To say that I am ‘browned off‘ with the continual misinformation that the pro-EU side promulgate in their attempts to ‘skew’ the argument about the pros and cons of EU membership, come any referendum is, to say the least, an understatement.

This is not just because of Gordon Brown’s latest article which appears in the Guardian, one about which the Guardian maintains contains an ‘intellectual’ argument. Intellectual – my ****; it contains so many errors of fact that it is not worthy of the term. Regular readers will know only to well the errors to which I refer, that it is therefore unnecessary to repeat them. In any event, in respect of the ‘3 million jobs’ meme ,not only have I written many times on this falsehood but a new report from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) shows that it is not correct.

Then we have Open Europe publishing a new report (on which comment has been passed elsewhere), the first in a series it is understood; and a report that, where accuracy of content is concerned, can only be described as ‘crud‘ – and, as an aside, it has to be said that when considering the Wikipedia definition, where the first such is concerned one could be forgiven for substituting the phrase: a pile of ….; and where the second is concerned, one can only say that the ‘D’ of the acronym is the only action that should be taken on reading such a paper.

That this ‘misinformation’ is religiously repeated by our media without any attempt to research the veracity of what our politicians say not only beggars belief but, bearing in mind the assertion of Simon Jenkins, is an affront to to the readers, listeners and viewers of said media. Matters are not helped in this when our state owned propaganda outlet hosts a discussion programme featuring two people who deliberately lie in order to promote their own arguments – and personal agendas.

EurActiv has what can only be considered a ‘puff-piece’ on the forthcoming general election in which they write that ‘matters EU’ has resulted in Eurosceptism being firmly pushed up the political agenda in Britain. Two points: first, it is doubtful if the electorate in the UK have the faintest idea just how much membership of the EU actually affects their lives, nor have any idea of the extent of how ‘global governance’ affects the ‘laws’ that the EU enacts; and secondly, that in which the electorate ‘takes an interest’ is firmly in the grasp of our political class who in turn ‘control’ that which the media reproduces.

There can be no ‘free and fair referundum’ while the media and our political classes are in cohorts as to what is fed us.

Update: At the time of writing the above I have to admit to not having read the IEA paper -and having so done, have come to the conclusion it too can be classified as ‘crud’, or, a pile of ….. It is full of speculation, not fact; it presupposes certain ‘conditions’, while refusing to acknowledge fact.

Think tanks seem presently to be suffering from a common malaise – they are not thinking!