Not sure how easy it is to make comparisons between different eras but Blair with Alastair Campbell seemed to introduce "spin" in a very controlled and deceitful manner - and succeeded in getting into bed with Murdoch in an era when the Sun could claim, without much irony, that "it was the Sun wot won it".
I'm a little hazy about facts, I admit, but I would imagine that there would have been a time when privileged journalists would be Chang-style "itk" but withhold certain info from the Plebs with stiff upper lip discretion. Look at the Keeler and Profumo era and how the ruling class looked after its own.
And now we seem to be in an era of disseminating false news, sometimes ridiculously false through targeted Facebook claims in manners where it is not easily discernible at all whom is the true author (eg Putin is obviously just one player). And we, HYPO-critically but UN-critically believe or profess to believe the claims that support "our side".
It's sort of decadent and lacking in respect.
But oddly enough that's how I behave every Saturday watching the Town. Acting outraged and shouting "Off! Off! Off!" at incidents I probably missed or even thought were not so bad. Just to try and get my side an advantage, even if undeserved.
Saturdays are a bit of a larf though. Current lying is, imo, not making for a very nice or even intelligent society.
An interesting analysis, but the undermining of radical dissension by agents of the ruling classes has a long and not very distinguished history. Something like the Zinoviev letter published by The Mail, being a classic example. Made up to undermine the Labour Party, just before the 24 election, nothing has changed.
This dirty trick was at the behest of the secret services... the mention you made of Profumo was because there were powers who didn't want Wilson... too left wing. Wilson's Labour government kept well away from Vietnam, unusual for HMG.
There has been rumours of a military coup against Wilson's government... with connivance from the The Times
A later memoir by Harold Evans, former Times and Sunday Times editor, observed that the Times had egged on King's plans for a coup:
Rees-Mogg's Times backed the Conservative Party in every general election, but it periodically expressed yearnings for a coalition of the right-centre. In the late 1960s it encouraged Cecil King's notion of a coup against Harold Wilson's Labour Government in favour of a government of business leaders led by Lord Robens.
Recognise a name there.... thought so.
Dating back 200 years to the time of Peterloo, the government's favoured tactic was agent provocateur.... get your stooges to whip up the masses and then pick a few off for execution or transportation. In the 70's we had the likes of Joe Gormley and Ray Buckton, leaders of the NUM and ASLEF on the payroll of the Special Branch.
GCHQ is massive, you don't hear about too much austerity going their way.
