I began the week by writing a post about Nigel Farage: another commentary on our media’s desperate clamour to propel him into 10 Downing Street, no matter the outcome or the calamity that may befall us.
Following that, I discovered an IPSO ruling against a Daily Telegraph article designed to attack the Labour government’s VAT addition on private schooling. I’ll come back to that shortly; it’s a doozy!
These two occurrences led me to the introspective question in the title above.
As someone who finds themselves in the public eye on social media, I am used to the constant barrage of trolls underneath everything I write – an occupational hazard nowadays. But it got me thinking about some of the specifics of the accusations, because they always pick from a predetermined list that implicates external influences.
“You’re paid by Soros to write this stuff.”
“The 77th* is out early this morning.”
“You’re a paid Labour stooge.”
These are among the most common replies that I receive in the hundreds every day over on the burning husk that used to be Twitter.
*The 77th Brigade is a division of the British Army that allegedly uses psyops and social media to influence political opinion. Apparently, it specialises in “non-lethal forms of psychological warfare” such as cyber-attacks, propaganda activities, and counter-insurgency operations online.
Accusations of hidden influence
All of this got me to thinking: are any of us who report on or write about politics truly free from influence?
Let’s first look at what we mean by “influenced”.
From a writer’s perspective, it can take many forms, but let’s start with the example from above – paid influence.
Before I argue that I think I am, in fact, free from influence, I just want to state, for the record, that I am neither funded, supported, nor paid by anyone to write what I do. Not Labour, not George Soros, and most certainly not a secretive military brigade.
In fact, I am not paid at all, by anyone. Oh, sorry, I have written for and been paid by Byline Times, but that is as a freelancer, and I am not on their payroll.
For context, I have never been a member of any political party, although I did go on some marches in the ’90s when I was a student. I was interviewed for MTV on an Anti-Nazi League march back then, but I don’t think that counts.
How influence shapes journalism
As I mentioned, I’m not paid to write [currently] but, if I were, my employer could influence my journalistic style; it could be the nature of the assignment or the destination of the article. For example, if I were asked by the Daily Mirror to report on Nigel Farage, perhaps, the implicit understanding would be that the piece should be negative towards said politician. Influence.
In the wildly unlikely event that I were to be asked to write something for the Daily Mail, the same piece might have to be less antagonistic. Influence.
Our personal political allegiances obviously colour our thoughts when writing, and I consider myself to be left of centre, but not so far that it becomes a problem, despite being railed at every day for being a “far-left mouthpiece”. I use social media mainly for my opinions, and you can take from those what you will, but when I write in long form, I do make a concerted effort to remain non-partisan and fact-based.
The problem of unconscious bias
But our psyche makes decisions when we choose which words might come next in an article. There’s an unconscious bias at work in all of us; some choose to allow that to come through, others work hard to hold it back for the sake of accuracy – see the Telegraph scandal I’ll get to shortly. Sometimes that decision is out of our hands, and sometimes it makes sense just to let things flow.
Am I going too deep? Unconscious reasoning can truly make a world of difference to an author’s work. It does have an impact on what is added to a page, in what order, and what is omitted. Influence.
The general ecosystem that I occupy is centred on the politics of things, hence the name of my Substack – Playground Politics.
I’ve spent a couple of years pushing myself to write longer and longer posts online that have organically made their way to Substack and, fortunately, into wider publications such as Byline Times or West England Bylines. Perhaps the Daily Mail may come a-knocking one day, too – I did sell them some world exclusive photographs in the past, but that’s another story altogether.
I didn’t choose this path as a young man but stumbled into it when AI wrought the death of my previous incarnation as a one-man-band graphic designer. I love to write; I always have. Occasionally, people have told me that I had a knack for it. So I took a punt.
Politics, media, and amplification
My point here is about the nature of the politics game. It is very difficult to remain non-partisan when describing the fundamental characteristics of our political systems and players of the game … especially now, when we are becoming fractured and ever more divided.
Occasionally, I listen to or watch broadcast media to keep up to date, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find fair reporting; there is a deepening agenda across a great many outlets that favours the far right and willingly promotes them above all else. You often hear the phrases, “and now we turn to Nigel Farage for comment” or “a Reform UK spokesperson said …”. Reform UK is a tiny minority party, yet it commands the lion’s share of media airtime. I’ve done the work on this and have the data to back this up.
Therefore, it’s more important than ever for those of us not employed by Paul Marshall to shout louder, but this often leads to contrary opinions in the desperation to be heard above the right-wing noise. Influence.
If you read my socials, it is primarily anti-Reform, antifascist, anti-far-right posts; an attempt to shout louder than the rabble-rousers of the right. It works, sometimes. I’ve found myself pre-emptively blocked by the Reform UK hierarchy, and they even stopped one of their councillors from talking to me on the record. He was happy to, and keen, but the higher-ups put the kybosh on it. I had provided him with the questions and kept things polite and cordial, with genuine enquiries that, I thought, might give my readers some insight into a Reform UK perspective … but they know who I am now and halted things. Influence.
A cautionary tale from the Telegraph
I promised to mention the Telegraph article that I believe to be a national scandal. In case you are not aware, the Daily Telegraph is still considered a paper of record in the UK, alongside The Times and the Financial Times – national papers regarded as trustworthy and noteworthy.
The reason I bring this up is its blatant attempt to sway public opinion against the current Labour government, using its considerable influence for highly political motives.
It centres on an article published in May of 2025 with the headline: “We earn £345k but soaring private school fees mean we can’t go on five holidays – Labour’s VAT raid forces six-figure families to make lifestyle sacrifices.”
I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say that this was a lengthy piece, reinforced with statistics, graphs and a family called the Moys – Al, Ali, Alexandra, and Harry Moy. The Moys had moved from Singapore to New York, then to London, and were happily sending their two children to an expensive private school when Rachel Reeves and Bridget Phillipson decided to add VAT to private school fees.
This led the couple to reevaluate their entire life and, despite earning three hundred and forty-five thousand pounds between them, they had to make some substantial sacrifices – such as halving the gardener’s hours due to his £15 annual increase. They also had to curtail their yearly holidays from five excursions to one or two.
So far, so many tiny violins, amirite?
The icing on the cake of this tale of woe is that it was entirely fabricated. The Moys do not exist. The photos used of the happy, smiling family – stock images. The ruthless gardener – fake. All of it – made up by the journalist to take a swipe at a government policy. Influence.
So, when I claim to be free from influence, can I be? Really? Probably not, if I’m absolutely honest, it’s impossible. What I can do, though, is work hard to build relationships with people on all sides of the debate; there are decent folk throughout politics. Some may be challenging to reach at first, but I try to remain polite and calm at all times and always refrain from angrily reactive posts.
That becomes my influence.
Can journalists ever be truly independent?
It’s shocking and, for me, the worst part is that they were instructed to display an article of contrition on their homepage but buried so far down the page as to never be seen – under an article about the UK’s best bran flakes. Seriously.
No one is free from influence within the world of journalism, except that some of us try to cut it back, when others amplify theirs into literal works of fiction.
Independent media outlets are the shining stars of our world. Support them and find one whose influences match your own.
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