Iraq or the UK, which tries to alter any of these fundamentals will quickly find out the extent to which their land has been grabbed.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.
It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much.
Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country.
I don't believe that it really changes the fact that yes, US troops occupy the UK, Germany and Iraq, and many more. The most substantial deployments, e.g., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and until recently Iraq and Afghanistan, were very much the product of invasions. At the time of those invasions, many of those on the receiving end would have very much felt on the receiving end of a land grab. It's just their grandchildren have been conditioned to view this state of affairs as natural.
The general pattern is "bomb the bejesus" [2] out of a country. Plant base. Install a friendly government and ensure a favourable operating environment for US interests. The UK is an exception in that it wasn't bombed by the US, but the upshot is the same. We're a wholely-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a giant aircraft carrier on the other side of the Atlantic -- as the US's latest adventure in Iran has clearly demonstrated.
You may quibble over the "land" in land-grab, but the strategic bits (e.g., oil fields, bases) are very much owned, and the territory as a whole controlled by pliant governments.
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...
[^2]: Kissenger, 1972
I don't think it's fair to compare US foreign policy to actual imperialism as practiced by the Soviets, the British, etc. The US does not maintain colonies, and, as you point out, does not even attempt to exert total control. Pursuing your interests and forcing total political and cultural domination are not equivalent. The US is more than happy for Germans to be German, Japanese to be Japanese, etc, as long as US interests are prioritized. This is clearly not the case for other major powers.
Nations (and people) exist in an ecosystem, and so will always behave accordingly, and always in their own interests. There are some emergent properties of ecosystems, one of which is that optimal behaviour is to acquire the maximum you are physically capable of defending, not the minimum that you need to survive.
It's perfectly reasonable for the US, the big fish in the pond, to leverage its advantages accordingly, and to the maximum. It would be a disservice to the US people if it did not. Smaller fish should indeed be glad that the big fish is as placid and strategically (rather than ideologically) motivated as it is, given the historically experienced alternatives.
Your biases are hanging out. Like hemorrhoids.
The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
How long do you plan on holding the currency set of British people responsible for things they didn’t do?
>The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
Just because Britain couldn't afford it anymore. And after bloodshed, in India, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Not out of the bigness of their heart.
And the post-colonialism never ended. The same grabby hands get everywhere they can get.
And why exactly are those "small overseas territories" unquestionably retained? "No biggie, just an island here, an island there, and island there, some land in here"
I really would have expected a much more reasoned approach from the likes of you Mr coldtea.
Historically I’ve found your comments informative, well thought out, and entertaining.
Here’s the Wikipedia article on the BOTs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Overseas_Territories
I’m willing to acknowledge those locales probably remain British territories, at least some of them, as an spect of projecting force, in addition the to historical quirks.
I probably don’t know enough.
And, ultimately, it would be nice if everyone got along and was generally content to stay in their lane.
Would the former British colonies be doing better or worse had they never been colonised? Quite possibly better. We’ll never know. At least some of the former colonies have failed spectacularly. That’s probably a good enough reason to never try any of that again.
I’m trying to steelman your arguments here Mr coldtea. Not only that, I have also raged against what happened in a similar manner from time to time.
> Would the former British colonies be doing better or worse had they never been colonised?
It's not necessarily correct to assume that they failed because they were previously colonised by the British. Should we have instead allowed other powers to colonise them? That is the only realisitic counterfactual here. Can we truly say the world would have been better off if the British had not colonised various countries, for example when it came to waging the Second World War?
I tend to agree.
oh, i see you misunderstanding. he obviously meant the ruling class, those epsteinites. nobody cares about british people, they're just ... people!
Fuck up cunt.
It’s obvious no body cares about the British people.
> Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity.
What do you mean? As in invading other countries?
Just on the facts,
* assisting US offensive actions,
* weapons sales for offensive usage (eg: The UK government admits that Saudi Arabia has used UK weapons, made by companies around the UK, in its attacks on Yemen.)
How is that "almost all"?
Did I say that?
Perhaps direct your Socratic Simplicio more accurately.
You were answering this:
> > Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity.
> What do you mean? As in invading other countries?
He is quite correct though. By calling it "defence" industry, it is insinuated that this is always a moral right use of arms. In reality one would have to look on a case by case basis to see which use really qualifies as defence. In many cases I would not call it defence, for instance, if money is used to overthrow other governments and so forth. Or the Falklands War as an example - technically one could claim the UK had to "defence" its territory, but at the same time one has to question the use of colonies in the first place.
The Falklands weren't colonised by the British in the way you probably mean. They were settled by them - the people of the Falklands are the descendents of British settlers.
Why wouldn't you call a military action to stop Argentina invading them "defence"?
"war industry" is still very charitable! If you have any standards that distinguish a war from indiscriminate killing, they probably violate those standards in a large proportion of their business.
What informs your "probably"?
When I said "If you have standards" I did not specify what those standards are. So I said "probably", because I have to guess you have similar standards to me. If you do, then you can drop the "probably".
As the other commenter correctly guesses, you only have to open the news to find examples. Iran, Palestine, Iraq (way back when). Most "wars" are not really wars these days, they're just exercises in western aggression.
Okay - I see. I thought it was a qualifier of "in a large proportion of their business".
In that case - why do you think it's "in a large proportion of their business"?
No wonder they are so pro russia (but pretend otherwise ), they want the war to go on and on, have people die on both sides.
“This research does not suggest that any individual cited in this report deliberately concealed their commercial affiliations from journalists. Rather, it highlights a recurring failure by news organisations to disclose potentially relevant industry interests when presenting former senior military figures as independent expert commentators on defence, conflict, and national security issues.”
“Of course, holding private-sector roles after military service is both lawful and commonplace. This is not the point of this report. Rather, the concern highlighted here is about the UK’s media.”
“The findings presented here do not argue that the individuals identified are acting improperly, nor that their analyses lack merit, however we assert that the public has a right to full and relevant information when evaluating expert commentary, particularly where it involves lives, public expenditure, and international security.”
“It is important to note that this report does not allege wrongdoing on the part of the individuals identified, nor on the part of the publications presented within the pages of this report.”
Practically every third paragraph reiterates this.
They are anticipating a flood of complaints from various well-connected groups and individuals that it's an unfair hit piece. They want to be able to point to all the "Hey, we didn't say this ACTUALLY MATTERED" disclaimers they front-loaded it with.
Except they said that it actually matter. The reason they didn't said that all those people with a potential conflict of interest lied is that it's not necessarily true. After all the article didn't reveal some secret conspiracy, it higlited the use of not disclosing some public, easily accessible informations by some media outlets, which are the ones to blame
Source? The UK has been extremely vocal about defending Ukraine's sovereign rights and has spent a lot of money supplying it with defensive equipment.
Russia despises the UK. The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people, just like the US does. Just like most of Europe does. It is the fringe view and not reflected in state policy.
> The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people
"Right wing" people like George Galloway? Put your obvious bias aside for a moment and just say "a few pro Russia people".
You are of course correct. I completely forgot about him. Jeremy Corbyn could probably be lumped in as an elected official. There is a pretty virulent form of left wing in the UK who argue that Russia is good because it's imperialism is somehow justified (I think it boils down to anti-NATO sentiment.)
> obvious bias
The rise of a few right parties with sympathy to Russia was on my mind. Although that talk has seemed to have quieted with more national issues taking up breath.
I admit my post was slightly inflammatory & you could have responded very differently. I commend you for taking the high road.
It is interesting that any US-centric article causing political flame wars immediately sinks here, but anything generating similar "debate" on UK issues is allowed to sit on the front page, accumulating hundreds of comments. I don't think the conversation here is evolving in way that HN tries to foster, so hopefully this one is shadow-flagged (or however the internal mod tools work) soon.
Still up here a few hours later huh, despite clear propaganda that is nothing to do with TFA.
It seems the same goes for international media to some extent.This example passed as nothing although it should have been everywhere: The general reportedly stated that the UK Ministry of Defence could stage a "mutiny potentially up to a coup d'état,if Jeremy Corbyn -as a potential Prime Minister) attempted to Leave NATO. https://monthlyreview.org/articles/anatomy-of-a-propaganda-c...