Even more remarkably, the Govt must have known that this attempt to knobble The Observer would get out, but didn’t care. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1254470591534501888

And that their doing a Trump here on The Sunday Times would get out. Again, they didn’t care. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1254485412015456256?s=21

And that their threats to the rest of the press would, again, be reported, and, again, they didn’t care.

Their gamble is clearly that there are enough people already down the rabbit hole to side with the govt, or at least not care. https://twitter.com/tobyhelm/status/1254494115833798661?s=21

We’ve seen in the US, and recent polling on confidence in the press vs the Govt in the UK, that it works. Tell enough lies, have enough of the tame side of the print and broadcast media repeat them, and truth ceases to matter.

Once truth ceases to have any currency or value, and lies cease to have any real backlash, you can reduce everything instead to a simple question of whose side you’re on and attack the other side with the authority and resources of the government of a sovereign state.

It’s worked a treat. Enough of the press has been either tame enough or timid enough to walk right into it chin first, pulling the large minority of their colleagues that won’t bend like good little courtiers under with them.

Played for, and got, with disastrous consequences.