Daily Mail - Force For Good My Arse

The GQ interview bordered on the gushing: Geordie Greig, who replaced the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre as editor of the Daily Mail, had told the world “I want to make the Daily Mail a force for good”. The copy also included “Since taking over as editor of the Daily Mail, the Eton-educated new voice of Middle England has refocused Britain’s most notorious newsroom”. This was the most blatant horseshit.

John Stevens

And it did not take long to see just how “refocused” the Mail had become: there has already been a complaint to press non-regulator IPSO today as a result of what, to put it mildly, has been a serious social media mis-step by one of its senior journalists. Those less charitably disposed might call it a creepy threat, or even an act of thuggery.

Laura Álvarez

It concerns the paper’s deputy political editor John Stevens, whose Twitter bio tells us that he is “always looking for stories”. Well, today a story has come looking for him, after he went after Laura Álvarez when she told “Thank you all for your solidarity and support for Jeremy and hundreds of beautiful messages and flowers. I never thought how hard it would be to fight against the establishment, but we will continue fighting for a justice and peaceful world”. There had been yet more warm support for Jeremy Corbyn.

At this point, Stevens made his intervention. What would a sensible person have done? What would Nietzsche have done? Probably not what Stevens did: “You could fashion a lovely big wreath out of these”. Nice political retirement your husband’s got there, would be a pity if something happened to it. Says someone from the Corbyn-hating Daily Mail.

Goin' rahnd the Blind Beggar for afters, are we?

The Tweeter known as Tory Fibs responded simply “Please delete”, bringing Stevens’ attention to the case of Finsbury Park Mosque attacker Darren Osborne, who had driven his van into a crowd near the Mosque, but had also harboured ambitions of killing London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and, yes, Jeremy Corbyn. But deletion came there none.

Gayle Letherby was also concerned. “I first saw this vile tweet a couple of hours ago. I've been shaking ever since. Was unsure whether to share but the more who see it, the more hopefully will report it. A twitter reprimand is not enough though, Stevens should lose his job, but …”. He’ll probably get a pay rise. A force for good, the editor said.

Louise Raw, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, had already taken action after seeing the Stevens Tweet. “Or, John, we could fashion your revolting tweet into a lovely big complaint to IPSO about breaking the Editor’s Code on Harassment! I did, & I hope [Laura Álvarez] [Tommy Corbyn] [Jeremy Corbyn] & many more will do likewise. It takes 2 minutes”.

The link for those complaints is HERE. Dr Raw also confirmed her actions to Ms Letherby: “Agree. Reported this abusive harassment of a politician’s wife by Deputy Editor of Daily Mail to IPSO, under ‘Conduct of Journalists> Harassment’. Details & link to online form in my tweet”. Meanwhile, Mic Wright had also seen Stevens’ intervention. “You’re going after the man’s wife; this really does show you for who you really are”. Indeed it does.

Geordie Greig may give good interview copy. But under the surface gloss, the Daily Mail is no less hateful, bullying, threatening and vindictive than before. Force for good my arse.

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