Zelo Street

Dave And A God Whistle

2012-02-14T16:35:00.001Z

One can imagine the cabinet meeting and agonising over how to keep up the appeal to the voters. The shine has come off Young Dave’s jolly good veto deployment in Brussels, there has been more bad economic news from another of those – admittedly next to useless – ratings agencies, and of course there is Abu Qatada yet again being very, very dangerous. Allegedly.

What the Coalition needs is a good old fashioned dog-whistle issue that will appeal to the kinds of papers which can sway opinion. With the Sun, or at least several of its hacks, in the mire, that means the Daily Mail. And there, the touchstone issue is that Christianity is under attack. But what if Cameron could broaden that to include all religions? And maybe get a non-Christian to spread the message?

By the happiest of coincidences, that is exactly what Sayeeda Warsi has done with a piece in the Maily Telegraph. The sole Muslim minister in the cabinet is heading a delegation to the Vatican, and making an appropriately bullish defence of religion, and Christianity in particular: “those who wrote the European constitution made no mention of God or Christianity” she laments.

And rightly so: there would have been many Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, Scientologists, Pagans and others who would have taken instant exception to anything that even hinted at a sole claim on religiosity – not to mention all the various flavours of Christianity that would project their own take on the scriptures onto any mention of that religion. This is a subject wisely left alone.

Moreover, Warsi’s assertion that there is a “militant secularisation” (just to make sure you don’t miss that, she says it twice) is baloney. She’d have been far nearer the mark had she said “apathetic” instead of “militant”. Secularism never did car bombings, assassinations, invasions, annexations, and of course crusades. I do hope Sayeeda remembers crusades. They featured lots of religious conflict.

And I don’t go with her assertion that “totalitarian regimes” means “targeting of organised religion”. Mussolini didn’t do that in Italy, nor Hitler in Nazi Germany (the saying “kuche, kirche, kinder” has a clue in it). Spanish currency during Franco’s reign referred to “por la glorie de Dios” (by the grace of God). Salazar’s Estado Novo reflected Catholic social doctrine and papal encyclicals.

Sayeeda Warsi says she will be “fighting for faith”, but she has no need to. The constant stream of inflated stories asserting that Christianity is “under threat” is so much hot air, the result of faith groups playing a victimhood agenda. The established Church has a guaranteed place in the legislature. The head of state is also head of that Church. There is little point in fighting for something already thus privileged.

But it might get the opinion polls to turn upward, so that’s all right, then.

Express Scare Switch

2012-02-14T12:43:00.004Z

As the snow and ice gradually retreats and temperatures rise, one might think that the Express’ weather shock horror front page splashes – such a lucrative attention-getter, and at next to zero cost – might be on their way out. But that thought has today been shown to be misplaced, as Nathan Rao (busy fellow, our Nathan) has moved on to “Britain Faces Drought Crisis”.

It does? How can that be? It’s not been the driest winter here in the north west, but of course rainfall varies from one region of the UK to another. For the past two summers, while London’s Hyde Park was looking distinctly parched, the grass had no problem growing in North Wales and the Lake District. Rao has figured this out, as he tells “Water Shortage Worst For 90 Years”.

What, worse than 1976? Well, not everywhere: this only applies, and even then only potentially applies, to East Anglia and the South East. And maybe parts of the Midlands, although for some reason Rao manages to miss all those water sources in Wales that provide for this part of the country. Also, the research fails when it comes to 1976 – badly.

There was no widespread deployment of standpipes (none, for instance, in West Yorkshire), as he asserts, and nor was rationing otherwise imposed across significant areas of the UK. The potential was certainly there, but days after Denis Howell was made “minister for drought”, the heavens opened, and soon after he became “minister for floods” instead.

Rao’s geography is also shaky: he talks of “Anglia’s reservoir in Rutland, near Lincoln”, which is a bit like saying “Brighton, near London”. The two are around 50 miles apart. Can’t the Desmond press stretch to a map for the office? Actually, the thought occurred that the answer to that question, given Des’ parsimony, could well be “no”, so the howler is no surprise.

In any case, the lower than average rainfall has been with us for the best part of two years – although mainly in the South and East of England. Like so much that gets splashed by the Express, it isn’t new news, merely reheated stuff given a sprinkling of shock horror and a dramatic looking headline. But it costs no more than a few phone calls to pull together.

And that means yet another front page that gets punters to pick up the Express, but still costs Des very little money. It’s good for the bottom line, and therefore qualifies as yet another Benchmark Of Excellence.

Dick And The Rozzers

2012-02-14T11:12:00.002Z

Comedy gold of the unintentional kind comes to the Mail today as obscenely overpaid and otherwise tedious and unfunny hack Richard Littlejohn attempts to ride to the rescue of his former colleagues at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun. “Scotland Yard Stasi and this sinister assault on a free Press” howls the headline, as Dick launches into the rozzers for, er, doing their job.

And he slips a porkie into the first sentence: “Squads of up to 20 police officers ...” he begins. The Met has confirmed that “no more than ten MPS officers” attended each address. Then comes “six o’clock in the morning” and “dozens more detectives rip out car doors, tear up floorboards and search through underwear drawers and beneath mattresses”, all of which he just made up.

Dick’s creative retelling is then underscored with “Nazi Germany ... Communist East Berlin under the Stasi” and the clinching “Gestapo tactics”. It gets better in short order as Littlejohn sternly tells “No one is condoning criminality”, although you know that just around the corner is “But”. Following the “But” is “they are being treated worse than terrorist suspects” (how?) and Abu Qatada.

Behold the Acme of truly distinguished journalism

What has Abu Qatada got to do with this? What the heck, he’s A Very Bad Person and he’s not been nicked. Sun hacks, on the other hand, have “distinguished careers”. Yeah, right. So distinguished that today’s top stories include “Shakira Attacked By Mad Sea Lion” and Coleen Rooney modelling a variety of bikinis. And there’s Abu Qatada being A Very Bad Person again.

Whatever. Dick knows who is to blame for his pals getting the heavy treatment from the rozzers. It’s Bernard Hogan Howe, newly appointed Commissioner of the Met. Giving him the job was clearly A Bad Thing, because it should have gone to Hugh Orde – after all, Dick says he was “the outstanding candidate”. He wasn’t saying that last August when he was pushing for Bill Bratton to get the job. Hypocrite.

But Littlejohn has the inside track here: “My colleagues on the crime beat say that since Hyphen-Howe (laugh? I thought I’d never start) was installed as Commissioner ahead of the outstanding candidate Sir Hugh Orde, normal relations between the police and the press have ground to a halt”. As if you get your “colleagues on the crime beat” looking in on your gated Florida compound. Making it up again.

Equally made up is the inference that Theresa May – someone Dick dislikes to the extent of going into sneering, patronising sexist mode whenever he talks about her – should have questions to answer. The only ones protesting are Sun hacks, and their pals. As I pointed out yesterday, those same folks had no problem when the boot was on the other foot and it was the hacks’ targets getting nicked.

Dick, you’re a dick. Don’t get paranoid. Get real.

Mail Currency Repeats

2012-02-13T18:44:00.001Z

The word has clearly gone out at the Mail to administer one of those periodic kicks at the Euro, given that the single currency did not collapse at the weekend as many of the assembled hacks would have liked. So instead, we get a story of a village in Spain that is supposedly going back to using the Peseta for its currency. Except that it isn’t doing any such thing.

“Spanish village goes back to peseta as Euro crisis takes hold” begins the headline. But all that the residents of Villamayor de Santiago have done is to dig out notes and coins that remained unspent when the Euro notes and coins were introduced. It’s a typical piece of Mail story inflation. And it’s not a new story, either, as a look at the paper called, er, the Daily Mail shows.

Yes, back in March last year, the Mail was telling its readers about Murgardos, in the north west of the country, where ... “The peseta returns to Spain to boost economy”! This time, the story was more accurate, telling that there was an estimated €1.7 billion worth of the old currency not accounted for after the changeover to the Euro. So the Mail is recycling its own stuff.

But it’s a place in a different part of Spain, and the angle can be changed to make it look that bit worse for the Euro, so that’s all right, then.

A Sense Of Proportion?

2012-02-13T13:19:00.001Z

[Update at end of post]

Following my observations yesterday about the state of play at the Murdoch Sun following another round of arrests – these of senior executive staff, on suspicion of “bribing police and public officials” – Trevor Kavanagh, the paper’s veteran associate editor and former political editor, has come out with guns blazing. The whiff of victimhood is palpable.

“Witch-hunt has put us behind ex-Soviet states on Press freedom” he protests, not realising that “ex-Soviet” means “no longer Soviet”, and ignoring his own title’s going after two less than fully mobile pensioners in Nottingham a week ago because they had claimed universal (and therefore not means tested) benefits. And he claims this is part of “the biggest police operation in British criminal history” (it isn’t).

This last, of course, continues the “Littlejohn feint”: attempting to get public opinion on-side by asserting that the Met’s finest should have better things to do than arrest hacks who may have bunged public servants the odd bundle of used notes, no questions asked. Kavanagh trowels it on by asserting “Major crime investigations are on hold” (like which? That’ll be another long wait, then).

Kavanagh begins with a lame appeal to authority: “The Sun is not a swamp that needs draining”. Really? We’ll leave the Met and the courts to judge that one, thanks. But there’s worse to come: “30 journalists have been dragged from their beds in dawn raids”. Yeah, like when senior figures in and around the Labour Party got the same over “cash for peerages”. Our Trev was hot on that one. Not.

Then comes the brass neck deployment: “It is important that we do not jump to conclusions”. Wha-hey! Where do we start on that one? Winston Silcott, Hillsborough, “The Big Earner”, Jean Charles de Menezes, the Forest Gate two, Robert Murat, Christopher Jefferies, Fat Reg From Pinner and no rent boys, Anders Breivik, and last but not least, Freddie Starr. Yeah, right.

On top of all that, Kavanagh admits wrongdoing: “Sometimes money changes hands”, he observes, before excusing this with “This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed”. Trev, a word in your shell-like: remember a bloke called Robert Mark? The one who used to run the Met, and said the force’s objective should be “to catch more crooks than it employs”?

Kavanagh has been scrabbling around the dunghill that is Grubstreet for long enough to remember that Robert Mark was a ferocious opponent of what those Stateside would call graft. The routine of bunging officers a few drinks in exchange for inside information was largely ended on his watch. There has been nothing “standard” about this “procedure” since the 1970s.

And this “witch hunt” is just the Met doing its job. Deal with it.

[UPDATE 14 February 0930 hours: the Met has put out a statement about the raids and arrests, which demonstrates that Trevor Kavanagh has been more than a little creative in his retelling of events.

It stresses "the MPS does not believe that the level of resources devoted to the three inquiries is in any way disproportionate to the enormous task in hand", then goes on "At no stage has any major investigation been compromised as a result of these deployments".

So much for all the guff about other investigations being hobbled - the idea that the Met should be out catching "real criminals". And, as for Kavanagh's assertion that "up to 20" officers turned up at some of his colleagues' houses, there was this:

"We would like to make it clear that no more than ten MPS officers attended each of the home addresses of the persons arrested as part of Operation Elveden on Saturday, 11 February".

So that's Trevor Kavanagh caught spraying his credibility up the wall by telling whoppers. Old habits, and all that]

Royal Landing No Shock Horror

2012-02-13T11:40:00.001Z

Anyone who uses air travel regularly knows what “going around” means: the aircraft is on final approach, the gear is down and flaps are set, but the runway does not get cleared in time. So, to ensure that there is no chance of a collision, Air Traffic Control gives an instruction to “go around”, and the plane climbs away from the runway, does a circuit, and makes another approach.

And this is especially prevalent at busy airports like London Heathrow, where there is inevitably a queue of aircraft on approach at most times of the day, and the slightest delay in a landing flight turning away from the runway means whoever is next in line will have to abort their landing and have another go later. This, though, has not prevented the People inflating a “go around” into an exclusive splash.

Partly this is because it’s cheap copy, but mainly it’s the presence on the approaching aircraft of Prince William and wife Kate. “Kate Middleton left terrified after narrowly avoiding air accident” screams the headline, followed by the breathless “Kate Middleton [for some reason not “Duchess of Cambridge”] was left terrified after she and Prince William narrowly missed a catastrophic air crash”.

And, as the man said, there’s more: “the captain [they knew who was Pilot Flying (PF)? Er, no] was forced to take emergency action to avoid ploughing into another aircraft on the runway”. Baloney. Modern aircraft just need a couple of switches to be flicked, and it’s not an emergency, which would mean a PAN call at the very least. And there wasn’t one of those.

As for the “circled the airport for several minutes”, well, Heathrow’s a busy place, so it would have taken a while to re-jig the queue of approaching planes to fit another one in. This supposed “incident” did not warrant an entry in the Air Accidents Investigation Branch bulletin reports (February one HERE). But it did mean the deployment of “a source” to make it look more dramatic.

And that source tells that “This really was a serious incident” (it wasn’t), “it would have been extremely worrying” (only until the PF got on the PA and explained what was going on to the passengers) and “it would have been very frightening” (bullshit). And the man from BA emphasised that it was “a perfectly standard operation with no safety implications”. So that should have been that.

Oh no it wasn’t: such is the appetite of the Fourth Estate for this kind of drivel, especially when Royalty is involved, that the story was lifted both by the Express (“Duke And Duchess Of Cambridge In Flight Scare”), and the Mail (“Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in ‘mid-air emergency’”). When it’s the Royals, it’s a story, even when there’s no story there.

Because it might tempt another punter to buy. So that’s all right, then.

Whitney – Quick, Before The Pundits Arrive

2012-02-12T16:17:00.002Z

Some stars are stars because, well, they just are. They are not stars for being edgy, rebellious, pioneering, political, or even controversial. Their talent, their ability, their sheer force of personality makes them so. And so it was with Whitney Houston, who has passed shockingly early at the age of just 48, in her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

The speculation has already started over what caused her death, and this blog will not be going there. Suffice it to say that the rumour mill is going into overdrive, and after the rumours will come the pundits, all chasing after the filling of yet more column inches with their theories, judgments, moralising and faux regret at a career supposedly racked by domestic unrest and drug use.

We know what to expect, as we know the agenda of the various parts of the Fourth Estate, in the UK at least. The prosecution, led by the mid-market righteous, will warn of the horrors of currently illegal drugs, using Ms Houston’s death as some kind of frightener with which their hacks and editors will imagine that they can move readers firmly back to the straight and narrow.

In the meantime, the singer’s achievements will be marginalised or forgotten: an utterly unforgettable voice, an ability to take on almost any song and make it her own, a compelling on-stage presence. Add to that the tens of millions of albums sold, the many film appearances, the influence on those who came after her, although few reached as high as she did.

Yes, illegal drugs can be very, very dangerous – because they are produced by organised criminality, which does not care about what happens to the poor souls who buy and use the end product. Fame and fortune are no bar to the side effects of adulteration and chemical enhancement. And, in any case, Ms Houston had by all accounts freed herself from the grip of addiction.

But before the pundits arrive en masse, consider this: somewhere in the world right now, someone is listening to Whitney Houston for the first time, while all over that world, many others are listening to I Will Always Love You one more time, while sobbing quietly into their hankies.

The defence rests.

Murdoch Is Served (66)

2012-02-12T14:53:00.001Z

It would be tragic, were it not so farcical: as those on the right try and point the finger of blame for phone hacking, email hacking and other wrongdoing towards Trinity Mirror Group – while simultaneously working to rubbish the Guardian – News International sinks deeper into the mire. Last week it was an admission of email hacking by the supposedly upmarket Times. Now it’s the Sun hacks getting nicked.

As I pointed out the other day, the latest allegation against Sunday Mirror editor Tina Weaver has come from the thoroughly dubious Max Keiser, accomplished exponent of the drive-by e-shooting, and should by any credible journalist be instantly discarded. This of course has not stopped the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, taking the Keiser steamer as data.

Then there have been those on the left wanting the assertions of Hugh Grant – that the Daily Mail got information about him through phone hacking – to prove true. The problem here is the same as that confronting those wanting to pin hacking on the Mirror: without any evidence, they are going nowhere. The law does not recognise nudge-nudgery as sufficient proof.

But while the Mirror and Mail are regarded with mere suspicion, Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun are assisting the Met’s finest with their enquiries, while Murdoch groupies like Staines – who lists former Sun editor Kelvin McFilth as an inspiration – stay quiet about it, and keep trying to get their readers to look over there. But folks are, instead, looking at the Sun car crash.

The arrests, on suspicion of “bribing police and public officials”, included the paper’s Deputy Editor, Deputy News Editor, Picture Editor, Chief Foreign Correspondent, and even John Kay, the Sun’s Chief Reporter, who has been with the title since 1974 and nowadays works as an ambassador for the paper. This was not a group of out of control gofers. These were the senior executives.

Small wonder, then, that a parallel is already being drawn with the events leading up to the closure of the Screws last year, but so far Rupe is staying with the title he bought back in 1969 and turned into what Private Eye soon called “The Dirty Digger’s tit’n’bum daily”. But he is flying in to deal with the fallout personally. That is no surprise, as this could cause a US Department of Justice enquiry.

That’s because the Murdochs’ parent company is based in the USA, where much of its businesses are based. There have already been suggestions that phone hacking may have occurred on US soil, and if any firm evidence comes to light, Rupe will be right in the mire. Whatever future front page headlines the Sun might bring us, though, there is one that they won’t be recycling if Rupe does get nicked Stateside.

GOTCHA!

How Independent Is ConHome?

2012-02-12T11:34:00.001Z

The whole point of ConservativeHome, we are told, is that it is not beholden to the Tory Party, that it is independent, and that it therefore has no problem giving a platform to conservatives who are not of coincident view to Westminster Tory MPs or the party leadership. But events of the past two days have thrown that independence into doubt, as well as raising further questions over influence.

Those events kicked off on Friday with an opinion piece by Tim Montgomerie: “The unnecessary and unpopular NHS bill could cost the Conservative Party the next election. Cameron must kill it”. Monty claimed that three cabinet ministers were of similar view. But the backlash was as immediate as it was vicious, with Monty sneered at for his association with an unpopular past party leader.

In his defence, Montgomerie claimed that he “had been virtually instructed to write the opinion piece by Conservative cabinet members”. Think about that for a moment: ConHome, supposedly independent, “virtually instructed” to take part in Government in-fighting. The clear inference is that ConHome is being used as a conduit for party briefings – and that it is not properly independent of it.

Moreover, if ConHome is not truly independent of the Tory Party, the thought then enters that the Tory Party may not be truly independent of those who are given a platform by ConHome, despite claims to the contrary. A slew of Astroturf lobby groups, such as the Adam Smith Institute, Centre for Policy Studies, Institute of Directors, Policy Exchange and Institute of Economic Affairs feature there.

And most significantly our old friends at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) enjoy a regular slot on ConHome, plus former ConHome stalwart Jonathan Isaby has recently gone through the revolving door to join the TPA, not so long after former TPA staffer Susie Squire went through that same door the other way to become a SpAd to Iain Duncan Smith (former boss of Tim Montgomerie).

Added to all of that is the influence of groups like the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) which trains party activists and enjoys links to the Freedom Association and the Heritage Foundation in the USA (who provided the moderator for the CPAC debate I considered yesterday). Several YBF trained activists have become councillors, notably in Hammersmith and Fulham, and Parliamentary candidates.

The YBF, too, gets a voice through ConHome. Its CEO does too. Tory MPs and ministers speak at its events, and at those of Astroturf lobby groups given a voice by ConHome. The more that this particular can of worms is prodded, the more it appears that ConHome is not independent at all: rather, it uses, and is used by, the party, the lobbyists, the briefers and the entryists.

And it is for that reason that ConHome should be watched. Very closely.

Christianity Still Not Under Attack

2012-02-11T16:58:00.001Z

Under the less than benign leadership of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, the Mail has today cranked up the righteous-outrage-o-meter to the max following news that Christianity is yet again under attack. Really? No, not really: the followers of the Vagina Monologue are mixing “Christian” and “British” in a bid to whip up outrage against folks who are not the Mail’s “kind of people”.

And certainly not their “kind of people” are gays, so a ruling against a Christian couple who would not let two civil partners share a room at their B&B means readers are told this “confirmed the supremacy of gay rights over Christian belief under the Sexual Orientation Regulations brought in by the Labour party”, which expertly presses all the Dacre hate buttons in less than one sentence.

Plus, as the man said, there’s more: “Anger as major court rulings go against British worshippers” is next up, with the assault becoming one on all Brits, and not merely those who follow in the footsteps of Christ. Here, a council has been banned from putting pre-meeting prayers on its agenda, and as the Mail notes at the outset, the sinister National Secular Society is involved.

Further down the story, it concedes that the Christian Institute is also involved, but it’s those dastardly secularists that are clearly the bad guys. The pundits are suitably appalled: George Carey, who was once Archbishop of Canterbury, opines that “the Christian faith is now becoming increasingly marginalised in this country”. He is shocked. He may also be stunned.

And George Pitcher, who has previously asserted that the National Secular Society appears “like it is fighting a war to expunge religion from peoples’ lives”, has said that “Two judges have today given a two-fingered salute to the Church of England”. He worries about Parliament. After all, there are prayers before each day’s business, given by the Speaker’s chaplain. Are these, too, to be “expunged”?

Worrying stuff. So worrying, in fact, that over at ConHome, the battle has been joined by – yes, it’s her again – Mid Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries, who warns “We must stop anti-religious groups from removing the Christian fabric of our society”. Here, too, a logic leap has been made: merely because the National Secular Society acts against the imposition of religion does not mean it is anti-religious.

And the fragrant Nadine gets it all wrong: nobody lost his job for “hanging a crucifix from his cab mirror” (the Colin Atkinson case). Moreover, she demonstrates the difference between Parliament prayers, which occur five minutes before formal start of business, and councils making them part of the agenda – then proposes the council does, well, the same as Parliament.

This is fabricated froth over next to nothing. There isn’t an attack. End of story.

The True Face Of Conservatism

2012-02-11T12:51:00.003Z

The modern conservative movement in the USA comes together each year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, generally known as CPAC. Among those most prominent in CPAC’s organisation is the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), in whose image the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) in the UK was formed. We’ve looked at the YBF recently (HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).

CPAC happens every year in Washington, DC, and the 2012 event has been held this past week. For GOP Presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, attending and speaking was obligatory. For pundits like the increasingly scary looking Ann Coulter, it was a necessary way of maintaining their profile among those on the right. And kicking Barack Obama was de rigueur.

But the Prez was not the only public figure on the receiving end of right-wing ire, as was demonstrated by Cal Thomas, a pundit on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse), who was speaking at a panel debate on contraception, and the latest ruling by the current administration. After a video of the previous Sunday’s Meet The Press was played, there was hissing and booing from the crowd.

This was because the show had featured a contribution from top rating MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who is hated by the right not merely for being liberal and gay, but also articulate and popular. Thomas, to significant applause, responded that Maddow was the “best argument in favour of her parents using contraception”. The moderator, from the Heritage Foundation, was not unhappy to hear this news.

This unpleasant and gratuitous smear allowed the debate to bodyswerve Maddow’s point, which was that the GOP was “waging war on contraception”, and apparently taking a position in opposition to the one many of them took as recently as 2001. Instead, Thomas’ remark took centre stage, with Fox host Greta van Susteren calling for him to personally and publicly apologise.

Meanwhile, Maddow turned Thomas’ remarks back on him: “Mr. Fox News person speaking there, I am sorry that you feel that way about me that you wish I had never been born. Personally, I'm glad that you were born. Otherwise how would Republicans get the special Fox News bat signal that it's time to be outraged now, about what used to be Republicans' own policy idea?”

Fortunately, Thomas saw sense and called Maddow to apologise, as she confirmed at the end of her Friday show. This is to be welcomed unreservedly. But the joy on the face of the moderator from the Heritage Foundation – a group that boycotted CPAC last year over the presence of LGBT Republican group GOProud – along with all the enthusiastic applause, had let the world see the reality.

And that reality was the baying, intolerant nastiness that is modern Conservatism.

King Of The Keiser

2012-02-10T17:49:00.009Z

[Update at end of post]

During his testimony to the Leveson Inquiry this week, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, attacked Tina Weaver, editor of the Sunday Mirror – who also sits on the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) – for being involved in phone hacking. Staines told that he had been given this information by two journalists.

At this point my bullshit detector went off: previously the Fawkes blog had attacked Ms Weaver on the basis of a Tweet from Russia Today (RT) host Max Keiser, who had only the other day repeated his assertion. Keiser, who also appears regularly on Iranian broadcaster Press TV, claimed that Ms Weaver had “told me personally she and Piers Morgan were aware of phone hacking”.

Perhaps Tina Weaver has met Max Keiser. More likely she hasn’t, and this is just another example of the Keiser appetite for what I call the drive-by e-shooting. This can be explained by looking at a few more of Keiser’s creative excursions into the Twittersphere, starting with this magnificently fraudulent one from today, “British forces enter Syria to aid American special forces”.

Right. And this steaming pile of bovine by-product came from where? The Voice Of Russia is reporting this “news”, which in turn came from the neo-conservative Israeli alarmist website Debka.com. Max is earning his nickname of Dubius Maximus here. But you should take him seriously. He doesn’t like not being taken seriously.

Late yesterday he complained “No Israeli/US/UK hawks will come on my show. PUSSIES! Your wife and kids wish secretly that you just top yourselves”. Looks like those hawks saw him coming and booked a collective hair appointment.

Yet more bizarrely, Keiser has today Tweeted “Germany is a natural ally of Russia/Iran/China/Lebanon”. Did he really mean that?

Two minutes later came the confirmation that he really did: “Germany needs to cut a deal and focus on Russia/Iran/China/Lebanon”.

And if that isn’t far enough into Wibble territory, a few minutes later came “W. Blackpool (aka N. Ireland) should volunteer to pay Anglo-Irish debts just to be neighborly”.

Somewhere out there, a barking noise can be heard. It could be a dog. Or maybe it’s Max Keiser. This bloke is seriously away with the fairies, and why Paul Staines (or anyone else) places any trust in his ramblings is one of life’s continuing mysteries. Perhaps the Great Guido could enlighten everyone?

Most likely it’s because it’s what he wants to hear. Another fine mess, once again.

[UPDATE 12 February: the Fawkes blog cited Keiser in a post dated 15 July last, although for some reason Max's creative retelling was not mentioned. He was given another name check eight days later. At no time were readers of that blog told that Keiser was prone to post exaggerated, purely provocative and downright untrue items on Twitter (see above).

I'm sure this is a mere oversight, and that the Fawkes blog will reconsider the veracity of this witness and inform its readership accordingly. Or maybe not]

Jim Gets Posthumously Fixed

2012-02-10T12:38:00.002Z

Private Eye once characterised the espionage writer Chapman Pincher as “‘Body’ Pincher”, adding the observation “dead men don’t sue”, after the publication of books such as Their Trade Is Treachery, where Pincher made a number of allegations against those who had worked for the security services, and several Labour politicians, but only after they had passed.

Pincher’s characteristic has been seized on this week by the Oldie magazine – coincidentally edited by former Eye man Richard Ingrams, who occupied the hot seat at a time when the magazine was in receipt of rather more writs than nowadays – which has hardly allowed the body of Jimmy Savile to go cold before alleging that the former presenter sexually groomed and molested under-age girls.

And there the story might have rested, but for the allegation that at least some of this activity took place at Television Centre. Beeb bashing is a popular sport among right leaning hacks and their editors, and a lifetime of hosting much-loved shows and pulling in tens of millions through his charity work – not to mention his unpaid volunteering at Stoke Mandeville hospital – has not protected Savile’s memory.

From the Oldie, the piece went first to the Maily Telegraph, the kind of paper whose demographic might be more likely to be in tune with Ingrams’ mag. Here, Anita Singh tells that “BBC ‘buried Savile sex abuse claims to save its reputation’”, a most unsubtle title from what was once a paper of record. As in the Oldie, it is suggested that Newsnight had investigated the former presenter.

Then it is asserted that “bosses” had the investigation dropped, with a “BBC News source” (which could mean anyone who had ever appeared in any part of the Corporation’s news coverage) telling of “the extreme nature of the claims”, that “the allegations directly involved the BBC”, and that a number of young women “were abused on BBC premises”.

It was only a matter of time before a paper that really hates the Beeb picked up the story, and so the Mail has thundered “BBC shelved Savile sex abuse investigation ‘to protect its own reputation’”, with hack Emma Reynolds drawing the short straw, and the same “BBC News source” quoted faithfully. The Mail does, however, mention that Surrey Police had investigated a complaint against Savile, but took no action.

What proclivities Jimmy Savile had I do not know, and nor do I care. The story may be partly or even entirely true, but that is hardly the point. What this is about is the righteous part of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet trampling on a dead man’s reputation to kick his one-time employer. This episode shows us all that is prurient and desperately opportunist about so much of the print media.

But it’s good for circulation, so that’s all right, then.

Mail Canonises Honeyford

2012-02-10T10:33:00.001Z

Frothing pundit Leo McKinstry has broadened his base today by having a characteristically righteous piece published by the Mail, and on a subject that the paper has ventilated frequently over the past quarter of a century, that of former teacher Ray Honeyford, who has recently passed at the age of 77. As the Mail always supported Honeyford, McKinstry’s picture of a man martyred is predictable.

Indeed, the former headmaster is described as “a martyr to political correctness” and “hounded for warning of the perils of multiculturalism”, so this article fits right in with the Dacre agenda. But for those who lived in the Bradford area at the time of what soon became known as the “Honeyford Affair”, there was rather more to tell about Drummond Middle School than McKinstry is telling Mail readers.

What set the affair in train was an article Honeyford wrote for the Salisbury Review in 1984 (the magazine was, at the time, not merely “Conservative”, as McKinstry tells, but took a “pro-repatriation” stance on immigration). As very few people read the Review, nothing much happened, until the article was reprinted by the right leaning Yorkshire Post early the following year.

The piece, titled “Education and race – an alternative view”, contained a number of thoroughly unfortunate characterisations, such as “West Indians ... create an ear-splitting cacophony for most of the night”, “the hysterical political temperament of the Indian sub-continent”, “a half-educated and volatile Sikh”, and “Pakistan is a country that cannot cope with democracy ... the heroin capital of the world”.

When Drummond parents found out what their childrens’ headmaster thought, it all kicked off. A Parents’ Action Committee was formed, and its members got themselves elected as parent governors. Most local politicians wanted Honeyford to go. Into this bear pit was thrown the chair of the council’s Education Committee, one Eric Pickles. It was an issue which defined his – populist – career.

Honeyford turned down a £100,000 pay-off. Then Pickles experienced an apparent Damascene conversion and decided that he should stay. This was not unconnected with mainstream Tory politicians like Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph supporting the under-fire headmaster, and papers like the Mail, which painted anyone opposed to Honeyford as left-wing conspirators – including the parents.

Sadly for Fat Eric, the people of Bradford were not of the same view, and the Tories were ejected from the council in 1986 in a Labour landslide. But in the meantime, Honeyford had received a £71,000 payoff and an index-linked £6,500 a year pension. Far from being a “broken man”, he threw himself into right leaning think tank land, buoyed by his financial independence. What you won’t read in the Mail.

[This post uses some information from Tony Grogan’s The Pickles Papers]

Flannelled Fool – Pants On Fire

2012-02-09T17:22:00.002Z

Back in early 2008, the campaign for the presidency of the Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) was in full swing. One of the candidates urged his rivals to sign a “Clean Campaign Pledge” to show that they had no association with any outside websites. This was an act of breathtaking hypocrisy, as the student concerned was involved with a blog attacking EUSA officials.

Zelo Street regulars will not be surprised to know that the hypocrite was none other than the flannelled fool Henry Cole, now tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog. Cole had denied being involved with the attack blog (called EUSAless (ho ho ho)) until the Journal caught him out. Even then, he chose to dissemble before finally apologising.

Some of the comments made about this blog and Cole’s involvement will not surprise anyone who has had dealings with this singularly unpleasant individual: “he ... said he had nothing to do with it. He was lying to us ... the people that have been involved in this [blog] care more about mud slinging and destroying people ... vile and offensive ... some of the criticism has been unacceptable”.

And Cole is still at it, but yesterday he made a big mistake: he openly smeared me in order to discredit me in front of the Guardian and BBC. Jem Stone of the Beeb mentioned me to Jessica Reed of the Guardian. Cole jumped in and warned “make sure you ask Tim Fenton why he was banned from the Huff Po before you publish another diatribe though”, the Tweet being timed 1510 hours yesterday.

This was defamatory, maliciously so, and undoubtedly premeditated. I know this as the HuffPo published a blog post of mine at 1742 hours yesterday, demonstrating that no ban had taken place. The relationship I enjoy with the HuffPo is the same as any of their other 2,000 plus blog contributors across the UK. Cole was making it up, and on this occasion he got caught.

There is always that risk when putting the boot in on the sly, and this is only heightened when the person swinging that boot is a clueless and congenitally stupid buffoon like Cole. Smearing is an art for those who are able to engage brain first, something which is clearly alien to this flannelled fool, this joke of a human being, this stranger to English grammar, this sad and pathetic loser.

I do not expect Cole to apologise for this unnecessary, objectionable and most unwise act. In fact, I expect more of the same, and this will merely confirm his inadequacy. And as to what he can expect, perhaps he should ask his boss what Kelvin McKenzie – Staines’ hero – said to “Shagger” Major after Black Wednesday. Because that is what is now going to happen to Cole.

After all, no civilised individual would want it any other way.