Andrea Leadsom

These are all our opinions, unless presenting copied bits of facts from all kinds of sources, opinions from all kinds of sources, or links.Do we really want to have to put IMHO in every comment?

Yes indeed dd it is my opinion......it just differs from yours.

So what does "being a bit patriotic " mean? Surely wanting the best for the country can mean opposing the government and their ill-thought out plans and hapless ministers, not just forelock tugging and telling everyone how marvellous they are(when they aren't?)

He has by-passed the old biased mainstream and is speaking directly via social media.

That is how Corbyn was able to get his message across.

But that's your opinion roses. My opinion is that anybody who wants to do the best for the country, Brexit should be abandoned.

Brexit, especially if unchallenged, is national suicide.

The media must be free to report as it sees fit and to challenge those in power. As all dictators know, the first task on their list is to get the media to do its bidding.

The BBC should hold the government to account. Thank goodness the EU is more transparent and we can find out what's going on.

Wow asking Government ministers tough questions undermines democracy? I would suggest the very opposite. During the campaign when Corbyn and his team was vilified and mocked relentlessly on the BBC I didn't notice you gaga complaining about that - did you?

X posts Gaga and your last paragraph is spot on.

suzie she has her sights on the BBC who after the GE suddenly stopped being quite so amenable to the Tories

Leadsom was my sons boss for the past year.

She was the least effectual, most ignorant Minister they have ever experienced and believe you me they have had some over the years.

Not 'get behind the government' but get behind the country, it wouldn't matter which Party was running things during Brexit, but constantly drip drip drip of poison, by running ourselves down is bound to cause unease and anxiety at every level.

It's all the negativity and unpleasant personal personal attacks that I object to.

There is a lack of balance in the media especially in the BBC, in my view. Their role is to be impartial but they are so biased it is becoming ludicrous. I fear that democracy is being undermined because the intelligentsia seem to think that they know best and the voting majorities can be ignored or derided.

She said ' it would be helpful if broadcasters were willing to be a bit patriotic' . This is a view of the role of the media shared in a more extreme form by every dictatorship or de facto dictatorship ever and currently in particular by Turkey, China, N.Korea and Russia. It is a crass, stupid, irresponsible ( journalists in Russia for example are frequently murdered because they criticise Putin) comment to make. It smacks of the 'judges are the enemy of the people ' and Ralph Miliband hates Britain' DM approach - but then AL looks like the archetypal DM reader. Anyway, social media are loving her comments - she is a supremely stupid woman who was caught out in lies during the leadership campaign

The Daily Fail ,Excess, Currant Bun and Torygraph are all trumpeting Brexit to the rafters. How is that anti government media?

It is sinister. It is not the role of the national broadcaster to get behind the government. Democracy really is doomed if that happens.

I guess this message about patriotism is from CHQ. Our newly elected sycophantic MP is saying exactly the same thing.

The country voted for Brexit by a small majority. That is a given. The nature and content of the negotiations are not and our media should be asking questions about how this is being conducted without being accused of not being patriotic. It is their patriotic (how I hate that word!) duty to keep us all informed as best they can when folk like AL are resisting every inch of the way. Silly woman.

She has a point if that is so, vamp. Again, one can disagree without saying she shouldn't say that.

I've read some interesting things about the difference between patriotism and nationalism recently. one good nutshell remark was that patriotism is pride in one's country for what it does contrasted with nationalism, which the writer saw rather as pride in one's country whatever it does. The first attitude includes a feeling of responsibility; the second includes a feeling of blind arrogance.
I like that distinction and am glad I found it.

Is this interview when she said that anyone who doesn't agree with the way the government is handling Brexit is unpatriotic?

Yay for freedom of speech for government ministers as well, I say. Whether I agree with them is irrelevant.

What is 'sinister' about it?

quite. baggs.

Yes, good point, ww.

Will she be going to Glastonbury too?

I don't think it's sinister at all. A majority voted for Brexit. Leadsom is part of the government trying to fulfill what the majority voted for.

I wouldn't think it sinister if the majority had voted Remain and a government minister said the media should get behind the government. Which, come to think of it, a good deal of the media probably would.

The media doesn't have to take any notice after all. It can say what it likes, thank goodness.

Yay for freedom of the press!

ww good point about MSM

Sinister is a good word.On MN she is known as Andrea as a mother Loathesome because of her cheap shot during the leadership campaign when she said she'd be a better leader than May because she had children and therefore cared more about the future of the country. That's the measure of the woman. Those who are stupid and unthinking enough to think that what she said about the media and Brexit is even remotely acceptable has clearly learned nothing from history and we all know where that could finish.

I think that the mainstream media is actually becoming more irrelevant as time goes by.

The young do not get their news from that, but from social media. So while we worry about mainstream media bias the young have found a way to by-pas it and go directly to the horses mouth as it were - I recommend it.