Censoring the Troops.

Via Constantly Furious, this:

British journalists and TV crews are to be banned from the Afghan front line once a date for the election has been set, while senior officers will be prohibited from making public speeches and talking to reporters.

MoD websites will also be “cleansed” of any “non-factual” material including anything containing troops’ opinions of the war, according to a memo leaked to The Daily Telegraph.

Cleansed, eh? So MoD folk aren’t allowed to express an opinion because it might cost Labour votes. This is pretty disgraceful stuff and that’s putting it mildly.

In the memo, Nick Gurr, the MoD’s director of media and communications, says “embeds” for all British news broadcasters and national journalists will be prohibited during the campaign, expected to begin later this month.

Why? What possible justification is there for this? That there is an election coming is no excuse. We, the electorate, have a right to know how things are going. After all, we are paying for it and it is our youth who are dying for it. That it might be embarrassing for Labour is tough shit, frankly. Mind you, foreign and local journalists aren’t banned and in these days of global media those determined enough can watch foreign channels, undermining the ban. Therefore, the only possible justification for this is to restrict domestic audiences, who for the most part won’t go out of their way to find a workaround, for political motives.

Mr Gurr says that allowing journalists to report from the frontline during the election “could call into question [the forces’] political impartiality or give rise to the criticism that public resources are being used for party political purposes.”

Bollocks! Banning them is what smacks of party political purposes.

But the order has led to accusations that the government wants to hide the true picture of the war in Afghanistan from voters.

Er, yes.

Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said he would table an emergency question in the House of Commons demanding an explanation on Monday.

“Given the recent visit of the Prime Minister, this is a bad joke,” he said. “There is clearly one rule for Gordon Brown, when he wants to use the armed forces as political props, and another for reporters who want to tell the public what is being done in their name.

“It’s a truth blackout. Nothing, especially the truth, is to stand in the way in Brown’s election. Our armed forces can fight and die, but not write or speak. Any critics of the Government are to be banned from having any contact with the press. This is the grotesque endgame of New Labour. They want to bury bad news and bury the truth.”

I doubt he’ll get a valid explanation; rather the usual cockwaffle used to justify Labour control freakery. I expect terrorism will find its way into the weasel words used to justify what can only be described as politically driven censorship.

CF has this to say on the matter of censoring the troops:

This is some chilling stuff. What next? How the fuck do they think they’re going to get away with this?

Soldiers, Civil servants. Anyone with any ‘non-factual’ material. CF hereby throws his blog open to you.

Come here, and have your say. Have a guest post. Have as many as you want. Email CF, DM CF on Twitter. Stick links in the comments.

We will not let this fucking corrupt, mendacious, inept Government censor you for PR reasons.

Labour can censor and restrict the tame, buyable, dead-tree media, but they can fuck right off out of the blogosphere.

Quite.