10/03/2008
We notice that the head of our government is given his own column in
The Daily Telegraph business section today â none other than José Manuel Barroso.
"Empowering consumers for a fairer Europe" is the title of his piece and is something of a
coup for the commission. It is a central part of its strategy to present the European Union in a more favourable light, which we flagged up in
June 2006 and followed through with
this piece and
this.
Of course, the best kind of propaganda â as we have occasionally observed â is the type that is not immediately recognisable as such. The Barroso piece fails on that score, but I wonder how many people â not least in
The Telegraph - realise that it is part of a deliberate, long-planned strategy.
The particular evil of this is that the downside is never mentioned â the overall cost of EU regulation, estimated
12 percent of GDP - a cool £600,000,000,000 year. Stress the upside and ignore the greater downside and you have all the elements of propaganda.
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