The UK media’s take on the use of ‘hard power’ depends entirely on who’s exercising it.
The labelling of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022 was clear from the start. According to the Nexis database, 12,700 stories across the UK media in the first week of the war were focused on what was unequivocally referred to as Russia’s “invasion of Ukraine”.
Clive Myrie, presenting an extended BBC News at Ten on the first night of the war spoke of a “huge Russian military offensive” next to a strapline of “Russia invades Ukraine” that remained on screen throughout the headlines.
Tom Bradby, presenting ITV’s News at Ten, spoke of “a day of infamy for the Russian government and terror for millions of Ukranians”. Echoing the statement by then foreign secretary Liz Truss that this was “an unprovoked, premeditated attack against a sovereign democratic state”, he asserted that Putin had “invaded a democratic, sovereign neighbour in a war of imperial conquest.”
In the wall-to-wall coverage of the US-Israel pre-emptive attack on Iran on 28 February 2026, no broadcast journalists spoke of “imperial conquest” nor did they mention the issue of Iranian sovereignty.
And while coverage of the Russian invasion was consistently described as “unprovoked” – with 2336 stories in the first week – only 390 stories referred to claims that the US/Israel assault on Iran was “unprovoked” in the same period.
This is despite evidence that NATO expansion contributed to Putin’s decision to invade while ‘significant progress’ was claimed in talks between the US and Iran over the future of the latter’s nuclear programme before the bombing started.
Illegal wars?
As opposed to the single “invasion” strapline used to illustrate Russia’s aggression, the BBC’s main TV news bulletin used multiple straplines including “US-Israel attack Iran”, “Iran strikes back” and ‘Fears for Middle East war.”
In contrast to the outpouring of condemnation of Russia’s actions, there were only 1,785 stories in the first week that were specifically focused on the “attack on Iran”, just 14% of the number that spoke of a “Russian invasion” four years previously.
While 251 stories referred to Russia’s “illegal invasion” in its first week, there were just 82 stories in UK media that addressed Israel and America’s bombing of Iran as an “illegal attack” in the week after 28 February. Many of these simply reported comments made by Green and Liberal Democrat MPs in Parliament as opposed to asking their own questions about the legality of the attacks.
Laura Kuenssberg did press the Israeli president Isaac Herzog on this point in her Sunday morning BBC programme on 8 March (and was dismissed by Herzog as asking “unbelievable questions”).
The issue of legality was also addressed in a debate organised by Channel 4 News and in individual pieces by the Guardian, Reuters and Sky (though that was in an interview with the Russian ambassador).
These interventions no doubt expressed genuine tensions within Labour – anxious not to reopen the debate about the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq – about whether the US/Israeli attacks could be justified under international law.
Yet, at the time of writing, only two out of the 152 stories on the BBC’s “Iran War” online pages (1.3%) and just one of the 257 stories (0.39%) on Sky News’ Iran pages – a clip of Keir Starmer insisting that he wouldn’t join a war without a “lawful basis” –come close to considering the crucial question of whether the attacks were legal or not. (For some reason, Sky’s interview with the Russian ambassador isn’t listed here).
‘Defensive’
Analyses of whether devastating pre-emptive strikes by Israel and the US comply with international law have been overshadowed by the spectacle of the attacks themselves and the notion that, as the Sun posed it on 2 March, Iran presents a ‘VERY real threat to normal Brits’.
As John Irvine, ITV’s senior political correspondent, put in on the Weekend News bulletin the evening before: “I think it’s pretty obvious by now that the greatest threat to this entire region comes from Iran’s missile arsenal”.
In particular, journalists have emphasised the “defensive” nature of the UK’s role with some 715 stories on “defensive strikes” in the first week of the coverage.
Mainstream journalists have, however, failed systematically to investigate the impact of Starmer’s agreement to facilitate ‘specific and limited defensive action against missile facilities in Iran’.
All too often, the tendency has been to take the claim that the UK is engaging in legitimate self-defence at face value.
On the first night of the bombing on 28 February, ITV News’ correspondent, Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe, simply repeated Keir Starmer’s claim that “British planes are in the sky today as part of coordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies.”
Over on the BBC’s main weekend bulletin, political correspondent Chris Mason parroted Starmer’s line word for word: “Yes, British planes have been in the sky in the region in a defensive capability and he emphasises within international law so protecting allies.”
No alternative explanation was offered in either case.
Diversion tactics
Instead, there has been extensive discussion of the hollowed state of the military and of the delays in sending HMS Dragon to the eastern Mediterranean to, as the BBC put it, “join the UK’s defensive operations in the region”.
There have been breathless accounts of UK jets shooting down Iranian drones and late-night discussions on the BBC News Channel with security analyst Mikey Kay assessing the technical capacities of UK military hardware.
What there has not been is detailed investigation by defence correspondents of the implications of providing ‘safe passage’ for US planes through UK bases and of the difficulties in assessing whether it’s possible to distinguish in reality between ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ bombing.
Meanwhile, Gaza – whose residents are still being attacked by Israeli forces – has slipped out of the headlines as journalists focus their attention elsewhere. This has allowed Israel to step up its settlement activity in the West Bank and to present its military activity in Lebanon, where its bombs have killed 570 people, as another example of defensive activity.
UK media have helped to normalise this by, more often than not, describing the movement of Israeli troops into southern Lebanon as an “incursion” rather than an actual ground invasion.
While there were 242 stories in the first week of the war to Israel’s “incursion” into Lebanon (including 21 on BBC World), only 41 stories referred to an “invasion of Lebanon”. This included six stories on BBC World of which only three were actually about the current situation.
The UK media’s compliant coverage and its failure to challenge the current foreign policy consensus is completely at odds with the UK public. 59% of those polled by YouGov oppose US military against Iran with only 25% in support.
50% are opposed to Starmer’s decision to allow the US to use UK airbases for military action against Iran with only 32% in support.
Rather than reflecting this constituency, mainstream news are acting as loyal lieutenants in an illegitimate and profoundly destabilising war.
