The Romanians Are Coming – Or Maybe Not

The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre are well known for their ability to spew out fact-free copy to suit the Vagina Monologue’s agenda, and with citizens of Bulgaria and Romania able to live and work in the UK without restriction from tomorrow, word has clearly gone out to frighten the readers with tales of people talking foreign who are coming to get us.

What's wrong with frightening the f***ing readers, c***?!?

“Sold out! Flights and buses full as Romanians and Bulgarians head for the UK” screams the headline, as the Dacre doggies tell “One airline has even doubled number of flights to meet demand ... Some one-way tickets are selling for up to £3,000 each ... Buses leaving Bulgarian capital of Sofia until January 9 are fully booked”. Is your bullshit detector ringing? It bloody well should be.

Because, as the folks at the Mailwatch forum have discovered, the reality is rather different: flights could be booked from Sofia to Gatwick with EasyJet for €146, and from Bucharest to Luton with WizzAir for €161 – departing tomorrow. This is rather less than the “£3,000” headline figure, for which no citation is given. And it’s no better when the coach travel figures are examined.

Readers are told “Travel agencies in Sofia as well as the Romanian capital of Bucharest reported huge demand for tickets. At the Central Bus Station in Sofia, travel agent Svetlanka Beaucheva said: ‘Everything is booked until Thursday, January 9. There are no seats left’”. But how many seats are actually being offered? Well, the answer is, not a lot.

“Sixteen coaches carrying more than 50 passengers each will make the 1,500-mile journey by road to London from Sofia next month”. Soil the bed, that’s only one coach every two days! And travel agent Balkan Horn is offering a 5% online booking discount – if there was no problem flogging tickets, they wouldn’t need to do that. Yes, flights at weekends are booked up, but they are across Europe!

Then there is the misleading captioning of posters: “A poster promoting discounted tickets to the UK displayed at the central bus station in Sofia, Bulgaria” also mentions Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg and Greece. The poster from the Balkan Horn agency also features Prague – Charles Bridge is visible in the middle distance – but the Mail manages not to tell its readers.

When you strip it down, this is a truly desperate article which has clearly had facts selected to fit the agenda laid down at editorial conference. Even the “all seats booked until January 9” is nothing more than you would get across Europe during and after the New Year. Ever tried to book a last minute rail or coach journey from the Algarve back to Lisbon just after January 1? You’ve no chance.

This is Daily Mail scaremongering at its worst. So no surprise there, then.