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At Labour’s Conference I heard the voices of the poor, the oppressed, the ignored, and the patronised

Labour’s conference may not yet have delivered a fully perfected programme – but hearing working class voices everywhere was a breath of fresh air, despite the media sneers.

Widespread media hostility to Labour was on maximum revs during and in the immediate aftermath of the Party Conference. Labour can expect nothing favourable from the likes of the Daily Mail or the Murdoch press, but the coverage in much of the self-styled ‘liberal’ press and supposedly ‘impartial’ broadcast media was more dispiriting.

The Independent opted for a nasty, distorted interpretation of everything Jeremy Corbyn said in his closing address. The Guardian was at least largely positive with both Polly Toynbee and Owen Jones among the enthusiasts.

But Channel Four’s Jon Snow conducted a belligerent interview with Jeremy Corbyn during the Conference in which he belaboured the Labour leader on Brexit and on Venezuela. And the BBC was more subtly dismissive. Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg completed an on-air report by wondering aloud if the enthusiasm for Corbyn was just a fad. BBC Assistant Political Editor Norman Smith questioned the public’s appetite for Labour’s new radicalism and suggested that the public would baulk at anything other than marginal change. This is opinion, not reporting. Their effect if not their intention is to put doubt into the minds of listeners. I have yet to hear anyone at the BBC describe fans of Boris Johnson as faddists; or the change implied by Brexit as “marginal”.

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