Last year was a tumultuous one: 2025 looks like it will be another bumpy ride. In the world there are distinct political agendas that bear down on us all. Propaganda seeks to promote and justify what Governments do to ensure popular support for their policies. All the media participate in this. It is not a conspiracy: it is the way competing interests are ‘spun’.

To parody the father of modern Chinese politics, Mao Tse Tung: - ‘Where do ‘correct’ ideas come from? Do they fall from the sky? NO! They come from the BBC and the Sun and the Daily Mail and the Guardian’. (But NOT ‘The Forester’: its mandate is familiar reality).

We live in the most propagandised age in history because there is more access to ‘news’ than ever before that challenges the mainstream national media. The clash of ideas is such that the dominant ‘legacy’ media – the established dailies, the BBC and the main TV channels increasingly converge in their view of the world to preserve and promote the ‘establishment’ position – precisely because it is being challenged.

This increased uniformity is reflected in our political parties. Policy differences have shrunk and now it is about ‘personalities’ and vociferous arguments around ‘identity politics’ – personal sexuality, gender orientation and ethnicity rather than the politics of economic power and class as once was the case.

I am reminded increasingly of the observation that…"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion but allow very lively debate within that spectrum”. In this way you manufacture ‘consent’ and avoid discussing that which is challenging to those who want to keep a grip on power.

There is not much difference between Kier Starmer and his Tory predecessor, David Cameron. They both believe in variations of a deregulated globalised world run in the interests of private capital. Their definition of ‘liberal’ is only superficially about ‘human rights’ and ‘freedom’. It is ‘window dressing’. The kind of ‘freedom’ they extoll is the right of big business to be ‘free’ to do what it likes with as little interference as possible here in Britain and around the world.

Those countries that oppose this are seen as ‘unfriendly’ and action is taken against them to ensure compliance. They achieve this by ‘democratising’ them through propaganda and if this does not work, imposing their ‘rules-based order’ by economic coercion or military force.

Labour and Tory Foreign Policies are virtually identical and the product of Britain’s ‘intelligence’ services. Much of this policy is made in the USA. UK Governments cultivate the US because it is the most powerful member of the 5 Eyes ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Alliance which coordinates the ‘intelligence services’ of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA. Its very existence used to be an ‘Official Secret’ and was until recently a criminal offence to divulge. The global agenda is to maintain the domination and the export of the western ‘unipolar’ world in every sense – economically, politically, culturally and militarily.

It is these who decide ‘THE LINE’ on Foreign Policy Issues. They orchestrate the narrative that informs the press and which politicians across the entire spectrum then consider. Those that challenge the views of the intelligence services run the risk of being accused of being a threat to ‘national security’. In Britain there is a ‘D’ notice committee (the DSMA) which includes the national press and Government agencies which ‘advise’ what should and should not be covered by the media.

People pay much closer attention when something particularly impactful has taken place – like a war - and it is then that the ‘manufacturers’ of consent are obliged to swing into overdrive to protect ‘national security’ interests.

Let’s take just a few headlines and bear in mind the need to get ‘THE LINE’ right. All the following reports about the Ukraine war were provided as ‘fact’ across the whole of the ‘western’ media.

Russia blew up its own ‘Nord-Stream’ pipeline that supplied Germany with cheap gas.

Russia is running out of missiles.

The Russian economy is collapsing.

These statements were not supported by evidence. They were believed because people WANTED to believe them because of the way the conflict was presented – with Russia as the evil aggressor and Ukraine as the innocent victim. It was a fairy tale of ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. ‘Russophobia’ and hate became respectable. History and context were ignored. No alternative views or analysis were allowed. Diplomacy was sidelined. Russian broadcasts were banned. Russian writers and music were declared taboo.

Was this all done to support the people of Ukraine? That was the cover story. The more powerful motivation had far more to do with attempts to weaken Russia and maintain ‘western’ global supremacy as articulated by the intelligence services (the CIA and MI6).

As Ukraine faces the possibility of defeat we can already see ‘THE LINE’ emerging in those media outlets that package the ‘intelligence services’ view. ‘We did all we could to support Ukraine, but it wasn’t enough because it refused to conscript its young men to fight’.

The west incited and armed its proxy to fight and weaken Russia. But Ukraine will be on its own in defeat. It is a cynical and disingenuous posture for which no-one will be held accountable. Victory has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan.

We are exposed to propaganda every day. The only way to challenge it and avoid making disastrous mistakes is by having sensible debate based on facts. This is precisely what we did not do over Ukraine. We will now see the blame game accelerate as people position themselves to save face. But there is also a distinct possibility of further escalation with a new lunatic in the Whitehouse whose instincts may be to show the world who is ‘boss’.

Some years ago, the Leveson Inquiry proposed regulation of the media. Its recommendations were never acted on. If we had honest reporting and curbed the power of the intelligence services and its propaganda, the Ukraine war may have been avoided.