Goodbye Aylan Kurdi

The increasingly strident campaign by our free and fearless right-wing press against refugees fleeing war and persecution across the Middle East and North Africa was never going to survive the reality, the desperate horror of what those seeking refuge continue to endure. For the obediently baying, bigoted, selfish, pampered and unprincipled hacks and pundits, their day of reckoning arrived yesterday.

Where the dream ended for Aylan Kurdi ...

It arrived in one photo: one harrowing image, from a beach near the Turkish Mediterranean resort of Bodrum. There in the surf was a lifeless body, a little boy of three years old who, along with his elder brother, had drowned attempting to make the crossing to the Greek island of Kos. His name was Aylan Kurdi. His legacy has been to hold up a mirror to the ranting and frothing press pack and expose their repellant behaviour.

... here with his elder brother, who also drowned

The further tragedy is that our country did nothing to help Aylan Kurdi while he was still alive. Even when the German Government, and the country’s top-selling paper Bild, campaigned under the slogan “Wir Helfen” (“We’re Helping”), the Sun was yesterday crowing “BAD NEWS … Migrants laying siege to Budapest … GOOD NEWS … They want to go to Germany not UK”. They were only “migrants”, and they didn’t care.

This is how much the Sun really cares ...

Even in today’s Daily Mail - yes, the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker had the chance to pull the column, but they too don’t give a shit - Stephen “Miserable Git” Glover airily opines “Before Germany lectures us about refugees, perhaps it should reflect on its own past” before he graciously concedes “Doubtless it is small-minded of me”. Yes Stephen, it f***ing well is small minded (the Mail’s craven editorial today blames the EU).

... so save us the handwringing drivel

Faced with the photo of the drowned toddler, though, the Sun has stopped crowing. But it’s too little, too late. So when petulant victimhood player Dan Hodges bleats “The Sun has called on the government to help the refugees. Just for once could we put down the pitchforks and say ‘well done’”, he too can f*** right off. It’s too late, Dan. Aylan Kurdi and his brother are dead. Morte. All the years of bigotry cannot be instantly cleaned away.

Yes, she didn't care ...

And then there are those who didn’t give a shit, and are now jumping on the bandwagon to generate a few thousand clicks. Yes, I’m looking at you, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and your repulsive rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, trying to gain the moral high ground by putting the boot in on your fellow Sun pundit Katie Hopkins. You too weren’t fussed when she called refugees “cockroaches”.

... and you didn't care that she didn't. Until today

Some politicians - all the Labour leadership candidates, led by Yvette Cooper, for instance - did not need prompting to call for us to take more refugees. Honourable mentions on the right must go to Sam Bowman of the ASI, and LBC presenter Iain Dale. But as for our Prime Minister, and the rest of the right-wing press, to paraphrase Ms Hopkins, show me your lame excuses, show me your weasel efforts to shift blame, show me your crocodile tears, you just don’t care.

And most of the right-wing press will continue not to care. Shame on them. Meanwhile, remember Aylan Kurdi, and all the others who died because they didn’t care. You can sign the petition urging the Government to take more refugees right HERE.