I know that I will be made to pay for this, but Oh! the irony (whose provocation I cannot resist): John Phillpott attempts (Telling The Truth But Not The Whole Truth, November 18) to make a point about "fake news" (or what he labels "half-news") by filling his column with (wait for
it): fake news and half news. Classic; and it would be difficult to make it up.
For instance, he claims that the BBC (one of his irrational pet hates, as we all know) never tells us about the potential for damage to wildlife by wind- or solar-energy- farms. This cannot be allowed to pass, since it is absurdly, patently,
untrue.
The same can be said of his claim that PFI costs on the NHS and elsewhere are never mentioned in national print and broadcast media. As to the Grenfell Tower cladding, what a clumsy attempt to pour scorn (and, indeed, blame) on the EU and the Labour Party by conflating a most necessary initiative deriving from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change with the detailed cladding-material specifications used (or mis-used) in the UK.
Does he have an explanation of why every other journalist in the country has missed this alleged "fact"?
Throughout, he offers not a shred of evidence, quantified or otherwise, except in the case of Grenfell, where he advises a surf of the internet, the very place where so much fakery is causing so much damage to our politics, our culture
and our communities, both here and around the wider planet.
David Barlow
Worcester
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