The media is a corporate mouthpiece trying to stop Jeremy Corbyn, Unite general secretary Len McCluskey says
Mr Corbyn has got a hostile reception from the press
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Your support makes all the difference.Britain’s media is the “mouthpiece” of capitalism’s elite and an obstacle to Labour winning a general election, the general secretary of Britain’s biggest trade union has said.
Speaking at Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool Len McCluskey, who leads Unite, said the media “feared” Jeremy Corbyn winning an election.
The warning comes a day after Mr Corbyn was re-elected as leader of the Labour party after a challenge from his internal opponents. He won an increased majority of 61.8 per cent of the vote.
“It’s our principles and our ideals that will carry the day once we get through the obstacle of the media – who are the mouthpiece of the establishment of the corporate elite. Of course they want to stop Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell,” Mr McCluskey told a fringe session.
“The truth is, the reason they attack him and say he’s useless and he’ll never ever win a general election – if that was true, if they really believed that they’d want him to stay there.
“The fact is they want to get rid of him, not because they think he can’t win a general election. It’s because they fear he can.”
Mr McLuskey’s comments received a standing ovation from some attendees at the fringe session, which his trade union had ironically organised jointly with the Daily Mirror.
The general secretary also used his platform at the hustings to criticise the Labour-supporting newspaper, saying he was “disappointed” with its critical coverage of Mr Corbyn during this summer’s Labour leadership election.
“It would be hypocritical of me if I didn’t register my disappointment with the manner in which the Daily Mirror has conducted itself during the leadership contest,” he said.
Mr Corbyn has himself previously been critical of the media, refusing to speak to reporters outside his home and berating journalists at a press conference for asking off-topic questions.
A study conduced by LSE academics and published earlier this summer found that about three quarters of coverage of Mr Corbyn had failed to accurately present his views.
According to polling by YouGov conducted at the start of this month just 29 per cent of British adults disagreed that the “mainstream media as a whole has been deliberately biasing coverage to portray Jeremy Corbyn in a negative manner”.
Fifty-one per cent of people agreed that coverage had been deliberately biased and 21 per cent said they were not sure.
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