Remember “Benn On The Couch”? This infamous Sun smear was run just before the Chesterfield by-election in 1984 in order to undermine Tony Benn, who had left Parliament after defeat in Bristol East the previous year. The psychiatrist who made the assessment had never met Benn, and the article was widely condemned. It was another low water mark in the career of the appalling Kelvin McFilth.
This man is so dangerous ...
Well, now the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has returned to “expert” profiling in order to smear Mil The Younger, as hack Kate McCann has penned “METAL MILI … Cyborg-like body language slammed”. Many Sun readers will be too young to “get” the title, which alludes to the TV Series Metal Mickey, which ran from 1980 to 1983. The Sun does like to hark back to the 80s, perhaps because the paper wielded real power then.
... that he's worth a smear like this
The article, sadly for those expecting actual facts from the Sun, is a mixture of selection and downright dishonesty, and this can be seen to good effect in the contribution of body language expert Judi James. There are direct quotes from her in the body of the article, but whether the words in “Stare”, “Shake”, “Stance”, “Gestures” and “Smile” are also hers, we are not told. And, as the man said, there’s more.
Yes, he said that, but he also ...
While the Sun quotes Ms James as saying Miliband looked “like a man not in charge of his own body” (see readers, he’s an alien!), she is also quoted by the Mail saying “Overall I’m sure Miliband’s coaching team will be patting themselves on the back and declaring a win … it was like a hypnotist working his spell on his audience … Miliband struck lucky with the middle spot (always where the highest status people sit) and used it to the max”.
... said that, and the Sun won't be going there
Instead, the Sun selects the “suggested he was being worked by some kind of remote control”. Also highly selective is the claim that outgoing Parliamentarian Austin Mitchell “thought SNP chief Nicola Sturgeon came across better” than Miliband. It’s true he Tweeted “Every twitter thinks their leader won but they themselves could have put it better.. I'm the only objective voice. Women won. Sturgeon best”. However.
She didn't say what the Sun claims ...
Ms McCann can’t have it both ways: Mitchell also Tweeted “Who invented the silly story about Sturgeon favouring Cam and for whose benefit?” which the Sun will not be featuring any time soon. And, as for Diane Abbott and Rowenna Davis backing Ms Sturgeon over Miliband, that is a flat-out lie. The former’s only mention of the SNP leader was “Politics aside good to see @NicolaSturgeon takes @Nigel_Farage to task on immigration”.
... and neither did she
And all Ms Davis said about the debate was “With respect Prime Minister, it's people that create jobs, not you” and “It's telling that the whole of our political debate is shifted to the left when you bring in all of Britain's parties”. Thus the downright dishonesty: another throwback to the 80s, when Kel and his pals just “chucked in” anything they could make up. Miliband has not been snubbed by his own MPs.
[UPDATE 1810 hours: Diane Abbott has now confirmed that the Sun has been dishonest in its claims about her.
Massdebate? That was only funny the first time I saw it. Come to think of it, it wasn't funny then either.
ReplyDeleteMurdoch is really trawling the gutters along with DAILY MAIL& TELEGRAPH &its amazing there is an scum left as their story writers suck up & regurgitate it into their sad tired old mags? Much like the sad tired old moguls who own them, their fantasy spinners cant seem to shift out of the past, borrowing old quotes& references frm the 80's which present young voters wont understand?
ReplyDeleteIts all a bit sad that they imagine they can obliterate the DESTITUTION and misery the TORIES hav inflicted upon UK voters with their FAILED AUSTERITY experiments, for the last FIVE YEARS.
Murdoch lying goes back a long way. It has never stopped.
ReplyDeleteIt took some teacher friends of mine about two years to get any redress at all from an anti-union fantasy created by The Sun and put on their front page during a Union Conference at the time when Murdoch, Thatcher and The Police were defeating miners and print workers.
I did once buy a Sun once - when I saw the notorious headline that did so much damage to some really good people.
Don't buy a Murdoch paper. Ever. Don't even steal one.