When Mil The Younger reminded the Labour Party conference
that he had stood up to the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his
obedient hackery at the Daily Mail,
he must have known what would follow: the tsunami of spite that has been
unleashed since has been unrelenting, and today has reached its nadir in a
barrel-scraping slice of nudge-nudgery from Richard Littlejohn.
What's wrong with kicking f***ing leftists, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay
Miliband would have been aware of what Nick Davies said of
the Mail in Flat Earth News: “I know of
nothing anywhere in the rest of the world’s media which matches the unmitigated
spite of an attack from the Daily Mail”. He also now knows that Dacre and
his attack doggies are prepared to suggest that a married man visits what
Littlejohn calls a “notorious gay dogging
venue” on spec.
The mood was set by Daily
Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, straight
after that speech: “this was surely
68 minutes of the most economically illiterate Left-wing claptrap uttered by a
Labour leader since Michael Foot. It
is as if Ed Miliband has learned nothing from the past 50 years, living in a
realm of socialist theory untouched by the realities of modern Britain”.
Just in case you missed that, the
column then told “Why Labour can't be
trusted with the NHS”. That’s the NHS that the Mail rubbishes on a daily basis. Dacre and his lackeys follow up
with “This is the party on whose watch
hundreds died of horrifying neglect in Mid Staffordshire” just to show that
they don’t understand Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratios (HSMRs).
Following
this kicking was “Miliband's mansion
tax will barely raise a penny, say experts: Money raised will be wiped out by
plunging stamp duty and buyers offering less than £2m for homes” (note also
that “could” in the article text
becomes “will” in the headline). But
Littlejohn’s effort today shows the arrival of the professional boot boys, as
he deploys the “gay hint” card.
“If you go down to the Heath today, you’re sure of a big
surprise. If you go down to the Heath today, you’d better go in disguise. Otherwise,
you may find yourself being accosted by a weird-looking man with a toothy grin
attempting to engage you in intimate conversation. If he invites you
back to his place to look at his bust of Karl Marx, run a mile” sneers Dicky
Windbag. And, as the man said, there’s more.
“Whenever Ed Miliband
wants to meet ‘ordinary’ people, he leaves his home in fashionable North
London, crosses the road and strolls on to Hampstead Heath [It’d have to be
a bloody long stroll]. This
vast public open space has long been a popular destination for close encounters
and dangerous liaisons ... The Heath is best known as a notorious gay
dogging venue”. Funny how he knows all about that, isn’t it?
But the gay smear is not. Can the Mail sink lower? Don’t bet
against it.
Disgusting behaviour, but not unexpected tbh - the puerile reactions from the rightwing journalist crowd at the idea that a politician should dare to bypass them and go and question real people (I mean, if *they* don't bother getting real peoples' opinions, why should Ed be allowed to leave the bubble? How dare he? Cue the Littejohnian rubbish) has been quite something else.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to see them getting called out on twitter, though: http://edmilibum.tumblr.com/post/98247150307/ive-been-mildly-amused-all-day-at-the-sight-of
apparently the hampstead heath picnicers were rather thrilled to get a namecheck, and found Miliband friendly, fun and not at all weird, which must sting the likes of Littlejohn quite a bit.