Mail Embraces Fake News

The widespread awareness of “Fake News”, that strain of propagandising which has gone beyond merely exaggerating and filtering out unwanted information in order to persuade the easily led which way to think, has put the Press Establishment in a dilemma. How to dissociate themselves from this toxic brand? After all, there has to be enough truth in what they peddle to be able to persuade the readers that they don’t just invent it all. Perhaps.

"Gay marriage ... global warming ... bird-slicing, bat-chomping eco-crucifixes ... red-meat Conservatism ... paranoid obsession ... rampant homophobia ... divorce from reality ... Wibbling irrelevance"

For some papers, the approach has been simple: shout “look over there” and pretend you’re one of the good guys. It’s someone else who resorts to lying - real world papers wouldn’t lower themselves to such behaviour. But the Daily Mail has boldly decided to ignore comfortable media opinion, and cosy up to the Fake News merchants.

So it was that the Dacre doggies ran a characteristically tedious rant from James “Saviour of Western Civilisation” Delingpole. “Preserve us from a National Trust that's so achingly right-on: JAMES DELINGPOLE on a once great institution's plans to promote the gay and transgender links of our finest houses” is the headline.

Does Del Boy have a problem with these gay and transgender people? He certainly does: “I'm afraid I'm a terrible homophobe. Notorious for it. God hates gays basically. And Ts and Qs” he sneered recently. So it’s no surprise to see him ranting that he wishes he could still be a Trust member, so he could resign in protest at the Trust’s work “as part of the nation's commemoration to mark 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality”.

And, after slagging off the Trust’s chair Helen Ghosh, he explains “my own memories of the Trust … I was living in London at the time, my children were very young and the National Trust was a lifesaver … Every other weekend we would head off on jaunts into the countryside - perhaps to Kent for Knole House or Sissinghurst Castle or Chartwell, Churchill's home, to grab as much culture and history as the children would allow us before enjoying a run-around in the grounds, followed by a National Trust tea”.

He goes on “Afterwards we headed back to town with that same warm glow you get from going to church … We had participated in a time-honoured British tradition: a bit of art and architecture (it is said that of all our national achievements, the English country house is the greatest), fresh air and people-watching”. Fine. So what’s his problem?

As Re-Tweeted by Delingpole - More Fake News

How does the National Trust’s highlighting of one aspect of all that culture and history somehow stop families like his enjoying the same days out today? The answer is that it doesn’t. Like the Fake News site Breitbart for whom Del Boy works, it’s a fake argument. From a fake climate change “expert” who Re-Tweets people from InfoWars, another fake news outfit out there on the right, which peddles Fake News about Germany.

But the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre has decreed that homosexuality is A Very Bad Thing, to be attacked and smeared at every opportunity. Even if it means giving house room to purveyors of Fake News.

It’s almost as if Dacre’s obsession with the LGBT community takes precedence over any credibility his magnificent organ still possesses. I’ll just leave that one there.