Among the rewards garnered by the legendarily foul mouthed
Paul Dacre during his tenure as the Daily
Mail’s editor has been a property portfolio that includes a London pied-à-terre in Belgravia (that means it’s
expensive), a Home Counties property of suitably generous proportion, and
Langwell, an extensive estate in North-West Scotland, which is marketed to
shooting parties.
So what? I pay my f***ing taxes, c***
While enjoying the
unquestioned benefits of these assets, the Vagina Monologue can consider which
luckless targets his paper will next select for the ritual kicking so beloved
of him and his obedient hackery. These include all kinds of Government bodies,
especially those where there are people who talk foreign, or who are
insufficiently grateful to be part of the United Kingdom.
So it should
surprise no-one that anything related to the EU is considered fair game, especially
when it comes to any form of subsidy, because this means someone is getting
something that Daily Mail readers,
who by definition are “hard working
taxpayers” are not only not getting, but are having to pay for. And the
most visible, and easily demonised kind of these are farm subsidies.
Those who receive
farm subsidies can expect exposure by Dacre’s fearless hacks: “Tarzan” Hesteltine was
upbraided by Richard Kay for his “£900,000
EU handout”, while Lord Henley was
alleged to have received £200,000 over several years. And Richard Benyon had
received a whopping £2 million in subsidies! As Sir Sean nearly said, I
think we got the point. Even the Royal Family got slated.
The Queen had
received £7 million, while the Duke of Westminster got £6 million, in “bonanza payments from Brussels”. It got
worse: the
Mail told “How city tycoons claim they are farmers to milk the EU's millions”.
So people working in London were pretending to be farmers so they could trouser
subsidies! This is clearly A Very Bad Thing Indeed. Then there were those
ungrateful Scots to kick.
“Scottish
independence would be economic disaster, finance experts warn ... England
to take on ALL of Scotland's debts if voters back independence ... Sharing
the pound with an independent Scotland could be a disaster like the Euro”.
Yeah, that Scottish Government crowd are rubbish! Who’d willingly do business
with them, eh? Er, actually Paul Dacre would. And he’d also do business with
the EU.
His Langwell Estate “received
EU grants to the value of 300,408 euros in 2012”. That means farming
subsidies. The 2011
bung was £155,583. It is suggested that there was yet more
money paid over for tree planting. If the last, estimated at over £600,000,
is true, that means Dacre has pocketed over a million quid. That makes him an
even bigger rank stinking hypocrite.
What you will not read in the Daily Mail. No change there,
then.
3 comments:
Aw shucks Tim, that's like Louise Mensch complaining about Occupiers acquiring their caffeine intake from Starbucks outside St Pauls.
Let's have a bit of proportion here.
Hmmm, big portions for those who could help change the system they don't like but small portions for those who don't have a lot of choice?
Highlights perfectly how crap the EU must be then chucking all the money around at rich people. Still at least it's property that won't be lining the pockets of benefit scroungers or economic migrants of the contribute nothing to the UK economy kind.
Swiss and Norwegian farmers are hostile to the EU as their generous grants would be cut under CAP rates. That might explain Dacre's hostility to the EU; their benefit levels are not high enough.
Not that regional development grants to poorer parts of the EU are a bad thing, but there seems little space left in the British media to have a grown-up discussion on the issue. Especially in the Daily Mail.
Post a Comment