Mr Black, 55, died at home on Tuesday of lung cancer. He is survived by his wife Bearetta Harrison Black and his girlfriend Princess Hall. Both women placed death notices in the paper.
Key Posts Category
Slut shaming topless Helen Skelton
Helen Skelton’s topless video is all over the internet. When she was 17, so the story goes, the BBC TV presenter sunbathed topless in France. Without her knowledge someone filmed the teenaged Skelton and uploaded the footage to porn websites. A mere two years later the tabloids made Skelton’s breasts front-page news.
The Mirror published stills from the covert video, albeit with a light frosting over Skelton’s nipples. That’s the Mirror which yesterday reported:
Revenge Porn: Teenager, who left pal feeling suicidal, says she’s ‘the loser’ after publishing secret sex tape
Elsewhere the Mirror reports on “the dark side of sexting, and reveals what can happen when your most intimate photos get into the wrong hands”.
But when the Mirror sees Skelton’s naked breasts, presumably supplied via the wrong hands to a porn site, it appraisers her body, “Gorgeous mum-of-one Helen looks fantastic in the video.” A source calls it a “nightmare” for Helen.
As the Mirror exploits Helen’s nightmare to prove the misery and allure of covert porn, assuring the victim it’s ok so long as your fit, the Sun reports:
TOPLESS PHOTO STORM Helen Skelton is ‘distressed’ after topless photos of her from when she was 17 emerge
Amid more shots from the “leaked” footage, journalists TINA CAMPBELL AND JOANNE KAVANAGH tell us of Skelton’s “distress”.
The 33-year-old mum of one was holidaying in France in 2001 and believed to be unaware that she was being filmed and ONLY 17 at the time.
Tina and Joanne might like to have a word with their Sun colleague Hannah Crouch, who in April told Sun readers
Hundreds of women fallen victim to website which shares nude pics without permission – A 21-woman has exposed a slut-shaming website which asks users for explicit photos
Are you only a victim when you’re not on the telly?
Posted: 15th, August 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Man mourned by wife and girlfriend in competing newspaper obituaries
To New Jersey, where thoughts are with Leroy Black, mourned by his “loving wife” and his “long-tome girlfriend”, according to his two obituaries placed in the Press of Atlantic City newspaper.
The competing obituaries were put in the newspaper separately because “the wife wanted it one way, and the girlfriend wanted it another way,” someone at the Greenidge Funeral Home said.
Surely, it is what he would have wanted.
Posted: 7th, August 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Transfer balls: Paul Pogba arrives at Manchester United before Juventus training
Transfer balls: It’s been 17 days since the Daily Mirror told us Pogba had “signed” for Manchester United. Today the BBC tells us that Pogba has been “summoned to Juventus training”.
To say goodbye to his former teammates? No. To train for the Italian season with his current club, Juventus.
Juve boss Massimiliano Allegri tells media:
“It makes no sense at the moment talking about potential replacements for Pogba because, right now, Pogba is a Juventus player…
“I’ve summoned Pogba together with (Patrice) Evra tomorrow night. So that means he has training here in Vinovo on Monday.”
Some news, then, to Mirror readers. But wait a moment. The Telegraph has news:
Paul Pogba set to sign for Manchester United: Frenchman arrives ‘in secret’ to complete medical
Pogba’s secret arrival is all over the newspapers.
After arriving in secret last night, the Frenchman, 23, will be undergoing his medical at a top secret location ahead of a world-record transfer to Old Trafford.
The Express explains:
Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport claim the Juventus star touched down in the UK yesterday and will today complete his move to United.
The report says Juve boss Massimiliano Allegri’s comments yesterday about Pogba expected for training were merely a smokescreen.
The Italian newspaper says there are no “photographs chronicling Pogba’s arrival” because it was all top secret and only the Press in Italy and the UK know anything about it.
Over to the Mirror, where the paper of record tells us:
Manchester United transfer news and rumours: Paul Pogba to undergo medical TODAY
Today. The Press have been telling readers Pogba is joining Manchester United ‘today’ for many, many days.
Lest we forget:
Daily Star balls
Such are the facts.
Posted: 7th, August 2016 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, Reviews, Sports | Comment (1)
Russell Square murder: when cool, calm and crazed Zakaria Bulhan met Darlene Horton and Yovel Lewkowki
Russell Square knife attack: when cool and calm Zakaria Bulhan met Darlene Horton and Yovel Lewkowki, A round-up of media news on a suspected murder in London.
The BBC: “Russell Square stabbings: Man arrested on suspicion of murder”
A man. Anything more about this man who allegedly murdered a US citizen called Darlene Horton, 64, an innocent on holiday in London with her husband? Not yet. Not on the BBC.
Police believe the attack in Russell Square on Wednesday was “spontaneous”, with victims “selected at random”.
He just went nuts? He saw a knife, picked it up and just went nuts, allegedly knifing to death Darlene Horton and stabbing five others from Britain, America, Israel and Australia?
Police arrested a 19-year-old Norwegian national of Somali origin. They say there is no evidence of radicalisation.
So why mention it, then? And radicalised by who or what? The BBC does not say.
The Met Police’s assistant commissioner for specialist operations, Mark Rowley, said the investigation was increasingly pointing to the attack being “triggered by mental health issues”.
Aren’t they always. Mental health issues can pretty much describe anything and everything. Maybe instead of using a Taser to down the alleged killer, the police should have called in an emergency therapist?
The Guardian: “London stabbing: suspect is Norwegian Somali with ‘no evidence’ of terror – as it happened”
The Israeli woman injured in the Russell Square stabbings is an 18-year-old from Tel Aviv on a pre-enlistment trip to London…
What you might call ‘holiday’.
Yuval Labkovsky was returning to her hotel with her grandfather, after eating in a Thai restaurant, when she was set upon. Labkovsky was lightly injured in her hand during the stabbing attack and released after treatment in hospital.
She tells YNet news
“On the way back from the hotel, I heard screams and saw two men running toward me… I was afraid that it was a terror attack and was sure the two men were running away from the incident.
“I approached the first and felt a pain in my hand. I thought I was just hit, but it turned out he was the stabber. The second man, who was chasing him, was the man who tried, and later succeeded, in catching him.
“I saw a woman lying on the floor, covered in blood. Her husband supported her. Suddenly I realized I was also bleeding. I’m not afraid in Israel, so I have no reason to start being afraid in London.”
In Israel the stabbings are not random and spontaneous. They are organised. Mental illness is not given as a factor. But to the Guardian the alleged’s killers mind is an issue:
Jo Loughran, interim director of Time to Change, the mental health anti-stigma campaign run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, has urged the media to ensure any reporting of a mental health element to the Russell Square attacks is “informed and balanced”.
She says:
We understand that the police have released an update about the tragic incident at Russell Square stating that mental health is an increasingly significant factor in this case. The media must rightly report on this angle but we encourage them to do so responsibly.
They report on that angle because it’s easy.
There have been a number of horrendous acts of violence committed across Europe over recent weeks. As the media look to unpick these extremely complex incidents to explore motivations and reason we urge journalists and editors to provide well informed and balanced coverage of mental health. Millions of people experience mental health problems every year and the overwhelming majority will never pose a risk to others.
Maybe – just maybe – he wasn’t driven to it by mental illness. Maybe – just maybe – the alleged killer is not the victim here.
Daily Mail: “Russell Square ‘knifeman’ named this evening as Somali-born Zakaria Bulhan, 19, from Tooting, south London”
And on mental health?
Police called to Russell Square at 10.30pm last night after crazed man ‘went on the rampage’ with kitchen knife
Not mentally ill, then. He was crazy!
Zakaria Bulhan, 19, moved to the UK from Norway in 2002, and was said to be suffering possible ‘mental health issues’ when he allegedly began silently stabbing his unsuspecting victims in a busy London street last night.
His former friends from Graveney School in Tooting, south London, have now revealed how Chelsea football fan Bulhan was a quiet boy who was bullied in the early stages of secondary school. One friend said: ‘He was quite quiet, but had friends. He was a little bullied but nothing too extreme.’
A victim of bullying and poor mental health, then.
Earlier today, police raided the south London council flat where he lived with his family. Neighbours of alleged knifeman said his mother was ‘really nice’ but knew little about her two sons… The family live on the middle floor of a three-storey block of flats next to St George’s Hospital in Tooting…
The unnamed woman said: ‘There was lots of policemen there this morning. The mother is always here. She’s really kind and friendly and always opened the door and got parcels for us.
Parcels?
‘They’re a Muslim family, the mother always wore a full black burka.’
Relevant?
A downstairs neighbour confirmed that a mother and two young men live in the flat. He said… ‘I’ve never had a conversation with either of the two boys. Apparently they are Somalian but they all speak with an English accent. The mother is really quiet. She always has her hijab on but she’s a very pleasant woman and speaks proper English’.
Burka or hijab? No photos of her to help us decide, but plenty of the aforesaid Israeli woman, now called Yovel Lewkowki:
Says Yovel:
‘The attacker was dark-skinned and bald and the knife he was holding was a small kitchen knife,’ she said. ‘He was very calm and cool.’
No crazed, then. Calm and cool.
Posted: 4th, August 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
UKIP wants to ban Muslim schools: first they came for the kids and the parents
What is the point of education? The Telegraph looks at Lisa Duffy’s views on the matter of who decides what children learn at school. Duffy is a councillor in Cambridgeshire. She wants to lead UKIP. She wants a say in what children can be taught at school.
A “total ban” on Muslim state schools has been called for by Lisa Duffy, the Ukip leadership hopeful.
Ms Duffy, who is expected to be announced as once of the candidates in the party’s leadership race at noon today, has called for Islamic faith schools to be shut down in a bid to tackle radicalisation.
Duffy knows best. She wants to ban traditions she considers to be the wrong ones. An attack on freedom of education can be readily linked to an attack on freedom of worship, something any liberal country should hold dear.
Maybe Duffy doesn’t like what she sees as intolerance preached as faith schools. Maybe this is why Duffy wants to ban them, censor views alternative to her own? Duffy is a bansturbator. She tells the Express:
“I will be calling for the Government to close British Islamic faith schools. That doesn’t mean I am picking on British Islam…
Wrong. It does.
“…but if you think about what our security services are looking at 2,000 individuals that have come from those faith schools. When does indoctrination start?”
Dunno, Lisa. Where did you learn your illiberal views?
She adds:
“I am not far right, I am very much common sense and centre right.”
Lisa affects to know what the country’s values are and then undermines them. Freedom for all is great so long as it is freedom from things Duffy doesn’t much like.
Why should the State know better than parents? Why should education be so politicised? Why should education adhere to a homogenous ‘norm’ proscribed by the elite? Parents must be free to chose the schools that reflect their own prejudices, views and wants.
Why doesn’t the State do something truly radical: ask teachers what they think and let them set the curriculum? (And interfering parents are every bit as dire as the State dictating what is right thinking.)
And if not religious schools, then why non-faith State schools, places where moving targets, new techniques and measures of learning create a system lacking substance – where children are schooled not educated. State schools are often out-performed by their religious-orientated rivals, where knowledge can be tested across ages and critical thinking is encouraged and engaged.
Lisa Duffy should try it.
Posted: 3rd, August 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
What it’s really like to play for Arsenal: the player’s story
When Arsenal signed Kim Kallstrom in January 2014 it looked like no big deal. The journeyman Swedish midfielder was only on loan from Spartak Moscow. He arrived nursing a bad back injury. Great things were not expected of him. But for Kallstrom playing for Arsenal was a dream come true.
In an era when money is all and players kiss the badge of whichever club pays enough for the honour of hiring them, Kallstrom’s testimony chimes with the fans, most of whom would pay to play for their team.
I look like a boy as I walk across the grass, with the ball under my arm. Well-groomed side-parting, a clean red shirt, white sleeves, and a golden cannon on my breast. I’m a man past thirty years of age, in a boy’s dream.
It’s the semi-final of the English FA cup, against Wigan, with 82,000 people on the stands of Wembley Stadium, among which 50,000 were rooting for us (Arsenal).
They are loud and starving fans that hunger for a title. They haven’t won anything for nine years, which is an eternity for a club that is considered one of the greatest in the World. They have the most loyal fans, Gooners.
By strange and unexpected detours, I’ve ended up at the top club Arsenal, in north London. With straight legs, I bend down and put the ball on the spot. I throw a quick glance at the keeper. I’ve already decided where to place it. I try not to smile.
The moment is here. I’m here – in the middle of the latin motto of the club: “Victoria Concordia Crescit” – “Victory grows through harmony”. I can’t help myself but smile slightly. I haven’t even played half an hour for Arsenal. I debuted against Swansea, for eleven minutes, and now I was substituted on in extra time when it was to be decided.
Fifteen minutes of a footballer’s life, which changed my story.
I got a call from my agent, (former Sweden international) Roger Ljung. ‘Do you want to be loaned out to a club in the Premier League?” “No.” “Do you want to be loaned out to Arsenal?” “YES!”
It was transfer deadline day and a rumour of a new player had leaked. The training facilities were filled with supporters, journalists and television was transmitting live.
When we arrived at Heathrow, we had to drive to a field and switch cars so that no one would recognise the vehicle. Everyone was nice to me, and I get training clothes and number 29. I was sent to a team physician for the obligatory medical exam.
While the physician is going through the tests, I’m sitting in the cafeteria, drinking a cup of washy English coffee. I’m dressed in the club colours, in the civilian outfit of the professional football player, meaning a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops.
Players pass by on the way to today’s training. I knew a few of them, as they were French, and we small-talk a bit. The physician fetches me, and I’m driven quickly to a hospital for a X-ray exam. Something’s wrong. We return to the training facilities. I’m put in a situation that reminds me of a talent show on television.
I’m standing in front of a jury, in Arsenal clothes, the CD with my X-ray images, and my bad posture.
In front of me sits the team physician, the sporting director, and the powerful manager Arsene Wenger, who has run the club with an iron fist and a low-key attitude for almost 20 years. The physician starts speaking.
He understands that Arsenal is a big thing for me and that my hopes have been lit, but the back problem is too bad, and he’s sorry. He lays down the facts. There are three cases of vertebral fractures, and I’m out for at least 4-6 weeks. I’m shocked – disappointed, but I understood. Against the evidence of the X-ray images, neither boyhood dreams or arguments help. I understand.
‘If you’re injured, you’re injured’, I say, but in truth I was angry as hell. There’s silence in the room. Wenger hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t even looked at his colleagues as they inform me of their logical verdicts.
He thinks for himself. I wait for him to say something. He sighs, and says ‘The transfer windows shuts in a few hours. It’s impossible to find a replacement. Either I take you or no one.’
Surprised, the others turn to the big boss. No one knows how he’ll continue, but they know that his words are law. It’s evident that he has not anchored his decision among the rest of the staff.
Wenger decides. “You’ll stay, heal, and train. I’ll take you when you’re fit.”
Now, the next circus starts. I could follow the events in real time, as the media started writing and friends contacted me.
In spite of a time difference of four hours, and the Russian football association being closed, the transfer was done. The contract was signed in the last hour. I had left Spartak Moscow when everyone was asleep; I was just gone the next morning. I got a few good luck texts, but other than that, Russia was over for the time being.
I train like a mad man in England. I’m good at that. One day at the gym, Wenger stops by. When he enters a room, everybody sort of stops, as if they’re waiting for a signal. He has that effect on people.
I keep peddling on the exercise bike, as I’m trying to beat a certain time. Wenger is watching with his French, slightly casual, yet serious, gaze. We small-talk and we’re on the right track. I felt like I was building confidence with the leader, without having kicked a ball yet.
After five weeks of hard rehab, and the uncertainty whether my back would be restored, I’m suddenly back on the pitch.
It was a long time since the club had won anything, and the British capital is boiling with the tabloids acting as ring-leaders.
We’re favourites against Wigan in the semi-finals, but we only manage to achieve a draw at full-time. The clock ticks, without anyone ending it. I’m sitting on the bench without any personal expectation.
There’s seven minutes left and I’m suddenly substituted for an exhausted Aaron Ramsey. The ref blows the whistle. Now, one of the finalists must be decided by a penalty shootout. A simple and brutal way to end things.
At this point, understanding of the game, tactics, and physical prowess are meaningless. Now, there is only a confused mess of nerves and chance. Penalty shoot-outs can crown kings in football, and always produce a scapegoat. You must score. All the pressure is on the taker.
I hear Wenger shouting in French: “Kim, do you take penalties?” “Yeah, I’d be glad to take one.” “Good. You’re second.”
I decide early where to shoot it. When I walk alone to the spot, in a stadium with three times as many spectators as there are inhabitants of my hometown, Sandviken, I must suppress my smile. It’s a long way to walk across the pitch. I’m relaxed – perhaps happy.
I put the ball on the spot. Now, I just have to back up and find the right distance to the ball, run up, and strike the ball hard and high to the left. Just do what I usually do, what I know, and always have done. I’ve done it a thousand times before, and there’s no nervousness.
The keeper goes early, in the opposite direction of where I had decided to put it. When I watch the penalty on Youtube, the feelings return: the calm and the joy, but I’m surprised where the ball ended up.
The ball ended up in the lower left corner, opposite of how I remembered it. I had decided to put it high to the left, but I remembered it as I actually put it low to the right. I’m confused, but the ball ended up in the net.
We won the final and we’re praised by over 200,000 supporters on the streets of London. Although my contribution was small in the 120-year history of the club, it was a highlight for me.
The greatest fifteen minutes of my life, and it turns out I don’t remember what happened. Where was I in that deciding moment?
Trance, shock, delirium, coma, nervous breakdown, call it whatever you want. The only thing I know for sure is that sports and football are incomprehensible.
That’s why we love it. As long as that penalty continues to end up in the net, my experience is true. I’m sure of it.
To get paid too play football is a dream. To play for a top club is wonderful. Professional footballers should be mindful of one thing: enjoy every moment.
Spotter: WAATP
Posted: 1st, August 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
16% of Hispanic voters would vote for Harambe over Clinton and Trump
Public Policy Polling finds that 5 percent of US voters would vote for Harambe if the dead gorilla stood to be President of the United States. Among Hispanic voters, the figure rises to 16%.
You will recall that Harambe was shot dead at Cincinnati Zoo after he began dragging a four-year-old human child around his enclosure.
Also, 18 percent of voters think Hillary Clinton has ties to Lucifer.
Posted: 31st, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Public shaming: Adam Cripe v ‘furious woman’ at En Salon hairdressers in Escondido, California
To Escondido, California, where Adam Cripe is displeased with the $18 hairstyle he got at En Salon. “It was so terrible, I went home and I shaved my head,” says Cripe. At the salon, he met another customer:
“The lady who was getting her hair cut comes around the corner screaming at me. She gets up in my face and says you’re uneducated, you’re a tattooed piece of shit… And ‘her husband] says, ‘quit being a sissy, it’ll grow back.’”
Cripe alleges salon employees did not intervene.
Cripe’s haircut aroused passions
It gets messier.
“She starts coming at me accusing me of assaulting her, which you can see on the video,” he adds. “I never even touched her, I was holding my phone up, hands in the air…. Pushing me, pushing me. You know a little bigger lady, bump me with her chest, she chest bumped me…
“Then at one point she grabbed my little love handle right here and squeezed it really hard and tried to push me back with that.”
Outside, he says the lady told him in words that suggest English is not her first language: “Get out here and pound it down.”
Adam Cripe then takes to his Facebook page. Having avoided swearing on the TV news, Cripe is happy to utter lots of swears in this video:
Is this an example pub public shaming? We don’t know the woman. It’s a small spat in a small shop that has escalated, fanned by the media. Is it fair that the woman is filmed, humiliated and called names on the giant echo chamber that is social media? Had the police been called, then, sure, the video, such as it is, might well have been useful. But this doesn’t look like justice. It looks more like revenge.
Posted: 31st, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (7)
Arsenal: Wenger makes way for Eddie Howe because the Press are clueless
Is Arsenal Wenger going to sign a new contract and extend his tenure as Arsenal manager? The BBC leads with that AFC Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe is “well-placed to replace Arsene Wenger at Arsenal”.
The Daily Mirror agrees. It says “Eddie Howe touted as possible Arsene Wenger replacement?”
The Mirror and BBC’s source is the Daily Star.
In an “EXCLUSIVE” David Woods says “Arsenal earmark Englishman as potential Arsene Wenger replacement”. Arsenal fans should be pleased. Howe is erudite, young, talented, a winner and a fast learner. But on what is the story of Howe to Arsenal based? What is Woods’ evidence that Howe is in line to replace Wenger? Is it just an educated guess?
Wenger has been at Arsenal for 20 years and is entering the final 12-months of his current contract. Although there is no suggestion he is heading for the chop immediately, Starsport can reveal the Gunners board would not have stood in Wenger’s way if he had wanted to take over as England boss next summer, as the FA had originally wanted.
Would. If. Not many facts there.
England never did go for Wenger. The FA never did wait a year for him to leave Arsenal, as the Star reported they would do.
Woods adds:
It’s a clear signal that Arsenal are now preparing for life after the 66-year-old.
Wenger is 66. Of course Arsenal are preparing for life after the man has left. Wenger is in the final year of his current deal. They would be mad not to have a plan. Just look at what happened to Manchester United when Ferguson left.
And Arsenal have advance warning. The Mirror “set the date” of Wenger’s leaving, telling us in January 2016 that the Frenchman will leave the Gunners on June 30 2017:
There is not a single fact to support the story of Howe to Arsenal. The Press are as clueless about what Arsenal will do after Wenger as they were when the Gunners hired the man. Back in 1996, Johan Cruyff was the favourite to replace Bruce Ricoh.
As Nick Hornby put it:
“I remember when Bruce Rioch was sacked, one of the papers had three or four names. It was Terry Venables, Johan Cruyff and then, at the end, Arsène Wenger. I remember thinking as a fan, I bet it’s fucking Arsène Wenger, because I haven’t heard of him and I’ve heard of the other two. Trust Arsenal to appoint the boring one that you haven’t heard of.”
And the Press asked “Arsene who?”
London Evening Standard on Wenger – 1996
Posted: 28th, July 2016 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Key Posts, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Don’t ban sugar just force the fat to run to the shops
Oi, fatso! David Aaronovitch has a plan to win the “obesity war”. He writes in the Times:
It’s not enough to fiddle about with food labelling and a distant sugar tax. Bans may be draconian, but they’re essential
Bans are for censors. No ‘may’ about it. They are draconian. They are not essential.
He adds:
Of course, we could try to attach the same opprobrium to being fat as to being a smoker.
Second-hand fat? We are getting fatter, yes. We are getting fatter because we do less. We have more down time. More of us live in small flats – stairs burn calories (just ask the aged who downsize). We have central heating. We have telly. Is there shame in being a smoker? No. although people who light up electronic cigarettes, especially the ones with the glowing end, do look like twats.
And what of the facts? Chris Snowdon notes:
All the evidence indicates that per capita consumption of sugar, salt, fat and calories has been falling in Britain for decades. Per capita sugar consumption has fallen by 16 per cent since 1992 and per capita calorie consumption has fallen by 21 per cent since 1974.
And Tim Worstall has an interesting aside:
One more little factoid on this: the current average UK diet has fewer calories than the minimum acceptable diet under WWII rationing. Quite seriously: we are gaining weight on fewer calories than our grandparents lost weight on.
Back then you could be fat and jolly. Now you must be fat and unhappy. The bitter and thin want revenge.
Aaronovitch adds:
Ban fast-food outlets from stations and airports. Ban the sale of confectionery and sugary drinks to the under-16s. Ban the sale of over-sugared products in supermarkets (as measured by a ratio of sugar to other nutrients). Ban the bringing into schools of unhealthy foods. Ban the presence in offices (like our own here at The Times) of vending machines that seem to sell mainly crisps and chocolate. Specify a weight-to-height ratio limit on air passengers wishing to avoid a surcharge.
In short: bash the poor.
Posted: 28th, July 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Munich Massacre: blaming Brexit
The Munich massacre, the Press are calling it. A Iranian-German nutter has murdered many a German shopping mall. Who can we blame. They know. We can blame ourselves:
The New York Times blames Europe:
First came Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Then the horrific attack in Nice, France, which killed 84 people. Then, on Friday, a shooting near a shopping mall in Munich, which the police are treating as a possible terrorist attack.
These events alone would be cause for a continental nervous breakdown. But still unresolved is an even bigger threat to European stability: a failure to develop a coherent, humane plan to deal with the inexorable flow of desperate people fleeing violence and persecution in the Middle East and Africa and seeking a new home in Europe …
The refugee issue continues to stoke fears and xenophobic politics. If Europe fails to face this problem squarely and humanely, more migrants will die, and a union that has kept the peace in Europe for decades could well unravel.
Anger and fear drove Brexit just as Donald Trump fans the flames of a disenfranchised America, which as Baton Rouge proves, is as racially and ethnically divided as Europe, which is dealing with mass immigration, an attempted coup in Turkey and seemingly relentless terrorism borne out civil war-torn Syria. Mark MacKinnon reports on the relationship between seemingly unconnected events across the globe..
Our societies are fracturing into tribes. In the U.K., it’s Leavers versus Remainers. In Turkey, the failed coup has cleaved society into Erdoganites and Gulenists (after the movement accused of supporting the failed putsch). Almost everywhere, lines are being drawn between immigrants and the native-born. Black and white. Us and them.
And the tribes are turning on one another.
Leave v Remain is like black v white? What utter balls.
And on NBC:
TODD: Do you draw a straight line? I mean, do you draw a straight line from basically the Syrian refugee crisis to Brexit to what we are seeing in Germany and France?
ENGEL: I think you can draw a straight line.
So. Why did you murder so many people in Germany? Narcissism? Islamism? Poverty? Racism? No. It was Brexit…
Posted: 23rd, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Vote for Melania Trump and reject the Clintons’ model marriage
Melania Trump is riding high on the news cycle. The critics says she’s a bit thick, unable even to speak for herself and is no way a role model. The New York Times doesn’t much like Melania:
The qualities Mr. Trump seeks in his romantic partners are remarkably retro. Melania Trump is a former model with her own QVC jewelry line and skin care brand who emphasizes that her role as a mother comes before all else; Mr. Trump… expects women to be more aesthetically appealing than intellectually substantive.
Melania survives on her looks? No. She thrived on them, working as a well-paid model. But the NY Times doesn’t see modelling as a proper job. It sneers at her choice of profession. Women who make a living from their aesthetic appeal are dumb, we’re told. The Times should read the story of the wonderful Lydia Lova and get a grip.
The problem with Melania, of course, is that she is no Hillary Clinton:
The distinctions between the Clinton marriage and the Trumps’ reflect an uncomfortable evolution also happening in homes across the United States.
The Clintons’ marriage is the model. His alleged cheating and lying, and her alleged bullying of his mistresses is the model, the American ideal? A woman who get to the top by using her husband’s name and contacts is the model?
In the past half-century, American women have undergone a transformation in roles, and married couples now look a lot more like the Clintons than whatever traditional view of women and home life that Mr. Trump holds: Most women work outside the home full time, and men increasingly marry women who are their educational and professional equals.
Melania speaks 6 languages. Hillary misspeaks one.
Posted: 22nd, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Hebdo, Jews, Paris and Nice – the evolution of a death cult
What a sad and twisted little story on the BBC. In “Attack on Nice brings danger to France closer to home”, Hugh Schofield follows up the story of how Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel murdered scores of people at a Bastille Day celebration by noting:
Through the last 18 months of jihadist terror in France, a simple pattern is emerging: it keeps getting worse.
Worse than mass murder?
If the January 2015 attacks were aimed at specific groups – Jews and blasphemers – the November follow-up was more indiscriminate.
Murdering Jews and blasphemers is not worse – is it better, then? – than killing anyone else.
Is it time to update Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem:
First they came for the Satirists, and I did not speak out—
Because I agreed that ‘You can’t say that!’, words are criminal and US Secretary of State John Kerry saw a “rationale” in the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo.Then they came for the Jews at the supermarket, and I did not speak out—
Because Jews are behind everything and fight with Palestinians, says the man at the BBC.Then they came for the rock fans, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a rock fan and they are “hedonists”.Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
So goes the evolution of a death cult.
At the Bataclan Massacre, the scene was gruesome. HeatStreet says:
A French government committee has heard testimony, suppressed by the French government at the time and not published online until this week, that the killers in the Bataclan appear to have tortured their victims on the second floor of the club…
Or as Schofield puts it:
At the Bataclan and at the cafes the Islamists killed young adults, out being European hedonists. This time, it’s gone a step further.
In Nice, it is the people at large – families and groups of friends – doing nothing more provocative than attending a national celebration. Ten children were among the dead.
People at large are not Jews and “hedonists” at a pop concert. Jews shopping for Shabbat dinner were being more provocative than non-Jews walking about in Nice?
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, we learn, is a victim, who “fell prey to the torrent of jihadist propaganda emanating from so-called Islamic State (IS), and elevated his personal grievances into matters of cosmic importance.” He had a “weakness for Islamist ideology”.
And then comes the inevitable story that it’s not them, it’s us.
This is the moment when the attacks become so outrageous they provoke a backlash. A mosque is burned to the ground. Some white youths go on a rampage through a banlieue (suburb).
Don’t react. Don’t be furious. Fear yourselves. Fear the masses – irony of ironies – the very people who stormed the Bastille and gave rise to democracy and human rights founded on universalism and enlightenment values. Treat people as suspects.
There will be no debate about why and who? Why is Islam a lightning rod for these horrors? Why are young, third generation Muslims radicalised? Why has identity-based politics come to the fore? Why France? Why now?
Schofield adds:
This is what IS desperately wants to happen, of course, because France could then be on course for a truly bloody civil conflict.
What were the murders of 84 people in Nice; the murders of Charlie Hebdo journalists; the murders of 89 freedom lovers at the Bataclan theatre; mass murder on the Rue de Charonne, Rue de la Fontaine-au-Roi and Rues Bichat and Alibert if not truly bloody?
Stand up for freedom. Don’t be scared to uphold the values France epitomises.
Vive La France!
Fail: CNN illustrates Nice horror with advert for tyres
So how did CNN illustrate the story of the Islamist maniac who murdered scores of people on Bastille Day in Nice, France? With an advert for Falken tires [sic] that grip:
Native advertising is a horror, Whoever invented it should be taken from this place and forced to live in an echo chamber.
Posted: 16th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Black flight is on because the moralising Left have moved to Tuscany
The Guardian’s Hugh Muir talks of “black flight”. The teaser explains the phrase: “Black flight: how England’s suburbs are changing colour.”
What is remarkable in our national story is the extent to which thousands of… black and Asian Brits have followed that trajectory [from the city centre to the suburbs].
It isn’t the least bit remarkable, is it. The Jews moved to London’s East End because they were poor, housing there was cheap and you could get manual work in the big city. As they set up their own companies and got more money they sought more space and moved out, first along the Tube lines, then further from city. As for Jews, so too for Irish, Huguenots, Asians and, well, every immigrant group to have settled in England.
Neasden Synagogue 1968
Muir says that “less talked about” than “white flight” is the “growing movement of visible minorities into the heartlands of Englishness”. What’s Englishness, then? We’re not told. But he suggests it means not being a victim, but a member the white, working-class public who voted Leave in the EU Referendum. Remainers narrate that the EU stopped the UK from being a racist country. Voting for Brexit was not a vote for self-determination, an end to independent states being trampled on, democracy, risk, change and an enlarged world view. It was a vote for bigotry, so the losers say.
Says Muir:
In post-referendum Britain we have seen sudden waves of intolerance.
We have?
Eastern Europeans told to go home. A BBC reporter branded a “Paki” in the English town where she was born. An African-American on a bus told by fellow passengers to go back to Africa. This is distressing.
Racial abuse is abhorrent. Thankfully, the shock value to the rest of us is in the rarity of such attacks. And before we go on, what of the “surge”? The Indy reported:
Reports of hate crime have risen 57 per cent in the aftermath of the EU referendum vote, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council. There were 85 reports of hate crimes to True Vision, a police-funded reporting website, between Thursday and Sunday compared with 54 reports over the same period four weeks ago.
True Vision was launched by the Association of Chief Police Officers in 2011. On 18 May 2011, it was announced that Gary Dobson and David Norris would face trial over the murder of Stephen Lawrence following a review of forensic evidence that the “institutionally racist” police force missed. Valuable or not, True Vision is foremost an exercise in police PR.
Mark Hamilton, Assistant Chief Constable for the National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Hate Crime, was quoted in the Indy:
“At the national level, the vast majority of people are continuing to go about their lives in safety and security and there have been no major spikes in tensions reported.
“However, we are seeing an increase in reports of hate crime incidents to True Vision, the police online hate crime reporting site. This is similar to the trends following other major national or international events. In previous instances, crime levels returned to normal relatively quickly but we are monitoring the situation closely.”
Neasden temple opened 1995
Muir continues:
John Betjeman would have spotted it immediately, for it is via the former poet laureate and his celebrated 1973 BBC documentary Metroland that the traditional perception of the English suburbs has been formed. On a gentle jaunt, in his gentle way, he described communities stretching from Neasden in north-west London all the way to the Chiltern Hills, along the path of the Metropolitan underground line. Betjeman’s suburbia spoke of cricket pitches, golf clubs, women’s institutes and verdant farmland: a new life for indigenous Britons at arm’s length from the bustle and smoke of London.
Indigenous Britons who were living in Neasden, north-west London, in the 1970s took flight? I know Neasden well, very well. It was there and in nearby Hendon my immigrant family settled after moving from Stepney Green and Old Ford in London’s East End, and inner-city Leeds. They sold their Neasden home to an Irish family and went down The Bakerloo line (now the Jubilee Line) to Stanmore.
Muir says black flight “tells us that minorities themselves feel psychologically able to move to new areas.” No. It tells us they got enough money to buy a home with a garden and garage. It tells us also that rising housing costs and declining school quality encourage human beings to move.
Muir then adds:
One can’t be Pollyannaish about this, as alongside black flight, demographers detect an extension of white flight. Minorities move out; many white Britons move out even further. But perhaps there is a natural filtering system at play, and perhaps that’s for the best. Those who can be comfortable with a changing Britain embrace it or make the best of it. Those who can’t just pack up and leave.
Before long the only people living in London’s village will be Guardian writers basking in self-affirmation, fretting over the falling FTSE and using their London borough’s diverse population and ‘filtering system’ as a signal of their virtue – unless they’re staying at their holiday homes in Italy, France and Cornwall.
Brexit therapy: How to mend Broken Britain
Good news. Leave voters can be cured of mental disorders through therapy, wonder of the age and booming business sector to boot.
Ewan Cameron, “a psychologist who provides assessment and treatment of forensic and clinical clients”, writes on Politics. co.uk:
So your mother voted Leave: How to fix a family broken by Brexit
It’s a new version of David Cameron’s “broken Britain”, the former Prime Minister’s view of the working class and other Untermensch. It’s no longer the much-derided, dystopian Tory vision, what the Guardian called “glib jargon” that “feeds off popular anxieties”, a “popular, ill-defined sense that somehow things are going wrong in society”, adding that “there is real hostility to being tarred as a broken society”. That broken Britain was “offensive”. This broken Britain is all about helping. It is, of course, entirely offensive, bigoted, condescending, ageist, and dismissive of the working class and the right of one person one vote.
Says E. Cameron:
It’s not just political parties that are being torn apart by the Brexit vote. Across the country, families have been pitted against each other, usually on generational lines, as the emotional fallout continues. Millions of older voters feel they’ve taken back control of their country. But for many of their sons and daughters, it’s like someone just stole their future. The political has never felt more personal.
Never felt more personal? It’s history day one all over again. What about when being gay was a crime? What about when women were banned from voting? What about abortion law? What about 1780, when less than 3% of the total population of England had the right to vote? Democracy won the day in the EU Referendum. The people voted in large numbers. The Leave vote won. The therapy should be short and succinct: suck it up and crack on.
But Cameron E has tips on what you should do if you can’t grasp the concept of democracy and are slamming bedrooms doors and shouting “I never asked to be born”:
1. Seek to understand before being understood
Try to understand not just your mother’s political arguments, but the personal reasons and emotions that contribute to them. Maybe her fears are both political and personal, reflecting a general fear of change or a core belief that unknown others can never be trusted.
A fear of change for the woman who, er, voted for change, who embraced the new and the risky.
Personality factors are also relevant – are your mother’s view sustained by a sense of entitlement? Do her political views conform to a broader sense of personal alienation, or vulnerability? Seek to understand not just ‘what’ but ‘why’ she has the views she does.
In a word: experience.
2. Communicate in neutral, non-judgemental language
What an utter kno..
Simple techniques like avoiding the pronoun ‘you’ and instead structuring sentences around ‘I’ can reduce the potential for the other person feeling blamed, and keeps the focus on your needs.
Why not go the full superior and opt for “one”.
Examples might include “I have noticed that when I express those thoughts, I am often not heard”, as opposed to “you’re ignoring everything I say”.
More!
3. Specify the problem, even if it seems obvious
…Maybe it’s that your mother deliberately ignores certain widely known facts in order to sustain a distorted worldview.
You: you need to look at the facts.
Mum: I do. You lost.
4. Express the emotion you are feeling
Tell your mother what emotion you feel when you bring up this problem. Telling someone how you actually feel makes an issue harder to ignore. Examples might include “I feel hurt that you voted in a way that I believe damages the future of my children”, or “I actually feel quite alone and sad when I think about the political distance between us”. Be honest when you do this.
Mum to child: “I feel hurt that you voted in a way that I believe damages the future of my children.”
5. Specify what you want – and be realistic
…Maybe you need to tone down the moral certainty.
But without moral certainty you’re left with nothing apart from the T-shirt that orders ‘Hug An Immigrant’.
6. Practice Acceptance
If you are troubled by any of the above or see assurance and direction, seek help immediately. No, not therapy. That clinic has a revolving door. Ask your mum what you should do.
Remember: mother knows best.
Posted: 12th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Paul Gascoigne is not dead – papers continue to humilate him
Former England footballer Paul Gascoigne has triggered “fears”. The Sun shows a picture of Gazza and says, “There were new fears for Paul Gascoigne last night after he accidentally exposed himself in the street.”
What street? Who was watching or, rather, being exposed to? What did he expose, accidentally?
All will be revealed soon enough.
For now, we’re grateful the Sun is here to help Gascoigne and relay news of his latest humiliation, sorry, suffering to us. To recap: Gazza, as he is known, is not dead. In 2008 the no less caring Daily Star reported beneath the headline “Gazza dead and gone for good”: “FUN-LOVING football legend Paul Gascoigne is ‘dead’, his TV star stepdaughter Bianca revealed last night.”
They were wrong. “The former England star is seriously ill with depression, and Bianca admits his family is powerless to help him,” the Star continued. Gascoigne was not dead then. He remains not dead now.
Today we see a photo of Gascoigne in a dressing gown. A generous black triangle hangs over his crotch. The paper reports:
The football icon heading to buy booze in only a dressing gown stumbled barefooted from his flat with a bent cigarette hanging from his lips. Slurring his words, Gazza, 49, climbed into a taxi before returning with a bottle of gin, cigs and painkillers. As he stepped out of the cab his gown fell open revealing he was naked underneath.
Again, let’s recap: man comes out of his home; a passing photographer takes the trouble to take pictures of him and alert the Sun newspaper; the Sun publishes the pictures in the hope Gascoigne can be helped.
The paper says a photo it published in March of Gazza’s bruised face “made him realise how low he had sunk”. Gascoigne “admitted” this when he appeared on Good Morning Britain (see below). It’s not about gawping at a man with issues and exploiting him to sell pictures and papers. It’s about caring.
Here’s Gascoigne thanking the press on GMB after the Sun published that photo of his face after a “drunken fall”:
Posted: 11th, July 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
David Cameron channels Bertie Wooster as media abandons Angela Eagle: videos
Right. OK. Andrea Leadsom has gone. Theresa May is now the only candidate in the ‘race’ to become the next British Prime Minister.
Angela Eagle wants to be the next leader of the Labour Party. First she has to defenestrate Jeremy Corbyn, who says he will stand against her and sue the party if they don’t let him.
Could May call an election before Labour can dump Corbyn?
It’s all nothing short of brilliant.
Highlights so far:
Angela Eagle gets her big announcement gazumped by Andrea Leadsom quitting:
This clip of #AngelaEagle being abandoned by the BBC and ITV as #AndreaLeadsom quits is priceless – poor woman – pic.twitter.com/bqDgYkAiR7
— Livvy Bolton (@livvybolton) July 11, 2016
David Cameron calls it a day. Right. Good. He did not says right-ho. But he might have done. As @SimonNRicketts puts its: “I could watch it over and over. Your last moments as Prime Minister. Wandering off like Bertie Wooster going to get a sandwich…When British people realise things have gone a bit rubbish, they say “Right” very meaningfully.”
A slightly longer version of Cameron’s exit. There’s not only a ‘right’ but the classic follow-up ‘good.’ I adore it pic.twitter.com/w311FNKabL
— SimonNRicketts (@SimonNRicketts) July 11, 2016
It’s not over yet. Former Tory MP Louise Mensch thinks May could quit / implode / defect to Labour / tie herself to an radiator and drink her own urine / insert option here:
It's not going to be Theresa May, there is no chance.
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) June 30, 2016
Posted: 11th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
The Chilcot Report Is Charles Kennedy’s finest epitaph
Just over a year ago the former Liberal Democrat Party leader Charles Kennedy died at his home in Fort William, Scotland, aged 55.
We said then, “…despite his alcoholic affliction, he brought humanity and common sense into UK politics and governance when he entered the Westminster Parliament.
He was Leader of his party when Premier Blair launched the UK into the Iraq conflict.
In what many found to be a magnificent stand, in 2003 Charles Kennedy fought against all-comers from other major parties over the proposed invasion and war in Iraq.
There is little doubt he was right in every respect in his then dire predictions of what was to follow. Later in September, 2005 at the Blackpool, annual Liberal Democratic Party Conference he made it clear he neither forgot nor forgave when in a passionate speech he called on on the then still prime minister Tony Blair to make a timetable of the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.
The long-delayed Chilcot Report may very well be his finest epitaph….”
It was.
Posted: 6th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
The Shining Cuckoo Clock yells ‘Here’s Johnny’ on the hour
The Shining Cuckoo Clock
Know what time it is with this cuckoo clock in the form of the axe scene from The Shining. On the hour every hour Jack Torrance with menace you with a “Here’s Johnny!”. For added homeliness, Shelley Duvall’s character will scream her head off.
It’s made by Chris Dimino.
Spotter: DM
Posted: 6th, July 2016 | In: Film, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
Invoke Article 50 NOW! Join the campaign for democracy
Invoke Article 50 NOW! is spiked’s campaign for the people’s democratic will to be enforced. The British public were given the vote on whether to leave the European Union. They voted to leave.
But the Government has not triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, initiating Britain’s exit. Why not? There is talk of a second referendum, and with it the opportunity to correct what the likes of David Lammy MP, Bob Geldof, big banks, Tony Blair and multinationals think a mistake. They don’t like democracy. They don’t think the people are worth listening to when they fail to agree with what they want. Democracy is the great invention. It is under threat.
Uphold the vote! Defend democracy! Invoke Article 50 now! Join the campaign here.
Posted: 5th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Labour in crisis: Diane Abbott asks question about non-existent Indonesian province
Top Shadow Front Bench at the moment. Diane Abbott, shadow secretary of state for health, asks the Government about an Indonesian province that does not exist:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to assist people in the Indonesian province of Province of Davao del Norte affected by the drought in that province.
Justine Greening The Secretary of State for International Development replies: “There is no province called Davao del Norte in Indonesia.”
There is one in the Philippines. Does Diane think all Asian countries look the same?
The Labour Party is in crisis.
Spotter: Rob Baker
Posted: 2nd, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
Brexit: Tony Blair and Nicola Sturgeon vow to reject democracy
The Mirror talks of the “Brexit Crisis”. The OED says a crisis is “a time of intense difficulty or danger”. Do you feel more endangered than you did before the EU referendum? Jeremy Corbyn does. The Mirror says he is in a “battle to remain”. He faces a “coup” as 11 members quit his shadow cabinet after Labour voters continued to desert the party and he sacked “disloyal” shadow cabinet minister Hilary Benn, one the hereditary Labour hierarchy.
The Mirror hears from the stayers and the leavers.
Emily Thornberry, last seen joining the liberal elite in mocking the white working class living in what one Mirror writer called “white man’s gulch“, says the Leavers have “no plan and no clue as to what happens next”. She says Labour can help by listening to “Labour supporters throughout the country who decided to vote Leave”. Emily, they are not Labour supporters by definition. You suppose too much. Emily says the Tory party is “tearing itself apart”. She says Labour can be the unifying force. And Labour can do this under Jeremy Corbyn.
On the other side is Stephen Kinnock, one of the hereditary Labour hierarchy. Kinnock says “this is the biggest peace-time crisis since the Second World War”. Kinnock says Corbyn lacks the knowledge of Europe to negotiate with the EU. Kinnock says “Jeremy received an unprecedented mandate from our members last year”. Yep, they voted for him. So, Kinnock, a true Europhile, says the will of the people doesn’t matter. Just get rid.
On Page 6, the Mirror says there has been a “surge” in Scotland for a “Scots breakaway”. Right now 54% of Scots are “for” an independent Scotland – 46% are against. In 2014, 55% of Scots voted to remain in the United Kingdom. Nicola didn’t like the result so she wants another referendum. If the result goes the other way, as the Mirror’s poll suggests it will, will the losers under Ruth Davidson do a Nicola and demand another referendum? The Guardian says “Ruth Davidson is the Tory who stands between Scotland and independence.” She’s a formidable sight.
On page 8, the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire thinks a second EU Referendum would be good idea. that, he says, could fix the “gangrenous, gaping national wound”. Kevin backed the losers.
The Daily Star leads with a neat pun: “Corb faces Jexit.” Corbyn is a “red man walking”.
On Page 9, the Star outlines the Brexit plan. Emily Thornberry may care to read it.
The Sun leads with news that Michael Gove is backing “tennis-loving” Boris Johnson to lead the Tories. The Sun mentions Johnson’s love of tennis in the second paragraph. Why? Is the Sun massively popular among tennis fans? The Tories are, of course. Tennis clubs are havens for solid Conservative supporters, as well as adulterers, sex maniacs and alcoholics who find golf too taxing. Doubt that? Just cop a load of Bozza’s bat.
Tom Newton-Dunn tells readers on Page 5 that one Tory has referred to Westminster as “a cluster of goat fuck with knobs on”. Can we get that in Latin and put it over the door?
On Page 7, readers see a picture of deputy Labour leader Tom Watson at a silent disco at Glastonbury. He’s dancing to his own tune that no-one else is listening to. Yeah, really.
The Daily Express tells readers, “Don’t panic! Why Brexit will be a breeze.” Passports, the pound, mortgages, savings, pensions and travel are all going to be sorted just fine. Crisis. What crisis? And one other thing: a butcher is now selling sausages in pounds and ounces. Metric is out! Imperial measures are in!
And so the the Mail, the paper that if any can claim it won it, won it. News is of a “plot to block Brexit”. Tony Blair, Nicola Sturgeon, a “senior German” and pro-Remain MPs plan to scupper Brexit. How? They hope there will be a general election before the formal process of quitting begins. Tony says there could be a second referendum. Nicola says the Edinburgh parliament could block Brexit. They hope the majority who wanted out will see that their voices are still not being listening to and vote in? Do we keep voting until we give the elites the answer they demand?
Over Pages 4 and 5, the Mail tells of “the day Labour imploded”.
On Page 6, we learn that Theresa May wants to beat Boris Johnson to the top Tory job. And on Page 11, George Osborne “breaks over to claim the City”.
Politics is big news. and the best bit is you can vote anyone you don’t like out at an election. Isn’t democracy great.
Posted: 27th, June 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Remain supporting media joins UKIP in spreading fear over migrants
Having warned against a vote for Leave in the EU Referendum, the Mirror titles are in a dither. Do they: a) ignore the whole thing; b) try to beat UK leader Nigel Farage at his own game by whipping up fears over immigration, and in so doing connect with the paper’s readership whose vote for Labour was once a given?
The Sunday Mirror just goes with a):
The Sunday People opts for b):
Congratulations to Wales, which voted out of the EU and stayed in the Euros (source for joke: all papers). But what about those half a million desperate “migrants”? Well, the People seems unsure who they are: are they migrants or EU workers? And what of the number? A clue to how speculative it is comes in a further headline:
Brexit to cause immigration surge as 500,000 East Europeans ‘will rush in before borders close’
The inverted commas means it’s untrue. Fact is now opinion. Whose opinion becomes clear – and no, it’s not the Daily Express leader writer’s:
The warning was issued by former minister Phil Woolas who said ‘those who wanted to halt immigration will, perversely, cause the opposite’
Woolas is a former Labour MP. He says:
“Every time the UK Government announces a cap on immigration, thousands rush in before the deadline. Would-be immigrants see that the door is about to slam. So they bring forward their plans and a last-minute rush heads for the UK. In the Home Office, they call it the fire sale.”
So the paper’s headline figure is a guess based on the opinion of a former Labour MP. And what do we know of him? Well, the BBC reported in 2010:
Former Labour MP Phil Woolas has admitted defeat in his battle to overturn a court ruling which stripped him of his Commons seat. “It is the end of the road – I am out,” the former immigration minister said as he left the High Court. It means a by-election in his Oldham East and Saddleworth is likely soon. Mr Woolas narrowly won the seat in May but the result was declared void by an election court which ruled he had lied about his Lib Dem rival.
The specially convened election court ruled that comments in campaign material suggesting Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins had tried to “woo” the votes of Muslim extremists, clearly amounted to an attack on his personal character and conduct. The court ruled he was guilty of breaching the Representation of the People Act 1983 and barred him from standing for elected office for three years, as well as fining him £5,000.
What the former Labour immigration minister says is now front-page news.
Posted: 26th, June 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
