Top Six – April 23

[Due to much of yesterday having been spent travelling, Top Six is a day late this week. Apologies]

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, that has now become the norm. So there.

6 Boris And The High Life While in the editor’s chair at the Spectator magazine, Bozza made no move to sack or even rein in the deeply unpleasant Taki Theodoracopulos, whose love of the Wehrmacht knows no bounds, and whose anti-Semitism and casual racism is legendary.

5 Cameron Hires TPA? Big Mistake The news that Young Dave may be about to give a Downing Street berth to Matthew “Gromit” Elliott of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance has been received on Zelo Street with interest. Giving power to someone who doesn’t have a clue how Government works would be catastrophic – but only for the Tories. For the rest of us, it would be excellent spectator sport.

4 The Self Publicising Black Helmet How the vain and vacuous Simon Cowell gets his copy into a series of desperate papers in an effort to prop up his wobbling franchises while making sure punters get the message that he’s all macho.

3 Dick And A Secret Tax Return The unfunny and tedious Richard Littlejohn isn’t happy about tax transparency. He says tax affairs are secret, especially for him and that nice Mr Dacre. OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY.

2 Daily Mail – Back To The 30s All those years trying to expunge the stain of shouting “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”, and Simon Heffer gives a platform to idiot pundit Richard Waghorne so he can cheer for the Front National in France.

1 Murdoch Is Served (72) Tom Watson causes Rupe’s troops yet more unscheduled grief just before he flies in to the UK to be lightly grilled for as much as two whole days before the Leveson Inquiry. The timing was exquisite: as he spoke to the press, news broke that the Sun’s Royal Editor had been nicked in a dawn raid.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Guido Fawked – Silent On UKIP Expense Fiddle

[Update at end of post]

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, likes to tell anyone who will listen that he isn’t really biased or partisan, and that he gives all errant politicians their fair share of stick. This, as Zelo Street readers will know, is complete crap (more HERE). Staines and his tame gofer, the flannelled fool Henry Cole, are blinkered and clueless tribalists.

Nothing about UKIP here, is there?

So in the London Mayoral race, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere are shamelessly supporting Boris Johnson, as he’s their kind of person. Staines also has a £10,000 bet on Bozza being returned to City Hall and so the amount of vitriol hurled by the Fawkes blog at Ken Livingstone has been of industrial proportions, with Brian Paddick also attracting some abuse.

But elsewhere, the less than dynamic duo has been leaning towards the Tory right, where they clearly like fringe wingnuts such as Dan, Dan the Oratory Man and his pal Douglas “Kamikaze” Carswell, and more and more towards Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his band of cranks at UKIP. Thus it is no surprise at all that Staines and Cole have chosen not to notice the weekend’s bad news.

And that is that not only has UKIP has been caught with its hand in the Euro-till, but also that it was Olaf, the EU watchdog, that caught them out. An amount of £37,000 is now being paid back after it was discovered that the money had been diverted to party workers in the UK. Some was paid to the now deceased Graham Booth, but most went to Derek Clark, an East Midlands MEP.

Farage has not brought himself to condemn this misuse of funds, saying that Clark was not “seeking personal gain from public money”. The man himself has proudly asserted that “We believed that we were doing it for Britain”, a sentiment previously no doubt used to justify the swiping of a non-trivial amount of gold bullion in the original Italian Job film.

So what has been the response of the intrepid seekers after truth (Shurely “drinksh”? – Ed) at the Fawkes blog? In a nutshell, silence. And it’s not as if no other blog has picked up on UKIP’s moment of embarrassment: Mark Pack of LibDem Voice, someone Staines and Cole like to read when they want to lay into his party, has written a post on the affair on his own blog.

That means there is no excuse for the less than dynamic duo – unless of course they would rather not embarrass their new best pals at the home of those Young Dave memorably called “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”. Come on, Fawkes folks, expenses fiddles are there to be exposed and the culprits identified. Your silence on this issue speaks louder than the pair of you.

Another fine mess, once again.

[UPDATE 1800 hours: as if anyone doubted the Fawkes blog's leaning towards UKIP, Staines and Cole have come running to the rescue. They have noted the appearance of their friend and soon not to be MP (due to a combination of boundary changes and no other constituency wanting her) Nadine Dorries on the Beeb's Daily Politics, where she had another go at Young Dave and his pal next door.

The title of the post, encapsulating the lack of subtlety that embodies its authors, is Dorries Should Defect. Clearly the less than dynamic duo have not thought this through: not only would she cease to get any assistance from the Tory Party if she jumps ship, but Dorries would also have to give up her Commons perch near Cameron and Speaker Bercow in exchange for having to sit at the opposite corner of the chamber.

There, she would be less visible, as well as having to fight for attention with the DUP, Scots Nats, Plaid Cymru and George Galloway. And if she, and the Fawkes blog, thinks that would be all, just wait for the Tory supporting papers and pundits to unload on her if she defects. It would turn the press gallery into a shooting gallery in short order. Another fine mess, indeed]

Express Caught Making EU Up

Today’s Express Euro-frightener did not make it to the front page lead – this place was occupied by the care home abuse revelations that have been unearthed as a result of secretly filmed footage obtained not by the press, but the BBC – and that is a pity. The piece showcases the Desmond press at its most desperate in its efforts to manufacture a story where none exists.

More guff coming off these presses

“EU Wants To Open Job Floodgates” screams the headline, as hack Anil Dawar, who should hang his head in shame for this heap of bovine by-product, tells “MEDDLING Brussels bureaucrats are demanding the UK open its depressed jobs market to millions of Romanian and Bulgarian workers”. Actually, only one person stands so accused, Hungary’s commissioner László Andor.

And the Express is clear as to what Andor, whom it labels “unelected”, has done: he’s “called for a relaxation on work restrictions for Eastern Europeans ... he wants Britain to act more than 18 months before the official deadline to drop the ban comes into force ... Mr Andor claimed the need for work permits should be removed”. At least the Express doesn’t say he “provoked outrage last night”.

That’s because the document the Express uses as the basis for its rant – which comes from Andor’s department, not from any speech he gave or any comments he made – was released last Wednesday. Clearly the speed at which the Desmond press works is rather less than Express. And the paragraph concerned, which is shown below in full, doesn’t say what Dawar claims.

The “Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions” is titled “Towards A Job-Rich Recovery”, and the wording comes from Paragraph 2.3.1, “Remove legal, and practical obstacles to free movement of workers”:

“Restrictions on free labour market access to workers from Bulgaria and Romania are still maintained by nine Member States, despite the overall positive impact that labour mobility from these countries has had on the economy of receiving countries. Whilst recognising the Member States' right to apply these restrictions on labour market access until 31 December 2013 in accordance with the Treaty of Accession, the Commission reiterates the importance of gradually preparing for the full application of EU law on free movement for Bulgarian and Romanian workers”.

So no “wanting to open floodgates”, no call for any relaxation, or any other demand on the UK. One wonders if the UKIP MEP and Tory MP (Peter Bone again) were told this before they volunteered their outraged response to a manufactured revelation.

Still, it presses all the Europhobic buttons, and frightens the more gullible into buying this cheap and nasty rag, so that’s another Benchmark of Excellence.

Let Us Remember A Really Famous Man

Among all the rest of today’s stories has come the sad news that former Labour MP Jack Ashley, made a peer after he retired from the Commons in 1992, has died at the age of 89. Ashley was the first deaf MP: he became profoundly so at the age of 45, and remembered that the last voice he had heard had been that of rugby league commentator Eddie Waring.

Jack Ashley campaigned for those who had no voice, who often had no hope: the disabled, sufferers of domestic violence, victims of the drug Thalidomide, those suffering bullying as part of their army service. And of course he became President of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. He did think he might have to give up politics, but soon learnt to lip read.

And he worked on his speaking voice, even though he could not hear it. His fellow MPs would turn towards him as they addressed him to ensure that he could see their mouth movements and therefore understand what they were saying. And even though he had lost his hearing, he remained combative, as well as caring. The measure of the man was that he was well regarded by all.

Being so well regarded is, in today’s politics, unique. Jack Ashley is one of those politicians for whom there could be no cynicism, no tribal hostility, and no thought that they were in it for themselves. For those reasons alone, we should remember him well. His kind will not pass this way again.

Daily Mail – Back To The 30s

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

We all know the headline: “Hurrah For The Blackshirts” trumpeted the Daily Mail as it endorsed Oswald Mosley’s fascists in the 1930s. And ever since then, the gold standard of why-oh-why hackery has been striving to shrug off the taint of association with the movements that reached their peak with the Third Reich and all the less than pleasant activities that flowed therefrom.

But, with an election imminent in France – polling is tomorrow – somehow the Mail has shrugged off its reticence and once again embraced the far right, as Richard Waghorne (“a researcher in political philosophy and political commentator”) has told that “Despite her flaws, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is one for Marine le Pen”. Really?

That would be the daughter and political heir to Jean-Marie le Pen and current leader of the Front National (the French equivalent of the NF, BNP and EDL rolled into one), standing on a manifesto of nationalist isolationism. And he’s serious: “Marine Le Pen remains, among an imperfect choice in urgent times, the only candidate capable of saving France’s control over her finances, borders, and identity”.

Did someone suggest that the French might be about to lost their identity? Pull the other one. That’s almost like saying that a Yorkshireman might lost his identity if he moves to an adjacent minor county (it ain’t happened, folks). And, typing this post from somewhere in northern France this evening, I can confirm that the rest of Waghorne’s piece is equally vapid.

France will not exit Schengen, it won’t exit the Euro, and it hasn’t lost control over its finances. Waghorne’s wibble about the country being subject to “decree from Brussels” is pure and untrammelled bullshit. The idea that the kind of mindset embodied by ranting Europhobics has entered the French mainstream has a credibility level not unadjacent to zero.

So when this rambling idiot tells readers “She is the only candidate available to conservative voters advancing the case for an exit from the Euro, the one measure which if executed carefully might yet save France from being swamped by foreign debts amassed elsewhere in a European project largely of its own making”, you know nobody in France is listening.

This is not a pundit with any credibility. Richard Waghorne is a right-wing fruitcake who should be ignored and avoided. Too barking even for the Mail? The possibility exists.

[UPDATE1 22 April 1940 hours: first prediction of the results of the opening round of voting in the Presidential Election are that Francois Hollande topped the poll with 28% of the vote, with Nicolas Sarkozy a close second with 26%. Marine le Pen scored 20% - more than her Dad did in 2002 when he came second - but the latter result saw the Left hopelessly fragmented in a field that numbered sixteen candidates. Today there were just five.

This shows that not only is Sarko not finished yet, contrary to the string of political obituaries already written, but also that even with a more voter friendly candidate and less of the howling rhetoric of the elder le Pen, the idea that the FN was ever going to field a serious Presidential contender was not serious. How the run-off goes depends on where those voters who supported the three losing candidates go next.

Right now, that second round is too close to call. But anyone betting on the Daily Mail's choice will now be counting their losses]

[UPDATE2 25 April 1850 hours: Marine le Pen actually scored just 17.9% of the popular vote, some way short of the 20% projected earlier. This is a whisper more than 1% better than her Father, whose 2002 high water mark was 16.86%. But this time round, the abstention rate was only 20.5% against 28.4% in 2002, which could well account for all of that difference. No word yet from Richard Waghorne - perhaps Paul Dacre and Simon Heffer have had second thoughts about his contributions]

Murdoch Is Served (73)

MORE HACKING VICTIMS COME FORWARD

[Update at end of post]

The bad news just keeps on coming for Rupe and his troops: following the confirmation that Mark Lewis is looking to pursue actions on behalf of at least three people who allegedly had their phones hacked while on US soil – the three having been named on this blog last week – comes the prospect of another six cases from within the States itself.

Worse, the language being used implicates by name Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse), with the suggestion that improper behaviour may have gone beyond mere hacking of phones. The New York Times has helpfully pointed out that, even before one case is filed in the USA, the business has cost the Murdoch empire around $380 million, with a potential end cost of $1 billion.

And, as if that wasn’t grim enough reading for the Dirty Digger, there is the small matter of an appearance before the Leveson Inquiry for him and Junior to negotiate next week. After the relatively middling presences of Aidan Barclay of the Telegraph and Eugeny Lebedev of the Indy and Standard on Monday, it’s Junior all day Tuesday and Rupe all Wednesday.

Just in case Murdoch senior doesn’t get through all the grilling in the one day, the nice folk who run the Inquiry have put aside the whole of Thursday to be on the safe side. And that isn’t all: the UK phone hacking lawsuits have now entered a second round, with Mr Justice Vos finding the news that there are 58 law firms representing 100 victims (yes, just the hundred this time) as “unbelievable”.

So who’s lined up for their turn at the payout window? Wayne Rooney and Emma Noble are names that leap off the page, and they aren’t the only ones: Cherie Blair, Alex Best and Colin Stagg are also taking action. There’s more: Bobby Davro, Jamie Theakston, Chris Eubank, Peter Crouch and wife Abigail, Kieron Dyer and Jermaine Jenas are also waiting in line.

So that’s all? Well, no: Ryan Giggs, Matt Dawson, James Nesbitt and David Beckham’s father are also there, along with Paul Burrell, who as I pointed out earlier, is one of those likely to be going after Rupe in the USA. Put all of those together, along with the damages and legal fees, and you can see where the NYT got their estimate of the bill potentially reaching $1 billion.

And that won’t be all: as Mark Lewis points out, the UK actions started with just a few cases. Now we’re into the hundreds. If the lawyers in the USA are already being contacted by those who have cause to suspect that they, too, were targeted, the whole business could kick off afresh, and with rather more expensive consequences. Thus the long and sad goodbye for Rupert Murdoch.

[UPDATE 21 April 2105 hours: Rupe has wasted no time in slagging off the UK Government ahead of his arrival in the country next week, mocking its policies on the IMF, energy, education, and tax. This is another way of saying that he no longer has the ear of the Prime Minister, and may never have again. Good]

Beeb Bashing And Doughty Dullness

[Update at end of post]

The kicking of the BBC by the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre may have died down a little, but the word is still out there to go for the Corporation whenever the opportunity presents itself, so over the top has gone another of the Vagina Monologue’s more tedious hacks, Steve Doughty, to issue a routinely mean spirited yet fact free rant.

Not expanding but shrinking here

Doughty’s headline – “Thousands of redundancies later, and the BBC is still a bloated bureaucracy” – follows the usual Daily Mail pattern of telling the readers what they are required to think. He then suggests that BBC staff made redundant are routinely walking back into the Corporation, then that their redundancy payments are too high. No comparison with any other organisation is given.

Having trowelled on the impression of waste, there is then more assertion of waste, as making savings of £2.7 billion is first dismissed, then the suggestion made that the licence fee should be reduced. But all the while readers are not told that, in real terms, that licence fee is being reduced, as it has been frozen for a full six years from 2010 – and that’s not all.

In a letter from Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to the BBC Trust Chairman, it is further stated that “The BBC will assume responsibility for funding the World Service, BBC Monitoring, and S4C [the Welsh language service broadcast by Channel 4] from the licence fee ... the overall result of this settlement will require the BBC to achieve a 16% cash-releasing efficiency target, net of implementation costs, over the four years to 2016/17”.

But Doughty does not mention any of this: instead, he talks of “the ranks of the political advisers and communications consultants who infest its offices” and of “fringe channels or operations with nil public service justification”, then tells that “I’m not saying the BBC is conning us about its redundancies and its cost-cutting”.

This, though, is exactly what is being said, although in not so many words, along with misinformation on the Corporation’s borrowing limit. It’s the most slanted and abysmal journalism, but then, Doughty has previous: this is the idiot who suggested, after recent racist incidents during football matches, that Patrice Evra and Anton Ferdinand “just put up with it and get on with the game”.

Mail Online eventually pulled that particular pile of steaming Doughty bovine by-product, but anyone wanting the same to happen to the Beeb bashing piece will be waiting a long time. Steve Doughty is compliant and desperate enough to do as Dacre tells him, and there will no doubt be more abysmally researched attack dross under his by-line in the months to come. And that’s not good enough.

[UPDATE 25 April 1750 hours: how right can you get? More abysmally researched attack dross there most certainly has been, as Doughty has taken the sad death of a runner in last weekend's London Marathon as an excuse to kick those who objected to the annual equine death toll of races like the Grand National. Horses, Doughty argues, are bred to race, which will be news to all those horse owners whose animals do not do so. And he does himself no favours by going from horses to pigs, which he asserts are only "there to make bacon".

It doesn't seem to occur to this clueless hack that there is a difference between captive animals being coerced into situations where many of them are injured and are then destroyed, and human beings volunteering of their own free will to take up a challenge like long distance running. The numbers are rather different, too: popular marathons and fun runs each involve tens of thousands of competitors, all of whom are told that there are risks involved. Still, there's a few column inches to fill, and it's not as offensive as Littlejohn or as barking as Mad Mel. Mustn't grumble]

TPA – Pharmacy Fantasy

Sometimes the opposition comes to your rescue, especially when you’re looking for a particularly egregious example of their flagrant dishonesty. So it is with the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), whose CEO Matthew “Gromit” Elliott is rumoured to be in line for a berth at 10 Downing Street. Young Dave should look closely at their latest “report” before making his decision.

More creative reinterpretation from the second floor

The TPA’s latest pretentiously titled “research note” is “Medicine use reviews: a wasteful subsidy to pharmacists”, letting the more gullible part of the Fourth Estate know what to think at the outset. Medicine Use Reviews (MURs) are a relatively new service where pharmacists check patients’ use of drugs to look for prescription overlaps or potential wastage.

Those pharmacists doing the reviews are paid for the service, which the TPA calls “expensive”, telling that a payment of £28 for each review is for no more than 15 minutes’ work, citing a “small survey”. But, and with the TPA there is always a but, this survey is not referenced. And the paper on MURs that is referenced was presented back in 2008.

So, from not having any cite to back up the “expensive” claim, the TPA goes on to rubbish the effectiveness of MURs. Here, they cite a paper by Asam Latif and Helen Boardman (read it HERE [.pdf]) and make this statement: “The report says that MURs ‘were, by and large, viewed [by GPs] as a waste of time and money’”. TPA watchers will not be surprised to know that the paper says no such thing.

But it does make this observation: “A small UK study of GPs views about MURs suggested that they welcomed the MUR service in principle and that the service should be more widespread; however, they did seek a clearer understanding of their role within the MUR process” for which a citation is provided.

Moreover, the statement “The MUR service is a waste of the pharmacist’s time” brought a 90% “disagree or strongly disagree” response, while “Pharmacists’ understanding of their patients’ views about medicines will be enhanced by the MURs” brought an “agree or strongly agree” total of 96%. And the idea that pharmacists are just doing MURs to cream off subsidies is not supported.

The response to the statement “I simply do not have enough time to carry out MUR” contained a 74% “agree or strongly agree”. And “I have enough supporting staff to enable me to conduct MURs to my satisfaction” brought a 74% “disagree or strongly disagree” response. It’s clear that the TPA has selectively taken quotes from the Latif and Boardman paper and ignored the actual findings.

And the assertion made by Matthew Sinclair that MURs are “reviews that most doctors don’t think represent good value” is pure invention. One more for the bin.

Cameron Hires TPA? Big Mistake

If a Telegraph piece is anything to go by (the Mail disagrees), Young Dave is about to make the kind of mistake that sensible and thoughtful folk would avoid. Because the Tel has reported that he is mulling giving a role within 10 Downing Street to Matthew “Gromit” Elliott, founder and CEO of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA). The most basic of research would show that this is not A Very Good Idea.

Dave should steer well clear of the second floor

How can I be so sure? After all, Elliott apparently masterminded that No To AV campaign, and is said to be one of those Great Communicators, as well as having founded an Astroturf lobby group that gets its copy in the papers and its talking heads in front of the camera. All this is true. But it does not mean Elliott should be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.

There is one very good reason for this (maybe more, a lot more, but let’s start at the beginning). Most importantly, just because Elliott and the TPA get their propaganda into the kind of papers whose editors and proprietors want to hear it does not mean they know how Government – local and national – actually works. The TPA does not engage with its targets, so why would it?

When the TPA goes after a public sector organisation, it does so by submitting Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, often on an industrial scale, or gets one of its staff to scan the job adverts for titles that can then be called out as “non-jobs”, not because they have any lack of relevant content, but because the TPA says so. No knowledge of how the organisation functions is required – or gained.

Sometimes, if the information available does not support the desired outcome, the TPA goes further and just makes it up, most notoriously with its report “Britain and the ECHR” where the assertion was made that the ECHR had cost the UK £42.9 billion (this figure was not backed up with one factual citation). Otherwise the group are masters of the false assumption and logic leap.

This was epitomised by “reports” claiming that Government had paid organisations to lobby itself, that taxpayers pay for Trade Union officials (who are, naturally, agitating for strike action), and that grants to environmental groups are paying for political campaigning. And who can forget the false premise of the “report” suggesting that speed cameras cause more road accidents?

Here on Zelo Street we know all about the TPA (last year’s summary HERE), enough to know that none of their dubiously talented array of non-job holders has a knowledge of the workings of Government greater than zero. If Elliott has any sense, he will know this equally well, but I doubt that he will let it get in the way of a self-aggrandising move up the greasy pole.

The result will be like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Only worse. And much funnier.

Murdoch Is Served (72)

ELEMENTARY, DEAR WATSON

This morning’s key press conference on the goings on within the Murdoch empire did not feature any of Rupe’s troops – barring the man from the Times who dared to briefly put his head above the parapet – but will bear heavily on the ability of the Murdochs to ward off yet more questions about their conduct following the revelations on Phonehackgate.

Don't I get a mention this time?

Because this was the much awaited launch of Labour MP Tom Watson’s book Dial M For Murdoch, co-written with Martin Hickman. Watson, a prominent member of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee, had previously attracted criticism for likening News Corporation to a Mafia operation. Here he gave some insights into why he said what he said.

Watson put the matter directly from the start: News International (NI) was “a toxic institution that has operated in Britain like a shadow state” and that the cover-up subsequent to the revelation of phone hacking was just as important a story. He then revealed that NI had gone after all the members of the DCMS select committee, with each investigator allocated two MPs.

The objective was to see what dirt they could dig up: who was having extra marital affairs, any closet gays, any other embarrassing information, all were solicited. The means used included blagging and other impersonation techniques, bullying and intimidation. Watson admitted that NI enjoyed some success from these endeavours. And that wasn’t all that the Murdoch empire was up to.

As the house started falling in last year, even the twinkle toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks was not immune from investigation: her office was bugged. By this time, one might have been excused for thinking that Watson could be deviating from reality, but for one detail: he got the information from former Screws man Neville Thurlbeck.

Nev gave Watson an interview: it’s all on record. And it gets worse: he asserted that the reluctance of the DCMS select committee to summon Ms Brooks was down to the intimidation felt by its members. He also concluded that the actions of NI’s hacks undermined the work of Parliament, and could not rule out the possibility that they might still be influencing the DCMS committee.

Put alongside this is the move by the Crown Prosecution Service to charge some of those previously arrested, whose number has been swelled only today by the Sun’s Royal Editor Duncan Larcombe, picked up in a dawn raid on his home in Kent. Factor in that the likes of Thurlbeck are now willing to talk, and you have serious trouble for Murdoch. He was deep in the mire, and now he is yet deeper.

Express Cheap And Nasty Winter Frightener

[Update at end of post]

Outside, it has been showers or steady rain for the last few days. So it often is in April, but it is also not as mild as one might expect, and so the weather and climate punditerati, always on a hair trigger nowadays, has gone off at half-cock at the first sign of a forecast suggesting that next month could be cold, maybe even colder than May 1996, which followed a cold and grey April.

And at the Express, that means another outing for Nathan Rao, forecast recycler par excellence, whose endeavour has seen him promoted to the front page lead on today’s paper (although it has to be stressed that being on the Express’ front page nowadays requires little more than the ability to creatively churn over a press release or a handful of quotes from an approved talking head).

“Coldest May For 100 Years” is the headline, with the follow-up assertion that “Spring will retreat as Winter roars back, says expert”. Ah, there is an “expert” involved. So, now that Positive Weather Solutions has been exposed as little more than a sham, whose “expertise” is the name in the Express frame? It must at the very least be someone prepared to do free headlines and summaries.

Step forward our old friend Piers Corbyn of Weather Action, who put out an apocalyptic frightener on Tuesday, saying “The coldest or near coldest May for 100 years in Central and East [sic] parts with a record run of bitter Northerly winds. Snow at times especially on high ground in NE/East. Spring put in reverse”. There was an 80% confidence in this outcome, and 90% for “within 5 coldest for 100 years”.

For the full forecast you have to subscribe – which means paying money – but the Express doesn’t need that, as Rao has quite enough with Corbyn’s headline and a few quotes from the Met Office – who are rather more equivocal – to pad out his copy. But, as Zelo Street regulars will know, relying on Piers Corbyn is not always such A Good Thing.

Corbyn made an awful lot of capital out of getting the December 2010 cold snap right, but as I pointed out at the time, this had already started in late November, and a “winter high” pressure can often be stubborn and slow moving, so it wasn’t such a difficult call. He said the cold snap would return after the New Year, but it didn’t. And the Winter overall wasn’t the coldest for 100 years, but the 15th coldest.

And Corbyn has other form when it comes to getting it wrong. But there is clearly nothing else that the Express can rustle up for next to nothing to fill the front page, so his climatic scare story gets the nod. What will the weather actually be like? Put directly, we can’t tell that far in advance. Anyone pretending we can is a fraud.

But it frightens enough punters into buying the Express, and it costs next to nothing, and we know what that means: another Benchmark Of Excellence.

[UPDATE 21 April 2015 hours: wait a moment, Express readers, it won't be snowing after all - Nathan Rao got another front page today (Saturday) to tell the faithful that "Now We Face A Month Of Rain". This is backed up by very little, except that there were flood warnings yesterday, but obviously not for a month ahead.

One priceless line is "In York, the River Ouse burst its banks yesterday ... forcing commuters in the city centre to wade through water to get to work". Very good Nathan, when the Ouse overflows in York, unless it's really bad - and having worked in the city I have prior experience of this - there isn't any work location that you have to wade through water to get to.

Sells a few more papers, though. Mustn't grumble]

The Self Publicising Black Helmet

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

Some folks are famous because of their achievements in the sporting field. Others gain fame through statesmanship, business acumen, and a talent for acting, singing or dancing. Some are famous because they write books, plays, music or – all too rarely nowadays – half decent copy. And then there are those who are famous because enough of the public pay too much attention to them.

Keeping the Helmet in the picture

And in this last category is the Black Helmet, one Simon Cowell, self-styled pop impresario, svengali to his stable of obedient artists, and supposedly ultimate smartarse master of the talent show put down. The success of those talent show formats, such as The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, depends heavily on the public buying in to the shows and their successful acts.

So Cowell, who has been financially successful beyond the wildest dreams of 99.9% of the population, needs that audience share to stay high if the cash is to keep pouring in. And here his flight through the entertainment stratosphere has hit a little inconvenient turbulence, as ITV have managed to schedule a clash between Britain’s Got Talent and BBC pretender The Voice.

Worse for Cowell, when the two shows have gone head to head, The Voice – with a neat mixture of judges ranging from Jessie J to the evergreen Tom Jones – has not just come out best. It has trampled all over Cowell’s cash cow. What to do? Well, the viewers can’t be forced to love him, but if there is a suitably spicy story to put out there, the extra attention could do the trick.

And so it came to pass: the Black Helmet, who despite all that green folding stuff is still single at the age of 52, let it be known that he had a long and – of course – passionate affair with fellow judge Dannii Minogue. He correctly identified not only her clothes, but also her hair and breasts. Clearly nothing gets past this man. And he also lusted after Cheryl Curl, just for good measure.

This generated unfeasibly large amounts of copy, first from the news, and then from the pundits. Then ITV yielded ground and announced it would move Britain’s Got Talent, performing dogs and all, to a start time half an hour later. This combination of actions is – supposedly – going to restore Cowell’s prestige (massaging his ego all the while) and the channel’s ratings.

What it has done, though, is to expose three things: the Black Helmet is famous mostly because the public allow him so to be, that for ITV, betting Saturday evening success on one show, which is in any case little more than a re-tread of Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks, might not be such a good idea. And that the Beeb has, as with Strictly, brought back old fashioned family entertainment to our screens.

This can’t be just countered by cheap publicity stunts, whoever pulls them.

[UPDATE1 20 April 1300 hours: just to ramp up the self-publicity, Cowell has now managed to get the ludicrous story that he is about to pull the plug on his deal with ITV into the Super Soaraway Currant Bun. The channel is failing to "respect" The Great Man (allegedly). A number of "sources" and even one "senior source" are quoted in support.

This was then supported by a report in the Mirror calling Cowell "wounded" and looking "haunted" because he went out of an evening without having a shave first. There was, as ever, the obligatory "younger woman" along for the night out, with the press in tow, as if by miraculous coincidence.

Let's cut to the nub of this one: Cowell has no other UK channel in the frame that would enable him to keep trousering the sums of money he gets from ITV. This is orchestrated self-publicity of the kind that would make Samantha Brick pause for thought. Enough already]

[UPDATE2 22 April 1810 hours: the Murdoch Sun has once again been fed the latest helping of Cowell self-promotion, this time by former "glamour model" Alicia Douvall (formerly plain Sarah Howes), whose body has been, er, surgically enhanced (a lot). She enjoyed an improbable relationship with the Black Helmet where the couple allegedly had sex eleven times in one night.

One hates to say that this is impossible, but the thought enters that one of Rupe's troops may have thought of a number, doubled it, added the number he first thought of and a couple of humps for good measure. The result is that Cowell emerges looking like some kind of rampantly heterosexual athlete with a bedroom presence verging on the Olympian.

Moreover, he is therefore Not Even Slightly Gay Or Even Mildly Camp, and for good measure, is still lusting after Cheryl Curl, just for potential afters (again). I'm sure these latest revelations have nothing to do with Ms Douvall no longer being in the limelight and a single mum needing to make ends meet (as it were).

But it's just trashy self publicity designed to keep Cowell's profile up. It won't make his franchises any more marketable, or any less limp (That's enough innuendo - Ed.)]

Mad Mel Defends The Indefensible

The Left, so Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips has it, “is doing the dirty work of the enemies of the West for them”. This is “part of a terrifying trend across Scandinavia and Europe”. And, as Mel is winding up for yet another rantfest of Olympian proportions, readers need no prompting as to who those enemies are. Yes, it’s all about Muslims. Again.

Not even a little fair and balanced

And the problem with Mel’s angry and frightened outburst is that we’ve heard it all before – plus, not for the first time, when the subject is delved into a little deeper, it can be seen that she is being at the very least selective with her facts, and certainly not objective. What she calls freedom of speech is the kind of behaviour that could lead to incitement to religious hatred.

Mel is championing the case of Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society, who stands accused of hate speech. The charge is characterised as a “witch-hunt” and Hedegaard’s remarks merely something “two years previously concerning sexual abuse within Muslim communities”. Mel does not dwell on the remarks, or go into detail. But I will.

What Hedegaard said was that Muslims “rape their own children. It is heard of all the time. Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins or their fathers”. And to put the lid on the whole thing, he went on “Whenever it is prudent for a Muslim to hide his true intentions by lying or making a false oath on his own or in Islam’s service, then it is OK to do it”.

And Sappho, the Society’s magazine, has hosted debates featuring such luminaries as Geert Wilders, another with a slightly loaded take on Islam. Moreover, it gives a yearly award, which in 2008 was given to the cartoonist who drew The Prophet in ways that suggested he was a terrorist (what many do not appear to understand is that any image of The Prophet is proscribed in Islam).

But just think what would have happened if Hedegaard had directed his remarks at any other religion, especially, say, Judaism. The outcry would have been immediate – and as justifiably so as making them against Islam. The idea that hate speech laws only work in favour of Muslims and against all other religions is plain daft, and Hedegaard’s supporters should get real.

That includes all those recipients of the annual Sappho award, an honour that in 2009 was bestowed on their chosen beacon of free speech promotion, one, er, Melanie Phillips! So all that this is, is Mad Mel dutifully giving suitably selective and slanted payback by using the Mail to put the boot in, using the false equivalence of “banning hate speech means banning free speech”.

Yes, Mel is living up to that nickname again. No change there, then.

The Rise Of The UK PFJ

The latest opinion poll numbers have been taxing a range of right leaning commentators, and for one reason: some of the latest surveys of voting intentions show UKIP overtaking the Lib Dems and therefore occupying third place. Moreover, the party lead by Nigel “Thirsty” Farage is scoring even better with pensioners, who are thought more likely to turn out and vote.

And so a sudden realisation has overtaken many in and around the Tory Party. These UKIP chaps could split the right of centre vote! Nowt gets past this lot, does it? Those UKIP chaps already did that at the last General Election: in 21 seats across the country, the winning Labour majority was less than the number of votes polled by UKIP.

Top ten issues: no sign of the EU ...

Thus there have been calls for UKIP and the Tories to consider some kind of merger, not least from occasional Tory and MEP Dan, Dan The Oratory Man, who has tried to draw a parallel between the UK and Canada, where a merger has brought together the former Progressive Conservative and Reform Parties. But, as with usual with Hannan, there is more to it than that.

Because, as he concedes, the issue that caused the launch of parties like UKIP, and has split the Tories more or less since the passing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, has been the relationship between the UK and the EU. The nearest thing the Canadians have to that is the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), which is not the same kind of beast at all.

... that's because it polls around 4%

Moreover, no party in Canada is urging an exit from NAFTA. Exit from the EU, though, is still the main driver behind UKIP. But here there is a problem: those same opinion surveys that show UKIP improving also have shown that the public do not consider Europe to be such an important issue. The economy inevitably comes top, with unemployment second.

Sure, race relations and immigration comes high up the list, but pinning that on the EU is stretching matters. The UK had significant immigration from the Commonwealth for around a quarter of a century before accession to the then EEC, and had been a haven for those fleeing less tolerant regimes across the world for centuries before that.

No, what voters see in UKIP is not only a vote on the EU, but also one for more defence spending (pointless), a more authoritarian law and order policy (ruinously expensive and equally pointless), joining the flat earthers over climate change (not clever) and otherwise seeking the return of that mythical 1950s utopia beloved of the Daily Mail and which never existed in the first place.

And that is a circle that the Tories can never square. Not even with Dan’s help.

Lords To Leave London?

There is an inherent problem with print media that is not simultaneously issued as online copy: those gannets at websites like Mail Online that devour and otherwise churn over so much of it cannot get their hands on the stuff until someone has paid good money for the publication concerned. Thus it is that they are behind the curve on the latest Oop North why-oh-why-fest.

Who are you f***ing calling angry, c***?!?

What is about to make the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre yet more angry than usual is an opinion piece in this week’s Spectator magazine by Labour peer – and champion of rail travel – Andrew Adonis. He is taxed by the pull that London has on the rest of the country, and has contributed to the magazine’s “Planet London” issue, which is not yet available online.

He tells that “London is New York, Washington [DC] and LA rolled into one, which is unhealthy for our national politics ... so I have a serious suggestion. If the House of Lords is to be reformed in the next year, part of the reform should be to move it out to a city in the Midlands or the North, maybe next to the relocated BBC in MediaCity in Salford Quays [my emphasis]”.

Relocate here? But it's so ... provincial!

Much of the pleasure of reading this is not only that Andrew Adonis is not afraid to make radical suggestions, and that his enthusiasm for them comes through very clearly, but also that the sound of Paul Dacre’s jaw thudding into the deep pile carpet of his unfeasibly large office will be audible a long way from Kensington soon after one of his minions dares to show him the article.

And there’s more: “Half of our national politicians would then assemble well away from ‘Planet London’. The public purse would make a net saving by selling the vast and expensive property portfolio the Lords has been acquiring to house its 850 members along Millbank and the surrounding streets. And yes, yours truly – a Londoner and proud of it – would be happy to lead the way”.

The logic of Adonis’ thinking to an extent mirrors that of the BBC in their move from White City – where they will collect a tidy sum for selling off or maybe just leasing Television Centre – to the Quays. And it’s interesting that the Manchester Evening News is in the vanguard of the papers picking up on the story. But the nationals will doubtless be there very soon.

And when they arrive, the reaction will be far less matter-of fact: Adonis’ heresy will bring forth the kind of condemnation usually reserved for, well, anyone else considering abandoning the capital for places populated with those ghastly provincials with their strange accents and cheaper housing (lower house prices are for the Daily Mail somewhere adjacent to the end of the world itself).

I can’t wait for the ranting and frothing to begin. Get the popcorn in!

Boris And The High Life

While Ken Livingstone’s detractors continue to accuse him of a core vote strategy – one that supposedly prioritises Muslims over Jews – they have remained silent on the past leanings of their own preferred choice for Mayor of London, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Bozza has past form when it comes to turning a blind eye to anti-Semitism, and some years of it at that.

Bozza was editor of the Spectator magazine from 1999 to 2005, and, quite apart from the litany of gaffes during those years, retained the services of one Taki Theodoracopulos to write a regular column called High Life. Taki had by this time parted company acrimoniously with Private Eye, where he is now referred to as Taki Takealotofcokeupthenos (figure that one out yourselves).

Taki is still churning out his tedious drivel for the Spectator, but since 2009 has been under orders to tone down his attacks on the state of Israel and Jewish people generally. High Life tells of goings-on among what used to be called the Jet Set, a shrinking coterie of overmonied and under-occupied wasters for whom Conspicuous Consumption comes without the tedious chore of working for it first.

The Eye tired of this kind of thing – the column, written by Nigel Dempster before Taki, was called Grovel – after Ian Hislop’s arrival as successor to Richard Ingrams. Hislop could never understand why readers would consider the eccentric behaviour of minor European aristocracy and other undisciplined spenders of inherited wealth worth the space – and Taki attracted more than his share of writs.

One High Life item that caused particular outrage was published in 2001 – under Bozza’s editorship – where Taki made particularly ridiculous claims about the Israeli and US Governments regarding financier Marc Rich. The magazine’s then owner, Conrad Black, took forthright issue with his columnist, who had identified himself in the column, perhaps inadvertently, as an anti-Semite.

In addition to his anti-Israeli screeds, Taki has a habit of writing about, and praising slavishly, Hitler’s Wehrmacht. He clearly rues the ultimate defeat of this force and reveres its leaders (he blames the Fuehrer for all the downsides). Other totalitarian regimes are dutifully indulged: Francisco Franco is described by Taki as just “too decent a man”, while Augusto Pinochet was asserted to be “the saviour of Chile”.

Even Charles Moore, who preceded Bozza as editor of the Spectator, called Taki “a racist, a fascist, and a drunk”. And added to the support of Franco and Pinochet was that of Apartheid South Africa and the Smith regime in Rhodesia. For six years, Boris Johnson was more than happy – as admittedly have Matthew d’Ancona and Fraser Nelson since – to give this unsavoury specimen a platform.

What you will not be reading about this side of the Mayoral election in the Standard.

Dick And A Secret Tax Return

The deeply subversive Guardian has offended the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, this time over the T-word: transparency, as in tax. Columnists have been permitted not only to be of independent thought – which would never do at the Daily Mail – but also to explore ending the secrecy surrounding citizens’ tax arrangements.

Transparency, guv? That's for window cleaners, innit?!?

This is not acceptable to the Vagina Monologue, and so he has instructed his overmonied and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn to fire a warning salvo of spin and falsehood across the Guardian’s bow. Dick needs no second bidding to go after the Mail’s most hated rival, and so, buried away in today’s Littlejohn column, is his item effectively telling Alan Rusbridger to get his pundits to lay off.

First comes the blatant porkie: “The Guardian is so outraged about invasions of privacy that it wants journalists who hacked into phone messages to be sent to prison”. Of course, Dicky boy. The only problem with that is that, as any fule kno, the paper doesn’t do judgmental. All that has been done on the phone hacking front is that the Guardian has reported the whole grim business.

And Littlejohn has been wailing and whingeing about it ever since the July 2009 revelation that started the ball rolling, mainly complaining that having the Met’s finest investigating “The Dark Arts” meant that ordinary hardworking people were being mugged, knifed, shot, raped and on occasion killed because it was all a zero sum game and the officers who would have protected them were nicking hacks instead.

Back at today’s Littlejohn missive, he switches the subject: “On the other hand, it thinks the Government should publish the confidential [my emphasis] tax affairs of everyone in Britain”. This, too, is not true, but at least Dick is closer to reality this time: pundits whose work appears in the Guardian have been debating the subject of tax transparency.

Poor Littlejohn clearly believes that all papers are run like the Daily Mail, where Paul Dacre hands down the editorial line and enforces it with an iron discipline, so when Polly Toynbee – who Dick usually has no problem in naming – argues for tax transparency to be universal, this is held to be the paper’s view. When Peter Preston and George Monbiot join the discussion, this merely confirms his assertion.

The idea that these and other columnists are free to express their own opinions is anathema to those at the Mail. And what may also be worrying them is Paul Dacre’s unfeasibly large remuneration package, and in Littlejohn’s case, his being absent in Florida, and away from the jurisdiction of HMRC. There may also be freelance hacks with limited companies involved, a practice the paper has already denounced.

So the Mail would rather the subject of tax transparency were not even mentioned.

Sun Recycles 40 Year Old Dead Dog

Many years ago, when the Liberals were still just the Liberals and the split in the Labour Party that begat the SDP was yet to come, the former would manage around 14 seats at a General Election (that was their tally in February 1974, declining to 13 in October that year and 11 in 1979). Even in 1992, the Lib Dems managed just 20. This prompted regular wipeout predictions from the press.

Not last time, it wasn't

And there was no greater harbinger of Liberal doom than the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, which always had “Libs In No Seats Shocker” in reserve for the run-up to Polling Day. Every General Election brought the same crap from Rupe’s downmarket troops. And every time they would get it wrong. But hope springs eternal, and to prove it, they’re at it again.

“Sun poll: Lib Dem big guns face boot as MPs in meltdown at election” screams the headline. The more gullible of the target demographic may be taken in. But after the flash graphics, the numbers look less impressive: the total sample size of 1524 voters looks credible, until you realise that these were spread over a total of 76 constituencies. That’s just twenty for each one.

But look at the underlying numbers

And there aren’t 76 Lib Dem MPs, but 57 of them. So where does this number come from? Supposedly, this takes into account boundary changes, which certainly makes seats like Bradford East look tricky. But why the higher number? What was the rationale behind this? As YouGov did the polling, and their man is quoted in the piece, why not say so? Was it a phone poll or face to face?

We aren’t told when the polling took place, only that it was “an exclusive poll and analysis”. How can a poll that questions only 20 voters in each seat be statistically significant? And isn’t it a fortunate coincidence that the results match the narrative that this paper has been peddling unremittingly for the past forty years? Peter Kellner wants to talk of “big stinks” – his involvement is one of them.

At least one thing has changed over the years: this time the Sun is actually suggesting that some Lib Dems might survive this fantasy wipeout election, although only seven of them. But it’s a change from the “Libs In No Seats Shocker” of old, even though the poll that underpins the story gives off more than a slight aroma. Maybe on this occasion they could be right.

After all, if you keep on repeating the same story, it might be true one day. Eh, Rupe?

Andrew Gilligan – Pants On Fire

The Maily Telegraph’s so-called “London Editor” Andrew Gilligan, when not sock-puppeting in an effort to support his real self while running down those who have the temerity to call him out for his dodgy journalism, has been maintaining a barrage of knocking copy against Labour London Mayoral challenger Ken Livingstone, especially on the subject of bus and tube fares.

Still game on to get in here

To this end, he posted on March 27 “Ken Livingstone: six new lies in a single afternoon”, demonstrating that talent for subtlety and understatement which he happens not to possess at all. Following a prompt from a Zelo Street regular, I’ve been looking at two of these so-called “lies”, only to find out that they are anything but, which suggests that Gilligan is the one with his trousers alight.

First off is Livingstone’s claim on the Freedom Pass – that he brought it in. This is the concession for older Londoners that gives them free travel on public transport. Gilligan tries to get readers to “look over there” by talking initially about free bus travel, then about the extension to the Tube in 1977. But then he lets slip the words that back up Livingstone:

“Livingstone’s GLC abolished the afternoon peak restriction and the 20p flat fare on the Tube in 1981/2”. So free travel for older Londoners – completely free, with no payment for Tube journeys – was indeed introduced on Livingstone’s watch. That the scheme was rebranded as the Freedom Pass later is hardly relevant: Ken brought it in, in the form we now understand as the Freedom Pass.

Keep an eye on the red and blue lines

So that’s one “lie” that isn’t. The second is a little less straightforward, and refers to real terms fare levels for bus and Tube. Gilligan accuses Livingstone of asserting that these fell, while they allegedly did not. But checking the data (you can see the spreadsheet HERE, and it’s Figure 8.6) shows that, at Livingstone’s last budget, which was 2008-9, the former Mayor is right again.

Yes, the budget came before Bozza took charge, and it shows bus fares relative to 1999-2000 levels (the last budget before Livingstone was first elected), at less than 77% in real terms. For Tube fares, the numbers are much closer, but the 2008-9 mark is in real terms about 98% of that before the elected Mayoralty. So once again, Gilligan is in need of a fire extinguisher.

One should expect nothing different from Andrew Gilligan, the hack who thinks that Coventry to Wolverhampton is 40 miles (it’s around 26), that a train travelling at over 200mph will meet mysterious forces and derail (it won’t), and that York has abandoned the bendy bus (it hasn’t). He is a practitioner of truly shameless and disgraceful journalism.

Yet the Telegraph keeps him in paycheques. And that’s not good enough.

Beeb Bashing – Salford Fights Back

After the relentless campaign by the cheaper end of the Fourth Estate to demonise the City of Salford – mainly because the BBC has relocated many of its shows to the MediaCity complex on the Quays – the locals are starting to fight back. And early signs even include an implicit admission from the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre that they may have got it wrong.

Salford Quays and Metrolink tram

I stress implicit, as the Vagina Monologue and his followers only do proper apologies when someone with sufficient funds takes them to the cleaners. But an article containing some factual material comparing crime levels in Salford to those in the part of west London that is home to Television Centre – the latter comes off significantly worse – is at least a start.

But the title, “No need for the guards, then? BBC’s new Salford home is SAFER than its old London HQ, Government figures show”, means that the Mail says it did nothing wrong and the scare stories are the Beeb’s fault. This is more spin: as I pointed out last week, both the Mail and Murdoch Sun were talking up the safety issue, with the latter making up its key quote.

And the Mail hacks, in their desire to get the story on to people moving from London to Cheshire, show real capital-centric cluelessness when it comes to their favourite subject of house prices. They’re almost as high as London! They are? Not here in Crewe they aren’t, nor in any of the outlying villages, nor down the line in Hartford or Acton Bridge. Where is the Mail looking?

Ah well. They may be looking in Bowdon, Nether Alderley or of course Alderley Edge (aka A K Yah Edge), which enjoy frankly daft house price levels. These are not typical for most of the county: even the City of Chester isn’t at London levels, although it’s pricy to buy anywhere within the City wall. The Mail’s staff have the disadvantage of being stuck in their Kensington HQ.

Moreover, they just don’t want to cover the story that many ordinary folk in Salford are talking about: jobs. All those folk working at MediaCity and, as the independent Salford Star has pointed out, only 16 new jobs for locals. There have been others in the hotel, catering and retail sectors – not exactly big money payers. But on this the Mail and Sun are not expending column inches.

And that hasn’t impressed the Salford Star, which produced an article last Thursday about local rap collective Class Actions and their support for Liverpool fans killed at Hillsborough. The message is short and to the point: “Rip Up The Sun”. Rupe and his downmarket troops are still in the mire down the other end of the East Lancs Road. They won’t do themselves any favours going after folks in Salford.

Losing more sales in the North West? Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bloke.