Welcome To Zelo Street!

This is a blog of liberal stance and independent mind

Saturday 14 February 2015

Amanda Platell - Pants On Fire

After it was conceded that the phrase “Dowler Moment” had not been coined by Mil The Younger, nor anyone working for him - despite all the column inches howling for the sacking of Tom Baldwin - but was the result of BBC political editor Nick Robinson indulging in a little “creative translation meets drive-by shooting” - one might have thought that the right-leaning press would get the message and desist.
The stuff of nightmares

But that thought would have been misplaced, despite calls from Mark Lewis, who represents the Dowler family, and the clear unhappiness of Gemma Dowler. No, the need to lay into Miliband, combined with more evidence that Labour is far from being affected in the polls, meant that more hacks and pundits had to be ordered over the top, especially those serving the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre.
So it was that the Daily Mail’s Glenda Emeritus Amanda Bloody Platell declaredMiliband’s sickening betrayal of Milly Dowler”, and proceeded to marshal all manner of “facts” which ranged from the mildly aromatic to the rank stench of forthright dishonesty. First, she tells readers that she has met Miliband: “Before he became leader of the Labour Party, I liked him and thought him charming and honest”.
And then out comes the stiletto: “This week he reached an all-time low. In his desperation to ignite the class war, he and his advisers sought to capitalise on Tory links to tax avoiders by evoking the memory of Milly Dowler. His aides revealed that he regarded the tax row as a ‘Milly Dowler moment’”. He didn’t, and nor did his aides, as Mark Lewis told: “that’s the whole point, it wasn’t said in an interview or at all”.
Despite getting that one totally wrong, there was more: “They were comparing it with Ed’s decision to leap on the anti-Press bandwagon over The Guardian’s allegation that the murdered schoolgirl’s text messages had been deleted by the News Of The World newspaper. How utterly sickening, especially as the allegation was found to be false”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.
One, the key fact - note, not mere allegation - on the Dowler hacking was that a murdered schoolgirl’s phone had been accessed. That was what precipitated the Murdochs’ decision to close the Screws, although they had decided the paper was to be sacrificed beforehand. And two, the allegation as to how the voicemails were deleted was found not to be false, but unproven. Still, details eh, Amanda?

Could she go wrong again? You betcha, says Sarah: “As a spokesman for the Dowler family said: ‘It is rather inappropriate that someone would regard the hacking of a murdered schoolgirl’s phone as a political opportunity.’ Inappropriate? It is beyond the pale. Those images of happy 12-year-old Milly playing her saxophone and ironing her clothes at home are etched in the nation’s conscience”.

Milly Dowler was 13 when she was murdered. And, as anyone who is paying attention now knows, the only people using her memory as a political opportunity are those shilling for the Tories. Ms Platell doesn’t do this factual stuff terribly well, does she?

Fire extinguisher for Amanda Platell! No change there, then.

3 comments:

rob said...

For Amanda et al with apologies to The Sun, Express, Star...........

There's no hack'ry like Mail hack'ry like no hack'ry I know
Everything about it's unappealing, everything that venom will allow
Nowhere can you find a happy feeling
When you read that rubbish now

The churnalist, the journalist, the sub ed, the secs
The readers that they've got no respect for
The churnalist, the journalist, the sub ed, the secs
Got to do what they are told or "out the door"
They'd gladly bid their dreary jobs goodbye
For a proper job where Dacre don't make 'em cry.

There's no people like Mail people, they grimace always feel low
Even with an article they know is cack, the editor having put them on the rack
Know that they can't change it or they'll get the sack,
They'll go on with the show

AndyC said...

Its a real shame cos I met and chatted with Miss P at a party a year or two back and fancied the whatsits off her. Of course we didnt discuss her or my politics. I was probably the only person of a left-ish persuasion present amongst a plethora of right wing journos, bloggers, party whips, broadcasters, MPs, lobbyists etc and no I wasnt there delivering the catering. The champagne WAS absolutely fabulous and probably hideously expensive

Andrew Barker said...

Amanda P was on Saturday's Radio 4 'Moral Maze' trying to state that Islam is evil because the Koran contains some inflammatory phrases. When challenged that the Bible contains equally inflammatory phrases she tried to get listeners to 'look over there'. Another failure.