Claire Perry – Press Silent

Following Tory MP Claire Perry’s ill-advised tirade against the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, many news outlets have picked up on the story. But what is equally significant is those that have, despite their usual appetite for keeping up with everyone else, chosen not to carry the story at all, for reasons that will soon become apparent.

Do not give publicity to this woman

Ms Perry, who has been at the forefront of attempts to block all forms of pornography from our screens by default, went, in Staines’ words, “proper shouty crackers” while appearing to dump the blame for her site being hacked on The Great Guido. Unless she can demonstrate that he either did the hacking, or bunged someone else to do it, or otherwise encouraged them, she is potentially in the poo big time.

The BBC and Guardian have carried the story, and demonstrating that this has not coalesced into another of those left/right splits, so has the Express. But there has otherwise been silence: nothing in the Maily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Sun, or even in the Mirror. Why should that be? Ah well. For the answer to that, we need to look at the more technically minded publications.

Tech Week Europe noted Ms Perry’s apparent confusion as to who had done what to her site, adding “The plans to censor porn by default have received much derision, with many noting how easy it would be to get around the filters that ISPs will be forced to impose”. BuzzFeed was scathing: “Britain’s Leading Anti-Porn Politician Doesn’t Seem To Know How The Internet Works” [my emphasis].

Yes, Ms Perry’s technical illiteracy has brought a sudden realisation to those papers that have been banging on the loudest about the need for porn filters, because We Need To Think About The Children, that one of the figureheads of the campaign within Parliament hasn’t got a clue about the technology involved. Moreover, they are demanding something not yet achieved by China or Iran.

And it is not as if they weren’t warned: Mark Wallace, former stalwart of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), put it plainly in a post on ConHome. Wallace is not merely burnishing his libertarian credentials here: the TPA’s pals at Big Brother Watch are good on the technical side. And it is telling that, while the TPA get their stories into papers like the Mail, the hacks came over all deaf on this issue.

Papers like the Daily Mail will no doubt return to this one later, as it satisfies the righteous stance of its legendarily foul mouthed editor. But for the present, Claire Perry’s lack of tech savvy is deeply embarrassing to Dacre and his opposite numbers at the Sun and Telegraph. For this reason, they do not cover the story, hoping Ms Perry will quietly say sorry and pay The Two Dollars.

Once again, make policy at the behest of the Daily Mail, repent at leisure.

Claire Perry – Say Sorry

This blog routinely gives the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog stick. The Fawkes folks, generally, richly deserve it. But on one matter, I agree with Staines, and that is the clumsy defamation of him by the technologically illiterate Tory MP Claire Perry, who represents the unfortunate people of the fine town of Devizes (home of Wadworth’s legendary 6X ale).

Claire Perry (at present still an MP)

The narrative is straightforward (and can be seen in this post from Unity at Ministry of Truth): Ms Perry’s site was hacked, and, as befits the hacking of an anti-porn campaigner, a number of images definitely NSFW were left there. The Fawkes blog posted about the hacking, and included a screen shot – nothing else. “Porn campaigner gets hacked and porn left” cannot be other than newsworthy.

At this point, Ms Perry appears to have gone completely gaga, indulging in a Twitter rant where she accuses Staines of “hosting a link that distributed porn via my website” (potentially actionable), followed by talking of “the hacking of my website sponsored by @guidofawkes”, which is definitely actionable, unless she can show that Staines encouraged the hackers (unlikely).

Now, this blog has noted that The Great Guido has in the past threatened to set m’Learned friends on his critics on what look like shaky pretexts – the incident outside London Bridge tube station, where a camerawoman was knocked over, comes to mind – but this is straightforward and clear defamation, and moreover, Staines has given her ample opportunity to withdraw.

So now the stage has been reached where Staines’ lawyers have been instructed – The Great Guido might also consider looking to Adrian Hilton aka Archbishop Cranmer, who has repeated the “sponsored” accusation – and it can only end in tears for Ms Perry. Not only is she more than likely to lose any subsequent action, but will also be exposed as a clueless technophobe.

And that’s going to be difficult for the press’ anti-porn campaign, which, as Unity points out in his post today, has been, shall we say, subject to Ms Perry’s input. As Paul Bernal has pointed out at the Staggers, the proposals unveiled the other day by Young Dave raise more questions than they answer, and are deeply unconvincing as a result. The Perry sideshow could seriously damage Cameron’s idea.

The best course of action for Claire Perry is to hold her hands up, say sorry, and pay whatever multiple of The Two Dollars is necessary to settle the legal bills. Then she has to hope that the news cycle will move on, and spare her further embarrassment. Because the more attention that is focused on her lack of technical savvy, the more it will damage her reputation and that of the anti-porn campaign.

On this occasion, it is not The Great Guido who is in another fine mess.

Keith Blakelock – Press Has No Regrets

[Update at end of post]

Some 28 years after the event, Police have charged Nicholas Jacobs with the murder of Keith Blakelock, a Police constable, during the rioting on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham that followed the death of Cynthia Jarrett, who suffered a fatal heart attack during a search of her home. Blakelock had been detailed to protect firefighters on the night he was killed.

Winston Silcott

Keith Blakelock was a beat bobby in Muswell Hill: how on earth anyone thought it was a good idea to chuck him into the front line of a riot on The Farm, where tensions had been running high for some time, beggars belief. What was also beyond belief was the way in which the Met managed to clumsily fit up three men for his murder, an exercise that soon unravelled.

But now that Jacobs has been charged, what of all the clearly prejudicial coverage of the three who were fitted up, and especially Winston Silcott? Don’t hold your breath: neither of the main press protagonists, the Sun and Mail, is showing the slightest sign of regret. And nor are any of the pundits who have trousered significant wads of cash from putting the boot into Silcott over the years.

Foremost among these is Geoffrey “Lickspittle” Levy of the Mail, that most trustworthy of Paul Dacre’s attack doggies: “Return of a Killer; Winston Silcott Has Faced Three Separate Murder Charges. Yet, This Week He Was Back on the Very Streets Where PC Blakelock Was Hacked to Death. Innocent? or a Triumph for the Liberals Who Championed His Cause?” before Silcott’s release being typical.

Then, when Silcott was released, Mail readers got “Why 'racially-oppressed martyr' Winston Silcott does not deserve to be canonised”, another slice of Mail fantasy, telling of something nobody had so much as suggested – canonisation – and then telling readers that this was favoured by “do-gooders” like the BBC and Guardian. There has been no regret from the Mail today, though.

Nor has there been any from the Sun, which went after Silcott to the extent that its coverage was considered to potentially prejudice the trial. As with the Mail, when he was released from prison, it was “Silcott back on the street”, with use of the Blakelock family and whatever hostile comment could be obtained, to keep up the demonising. And one participating pundit spanned both papers.

Step forward the unfunny and talentless churnalist Richard Littlejohn, whose return to the Mail was accompanied by a comparison of Silcott with Ian Huntley. That’s another one who has profited from the affair, stoking the kind of coverage that led Blakelock’s family to believe that He Really Did It: the Mail reported that the dead officer’s sons considered suing Silcott.

But they won’t be apologising to those they smeared or misled. No change there.

[UPDATE 1750 hours: Chas Newkey-Burden, who writes the OyVaGoy blog, has posted on the latest development in the Keith Blakelock investigation. He has one advantage over more or less every hack and pundit that has filed copy on the case during the past three decades, in that he has met Winston Silcott and his family.

You can read his post HERE.

He makes the point that the whole charade, where Silcott was framed, was not just bad for Silcott and his family, but for the Blakelocks, who were given to believe that Silcott did it, never mind the conviction being overturned, to the extent that Blakelock's sons actually considered suing Silcott.

Perhaps someone from the Mail or Sun will, one day, interview Winston Silcott. But don't bet on it happening any time soon]

Public Prefer Leveson Charter

As arguments continue over the future of press regulation, along has come yet another opinion poll, this one from neither the major part of the Fourth Estate, nor from Hacked Off, which does not make good reading for those who would rather keep things as they are, and just reheat the discredited PCC. The latest survey was done by YouGov for the Media Standards Trust (MST).

Now, there will inevitably be those asserting that the MST and Hacked Off are one and the same, but they are not. And the poll results make grim reading for the press establishment: 50% favour the Royal Charter agreed by MPs, against 13% for that from the industry, while 68% do not have confidence in a system established by the press – up from 56% in May.

Moreover, those believing there is a risk of yet more unethical and illegal behaviour from the press if they set up their own system of regulation has increased from May’s 73% to a massive 82%. 63% of respondents wanted a new system to be set up promptly (against 16% who did not) and 59% of newspaper readers wanted the title they read to join the new system of regulation.

But the worst news for the Fourth Estate comes with the figures showing who is most trusted: Lord Justice Leveson scores 61%, while the major newspaper publishers, from which a broadside of knocking copy aimed at Leveson has emanated, score a mere 17%. And when the subject of the trust question is Rupert Murdoch, that percentage drops into single figures: Rupe scores just 7%.

That suggests the campaign led by the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, to suggest that Leveson has been compromised by his advisors and those working on his Inquiry, has been ineffective, as has that against Hacked Off and Hugh Grant, whose trust scores (41% and 44% respectively) are well ahead of the press, and even the three Westminster party leaders.

Unsurprisingly, reporting of this poll has been confined to Press Gazette, the deeply subversive Guardian, and the odd mention from broadcasters. But it is no use for the larger part of the Fourth Estate to stick their collective fingers in their ears and shout that they can’t hear. Even a majority of Daily Mail readers (59%) want their paper to accept the “Leveson Charter”, even if they don’t like it.

The percentage rises to 68% for Times and Telegraph readers, and 72% for those who choose the Guardian. Put directly, the Leveson bashing has not worked. The propaganda attempting to pass off “PCC 2” has not worked. The implicit threats against politicians and public figures who dare to support truly independent press regulation have not worked. The game is up.

It is now time for the Fourth Estate to Do The Right Thing.

Andrew Neil And Climate Change

[Update at end of post]

In an expertly constructed apologia, Daily and Sunday Politics frontman Andrew “Brillo Pad” Neil has sought to justify his approach to climate change and rebut criticism, following his recent interview of Ed Davey. But a little examination of the piece shows not only that it can be easily picked apart, but also that Neil makes one fatally wrong assumption about the whole business.

There is, at the outset, a deliberate attempt to establish impartiality and propriety: “the Sunday Politics does not have a position on any of the subjects on which it interrogates people ... it is the job of the interviewer to assemble evidence from authoritative sources which best challenge the position of the interviewee”. If only Neil had left it there, but he does not.

Readers are then told that one critic who has forensically dismantled Neil’s approach, Dana Nuccitelli, “works for a multi-billion dollar US environmental business”, and later that he is one of those taking “strongly partisan positions”. Thus he is, by inference, less trustworthy. Neil tries to link Nuccitelli to “deniers” (note use of quotation marks) but his critique does not contain one instance of the word.

Having marginalised his critics, and used his characterisations to justify dismissing the assertion that “97% of climate scientists are part of the global warming consensus”, Neil then makes a serious mistake. He talks of the science being “settled” (note the further use of quotation marks). But the science is never settled: this is a favourite attack line of climate sceptics.

Neil then moves to insert his own chosen sources in place of those he has dismissed as “strongly partisan” and allegedly in the pocket of business. And what a gallery he presents: Richard Tol, who has asserted that “The impact of climate change is relatively small”, and cited by US Senate Republicans wanting to debunk the scientific consensus, is prominent among them.

Neil also cites Hans von Storch, who believes that climate change has been “oversold”, and talks of “alarmists”, and Roy Spencer, a signatory to the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming. By now, it comes clear that Neil’s piece would gain great favour with the likes of Paul Dacre, in that it carefully selects the facts required to support the conclusion while rubbishing those opposed, but that isn’t the point.

There is a world of difference between journalism such as Neil’s apologia – expertly crafted though it is, with its lofty pretence of disinterest and detachment – and the quality of scientific research that makes it into the 97% that constitutes the consensus on climate change. Neil’s fatal mistake is continuing with the pretence that there is some kind of equivalence between the two.

“The Sunday Politics has no views on such matters” he asserts. But he does.

[UPDATE 1840 hours: just ten minutes after I first posted this item, James "saviour of Western civilisation" Delingpole weighed in with implicit support for Andrew Neil, by attacking Dana Nuccitelli.

Del Boy first denounces the 97% consensus figure in characteristic style, not using his own reasoning but, as an "interpreter of interpretations", citing Anthony Watts, Bishop Hill and Ben Pile, all of whom are firmly in the sceptic camp, and all of whom, by the most fortunate of coincidences, back up his contention.

Then Delingpole, after the customary meander through a series of waffling attempts to persuade readers that the other lot are the bad guys, asserts that Nuccitelli is "in the pay of Big Oil" because of his day job. Wrong. His day job is to do science and risk assessment. If he were being paid by his employer to blog for the Guardian, Del might have a point. But he isn't, and so he doesn't.

In the meantime, perhaps Delingpole would care to see that the Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming contains the signature of another of his heroes, Ross McKitrick. Someone whose chosen deity is somehow going to make it all right is a credible source when it comes to climate science. No surprise there]

Cameron Porn Ban Won’t Work

One person who should be thankful that the Royal Baby is keeping the press occupied today is Young Dave, not least because his jolly good ideas on blocking porn – otherwise known as making policy at the behest of the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor – are coming apart. This should surprise no-one who has the first idea about the technology involved.

As I pointed out a while back, child pornography is already illegal, as are some kinds of adult material. The likes of Google already block searches for it. They also report those dealing in it to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. And, as Unity at Ministry Of Truth pointed out, the number of searches for such material – the target of a previous Mail campaign – is vanishingly small.

Why so? Ah well. Those who want to view something that is illegal are hardly going to openly search for it, knowing that this is a sure fire way to bring the rozzers down on you like the proverbial tonne of bricks. Knowing the URL of just one site is enough providing the target offers a few links to other sites. From there, the seeker after illegal material has no need of search engines.

So kicking Google – or anyone else offering a web browser and/or search engine – is utterly pointless, except inasmuch as it sells a few more papers, and frightens the more ignorant among the readership. Yet the campaigns have continued, their latest incarnation being Cameron’s blatantly populist attempt to block all pornography by default. This, too, is not going to work.

That conclusion has been more or less agreed by tech writers at both the Guardian and Telegraph: at the former, Charles Arthur points out that there are easier “wins” available than going after Google, that the process of getting ISPs up to speed could take time, and in the meantime we’re left with “software filters, which are expensive, and hard to make work on newer devices such as tablets and smartphones”.

At the Tel, Mic Wright is more forthright, telling “David Cameron can't protect us from child porn because he doesn't understand the internet”. He goes on “his policies are ignorant and technically implausible. His latest attack on Google and its competitors is showboating of the most transparent kind”. He notes that Google already works to bar many searches.

Wright also touches on the Mail expose from Amanda Platell claiming to have viewed child porn, when in fact all those in the video she saw were 18 years old or over. And that gets to the nub of it: if those leading the campaign are so wilfully ignorant of the subject, no-one should be surprised when the resulting “policy” ends up being utterly unworkable and a waste of time for all concerned.

Legislate at the behest of Paul Dacre, repent at leisure. No change there, then.

My Burger For A Horse

When Melissa Kite penned “A short guide to the country for townies” for the deeply subversive Guardian the other day, telling “horses don't need road tax and there is no poo fairy”, I doubt that she could have imagined the clash of country and town that took place at a McDonald’s in Whitefield, north of Manchester, recently, with consequences that were, shall we say, memorable.

A woman on horseback presented herself at the drive-thru window, which does not sound problematic, but she was refused service. Perhaps Micky Ds in the UK is run by yet more of those townies that clearly exasperate Ms Kite. So the woman, clearly still peckish, rode her trusty steed round to the front of the restaurant, dismounted, and found there was nowhere to park the horse.

So she led it into the restaurant, where the novelty of the surroundings and the excitement led to the horse, as it were, evacuating its bowels in short order, and soon the spotlessly clean floor was literally covered in hot steaming horseshit. This allegedly caused distress to customers, who nevertheless provided sufficient photos of the offending pile for the subsequent BBC report.

Then the Police were called, and reported that: “The sight and smell of this caused obvious distress and upset to customers trying to eat, as well as staff members ... Officers arrived at the location and the woman was issued [with] a fixed penalty notice for causing alarm and distress to other customers and staff”. The rozzers described the horse’s actions as “doing his business”.

So there you are: I had no idea that there was a fixed penalty provision for letting your horse crap all over the floor in a McDonald’s. But the thought enters that, health and safety excuses notwithstanding, it might have been better for all concerned to just serve the woman on horseback when she turned up at the drive-thru window, and accept that there are forms of personal transport other than cars.

Meanwhile, after the Lord Mayor’s Parade and all that. Whoever was on cleaning duty that afternoon would not have been lovin’ it.

Gilligan Airbrushes Himself From History

Following the tenth anniversary of weapons expert David Kelly’s death, it was only a matter of time before the Sunday Telegraph, and Andrew “Transcription Error” Gilligan moved to excuse their behaviour in the affair. Mainly, as Gilligan showed in his excuse note yesterday, the modus operandi is to suggest that it didn’t happen, and that if it did, what he did wasn’t really so bad.

Don't stray too far from those courts

And as for the Sunday Telegraph, no mention has been made of their having procured a printout of the contents of Kelly’s phone bill, listing every number that had been called from his house between March 1 and April 23, 2003. The printout included Kelly’s “friends and family” list. We know about this, as Nick Davies mentions it in Flat Earth News (the Sunday Times was also sold the same bill).

Yet the paper remains silent on that matter, and gives Gilligan a platform to go as far as to accuse Kelly of wronging him: “Under great pressure, he blurted an untruth in the glare of the TV lights; an untruth which, on the morning of his death, his bosses told him they would investigate”. Sadly, no man is of perfect courage, and certainly not Andrew Gilligan: he will not say what the alleged “untruth” is.

Much of the rest of the article verges on fantasy: Gilligan’s obsession with Alastair Campbell extends to suggesting that Big Al was somehow able to force the civil service to get Kelly’s name out in the open. Campbell, and anyone not totally denouncing him, are dismissed as liars (Gilligan does love to spray that word around). Tone is also found wanting.

But, among all the fog Gilligan is creating as he seeks to play the victim, he admits to having pulled the crucial whopper: “I added a claim, mistakenly attributing it to David, that the Government probably knew the 45-minute claim was wrong”. Yes, Gilligan comes clean and concedes that he made up the claim that kicked off the row which cost Greg Dyke his job, and ultimately cost Campbell his.

And at no time does Gilligan tell his readers that he had personally spoken to members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, telling them that Kelly was also the source for Newsnight’s Susan Watts, which would inevitably have increased the pressure on Kelly – and potentially dropped him in the mire even further. But he does put the boot in on BBC management.

That may be not unrelated to the Corporation finding that it could get along without Gilligan’s services, a situation that has continued for the past decade. In the meantime, readers are sold the entirely fictitious line that Kelly – who Gilligan likes to call “David” – was some kind of close friend, rather than an occasional source whose trust he abused in order to put one over on the Blair Government.

David Kelly was indeed betrayed. And Andrew Gilligan was a full participant in that.

Cameron’s Crosby Sleaze Problem

[Update at end of post]

Young Dave does seem to have a problem with selecting his close advisors: first, despite all the warnings he was given, including from the editor of the deeply subversive Guardian, he gave Andy Coulson a berth as chief spinmeister, and now he has retained the services of the singularly unpleasant Lynton Crosby, just to advise the party, you understand.

Yes you, ya bladdy drongo

Lynt also works for Philip Morris, the company that owns the Marlboro brand, and by sheer coincidence, plans for cigarettes to be sold only in plain packets were left out of the last Queen’s Speech, and have now – at least for this parliament – been abandoned. In 2009, over 100,000 died from smoking related diseases. Plain packaging contributes to smokers kicking the habit.

Yet Cameron has no problem with having Crosby advise both him and Big Tobacco, although he once again failed to answer a direct question from Andrew Marr yesterday on whether or not his advisor has had a conversation with him about the plain packaging issue. And Marr didn’t ask him about Crosby’s connection to the shale gas industry, the one that just scored favourable tax breaks.

As if this were not enough to set alarm bells ringing, now has come the news that Crosby’s firm has been giving assistance to the H5 Private Healthcare Alliance on exploiting perceived “failings” within the NHS. If that were not a sufficiently serious conflict of interest, Crosby’s fingerprints, as I pointed out the other day, were all over the crude and vicious briefings around the Keogh Review report.

So Crosby sets in train the stories that were carried in the Telegraph, Mail and Sun on July 14, pushing the “13,000 deaths” figure, describing NHS hospitals as “death traps”, and talking of “squalor”, knowing that not only did none of that feature in Keogh’s report, but also that if he frightened enough of the public, it would mean more business for his private sector clients.

Then Keogh’s report was published, and demonstrated that the briefing had been a pack of lies. What to do? Brief the same story over again, that’s what. What has clearly been a political operation to spin Keogh’s findings has apparently left him furious at the Tories and resulted in him personally apologising to Andy Burnham, the target selected by Downing Street for the most vicious abuse.

But the H5 Private Healthcare Alliance will be more than happy, as they and other like-minded organisations seek to reverse the recent decline in the percentage of the population going private (from 12.8% to just 10.8% over the past decade). Meanwhile, the questions will continue to be asked about what influence Crosby wields, and the potential for corruption of Government.

And just imagine the furore if he’d been advising a Labour Government.

[UPDATE 1610 hours: the counter spin has already started, with the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog pretending that the private healthcare presentation featured by the Guardian earlier was no big deal, because someone who supports Labour was there (the Guardian did not say otherwise). The Fawkes folks also have the whole of the presentation, which begs the question as to who passed it to them (we don't get to hear that, of course).

The Guardian is accused of being selective in its presentation, and The Great Guido illustrates this with a slide asserted not to feature anywhere in the Guardian article.

Sadly, someone at the Fawkes blog has not read the article they are slagging off: the very first point on the slide, "The British people are proud of the NHS, but also supportive of a role for private hospitals in Britain's overall healthcare system" is reproduced word for word in paragraph 10 of the currently available Guardian piece.

So when The Great Guido talks of "a lengthy Corrections and Clarifications coming tomorrow", you know that, as usual, it won't be the Fawkes rabble doing them. They don't say sorry, just amend and cut in the hope that no-one notices. Another fine mess]

Mail Seeks To Ban Itself

The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre has a righteous obsession with pornography: it is, for him, an evil from which those Daily Mail readers with whom he has his regular conversations should be protected, for their own good, you understand. So his paper has today lauded Young Dave, who is supposedly going to get his jolly good chaps to do something about it.

“Net porn block on EVERY home: Victory for the Mail as PM pledges 'opt in' rule for all web users” is the triumphant headline. Seasoned and obedient Dacre attack doggie James Chapman explains “David Cameron will announce the move today among a series of measures cracking down on against the tide of web sleaze”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, unlike child porn – which the Mail was screaming about recently, although as this is illegal anyway, firms like Google actively block it and report sites that host it to law enforcement authorities – the grown up form is legal. So there is bound to be an issue with the implicit right of those so inclined to view the stuff should they wish to. But the Mail can turn this to its advantage.

The headlines would be suitably apocalyptic: “Strasbourg Forces Porn In To YOUR Home”. Yes, the Mail would immediately turn any challenge to its authoritarian crusade into another attack on the ECHR, whose judges are of course “unelected”, rather like Daily Mail editors who can’t take the hint and retire gracefully after occupying the top job for 20-odd years.

But the real problem for the Mail is that anything “cracking down” on “web sleaze” is going to hit uncomfortably close to home. Mail Online’s “sidebar of shame” today includes several photos of a one year old child in a leopard print string bikini, a feature on porn star Farrah Abraham giving the full title of her sex tape (including photos of her four year old child), and Minnie Driver with yet more little children.

This does not sit comfortably with Chapman’s copy, which talks of child killers having allegedly viewed images of children, and porn, before committing their crimes. True, what appears on Mail Online is very much soft core, but Dacre, along with his hacks and pundits, is forever arguing that the soft stuff leads inexorably to the hard stuff, just as they do with currently illegal drugs.

So is the Mail going to filter the skimpily clothed models, the upskirt shots, the raunchy concert performances that would bring instant condemnation if the BBC screened them, and all the instances of children and under-age models out – by default? And if not, why not? If they want everyone else to be “cracking down” on “web sleaze”, they should be prepared to set an example.

But they won’t, because they’re a bunch of hypocrites. No change there, then.

Toby Young Hypocrisy No Shock Horror

The Mail titles’ tradition of confessional journalism has today spread to the loathsome Toby Young, who tells readers “Why our children will never have a summer like '76: In this gently nostalgic essay, father-of-four Toby Young bemoans a sad truth of our modern age”, in which he talks the most staggering claptrap while failing to remember what he already told another paper.

Tobes talks briefly about 1976 as if it were the last time there was a warm and dry spell in summer – those four successive ones of 2003 to 2006 are so easy to forget – before bemoaning today’s youngsters and their being fixated on gadgets. Like the ones their parents buy them, of course. Parents like, oh I dunno, Himself Personally Now. Then he’s complaining about how expensive everything is.

Like what? Well, Tobes has been to Legoland and come away with very little change from £500. That’s what happens when you have four kids: having to pay more when you have four has not changed over the years. Attractions still cost money in 1976, and as for complaining about the cost of bottled water – well, they didn’t have much of it back then, but that isn’t the same thing.

There is precious little that backs up Tobes’ complaining, and then he puts the lid on it all by telling readers that the solution to his kids not wanting to do old-fashioned playing and adventure like he did was to take them off to Kenya. Like the whole thing came free, eh? So now it’s OK to spend lots of dosh, providing he can tell the other clever people who talk loudly in restaurants he’s taken the family to Africa.

And there’s something else that strikes a seriously hypocritical note about this article: the whole tenor of the piece is that Tobes not only wants his kids to enjoy summers like he did, but also that he’s the kind of parent who likes doing things as a family, and enjoyed being there with them during their stay in Kenya. But that was not the story he was telling the Telegraph a while back.

“Why men don’t want it all” he told readers back in April. Here, Tobes confesses that “I don’t really enjoy spending time with my children. That sounds brutal, but I don’t think it’s just me”. But there are good sides to the experience: “I like sitting down with them at mealtimes, particularly if my wife Caroline has done a roast”. So he’s not exactly a whizz in the kitchen, either.

“Call me a bad father” he pleads. No. Shan’t. But I will call Tobes a pretty lousy writer when it comes to maintaining one point of view, whether scribbling for Mail or Tel. Spending money is bad unless it means hols he can brag about. Kids are A Good Thing, or maybe not. Kids having gadgets is somehow not linked to their parents buying them. And he forgot that things still cost money in 1976.

So that makes Tobes a pretty typical hack, then. No surprise there.

Mel Smith’s Memory Trashed By Mail

Those of us of A Certain Age can still remember Monty Python’s Flying Circus, although hardly had it entered the public consciousness than the team disbanded. The subsequent hiatus in comedy shows that were popular, yet gained cult status, was broken by Not The Nine O’Clock News, which brought fame to Mel Smith, who has sadly passed at the all too young age of just 60.

Mel and Griff: making us laugh

Yes, some of his former colleagues mentioned that Smith had not been in the best of health of late, but that kind of thing is personal, and cannot detract from the body of work that he contributed to, first with the NTNOCN team and then as half of the Alas Smith And Jones partnership with Griff Rhys Jones. The two of them then brought on more comedic talent, and more well known shows.

Memorable moments: where to start? Smith and Pamela Stephenson discussing football hooliganism, with Griff sending up BBC frontman of the time Hugh Scully (“Huge Scullery”), with the payoff line “Cut off their goolies” (above) has to be near the top, and Mel and Griff not playing darts (below) but drinking their way to 501 milligrams of alcohol, is another classic.

That is the kind of thing that fans of classic comedy will remember. But it is not enough for the Mail On Sunday: “Troubled comedy genius is dead at 60: Gout, two stomach ulcers and 50-a-day Nurofen Plus addiction... The dark health secrets of multi-millionaire Mel Smith”. Yes, we have to be envious because he made a lot of money. And the inmates of Northcliffe House wonder why they’re disliked.

Mail people, not only do your readers not need to have that rammed down their throat, they also don’t want it. We can understand that those who devote so much of their lives to making us laugh might be flawed. The genre is chock full of greats who also had to deal with addictive personalities. It goes with the territory. But that doesn’t mean rubbing our noses in it the moment they die.

Instead, check out John Lloyd’s warm tribute in Independent Voices, or the Guardian’s more conventional obituary, to see how it should be done. The MoS has gained no friends with its shameless attempt to kick the dead just to sell a few more copies, and many Mail Online commenters have expressed their disgust at the piece. But the Mail titles don’t say sorry.

After all, the subject of the hatchet job is dead, so that’s all right, then.

Top Six – July 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 have to get the washing out (again). So there.

6 Littlejohn Redefines Welfare The Daily Mail’s talentless and unfunny churnalist told his readers that no disabled people were suffering benefit cuts, and that pensions were not part of the welfare bill.

5 Keogh Reports While Others Spin The fact of the Keogh Review did not match the horror stories spun by the Telegraph, Mail and Sun. But that didn’t stop the crude politicisation by the Tories.

4 Katie Hopkins – The Media’s Problem The tabloids continued to scream about the unsubtle antics of the former Apprentice contestant. Why? She’s their creation, and so she’s their problem.

3 Daily Mail Suckered By Bigots The obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre is always on the lookout for Muslim bashing material. And with the story of a 10 year old being allegedly denied a drink of water because his class mates were fasting as part of Ramadan, they had a prime opportunity. But the boy’s mother was a Football Casuals supporter, and the rest didn’t add up, either.

2 Littlejohn BBC Fishing Rant Dicky Windbag was most unhappy – the hated BBC had interviewed someone on the Today programme, and kept their identity secret. Then the Mail couldn’t find her. So off went Littlejohn, fishing to try and narrow down the search while his boss got a PI on the case.

1 Is It Time To Sack Toby Young? The loathsome pundit asked if it was time to sack Culture Secretary Maria Miller – having come rather late to this one – but then got his Wimbledon winners and runners-up mixed up. If he can’t differentiate between Marion Bartoli and Sabine Lisicki, what is the point of Toby Young?

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

The Bonk Of England Speaks

Mary Ellen Synon, once dubbed “The Bonk Of England” after her affair with deputy governor Rupert Pennant-Rea was said to have involved sex on the carpet in the Governor of the Bank of England’s dressing room, and who was binned by the Irish Independent after a particularly nasty attack on the Sydney Paralympic Games, is in a quandry about an EU related poll.

“71% of Britons want out of the EU: the eurocrats know it, but the Brits don't” she mused. So who reported on the poll to give those hated “eurocrats” the knowledge about it? That would be the Daily Express, and nobody else, and that should send a warning sign: that the title now known as The Daily UKIP reports something, but the equally Europhobic Mail and Telegraph do not, is significant.

So let’s check out where the poll originated: “The poll was commissioned by the very serious Bruges Group” tells Ms Synon, not telling her readers that this organisation is not even slightly serious, but a blatantly Europhobic source of screaming anti-EU propaganda. But never mind, the poll was carried out by Survation, a reputable pollster. So what was the question?

Here’s the preamble: “The European Economic Area (EEA) is the single market that allows for free movement of goods, services, people and capital between all participating European countries. There are two organisations which allow countries to access this EEA single market - the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). The UK could remain a member of the single market if it left the EU and joined the EFTA. Unlike the EU, the EFTA does not involve itself in countries’ agriculture, fisheries, home affairs or justice policies, and allows countries to negotiate free trade agreements with any outside countries. The UK would have to adopt 60% fewer regulations and pay around £3bn less in budget contributions if it was in the EFTA instead of the EU, but would have less power to influence the rules of the single market”.

And here’s the question: “With this in mind, which would you prefer the UK to be a member of?” which answers everything. Respondents are offered a totally false prospectus and a shed load of bogus assumptions, are led to the desired answer, and give that desired answer. My only surprise is that the result was not even more decisive. But we do not have the choice of living in Fairy Dairy Land.

Plus, as any fule kno, copy like that from the Express, that talks of the UK becoming “like Norway” is total crap. Norway pays more per head to the EU than the UK does, and it’s not even a member state. The only regulations to which it isn’t signed up are for the single currency (ditto the UK) and agriculture and fisheries. The reality of the Bruges Group kite flying is nothing like the pre-question spiel.

But good to see The Bonk Of England still so prejudiced as to be deaf to reality.

Leveson And A Hacking Show Trial

Hacked Off must be having an effect with their relentless campaign to get the Royal Charter on press regulation – the one that actually bears some resemblance to what was outlined by Lord Justice Leveson – through the Privy Council stage and sealed. We know this because the Daily Mail has begun to howl “look over there” at hacking that is not done on behalf of newspapers.

That some hacking and tapping is done by private investigators and others on behalf of commercial clients was revealed as part of a leak from a Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) investigation. However, and there is inevitably a however when the press is concerned, that one participant was only hacking for papers 20% of the time does not mean that 80% of all hacking is not done by the press.

Sadly and predictably, this figure has been deemed sufficiently convenient to beat the authorities with, and today the Mail has gone totally gaga, first asserting that the Guardian’s story about Milly Dowler’s voicemails being deleted was false, rather than the jury being out on it (Nick Davies had four sources for his copy, or three more than the Mail usually manages), then conflating Leveson and Police work.

“A judge-led inquiry – some might say a show trial – was set up with the Press placed firmly in the dock, and three police inquiries launched, involving almost 200 officers poring over millions of emails and phone records. The police revelled in their task, arresting dozens of journalists in the kind of violent dawn raids normally reserved for dangerous criminals” [my emphases].

The Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor knows full well that Leveson and those three Police inquiries are not one and the same, and to call the former a “show trial” takes the press paranoia to new heights. But let’s cut Dacre and his pals a little slack here: hacking is hacking is hacking, whoever is doing it, and whoever is paying. So of course it should be investigated and appropriate action taken.

What do the Police need to get started? What are they waiting for? Ah well. Consider what started the Screws hacking probe: there was months of painstaking research by Nick Davies (yes, him again). The deeply subversive Guardian did not sit there publishing whingeing editorials, which is what the Mail has done today, but did the investigation and shamed the Met into pulling its corporate finger out.

The Met’s work was helped immeasurably by having Glenn Mulcaire’s notebooks, so there was evidence. More has come to light since. And if anyone wants to see all those corporate hacking clients given the 0600 knock, they too need to get some evidence together, and stop blaming Leveson, for whom anything that wasn’t press related was outside his terms of reference.

Stop complaining, press people, and try doing some proper investigative journalism.

Lynton Crosby’s Avoidable Deaths

[Update at end of post]

You have to hand it to Lynton Crosby. He initiates the press briefing, that Labour are somehow responsible for 13,000 avoidable and unnecessary deaths in NHS hospitals, despite the review he’s referring to taking place years after they left power, yet dodges the heat over rather larger numbers of avoidable deaths perpetrated by an industry on whose behalf he has been intervening.

Copyright Steve Bell 2013

Yes, Lynt shills not only for Young Dave, but also for Big Oil, and for Big Tobacco. And, as I pointed out yesterday, last week’s briefings about the Keogh Review had his fingerprints all over them: crude, dog-whistle stuff, flagrantly dishonest, and of a standard that guarantees a leap from gutter directly into sewer. Moreover, if Labour cannot effectively rebut the Crosby tide, they will have a problem with it.

But, when it comes to avoidable deaths, numbers like 13,000 over several years pale into insignificance when compared to the malign effects of Big Tobacco. Cancer Research UK estimated that smoking-related diseases, including cancers and heart disease, resulted in a whopping 102,000 premature deaths in 2009 alone. Many of those involved treatment in one or more NHS facilities.

So it might be thought that any responsible Government would want to make inroads into that number, not only to prevent deaths, but also reduce the cost to the NHS, and therefore the taxpayer. But that thought would be misplaced, as with Crosby present behind the scenes at 10 Downing Street, the Government has ducked its responsibilities and caved in to industry pressure.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) set its stall out last year, with the deeply subversive Guardian noting “Fifty years after public first warned about cigarettes, doctors call for price rises, plain packaging and anti-smoking campaign” [my emphasis]. Proposals to go ahead with plain packaging for cigarettes were dropped from the Queen’s Speech in May this year.

Lynton Crosby also works for Philip Morris, the company that brings the world Marlboro (among other brands). And despite the stonewalling of Cameron’s spokesman this week, plus the usual – and utterly ineffective – attempts at deflection from Grant “Spiv” Shapps, the conflict of interest is only less than obvious to someone who would rather not see it.

On top of that is the rank, stinking hypocrisy: Crosby is on the one hand behind the press briefing pitching the “13,000 NHS deaths” line, while on the other he is, er, behind the sidelining of a policy that would make inroads into that figure of just over 100,000 avoidable deaths – which happen each and every year. And then he gets the press to “look over there” as instructed.

You think something stinks about that kind of politics? You’d be absolutely right.

[UPDATE 21 July 1120 hours: the public is clearly not impressed by the Government's move to drop plain packaging. 60% of those asked as part of a YouGov poll were of the opinion that this happened due to pressure from tobacco firms - like the one Lynton Crosby shills for.

Moreover, as The Australian has pointed out, recent research shows that smokers using plain packets perceive the content to be of lower quality, and as a result are more likely to look to quit the habit. Even a marginal impact - given that figure of over 100,000 smoking related deaths in 2009 - would mean thousands of lives saved.

Other interesting figures from the YouGov poll were that 58% of the population back plain packaging, and a mere 18% think it OK that Crosby should be able to represent both the tobacco industry and the Tory Party. On top of all that, Cameron again ducked the question of Crosby's involvement when questioned directly on it by Andrew Marr this morning]

Lynton Leaves His Mark

Last week’s use of the Keogh Review by the Tories to launch a clearly pre-planned assault on Labour’s stewardship of the NHS was well co-ordinated, and it was as binary in its characterisation as it was dishonest. Yet thus far nobody has joined the dots and identified the source of this assault. Step forward Lynton Crosby, now advising Young Dave, and bringing more spivvery to the Tory Party.

Yes, you

That Crosby was behind the NHS attack can be in no doubt: first there was a briefing to the Sundays, with the Telegraph, Mail and Sun all telling readers what Bruce Keogh would say, which in all three cases was wrong. But it conformed to a characteristically narrow view, talking of “squalor”, large numbers of deaths, calling hospitals “death-traps”, and saying it was All Labour’s Fault.

When Crosby is doing the attacking, the briefing does not need to match such trivial things as facts: the mortality ratios Keogh worked from were generated between one and two years after Labour left office; his visits between two and three years after. And, as has been pointed out, these ratios cannot be extrapolated to give an actual number of deaths. Mortality has been falling for the past decade by at least 30%.

These, though, are mere inconveniences, and are screened out before the press is briefed. Even after Keogh personally refuted the figures pitched by the Sundays, and his report made no mention of them, back came the same papers, clearly briefed by the same single source, with the same figures. Meanwhile, the same line had been taken by the Government in the Commons.

Rarely has Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) looked so guilty as he recited his pre-ordained lines, knowing he was going to stir up the proverbial hornet’s nest, if only through the sheer brazen dishonesty of it all. Polly Toynbee is right that the briefing came from 10 Downing Street, but has not as yet identified the culprit. The Crosby campaign against Ken Livingstone is instructive here.

“Imagine going back to ...” start so many Crosby snipes at Livingstone, followed by suggestions that he avoided taxes, wasted money, is dishonest, and is attempting to scam voters. There is blatant dishonesty – Bozza is asserted to have built 50,000 affordable homes in his first term – with improvements made by Livingstone (like Police numbers) claimed for the Blond.

Crucially, Crosby repeatedly claims that Livingstone cannot be trusted. And that is what the aim of the NHS bashing is with Labour: say whatever it takes, no matter whether it is actually true, to make it Labour that cannot be trusted on the NHS, rather than the Tories. So prepare for an apocalyptic and deadly past NHS to be spun, followed by “Imagine going back to that with Labour”

You read it here first: it’s crude, and it’s clumsy, so it has to be Crosby.

Guido Fawked – Silenced By Dacre?

Anyone still not persuaded that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have sold out to the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate should consider the long-running feud between Staines and Andrew Pierce, formerly of the Maily Telegraph, but now of the Daily Mail, which had been running for around five years, but now appears to have fizzled out.

Course the f***er's silent, I shut the c**** up

This was over Staines routinely calling Pierce out for plagiarism, an early example of which can be seen in Private Eye, Issue 1225, from December 2008, which is reproduced below. Staines accuses Pierce, then at the Tel, of being a “thieving c***” (twice), while Pierce attempts to come over all perplexed and innocent. There have been many more examples since the latter’s move to the Mail.

August 2011 brought “Andrew Pierce Goes All Hari On Us”, after The Great Guido caught the Mail hack lifting content from Telegraph readers’ letters. One cannot disagree with Staines here: that’s bang to rights. And in May last year there was “Andrew Pierce is a Thief – An Occasional Series”, as the Mail man was once again caught raiding the Tel’s letters page.

Last August brought “Mail Magpie Pierce Does It Again”, this time following the Fawkes blog having its content lifted for one of Pierce’s Mail columns. And as recently as last month, “Magpie Pierce At It Again”, after the Fawkes column in the Sunday Sun was raided to enable Pierce to flesh out his witterings with a tasty morsel of gossip. But today’s lift has brought silence thus far.

Pierce’s latest rant, “He presided over corrupt elections and smears. Yet Red Ed's picked this union dinosaur to clean up Labour's vote rigging scandal”, is a hatchet job on Ray Collins, who has been detailed by Mil The Younger to investigate the apparent packing of the selection process for the Falkirk constituency by the Unite union. Much of it is gathered from readily available sources.

But the part alleging that Collins was involved in the infamous and short lived Red Rag site, along with Charlie Whelan, Derek Draper and Damian McBride, comes directly from a post published by the Fawkes blog ten days ago, titled, just to give Pierce the signpost he needed, “Ray Collins Helped Plan to Set Up Red Rag”. There are even a series of gay-bashing smears added for good measure.

Collins’ partner is described as “an exuberant florist 15 years younger than him”, for example. This is sickeningly hypocritical: Pierce is gay, and the Mail wheels him out whenever there is a requirement to deflect accusations of homophobia. Yet, among all the other detail in the Pierce attack on Collins, there is no acknowledgement that he’s cribbed some of it from the Fawkes blog. Staines has remained silent.

Has Guido sold out to the Vagina Monologue? Another fine mess, once again.

Littlejohn Redefines Welfare

Despite residing behind the protection of a gated compound in Vero Beach, FL., the Daily Mail’s unfunny and talentless churnalist Richard Littlejohn knows that, to keep on trousering the obscene sums of money to which he has become accustomed, he must jump whenever his legendarily foul mouthed editor says so. This includes some pretence of how ordinary residents of the UK actually live.

Welfare, Guv? They're all scrahngers, innit?!?

Sadly, Dick’s geographical separation from the action, together with his terminal inability to indulge in the mystical practice known as “five minutes’ Googling”, means that howlers slip through the net, and today’s routinely piss-poor offering rewards attention by offering up some prime ones. That offering, “It’s not reckless to impose cuts on the feckless”, is typical of the genre.

Here, the young woman who appeared on Monday morning’s Today programme, presented to the audience as Rebecca, whom the Mail has still not identified – and you can be sure that Dacre will have at least one private investigator on the case – goes from “sounding African” to being an “immigrant living on benefits”. And her accent gets ridiculed into the bargain, not that Dick’s a bigot, you understand.

“People rightly get riled” about Rebecca, Littlejohn asserts, but fails to tell readers that those people are his editor and all the others who have so far failed to find her – and when they do, boy, will she get smeared big time. But while the Mail works out its frustration at their identification failure, there is always the disabled to kick, and Dick, veteran of the Motability smear campaign, knows how to do that.

“The halt and the lame will be dragged across our BBC TV screens like modern-day Bob Cratchits. Political activists in wheelchairs will chain themselves to the railings for the benefit of the cameras, even though no one who is genuinely disabled is suffering any cuts in their income or support”. Not much, they aren’t: the Spartacus Report campaign didn’t start up for nothing.

And, as the man said, there’s more: “But their faux outrage has been proved to be a damp squib”. Of course it has, Dick. Shall I book you a meeting with Sue Marsh when you next bother to fetch up in the UK, or will you be washing your barnet several times instead? But nothing puts him off his stride: “The Tories should now feel emboldened to cut welfare further and faster”.

Why so? “It’s a vote-winner, especially with older people who have played by the rules and paid taxes all their lives”. You mean like those who receive a state pension, which makes up almost half of all welfare spending, Dicky boy? Or does it stop being “welfare” when there are too many Daily Mail readers in the target group? This “welfare” thing is the most flexible and convenient of concepts for some.

Still, the ranting convinces some readers and pays the bills. No change there, then.

It Was Ten Years Ago Today

It still seems like yesterday, but ten years have passed since David Kelly, the weapons inspector caught up in the bruising row between the Blair Government and the BBC, was found dead near his Oxfordshire home. Kelly got thrown under the bus, the Beeb lost a very able Director-General, and even Tone emerged seriously damaged and minus his chief spinmeister.

David Kelly giving evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee

To commemorate the anniversary, there has been the usual renewal of calls for a release of any information about Kelly’s death not already in the public domain, assertions that there must be an inquest into the death – as if that will miraculously reveal new information – and the continuing allegations that he would still be alive if not for the machinations of Tone and Big Al.

But one participant gets off scot free, and their identity will be revealed later in this post. Meanwhile, the deeply subversive Guardian has stuck to a more orthodox line, with Vikram Dodd telling “Death of WMD dossier scientist contributed to erosion of trust in politics” with which there can be little argument. That erosion only continued when the mythical Iraqi WMD could not be persuaded to materialise.

Such an approach will not, of course, suffice for the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, who has commanded Stephen “Miserable Git” Glover over the top in a tenth birthday why-oh-why fest. “Ten years ago today, Dr Kelly's body was found. The subsequent cover-up is one of the great scandals of our age ... we still do not know for certain why or how Dr Kelly died”. Bullshit.

And so is the rest of the article, with “facts” presented with more side than a Ronnie O’Sullivan trick shot, then massaged and selected to fit the agenda: Tone and Big Al fixed it all with their pal Charlie Falconer, Hutton did not conclude as the Mail would wish and was therefore compliant, and we haven’t been given what Dacre and his hacks laughably call “The Truth”. Pull the other one.

As Tom Mangold has noted in a piece for Independent Voices, “Sadly, conspiracy theories grow like choking green algae in oxygen-starved waters. If only the conspiracy nuts were right – then poor investigative journalists like me would be rolling in dosh instead of eking out our humble lives on subsistence fees”. And all those targeting Alastair Campbell are missing out someone.

Look who's here, everyone!

Step forward Andrew “Transcription Error” Gilligan, whose journalistic craft came up short under Hutton’s examination. It was Gilligan who told members of the Commons committee that questioned Kelly that he was also the source used by Newsnight’s Susan Watts. That undoubtedly increased the pressure on Kelly when he appeared before them. Yet he manages to get away without attracting any flak.

Gilligan should no longer be the forgotten man of the David Kelly affair.