I am working in Italy this week with a colleague from the UK and the name of a mutual colleague in The Netherlands came up in discussion. I said that I wondered how our colleague was managing with the country being brought to a standstill by the farmers’ protest against the Dutch government’s zero nitrogen strategy and my friend looked blank and asked: “Why, what’s happening in Holland?” After a quick search on Twitter, he was up to speed and open-mouthed at what was happening and incredulous that he had known nothing about it. But I must say, I was not surprised. And here’s why.
Try checking the BBC News website, on which a disappointing number of people still depend for their news. Go to the search facility and type in ‘Dutch Farmers’ and scan down the hits. To save you the bother I did it and here are the top three hits:
Dutch farmers attempt to halt slaughter – is this about the Dutch farmers defending themselves against Dutch police who have been shooting them? No, this one is from 13 April 2001, and it is about the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak of that year.
Dutch farmers block roads – this seems more promising, but no, this one is from 2 July 2001, and it is also about foot-and-mouth disease.
Cull plans anger Dutch farmers – you guessed it; foot-and-mouth disease from 28 March 2001.
Wondering if they were burying this further down the feed, I scrolled down a bit to see:
Dutch police clash with farmers – but this was also from 2001 (13 April) and was also about foot-and-mouth disease.
There is not a single searchable item on the BBC News website about the situation in The Netherlands and it is no surprise that my colleague – aware of current affairs – had no idea about it.
As a matter of interest, since I was here in Italy when it happened, I searched the BBC News website to see if there was anything to be found on the national taxi strike that had just taken place across Italy when 100% of taxis took themselves off the streets in protest against several things including the likelihood of Uber being allowed to operate in Italy. The taxi drivers even stormed the Italian government buildings one night (I had to depend on Tommy Robinson’s Telegram site for that information) and the only hit is to: Italian taxi drivers strike against austerity measures of 23 January 2012. Absolutely nothing about this major event in Italy.
Instead, the pantomime being played out at 10 Downing Street is being reported to saturation level. The live feed on the BBC News website is taken up with little else. You can tell how important the event is to the BBC as they have positioned that paradigm of journalistic prestige and reportage, the highly paid Welsh windbag Huw Edwards in Downing Street. Maybe the intention is to bore Boris into resignation as Huw recounts stories of his childhood in the Welsh valleys and how awful it is having to make ends meet on £250, 000 a month…a month!
Society is genuinely breaking down in some parts of the world such as Sri Lanka. Major protests have taken place against the Covid regime in Canada and now the remarkable protests by farmers (who seem to have little to lose) in The Netherlands, yet the BBC carries on as if the world revolved around Davos and that St Greta of Thunderberg was the true voice of climate science. A situation is well underway in Eastern Europe that will impoverish millions of people, starve large swathes of the poorest people in the world and, if not to World War III, will draw British troops into a situation where, for the first time since the Second World War, they may suffer massive casualties. Yet the BBC portrays this in terms so simplistic and one-sided that most people now proclaim their support for a fascist, racist and homophobic regime.
How we got here is easy to understand; we have been sold a series of massive lies which most people have had neither the will nor the wit to refute. Those who refute are cancelled, deplatformed and defenestrated; the rest are too scared to speak out. As to how we get out of this, I am less certain, but I thank God for Unity News Network and a few other outlets that are willing to tell the unpalatable truths. We must also keep spreading the truth ourselves; I spoke to my colleague later today and he now knows more about the situation in The Netherlands than I do.
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