This week’s Private Eye illuminates the background to the Newsnight interview in which working single mum Shanene Thorpe was portrayed as a “jobless ponce” – suggesting Allegra Stratton was hell-bent on spinning the package against supposedly feckless young mothers.
Working with Tower Hamlets council to source interviewees, Stratton apparently rejected a string of possible candidates on the basis that:
“You must have got people living on benefits as a lifestyle choice!”
Should the question “Do you think you should have had your daughter?” (edited out the final piece for broadcast) not provide sufficient clues as to Stratton’s views, she shouted across a crowded open-plan office:
“… people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
The Eye’s piece concludes:
When a brave council official ventured to suggest to Stratton that she sounded like an Edwardian eugenicist arguing that the poor shouldn’t breed, she informed him that he was “a cock”.
Oh dear.
38 Comments
Has the editor apologised yet? Presumably not.
“… people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
Clearly a shocking and bigoted statement in your eyes but a statement of the bleeding obvious to most people, including Labour voters (the ones on estates, not posh north London suburbs).
@hobson
But ignoring the fact that people often go on benefits years after having a kid….
What do you expect them to do, sell it?
And what if they did think just that, and decided that, yes, they could afford to have kids… and then boom, their job’s cut, the cost of living rises, etc etc, all through no fault of their own… what then? Drown their kids, I assume.
But Ms Stratton did not say anyone should sell or drown their children. What she’s being attacked for saying is: “…people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
Dave said :
And what if they did think just that, and decided that, yes, they could afford to have kids… and then boom, their job’s cut, the cost of living rises, etc etc, all through no fault of their own… what then? Drown their kids, I assume.
The full article in Private Eye does mention that Stratton rejected the chance to interview a couple with four children who had both lost their jobs and faced moving away from London. Obviously a life-style choice. They shouldn’t have had children as in the future they may not be able to afford them.
And yet both you, hobson, and Ms Stratton then go on to conflate that apparently reasonable statement with exactly what you’re protesting she didn’t say. Most people who are trying to raise children on benefits did think about whether they could afford to have them before they did. Then the rug was pulled from under them. Neither you nor Ms Stratton (and at this point I have to wonder whether I’m actually considering two distinct individuals here) seem to be capable of considering that this most common of circumstances can even exist.
The word for that attitude is “denial”, and of the many things it does connote, not one of them is a desirable attribute in a news editor for a major broadcaster. Of course, the trait is exactly what one might look for in a chief propagandist…
She’ll be working for no. 10 Downing Street pretty soon then. Unless she is already, of course.
No gwenhwyfaer, you are inventing things I have not said (or “conflated”). I’ve said nothing about people’s whose circumstances change, whether because they lose their job or for any other reason.
What I am saying is this:
“… people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
Clearly a shocking and bigoted statement in your [the authors of Political Scrapbook] eyes but a statement of the bleeding obvious to most people, including Labour voters (the ones on estates, not posh north London suburbs).
Who exactly can afford to have kids? I’m employed full time, with a good job and can’t afford to have kids – and I live in the midlands where houses are cheaper than down south. The whole idea of affordability is a complete nonsense when it comes to having kids – virtually no-one can ‘afford’ to have kids – you just muddle through whatever and look after them the best you can.
So the publicly subsidised Allegra Stratton is suggesting the working class should execute their children whenever there is a downturn in the economy and unemployment goes up.
Presumably Stratton and hobson will be on hand to help workers kill their unaffordable children.
Why doesn’t Stratton stop sponging off the public and get a real job in the free-market?
I hope she’s not thinking of having any children herslef. Conversations with her fellow BBC colleagues who have families must be interesting.
Don’t know too much about the details of the story, but isn’t the idea that this exposes her as some kind of rabid right-winger a bit much? I seem to remember from her columns etc. during her time at the Guardian that she’s a Labour supporter.
In fact a quick Googling turns up that Ed Miliband was a guest at her wedding.
The implicit assumption behind this is only the wealthy should be allowed to have children. That the right to procreate is not inalienable, but a commidity to be purchased. This is the eugenics of the free market.
Allegra Stratton went into that interview determined to find someone to meet her particular ideological narrative. It wasn’t reporting worthy of a flagship programme like Newsnight – I’d expect it in the Daily Malevolent.
Far from being feckless, Shanene is a young mother who pays a decent amount of rent on her home, which is then topped up by HB. She’s setting a great example for her daughter and demonstrating the value of work. She’s certainly not ‘chosen a life on benefits’ – few do.
@hobson. Then exactly what does your statement “… people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!” have to do with this story?
@Slthrop. Then I would suggest you familiarise yourself with the details of the story before you comment.
“… people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
Clearly a shocking and bigoted statement in your [the authors of Political Scrapbook] eyes but a statement of the bleeding obvious to most people, including Labour voters (the ones on estates, not posh north London suburbs).”
I’m sick and tired of cruel morons who live ‘on estates’ pretending they represent me. I’m born and bred on estates and have learned the word Eugenics because it’s been applied to people who need state support since state support was invented. It means, Hobson, that the rich want to keep the numbers of poor just at the right level, to staff their businesses and at just the right number to pour scorn upon so that people like you will work a shit job rather than claim what you’re entitled to. You might vote labour, Hobson, but you clearly have little concept of what that means. In a toss up between one more vote for Labour and one less vicious idiot, I vote for eugenics too.
Lot of hate being directed at @BBCAllegra here.
However, this flap does throw up a key talking point: should you have children if you are unable to pay for their upkeep yourself? Is having children a means of getting a foothold into the benefits system for some? Given the incredible amount of flak @BBCAllegra is getting, it seems to me she’s show considerable guts by asking questions which clearly many regard as taboo.
For the record, I don’t pretend to have the answers but watching someone being shouted down for asking these difficult questions is interesting in itself.
Possibly Ms Thorpe wasn’t the greatest case study or maybe she is. The central question is: should you rely on the state to pay for a family when deciding to have a family? It’s a question worth asking and worth discussing.
@Grev Williams I was just trying to make the point that as her past writing, professional history and friendship with Ed Miliband all point to her being a Labour supporter it might be a bit of a push to claim that she was revealing her true ‘views’. That doesn’t mean I defend it, but that a journalist allegedly behaving badly in getting a story doesn’t always reveal their ideology.
If Cameron had been to her wedding and she’d previously worked at the Telegraph I’m betting it would have got into the copy somewhere as well.
Grev Williams – you ask what the statement has “to do with this story”. It’s not my statement, as you suggest. It’s in big bold type in the middle of the story! I didn’t put it there.
My reading of Political Scrapbook’s story was that this quote was meant to be evidence of what a nasty woman Ms Stratton is. (I would have to concede that they didn’t actually say that. I do think that’s what Political Scrapbook is implying though. If I have misunderstood what Political Scrapbook is saying then I apologise).
estatedweller, I am sorry to hear that you support eugenics. I personally do not. I think some of the social issues you highlight may be resolved, or at least reduced a little, if we succeed in getting a Labour government in office.
It amuses me this has already deteriorated into accusations of eugenics, soon someone will bring up ethnic cleansing…
What is really at stake here is the impartiality of newsnight as a programme, if one of its news reporters is shown to be biased to a degree where it affects her work. If she really does have the kind of opinions intimated then that’s terrible, but doesn’t necessarily interfere with her being an unbiased reporter, she has the right to her opinions, wrong-headed or not.
Of course, if it can be shown that it is influencing her reporting to a large degree, then that’s important and cannot be overlooked.
A little less hyperbole and invective from everyone perhaps?
1. Please refer to research when discussing people on low incomes having children. Is there any proof that women get pregnant in order to ‘get a foothold into the benefits system’? What about getting a council house? Research please, not anecdote. (Clue 1 : every British citizen is entitled to benefits of some sort of another. Clue 2. Joseph Rowntree Trust)
2. Please follow your own logic through. If it’s wrong to have children if you find yourself below a certain income level then what happens if you have children and get ill, or lose your job or any of the other unlucky parts of normal life? Do the kids go into care? Or what? What *exactly* do you propose?
3. Please look up the word Eugenics. You can find it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics Sterilising ‘degenerate’ or ‘unfit’ people has been done before. It didn’t go well.
You could see the sheer contempt on her face at the start of the interview – I’m surprised Stratton didn’t belt the poor woman http://order-order.com/2011/11/21/allegra-up/ ” Guido understand’s that Allegra Stratton is the new Newsnight political editor, a welcome successor to Michael Crick. She actually started years ago on Newsnight, before going on to the Daily Politics and This Week in the not too distant past. She hails from the left whilst sharing a pillow with the Spectator’s James Forsyth, which provides her with a reality check. She will be a fresh, younger face for late night political telly. “
Having said that, being called ‘Allegra’ and going to Cambridge probably unhelpful. Doesn’t exactly suggest she grew up in Longsight, Meadowell or the Blackbird Leys. But does that disqualify her from asking certain questions? Possibly her report wasn’t the best produced item I’ve ever seen on Newsnight but we have a very very big welfare bill in the UK, an ageing population and a finite number of economically active taxpayers and an even smaller number of actual entrepreneurial wealth-creators. The state now owes insane amounts of money. These are issues which aren’t going to go away by calling people names when they ask questions about what we’re spending and how we’re spending it.
God help us all when only greedy, unsharing, uncaring, coddled, helpless rich people are allowed to reproduce- that really will be the end of human progress and civilisation.
The fact is this woman was not asking awkward questions. She was looking for a very unrepresentative segment of the population to illustrate a more general situation. It was an editorial choice, and one which would have shaped people’s perception of benefit beneficiaries as scroungers.
In the same way that the right wing press had prepared the grounds for the welfare reform by smearing people on incapacity benefit and by manipulating figures.
As whether people should not have children if they cannot afford them, I cannot see the point of the question. Because there are not many options, save to sterilise poor people, refuse to support poor people and their children to meet their most basics, like say food, or to bite the bullet, because children are not a commodity which can or cannot be afforded, and the state has certainly nothing to say in terms of deciding who can or cannot have children or in shaping this decision. In any case, all children are being supported by the state, through schools, free eye tests etc. so maybe people who do not have children should start complaining.
“The more you can increase fear of drugs, crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all of the people.”
― Noam Chomsky
Just a thought!
“But Ms Stratton did not say anyone should sell or drown their children. What she’s being attacked for saying is: “…people should think about whether they can afford to have kids before they have them!”
No, I think you’ll find what she is being attacked for is pretending to be a journalist responsible for presenting a balanced appraisal of the facts,
Whilst actually twisting those facts to suit her own bigoted, right wing world view, ignoring them when they don’t correspond with the anecdotal nonsense she’d like to present as ‘evidence’ and deliberately mis-representing, (bordering on slanderously so given her and her ilks views towards the jobless) a woman who she interviewed.
I think thats actually pretty fair criticism. The woman’s not a journalist, she’s a propagandist.
The stigmatising of benefit recipients by this government and the BBC is this governments mouthpiece in its coverage of the Welfare State, is leading to a polarization of views which is not helpful. I think the above arguments show this. The tories are in the process of dismantling the Welfare State which they have always ideologically opposed. Old labour supporters are obliged therefore to defend it vehemently.
If we just look at one issue raised in this discussion…..in 1948 most people still believed that illegitimate children were ‘bastards’ and in most communities this stigma acted as a brake on having babies out of wedlock. As human sexuality is a biological imperative and as the only %100 form of contraception is sterilization it is not helpful to say that people who can’t afford children must not have them ( this opens the door to eugenic arguments ) . Perhaps what could be argued is that accidents have always happened, that throughout cultures and time women have become pregnant with no one willing to support them, and that in this case a caring society must step in to help. This could happen to some women more than once. After 2 unsupported children perhaps the state needs to reflect societal disapproval (in place of the old religious disapproval) and deny benefits for a third or more children….perhaps counselling combined with how to live on even less money would act as a deterrent to women having children without the support of a partner. This is just an off the cuff example of the kind of welfare reforms which ought to have been put on the agenda to find ways of saving money in the future without the punitive measures being inflicted on the poorest which is going on now.
However this particular article is not about a young woman who lives on benefits, its about a young woman who is trying to raise a child on her own and who works hard to do so. The interviewer is bullying and unreceptive. This might be a good strategy for a journalist who is interviewing someone with power and the ability to manipulate, but it is hard to watch in this case. The interviewer here is coming from the position that all benefits (inc housing benefit) are anathema. She has no idea of the relationship between this young woman and her mother … there could be very many reasons she does not live with her, and she obviously regards any benefit she is getting as a privelege and not a legitimate right. She may be a mate of Ed Miliband but as we all now know from Blairs recent testimony the Labour party are obliged to keep the media happy and as such Miliband will continue the New Labour monetarist policies which can be about nothing but profits and keeping the rich happy, so reducing the bill for benefits is New Labours mantra too. Instead of looking at real ways this can be done this ideological battle over entitlement to benefits per se is leading to this example of bullying as a kind of masthead to the hate crimes that are increasing toward the sick and disabled.
The Stratton item on Newsnight was essentially a hit-piece – clearly she had gone into the ‘research’ part of putting together the story with the story already fixed in her mind, and she was looking for evidence to shore it up. It’s just another instance of the lazy and corrupt practices now rife in broadcast and newsprint journalism in Britain today (although not quite as rotten and corrupt as it is in the States). And of course, there is the macro-agenda which her pre-conceived story served, that benefits are somehow illegitimate and claimants are all fraudsters.
Maybe she couldn’t find a genuine “lifestyle benefitee” because they are actually few and far between despite the government and media spin?
Ms. Strattons piece is clearly lazy, sub standard and has damaged newsnights high quality brand.
She also seems to have a political/economic/ eugenic point to make: If you are poor (for whatever reason) do you not have the responsibility to think about how you will support offspring?
My wife and I delayed having children till later in our careers because of the above worry. However it was not due to a purely rational calculation, but based on the harrowing poverty of my own background. Therefore we were able to have one child rather than the three or four we could afford and might have liked. These calculations are simply not easy to make, cannot always be rational, and do depend upon background and circumstance. Nobody can be expected to competently juggle these factors.
Though tbf her views would seem apparents from her working at the Guardian and the New Statesman as well as the foreign desk at the Times…
A life of contradictions and champagne socialism.
I truth, Newsnight is a bit crap these days. The brand’s been in trouble for a while. Achingly pleased with itself and not breaking that many decent stories. It loves doing ‘big issues’ and epic sweeps of the major socio-economic issues of our time. Which is a passport to pretentiousness. The solution? A bit of humility and some honest, simple news reporting of stories that are a bit more real to actual people. This aint the Junior Common Room debating club folks, it’s the real world. And we’re paying for it.
Kirby,
You descrive our current problems in society and economy as if they have just happened. But, of course, they are the results of previous policy.
Don’t you think that identifying these problems but failing to take into account what brought them about is unlikely to lead to any progress?
I would say we are in this mess because no one in politics plans how to deal with future problems any more, and that’s largely because in turning to the market to run everything they have no power now. And it turns out we don’t either.
its absolutely wrong to say that the crisses we are facing now a days they happen just now i not not agreed with it. actually it is the result of our past polices now that a showing their negitive impacts. future is uncertain and nobody is sure about it what would be happened next…
Quotes of the day
Where did they find her?
[That's Allegra not Shanene].
Slothrop:
“Don’t know too much about the details of the story, but isn’t the idea that this exposes her as some kind of rabid right-winger a bit much? I seem to remember from her columns etc. during her time at the Guardian that she’s a Labour supporter.”
This does not necessarily expose her as a rabid, dog-whistle Tory. The alternative is that she is a somewhat amoral political opportunist, aware of the fact that such ‘packages’ will be looked upon favourably by those who grant her access to government officials. That Oxbridge pumps out such individuals is a trusism that few people living outside of that particular bubble would not deny.
Stratton is likely corrupt, and if the verbal exchanges reported above are to be believed, she also has serious ego problem, regardless over whether she actually believes in her own propaganda.
Nathan Hulse
“I seem to remember from her columns etc. during her time at the Guardian that she’s a Labour supporter.”
Well the last Blair/Brown government were as bad as the current one in stigmatising those on Benefits so she may well be.