Tories’ Dead Cat Splat

After the fawning media coverage of Young Dave’s jolly good speech on the EU, the Tories must have been expecting a positive response. After all, the papers with the biggest circulations, such as the Sun and Daily Mail, had been unequivocally supportive. The Maily Telegraph had been there with them, barring Peter Oborne being the obligatory prophet of doom.

Sadly, the Great British Public do not seem to have appreciated the effort that had been put into Cameron’s speech, and the yet greater effort into portraying it as the product of all that was best of Winshton, Margaret Thatcher, and for the preposterously pompous Simon Heffer, Enoch Powell. The pollsters today bring the first post-speech survey. And the news is dire.

YouGov’s daily poll, the latest sample taken entirely after the Cameron speech, shows a small improvement in Tory numbers, apparently at the expense of UKIP, but Labour is holding steady on 43%, a whole 10% in front. That would translate at a General Election into an overall majority for Mil The Younger of 96 seats. The Tories are doing no better than they were this time last week.

Worse news was brought by Mike Smithson at Political Betting this morning (relaying poll results from Populus), as it was also revealed that just 13% of voters said that Young Dave’s intervention would make them more likely to vote Tory, while a larger 16% said it would make them less likely to. A whopping 71% of respondents didn’t care, and thus a moderately sized hint.

Spot the howler in the Labour numbers

So the message from the public is, as ever, that they don’t see the EU as such a big deal. When Cameron proclaims “I will settle the Europe question with an EU referendum”, Liam Fox drools over the PM offering voters a “real choice”, and a sundry craphead at the Express cobbles together “Twenty reasons to cheer leaving the EU”, the reaction out there on the streets is “meh”.

What voters put at the top of their political shopping list is not the EU, but the domestic economy. And the news on that front today is equally grim. Following on the mildly inconvenient news that Channel 4’s Fact Check had rated Young Dave’s claim of “We’re paying down Britain’s debts” as “Fiction”, today has brought the latest GDP figures, which show a 0.3% contraction and a potential triple dip recession.

So those voters seeing the PM, along with neighbour the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the Seventeenth Baronet, and occasional London Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, loudly enjoying their visit to a Davos pizza restaurant where the average cover price was around £45 (wine extra – a lot extra), might not be so impressed with all the hot air expended over the EU.

Cameron should quit screwing around with PR stunts and start doing his job.

Express In Wrong Weather Rao

[Update at end of post]

One hates to have to point out to Daily Express weather “expert” Nathan Rao that he is barking up the wrong tree, but he is doing just that today. While the real weather story is that conditions are about to get milder, windier and wetter, and that a raft of flood alerts are already in place, poor Nathan is still trying to frighten his readers with “Killer Freeze Set To Get Worse”.

Zap! Pow!! Dull!!!

Even the opportunity to educate his audience on the basics of winter conditions – such as a change to milder weather bringing snow on the leading edge of the approaching weather system, due to the already cold air – is passed up as he trowels on the “up to” six inches of snow tomorrow. That this will soon turn to rain and therefore melt away does not interest him.

Contrast Rao’s article with Rob Williams at the Indy: “Nearly 50 flood warnings are in place across Britain as the country prepares for a combination of heavy rain and a rapid thaw of snow and ice. Flood warning have been issued across much of the UK as ice starts to melt and forecasters warn of heavy rain sweeping across the country”. So, for the Express’ “expert”, this is what’s actually happening.

Graphics from metcheck.com

Here’s the Atlantic Jet Stream forecast for tomorrow: the intense south-westerly upper air winds are petering out as they approach Europe, and this means the approaching thaw will come only slowly at first.

More at the Met Office website

Now check out the Met Office synoptic (or pressure) chart for 1200 hours tomorrow. Here, the approaching low pressure area has almost reached the UK but is still slow moving. On the leading edge of that system will be the initial snow, before it turns to rain and the thaw sets in.

Moving on to the corresponding Met Office synoptic chart for Sunday next, you can see a rather more intense low pressure system to the north west of the UK. This will bring strong winds and a succession of perhaps heavy showers, following on the initial frontal system, which will have had more organised rain on it.

And then here is the Atlantic Jet Stream forecast for next Tuesday, showing the upper winds getting properly organised and pushing through over the UK. These will bring yet more weather systems, along with more rain, although temperatures will by this point be relatively mild for the time of year, meaning the climate change denial lobby will quieten down and find something else to complain about.

As the ground is already close to saturation in many areas, the risk of further flooding is therefore somewhere between very likely and a racing certainty. Hopefully by the time that happens, Nathan Rao and his favourite forecasters will have caught up.

In the meantime, if you want the right story on the weather, look in on Zelo Street.

[UPDATE 26 January 1420 hours: Nathan Rao and the Express have caught up with Zelo Street, albeit two days late. Today's front page splash was "Now Britain's On Flood Alert", complete with suitably apocalyptic predictions from none other than Jonathan Powell, now of Vantage Weather Services.

In any case, that the thaw has started is already obvious to those able to indulge in the practice of looking out of the window and seeing the melting snow. But in the meantime, the Express has managed to get two front page stories out of the one weather event, which means even more money for Dirty Des]

Natalija Belova – Actor No More?

The strange story of Lithuanian single mum Natalija Belova has taken another turn since Zelo Street last checked it out (you can see Sunday and Monday’s items HERE, HERE and HERE), as the less scrupulous part of the press has jumped on the bandwagon, and Ms Belova has – possibly not her soundest slice of judgment – put herself on public view by appearing on ITV’s This Morning.

Liz Fraser - talking while not listening

That last happened on Tuesday, by which time the story as first trailed by the Murdoch Sun had already been well and truly filleted, but this did not stop the punditry of Liz Fraser, who was described as a journalist, but is also a regular presence on the show. Ms Fraser told how she recently offered to work a day in a coffee shop for nothing, but then, she can afford to do so.

Meanwhile, the Desmond press had arrived a day late, and didn’t even bother to credit the Sun for the story. But they kept the hate campaign going: “A Clear Case For Reform Of Our Soft Welfare System” thundered the headline, followed by “though the sight of smug, satisfied Ms Belova may make your blood boil save your anger for the Labour government that created this shameful state of affairs”.

Sadly, they weren’t finished there, as a follow-up rant by Chris Roycroft-Davis (who he?) told that “Life’s A Beach For A Benefits Tourist From Lithuania”, which Ms Belova is not, having lived, worked and studied in the UK eight years, adding “mum from Lithuania refuses to work but can afford foreign holidays and designer clothes at the taxpayers’ expense exposes everything that has gone wrong in Britain”.

But she does work, except that apparently doesn’t count: “a cushy part-time job working from home”. And the odd whopper is thrown in, too: “at the age of 30, Natalija effectively opted to take early retirement”. But all the while, Dirty Des’ finest have not stopped to ask why the Mail pulled its version of the story, and why they forgot Ms Belova being spent up on her three credit cards.

Moreover, the actress side of things also got forgotten, but then, perhaps they had advance information: Ms Belova’s CastingCallPro profile, which was edited between the Sun article appearing and Monday afternoon, has now been deleted. A message “Sorry this user is no longer on the system” is returned. Why this should be is a mystery, as her Model Mayhem page is still live.

And that still does not explain why her photo portfolio includes snaps by top press photographers. All that has happened this week is that Natalija Belova has been wheeled out to enable an array of hacks, pundits and presenters to project their own opinions – and prejudices – onto her backstory. Even This Morning did not give her the chance to get more than a few words in edgeways (thanks Liz).

Would it not be expecting too much to ask someone to get the real story on her?

Cameron Gets Grovelling Press

[Update at end of post]

Young Dave finally delivered his jolly good speech on the relationship between the UK and the EU yesterday morning. So today has come the reaction, with the usual suspects in the Fourth Estate queuing up to fawn and grovel at the PM’s feet. For some, mere praise was not enough: Simon “Enoch was right” Heffer even went through the text point by point to provide a biblical reinterpretation.

And, while the Hefferlump was telling Mail readers what Cameron really meant, as if he had just had his first contact with the scriptures, Marx or Keynes, his fellow pundit Max “Hitler” Hastings told that “He fulfilled the foremost duty of a Prime Minister by articulating every anxiety felt by his people about Europe”. How Max knows this when he can’t be arsed listening to anyone else is unclear.

The mood was, by sheer coincidence you understand, more or less identical at the Maily Telegraph, where an editorial proclaimed “At last, voters are trusted to choose Britain’s future”. Like we are every time there is a General or European election, then. Cameron was “promising them something they have long wanted, but have not been given since 1975”, so more projection and invention from the Tel.

And it’s the same at the Murdoch Sun, where political editor Tom Newton Dunn asserts “It will be the first chance an unhappy nation will have to make its voice heard on the EU in 38 years”, while not noticing that a referendum would come in 2017, which is 42 years since the last one. And his projected unhappiness will be as nothing to what will happen when businesses start moving abroad.

The pro-Cameron mood was underscored by The Sun Says, frothing “Mr Cameron, by contrast, said the people must decide ... He wants to slash Brussels interference and put bossy bureaucrats back in their box ... Only this week the EU unveiled Big Brother plans to slap new controls on the media”, so a dose of straightforward dishonesty as well, just to keep the plebs in line.

It was left to Peter Oborne, the bloke who the right-wingers loved when he went after Tone and Pa Broon but would now rather he didn’t speak out of turn now they have their hands on the levers of power, to inject a dose of reality into proceedings. Cameron, he observed, was in a situation rather like that faced by Harold Wilson in the 70s, who offered a referendum mainly to hold the Labour Party together.

From the point Wilson decided to lead the Yes campaign, Labour was split. The fallout led directly to the secession of the “Gang Of Four”, the party lurched to the left, and until “Shagger” Major suffered his own split and Tone arrived, was not considered fit to govern by those who matter – the voters. That is the real prospect awaiting Cameron, no matter how much his speech is talked up.

And that’s a prospect some editors and pundits can’t get their heads around.

[UPDATE 26 January 1545 hours: two days later than everyone else, Dominic Sandbrook has also latched on to the Harold Wilson parallel highlighted by Peter Oborne, telling readers "Beware the ghost of slippery Harold". Sandbrook trowels on the less than comprehensive renegotiation of the UK's terms of accession to the then EEC, but this is well known. He also talks about Wilson being a supreme tactician, which is also true, but fails to see the obvious comparison to Cameron.

And that is down to the fractious nature of Labour then, and the Tories now. All the long-term vision and tacking to some supposed "national interest" (as defined by Daily Mail pundits in the retelling, no doubt) would have counted for nothing if there had been political instability caused by the break-up of one major party and a realignment which would have affected everyone else.

Then Sandbrook observes "the last thing we need is a second Harold Wilson". His recall clearly does not extend to remembering that Wilson kept the UK out of Vietnam, despite the urging otherwise by one of the most persuasive US Presidents in history. Wilson's successors have not fared so well at resisting temptation when it comes to military adventures.

Sandbrook fails to offer any credible alternative prospectus: what would he do to stop the Tory Party breaking apart over this issue? Young Dave has, as party leader, a responsibility to at least try and hold it all together. That the Tory Party is in such a state is not wholly of his doing, and Sandbrook's newspaper would be equally ready to play the other side of the field if Cameron let it fall apart over the same issue that did for Margaret Thatcher and her next three successors]

Dorries v Mensch – Seconds Out

Over at ConservativeHome, the thoughtful and mild mannered Tim Montgomerie was on the lookout for someone to provide feedback to Young Dave’s jolly good speech on the EU. He was in luck, too, securing contributions from recent expat Louise Mensch, and (yes, it’s her again) Mid Bedfordshire MP Nadine Dorries. Moreover, both approved of the Cameron approach.

The fragrant Nadine was particularly effusive: “this speech is audacious and brave. It shines a spotlight on the future under a majority Conservative government” she asserted. Ms Mensch was also happy with what she had heard: “the sound we just heard was Cameron shooting Farage’s fox. This was a very Tory speech. One many in the party have been hoping for years he would make”.

So Monty had the required USP for his “What did you think of David Cameron’s Europe speech?” post, and he duly took to Twitter to proclaim “PM has united @NadineDorriesMP and @LouiseMensch. Both write for @ConHome welcoming his speech”, and signing off with the hashtag “#UnitedConservativeParty”. This was initially well received.

Indeed, Matthew d’Ancona was of pleasant good humour, telling Monty that it was “like a Tory Woodstock out there”. Sadly, though, the mood of peace and love was not to last, as Nadine Dorries was for reasons best known to herself not happy. “If Cameron pledged to kill all firstborns, Mensch would welcome it” she snapped in reply. Monty tried to pass off this singularly unfortunate outburst lightly.

He simply observed “Ouch!” while dodging the thought that Ms Dorries had just alluded to an event recorded in the Old Testament (ie it’s in the Torah) book of Exodus – what is known as Passover, or in Hebrew, Pesach – in order to have a go at someone whose husband is Jewish. The Dorries Tweet has not been deleted, and so it must be assumed that she stands by it.

Fortunately, Louise Mensch took the attack in her stride, administering the economical and pointed pay-off line “Nadine isn’t a Tory”. And this is, strictly speaking, true, as Ms Dorries remains suspended from the Conservative Party. What George Young, charged as Chief Whip with considering the case for re-admitting her to the fold, will make of such behaviour remains to be seen.

After all, perhaps it’s no more than a momentary loss of composure by Ms Dorries. In any case, as Mrs Merton might have asked, why would she be jealous of a successful author and well-paid columnist who is married to a millionaire businessman and inhabits an exclusive address in New York City?

Helicopter Crash – What The Investigation Found

[Update at end of post]

Just three and a half hours after a helicopter impacted the jib of a tower crane at St George’s Wharf, Vauxhall, last Wednesday, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) had a team at the scene. From their thorough research, we now have rather more information on the events leading up to the accident. The AAIB “Special Bulletin” S1/2013 can be read HERE [.pdf].

The Augusta 109 registered G-CRST, and operating under the call-sign of Rocket 2, had taken off (or “lifted”) from Redhill Aerodrome at 0735 hours, had crossed central London, and arrived overhead Elstree Aerodrome at 0749. However, the pilot concluded that conditions were not suitable to attempt landing, and two minutes later he was heading back towards Redhill.

Only at 0756 hours did the pilot ask if Battersea Heliport was open. He suggested to Air Traffic Control (ATC) that he would prefer to divert there. While ATC checked with Battersea, the pilot was asked to hold. The helicopter, which had been heading towards the heliport, turned and headed east over the river towards Vauxhall Bridge (this was not unusual, and he was cleared to London Bridge if required).

What was not usual, though, was that the helicopter’s altitude, which was well over 1,000 feet clear of the Houses of Parliament, had fallen to less than 800 feet when it turned to head back down river. Its altitude fell further, to less than 600 feet Above Mean Sea Level (AMSL), or 200 feet below the level of the tower crane’s jib, before ascending to almost 800 feet on reaching a point abeam of St George’s Wharf.

At this point, G-CRST turned right, which was consistent with the pilot having been informed that Battersea was open, and that his request to divert there had been approved (the right turn would have continued until the helicopter was heading back west towards the Heliport). But it was not high enough to clear the jib of the tower crane, and hence the impact with it.

Why the pilot wished to divert to Battersea is not clear. The helicopter was not short of fuel: there was approximately 500 kilos of Jet A1 still on board at the time of accident. Also unexplained is the disregarded advice of the client – who was to have been collected at Elstree – not to take off in view of observed weather conditions there. And then there was a series of text messages.

The pilot either read or sent nine of these during the course of the flight (a tenth, to him from the operator, remained unread). It’s probable that he decided that he could manage this additional workload and still maintain full control. After all, he was vastly experienced and knew the area well. And, had he not been ordered to hold, he wouldn’t have been anywhere near that tower crane.

Sadly, circumstances conspired otherwise. I’ll watch for further news from AAIB.

[UPDATE 26 January 1850 hours: on the heels of the AAIB report has come a "Safety Notice" from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). Its release yesterday is not a coincidence.

Headed "Flight crew distraction", it is addressed to flight operations personnel and pilots. The Introduction includes "Several recent accidents have highlighted the potential for flight crew to be distracted by conducting non-essential activities in the flight crew compartment ... such activities include ... the use of personal wireless communication devices".

Paragraph 2.4, on the potentially critical consequences of losing situational awareness, should also be read and digested, especially the second bullet point, "altitude or course deviations". The helicopter involved in the St George's Wharf crane impact had descended (see above) to less than 600 feet AMSL and around 200 feet below the height of the crane jib. The pilot then gained height but it was not sufficient to clear the jib.

The pilot had also, as I noted above, sent and received a number of text messages during the flight. The CAA Notice is current until the beginning of February next year, and in being addressed to operations staff as well as pilots, is conceding that, in causing distraction to flight crew, it takes two to tango. The operator of that helicopter should take note]

EU Press Control Plot? Maybe Not

“Leveson: EU wants power to sack journalists” proclaimed the Maily Telegraph’s point man in Brussels, Bruno Waterfield, yesterday. The idea that those meddling Brussels bureaucrats were going to take control of press regulation was a dream come true for the anti-EU brigade. And anything that is too good to be true should cause anyone with brain engaged to stop and think.

Because not only is there no Leveson connection, there is also no move to give the EU power over hiring and firing of hacks: Waterfield’s talk of “setting up state regulators with draconian powers” is scaremongering baloney of the crudest kind. So what has actually happened? Well, a “high-level group to discuss freedom and pluralism of the media across the EU” has been established.

Yes, the “freedom and pluralism” got filtered out by the Europhobes. Nobody should be surprised. But what has this group achieved? That question is answered by its report submitted on Monday to the European Commission (EC) [.pdf]. Note that the report has not been issued by the EC: the EC has not responded to it, so there are no proposals to implement part or all of its recommendations.

But let’s just address some of the flagrantly dishonest claims made by Waterfield in his Tel piece: there is no proposal to “rein in the press” (note that the report quotes Article 11.2 of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, “the freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected”, on its first page), and nor is there any urging of “tight press regulation”, or “state regulation”.

The EC has not taken a position on the Leveson recommendations, and as these are a matter for the UK, does not intend to do so. There is no proposal to put “Brussels”, or indeed any EU body, in control of press regulation in any member state. So what has been suggested? EC Vice President Neelie Kroes gives a hint with “Ensuring the independence of regulators across the member states and their cooperation”.

Ah, “independence of regulators”. Not “state control”, then? No: the recommendations talk of acting “to protect media freedom and pluralism”. And “The EU should raise the issue of journalistic freedom in all international fora where human rights and democracy are discussed”. Plus the one the Tel doesn’t like: “All EU countries should have independent media councils”.

How “Independent media councils” can be centrally run from Brussels is something that the usual suspects, like Douglas Carswell, Philip Davies and Nigel Farage, and less principled hacks like Bruno Waterfield (and the loathsome Toby Young, plus their pals at the Mail and Express) prefer not to address. After all, that would mean admitting that they were advancing a seriously false prospectus.

Thus the freedom of the UK press, to peddle any old rubbish it can get away with.

Super Soaraway Sorry – Four Times

[Update at end of post]

Having to withdraw allegations – more prosaically publish a “correction” or “clarification” – is an occupational hazard for newspapers. On occasion, a paper might have to yield to its target on more than one occasion. But to have to back down four times in three months suggests an attack campaign that has gone seriously wrong. So which paper is it, and who’s their target?

No prizes for guessing that the rag in question is the home of Rupe’s downmarket troops, the Sun. And its target, ever since the paper decided it would about turn and go in to bat for Young Dave, has been Pa Broon. The Murdoch press could not as much as think of leaving Brown be after he left Downing Street, especially given his continuing presence in politics.

So out came the attack doggies, led last September by the loathsome Toby Young – whose services the paper has wisely dispensed with in the meantime – talking of “Toffs who play at being comrades”. Tobes managed not to mention that Brown’s fees for his speaking engagements do not go into his own pocket, but help fund the charitable work done by him and wife Sarah.

Four days after the “clarification” on Tobes’ piece, there was another issued over an article last July that managed not to mention that Brown’s staff expenses also did not go into his own pocket. This time, the Sun was additionally persuaded – maybe there was more than just the one solicitor’s letter this time – to tell its readers that the former PM had renounced the Prime Ministerial pension to which he is entitled.

So was that all? Sadly for the Murdoch faithful, no it wasn’t: this month brought yet another “clarification”, admitting that Brown did not claim accommodation expenses when visiting London on parliamentary business. This time, there was the addition of a brass neck component, as they blamed the Tories. So that’s an admission of using a partisan single source for news items, then.

And it wasn’t over, even then: yesterday brought the fourth “clarification”, over the Sun’s story alleging that Brown’s press conference at the UN was cancelled because only one reporter turned up. It was actually canned as he was delayed attending another meeting which was paying tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi. That’s another story they didn’t bother checking out before publishing.

On top of all that, Rupe’s downmarket troops bring the pretence that they are actually bothered about getting the right story before putting the boot in: “Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes”. That’s one fresh and steaming pile of bullshit for you.

All they’re striving for is to smear Gordon Brown. No change there, then.

[UPDATE 14 March 1400 hours: and still the apologies keep coming. Today has brought the retraction of assertions made by veteran hack Trevor Kavanagh - recently roped in to sit on the body that will govern who gets to be on "Son of PCC" - that Brown had accused the Sun of blagging his son's medical records.

There you have it: "We were wrong ... We withdraw these criticisms and apologise". How many more climbdowns will there have to be before Rupe's downmarket troops start to behave themselves? Or is no consideration given that the paper may be spraying its remaining credibility up the wall?]

Calm Down Dick, You’re An Arsehole

Most of the papers have today included a tribute to film director, restaurant critic (he bought his own meals) and latter day insurance salesman Michael Winner, who has passed aged 77. While some of the reminiscences are of the kind that are to be expected – his combination of surface rudeness and underlying good humour – the obituaries are notable for what they have left out.

Michael Winner, guv? Er, schtum ... schtum!

Every tribute has included reference to the Death Wish series of films, where Winner directed Charles Bronson on a journey of often violent vigilantism. But Winner also made some less violent and genuinely enjoyable films, too, notably in harness with another larger than life presence, that of Oliver Reed. Ollie was teamed with a young Michael Crawford in The Jokers.

The implausible plot is that the two are brothers (seriously) who intend to steal the Crown Jewels. Winner managed to secure a high grade cast list – rather like a Who’s Who of late 60s UK acting talent – and Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais (The Likely Lads, Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen Pet) to script it. Crawford’s specialities included pretending (pre-troubles) to be an Irish Terrorist (“this is Red George”).

Reed stayed with Winner to make an offbeat World War 2 PoW comedy, Hannibal Brooks. Here, Ollie gets to break out of his prison camp, but insists on taking along with him an elephant he has been caring for at the local zoo. There is no gratuitous violence, but it’s good fun anyway. Both those films are interesting period pieces, but Death Wish probably paid more bills.

But, as Clive James might have said, I digress: the one other item that the obits have missed out occurred in 1994, and one might have thought that the Daily Mail and Sun would have mentioned it, if only because it involved a tedious and unfunny hack who has worked at both titles. I refer, of course, to Richard Littlejohn, and the very first show in his Live And Uncut series for Sky.

Dick had invited two lesbians – and rather obviously so he could indulge his own version of tolerance and understanding. He also had Michael Winner on the panel, and this proved to be his undoing, as Winner handed him his sorry arse on a plate: “shameful exhibition of vulgarity directed towards a minority ... the lesbians have come over with considerable dignity and you’ve come over as an arsehole”.

By this point, Littlejohn may have been regretting (a) doing his show live, (b) inviting Winner, and (c) doing it all in the age when someone, somewhere would be recording the event for posterity. And, despite the Fourth Estate closing ranks and managing not to mention the incident, many will remember Michael Winner as the man who correctly identified an arsehole when he saw one.

Well batted that man!

Sorry Mo Farah, Your Fifteen Minutes Is Up

Remember that Saturday evening at the Olympic stadium? First Greg Rutherford, then Jessica Ennis, and finally Mo Farah brought triumph for Team GB. It seemed that, as commentators explained that Mo was short for Mohamed, and that Farah, born in Somalia, was a follower of The Prophet, we were finally able to think of Muslims as people, rather than a cipher to be demonised.

Sadly, it seems, Farah has had his fifteen minutes: in the aftermath of the hostage taking at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria, it is back to casting Muslims as the bad guys, getting frightened about Them being Over Here, and paranoid visions of the new order in countries like Egypt visiting terror and maybe genocide on the weak and defenceless west.

And this cheap and nasty frightener is coming from the Fourth Estate’s best known pincer movement, the Murdoch Sun and the Daily Mail acting in concert. Going in to bat for these two bastions of moderation and tolerance are obedient Rupe conduit Trevor Kavanagh, and Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips, which tells you all you need to know about the content.

These two seasoned purveyors of prejudice each work their chosen strand: Kavanagh has recycled the McCarthy-era “reds under the bed” concept into Muslims Over Here And In Our Midst. We must be frightened of blokes with beards who fail to dutifully go down the pub and get wasted. And they pray a lot more than they should. Plus those funny hats are a dead giveaway.

Mad Mel, on the other hand, chooses the broader canvas of geopolitical analysis, or rather she would if only she could stick to keeping her brain engaged and not going off on a jibbering rantfest as soon as anyone mentions the Arab Spring or Barack Obama. The Algerian business, she asserts, is not some mere isolated incident, but “a war of religion being conducted against the free world in order to destroy it”.

Sadly for Mel, Jason Burke at the deeply subversive Guardian is there to puncture her overinflated balloon: the “Islamist threat” was non-existent at the Olympic Games and the US Presidential Election. Local populations have turned against exploiters of the al-Qaeda franchise when they realise that the participants are just “thugs, criminals and fanatics pursuing interests that had nothing in common with their own”.

Rob Ford at the Staggers also weighs in to dismantle Kavanagh’s paranoia-inducing rubbish, especially the sheer dishonesty about the London Borough of Tower Hamlets (allegedly “staunchly Muslim” because around a third of the population are followers of The Prophet). As Ford points out, whatever Muslim populations do is wrong and shows some kind of evil intent in the eyes of the Sun.

But what can’t be corrected here is the returning torrent of Islamophobia. Sadly.

Daily Mail Playing Both Sides Of The Twitter Mob

Since the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre gave up trying to frighten his readers against the online world, not only has his web presence grown hugely, but so has the understanding of his obedient hackery of just how powerful a medium this can be for stirring up the mob. In the olden days, the Mail could not have pulled off the triumph of Sachsgate. Put simply, they know what they’re doing here.

Who the f*** are you calling ugly, c***?!?

They certainly knew what they were doing when they hit on the idea of using almost invisible and terminally desperate nobodies like Samantha “I’m so sodding beautiful” Brick as hit-bait. And in turn, they knew that those hitting on the bait would read what Ms Brick was putting out there: this, too, could acquire a momentum of its own. And one of “beautiful” Samantha’s targets was historian Mary Beard.

“When the acid-tongued TV critic A.A. Gill wrote a highly uncomplimentary review recently suggesting TV presenter Mary Beard should be kept away from the cameras because of the way she looks, I can’t say I was entirely surprised” she asserted, under the not accidentally placed headline “Sorry, some women ARE too ugly for TV”. Sam concluded “The plain truth is that Ms Beard is too ugly for TV”.

The Mail carried on its attack on the supremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic historian following her appearance on BBC Question Time recently, characterising her as “academic ... historian ... Cambridge University classics professor” and clearly taking the side of an audience member who challenged Ms Beard over the issue of migrants living in the town of Boston.

What all of that would do is not hard to fathom, unless the Mail Online staff don’t bother reading some of the comments they let through. And the effect this can have on the target of the unpleasantness has also been well documented in the same paper, as Liz Jones recently asked “Do we want a world of mob rule, where the bullies win and the weak have no voice?”

Indeed, reporting the ferocity of social media storms is a Mail Online speciality: only two days ago there was “N-Dubz fans launch Twitter hate campaign against girls who accused rapper Dappy of spitting at them”. But there is also the ability of the Dacre attack doggies to play both sides of the field, and so today they have about turned and decided there is more hit-bait in defending Ms Beard.

“Internet trolls target academic and presenter Mary Beard over her looks following Question Time appearance” thundered an outraged Mail headline today. Very good, Dacre doggies, and exactly who started the attack on her looks? That would be your contributor, in your paper. And who cast Ms Beard as the baddie over the Question Time clash? That would also be your hacks. In your paper.

Paul Dacre rules over a cesspool of stinking hypocrisy. But you knew that already.

Obama’s Homage To Dr King

Today has been Inauguration Day in Washington, DC, as Veep Joe Biden and then President Barack Obama have been publicly sworn in for their second terms (the actual ceremony, which had to be performed by January 20, was performed in private yesterday, but the public ceremonial could not take place on a Sunday). There have been songs, and of necessity, speeches.

Obama is inevitably compared on occasions such as these to Martin Luther King Jr., and the parallel was especially marked, as it was also MLK Day. It’s true that Obama can turn on the soaring rhetoric on set-piece occasions such as this one, but his speech will be remembered more for the themes that ran through it, “We the people” and “Our journey is not complete”.

The latter is where the King connection comes it, as it echoes Dr King’s very last speech, at Mason Temple in Memphis, TN., which included the memorable “I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land”.

One day after he gave that speech, King was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. His sense of foreboding was right. But he was also right that African-Americans would get to the promised land: the USA has elected its first African-American President, and last November it re-elected him, in the teeth of opposition that has at times gone beyond the merely hostile.

But no, although I am an admirer of Barack Obama, he does not match the sheer electrifying power of Martin Luther King’s oratorical presence. Just to give an example, here is the video of that last speech in Memphis, made the day before he was assassinated. Obama is presidential, and he is charismatic, but his oratory is not in the same league – although, of course, it does not need to be.

Because the people have got to the promised land.

Delingpole Taunts The Disabled

It is part of the mantra of the Libertarian fringe that the state must be shrunk. So anything the state does, it should either do less or not at all. Nothing, in this analysis, is considered off limits. It therefore should come as no surprise, then, to see James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole turning his sneerpower on the disabled, at least those who have the temerity to speak up for themselves.

Showing that there are no limits to Del Boy’s trolling, he took to Twitter to ask “Is it just me – or do the most warped, bitter people on Twitter all have ‘Spartacus’ embroidered across their picture. What’s it about?” in the style of his favourite media outlet Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Del knows the answer – he’s just using the disabled for sport.

And, to his evident delight, he found kindred spirits out there in the Twittersphere, including one who replied “the woman who wrote Spartacus report thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to threaten women with hammer attack”. He retweeted that one, such was his combination of pleasure and ignorance: the Spartacus Report was authored by nine named people and several others (clue in the name, Del).

Then, having set the bar low by quoting that smear, Delingpole doubles down by trivialising the problems faced by so many disabled people. After being prompted with the information that Spartacus led a slave revolt, he sneers “Ah. That’ll be it. They’re angry about being enslaved by the injustice of free taxpayers’ money. Who wouldn’t, eh?” which is priceless even by his standards.

Having done his groundwork yesterday evening, Del Boy returned to the subject today, exclaiming in mock horror (and singularly unfortunate language) “My timeline is full of froth-mouthed disability rights activists spitting blood. Wow! They make animal rights Nazis look almost reasonable”. The first reply to that Tweet should have told him something, but he clearly wasn’t for listening.

Delingpole admits that he has “just poked a stick in the disability rights wasp nest” but carries on “Among the worst, I find, are ME sufferers”. So he admits that there are people suffering from ME, but expects them to allow him to use them for his personal entertainment, while inferring that they should not leave their opinions on his intellectually pure timeline, thanks very much.

Del also manages to categorise such people as “the shrill victim lobby”. He then asserts that his causing annoyance to ME sufferers clinches his victory: “Thanks for proving my point re ME sufferers”. The pay-off line he garners in reply, though, does not cause him to stop and think. After all, that isn’t the point: Delingpole’s got it into his head that his money is going to someone who shouldn’t get it.

And they get to access Twitter and talk back. What’s Del Boy’s world coming to?

The Natalija Belova Story Unravels

[Update at end of post]

The exclusive revelation in yesterday’s Sun that a Lithuanian single mother was on benefits, on an apparently taxpayer funded spending spree, and over here, was too tempting to allow the Murdoch press to have it all to itself. So the Mail decided to lift the story and, in the process, add its own rant-provoking embellishments. And it is these that have been its downfall.

Facts?!? Who f***ing cares about those, c***?!?

“A single mother from Lithuania who lives a life of luxury at the expense of Britain's taxpayers takes home more than £1,000 a month in handouts which funds her love of designer clothes and holidays” is the first paragraph of the Mail piece, published without by-line, and it is characteristically and blatantly untrue. But it speaks to the agenda of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, which is the priority here.

And, as with the Sun article, there is no mention of Ms Belova being an actress, nor that she has easily searchable CVs out there which confirm the fact, as well as her recent studies at Kingston University, from where she graduated with a BA in Business Administration in 2011. But where the Mail lets it slip is not in the body of its copy, but in the photographs it has used.

The Dacre attack doggies have to show that they are different, so those four photos provided by news agency INS were out. In came two photos from a different source, the copyright shown being held by one Nicholas Razzell. Sound familiar? Nick Razzell is a regular member of the High Court press snapper pack. He has advised representatives of the British Press Photographers’ Association (BPPA).

Razzell helped organise a last minute press pen before the BPPA delegation appeared before the Leveson Inquiry. Put simply, Nick Razzell does not just go around asking benefit-claiming single mums if they’d like him to take their picture. He is a pro, and he does snapping for a living. Natalija Belova did not just appear in his portfolio by chance.

Spot the difference: before ...

Nor did Razzell just happen across Ms Belova in Fuerteventura back in 2008, the time and location of the second of those photos. Either there is some personal connection (less likely), or she was otherwise worthy of him taking time out to photograph her (more likely). The Mail, by using Razzell’s photos, has blown the lid on its own conceit: no wonder nobody wanted their by-line on that piece.

... and after yesterday's edit

Meanwhile, Ms Belova has been at work editing her entry on CastingCallPro: she has subtly amended her first name from Natalija to the more usual Natalia. That can only be in an attempt to head off any searches resulting from the Sun and Mail articles, but she’ll have to do better than that. And so will the Mail, along with an explanation of how benefit-claiming single mothers have their own portfolio.

Time to come clean, press people. You’ve been rumbled once again.

[UPDATE 22 January 1310 hours: my thanks to the commenters who have taken time out to update me on this story. It seems that ITV's This Morning was also taken in - one might have thought they would stop and think after Philip Schofield's encounter with Young Dave backfired on them - but one media outlet has had second thoughts.

Yes, after jumping on the bandwagon and stoking up the mob, the Mail has pulled its version of the Sun's anti-EU and scrounger bashing hatchet job (the latter is still live as I type). No reason has been given, but then, none ever is by Dacre's finest]

Who Set Up The Sun?

As I pointed out earlier, the Sun’s supposed “exclusive” featuring Lithuanian actress Natalija Belova presses all the right buttons: EU bashing, benefit scrounger exposing, and crafty foreigners who come over here and, er, work part time while bringing up a three year old daughter. But, as must have been obvious to anyone checking out the story, the Murdoch hacks did not just stumble on her.

So who pointed Rupe’s downmarket troops in the direction of Ms Belova? Well, another look at Dulcie Pearce’s story reveals that all four of the photos featured are reproduced under the copyright of INS News Agency. This organisation, based near Reading, provides copy to other media outlets, and, in its own words, enjoys a “reputation for getting the big exclusives”.

INS has a features department, headed by Tom Hendry. Recognise the name? Hendry has done his time as news editor of first the Daily Mirror, then the Sunday Express and Mail On Sunday. But he is not a Murdoch man. Even so, it’s not conceivable that he or his staff would pitch a story like this one and somehow forget to tell whoever was buying that the subject was an actress.

A more likely explanation is that Hendry supplied the photos on Ms Belova’s behalf, and that the “story” was correctly transmitted to the paper, which decided to try and get away with not mentioning her occupation. I am leaning towards this sequence of events, as Dulcie Pearce (hat tip to Martin O’Neill aka @DrNostromo) has form for the blatant fabrication of Sun shock horror scare stories.

The same author was on hand when the paper published two articles about young mums who had emigrated from the UK to the western USA. Both had young daughters (one was 8, the other 7) who were being given botox and fillers. One had allegedly tattooed eyebrows on her daughter after a former boyfriend had shown her how to wield a tattoo gun.

Needless to say, this pile of steaming bullpucky set media bullshit detectors going long and loud, and soon it had been shown that there was nobody living in the locations described with the names given. So it’s looking rather like the Natalija Belova story was another Dulcie Pearce steamer. Yes, Ms Belova is a real person, but most of the rest has been selectively quoted to order.

And almost everyone benefits (as it were): Natalija Belova raises her profile, she and INS get a nice little payday, the Murdoch agenda is satisfied, and the Sun readership gets the collective arse conned off of it once again. The ones not benefiting, of course, are the single mums working hard to bring money in while bringing up little ones, who are left to get spat on and abused by all those Sun readers.

There are no depths to which the Murdoch press will not sink in order to sell papers.

Super Soaraway Benefits Story Stitch-Up

As if in a perfect storm, the Murdoch Sun – always on the look-out for anyone it can smear as a “scrounger”, as well as single mothers and anything EU related – has hit the jackpot: a Lithuanian single mum who is living on benefits, and who appears not to be fussed about it. And she’s going on holiday to Malaga. And she buys “designer clothes”. And we’re paying for it all.

Except that, when this supposed “exclusive” is subjected to a little factual analysis, we aren’t paying for all of it, and the “immigrant” in the story has been in the UK for the best part of eight years. We know this as Natalija Belova’s CV is available online (hat tip to @chunkymark via Rich Peppiatt). And from that CV, we then discover that Ms Belova is an actress.

Add to that the usual deliberate mistake in the Sun story, asserting that Ms Belova’s “Weekly Cash” includes the Housing Benefit that is paid directly to her landlord, and the mention that she has three credit cards, on which she is at present making a minimum monthly repayment, and her other skills – such as the six languages she speaks, four of them fluently – and the picture starts to change.

The taxpayer didn’t fund her trip to Spain (which, given the availability of low cost air travel and the time of the year she went, may not have been so expensive anyway), it didn’t fund her trip to Lithuania recently, and it isn’t funding her wardrobe. The only item of interest in the story is that working less than 16 hours a week but then moving to a full time job can mean the loss of benefits. Like we didn’t know.

But what Rupe’s downmarket troops have done – and, as Rich has said, it’s inconceivable they did not Google her name and find out who she was – is provide a free promo for a savvy actress to showcase herself, while getting paid to read from the Sun’s approved anti-EU and benefit bashing script. They didn’t just stumble over Natalija Belova by accident.

Meanwhile, the comments below the article, though at a particularly low level of linguistic competence and geo-political awareness, are as the Sun would want, baying, frothing, ranting, xenophobic, hateful, and above all indignant. But the story is a cheap and crude pre-prepared and scripted stitch-up, and the Murdoch press should come clean and explain themselves.

Not that they will, of course. Working for Rupert Murdoch means never having to say you’re sorry.

Climate Denialists Love The Cold

As the New Year dawned, much of the UK enjoyed comparatively mild conditions, as it had through the Christmas period. This was not only good for those with one eye on the cost of heating, but it also ensured the silence of the climate change denial fringe, at least on one subject. Booker and Delingpole would have to find other subjects on which to unload their scorn and bile.

Then temperatures fell, and late last week we all saw the snow. With remarkable coincidence, Christopher Booker was on to it like a shot: “I looked out of the window on Friday morning to see that 6in of global warming had turned my Somerset garden into a winter wonderland”. Spent Thursday sleeping, then, Chris. Then readers get the usual guff about him knowing everything and scientists nothing.

A similar line has been taken by James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, as his headline reads “Deddy. What is this strange white stuff falling from the sky?” which must be achingly funny for those of Del Boy’s fans who want to talk as posh as him (Sid and Doris Bonkers). And both these august pillars of climate change denial are after the same target.

As with any time there is a snowfall, David Viner gets it in the neck. Back in March 2000, he ventured the prospect that “within a few years winter snowfall will become ‘a very rare and exciting event’”. Note that he did not define “a few”, and thus his hostage to fortune: Del and Booker, who know more than all those rotten scientists put together, have defined it for him. But only when it snows.

But even as this dysfunctional duo is baying in celebration, the true level of their much-vaunted knowledge is let slip. Booker asserts “no one in the world actually knows what global temperatures will be even next month”. Bullshit. We can say with some precision and certainly what global temperatures will be. What we cannot say with any certainty is the temperature for individual towns or cities.

Delingpole fares little better: he cites Anthony Watts in claiming that December 2012 was some kind of record month for snowfall, but manages to miss (a) we didn’t have very much in most of the UK, (b) snow cover and volume are not the same thing, and (c) the graph that Watts cites shows a significant negative anomaly for 1978-9, which was the last really severe winter to hit the UK (and it snowed a lot).

And both Booker and Delingpole manage to miss what Viner also said: “Heavy snow will return occasionally ... but when it does we will be unprepared ... snow will probably cause chaos in 20 years’ time”. How did they miss that? After all, Booker has recently read “scores of books, hundreds of scientific papers and thousands of blog posts”. He can’t be just cherry-picking, can he? It rather looks like he can.

So keen to crow that they score two own goals. No change there, then.

Top Six – January 20

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, there’s blog research to do. So there.

6 Child Abuse – Tom Watson Proved Right Again Even the Mail reported on Operation Fernbridge, the Met’s attempt to figure what went on at the former Elm Guest House in Barnes. It was nothing to do with North Wales, nothing to do with Jimmy Savile, and everything to do with ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

5 Building Blacklist Brings Media Silence The use of a blacklist by the construction industry, including public sector contracts such as at the Olympic Park, was revealed. Most of the papers said nothing. Nobody should be surprised.

4 Toby Jug – What’s Not In The Eye This post from September 2011 on the loathsome Toby Young was brought back to prominence, thanks to the advocacy of Tom at BorisWatch. Tobes still deserves all the stick he gets – and more.

3 Helicopter Crash – What We Know After the accident in central London, we looked at the probable cause, and brought the usual reminder that this should not put anyone off flying.

2 Dacre Goes After The RSPCA The Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor, having failed to get Channel 4 over the Big Fat Quiz Of 2012, set his attack doggies on the RSPCA. A lot of Mail readers support the charity. The thought entered yet again that Dacre may be losing his touch – and his grip on editorial power.

1 Milo And His Little Kernel Milo Yiannopoulos, who styles himself an entrepreneur and runs the Kernel Mag, ordered a hatchet job on Zelo Street. Here’s why this sad creep has no room to call anyone out about anything – and why those working for him should make sure they get paid regularly.

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

Gilligan And The C-Word

[Update at end of post]

Even before he strides into City Hall for his first day as Bozza’s new cycling commissioner, Andrew “transcription error” Gilligan is being dogged by two inconveniences he is not going to merely wish away. One of these is the amount of public money he will trouser for the honour, which will probably be around £20k per annum per day of that “part time” week he’ll be on.

C for Crikey as well, chaps! And Cripes!!

And the other is C for Cronyism. There is no getting away from it: from the moment that The Scoop broke the story the other day, pointing out that this would be the second time that Bozza had given his trusted media hatchet man a job, the previous occasion being after the BBC had decided they could get along without him after he dropped them in the mire over his note-taking on the Iraq dossier.

Johnson biographer Sonia Purnell did not go as far as using the C-Word, but she did pitch the phrase “Boris’s Buddies”. As she points out, Gilligan’s “cycling CV may not be as impressive, say, as some of the experts and professionals at the London Cycling Campaign and elsewhere”. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t do the job, but that there are others apparently better qualified.

Alex Hern at the Staggers was not so circumspect: cronyism it was. Gilligan’s coverage of London’s politics “has been characterised by partisan spin”. I do like Alex’s tendency to understatement. There was none of that sort of thing, though, at Political Scrapbook, with Gilligan confirmed as Johnson’s “media hatchet man”, with his pursuit of Ken Livingstone “bordering on the obsessive”. Amen.

Gilligan did no better with the deeply subversive Guardian either, with talk of “fresh cronyism claims”, and references to the earlier appointments of Ray Lewis and Veronica Wadley. The routinely mischievous Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy was equally unimpressed, noting that Gilligan has previously been less than totally enthusiastic about the cycling lobby.

And before the protests start along the lines of “they’re all left-wing”, well, there has been very little comment from the right-leaning part of the media and blogosphere, apart from Ross Lydall’s almost discreetly promoted blog for the Standard, and Gilligan’s own excuse notes for the Maily Telegraph. Perhaps that has something to do with Gilligan’s reputation for dodgy journalism.

Exactly what this means you can see in full and graphic detail HERE as The Blog That Peter Wrote forensically takes apart Gilligan’s shoddy work over the investigation into a candidate for the Police and Crime Commissioner post in Lincolnshire. The impression is given that Gilligan is less than thorough in his own work, and unwilling or unable to acknowledge the fact when called out for it.

Is he worth £40k a year for two days’ work? I’m glad I’m not a London taxpayer.

[UPDATE 1915 hours: Beaubodor has produced two photo edits (see them HERE and HERE) which explore the parallel between Bozza (and his pals) and Silvio "Duce" Berlusconi.

I think this may have something to do with the perceived level of less than totally principled behaviour surrounding the London mayoralty right now. Further than that, I couldn't possibly comment]