Guto Harri takes the knee. GB News & the contradictions of Tory Culture Wars
Guto Harri the well-known journalist and presenter has taken the knee on GB News, an obscure and little watched TV channel.
GB News has subsequently said that taking the knee is against its policy. This seems odd since as far as one can make out its key focus is on allowing things that aren’t said or covered on other media to be aired. Unless I’ve missed something Newsnight presenters don’t take the knee at the start of each broadcast not least because it would be against BBC Editorial policy.
We can leave the internal contradictions of GB News to them but the whole incident reflects a wider contradiction of Tory Culture Wars.
Boris Johnson is determinedly against taking the knee and Priti Patel called it gesture politics. From 2008-2012 Guto Harri was Director of External Affairs for the Mayor of London who at the time was, er, Boris Johnson.
The argument I understand is that taking the knee is somehow Marxist. There is not a huge amount about knees in the Collected Works of Marx and Engels. However Engels in the Condition of the Working Classes in England noted occupations where unsafe condition led to workers developing stiff knees. Both Marx and Engels were keen walkers and took solidarity as a given so perhaps they would have taken the knee and supported Harri sensing a wider shifting of political tectonic plates
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