First of all, we are going to present a topic that should be of importance to the Argentine State, although knowing the policy of automatic alignment with the United States (US), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Israel that the government of Javier Milei is carrying out, the issue will surely not find a place on its agenda of priorities.
Just over a week ago, the Declassified UK website published an “analysis of online coverage of broadcasters’ defence spending and strategy” since Labour returned to power following Keir Starmer’s landslide election victory. The analysis “shows that reporting is virtually 100% in line with the government’s own priorities” and that “critical voices, where included, are entirely right-wing.”
Through a detailed analysis of 20 articles published under the “advocacy” category since Starmer took office – 14 from Sky , 5 from the BBC and 1 from ITV – Declassified UK was able to establish with certainty that they “faithfully reproduce the government’s agenda” .
The articles in question primarily promote Labour’s proposals for a defence review, its pledge to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP, its commitment to Ukraine and NATO (described on the BBC by Foreign Secretary David Lammy as “part of Britain’s DNA”) .
His idea that there is a need to rebuild confidence in the armed forces to deal with "rapidly increasing global threats" (as Sky quoted Defence Secretary John Healey as saying) also features.
The British media establishment has for decades maintained the highly secretive Defence and Security Media Advisory Board (DSMA), which imposes a very British form of press censorship . As the dissenter puts it, the board: “Decides which (defence-related) issues and events can be reported on, and how, in a chivalrous but fundamentally dishonest manner.”
The committee was set up in 1912 when the Admiralty and War Office came to the conclusion that they needed some means of preventing the press from publishing information which might be of value to a future enemy . After some informal discussions with the press, the then Secretary to the Admiralty met on 13 August 1912 with representatives of the War Office and various Press Associations to discuss the problem. It was agreed that an organisation should be set up to deal with this matter, on which the press would be represented.
Indeed, the committee “is a body run by the Ministry of Defense composed of representatives of the security services, military veterans, senior government officials, heads of press associations, senior editors and journalists, which meets every six months,” the dissenter noted.
Meanwhile, the only critical voices appearing in these media “are shadow Tory ministers, think tank spokesmen and military “experts”, who talk about how vital it is to boost defence spending, which currently stands at £64.6bn a year (2.32% of GDP)” .
There appears to be an explicit consensus within the British ruling classes that “such spending is necessary” to deal with what Army Chief of Staff Roland Walker has described as an “axis of unrest” comprising Russia, China, Iran and North Korea .
Walker was quoted by British media outlet Sky without comment on July 23 as saying that there was "an 'urgent need' for the British military to rebuild its ability to deter future wars with credible combat power." Pirates are apparently preparing for war - plunder and robbery, which they know a thing or two about.
The subordination of the mainstream media to the Starmer government’s bellicose policy, which is also in line with the broad outlines it inherited from the Conservative administrations that preceded it in power, appears to be total. As Declassified UK reports: “Much of the coverage feels like a MoD press release, which is not surprising given that MoD statements are freely incorporated, without challenge, into news reports.”
And as an example he mentions the ITV News report of 16 July on the Labour Party’s defence review. It relied heavily on a Ministry of Defence publication of the same day. The only difference with the government’s statement, according to Declassified UK , is that it “also quotes shadow armed forces minister Andrew Bowie” as saying that “the country did not need another review” but that “we just need to get on with it and spend more money on defence” .
Another example cited by Declassified UK was that the BBC and Sky “ran lengthy reports on speeches given by the Defence Secretary and General Walker” at the Royal United Services Institute’s “Land War” conference on 22 and 23 July, “unambiguously pushing the line that increased defence spending was crucial to securing peace” .
Neither article made any comments “on the huge political and economic risks of increasing defence spending and a possible acceleration of instability,” Declassified UK rightly notes.
Perhaps the lack of criticism has to do with the fact that the Defense and Security Media Advisory Committee issues D notices as an official request to journalists not to publish or broadcast particular information on issues related to national security , or requesting the removal of certain details of information on supposedly sensitive topics.
As detailed by the dissenter , since 2017, “there are five permanent notices, relating to: military operations, plans and capabilities; nuclear and non-nuclear weapons systems and equipment; the operations, activities and communication methods and techniques of anti-terrorist military forces, special forces and intelligence agencies; physical assets and property; personnel and their families working in sensitive positions.”
If the Committee Secretary believes that a story is due to be published soon, or has been published, and it falls into one or more of those five areas described in the previous paragraph, emails are sent to the editors of all major publications, usually marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media."
The aggressive imperialist policy that Starmer ’s government intends to pursue apparently excludes “voices on the left that argue for a completely different set of priorities.” British Labour has long since lost its shame. But there is also no room for orthodox economists like Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who “criticise the way recent governments have presented the proposed increase” and point out that “more money for defence means less for everything else.”
Declassified UK asks: “When was the last time you heard someone on TV challenging the idea that we need to spend more on defence when our schools, hospitals and mental health services are suffering?”
However, Security Minister Dan Jarvis was not challenged on GMTV on 11 July when he pitched Labour's defence review to an audience, insisting it is "absolutely critical that we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies in Nato in supporting Ukraine" .
Nor did BBC political editor Chris Mason question Starmer in the main BBC bulletin later in the day, about the broader issues around defence spending, but simply whether his promise to increase funding was "ironclad" or not.
What’s more, as Declassified UK notes, British government Defence Secretary Healey appeared on ITV’s News at Ten around the same time, where he agreed with a question that “the world is in the most dangerous place it’s been since before 1945.” The minister made it clear that “the problem is Russia, and the only solution is to spend more money on defence.”
As exemplified by Declassified UK, “news broadcasters have acted more as cheerleaders for the UK government’s strategic defence priorities than as impartial journalists.”
And one example is enough. Earlier this year, following a widely reported speech by the then Defence Secretary Grant Shapps committing the UK to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, Sky News launched a series called "Ready for War?" in April. The series looked at whether the United Kingdom of Great Britain was prepared for the "possibility of armed conflict" , drawing on interviews “with defence specialists, former military officers and academics, all of whom were singing the same pro-war hymn,” as Declassified UK notes.
Sky News thus reported on the emergence of a “national defence plan” to deal with “growing concerns about Russia, China and Iran” and uncritically embraced the idea that we are now in a “pre-war world” . Declassified UK is undoubtedly right to claim that: “This has all the hallmarks of a drive for war” .
The favourite stories of defence-linked broadcasters are those featuring dazzling images of the latest military hardware. As Richard Norton-Taylor , former defence correspondent for the Guardian and now a contributor to Declassified UK , has pointed out: “The MoD knows how to seduce journalists, especially those writing for specialist defence publications – often used as primary sources by mainstream journalists – by showing off new weapons.”
In January, Sky News ran a story about a new laser system, Dragon Fire, developed by the MoD for a sum of around £100m. It talked about its “millimetre accuracy” taken straight from the MoD’s own press release. They then followed up with another story in April, in which the reporter’s enthusiasm for the deadly technology that “could be used in Ukraine to shoot down Russian drones” was of note.
As Declassified UK argues: “There was no attempt to examine the cost and effectiveness of the technology, not even a reference to the potential impact of using British hardware to attack Russian equipment (just as there is still very little debate about why British arms are still being sold to an Israeli army carrying out genocide).”
Sky News , as part of its "Ready for War?" series, published a lengthy article in May on the vulnerability of UK air defence systems after "decades of cost-saving cuts" .
As usual, only military personnel, the Ministry of Defence and the message's think tank, the Royal United Services Institute, were cited. The article reads like an attempt to fund the government to shore up spending on air defence, with no commentary expressing a different view.
This included omitting that “the British military has enough air defence systems to deploy some as far away as Saudi Arabia,” Declassified UK rightly noted.
As ever, “an uncritical acceptance of the UK’s strategic geopolitical interests comes before any commitment to transparency or even exploration of the claim that increased military spending might not be the best way to reduce rising tensions around the world.”
Declassified UK has published several articles examining this issue, revealing preferential treatment for favoured journalists, sanctions against those who ask difficult questions, close contacts between correspondents and defence and security officials, and indeed the existence of a revolving door between journalism and military PR.
That means that while the UK is increasing its support for Ukraine and continuing to back Israel in its defence against possible attacks by Iran, British radio and television journalists are effectively operating as part of a coordinated effort to increase defence spending. The protection of the “national interest” thus seems to require it.
Their silence on stories such as the training of Israeli troops inside the UK or the number of UK military flights from Cyprus to Israel is as worrying as their more visible and uncritical amplification of the defence priorities of successive UK governments. “This is not journalism, it is PR” they say on Declassified UK .
In truth, we can say that this is not journalism, it is crude and vulgar propaganda in favour of Anglo-Saxon war-mongering imperialism . The same one that continues to occupy our Malvinas Islands by force and constitutes a threat to peace in the South Atlantic, for Argentina and for all of South America .
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