 in a bid to speak directly to the public but without using the Gaffprone Prime Minister, Downing Street is breaking with convention to appoint a public-facing press spokesperson. Now this is unusual in Britain. Normally we don't have employees of the government sort of standing and speaking publicly to newspapers. That's why you always hear things from anonymous sources or the Prime Minister's spokesperson said they never appear in newspapers. In fact, it's part of the ministerial code that they shouldn't. But Downing Street has decided that it wants to introduce a new role basically based on the US press secretary. So someone who's employed by the government to stand up in daily press conferences and field questions to journalists. Now you can see why they want to do that. They sort of recognize that having sort of almost constant access to the public can be handy. Remember it's sort of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when you know the Tories were doing really well in the polls partly because of all that communication. You can see why they want to do it more. You can also see why they want to employ someone instead of putting Boris Johnson in front of the cameras every day because he's really fucking up. On Thursday we found out who would be filling this role. It is current head of strategic communications for Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, former head of national news at ITV and before that political editor at Newsnight Allegra Stratton. That's Allegra Stratton. They're speaking to policy in exchange in securing this job which I think gets you a 100k, 100,000 salary stratton follows in the long noble tradition. It's not a noble tradition of people going from working in political journalism to working for the people who they were supposed to be holding to account. So political journalists going to work for politicians. Newsnight, ITV, Rishi Sunak, prime minister. It's a bit of a conveyer about that from political journalism to basically doing PR for journalists. You might ask whether there's much difference in the first place. She was political editor at Newsnight between 2012 and 2015. Then she went on to become head of national news for ITV and since April you've actually been working with Sunak. She also happens to be married to James Forsyth who is political editor at the spectator. He himself is best friends with Rishi Sunak, who was the best man at their wedding. Rishi Sunak was the best man at Allegra Stratton's wedding. It shows you how tight-knit, how tightly-knit the establishment of politicians and journalists, which of course is unhealthy for democracy because you're not likely to be as tough a reporter when you're speaking to someone who was the best man at your wedding or when you're speaking to someone who you think might be employing you in a year's time, which as head of national news at ITV, she would have been reporting on these politicians who she presumably had in the back of her mind. She might go and work for in a moment but I want to get down to what she was like as a journalist. This is relevant actually because I think she is here doing some sort of PR for the government in 2012 in the middle of George Osborne's war on anyone who claims benefits. Explain to me you are just tell me a bit about your situation. You've got a daughter of son. She's going to be free next month. We live together, we live just me and her. I've got that accommodation not through the council but I found it myself and then applied for housing benefits separately. You're on housing benefit, you get help from the state for your housing. Don't you think that you should have possibly lived at home until the point at which you could support your own house? Well I find that living at home with my mum just wouldn't be an option really space wise. There's not enough space for... How big is her flat or house? She does have a two bedroom flat. It doesn't sound to me like your house and your mother's house, your mother's flat is a bad place so it's a choice you're making and it's a choice that comes with a price tag attached. Yes it's a choice but at the same time you know I don't think living in my mum's house would have been it wouldn't have been constructive. I mean we know we both know people that are living with their parents, they don't have a job and they have fights that's what happens but they don't have a financial choice. I think that's the difference because I'm asking for help towards, I'm not asking for a free hand. Now that is just painful to watch, it's horrible to watch. She was political editor at Newsnight right she wasn't just some low-level journalist who was told to do something by her producer, she was political editor at Newsnight and she was doing an interview in the middle of you know George Osborne's you know catastrophic war on the poor, his austerity policy which was you know backfired it wasn't a smart policy, she as political editor should have been interrogating the government on this policy which didn't work. When she's interviewing people who are you know suffering from cuts to benefits I mean she should really be asking them about their experience. Yeah of course she could do some pointed questions if she wants but that interview was just a setup you know she's just what have you ever thought about living with your mum? I mean has Allegra Stratton ever thought about living with her mum? You know she's a privately educated woman married to a privately educated man I'm sure they're incredibly comfortable she sits in front of a single mum and sort of I mean basically bullies her live on air really really unpleasant to watch. Now you might say look perhaps she wasn't saying truth to power but at least she was saying some sort of truth you know the public do get annoyed at people who are unemployed but accept lots of money lots of taxpayers money in benefits the problem with that it wasn't only just tasteful it wasn't only unpleasant it was also inaccurate it was also incredibly misleading. Now in that interview she made out Allegra Stratton made out that her interviewee Shanene Forp was unemployed she said you know there are people who they don't work why should they they don't work they have kids why should they be able to claim benefits the implication was you know this is why should you be able to claim benefits. Turns out that's completely false Shanene Forp actually has a full-time job and she has a full-time job but she had to claim housing benefits because she lives in East London where rents are astronomical extortionate probably because of you know people who went to school with Allegra Stratton and making loads of money speculating on East London property prices but in any case she was getting a third of her her rent from from the government which has been cut making her life very difficult and it was such a outrageous misrepresentation of what went on that Shanene Forp complained about this 50 000 people signed a petition and the BBC had to apologize for the misrepresentation let's take a look at the apology so this was a few weeks after the original interview aired. And now for an apology on the 23rd of May during an item on welfare reform we broadcast an interview with Shanene Forp that unfairly created the mistaken impression that she was unemployed and wholly dependent on benefits and suggested that she was living off the state as a lifestyle choice she's asked us to make clear she has been in work or in work related education since leaving school shortly after the program we published an apology on our website for the unmerited embarrassment and any distress the item caused her we're happy to make this broadcast apology as well. So that's how you get ahead in political journalism obviously Allegra Stratton got a higher level job in journalism after doing that she stitched up a young woman who was I mean I shouldn't just say a young woman on benefits because she was a young woman who was working full time but had to have her rent topped up by the state because landlords were charging such extortion at rent so a woman on benefits is not actually a good description for Shanene Forp not that I think you know if someone was purely living off benefits that would be particularly a problem because the job market isn't particularly rosy at the moment but in any case that's terrible journalism so bad they had to apologize she then gets promoted or hired in a higher level job by ITV as national news editor and then she ends up working for surprise surprise the Tories I would say she was doing PR she was doing public relations for for a conservative chancellor back in 2012 she's just doing it officially now because what she was doing there was basically feeding in backing up George Osborne's narrative that people who are on benefits don't deserve them and she was doing it in the cheapest meanest possible way. Now finally I've got some sort of final bit of evidence for you when it comes to this particular interview because you might be watching this thinking you're having a go at someone who's doing their job maybe it was Allegra Stratton's producer who sort of made her ask these awkward questions you know you often see this when people complain about the sun you know don't complain about the journalist it's a difficult job market I want to get a section of a private eye article from the time so this was after the apology had been made and private eye reported on the circumstances in which that interview took place because it seems you know Stratton actually did find the person who she interviewed so let's get this up. The lofty Stratton had earlier dismissed other potential interviewees offered up by Tower Hamlets Council including a couple with four children who had lost who had both lost their jobs and faced having to move out of London. You must have got people living on benefits as a lifestyle choice she demanded of a harassed council staff for good measure she then shouted across a crowded open plan office floor that people should think about whether they can afford kids before they have them one you read that and you think that's shocking appalling you know that a political editor at Newsnight would would say such a thing two you think it's absolutely no wonder that she's become Boris Johnson's spokesperson. Yeah I mean that was an absolutely appalling disgusting interview and if that journalist was worth her salt she would be sitting down with that woman's employer and asking why her employer does not pay high enough wages to cover the rent for her and her child and accepting handouts from the government in the form of undercutting their workers so much that they have to then on top of full-time work claim housing benefits from from the government that's what she'd be doing if she was actually doing her job rather than haranguing this poor woman and asking and telling her that even though she herself is a parent and you know parenthood is difficult enough without living in cramped housing but that's because and I want to make it really clear here that just because the BBC issued an apology does not mean that this was a one-off mistake or that Stratton is one kind of bad apple or one extreme case all she did was she said the quiet part out loud this is the ideological underpinning of the journalist class and that is a consequence of multiple different things it's a consequence of the fact that as we have a shrinking in publicly funded media we instead have reliance on sort of click baits sort of a scoop style journalism which relies on very close relationships with the political elite rather than sort of long-form investigative work and it's also a consequence of the fact that journalism has basically become a a type of work that is exclusively for privately educated very wealthy people you know when you look into the stats that I think it's something like around like 70% or something of journalists are privately educated which is so little in comparison to the to the amount of the proportion of the public that are that are publicly educated so that kind of class that lack of working class representation and the fact that you have to be so close to political elites and to capital and as you say you know the British state is not just the politicians it's also the kind of media class and the cap and capital sort of which have their their embed who which are embedded in the state and which the state is embedded in them but also you know we have this kind of and I know I'm not invested in this concept that all journalists should be neutral I think that being neutral is sort of a bit of a fallacy but you can be a little bit more neutral than this like come on or you can at least have a diversity of ideological representation but also we have this issue here this revolving door between politicians and media figures and capital which clearly presents serious issues when it comes to the idea that the media should hold power to account and that is why Allegra Stratton is not a bad apple that is why she represents actually the norm within the media class in in Britain and why she's reached such a high position her and her husband is because she reflects these structural conditions that have been developing in the media and the media industry over the past few decades in case you're watching this and thinking you know we're we're extrapolating a bit too much from this one case yes one person who was political editor at news night and then head of national news at ITV went on to work for the chancellor and the prime minister but that's just one case it's not so this revolving door is a really systemic thing so I'll give you just a few examples so in 2011 Craig Oliver went straight from the job as editor of BBC 6 o'clock and 10 o'clock news so actually the most important news program on the BBC to be David Cameron's director of communications in 2012 Fia Rogers went from being the BBC's lead politics producer to become George Osborne's comms chief then in 2017 this is the one you've probably heard of and Robbie Gibb went straight from a job as head of political programming at the BBC to be Theresa May's director of communications at number 10 so you've got all of these people who are literally in charge of of political broadcasting political programming they should be holding the government to account going straight on to work for the government there's not even a cooling down period I mean you could at least you know go away and work as an academic for a year or something become before coming back to work for for politicians no they just go straight from that job to working for a politician and it's seen as completely unproblematic obviously the problem with this as I've sort of intimated before if you think you're going to get a job with a politician you're going to be less tough on them you don't want to make an enemy of someone who you think might employ you in future the other problem is once journalists go and work for politicians they are going to be able to get favours from their old organisations right so if you are former head of political programming at the BBC it's going to be easier for you to call up your mates at the BBC and say I'm not you know I'm sure that you've framed this interview with Theresa May in a particularly fair way can you please change it I've got a case study which is from this week and involves Allegra Stratton so this is an interview ITV did with Rishi Sunak on Tuesday if you're a professional musician what is your message right now if they can't earn enough money to live is your message to them you're going to have to get another job I think as I've said it is my simple message to everybody is we're trying to do everything we can to protect as many jobs as possible but they don't think you are in that sector they just don't think you are it's a very sad time three quarters of a million people have already lost their jobs we know that and that that is likely to increase and many of the people will I can't pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that they were doing at the beginning of this crisis and that's why we've put a lot of our extra resource into trying to create new opportunities for people so our kickstart scheme for example for young people who at most are risk of becoming unemployed all the way up to age 24 are going to benefit from a fully funded job placement but that's a new that's a different job isn't it that's you saying go and get a different job that is fresh and new opportunity for people that's exactly what we we should be but we're a country that created so many fabulous musicians and and artists and actors and you're effectively saying look I know it's hard but maybe I'm getting a job I think probably you're you're not been quite right and that there is no work available for the for everyone at all and that's not the reason as in all walks of life everyone's having to adapt so I'm getting the emails and seeing how theater companies are adapting and putting on different types of performances it is possible to do theatrical performances online as well and for people to engage with them that way and for new business models to emerge plenty of music lessons are still carrying on the same thing happens certainly in my household and elsewhere so I yes can things happen in exactly the way that they did no but everyone is having to find ways to adapt and adjust to the new reality and that's what we all have to do and that's why we're allowing that to happen but also providing new opportunity for people if that's the right vehicle for them this isn't a side actually but I just think that's completely bizarre interview like the idea that people who are musicians or whatever he says is people in all walks of life should find new jobs just because we're about to have a lockdown during the winter just seems bizarre why would you retrain as you know a top violinist to become well I mean there aren't really any jobs for people to go to anyway there's mass unemployment it's completely incoherent but anyway that's not what I want to focus on I want to focus on how ITV frame this story and Allegra Stratton's relationship to it so initially ITV reported that interview as Rishi Sunak suggests musicians and others in arts should retrain and find other jobs now that is you know it's potentially a slightly misleading headline you know it's there are many ways that you could frame that interview that's one that's a bit more of a reach and so he responded to a question about people in the arts by saying well you know all sorts of people will have to retrain now obviously if you're watching that and you're an artist that he hasn't offered any reassurance you know it's been put it's been put to him that there are worried artists who might lose their jobs and he said well all sorts of people will have to get new jobs but he hasn't said you know artists will have to get new jobs so obviously they've pushed back Rishi Sunak's office have pushed back and then ITV they retracted so they changed the headline an earlier tweet about this story has been deleted and the article has changed to reflect that the Chancellor's comments were made about employment generally and not specifically about the music or arts sectors this is quite tweeted by Sunak so an earlier ITV politics tweet falsely suggested I thought people in arts should retrain and find other jobs I'm grateful they have now deleted that tweet and this is retweeted by Allegra Stratton so as I say in terms of ITV retracting this it's not the most unreasonable thing to happen in the world I mean I think the headline wasn't really misleading because if you are an artist who's in danger of losing your job Rishi Sunak is essentially telling you we'll go find a new job right but they did in a way put words into his mouth but the fact you know the fact that he could get it changed so quickly and someone who is working for him in a top job used to be head of national news at ITV it gets changed immediately then he tweets out celebrating oh yeah of course actually I care about the arts which is why I've given them this much money it can then get shared by Allegra Stratton I mean the whole thing just seems odd it seems incestuous you have you know the networks that are going on there where Allegra Stratton is his head of comms they got a headline they don't like she can call up her mates at ITV and we have to compare this to how the mainstream media treat left-wing politicians who tend to not have comms chiefs who used to have high-powered positions at the BBC for obvious reasons so let's take for example Jeremy Corbyn now there were many misleading headlines about Jeremy Corbyn and actually misleading presentations of interviews now the most egregious example of this was Laura Koonsburg who in 2015 she basically stitched up Corbyn it was an interview about terrorism the report on BBC news made it out as if Corbyn had said he wouldn't shoot to kill people in the Paris style attacks it turned out that actually Laura Koonsburg could flip the questions and the answers to make it seem like Corbyn's answer about not shooting to kill have been about the Paris attacks when actually that was an answer to a different question now the BBC did apologize for this but it was only after two years you know after it had gone all the way to the top via the proper processes to the BBC or the chairs of the BBC or whatever there was no one who could just call up the BBC and make it happen because Seamus Milne doesn't have as much leverage with those people because he's not particularly from that world now it seems obvious to me that as a politician one of the reasons you want to employ former top journalists you want to employ people who are head of political programming ITV is because you think they can pull strings in those environments they can call up their friend if there's a headline they don't like those kind of things aren't available to politicians outside of that you know milieu and that is ultimately a flaw in our democracy we need different politicians to have the same access to accountability in our media if it just depends on whether the person you employ was also the best man at someone else's you know it's not right finally we're going to finish this story by looking at the people who don't think this is a problem so who doesn't think a revolving door between the media and politics is a problem it's not a surprise other political journalists so when Allegra Stratton was announced as the new press secretary for Downing Street there was obviously you know some uproar some of this focused on the fact that she's married to James Forsyfe although only actually only a small part of it um and this was jumped upon by sort of center right journalists so Matthew Danko and he was former deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph then editor of the spectator then guardian columnist and so he tweeted anyone who has ever had contact with Allegra Stratton knows that she richly deserves and is more than qualified for her new role on which congratulations she also happens to be married to the very talented James Forsyfe with whom I worked at the spectator each of them has a very successful career not unusual it is appallingly sexist to suggest that Allegra Stratton's appointment is anything other than her own achievement and I don't believe that there would have been comparable sniping at a male appointee he goes on there is plenty to criticize about this government but it is quite wrong to direct fire at talent duly rewarded sending Allegra at best wishes now the problem here I mean to be honest I didn't really see anyone saying she got the job because of James Forsyfe and the reason I wouldn't think it is because she was more successful than James Forsyfe this wasn't like she doors were open to her because she was married to the editor of the spectator I mean head of national news at ITV that's a better job than political editor at the spectator so this idea that people are saying oh she's just living in James Forsyfe's shadow is a bit ridiculous but the relevant point is that Rishi Sunak was the best man at her wedding when she was head of news at head of national news at ITV it's about the close wedding you know this this nexus of the media and politicians all being from among the same cozy establishment that's what people are complaining about that's what Matthew Dankona can't see because presumably he's part of it as well to say it's irrelevant that Rishi Sunak was the best man at her wedding when she's head of you know news at ITV that's just to put your head in the sand and this is a strategy that you know establishment journalists and people in the establishment use generally which is to say you cannot focus on our personal lives because that's either uncouth or it's sexist or it's whatever when actually their personal lives are really quite relevant if it means that they are incredibly close to the people who they are supposed to be holding to account