Scare Tactics

‘IF you succumbed to every horror the papers threw at you, you’d be suffering from Variant CJD from eating mad burgers, riddled with MRSA superbugs following hospital treatment and surrounded by children made autistic by the MMR vaccine.

Perhaps you are. If so we can tell you that you are unlucky and, given your track record, about to be repeatedly set upon by gangs of violent thugs high on hooch.

It’s what the Mail thinks will happen when the Government’s licensing reforms bring about the chance to drink all day, every day.

The paper has seen figures produced by police in England and Wales and noted that thugs commit a violent crime ever six seconds. And half of theses offences are blamed on binge drinking.

We would like to point out that one aim of the extended licensing hours is to stop binge drinking, to water down the apparent need to down as much booze before chucking out time.

But the Mail doesn’t seem to be listening to that. It’s too busy with Glen Smyth, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who says that most nights of the week officers are “overwhelmed by a sea of drunken, violent, vomiting yobs who when they’re not fighting each other are falling through shop windows.”

The assumption is that a change in the licensing hours will create yet more of this. As Smyth says: “That’s now. What’s it going to be like when we have a licensing free-for-all?”

It’s hard to know for sure. But we daresay the drunks will still fight each other and vomit. And perhaps they’ll fall through shop windows; some may even fall through shop doors and upset display racks of Celine Dion CDs and apples.

But whatever does occur, we should be fearful. The British Crime Survey, based on interviews with householders, says that 23 per cent of us are “worried about public drunkenness and rowdy behaviour”.

The worried are not broken down by what paper they read but just seen as a whole – so we don’t know what percentage of them read the Mail.

All we know is that people are panicking. Just as they did when we were about to be invaded by gypsies from the enlarged European Union .

The Mail says that 494,000 migrants did arrive in the UK last year, although not all of them were gypsies.

In any case, all the gypsies are already in the Cotswolds. As the Express peers out from its holiday cottage and screams: “Gypsy invasion closes a town.”

The paper says hundred of gypsies have “invaded” the picturesque town of Stow-on-the-Wold for the Stow Horse Fair.

Such is the fear of crime that 120 traders in the area have shut up shop until the fair it over. The owner of Anne Willow’s Tea Shop has hired a bouncer to keep away the gypsy hordes desperate to steal her tea cakes and buns.

The Express then casts around for signs of crime. And it notices one gypsy telling a police officer ordering him to move on to “p*** off and mind your own business”. It sees cars racing along the roads with windows down and music blaring.

It sees mayhem waiting to happen. And if the Express and Mail join forces and look very closely they might even spot a gypsy carrying a bird – a bird that could very well be infected with avian flu…’

Posted: 21st, October 2005 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink