Tabloids Category
The news as told by the UK’s tabloid press – The Sun, Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and News of the World.
Madeleine McCann: police seek more money
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child in the news.
Daily Express (Page 11): “Madeleine police seek funds”
To which the reply must be: don’t they always?
The story goes that Operation Grange, the Met Police’s investigation into the child’s vanishing, is running low on funds. The Express says Madeline McCann’ parents, Kate and Gerry, “are said to be encouraged” – by whom is not said – “that “there remains work to be done that requires extra funding”. Surley there always be will extra work needed until we know for certain what happened to her?
Daily Mirror (Page 4): “Madeleine hunt police ask to ‘pursue final line of inquiry'”
The McCanns have “fresh hope” their daughter will be found. Clarence Mitchell, the parents’ spokesman, says “Kate and Gerry are extremely thankful to the Met Police for requesting extra funds”. The Mirror says that without more cash, Operation Grange could be “shelved” in three weeks.
The Sun (Page 4): “MADDIE POLICE PLEAE FOR CASH”
The sum police are seeking from the Home Office has not been disclosed. The Sun speculates that this “could mean they are closing in on the kidnapper”. It could. Or it could not. The Sun reminds readers that the hunt has “cost taxpayers £11.2m”.
Posted: 8th, September 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comment
Prince George’s first day at school: beaming with nerves and mind control
Prince George has started school. His big moment is all over the papers. He’s “His royal Shyness” on the Mirror and Mail’s front pages, and “Heir to learn” on the Sun’s.
The Mirror says he looked nervous. The Express says he was “all smiles”.
It all depends on how you decode the look George is giving his new headmistress. Head down, eyes fixed as Miss curtsies to her new pupil, who’ll be treated the same as everyone else.
Tom Jamieson muses: “Please release me Sire…please, it’s been almost two hours now…” “Crush her, crush her George like you will all the peasants.”
Shy and nervous in the Mirror
All smiles in the Express
‘Glum’ in the Sun
‘Wobbly’ in the Mail
Miss Kate-alike in the Mail
Best of luck, George! No pressure.
Posted: 8th, September 2017 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Everton star Wayne Rooney’s holiday romance – and Gary Neville’s advice to Coleen
For those of you wondering how Wayne Rooney and the lovely Coleen are getting along, the Daily Star has front-page news: “ROONEY GIRL TRACKED COLEEN.” The Rooney girl is his could-have-been-shag Laura Simpson, who had been “tracking Coleen for six weeks” before having what says was a “kiss and a cuddle” with the married footballer.
Laura “knew when Coleen was on holiday”. How so? Did she bug the house? Stick a tracker on her car? Hack her phone? No. The devious Laura FOLLOWED Coleen on twitter and “RETWEETED” Coleen’s message: “So basically…yes on holiday again.” Coleen also “revealed” – not boasted? – she was on holiday again in another message on August 26. Just two nights later, Wayne was on the lash and driving Laura’s car when he was pulled over by the fuzz for alleged drink driving.
It’s a no-shag ‘n’ retweet story, a far cry for the 1980s, when footballers and even snooker players were making headlines five-times-a-night.
But what about those holidays? Laura’s not the only one watching Coleen testing sun creams. The Mail says “Already this year she has visited Amsterdam, Madrid, Mallorca, Ibiza, Las Vegas, Barbados and Portugal.” And this is relevant, apparently, because the Sun reports on its front page: “Drink-drive footie ace Wayne Rooney gives wife Coleen an ultimatum ‘You quit the holidays and I’ll quit the boozing’.”
And the chauffeur service, Wayne, let’s not forget about that.
But we’ll end with some advice from Gary Neville, Wayne’s former Manchester United teammate. “Look at Wayne Rooney there,” said Neville, spotting the striker in the tunnel before a match. “Old-school, looking forward, not hugging, kissing.” Wise words that Wayne and Coleen – but especially Wayne – can hang on to.
Posted: 7th, September 2017 | In: Back pages, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Hetty Douglas is your internet hate figure of the day
Vying with Robbie Travers for the title of Hate Figure of the Minute is Hetty Douglas, a 25-year-old artist, it says here, living in south London. On anthropological manoeuvres in the McDonald’s restaurant in London’s Piccadilly, Hetty thought it a good idea to take a photo of three men in the queue and caption the image: “These guys look like they got 1 GCSE.” The men were not jumping in the air for joy, clutching their exam results and screaming ‘YES! DONE IT!!!”. They were facing the other way and minding their own business.
Superior Hetty Douglas was making fun of them in a snide and sneaky way. It adds grist to the mill that Hetty is as the Star captions her photo, “posh”, although how it knows this we’re not told. It fits the narrative of the rich looking down on the poor, and that’s enough to bash her with.
The Sun tells Hetty to “Burger off!” The paper finds out that the three men are scaffolders with have a combined total of 8 GCSEs. It also tells reader where they can find Hetty, who works at “skate shop Supreme, in Soho, central London”. Is that fair?
The Sun is disgusted that anyone should mock another person like that. It’s not as if the scaffolders play football, like Wayne Rooney.
The Sun salutes the captain’s intellect and physique
In the Mail, “a close friend of the family says Hetty was actually speaking up in defence of the McDonald’s staff who were being abused by the construction crew”. The unnamed source tells the paper:
“They were being rude and swearing at those youngsters working behind the counter and Hetty thought they were out of order. I’m sure the builders would just dismiss it as banter but they were very unkind and intimidating… It was bullying to her mind. So she thought she would take these lads down a peg or two. Sadly it has backfired but she meant well. It’s typical of social media that people go off half cocked with their opinions and threats without knowing the full story. Well now the real facts are out there a lot of people will be regretting what they have said about Hetty. She’s not some posh little rich girl. She’s actually as working class as they come it’s just as a model some of the pictures of her are upmarket.”
Assumptions can be a problem.
and you look like a spoiled rich girl gentrifying south London pic.twitter.com/0bysFYfc9c
— rhi (@rhiharper) September 4, 2017
On student website The Tab, art graduate Hetty Douglas has her entire being analysed. You can know everything about someone from a single Instagram post, apparently:
The real reason so many people have rounded on Hetty is because we all know someone exactly like her. Posh, privileged and seemingly not really aware of what’s going on in the world around them.
Johnny Long (wealth not noted) adds:
This upbringing has afforded these types of people a lot, but sometimes it appears as though they don’t have the empathy to think about anything from the point of view of people who are not like them
Bitchy stuff.
Tomorrow… some other poor sod will get it in the neck.
PS: Hetty Douglas might be auditioning for a leading role in the Labour Party. After all, Emily Thornberry is the hard Left’s choice to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Party leader. More about her empathetic attitude to workmen here.
Manchester United balls: Lukaku and Rashford as good as Rooney and Berbatov
According to the Daily Mail, Manchester United’s Lukaku/Ibrahimovic/Martial/Rashford are every bit as good as United’s 2007-2009 vintage of Rooney/Ronaldo/Tevez/Berbatov. The paper tells readers:
Rashford and Martial offer lightning pace, skill and a decent chance conversion rate, while Ibrahimovic really needs no introduction.
A decent conversion rate of shots to goals? Not really. Marcus Rashford has nine shots for Manchester United this season and one goal. As for Lukaku being equal to Rooney in his prime and Ibrahimovic, 35, being as exciting as the 23-year-old Ronaldo, well, no, they’re not.
Posted: 4th, September 2017 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Tabloids | Comment
Dear Coleen: Wayne Rooney tips and where you can find Laura Simpson
Everton’s former Manchester United and England footballer Wayne Rooney only had a “kiss and a cuddle” with Laura Simpson, 29, whose car he was driving when police nicked him for drink driving. All the tabloids wonder what this means for his marriage to Coleen Rooney. The Mirror says she’s fearful for the couple’s three children, “worried about playground taunts” because kids can be cruel.
Coleen, we learn, is also worried about media intrusion. Which is presumably why she, as the Sun reports, uploaded photos of her boys on Instagram and wrote: “No matter where I am they always follow me, and I hope that last forever.” No, not a coded message to the paparazzi, marketeers and celebrity magazines. That was a “heavy hint that she would keep the kids with her if Wayne and she split”.
By now you’re itching to know more about pneumatic Laura Simpson, who “boasts” (Mirror) of having 32E breasts, which Wayne “ogled”, hair extensions, false eyelashes, Botox and lip enhancers. Unlike Wayne, she does not smoke and have a spouse, but she does have a child.
The Sun then pinpoints the single mother struggling to make a living, helping anyone who wants to bounce into and off of Laura find her. We learn that she works at a lettings agency (wages: £38,000 a year); once went on two trips to Dubai in one month; is “cash-strapped”; and lives in a “terraced house in Irlam, Greater Manchester”. If you can’t find her there, maybe you can reach her on the sugar daddy website, where the Sun says she functions under the name “Lolaura”.
As journalists and pornographers stampede to Laura’s door, the kindness of strangers kicks in. In “Dear Coleen”, Coleen Nolan, writes an open letter to her namesake. “Oh love, my heart ached for you yesterday,” says Coleen, to say nothing of her mouth and she dictated 300 words of to-deadline advice. “Back from holiday, piles of washing to sort, school uniforms to get ready,” says Nolan, proving she has the inside track on the life of a woman who counts her millions by the dozen. “Whenever anyone askw me for advice,” says Nolan, “my first tip is…” Call my agent? “…never, ever, make life-changing decisions when emotions are high.” Coleen’s life is far from over because as Nolan reminds her, she too has been cheated on by a wayward and well-known husband, and had her private life scrutinised in the national press. She moved on, forging a new life as the Woman Whose Famous Husband Cheated On Her And Had Her Life Scrutinised In The Press in the Mirror and on TV’s Loose Women. Hang in there, Coleen. There’s a multifaceted career in this, maybe.
More advice for Coleen in the Mail, where Bel Mooney has “inimitable advice” for the Rooney. “Dear Coleen,” begins the heartfelt advice once more, it being a well-established fact that Coleen is a dear and likes to surround herself with dear things, some very dear, some very, very dear. “Bloody men, eh,” says Bel. “At it again!” As with Nolan, Mooney presents herself as Coleen’s kindred spirit. Coleen was born in Liverpool and so too was Mooney. Wayne was boozing with Laura in Alderley Edge’s Bubble Room.”My best friend lives in Alderly Edge,” says Money, “and I’ve been to those upmarket joints, Piccolino’s and the Bubble Room”.
“Good luck, Bel,” says Mooney, which sounds a bit like Rooney, and a bit self-obsessed.
Good luck, Coleen!
Gina McCarrick
Posted: 4th, September 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Liverpool balls: Philippe Coutinho joins Barcelona and then leaves in tears
Did Philippe Coutinho ever leave Liverpool for Barcelona? Yes, he did, says Neil Curtis in the Sun.
COUT AND DRIED Philippe Coutinho heading to Barcelona in stunning £138m deal from Liverpool with announcement set for 7pm
Adding:
The Merseyside club have finally accepted defeat in their bid to hold on to their prize asset as Coutinho heads to La Liga
And then… Coutinho stayed at Liverpool. Was this the Sun’s desperate attempt to seduce Liverpool fans to read the newspaper they hate? Because no sooner has the scoop proven to be utter balls than the Sun has another bash:
Facts to support that claim come there none.
And then this:
CRYING GAME Philippe Coutinho’s failed Barcelona move from Liverpool made him ‘break down in tears in front of Brazil team-mates’. Playmaker was reportedly distraught after learning that Reds would not be allowing him to make dream Nou Camp move
Such are the facts…
Posted: 2nd, September 2017 | In: Back pages, Liverpool, Sports, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Princess Diana: 20 years of emotion over conviction
Where were you 20 years ago when Dodi Fayed died in a car crash whilst on holiday with Princess Diana, a divorced mum-of-two?
The marking of the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death is a therapeutic process. Just as she was presented as the vulnerable woman abused by the country’s old values as she opened up her heart and talked about her issues on the telly, we too are now in need. The Mirror, one day on from its exclusive with Diana Inc.’s Paul Burrell, leads with: “Harry: all of us lost somebody.”
Diana, a totem for all our pain and woes, in whose aftermath emotionalism replaced resolve and conviction, is the saviour of us and them. “True disbelief, then the grief hit us hard,” says Fiona Philips. “Popularity of the monarchy is down to her,” says Brian Reade. In the rush to emote, the Daily Star puts the following words into the mouths of Diana’s sons: “We wish she was here say Harry & Wills as they visit Diana memorial garden.”
She can’t be in her own memorial garden for reasons all too obvious. But we can feel her, right? Because in the age of uncertainty, feeling is everything.
Posted: 31st, August 2017 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal FC is declared dead and only the parasites remain
Arsenal are dead. So says the Sun, which links the club’s pulse to Alexis Sanchez’s whims, declaring that when the Chilean quits the club today – it is “inevitable he will, says the paper’s Neil Ashton – he’ll be leaving behind a corpse where there was once a club.
Sanchez would also be leaving the leeches, footballers whose presence at Arsenal is more parasitic than proud. Granti Xhaka, Shkodran Mustafi, Lucas Perez and Calum Chambers are rubbish on the “Arsenal scrapheap”.
But might it be that the Sun’s trash talk is a little late? It was last March 8 when the Sun’s Ashton told readers:
Arsenal Football Club, Rest In Peace. This institution, one of the most famous clubs in the world, is dead and buried. Here at the Emirates, the heart finally stopped beating.
Can you die twice? And can a thriving football club with millions in the bank die once? Because having watched Arsenal breathe its last in March, on June 1, the same Neil Ashton wrote:
Arsenal, no matter how many times they win the FA Cup, are only ever one defeat away from another meltdown among their fans..
To wit the obvious question: is Neil Ashton a Gooner?
Posted: 31st, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comments (3)
Diana and Me: Paul Burrell’s Paris pilgrimage and the day he died
Just in case you hadn’t heard, it’s 20 years since the death of Princess Diana. The Diana Industry is in full cry. In today’s instalment, former royal servant Paul Burrell is seen eying the site of the car cash that killed his boss in Paris and sharing his “troubling questions” over her death.
Paul’s thoughts are front-page news in the Mirror. And on pages 4 and 5 you get a lot more of them. Burrell, who has made a career from being Diana’s “Rock”, says, “My heart tells me it was a terrible accident.” To say nothing of the countless books, coroner’s reports, police inquiry, TV specials and a million to-deadline opinions about the car crash.
Paul then takes time out to gives us a city tour. He says he “never realised how close the Eiffel Tower was” to the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, where Diana died, an underpass he “never realised” was so small. “Now I realise it [the Tower] must have been the last thing she saw before the crash,” says Paul.
Having realised much and shared her last view, Burrell then shares Diana’s demise, albeit mentally. “I dreamt last night I would crash and die in the exact same place,” says Burrell. Not all dreams come true. And Paul is alive to place a “touching” card on the bridge. It says – and it’s all written in easy-to-read capital letters:
YOU WILL BE WITH ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE … AND ONE DAY WE WILL BE RE-UNITED AND SIT AND LAUGH AND LOVE.
YOUR ROCK.
P.
Always nice when a staff member enjoys their work, but Paul seems a tad besotted with Diana. He says it took a few hours before he realised “she had left me”. In the hospital where she died, coppers showed him the room where Diana is lying, her hair washed, her body carrying the scent of formaldehyde – “I can still smell it, like I still smell her perfume, Hermes 24 Faubourg.” The Mirror plays along, saying Burrell was “the first person to see her body” (if so, who washed her hair and declared her dead?). He says he entered the room to “stare death in the face”. Lest you think facing the Grim Reaper something you do when faced with your own mortality, Burrell opines: “I’d lost my reason for being.”
But he found a new one, and whether it be talking about Diana in the tabloids, writing about Diana in your book, eating ‘roo gonads on I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!. judging would-be Dianas on Australian Princess, working out anagrams of ‘CROK’ on Countdown, singing on Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes, or shopping on Celebrity Big Brother, Burrell’s soldiered on.
Posted: 30th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Fostering fear and division in Tower Hamlets: the Christian child and her Muslim carers
The Times‘ scoop became a big talking point: a five-year-old, white, native English specking Christian girl had been placed with a Muslim foster family by London’s Tower Hamlet’s council. What problem with that? If the vulnerable child needed help and help was forthcoming, what matter respective religions? The council surely vets foster parents and made an informed choice.
Maybe not.
The girl spent four months with her substitute family. She says the family did not speak English in the home, encouraging her to speak Arabic. Her primary foster carer veiled her face in public. When placed with a second foster family, also Muslim, the girl spoke of regularly eating meals on the floor. The girl was scheduled to return to the first foster carers, but a council worker heard her complain of having had her necklace removed and not returned. The necklace featured a cross-shaped pendant. The girl claimed the family had refused to let her eat carbonara prepared by her family because it contained bacon.
The girl is now back with her family, living with her grandmother on the orders of Judge Khatan Sapnara – the Mail tells readers on its front page, the judge is a Muslim; a fact the Times repeats on page 6 in a lengthy profile on the woman who arrived in the UK as child from her native Bangladesh. Judge Sapnara told the council to seek “culturally matched placements” for children. She also made a stand for free speech. Tower Hamlets tried to block the Times story but failed when Judge Sapnara made it clear she “would not stand in the way of the freedom of the press to report, within the law and in a responsible manner, in respect of this case.”
The Mail adds that the girl’s family had “pleaded” with the council to let her live with her grandmother. The girl “begged” not to be returned to the Muslim family. By page 17, Sarah Vine is telling readers about the value of “a granny’s love”. But taken in isolation, without us knowing why the child was in care at all, why grandma was overlooked in favour of foster parents and what the foster parents hope to gain from their role, opinion rides roughshod over fact. But Vine tells us that Tower Hamlets advertises foster carer allowances of “£313 and £253 a week”. “That’s a nice little earner,” says Vine.
Easy money? On the Tower Hamlets website we read:
If you are interested in becoming a foster carer you will need to meet with a social worker many times to talk about yourself, your family and your experiences of looking after children. Some people find the idea of this daunting, but our social workers are highly experienced and will do everything they can to help you feel reassured during this process. You will also need to have police and medical checks and will need to ask employers, friends and families to give references.
And Vine’s undersold the job: “Fostering fees and allowances up to £474 per week (per child in placement depending on age).” But, yes, the payments for a five-year-old are as she says. Fostering is a cottage industry. Why the public sector is turning child care into a job creation opportunity is not touched upon. And it costs:
In the 2013/14 financial year an estimated £2.5 billion (gross expenditure) was spent on the main looked after children’s services in England. The majority of expenditure (55%) was on foster care services (around £1.4 billion, 55%) and children’s homes (around £0.9 billion, 36%).
So much for the money.
What’s wrong is when Vine says the “real scandal” is that social services “would rather pay someone, irrespective of whether or not he child will be miserable, than find a home where someone wants to offer the one thing that has no price: a mother’s love.”
Eh? Surely is can be argued that the “strict Muslim” women was offering just that: a place where the child would be treated like one of their own. Moreover, where is the child’s mother? Is she able or capable of offering the kid of love Vine seeks? Let’s not pretend a mother’s love is the ultimate nurturer of life and love.
Also troubling is that the story is presented as one of child abuse. The child was refused food. The child was with “strict” adults. The child was upset. The child “sobbed”. Everything is presented to make readers suspicious of adults. The child’s view is pure and passes challenged. We’ve not heard from the Muslim women at the centre of the story. The overriding impression from reading this story is that when society revolves around child protection, everyone who works with children is cast as a suspect.
Posted: 30th, August 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal balls: rewriting history without Patrick Vieira
Using Arsenal’s 4-0 defeat at Liverpool to rewrite history is the work of the Daily Mail’s Sami Mokbel. The journalist has been in New York, where he spoke with former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira, currently expanding the Manchester City brand with New York City. The tone is very much one of if only Arsenal had a player of Vieira’s calibre now.
Across the page, Mokbel talks of Arsenal’s “broken dressing room”. Mokbel likens the place to a “morgue” – although the Daily Telegraph hears the deathly quiet punctuated by the roar of fury as players rip into one another. Mokbel rearranges his earplugs and tells readers:
How Arsene Wenger could do with Patrick Vieira in his ranks. Sunday’s harrowing experience at Anfield would never have happened on the Frenchman’s watch.
Eh, yes it would have. December 23, 2000: Arsenal are beaten 4-0 at Anfield in the Premier League. Vieira plays the full 90 minutes.
The Arsenal team on that daty: Manninger, Dixon, Keown, Luzhny, Silvinho, Parlour, Vieira, Grimandi, Ljungberg, Bergkamp, Henry. Subs: Stepanovs, Pires, Wiltord, Lukic, Kanu.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 30th, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal in decline: blame the greedy board not Wenger
Alex Oxlade-Chambelrin, the 24-year-old Arsenal footballer is worth – get this – £40m and £220,000 a week in wages. Possessed of less fight than a LibDem activist at a cannabis conference, the man media calls ‘The Ox’ (on account of his running style?) becomes the player who will next year or maybe the year after that or the year after that be utterly brilliant for Chelsea.
Surely Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s was wearing blinkers or a salesman’s shiny jacket when he told everyone a few days ago how Oxlade-Chamberlain was “one of the players we want to build around in the future’, who caused Wenger to say: “I’m convinced that he will be in the next two or three years the English player everyone looks at.”
The smart move would be for the Gunners to now ship out Alexis Sanchez and any other player not keen on staying the course. Arsenal should take the £70m (Daily Star) Manchester City are willing to part with for Sanchez. They should then sack Wenger and the patently useless Ivan Gazidis, the chief executive who called for a “catalyst” for change, and saw it delivered in a 4-0 tonking at Liverpool in which Arsenal performed like moving cones on a training pitch. Although, in fairness, Gazidis didn’t specify which way the line of travel would be. But now we know it’s clearly downwards.
Sacking Wenger is the opinion of Ian Wright, the former Arsenal striker , who tells Sun readers: “GO, ARSENE.” A pall of uncertainty hangs over Arsenal and, according to Wright, it’s all Wenger’s fault. Wrong. It’s the owners who are to blame. They hire. They fire. The Arsenal board has grown fat on Wenger’s ability to delivers Champions’ League cash and a team capable of packing out The Emirates. They suits merely call for more of the same year on year. Coming fifth placed in last season’s Premier League should not have earned him a new two-year deal on an increased wage.
The Mirror says senior players are “fuming” over the lack of changes and singings at the club. Others might wonder why just a year after buying Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez for a combined fee in excess of £50m, both are being touted for sale.
After yet another poor start to the season, Arsenal are “stale”. The Mail says the training routine never changes, adding that the club’s majority shareholder, ‘Silent’ Stan Kroenke, will keep backing Wenger – until the dividend cheques stop coming and the fans stop buying shirts.
If you want to know what’s gone wrong at Arsenal, be like ‘The Ox’ and follow the money.
Posted: 29th, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Madeleine McCann: the GCSEs, the Catholic academy and a vicar
The summer’s been light on Madeleine McCann news. What with there being no news to report (there’s not been any every since she vanished – Ed) and August being renamed ‘Diana’, the media’s largely ignored ‘Our Maddie’. But now the news arrives that the school Madeleine McCann would have attended to study for her GCSEs has kept her place open.
Madeleine would /could have been a pupil at Catholic academy De Lisle College in Loughborough, Leicestershire. And if she wasn’t missing she’d be with other 14-year-old girls getting ready to begin her GCSEs.
This we know because the Rev. Rob Gladstone, the family’s “local vicar” (not a Catholic), has told the Sun: “She would be going into Year 10 and they welcome her return. There is no evidence Madeleine has died. We encourage Kate and Gerry in faith, hope, strength, perseverance and courage.”
Lest we find this story less than illuminating, a “friend of the McCann family” adds: “It is both touching and fitting that the ‘big’ school where she would have gone holds a desk for her.”
In other news: Madeleine McCann is missing. There are no suspects.
Posted: 26th, August 2017 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Hani Khalaf: Hyde Park killer and the problem with immigrants
In today’s Daily Express, it’s another game of join the dots, of which there are just two. Page 5 tells readers of an “illegal immigrant” called Hani Khalaf. He’s been handed a 26-year prison sentence for murdering Jairo Medina, beating the man to death in London’s Hyde Park.
Khalaf, an Egyptian national, arrived in the UK in the back of lorry back in 2014, posing as a Syrian asylum seeker.
Judge Wendy Joseph QC tells the court:
“It is clear that Hani Khalaf, having absconded, came to the attention of authorities on at least six occasions. On each, he was re-bailed because they could not make arrangements for securing his deportation in a reasonable amount of time.”
The news is part of a page given over to immigration stories.
Immigration Special.
The phone poll on the same page asks: “Is Britain still letting in too many migrants?”
The story of how Hani Khalaf was free to murder is troubling. Why was a man in the country illegally not dealt with by the authorities? Joseph makes the valid point that Khalaf had no way of “lawfully maintaining himself”. How can man in the country illegally keep the rules?
So much for the Express. But how do the other paper report on the story?
The Daily Telegraph leads with the killer’s legal status:
Illegal immigrant murdered man in Hyde Park after Home Office repeatedly failed to deport him
It tells readers that the victim, a carer by profession, was born in Colombia. He was a Colombian national. The Express omits that fact. The Express also doesn’t say that Mr Medina, a migrant, has, according to his sister, won an award in 2015 for his “service to care in London”.
The paper adds:
The day before he [Khalaf] met Mr Medina, he was arrested for shoplifting in Regent Street and gave police the false name he had previously given to immigration officials.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and was bailed hours before the killing.
On August 11, Khalaf met Mr Medina in Hyde Park, where the victim had gone hoping to have sex with a younger man, the court heard.
Khalaf murdered and robbed Mr Medina. The judge ruled that it was a “murder for gain”.
Over in the London Evening Standard, the killer’s status is is once more the leading fact:
Illegal immigrant jailed for beating carer Jairo Medina to death in London’s Hyde Park
It was only good police work that saw Khalaf arrested:
Khalaf was arrested on August 16 for fare evasion and told police he was Hanni Hassan and later gave the name Khalaf, prosecutor Oliver Glasgow QC said.
Then on August 18, he was arrested again for shoplifting and taken to Charing Cross police station, where an “eagle-eyed” police officer recognised him from CCTV as the suspect seen with Mr Medina on the night of his death.
The BBC delivers the headline:
“Illegal immigrant jailed for Hyde Park murder”
And in the Guardian? Well, this is the headline:
It’s story begins:
A homeless man has been jailed for at least 26 years for murdering a “kind and peace-loving” carer…
To the Guardian, it is not Khalaf’s illegality that matters most. “Homeless man jailed for Hyde Park murder,” says the headline. Its report carries not a single mention of the words “migrant”, “illegal immigrant” or “immigrant”.
The Express and Guardian both massage the facts to fit an agenda. Neither is helpful.
Posted: 25th, August 2017 | In: Broadsheets, News, Tabloids | Comment
Lotto scratchcard ‘fury’ but no mention of the Health Lottery
The Daily Star picks up the sound of “punters’ fury at Lotto card Farce”.
Those “angry punters” have branded the National Lottery a “rip -off”. The Star says “nearly a quarter” and “most of the top prizes” on Lotto’s 42 scratch card games currently on sale offer prizes that have already been won. “What a waste of money,” says one unnamed gambler, without irony.
We do hear from Camelot, which operates the cards. “There are only two scratchcard on sale that have no top prizes remaining. No new packs of these scratchcards can be put on sale.”
That seems fair.
What seems a little less fair is that the Daily Star does not mention that its owner (Richard Demond) is chairman of Northern & Shell, parent company of the Health Lottery, a Lotto rival which sells virtual scratchcards for online games. How it deals with scratchcards after the top prizes have been claimed is not mentioned.
We called the Health Lottery to ask them. Calls to The Health Lottery Helpline are charged at 7p per minute plus your telephone provider’s access charge. It took 59 seconds for us to be able to press ‘4’ to speak with an advisor.
We were directed to the Ts and Cs. They tells us:
The result of each Instant Lottery Game shall be pre-determined at the time of purchase and shall not include any element of skill. The Health Lottery Computer System will determine prizes based on the probabilities and not from a limited pool of prizes…
The chances of winning a Prize will be exactly the same at the point of purchase and shall not be affected by previous wins in the same Game or other Prizes previously paid in other Instant Lottery Games . The advertised prize structure shall remain in place at all times, with each prize tier always available for a win as the Instant Lottery Games do not use a limited pool.
It’s different system to the Lotto, then. Whether or not it’s any fairer is moot. Both systems are after all, odds-based punts.
Posted: 25th, August 2017 | In: Money, News, Tabloids | Comment
The Daily Diana: a car crash marriage proposal, reincarnation and Peter Kay’s shepherd’s pit
It’s the Daily Diana, and the Sun leads with Sun readers remembering the day Princess Diana died 20 years ago. The story is headlined “Diana AND ME”. Because it’s all about ME.
Reader Louise Voss says, “I went into labour with my daughter as she died.” Louise “worked out” that just as the car carrying Diana slammed into a tunnel wall in Paris, she had her first contraction, and daughter Gracie began her journey down her own sort of tunnel. Spooky! ”
“Gracie was born the next day, and we always told her she was the reincarnation of Diana,” says Louise. Although Diana wasn’t dead yet, and only soap actors get to be the reincarnation of someone still alive. It detracts little from the drama to note that Louise never met Diana – well, not in her previous lifetime.
As the paparazzi and land mine charities dash over to see Gracie, we meet others, like Jo who says of her late sister: “That night marked Diana’s death – and the beginning of my sister’s decline.”
Tess agreed to marry her boyfriend the day before news of Diana’s death broke. She says the day was a “true rollercoaster”.
Marianne Berry, a nurse who like Jo and Tess never met Diana, offers context. A newsflash appeared on the telly: “We thought it was the announcement of World War Three. Then the newsreader says Dodi had died, and Diana was on her way to hospital. Another nurse came over and joined us and we watched the horror unfold.”
Peter Kay dodges the bombs to recall that he heard the news via a note on the fridge from his mom. It read: “Princess Diana dead. Shepherd’s pie in fridge.”
It’s what she would have wanted.
Posted: 24th, August 2017 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Katharine McPhee, topless telly ‘babes’, Tiger Woods and Miley Cyrus are naked online
Have you seen the “SEX PICS” of the “TWO TO TV STARS”. The saucy photos “LEAKED ONLINE” are front-page news on the Daily Star. Nasty stuff, indeed, to have your private moments stolen and shared with the world. The two celebs, two of the country’s “biggest stars”, have called in the lawyers.
The Star is appalled. And anyone looking for the “explicits naked snaps” of the “2 telly babes” – the “extremely intimate shots” – of the “beauties”on an “X-rated” website should be ashamed of themselves. Says a spokesperson for one of the women:” “The selfies were taken from social media accounts but the topless images claiming to be of her are fake.”
So there are no sex pics. The images weren’t leaked, rather shared and photoshopped. Aside from that the Star’s lead story is, er, correct.
Meanwhile, in other celebrity naked news, Katharine McPhee is “fighting back”.
The actress and singer, 33, filed suit in Los Angeles County Tuesday in response to intimate photos of her being published on pornographic websites after her phone got hacked.
Miley Cyrus is naked in public – again:
Intimate pictures allegedly showing Miley Cyrus and Stella Maxwell together, Kristen Stewart apparently topless and former couple Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn apparently naked have surfaced online.
Vonn and Woods are considering legal action.
The odd things about all this is that while the newspapers report on the story of leaked sex photos, anyone who cares is online looking for the images. If there’s any one story that shows how out-of-step the dead-tree Press is, it’s when dirty photos get leaked online.
Posted: 24th, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal balls: Jack Wilshere hits ‘career low’ as Man City’s Smith auditions for the big time
How much editorial spin can be heaped upon Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere, who last night responded angrily to a late foul by Manchester City’s Matthew Smith as the pair contested an Under 23 encounter. (Wilshere is 25.) Once viewed as the greatest English player of his generation, Wishere has by way of injury and the emergence of brighter talents at Arsenal and elsewhere fallen well down the pecking order.
In the handbags that followed, Wilshere shoved Smith in the chest – the City player went down faster than a Love Island contestant, before clutching his head and laying in the foetal position for some time – and scrapped with Tyreke Wilson. Both Wilshere and Wilson were sent off. Smith was dispatched with a single bullet to the temple.
And the press?
Wilshere sent off for Arsenal after pushing opponent – Evening Standard
Jack Wilshere sent off for Arsenal after flooring Man City player – The Sun
It was a “career low” – The Sun
Jack Wilshere sent off for Arsenal to cast further doubt over his future – Daily Telegraph
After the hype, let’s leave you with the balls. Matthew Smith, take a bow… and keep going down and down and down until your nose hits the turf. (Tip: next time you audition for the Premier League, remember to slap the grass with an open hand as if you’re giving birth and to check the other hand – the one that’s been holding your head on – for signs of blood and brain.)
Posted: 22nd, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Broadsheets, Manchester City, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
If George Clooney looks ‘frazzled’ you should see his nanny
Clooney looks “ace” in the Daily Mirror. The paper has a paparazzi shot of George Clooney and Amal Clooney at a tennis match lose to their home in Italy. Neither is holding a racket, but they are holding hands. They look like a well-groomed couple minding their own business.
But over in the Mail, Clooney is “frazzled”. He’s a new dad “after two months of sleepless nights”. No, not or the couple’s umpteen nannies, for George. To prove its point (surely to spin a story from a papped photo? – Ed) the Mail shows us Clooney looking “fresh-face and beaming” in April.
PS: on the day the the Mail leads once more with news of Princess Diana 20 years after her death, odd indeed it should feature a half-page paparazzi photos of the Clooneys. After all, it was in the wake of Diana’s death that the Mail made this pledge:
8 September 1997, eight days after the death of Princess Diana:
“Mail leads the way in banning paparazzi pictures.
“The proprietor of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard announced last night that his papers will not in future purchase pictures taken by paparazzi
“Viscount Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc said: ‘I am, and always have been, an admirer of Diana, Princess of Wales, and nagged my editors to protect her so far as they could against her powerful enemies.
“In view of Earl Spencer’s strong words and my own sense of outrage, I have instructed my editors no ‘paparazzi’ pictures are to be purchased without my knowledge and consent.'”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 21st, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids | Comment
Daily Diana: everyone hates Prince Charles and Dodi was a mug
It’s Diana-mania all over again in the tabloids as papers mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
The Mirror leads with a Diana pullout, four pages of revision featuring the wedding day kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony (awwww!); Diana getting Charles’s name wrong at the altar (d’oh!); Charles mentally repeating “Must not call her Camilla” over and over (cheating, lying bastard!); and how the couple, as Marje Proops told us on July 30 1981, “could have been quite alone. It was look of love and longing” – her love for him and his longing to be Camilla’s tampon.
Too harsh on Charles, the poor lamb? Nah. The Press are all diving on the swine. The Express, with the vanishing of Madeleine McCann deemed a story no longer to be of much interest, leads with the pre-Maddy blonde Diana and news that she “saved” the Royal Family. This follows news that, when polled, most time-rich Britons who respond to YouGov polls think Charles is unfit to be King.
The Mail begins its Daily Diana by looking at a poll. This one says only a third of Britons think Charles is worth his salt and 14% think Camilla should be Queen (yeah, that many). How many think Diana was murdered is not investigated, but it might be more than the number who think Charles should put his hair in a bun and his **** in a toaster.
Over on the Sun’s cover, big news is that Diana was not in love with Dodi Fayed. This we know because Michael Gibbins, her private secretary, believes she was simply “having a lovely summer at somebody else’s expense”. Diana was freeloader? A tart? “When the summer was over, everything would have disintegrated,” says Gibbons. He then adds: “If she’d lived she would have been looking for other things – and rushing into my office saying why hadn’t I found them for her?” Although her husband Dodi might have been with her, carrying their child, little Michael Paul Burrell-Gibbins and his twin sister Fergie.
In tomorrow’s papers: why Diana loved the paparazzi.
Posted: 21st, August 2017 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Murdoch united: The Sun says BBC ‘nabbing’ Great British Bake Off stars to ‘spite’ Love Productions
In a Sun “exclusive”, the paper says “BBC chiefs are facing claims they are sabotaging shows from the firm behind The Great British Bake Off.”
That company is Love Productions, who have brought to your telly such treats as Bake Off and: Junior Bake Off, Newlyweds, Famous Rich and Homeless, Tower Block of Commons, Young, Autistic & Stagestruck, The Baby Borrowers, Young Mums’ Mansion and Naked, Underage and Having Sex, and Britain’s Youngest Grannies.
Industry insiders say Love Productions believe the Beeb deliberately nabbed stars from other shows they have made.
Industry insiders say Love Productions believe the Beeb deliberately nabbed stars from other shows they have made. It’s an alleged “bid to sabotage the firm”. What stars have been “nabbed”?
Claudia Winkleman, who presented The Great British Sewing Bee and The Great Pottery Throwdown’s host Sara Cox.
Claudia, 45, is to co-host new BBC show Britain’s Best Cook, alongside former Bake Off judge Mary Berry, 82. While Sara, 42, is now presenting BBC2 series Back In Time For Tea.
Negotiations for new series of the sewing and pottery shows have now stalled.
Can we get a insider to go on the record?
A TV source said: “The sheer arrogance of it all is astonishing.”
Adding:
“There’s a view in the industry that the BBC is acting out of spite and not in the best interest of the licence fee payer.”
What the story in the Sun (prop. Rupert Murdoch) omits to mention is that in 2014, British Sky Broadcasting acquired a majority stake in Love Productions. News Corporation (prop. R. Murdoch) owns 39.1% of BSkyB. 21st Century Fox (pro R. Murdoch) has formally lodged its £11.7bn bid to take full control of Sky.
Posted: 18th, August 2017 | In: News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
After Barcelona: the driverless van hired by an innocent man
Carnage in Barcelona. Islamists have driven a truck into the city centre, murdering 13 and injuring 100 more. #punchanislamist is NOT trending on twitter, as #punchanazi has done. Barely a week has passed since a woman was killed by a nutcase at a far-Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Those gaggle of losers look like amateurs compared to Islamists.
The newspapers report on the horror. Do they mention Islamists at all? And know that Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the slaughter.
The Star spots “terrorists in a speeding white van” marauding down Las Ramblas. The Mirror says a “van was driven into crowds”. The “terrorist driving a van” ran into anyone in his path.
Both newspaper lead with a photo of Maghrebi Driss Oukabir, the Moroccan-born man suspected of hiring the van. He says his ID was stolen. He says he’s innocent. But Spanish police handed out his photo, and the media pepper his face over the papers.
The Star’s story makes not a single mention of Islamists. Odd, indeed, for a newspaper that once supporting he anti-Muslim EDL to leave religion out of it.
The Sun leads with “BARCELONA BASTARDS”. Again we seen Oukabir, now under arrest. We’re told the killer was a “maniac driver”. Was he an Islamist? The paper does not say. But we do hear over two pages about Driss Oukabir is a “fan of dope, rap & booze”. Well, that’s what it says on his Facebook Page, where his likes include Durex condoms, Heineken larger, marijuana, hip-hop and “several Islamist pages”.
As Durex and Heineken’s PRs wonder if all publicity is good publicity. we learn that Oukabir might have handed himself into the police. He’s innocent, then? No, says Piers Morgan, paragon of virtue, he’s a “snivelling, pathetic, loathsome, deluded cowardly little prick”. And presumed innocent, right?
Oukabir’s there again on the Express’s cover. It’s an old photo of the suspect from a past run-on with the police. Not much more on him is reported.
But the Times says Oukabir’s “identity documents were believed to have been used to rent” the van used in the attack. We learn that Oukabir walked into a police station in Ripoli, north of Barcelona, and said his papers had been stolen by his 18-year-old brother Moussa, who lives in Barcelona. Oukabir did hand himself in. We also learn that Oukabir likes Prison Break, the song AK47 by the Albanian rapper Noizy and has 725 friends on Facebook. None of them have been rounded up nor abused by Piers Morgan – yet.
Only the Times makes “Islamists” the main thrust of its report, leading with “EVIL strikes again – Islamists mows down innocents in Barcelona.” You wonder why the other papers don’t?
Compare that to the Guardian, which begins: “Thirteen people were killed and at least 50 injured after a van rammed into a crowded street…” A van did it? “At around 5pm a large white Fiat van veered off the road… ploughing its way through the crowd…” It ended “by a colourful mosaic by the artist Joan Miro. It was here that the van, with its front bumper smashed up, came to a halt.” Words on the driver come there none. But the magic, driverless van’s on the mend.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 18th, August 2017 | In: Broadsheets, News, Tabloids | Comment
Spurs balls: Levy puts Dele Alli in the shop window
In the mad world of football transfers, what is Tottenham and Spurs’ talented irritant Dele Alli worth? Helpfully the BBC says he’s worth £150m. Its story is rooted in the Sun’s “exclusive”, which says Dele Alli won’t be sold to Manchester City or Barcelona “even for £150million”.
The article adds that Spurs chairman Daniel Levy “has made it clear 21-year-old Alli is not for sale at any price”. In other words, anyone who wants to buy the player can start the bidding at £150m. As the story adds:
And with Neymar moving to PSG for £198m and Kylian Mbappe expected to follow him for £160m, Levy sees no reason why Alli should not be in a similar bracket.
Levy’s dangling Alli in the water and is waiting to see if any oil-soaked fish is mad enough to bite. And as Levy sticks Alli in a basque and suspenders and puts him in the store window, the pretence continues that he’s anything but waiting for a massive bid. “Levy has made it clear his future is at White Hart Lane,” adds the Sun blithely.
The really odd thing about the Sun’s scoop is that it contains not one quote from Levy. His “warning” to the world that only £150m-ish will get Alli contains not a word that can be attributed to him irrefutably and directly. If the Spurs chairman won’t go on the record, why is news of Alli’s non sale news at all?
When did the Sun become Tottenham’s salesroom?
Posted: 17th, August 2017 | In: Back pages, News, Sports, Spurs, Tabloids | Comment (1)
