Stig Abell - Pants On Fire

While the Super Soaraway Currant Bun’s managing editor Stig Abell could not tear himself away from what appears to have been a daunting schedule of hair appointments to defend his paper’s borderline incitement of racial and religious hatred when the matter was debated on Channel 4 News, he was miraculously available to review the papers later the same evening on Sky News (“first for breaking wind”).

No they don't

And he was also able to take the singularly courageous step of penning a letter to the deeply subversive Guardian, in which he defended the Sun’s claim that one in five British Muslims was in some kind of agreement with ISIS, or whatever they’re called this week, using the well-known Murdoch press technique known as dishonesty. The crucial passage is in the second paragraph of Abell’s letter.

“The question about sympathy for Muslims ‘who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria’ was clearly – by its context and ordinary meaning – a reference to those fighting for Islamic State, and was chosen by the polling company”. Stop right there. For starters, that the polling company chose the question does not legitimise the Sun’s blatant misinterpretation of the replies. And no, “fighters in Syria” and ISIS are not the same thing.

We can be more certain of this because the Sun’s upmarket sister paper the Times, which had run its own version of the “one in five Muslims sympathises with IS”, has now published an item in its “Corrections and clarifications” section saying so (the Mail, which at first also ran the story, later had second thoughts and pulled it completely). The Times clarification effectively kicks the ground from under Abell and his fellow apologists.

Here’s what it says: “We reported the findings of a Survation poll of 1,000 British Muslims … Asked ‘How do you feel about young Muslims who leave the UK to join fighters in Syria?’, 14 per cent of respondents expressed ‘some sympathy’ and 5 per cent ‘a lot of sympathy’. The survey did not distinguish between those who go to fight for Islamic State and those who join other factions in Syria”. And there’s more.

“And it did not ask about attitudes towards ISIS itself … Our headline, ‘One in five British Muslims has sympathy for Isis’, was therefore misleading in failing to reflect this”. Oh dear Stig Abell - your own sister paper threw you under the bus! So what has been the Sun’s reaction to yet further embarrassment? As if you need to ask: their only form of defence is yet more attack, fronted today by semi-professional slob Rod Liddle.

“Why such outcry when we simply published the cold hard facts?” moans Liddle, before blaming the usual suspects: “The message is always the same from the deluded and infantile white liberals”. The dissent against the Sun in that Channel 4 News debate came from Bradford West MP Naz Shah. Perhaps slob Liddle and his managing editor would like to explain to her why she’s  an “infantile white liberal”.

The Sun caught lying again. On top of all the other lies. Time to say sorry, lads.