On the one hand, just five individual Billionaires in Britain get to control 80% what you read in printed media and on the other hand, just five Internet Service Providers get to control what 87% of people get to see on their devices. Both are heavily influenced by government. It is no wonder what the public think is a misinterpretation of the truth. In fact, so far from the truth, it is more a departure from reality. Propaganda works!
Owen Jones’s book, “The Establishment and how they get away with it” focuses on how British democracy is threatened from within explained best by it’s own description;
“Behind our democracy lurks a powerful but unaccountable network of people who wield massive power and reap huge profits in the process. In exposing this shadowy and complex system that dominates our lives, Owen Jones sets out on a journey into the heart of our Establishment, from the lobbies of Westminster to the newsrooms, boardrooms and trading rooms of Fleet Street and the City. Exposing the revolving doors that link these worlds, and the vested interests that bind them together, Jones shows how, in claiming to work on our behalf, the people at the top are doing precisely the opposite. In fact, they represent the biggest threat to our democracy today — and it is time they were challenged”.
Jones makes a good point in highlighting “how the media controls Britain” and how it reveals the schism between popular British sentiment about key social issues courtesy of media influences and reality, indicating that the “establishment” is more than happy to sow discord within the working/middle classes using its traditional “objective” distribution channels, while it remains aloof, collecting the rent its record capital provides.
For instance, the book says, 24% of the population think that British society is Muslim, the figure is actually 5%. 31% believe the British population are immigrants when it’s 14%, 27% believe social security money has been fraudulently gained when the figure is 0.7%. It continues with statistics that distort the truth such as 41% of the public believe all social security money goes to the unemployed when it’s actually 3% and 29% of Britons think more taxpayers money goes on jobseekers allowance than on pensions — when 15 times more money is spent on pensioners.