Tories Abandon Lancashire

While the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate sneers about the prospects for Mil The Younger succeeding Young Dave as Prime Minister, it appears to have taken its eye off the ball that is currently in play, that being local elections next week. And one of the authorities up for grabs is Lancashire County Council, which the Tories won during a period of Labour unpopularity in 2009.

Labour had controlled this authority for the previous 24 years, only to lose 28 seats out of 44 previously held, with the Tories adding 20 to give them 51 of the 84 available. The Lib Dems, who won ten in 2009, will be hoping to escape with some of their representation intact. But the Tories’ behaviour towards council leader Geoff Driver, and lack of big name visitors, suggests they have already given up.

The row between Education Secretary Michael “Oiky” Gove and Driver should have been resolved by a meeting, only for this to be called off by Gove’s staff, who excused the action as necessary due to the period of pre-election purdah. But the two should have met much earlier: it’s not as if there was both the opportunity, and the sign that all was not well with the relationship.

In fact, far from that relationship improving, Driver has now written to Gove effectively telling him to call off his “academy brokers” from any further activity in the county, as he asserts “the activities of your officials in Lancashire is having a detrimental and counterproductive effect on the education of our children”. And, in case “Oiky” doesn’t get the hint, he goes further.

“I have contacted all head teachers and offered support from county officers to attend any meetings that your officials arrange ... I should therefore be obliged if you would instruct your officials to suspend their activities in Lancashire until we have had the opportunity to meet to discuss how we can best move forward”. And the National Association of Head Teachers is equally unimpressed.

Its general secretary has noted “The activity of some academy brokers falls far short of any acceptable standard of conduct and has even been shown by Ofsted to stand in the way of school improvement”. If the Tories do really badly in Lancashire, one person who should take part of the rap, but who will not, is Michael Gove. In the meantime, Labour is encouraging supporters from outside the county to help out.

So folks from Greater Manchester, which has no local elections this time, are travelling north to help the party. Miliband himself has been campaigning in towns such as Chorley. But the Tory big guns are conspicuous by their absence. Not that you’ll see this in the national papers, though: they’re happily playing yah-boo at Miliband and thereby not looking at where the action is taking place.

And next week, they’re more than likely to get one very nasty shock.

Delingpole Goes Totally Gaga

It had to happen: all those articles and blogposts which had advanced his cause not a jot, and the refusal of anyone who really matters to take him seriously, have sent the increasingly beleaguered figure of James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole over the top in some style, as he has proclaimed “'Global warming' was always far too important to be left to the scientists”.

Definitely not even a little fair and balanced

Although, of course, Del Boy is still able to muster a set of Delingpole Patented Air Quotes (tm), much of his latest rant attempts to advance the idea that most of those ranged against him are “scientist manqué” arts graduates, as opposed to arts graduates such as Himself Personally Now, who are not “scientist manqué” at all, because he is not “impressed by men in white lab coats”.

Del Boy asserts that he and those of like mind in the arts graduate category have “done so with confidence not because we're scientists but, rather, precisely because we're not scientists”. He underscores this by quoting Lawrence Solomon, who is a fossil fuel lobbyist, and who, by sheer coincidence, decries man made climate change and is against both nuclear and hydro-electric power.

Solomon sneers at scientists, but then sells the pass in no style at all as he tells “Any child can understand that the Romans conquered the world when temperatures were warmer than today, that the Dutch invented the ice skates during the Little Ice Age five hundred years ago, and that melting glaciers off Newfoundland a century ago produced the iceberg that sunk the Titanic”.

Icebergs, as the passengers and crew of the Titanic discovered, are a phenomenon that occurs as a result of temperatures rising not as a result of climate change, but winter giving way to spring: the collision and sinking occurred in April 1912. Solomon confuses seasonal with longer term changes in temperature, and to anyone but the denial lobby this howler should be blindingly obvious.

Delingpole, however, carries on undaunted, asserting that the climate change debate isn’t about science, but is “just another proxy conflict in the culture wars: between those who believe in limited government, low taxation (etc.)” ... and “those who believe in an ever-enlarging state (etc.)”. And he is wrong once again: that is what he and his pals are trying to turn it into, as with so much else.

But Del Boy is right about one thing: “It's not a science degree you need to negotiate the complexities of this tottering edifice of propaganda, tortured data, lies, misinformation, political wrangling, rampant greed, corporatist manoeuvring and establishment cover-ups”. You’re so right Del, all you need to fillet the barrage of brown stuff coming from you is a good bullshit detector.

And right now, mine suggests Del Boy is a complete clown. No change there, then.

England And Saint George

Today is St George’s Day. And, so what? There do not appear to be any flags flying anywhere in the area, it’s a normal working day, and even the campaigns of a few years ago agitating for the day to be made a Bank Holiday  seem to be dying down (this last being particularly pointless, given the proximity of Easter, May Day bank holiday and Spring bank holiday).

Nevertheless, politicians are still keen to be seen standing up for the memory of someone who never set foot in England, is revered not just by Christians but also Muslims, and died a grisly death at the age of just 23. Young Dave has said “I send my best wishes to everyone celebrating St George's Day today ... I think it's great that in recent years it has become more and more popular to mark St George's Day”.

Which means Cameron thinks he can garner a few more votes for the Tories in next month’s local Government elections, then. And even the newest of new media is getting in on the act, with the HuffPost UK asking “Why is England’s national day not celebrated?” to which the answer is that it is celebrated, but that most of the population have better things to do.

At least this year we’ve been spared the Daily Mail’s 2008 rant: “Cancelled on police advice: St George's Day parade through the Bradford race-riot zone”, which superbly misrepresented events in the city, capped off with a why-oh-why quote from Shipley MP Philip Davies. The ConHome whingeing at Sandwell Council  the next year was in the same vein. Suddenly we should all be celebrating St George’s Day.

I’m not sure. This gives every impression of another attempt to celebrate a day that most folk couldn’t be bothered with in the past. Once upon a time, New Year’s Day was just another working day in England – only in 1974 was it made a Bank Holiday. The St George’s Day campaign is trying to add yet another holiday to that list. But how much is mere propaganda, and how much substance?

Of some interest here is a post by Ed West on Telegraph blogs, “St George's Day – a meaningless, fake tradition invented in the 1990s to sell beer”. He has a point. I can’t recall the day being so much as mentioned before then. And there is a parallel in St Patrick’s Day, which is often little more than an excuse to push ersatz folk music washed down with nitro-keg Guinness in identikit theme pubs.

I still remember St Patrick’s night in the Frankfurt suburb of Sachsenhausen, back in 1998. The “Irish Pub” was impossibly full. Much Guinness was consumed. But the musicians were locals, and the English speaking bar staff were from Australia. It was nothing more than an excuse for cheap commercialism. Only in the replacement of Guinness by Wells’ Bombardier is St George’s Day any different.

Celebrate if you wish. But also think on about who is driving this campaign.

Montgomerie Sells The Times Pass

When James Harding stood down – or, more accurately, was forced out – from the editor’s chair at the Times, the paper’s newsroom was unusually quiet. Harding had earned the respect of his staff and his peers during his five years in the hot seat, and at first there was consternation over why Rupert Murdoch wanted him out. We can now say with some certainty what the reasons were.

Although Harding’s tenure had not been faultless, marred particularly by the “outing” of Police blogger NightJack, he had steered a relatively impartial course, reporting without restraint even on the unfolding events of Phonehackgate. But while this may have been beneficial for the readers, it did not go down well with Rupe. And nor did Harding’s even-handed approach to politics.

He was seen as too small-l liberal, the kind of approach that did for Harold Evans before him: investigative journalism for Murdoch is all very well, but there is an approved political line to take, and Harding was not taking the hint and sticking to it. There was no secret why Andrew “Brillo Pad” Neil was so favoured by Rupe during his time at the Sunday Times: he certainly did take the hint.

Neil was an unswerving supporter of the Tories at a time of occasional controversy. Now Murdoch wants another in the same vein. That Harding was a journalism and news man first and a politician last came clear last week when he was appointed as Director of BBC News and Current Affairs. Murdoch has made his move two years before the next General Election, and for one reason.

Rupe wants to show the world that he is still strong, and that means training all his firepower on getting his preferred candidate into 10 Downing Street. His support of Young Dave may have cooled, but the prospect of Mil The Younger getting elected frightens him shitless. Tone he had a line to; Miliband he does not. If you need confirmation of all that, another Murdoch appointment has provided it today.

Step forward Tim Montgomerie, late of ConHome, and now the Times’ Comment Editor. Not for nothing did Peter Preston muse “Tim Montgomerie may make the Times a more openly Conservative home”. He went on “The question about Montgomerie ... has long been whether, at root, he's a journalist or a political activist”. Today, Monty has answered that one.

“Labour’s lead is only 7%! That’s BEFORE any recovery; BEFORE Fleet St turns on Miliband; BEFORE tax bombshell attack” was the Monty line earlier today. A combination of hopefulness (what recovery?), fantasy (how much more can the press attack Miliband?) and giveaway. Plus it’s now glaringly obvious that the Times has lurched right and, like the Telegraph before it, ceased to be a paper of record.

But good of Montgomerie to publicly admit it, as if anyone didn’t already know.

Express Promotes Islamophobia

Occasionally I wonder why Leo McKinstry has ended up at the Express. And then he looses off a tirade of bigotry like today’s attack on Muslims, and I wonder no more. Rather, I wonder why he isn’t getting called out for incitement – apart from the sheer dishonesty on display. McKinstry has a simple explanation for the Boston bombings, but sadly, it is an all too simple one.

“There is no puzzle about what drove Boston bombers” he thunders, before asserting “There should be no puzzle about this atrocity. The Tsarnaev brothers were Islamic jihadists and their actions were all too predictable ... Intolerance, butchery, assassination and intimidation are at the very core of Islamist ideology”. Find them in the Qur’an then. You won’t.

What you will find in the Qur’an is that followers of The Prophet are told that Islam is the only true religion – just like you’ll find in the Bible. But Leo doesn’t want to talk about past less than savoury behaviour entered into by Christians. For him, all that is wrong in the modern world is down to Muslims. To reinforce his message, though, he sells the pass by also indulging in a little creative storytelling.

The Tsarnaev brothers were ethnic Chechens. “Chechen rebels have been integral to the jihadist movement worldwide, establishing close links with the Al Qaeda network” proclaims McKinstry, wrongly. One of the brothers married, and “he persuaded her to convert to Islam and adopt the oppressive traditional Muslim dress code”. Covering your hair is “oppressive”? Yeah, right.

“What the jihadists want is not the settlement of specific territorial claims but a global Islamic empire in which mankind is forced to live under Sharia law”. Baloney. Islam encourages its followers to bring others into the faith – just like Christianity. “The Boston bombing also exposes the absurdity of claims that Muslim extremism is driven by poverty or lack of education”. It’s absurd because nobody’s making it.

Anyway Leo, what would you have in mind to tackle this problem of your own making? “What we require is robustness in facing up to jihadism - an end to the Human Rights Act”. Marvellous, another Mad Mel. Then he raises the spectre of Muslims coming to the UK from Bulgaria: “a worrying prospect given that Bulgaria has proportionately the largest Muslim population in Europe”.

Homework isn’t Leo’s strong suit. “People who evoke the scarecrow of Islamic fundamentalism in Bulgaria are wrong ... Religion is not of primary importance to Bulgaria's Muslims” a recent study has concluded. But don’t worry, McKinstry says “We must uphold free speech and equality before the law”. Yeah, but you just tore up the Human Rights Act. No, it’s no surprise he ended up at the Express.

Mind you, he’ll be a cheap hire. And that’ll be another Benchmark Of Excellence.

Gove Talks School Holiday Rubbish

Editors ordering the relaying of the latest pearls of wisdom from Education Secretary Michael “Oiky” Gove must have stopped and wondered, if only for a moment, knowing that he was talking out of the back of his neck. There should be shorter school holidays, Gove decreed, as this was a throwback to a predominantly agricultural society, and we had to move on.

We had, so “Oiky” proposed, to be more like countries like Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. Really? So he’s wanting the UK, with 2% of males and 1% of females working in agriculture, to be less of a throwback to an agricultural society by aping Japan (where the figures are 5% and 6% respectively), South Korea (10% and 12%), and Indonesia (41% and 42%). Yeah, right.

Compounding the inconvenient facts ranged against Gove is that fact all those well-remunerated editors and pundits aren’t letting slip. The overwhelming majority of those who are parents with school age children send them to private schools, and they know full well that, far from having shorter holidays, these schools have rather longer ones than those in the state sector.

This was let slip yesterday not by some rotten lefty, but by Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, who has reminded “Oiky” that “At Wellington College we have 19 weeks of holidays, compared to 13 in state schools, which Gove wants to cut still further”. That’ll be probably eight weeks in summer, with four at Christmas and Easter, and the rest at half-terms.

But aren’t we supposed to learn from the example of places like Wellington, and especially heads like Seldon? Well, if we are, then Gove is the one who ought to be paying attention. Because Seldon is consistent in not being overly keen on copying the methods employed in the Far East: “you find that Asian schools are dull, dull, dull” he laments. That’s why their educators are looking to the UK.

He also points out that shorter holidays are what harks back to an agricultural society, not longer ones. And he worries that children are being subjected to a school environment where everything comes down to instructing pupils on how to pass exams. But Gove wants more “demanding” exams, and he remains firm in his belief in rote learning and cramming kids full of facts.

And on top of that, it turns out that the Far Eastern countries that “Oiky” wants the UK to emulate may have longer school terms, but they manage less class time overall, so presumably the school day is significantly shorter. Whichever way you look at this latest proposal, it looks once more as if Gove has not done his homework and is just shooting from the hip to wind up teachers and their unions.

That is no way to treat the formative years of young people. What a shower.

Rolf Harris – Now The Excuses

There is no more sick-making sight than the assembled whingeing of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet trying to offload their abject failure on someone – anyone but them. Now that the name of Rolf Harris has finally been pitched as being interviewed as part of Operation Yewtree, the almost five month delay has to be explained, however lamely.

That Harris had been talking to the Police was notified on November 29 by Mark Williams-Thomas via Twitter. There was no subterfuge, no ambiguity, and there was no rebuke of any kind from those acting for the veteran entertainer, let alone the commencement of legal action. There was nothing to stop the press from making their own enquiries and publishing.

Harris’ lawyers, Harbottle and Lewis, then pressured the press into keeping schtum. That they quoted the report from the Leveson Inquiry has meant that, once again, every pundit is trotting out the keyword “chilling”. But the big beasts of the media jungle could quite easily have cited a public interest defence and gone ahead anyway. That they did not tells you two things.

One, that they were dealing with someone in his 80s in declining health meant the possibility of public backlash, had the Fourth Estate gone after their quarry the way they did with Christopher Jefferies. And two, it was in their interest to go along with the lawyers, so they could at a later date use the story as a stick to beat anyone who had the temerity to support a new system of press regulation.

The attempt to deflect onto Leveson is typified by the latest rent-a-rant by Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips, who dutifully tells of “a chilling effect on free speech” and accuses others of “bullying”, while not mentioning the litany of cases over the years where the paper in which she writes – the Daily Mail – has not given a stuff about what their targets’ lawyers have said.

This ability to use the legal profession to its own advantage is what dissuaded the Information Commissioner’s Office from pursuing papers like the Mail over Operation Motorman, and all the illegal information gathering organised by Steve Whittamore. Yet now the same paper bleats that it is defending “our free society and the public’s right to know”. Cue hollow laughter.

What the likes of Paul Dacre calls “the public’s right to know” is the right of his paper to tell its readers what he decrees they should be told. Had he believed there was an advantage to be gained in naming Harris, he would have gone ahead and ordered his hacks over the top. The attempt to smear Leveson by suggesting that the Mail was gagged, when it could have done otherwise, will not wash.

The press is once again protesting a little bit too much. No change there, then.

Littlejohn Boston Own Goal

“Comedy terrorists? If only they were” scoffed the Mail’s tedious and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn on Friday, before going off on a characteristic and rambling rant suggesting that four clowns from Luton were somehow in league with the BBC, and had they not been stopped, then London would have woken up to find another July 7 unfolding on its streets.

Terrorists, Guv? It's the Irish al-Qaeda, innit?!?

Then Dicky Windbag turns his attention to the Boston Marathon bombings, and here he comes badly unstuck. Problem is, he’s had to make a number of assumptions in order to hit the paper’s deadline, and before the bombers were correctly identified. So, as it happened in Boston, out comes not only the al-Qaeda meme, but also that of Irish terrorism. And he’s been shown to be wrong on both counts.

“Al Qaeda's stated aim of a global sharia state really is unachievable, no matter how many bombs they plant, no matter how many people they murder” he blusters, before adding “What we saw in London in 2005 and again in Massachusetts this week is murder for murder's sake”. So Dick’s betting the house on it being the followers of Lardy Binman behind the bombing.

And he thinks the Prez is scared: “Barack Obama's supporters are hoping against hope that the Boston bombing was not the work of Al Qaeda ... If Boston was the work of Al Qaeda it would invalidate Obama's narrative ... Whoever was responsible, Boston has made America jumpy”. This is wrong on every level. Despite the frighteners from the Murdoch press, there was no national panic.

Yes, there was some incorrect identification early on: the names of Sunil Tripathi and Mike Mulugeta were pitched, before it was later revealed that two brothers called Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were the names in the frame. Neither was Irish. And, although they were ethnic Chechens and therefore nominally Muslim, only one had been observant, and there was no al-Qaeda connection.

Littlejohn’s pals at the Mail have valiantly tried to spin the story: “Was Boston bomber inspired by Russia's Bin Laden? FBI tracked older brother 'for FIVE YEARS' after being told by Moscow of links to Chechen terrorists” readers were told today. But now the Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino, has said “information he has indicates that the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing acted alone”.

Menino’s appearance on ABC’s This Week puts the lid on Littlejohn and his paper trying to spin the bombing for their own agenda. And someone ought to tell Dicky Windbag that the Irish account for less than 16% of Boston’s population nowadays. Still, Littlejohn’s scored some Muslims, so the storytelling will no doubt continue.

After all, he’s only following his editor’s orders, so that’s all right, then.

Smearing Stafford Hospital

Yesterday afternoon, there was a march from the centre of Stafford to the town’s hospital, in support of retaining a full range of clinical services there, including A&E and Maternity. This may not sound significant until the numbers are considered: at least 30,000 turned up, which is one in four of the borough’s population. The Town Square took 45 minutes to clear as the march departed.

What the f***'s wrong with going private, c***?!?

The struggle to retain Stafford Hospital in its current form has potential ramifications for many other towns across the country, even in the capital, as has been seen with the controversy over attempts to downgrade Lewisham Hospital, one of those local issues which contributed to London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson getting such a hard time at a nearby Q&A event recently.

The idea of a town having access to its own hospital, however, cuts no ice with the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre at the Mail, especially as most of them go private and are therefore easily susceptible to being used to kick the NHS. Dacre’s ideal model for healthcare is that from the USA, because he spent some years there, and in his eyes it can do no wrong.

“‘Out in force now... where were you when my mother, father and husband died in your hospital?’ Widow’s fury as Stafford Hospital staff join protest over cuts to health trust that allowed up to 1,200 patients to die needlessly” screams the headline, although the Francis Report into care failings at the hospital did not echo the deaths figure, which has been consistently debunked (including by its own articles).

But the Mail does not allow this to intervene, as it refers to Stafford Hospital as “scandal-hit” and then follows up with the news that it has been put into administration, without telling why. Nor is any space given to the problems the locals would have if services were transferred to Stoke-on-Trent, Cannock, or Wolverhampton, which is what is being proposed.

And nor is any space given over to discuss other moves to move facilities, or force patients to travel further for treatment, or even to access A&E. With Lewisham just a few miles’ trip across London, one might expect even the Mail to be able to spare the time of its staff to do some real investigative journalism, but on this subject they have been silent. At least they are consistent.

That consistency of approach is to treat the NHS as something to be demonised, with anyone disadvantaged by reorganisation ignored, unless and until they become useful to the Mail to push its “private good, public bad” agenda. So there’ll be more attempts to scare readers from going near hospitals, while the clear message from yesterday’s march is dismissed as inconvenient.

Then Dacre wonders why his pundits get laughed at. No change there, then.

Murdoch Spreads Sun Standards Stateside

We in the UK are used to a press that is not only raucous, but also well versed in spinning for a particular agenda. This has not been the case in the USA, where the papers maintain an almost cautious even-handedness and objectivity, such is their desire to avoid the charge of “yellow journalism”. Or rather, they did until one Keith Rupert Murdoch came to town.

Rupe now owns not just the likes of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse), but also the tabloid New York Post. He would like to get his hands on more titles. The behaviour of the Post has justifiably contributed to a wariness on the part of owners and authorities to his so doing: the paper’s apparent disregard for mere facts shows every sign of mirroring the modus operandi of the Sun.

Recently, the Post has attracted condemnation for apparently comparing African-Americans to monkeys, and last December ran a photo of a man who had been pushed onto the track into the path of an approaching Subway train – and who was subsequently struck and killed by it. But it was the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings that brought the strongest criticism.

After the explosions, the Post asserted that 12 had died, while other news outlets gave the officially confirmed figure: two, then amended to three (quoting bigger numbers of deaths is a Sun speciality, even extending to the Herald Of Free Enterprise capsize outside Zeebrugge harbour, despite many of the casualties having been on cheap day trips promoted by the, er, Sun).

Rupe’s stateside downmarket troops then switched to another Sun favourite, that of kicking Muslims, especially if they are also Arabs. “FBI grills Saudi man ... smells of gunpowder” screamed the headline. The story was untrue. Error-strewn copy was also published by the supposedly upmarket Wall Street Journal, which was recently acquired by ... Rupert Murdoch.

It got worse. The Post then splashed a photo of two men on its front page below the headline “Bag Men”. They asserted that “Feds Seek These Two”. “Investigators probing the deadly Boston Marathon bombings are circulating photos of two men spotted chatting near the packed finish line, The Post has learned ... photos being distributed by law-enforcement officials among themselves”. All untrue.

And, far from apologising, Murdoch tried to dump the blame onto the authorities, not unlike the way the now-closed Screws tried to suggest that the Police were the ones at fault in the Millie Dowler case, rather than the Murdoch hacks who had been badgering them to pursue false leads – like the one on the Post’s front page which tried to finger two innocent men.

No doubt the hacks involved will all proclaim their independence. Yeah, right.

Top Six – April 21

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, I’ve got domestic stuff to do. So there.

6 Guido Fawked – Suckered By Murdoch Whopper The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his pet rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog swallowed the Sun’s porkies about Tone and Pa Broon signing off on Margaret Thatcher’s funeral arrangements whole. They hadn’t. Another fine mess.

5 Guido Fawked – Kangaroo Not Tied Down The Fawkes blog trumpeted its foresight on naming Rolf Harris. So once again I pointed out that they didn’t have any. And every time they try that one, I’ll point it out again.

4 Guido Fawked – Press Regulation Porkie Three in a row for The Great Guido this week as Staines and his pals get caught with their pants well alight pretending that an agreement to exempt blogs from the new press regulator is a slap in the face for the Hacked Off campaign and Evan Harris. It isn’t – they’re all in favour. Another fine mess, once again.

3 Thatcher Funeral – Attendance Desperation St Paul’s Cathedral was almost full on Wednesday morning. But what the public wasn’t told was how many very minor figures had to be roped in to fill the pews, because of all the no-shows.

2 TPA – Thatcher Hypocrisy The so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance were happy to whine about £10,000 of taxpayer funds, but on the £10 million on the Thatcher funeral they were silent. Nothing to do with their CEO speaking at a tribute event afterwards, of course.

1 Leveson – Lazy Hatchet Hackery The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre went after two participants in the Leveson Inquiry, apparently out of concern and principle. But in reality, it was an act of petty retribution, to get revenge for Dacre being grilled and made seriously uncomfortable by one of them. No change there, then.

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

Leveson – Lazy Hatchet Hackery

[Update at end of post]

As the spectre of truly independent press regulation hangs overhead, the Fourth Estate keeps up its attempts to somehow discredit anyone involved, however tangentially. Today, despite the process having finished some months ago, the Leveson Inquiry is being kicked by the Murdoch and Dacre attack doggies because one of its Counsels is having an affair.

But, so what? Well, Carine Patry Hoskins, who on occasion stood in for the utterly unflappable Robert Jay, has – since the Inquiry completed its evidence gathering sessions – been dating David Sherborne, who represented some phone hacking victims (and grilled a visibly uncomfortable Dacre). The Mail and Sun have as a result added two and two and obtained a result rather larger than four.

The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre have been particularly judgmental: “The celebrities' barrister, the Leveson QC's glamorous No2 and an affair that triggers doubts over the Inquiry's integrity”. Triggers doubts? I’m getting a loud screaming sound in my ears ... oh hang on, the bullshit detector just suffered a system overload. Petty vengeance, more like.

The only place that any doubts have been triggered is somewhere inside Northcliffe House. This is just another lame hatchet job propped up with an overdose of nudge-nudgery, the latter being represented by Sherborne being characterised as “perma-tanned” (a jealous Sun hack) or “twice-married” (Dacre doggie obeying His Master’s Voice and coming down hard on anything other than lifelong monogamy).

“The disclosure raises concerns over whether their relationship undermined the integrity of the Leveson Inquiry” asserts the Mail. Fine. So there will be questions addressed to whoever is looking after the Inquiry and its processes, will there? No there won’t: this is cheap and nasty (emphasis on the latter) trial by media, with the Mail in particular trying to whip up a backlash.

To this end, Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, proclaims “Leveson and a very disturbing affair”. Shine a light. Was Leveson involved in this affair? No? So why suggest that, other than smear by association? But go on: “It has long been disturbingly clear how much the inquiry was stage-managed by the lobby group Hacked Off, a cadre of small-town academics, B-list celebrities with rackety sex lives, and Press-hating zealots”.

You got evidence? Formal complaint? That’ll be no, and none, then. But here’s the best bit – Dacre calls Sherborne “aggressive and confrontational”. And there’s another pot and kettle close behind: the Media Standards Trust is smeared as “notorious for inaccuracy”. There’s no windows in yer glasshouse, Dacre.

But it provides some unintentional hilarity. It’s the way he tells ‘em!

[UPDATE 23 April 1710 hours: Rob Wilson, who is nominally MP for Reading East, although he gives the impression of being more interested in sticking his bugle into questions that have not been driven by his constituents and then leaking the correspondence to the likes of the Guido Fawkes blog, has now received a reply to his letter to Lord Justice Leveson (see HERE [.pdf]).

Leveson points out that the hearings concluded on 3 August, which was before the alleged liaison on Santorini. He further points out that Ms Party Hoskins "had absolutely no input into any conclusion as to the past treatment of those affected by press abuses ... or any aspect of the proposals made for future press regulation".

Ms Party Hoskins, Leveson stresses, "was not involved ... in any of my eventual recommendations". This, of course, was rather obvious at the outset, as was the attempt by Paul Dacre to "get" David Sherborne because he had caused the Vagina Monologue considerable discomfort and even elicited an expletive from him. Wilson will more than likely now stop wasting everyone's time. But the Mail will not.

And, in what is the saddest part of this episode, far too many otherwise rational grown-ups will believe what the Mail is churning out, hanging on every word and disseminating it as if it had been handed down on stone tablets. Belief in place of reality is a truly frightening thing, especially when coupled to the herd instinct of clueless hacks]

Guido Fawked – Press Regulation Porkie

Since the vote that paved the way for a properly independent press regulator, there have been discussions about how the new framework will affect those of us in the blogosphere. The answer, as announced exclusively on Liberal Conspiracy yesterday afternoon by Sunny Hundal, is that we’ll be exempt, with the choice of being able to “opt in”. This is very good news.

Not chilling bloggers, despite the hype

This means that the Fourth Estate, and its obedient servants who pose as mere bloggers and brave warriors for freedom, have to spin the story, in order to kick someone. To this end, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have stepped forward to suggest erroneously that this is some kind of defeat for the Hacked Off campaign, which it is not.

Fire in the nether regions no shock horror

“Victory: Guido’s blog will remain unregulated” proclaimed the Fawkes folks, apparently unaware that this meant they would be holding on to their cherished positive trust rating of, er, 4% (even Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Sun manage 10%). And, as the man said, there’s more: “Government tells Evan Harris to ‘Blog Off’”. It does? But you know the answer already.

Spinner wakes up and reads LibCon sensation!

“Blog Off” refers to the lame campaign mounted by Staines’ pals at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), who are equally concerned about press regulation, because like The Great Guido they use the Fourth Estate as a reliable conduit for their selectively researched propaganda. Bad news for Astroturf lobby groups everywhere if their whoppers are easier to call out.

Personal opinion says Fawkes folks fibbing ...

So what of the Fawkes assertions about Hacked Off, and specifically about Evan Harris? But you know that answer already, too: Harris, who you can tell as he’s a Doctor, was in favour of this result all along. Hence his proclaiming via Twitter that this was “good news for bloggers”. He stressed the choice of “opting in”, which the Fawkes rabble will not take – more fool them.

... and again via Hacked Off

And this attack is significant twice over: Evan Harris has been at the forefront of libel reform, this being attempted via the defamation bill now making its way through Parliament. Anyone who values free speech and the ability to mount a public interest defence of fair comment against corporate forces using libel laws to silence critics and stifle debate would be expected to favour such reform.

That The Great Guido is so keen to lay into Harris merely underscores that Staines has sold out to his new bosses, who would be happy to leave the libel laws as they are, so they can trample on the little guys while telling anyone without the means to sue them to run along – then use those same laws to shut their detractors up. The Fawkes rabble bang on about free speech, but they’re full of wind and piss.

And they’re in hock to the Fourth Estate too. Another fine mess, once again.

TPA – Cardiff Airport Ignorance

While many people would like to know why the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) has not said a word about the needless recall of Parliament so that Young Dave could use it for political advantage, or on the estimated £10 million cost of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, this Astroturf lobby group has been parading its inability to get its facts straight, and brazen ignorance of its brief, instead.

More guff from Tufton Street

As I noted recently, the TPA has been whining about the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) buying Cardiff Airport, which had been shipping passenger numbers badly of late and was clearly not a priority for its previous owner. TPA local man Lee Canning made accusations about the price paid, but without bothering to get an independent estimate. Now he has returned to the fray.

He has discovered “another damning blow for the Welsh Government in its attempt to save ailing Cardiff International Airport”. And what might this be? Ah, passenger numbers fell in the year to March 2013 by around 15%. Yes, they fell while the Airport was owned by Abertis, not by the WAG. This is not a blow to the WAG, but another compelling reason to take the action it did.

Never mind, Canning has another go, carping about “the little to no progress thus far made on the venture”. The sale was only completed at the end of last month, and the TPA, which claims to know about business, is pretending that in less than a month, some kind of miraculous transformation should have occurred. Canning is just blustering. This acquisition has to be for the longer term.

That Canning is just moaning is confirmed when he starts on about transport links. “The Welsh Government announced four years ago that it intended to introduce a bus link from Cardiff to the airport, which it is still yet to do” he whinges, apparently oblivious to the rail link that is already there, and has been in place since 2005. But, as the man said, there’s more.

“This soap opera, which is being financed by Welsh taxpayers, is being played out when Bristol Airport has seen steady increases in passenger numbers and will shortly have a direct bus link with Swansea, via Cardiff. Unlike its potential Cardiff counterpart, this bus link has not received taxpayer funding” says Canning. You don’t know what funding it might have. It’s not started running.

Canning’s carping merely emphasises his utter cluelessness about how this kind of business is run. New routes take time to bring on stream, along with the passenger and freight numbers that accompany them. The idea that this enterprise should turn round in less than a month would, by any competent body, be laughed out of court. But in the world of the TPA, it’s given centre stage.

Meanwhile, there is still no word on the Thatcher funeral. No change there, then.

Super Soaraway Poll Porkies

You have to hand it to Rupe’s downmarket troops at the Sun. They commission a regular opinion poll from YouGov, but not every week’s result makes it into the paper, at least not until it can be spun to the advantage of the Tories and to attack Labour. So it has been with the last two examples, with last week’s only getting a mention a week late.

Who writes Sun editorials? Who'd ya bladdy think?!?

“Labour’s poll lead falls to just 7%” proclaimed the Sun today. It had? This would have been news to most readers. “A YouGov poll for The Sun today puts Labour on 40 per cent — seven points ahead of the Tories. But a week ago the party was on 42 per cent — 14 points ahead”. Indeed it was. But that poll a week ago, although published by YouGov, was initially suppressed by the Sun.

And with good reason: it showed the Tory vote share had sunk to a mere 28%, or to put it more bluntly, 2.7% less than “Shagger” Major had secured in 1997. The Labour poll rating, 42%, was just 1.2% less than Tone secured at that contest. A General Election returning those kinds of numbers would see the Tories reduced to around 160 MPs, and a Labour majority of over 150.

This was all too much to allow Sun readers to see: only a future poll showing a narrowing of the Labour lead would allow the information to be released. But the release would also have to be carefully spun, and so readers are told that the falling Labour lead is down to “Big guns’ rap”. John Reid, last heard of back in 2007, had said something about Mil The Younger.

Reid’s intervention is than matched up with that by David Blunkett (who is on the Murdoch payroll) to pretend that Miliband is in some kind of deep trouble. And he broke his wrist too! But this is complete crap: during the past week, the public has been barraged by non-stop Thatcher tributes, with even some broadcasters, as I pointed out yesterday, going OTT in praise for the former PM.

The poll was apparently taken after the not-quite-state funeral and the less than totally accurate accounts of massive crowds and a packed St Paul’s Cathedral (the latter, as I pointed out yesterday, requiring some very minor figures indeed to be roped in to fill the pews). So the Tories have scored a “Thatcher sympathy bounce”. But Labour remains at or above 40%.

And 40%, with the Tories able to get no further than 33%, will do very nicely, especially if, as is likely, the latter number sinks back below 30% in later polls. The Coalition is proving less than universally popular, despite the Sun’s fawning support of its majority partner. But the hacks dare not let the readers know.

Not that they’re under orders from Murdoch, of course. What a bunch of cowards.

The Drugs Laws Still Don’t Work

Someone is taking an approach to currently illegal drugs that does not meet with the approval of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre. This cannot be allowed to pass unpunished. So the Vagina Monologue has summoned Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips to administer one of her characteristically unhinged rants in the culprits’ general direction.

Not even slightly fair and balanced

Brighton has a problem with drug use: the number of premature drug-related deaths had in the past put the city at the top of a singularly infamous league. So an Independent Drugs Commission was set up. Its members generally work with addicts, and it takes advice from public bodies including the Police. But its vice chair Mike Trace has incurred Mad Mel’s displeasure.

“The drug zealot I exposed a decade ago and how the BBC's promoting his plan for heroin 'shooting galleries'” screams the headline. Yes, it’s all about “zealots” (that would not include those at the Mail who zealously peddle propaganda, of course) and the hated BBC. Seasoned Mail watchers will not be surprised to learn that the Beeb is not “promoting” anything, and that it’s not “his” plan.

All that has happened is that the Commission has produced a report with recommendations (see HERE [.pdf]), one of which is “The Health and Wellbeing Board and Safe in the City Partnership should convene a working group led by the local authority, NHS and Police, to explore and make recommendations about the feasibility of establishing a form of consumption room as part of the range of drug treatment services in the city”.

So what’s the problem here? It’s that “consumption room”, because, as Mel screams at her readers, this is really a “shooting gallery”. In her version of reality, this can only promote and increase drug use, and the BBC reporting on the proposal must therefore mean the Corporation is trying to do just that.

Mel then wheels out the usual suspects, those who take her view that there is some realistic prospect of wiping illegal drugs from the streets, despite the sad reality that the only place in the United Kingdom off the supply map is part of the Western Isles. In her world, there has to be lots of arresting and convictions. That this has been tried for more than 40 years, and failed, is not allowed to enter.

In the days when heroin was available legally, there were perhaps a hundred addicts in the UK. Then the trade was handed over to organised criminality, with the results that are all too familiar. They don’t call them “pushers” for nothing. Moves to bring down the death rate due to products over which there is zero quality control should be welcomed. Instead, they are howled down by frothing pundits.

Some in the UK want to improve matters. Melanie Phillips is not one of them.

Thatcher Funeral – Attendance Desperation

St Paul’s Cathedral looked well filled for Margaret Thatcher’s send-off yesterday. This was despite many of those invited declining the request. But there would inevitably be more from the ranks of the great and the good to take their places, wouldn’t there? Well, that depends on a very broad definition of the term, as some of those roped in have let slip their attendance.

For starters, there was the odious Henry Cole, tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog. Yes, a jumped-up smear merchant who can’t find his way to the local railway station got an invite to the ceremony. Hopefully this came with a detailed map so he could find the place in the event of having to slum it on the Central Line with all those ghastly, er, ordinary people.

Streets kept clear of one wandering buffoon

It got worse: one person not needing the media profile of Master Cole to get his foot in the Cathedral door was CEO of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) Donal Blaney, who Tweeted his appreciation at meeting up once again with serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, who in turn was probably more than happy to find someone who knew who he was, and would not avoid him if they did.

A fan of the Contract On America

You want more examples of the desperation to fill the pews? How about Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam, now permanently at The Commentator, that haven of malicious dishonesty? Ray didn’t actually say he was invited, but did not dissent when advised that he had been noted on photo features in both the Standard and the Mail. Barrel scraping at its finest!

'Sneak' just about sums him up

And, as the man said, there’s more. Alex Deane, for one. Who he? You may well ask. Deane is one of just two YBF supporters to get elected in the City of London Corporation elections recently that saw so many of his pals either get kicked out (like Mark Clarke) or fail to be elected (like Blaney and Andre Walker). Deane was no doubt representing those clever people who talk loudly in restaurants.

Pity yer head didn't follow suit

The presence, though, that alerted me to how widely the net was being cast in getting the Cathedral full was that of former ConHome stalwart Tim Montgomerie, very visible during the broadcast of the funeral service. But what Monty has done in the service of Mrs T to commend his presence, other than to say that her time in power was A Very Good Thing, is not known.

And an inhabitant of Happy Tory Valley to finish

None of these attendees has any significant record of public service (one hates to break the news that councillors or councilmen are not significant public servants). No, they were there because so many of those first invited were not. Like the coverage in right-leaning papers, this is yet another example of how the popularity of the Thatcher memory is not quite as claimed.

As such, they have done the wider public a great favour by informing them thus.

Cameron Misses The Point – Twice

Leadership and political judgement are two qualities one might expect a Prime Minister to possess. But on occasion, Young Dave makes one wonder whether he understands either. Yesterday’s nearly-state funeral for his predecessor Margaret Thatcher brought this to the fore, and Cameron did not exactly come out smelling of roses, even before the gentle questioning of Dimbleby Major.

The great economist and commentator J K Galbraith made two observations on leadership which are immediately relevant to yesterday’s events. “A leader can compromise, get the best bargain he can. Politics is the art of the possible. But he cannot be thought to evade”. Dimbleby challenged Cameron on his suggestion that the Thatcher funeral plans had been put in place by his predecessors.

Young Dave was reminded that it was he who had added the military aspects of the ceremony, the armed forces’ participation that turned the last part of the journey to St Paul’s Cathedral into the spectacle that undoubtedly swelled the crowds. At this point he evaded, and waffled about his “input” being to make the funeral “fitting and right”. So that’s a yes, then. Why not say so unequivocally?

The second Galbraith observation that Cameron has failed to follow is this: “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership”. He had a very obvious example, that of Franklin Roosevelt addressing the USA of the Depression years.

But here, again, Cameron fails to get it. On the morning that we learnt of an increase in the number of unemployed of around 70,000, here was the Prime Minister shamelessly justifying the expenditure of an eight figure sum on turning a funeral into some kind of grand military send-off. And justifying it, in part, by being evasive. Long after the memory of the event is gone, that major anxiety will remain.

The economy continues to stall. Purchasing power is in decline. This affects the whole population. Yet Cameron tinkers around the edges, giving tax handouts to the well-off while demonising the disabled, that most vulnerable part of society. Instead of taking action, his Government come out with more daft ideas such as enabling bigger extensions to houses. Then they drop the idea.

Dave’s Education Secretary dreams up wonderful new syllabi for schools. Then the opposition kicks off and he drops them. Undeterred, Dave gets jolly tough with the EU, except he doesn’t. Then he gets tough on immigration, but it’s all spin. And in the meantime, he fails to address the major anxiety of his people: when is the economy going to improve? When will those new jobs arrive?

And when will politicians stop having to re-learn the basics of leadership?

Forged In War? You’re Having A Laugh

Anyone believing the meme about the BBC being a hotbed of rotten lefties was disabused of the notion within a few seconds yesterday as Political Editor Nick Robinson went over the top just once too often and let the occasion of the Thatcher funeral get the better of him. Her leadership, he told, had been “forged in war”. Thus he sold the pass and disproved the notion.

St Paul's Cathedral, London

At a time when too many pundits were trowelling on the parallels with Winshton, this ridiculous comparison needs addressing and put into its proper context. For Churchill, war meant the populations of entire cities being unable to move around at night, such was the discipline of the blackout. People lived in fear of air raids, and with good reason: tens of thousands lost their lives.

Precision bombing, for the Luftwaffe as with the RAF, was a contradiction in terms. No residential area was safe. Incendiary bombs were generally mixed in with high explosive ones, just to get a fire going. Transport was routinely disrupted. Out at sea, shipping was constantly under attack. Many convoys were decimated by U-boat attacks. So that meant the onset of rationing.

This lasted until a whole decade after the war ended. Shortages included fuel, any kind of foodstuffs that had to be imported, and many more that were home produced. Even the humble public house was affected, as there were shortages of malted grains to mash the beer. And with more and more menfolk drafted into the armed forces, that meant those left had to put industrial and agricultural production first.

So there was little in the way of leisure time, no respite from long shifts or toil in the fields. Worse, until the USA arrived on the scene in the wake of the ill-judged Japanese intervention at Pearl Harbor, there was no sign that it would ever end. And all the while, Churchill faced the thankless task of holding his Government together, while trying to reassure the people that victory would one day be theirs.

What a difference there was with Margaret Thatcher’s war: as the task force sailed off to the South Atlantic, no petrol station ran out of fuel, no supply ships were disrupted, no transport artery was put out of action, no citizen needed to worry about air attack, there was no blackout, no shortages were reported by any supermarket, and certainly no pub ran out of beer.

Indeed, the population went about its business very much as normal. No holiday charter flights were called off, no ration books were handed out, and with unemployment rocketing, there was no possibility of labour shortages. There were no dark days wondering whether the country would survive. Forged in war? Forged in war?!? Margaret Thatcher and her colleagues didn’t know the half of it.

None of them reached up to Winshton’s ankles. Nick Robinson is just being silly.

Boston Bombing Rush To Judgment

Recent terrorist atrocities have taught us one thing, and that is not to rush to judgment. There were some caught up in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks that had nothing to do with them. The Aznar Government infamously tried to pin the Madrid train bombings on ETA and by doing so lost an election. Now there has been another rush to judgment following the Boston Marathon attacks.

This has been spearheaded by two Murdoch-owned media outlets, the New York Post newspaper, and Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). The Post knew who to look for: “FBI grills Saudi man in Boston bombings” shrieked the headline, following up with “smells of gunpowder”. He was acting suspiciously – running away from the site of one blast after being injured by it.

Er, hello? That sounds rather like what anyone would do in such a situation. What the heck, Fox News was off and running too, with yesterday morning’s edition of Fox And Friends all but pronouncing this man guilty. In the meantime, a welter of abusive Twitter traffic was generated, some directed at North Korea, just in case. But now it turns out this man was just a witness.

That was not enough for Rep. Louie Gohmert from Texas, who asserted “We know Al Qaeda has camps on the Mexican border ... We have people that are trained to act Hispanic when they are radical Islamists”. What actually was known was that there was no certainty as to who did it. The most recent analysis points to a “Lone Wolf” attacker, someone operating independently.

Look at the devices: apparently packed into pressure cookers and augmented with either nails or ball bearings. The effect would have been a brief build-up of pressure in the container before the thing let go and sprayed its contents and some significant pieces of shrapnel across the immediate area, and with great force. That would explain not just blast injuries, but many amputations and a lot of blood spilt.

But no other recent attack has used devices like that. And we are now getting reports of packages sent to addresses in Washington DC – including the President – containing a substance that has tested positive for ricin. This, too, is not part of the al-Qaeda modus operandi. Whether or not there is any connection between the two events, it is looking more and more that this is a home-grown campaign.

As Moronwatch has pointed out, between 1980 and 2005, just 6% of terror attacks in the USA were carried out by Islamic extremists. So it’s most likely that these bombs were nothing to do with Islamists, North Korea, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, or any Middle Eastern country. I’ll go further: the perpetrators might just get apprehended not by speculation, but plain old-fashioned Police investigation.

But I won’t go any further. Because we shouldn’t rush to judgment.