Mail Moorside BBC Mauling Misfires

The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre is once again on its high horse about anything and everything that the BBC broadcasts, while exploiting all those programmes that they slag off in order to generate more cheap copy and flog more papers. Nowhere can this two-faced behaviour be seen to better effect than in the Mail’s approach to the Beeb’s mini-series The Moorside.

What's so f***ing wrong with playing both sides of the field to kick the BBC, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

That title refers to the Dewsbury housing estate from where a little girl called Shannon Matthews was allegedly abducted back in 2008, only to be found three and a half weeks later at a family friend’s home. It then emerged that the girl’s mother had staged the “kidnap” in order to enrich herself and become some kind of minor celebrity. She and her co-conspirator were jailed. Now the whole affair has been dramatised.

So in with both feet have gone the Dacre doggies to denounce the BBC, although at first it was clear the hacks had not seen the end product. “As Sheridan Smith stars in a new BBC drama about the schoolgirl 'abducted' by her mother, her furious family say it's 'sick' to turn her trauma into a show … On Tuesday, the corporation will broadcast The Moorside, a two-part series based on Shannon’s kidnap and Karen’s cruel deception” they tell.

The Mail has an interview with Shannon’s grandparents, and has milked their unease at the drama’s screening to paint the rotten BBC as the villains of the piece. That Shannon was taken into care after her ordeal is mentioned only in passing. And then it was on to the next participants in the saga used to drive sales and clicks for the Mail.

“Karen Matthews' family blasted for 'making money' out of Shannon's abduction by former friends as they reveal community is 'fed up' of the saga” screamed the headline, and although the article talked about Julie Bushby, whose character appears in the mini-series, it was slanted to kick the Beeb once more: “The pair also revealed that the community in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, is 'fed up' of hearing about the traumatic events of 2008 and their dramatic retelling”. Yeah, it’s the BBC’s fault again!

And then the Mail saw the programme and trawled Twitter - which generated even more cheap copy. “'She sounds like she's from Carlisle!' Viewers mock Sheridan Smith's attempt at a Yorkshire accent in BBC's Shannon Matthews drama” trilled the gleeful headline. See, the useless Beeb had got it wrong again! “Viewers have mocked actors' attempts at a West Yorkshire accent in a new drama depicting the abduction of schoolgirl Shannon Matthews” announced the Dacre doggies, being real Yorkshire accent experts.

Or, as the local vernacular might have put it, ‘appen not. But then a thought clearly entered for the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker: perhaps one of them should actually watch the drama and review it, even if only to keep the cheap copy rolling in for a little longer. And so, despite all the slagging off of the BBC, Christopher Stevens has done just that, an concluded that The Moorside is worth a four star rating.

So the Beeb is terrible. But the show is pretty good. So Mail readers should tune in. Then some of them won’t like it, will say so on social media, and hey presto - more cheap copy! There’s nothing quite like the way the Mail plays both sides of the field in order to slag off the BBC while making money off its programmes. Pass the sick bucket.