Leveson Is Served (4)

THE MCCANNS AND THE DESMOND PRESS

Today, Kate and Gerry McCann, parents of missing Madeleine, have been attending the Leveson enquiry. And, for those who thought they had seen and heard it all, there were some positively jaw-dropping moments, especially when the conduct of those labouring in the service of Richard “Dirty” Desmond was discussed. Small wonder that the couple sued.

On the general point of the wider press coverage of the case, it was clear that few, if any, of the hacks had bothered to get a decent translation of the Portuguese term “arguido”, and most just used the English term “suspect”. But “arguido” does not mean “suspect”. It means “person of interest”. But Portuguese law is not the same as that in England and Wales, so corners were cut.

And it’s clear that the broadcast media were not the only ones camped out by the Police station in Portimão: Gerry McCann estimated that there were “tens, if not hundreds” of them. The appetite for information was “ferocious”. And the Portuguese press were getting fed news from somewhere, and that somewhere was probably the Police. So maybe not so different to the UK, then.

And here is where the sheer hypocrisy of the Fourth Estate comes in: they probed for weak spots, found where information was coming from, then relayed every scrap they got from the Police, often apparently embellished for dramatic effect. And then when the same Police seemed to be getting nowhere, they turned and dumped on them. Few titles emerged with honour.

But it was the Desmond titles that took the biscuit time and again: the Express was warned that the content of certain articles was libellous. The Daily Star led with “’Maddy sold’ by hard-up McCanns”. The same hacks had also asserted that the couple stored the child’s body in a freezer. At least the articles have now been removed from the paper’s website.

But the real jaw-dropper came when the McCanns complained. The response of the Express was to suggest that they do an interview with OK! Magazine, Des’ cheap and nasty sleb’n’goss weekly. Not surprisingly, they took action instead, and the Desmond press had to shell out around half a million notes, plus costs. Only after this, and a front page apology in both Express and Star, did things improve.

Telling whoppers just to sell a few more papers and without bothering to consider the hurt and damage your hacks were causing? That’ll be another Benchmark of Excellence.

Del Boy The Turd Polisher

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

As I observed recently, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, part funded by the Kochs, pored over recent temperature records, alert to the possibility of distortion due to factors such as the “urban heat island” effect. Their conclusion was, effectively, that the data was sound and that warming of the planet was indeed occurring. And that might have been that.

Sadly, for the climate change denial lobby, that could not be allowed to be that, and BEST was subjected to a deluge of opprobrium. Some showed a significant level of distress at the news, especially James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, who passed adverse comment on the whole project, which was interesting for one who admits he is merely an “interpreter of interpretations”.

But Del Boy is never down for long: now there has been another release of illegally obtained emails from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU). As Stephan Lewandowsky has observed, the timing of the release is similar to that of the original “Climategate” one, just before a UN climate conference. But Del Boy is, at least, a very happy bunny.

Sadly, the language is as so many times before: “global warming loons” [Del’s been watching Bill O’Reilly, top rated host on his favourite Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse)], “caught red-handed ... scam ... bomb the global economy back to the dark ages ... politicised, disingenuous junk ... charlatans ... game was well and truly up”. But he has to get A for effort.

But clearly not enough of the world outside Del Boy’s adoring echo chamber at Telegraph blogs (Sid and Doris Bonkers) has paid attention to his news, so he has returned to the subject today, telling of “warmist trolls” who he knows are out there because Anthony Watts’ blog tells him so. So readers are treated to yet another outpouring from his mountainous intellect.

Put directly, however, this is just so much steaming by-product from the northbound end of a southbound bull. The only reason Del Boy got away with his previous attacks on the CRU was that they couldn’t afford to sue, and the spineless Press Complaints Council (PCC) allowed Del to deploy the “Littlejohn Defence” and say it was justifiable comment. And where’s your sense of humour?

As Lewandowsky has pointed out, after the first release of emails, there was a series of investigations into the CRU, and every one ended up exonerating those concerned of any wrongdoing. But the attacks continue, with the language as before: the science is “unravelling”, “the game is up”, it’s all a “scam”, there “isn’t any warming”, and even if there is, it’s “not significant”.

But it keeps Del Boy occupied, so that’s all right, then.

[UPDATE1 November 25: Del Boy, clearly aware that very few people are listening, has tried to garner more attention by ratcheting up the abuse, smearing one message as "most toecurlingly awful, damning, vile, reprehensible, stomach-churningly dreadful email – the one that shows the Warmist junk-scientists in a light of such festering syphilitic repellance".

And just in case this, too, failed to generate any column inches, he followed up with another pile of abuse directed towards the CRU's Phil Jones, citing his PCC "victory" and asserting dishonestly that someone was trying to "bully me into silence". The Delingpole attacks are looking more desperate by the day, and that should suit most folks just fine]

[UPDATE2 Nov 25 later: Del Boy is trying to keep the pressure up by citing a letter from Lords Lawson and Turnbull to Chris Huhne, sent on behalf of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, another Astroturf lobby group that refuses to reveal who funds it. This is held to be "Lawson squishes Huhne", but sadly is just another pile of unsubstantiated guff. Oh well, keep whistling to keep those spirits up, eh Del?]

We’re Not Even Booking It

So Thomas Cook are in trouble. No-one should be surprised. The days when folks would visit their local travel agent to sort their holidays are gone, swept away by the Net, low cost carriers, and an increasing appetite for D-i-Y trips away. After all, what’s the point in being just another tourist surrounded by sweaty mindless oafs from Kettering and Boventry ...

Seriously though, Cooks should have seen this coming, and years ago. To actually see either of their two shops in Crewe with more than a couple of punters visiting is unusual nowadays. And, other than “holiday products”, for which read package tours, travel insurance and foreign currency, there is precious little else that these outlets can arrange.

Want to fly somewhere? Well, they can book you on some low cost carriers such as EasyJet, but it will cost more than if you do it yourself. They aren’t able to access Opodo, so those scheduled flights at reasonable prices are out – unless, again, you book it. Once upon a time, travel agents could book rail travel for you. Not any more, they can’t.

Didn't Thomas Cook it to get here ...

On-line booking sites, where you can browse flights, hotels, transfers, excursions, and most importantly get real-world information and feedback about possible destinations, have over the past decade given so much power over travel and holiday choices to the people who actually do the travelling, have rendered the High Street travel agent redundant.

Even areas where you might think the package would score well, such as providing transfers from airports to resorts, can be done independently: you can arrange a minibus share or exclusive car to and from airports around the Mediterranean when booking the hotel or apartment. And those who have to have their own car do not need a travel agent to sort it.

... or to get here

So what now for Thomas Cook, the outfit founded by a temperance campaigner to take people to meetings where they were warned of the dangers of the demon drink, but which has recently transported significant numbers of the thirsty? Well, many of those shops will have to go for starters. And they won’t be the only name on the High Street to vanish.

The company will have to adapt to meet demand for D-i-Y travel. Or, of course, it could go bust. The travel and holiday industry has seen plenty of that over the years, and would carry on without the Cook’s Tour rather as before.

Oo-Er Readers, Free Airport Publicity!

The campaign by occasional London mayor – and regular collector of “chicken feed” from the Maily Telegraph – Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to have a new airport built somewhere out in the Thames estuary is gaining speed, and unlike the HS2 project, Astroturf lobby groups like the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) are nowhere to be seen, despite the £50 billion price tag.

This raising of the idea’s profile has been achieved almost exclusively by the very paper that hands Bozza a quarter of a million notes a year for a column a week of poorly researched pontificating, with three pieces on the project yesterday alone. One even included a video of Bozza not mentioning price-tags, the SS Richard Montgomery, or the property developers slavering in the background.

Because Bozza’s phrase “the prize would be immense” does not just refer to what is nowadays called the “Thames Gateway” area. Were he to get his way, his all-new airport would have enough capacity to allow Heathrow to be closed. And Heathrow is a mightily big site. It’s connected to the M4 and the Tube. And you could plonk one hell of a lot of real estate on it.

And it isn’t the only “let’s move the airport out of town” idea being floated across Europe’s capital cities: although the economic downturn has stalled the idea, the move to build a new airport for Lisbon out to the east of the city, while abandoning Portela de Sacavém – which will soon have a Metro link – means the developers will be queuing up there too, if a little later than planned.

This kind of idea generates wins for almost everyone bar the long suffering traveller: a new build airport means more space, its isolation means premium fare rail and coach links (the coach operators hated it when the DLR got to London City Airport), and there could even be a toll road deal in it for some lucky developer. Oh, and nice steady high fare taxi rides.

How might that work? Well, consider the city of Milan, which has two airports, Linate (7km from the city centre) and Malpensa (40km to the north west). You can get out to Linate on a city bus and the fare is the same as for any other local journey, €1.50. The Malpensa express rail link will set you back €11, while that operator’s normal tariff for a 40km journey is just €3.75, or €5.60 first class. Ker-ching!

Which airport do most carriers use (including EasyJet)? Why, Malpensa, of course. There’s lots of room for everyone ... to make money. Bozza can look at the example of Milan and dream of helping his pals to fill their boots. There is, though, that price tag to get over, and with clearing the Richard Montgomery thrown in, it could cost a lot more than £50 billion. Yikes readers!

Leveson Is Served (3)

OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY!

Yesterday’s appearance of actor Hugh Grant before the Leveson enquiry, together with his forthright denunciation of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and the modus operandi of his empire, was unmissable. Grant also said what many – especially those who saw the Daily Mail at the top of the Operation Motorman charts – had thought, when he fingered the Mail On Sunday for phone hacking.

The reaction from the Dacre press has been equally forthright, but as Mark Pack of LibDemVoice noted earlier, Phonehackgate was relegated to Page 10 of today’s Daily Mail, while making the front page of several other titles. This should surprise no-one: Associated’s executives will see the Murdochs being sucked into the financial mire and dread the trail of evidence arriving at their door.

But the taint of impropriety already hangs over the Mail titles: one former hack told Nick Davies “We used to use the social security computer as if it was an extension of the Daily Mail library”. Another observed “If the Mail go for you, they get every phone number you have dialled, every schoolmate, everything on your credit card, every call from your phone and from your mobile. Everything”.

And it is againt these examples of “previous” that the rebuttal from “Daily Mail Comment” (the part of the paper most likely to have Paul Dacre’s very own prints all over it) should be considered. Under the title “Mr Grant: the facts” (which should sound an immediate warning, given the Mail’s relationship with such things), an attempt is made to draw the proverbial line. It does not.

No I'm not f***ing well consumed with c***ing hatred

We are told of “millionaire actor Hugh Grant”, which is code for “fair game”, though this does not cover millionaire editor Paul Dacre, or millionaire churnalist Richard Littlejohn. Grant is “a man consumed with hatred”, a trait which Paul Dacre will recognise. And his paper is in no position to judge Grant’s “colourful and ... unedifying love life” with Mary Ellen “bonk of England” Synon on board.

Millionaire, guv? It's on ITV, innit?!?

But the cat is let out of the bag in one go with this statement: “The Mail papers do NOT hack phones and our sister paper, the Mail On Sunday, has unequivocally refuted his claim that they secured a story about him as a result of this practice”. Leaving aside the incorrect use of “refute”, nobody is suggesting that the Mail titles themselves hack phones.

The Screws didn’t hack phones – they engaged the services of a PI to do it, and a variety of other illegal activity, on their behalf. Rather like the Mail engaged the services of Steve Whittamore. That’s what made them top of the Operation Motorman charts. The Mail is denying an allegation that hasn’t been explicitly made, and by doing so is drawing suspicion to itself. Dacre og 1, as the Eye might say.

An Eye? It’s Only A Scratch!

The Daily Mail’s tedious and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn has today outdone his picking on the disabled, as he suggests that a man who lost the sight of one eye should not have redress against those responsible. It’s only an accident, tells Dick, and infers that the person concerned should have claimed on his insurance and got over it.

This is, reckons Dick, just another example of “elf’n’safety gone mad”. But it isn’t: personal injury litigation does not depend on health and safety law, and has been going on as long as there has been a legal system in the UK, so that’ll take us back a few hundred years, then. And an award of around £400k for losing the sight of one eye – for good – should not surprise anyone.

Hypocrisy, guv? Go see a doctor, innit?!?

Indeed, Dick knows all about measuring his dosh in hundreds of thousands of pounds, given that he trousered around a million notes a year as far back as 2005. Six years later, who knows how much of the green folding stuff is being chucked at him to keep him happy? His legendarily foul mouthed editor had a remuneration package of a whopping £2.8 million last year.

So Dick has no room to quibble about a £400k injury payout. And nor does he have any room to complain about folks resorting to litigation: back in 2005, he decided to jump ship from the Super Soaraway Currant Bun before his contract ended. The twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, then editing the rag, found adversely on this move and vetoed it.

From there, the tug-of-hack between News International and Associated Newspapers went to litigation – that’s the kind of thing that Dick isn’t happy for others to do. Every media watcher willed the dispute to come to court. Sadly, all were disappointed as a settlement was reached. It was even described as “amicable”. A no win, no fun arrangement, then.

Thus another tale of routine hypocrisy from Littlejohn. I’m sure that Florida compound is a nice, warm and secure place for the poor soul to count the latest hundred thousand – and he has the advantage of being able to see all that lovely lolly with both eyes.

Mind how you go.

Guido Fawked – Wilful Blindness

[Update at end of post]

Goings-on at the Leveson enquiry are, as I write, not being reported by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole at the Guido Fawkes blog. This may not be unconnected to the allegation made earlier by actor Hugh Grant that the Mail On Sunday must have hacked his phone: the Fawkes blog has a nice little earner with the Dacre press.

What do you mean I have to stay awake?

And it isn’t the only news item where the less than dynamic duo are behind the curve today: the appointment of a political editor for the BBC Newsnight programme is apparently imminent, so the Fawkes blog has to show that it has the contacts and the knowledge. This consists of recycling a Tweet from Adam Boulton of Sky News (“first for breaking wind”).

This by itself might, however, give the game away and demonstrate that Staines and Cole haven’t a clue (again), so there are a couple of paragraphs of accompanying verbiage where the supposed candidates pass before inspection before the Fawkes blog so that its superior insights may be applied. Eventually, readers are told that “Guido would put a readies [sic] on [John] Piennar [sic] if there was a book open”.

No doubt this is completely unconnected to another Tweet, this from Neil Midgley, that Pienaar had already been appointed, according to rumours coming out of the Beeb. But this is a mere taster for the routine hypocrisy exhibited by Cole this afternoon over Leveson. Responding angrily to a wind-up Tweet by Alastair Campbell, he leapt to the defence of the Mail.

Big Al had suggested that, following Grant’s assertion that the Mail had been hacking his phone, the law should in short order be heading in the general direction of Dacre Towers. This caused Cole’s humour circuit to overload and short out, as he fired back “er the evidence being?” as Campbell chortled into his BlackBerry. Thus the double standard was exposed.

Cole and Staines have churned out post after post in their attempt to pin phone hacking on the appalling Piers “Morgan” Moron, and none of them has contained even a sliver of original information. No new evidence has been provided, and they are yet to follow through on their laughable claim that “we’re taking our evidence to the Metropolitan Police”.

But as soon as someone suggests the rozzers home in on their new best pal Dacre, the evidential bar is hoisted rather higher. Staines and Cole are not merely clueless, they’re blinkered tribalists who can’t bring themselves to look at Phonehackgate unless they can pin something on those rotten lefties. Which paper was top of the Operation Motorman charts, lads?

Have to hurry you, no conferring ...

[UPDATE 22 November: the Curse Of Guido has struck again, as John Pienaar did not get the Newsnight job, which went instead to the Guardian's Allegra Stratton. Whether Staines and Cole actually put any money on their hunch is something that probably won't see the light of day. Another fine mess]

The Clueless Telegraph

The Maily Telegraph, it has to be conceded, does not produce the level of Europhobic drivel that comes out of the Daily Mail. Instead, it produces a more upmarket kind of drivel, one that attempts intellectual rigour while not quite managing to stand up the argument. Events over the weekend have served only to highlight this tendency among the paper’s punditry.

Poor Benedict “famous last words” Brogan is as unconvincing as ever: he lauds Young Dave’s supposed concession on the Working Time Directive in exchange for changes to the Lisbon Treaty as a good deal. But the Tories had already committed themselves to a referendum if there was any treaty change. Ben hasn’t improved much on his mistaken pronouncement on Andy Coulson.

But it’s good to see the Telegraph returning to its default value of cheering on the Tories whether their performance is good, bad or indifferent. And reinforcing this unthinking praise for anything right of centre is our old friend Dan, Dan the Oratory Man, who has worked himself up into an advanced state of excitement over the result of the General Election in Spain.

“Spain rejects socialism” trumpets Dan, unaware that there is not much that is socialist about the outgoing PSOE. Just having the S-word in its name – like the PS in Portugal – doesn’t alter the fact of the matter, which is that both are Social Democratic parties. The winning PP is hardly “Conservative” either, but roughly equivalent to the Christian Democrats in Germany.

And Dan omits to tell his gallery of cheerleaders that the PP won an equally decisive majority in 2000, only to have it wiped out four years later after their party leader – that would be Mariano Rajoy, the bloke who won yesterday – ineptly tried to call the Madrid bombings as an ETA attack, which they very obviously weren’t, merely for political gain.

Nor does Dan explain how Rajoy and his pals will “get people back to work by reforming Spain’s sclerotic labour laws”. There are, as I pointed out the other week, 4.36 million unemployed in Spain – 21% of the workforce – and merely making it easier to hire and fire isn’t in itself going to create one more job, especially when Rajoy has also pledged to cut the country’s debt.

Having seen the clumsy way that Rajoy has behaved in the past, I have little confidence in him as a Prime Minister, rather less than I have in Pedro Passos Coelho in Portugal. What Hannan cannot, or will not, take on board is that merely because someone is labelled “Conservative” does not make them fit for purpose. But it fits the Telegraph agenda.

No change there, then.

Express Euro Doublespeak

The dwindling band of hacks who labour to cobble together the Daily Express on the smallest of budgets inevitably fall back on subjects that need little investigation, while yielding maximum why-oh-why value and – hopefully – keeping readers interested. Thus the continual tide of knocking copy aimed at the EU. And thus the number of stories about the EU budget.

After all, budget negotiations go on for many weeks every year, then that budget is set, and after that, there’s room for the pundits to pile in and string it out even further. It’s a valuable source of column inches. And so it proved this year: back on October 7, the headline screamed “Government Slams EU Budget Increase”, as readers were told this could exceed 5%.

At the same time, the piece told that “an inflation only increase of 2%” was “the most the EU should expect”. And, in case readers didn’t get it the first time, on October 12 came “EU Greedy Lot! [geddit?!?] MEPs Vote For £5.7BN Budget Rise”. This, though, needed further reinforcement, so on October 27 came “Scandal Of EU’s £116BN Budget”. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point.

Victory on Saturday ...

But the Express also needs to convince readers that its “crusade” is having an effect, so last Saturday came the crude and jingoistic “Victory In Europe! EU Budget Freeze”. “Eurocrats suffered a defeat today [the EU works Saturdays in Express land] as the EU budget was restricted to an inflation-only rise of 2%” trumpeted the piece, which affirmed that this was “a real-terms freeze”.

... Defeat by Monday

So the budget agreement was A Good Thing, or rather it was A Good Thing on Saturday. By today, the Express hacks had reconsidered, and decided it was A Very Bad Thing. “Anger Over EU’s Latest Cash Grab” screamed the headline, telling that “There was outrage last night” [the EU also works Sundays in Express land]. The UK’s contribution was pronounced “A huge payment”.

Someone missing their medication?

This editorial line even met with the approval of those who post comments on the Express site: a sample of these, incoherent, abusive, paranoid and slightly menacing, is shown above, just to emphasise that there are people somewhere out there that believe what they read in the paper.

Facing both ways on an issue just to frighten the readers and keep them buying your cheap and nasty papers? That’ll be another Benchmark Of Excellence.

Mail Order Dishonesty

[Update at end of post]

Just when the thought enters that the assembled hackery labouring in the service of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre may have lost their appetite for ripping off other papers and twisting stories to ramp up the why-oh-why value, they come running with another example of cynical unpleasantness. Today’s restatement of the genre comes from Liverpool.

Yesterday's Echo Exclusive ...

Yesterday, the city’s evening paper the Echo had an exclusive: Gary Kays, who helped Sean Mercer, the killer of 11-year old Rhys Jones, and was later convicted of aiding and abetting, had been given day release from prison, from where he has now been released after serving his sentence. While on release he fathered a child with his partner. He was then allowed release to attend the birth.

So far, so much for discussion: prisoners being let out on day release is controversial, and the activities of sometimes armed gangs in parts of Liverpool – and other cities in the UK – are not appreciated by many in the wider community who would rather they were not there. There are other issues to gang culture, too, such as the trade in currently illegal drugs.

... and the dishonest Mail rip-off

None of this, though, has taxed the Mail unduly, nor have the hacks been put off by the fact that Kays did not do the shooting, as witness the screaming headline starting “Gangster who killed schoolboy Rhys Jones ...”. The assertion is not accidental: the story itself starts “Rhys Jones killer ...”. And only in the third paragraph is the acknowledgement “it was reported in the Liverpool Echo”.

And ripping the story off from the Echo, together with a few stock photos, is all the Mail has done. The giveaway is in statements like “the fact that he was able to have a sexual relationship while serving a prison sentence will add further despair for Rhys’s family”, which is code for “we couldn’t be bothered asking the Jones family for a statement, or whether they approve of what we’re doing”.

What you will not see the Dacre hackery telling the Leveson enquiry.

[UPDATE 1850 hours: the Mail has now amended its article to remove the "killer" description, which is either a remarkable coincidence, or someone at the Dacre empire is on the lookout for criticism. Could be a long-term assignment (many thanks to Tabloid Watch for alerting me)]

Right! Click!! (2)

The Tory Party, although it has used the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) for training activists, stresses that it and the YBF are separate organisations. This stance, though, is not helped by the number of Tory MPs (including serving and former ministers), Councillors and hangers-on that have lent their presence to YBF events, and to the group itself, over recent years.

To see this no doubt coincidental convergence, one need go no further than the speakers scheduled for the YBF’s seventh Annual Activist Training Conference next month. Gerald Howarth, who is Minister for International Security Strategy, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence, and an MP of 28 years’ standing, is one of those.

So is Nigel Evans, an MP first returned by the electorate of Ribble Valley in 1992, and now a Deputy Speaker of the Commons. These mainstream Tories are following former Defence Secretary Liam Fox, current Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, and former shadow Home Secretary David Davis in lending their support to the YBF, suggesting that it may not be “non-partisan”.

More controversially, those mainstream Tories will share a platform with the likes of Howard Flight, no stranger to trouble: last year he suggested that proposed benefit changes may encourage the poor to “breed” and only withdrew the remark after Young Dave caused him so to do. Flight had previously been de-selected from his seat by Michael Howard following a gaffe on spending plans.

But Flight, despite his occasional looseness of tongue, is still a loyal Tory, which cannot be said for James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, also speaking at the forthcoming YBF event. Del Boy has condemned Cameron and asserted that he is a worse Prime Minister than Sailor Heath. And the level of abuse Del directs at both parts of the Coalition shows little sign of abating.

Even so, Del Boy appears to be the exception that proves the rule: all other speakers thus far declared for next month’s YBF event are serving or former Tory MPs. And the party’s youth wing Conservative Future (CF), of which Donal Blaney was the first national chairman, calls the YBF “one of our partners”. That assertion is made on the Tory Party’s own website.

So the idea that the YBF is “non-partisan”, or that it is in some way not associated with the Tory Party, is a sham: it is avowedly partisan, and works closely with the party. Any attempt by the Tories to distance themselves from the YBF should be seen as what it is: a cheap ploy to deflect criticism in the hope that those critical of the link will be easily fobbed off by denials and reassurances.

And just imagine the press reaction had this been a left leaning Labour party partner.

Advance Of The U-Word

It was another hot summer day in 1976 – we had a lot of those that year – when someone in the office where I was working heard the news that prompted him to get out a little-used transistor radio (this was a long time ago) and tune in to BBC Radio 4, where we heard that Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the great Labour survivor, had unexpectedly resigned from office.

Wislon, as Private Eye called him, was replaced by Jim Callaghan, who did not go to the country until the last moment – May 1979, almost three years later. But few complained that he was “unelected”: after all, the Parliamentary system doesn’t elect a Prime Minister, although this is customarily the leader of the winning party. It was the same with John Major.

After Margaret Thatcher had been removed by her own party, there was no General Election for another eighteen months. No calls of “unelected” were made. Neither, I suspect, were there any such calls when Alec Douglas-Home replaced Harold Macmillan in 1963, or when Macmillan replaced Anthony Eden after the Suez debacle. Or when Neville Chamberlain replaced Stanley Baldwin in 1937.

No, the use – in a generally pejorative way – of the U-Word is a very recent phenomenon, being deployed firstly after Tone gave way to Pa Broon. Since then, the why-oh-why part of the Fourth Estate has taken to using it against civil servants, judges, senior law officers, local Government managers, hospital managers, or indeed anyone in public service to whom they take a dislike.

Those who most eagerly call out politicians and others they don’t like as “unelected”, though, do not pause to think things through, Peter Hitchens in the Mail being a prime example. The ranting is cranked up to a level fit for the most discerning rant connoisseur – “grey dictators ... civilian juntas ... snuffing-out of national sovereignty ... putsches” and of course it’s all down to the “Left-wing elite”.

Excuse me, Pete, but you and your fellow ranters still haven’t addressed my question, which is not a difficult one to grasp: just how many elections have so far been cancelled, postponed or delayed in whichever country you’re ranting about right now? Thus far, the answer is none. And don’t spin me that “Italian cabinet unelected” line. Their decisions still have to pass the (elected) Parliament.

The clearly pre-ordered line in the Mail has seen the roping in of MEP and occasional Tory Dan, Dan the Oratory Man, who has never faced the electorate in his own right, but rather has won his place in Brussels by being top of his party’s list. He would no doubt claim that he still has democratic legitimacy, while arguing that others have lost it.

It’s the way you tell ‘em.

The Laws Still Don’t Work, Mel

Out there in her own intolerant and authoritarian world, Melanie Phillips keeps on painting an apocalyptic picture of what the world would supposedly look like if currently illegal drugs were to have their use decriminalised, or even be made legal. For Mel, this is to be resisted at all costs, and one cost that she is prepared to sacrifice is that of factual accuracy.

In her latest rantfest for the Daily Mail’s RightMinds – an example of a paper putting all its frothing wingnuts together in one big e-dustbin – Mel tries to revise the recent history of drug policy initiatives, while pretending that there is no longer a “war on drugs” as the authorities are not pursuing it to her satisfaction, which means locking up tens of thousands of people while not mentioning the enormous cost.

This paragraph from Phillips bears quoting in full: “There is a failure of policing on the ground disastrously amplified by lethally idiotic decriminalisation mood music constantly tinkling from the great and the un-good who, for a variety of different reasons including the less than intellectually rigorous desire to prevent their own drug-taking offspring from accruing criminal records, are incapable of doing anything other than parrot drug legalisation propaganda” [my emphasis].

Not for nothing is she known as Mad Mel: the suggestion that some of those urging a reappraisal of current drugs policy are doing so merely to stop their family members getting nicked is as malicious as it is unfounded. She will not be bringing forward one scrap of evidence, as she does not have any. This is the kind of batshit paranoia that earned the Spectator a huge legal bill and Mel the sack.

Her attempt to paint the decriminalisation of drugs in Portugal is also misguided and selective in its source (just the one for most of the assertions made): the Association for a Drug Free Portugal is part of the World Federation Against Drugs, a network opposed to any kind of legalisation. The statistics given in support of the Association do not match the mainstream narrative.

This is typified by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), whose Country Overview for Portugal is worth a look. The picture is, as ever, complex, but many trends have shown a decline since decriminalisation. This, though, does not detain Mel, who instead resorts to personal abuse as she tries to discredit those of insufficiently authoritarian disposition.

Moreover, she fails utterly to address the fact that control of the trade in currently illegal drugs has been ceded to organised criminality, while making the flagrantly dishonest assertion that “the only way to end the criminal black market in drugs ... would be to make all narcotics available absolutely free and ... on unlimited demand”, which is pure bullshit. This issue demands a mature and rational debate, which Melanie Phillips is signally incapable of joining.

TPA – Audit Whopper

The appetite of the assorted non-job holders at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) for misinformation seems boundless: yesterday came a piece suggesting that the Audit Commission says that local Government spending cuts are “essential”, when that body has said nothing of the sort. Also, the post is categorised “Better Government”, when as any fule kno, that is not the TPA’s objective.

Author of this freshly steaming pile is Chris Daniel, whose previous smug-looking mugshot has been replaced by a much more serious-faced and even mildly menacing one (the same goes for head non-job holder Matthew Sinclair, but one can only stretch credibility so far). Sadly, though, Daniel’s approach has not improved since the last time I took him to task.

More from the comfortable of Tufton Street

This is evident as soon as the Audit Commission report, Tough times: Councils’ responses to a challenging financial climate (read it HERE [.pdf]) is consulted. Not only does Daniel misrepresent part of what the Commission says, he manages to omit significant amounts of that report, more than likely because the contents are inconvenient to the TPA.

So, when Daniel tells that the Commission says that spending cuts are “essential”, the language they actually use is, for example, “The combination of cuts in local Government funding and falls in other income mean spending reductions will be needed”. And readers are, once again, fed the pejorative term “dip” (slang for “pickpocket”) for those councils that use up reserves.

Headlines that Daniel does not relay include “Councils expect other income streams to fall by £1.2 billion on top of the £3.5 billion cut in Government support”, “Most Single Tier and County Council (STCC) will see some reductions in service volumes and increases in fees and charges”, and “Smaller services [like social care] are making a big contribution to the savings needed in STCCs”.

Nor are readers told that “Planning and cultural services face the largest reductions in spend in STCCs” (worrying when the planning process is also under attack), “Central Government support to STCCs fell by 12 per cent and to District Councils (DCs) by 16 per cent in real terms”, and “There is a strong link between local deprivation and the scale of funding reductions (STCCs only)”.

One might hope that the TPA didn’t mean to be so selective in their analysis, but that hope would be misplaced: once again, this Astroturf lobby group pursues its sole objective, to demonise Government together with public service and public works, by whatever means serve.

It’s not good enough, but again, it’s to be expected. Another one for the bin.

Express Daybreak Never Comes

The latest story from the world of TV – not that it’s any surprise, given all the adverse publicity and bad ratings – is that ITV’s breakfast offering Daybreak is to part company with presenters Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley. The Mirror got the inside track on the news and the story leads its print edition. The reaction from the rest of the pack is equally interesting – and revealing.

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun picked up on the item and ran its own spoiler, which has at least been re-written to look original. But there is no credit for the Mirror, something which the Mail has also managed to miss from what looks like a more blatant lifting of the original. At least it gives hack Paul Revoir a change from his usual diet of Beeb bashing.

Even the quality end of the Fourth Estate has the story: the Maily Telegraph has an item linked from the front page of the paper’s website, plus they credit the Mirror. But one newspaper group has missed the story completely, although I’m sure they would dispute my contention that it’s because of the cheap and nasty approach of the titles concerned.

Yes, the empire of Richard “Dirty” Desmond has not – as at 1100 hours today – even mentioned Chiles’ and Bleakley’s axing. There is nothing on the website of the Daily Star, and the only item on that of the Express is a recycled press release about Ms Bleakley doing Dancing On Ice next year, which only serves to make the omission look that much worse.

That’s what happens when a paper is made more profitable by cutting resources to the bone. Everybody else gets the story out – sooner or later in the morning – but Des and his dwindling band of hacks miss it, even though it’s the kind of news they should be chasing. That’ll be another Benchmark Of Excellence.

Right! Click!! (1)

What would the Fourth Estate conclude if one of their number discovered an organisation with a forthrightly left-wing agenda that was dedicated to radicalising young people, and then placing those thus radicalised into jobs in the City, politics, academia and the media? There would almost certainly be cries of “indoctrination” and even “entryism”. So what happens if the organisation is a right-wing one?

Thus far, the answer is that very little has been reported about one such organisation, the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF), inspired by the conservative movement in the USA, and which is open and honest about its stance and objectives. The YBF has been described by its co-founder and CEO, Donal Blaney, as a “conservative madrasa”.

So who is involved with the YBF? The gallery of faces is no doubt meant to impress, but the first entry, Daniel Hanann MEP, YBF President, is not an auspicious start. Zelo Street has recently inspected the lack of candour exhibited by Dan, Dan the Oratory Man, especially his obsequious appearance before professional loudmouth Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).

And CEO Blaney has what might be called “previous”: while he was a Hammersmith and Fulham councillor, an accusation of racism was levelled at the “Fulham Homes for Fulham People” campaign which he had led (along with Greg Hands). One leaflet accused the Council of denying a house to a “local mum” and giving it to “asylum seekers”. Asylum seekers cannot by law be housed in permanent accommodation.

More recently, Blaney – as revealed on Zelo Street – attempted to bully Tim Ireland and Dan Taylor into obtaining legal representation and revealing details about themselves. This would have been potentially very expensive for both, but neither Ireland nor Taylor accommodated Blaney and the actions fizzled out. In both cases, Blaney had made accusations of defamation.

This, though, is no bar to political activity, so let’s move right on to the YBF’s modus operandi. The orientation of the group follows from the assumption that the education system and “mainstream media” in the UK has an inbuilt left-wing bias. This in turn follows the rationale of Fox News Channel, that it’s not Fox that is “out there”, but everyone else. Blaney considers Fox to be fair and balanced.

And this is the organisation that the Tory Party recommends for activist training, not that it has any formal links with it, of course. What that training produces, where those trained fetch up, and a little more on the web of groups in that “conservative movement”, I’ll consider later.

Although who pays for the YBF is not clear. This does seem to be a recurring problem with that “conservative movement”.

Express EU Drinks Break

[Update at end of post]

The dwindling band of hacks whose task it is to labour in the service of Richard “Dirty” Desmond and put together the increasingly cheap and nasty Daily Express seem to be running an office competition: to top the last ridiculous EU scare story by putting about even more ridiculous EU scare stories. Facts to support these need not enter: whipping up fear and hatred is more important.

So we come to today’s Express front page: “EU Says Water Is Not Healthy” it thunders. In a supposed “exclusive” (which is code for “no other paper was sufficiently desperate or batshit enough to cobble up this story, given the lack of facts to support it”), Giles Sheldrick asserts that “it took three years to issue a new rule that water cannot be sold as healthy”.

The pejorative language then piles in behind the headline: “scarcely believable ... bizarre diktat ... beyond parody ... bizarre regulations ... extraordinary conclusion”. Readers are told that “any producer breaching the order ... faces being jailed for up to two years” (no they don’t) and are fed the usual drivel about curved bananas and Cornish pasties.

But there is, as usual with Express EU frighteners, a grain of fact buried somewhere under the steaming pile of bovine by-product being shovelled about by those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been considering claims made for a whole range of products as to their supposed benefits – or lack thereof.

In the three year period cited by the Express, over 2,700 such claims were considered. Scientific evidence was consulted. One might think that the work, which has exposed quack remedies and baseless claims, would have its benefits recognised, rather than the press taking out of context the attempt by two food industry scientists to get approval for their preferred form of words, and failing.

Because that is what is behind the Express story. The claim “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration” was not allowed by EFSA. And the reason was let slip by the Maily Telegraph, quoting a spokesman for the Nutrition Society: “The EU is saying that this does not reduce the risk of dehydration [my emphasis], and that is correct”.

“This claim is trying to imply that there is something special about bottled water which is not a reasonable claim”. So nobody says “Water is not healthy”, which the Express headline claims. Bottled water cannot be claimed to protect against dehydration, because it doesn’t. Sure, it can help to keep the body hydrated, but that’s not what was claimed.

Cheap and nasty frightener out of nothing? Another Benchmark of Excellence.

[UPDATE November 19: the Express has attempted to spin a press release by the manufacturers of Highland Spring water as support for its article, rather than a routinely cynical attempt to get some free publicity on the back of yet another EU-bashing piece. This latest Express article recycles so much of the company's blurb that it extends to telling readers how long the brand has been in business, and the name of its current owner. And there's a quote from UKIP's appropriately named Paul Nuttall, of course]

Germany’s Last Resort

Would Douglas Adams have called the bank at the end of the Eurozone Milliways? Millibank? Whatever. While the usual suspects drone on about loss of democracy in Europe (clue to clueless pundits: no election has been cancelled or even deferred thus far), the German Government, headed by the ever-cautious Angela Merkel, is resisting the inevitable.

And that inevitable thing is that the European Central Bank (ECB) becomes the Eurozone’s lender of last resort. Merkel’s reluctance is entirely understandable: the great inflation of the early 1920s is burned on the German psyche far deeper than the fear of another Great Depression in the USA, or indeed severe inflation in the UK, despite the latter being well within living memory.

But banking models that have endured since the 17th Century suggest that the Germans are this time on the wrong side of reality: Sterling has, since 1694, had the Bank of England (BoE) as its lender of last resort. It is the UK Government’s banker, but crucially the BoE is responsible for the currency, and maintaining confidence in it. The currency is still around over 300 years later.

Looking across the north Atlantic, the Federal Reserve (or just The Fed) is, equally, lender of last resort for the US Dollar. The USA, where states enjoy a significant degree of autonomy, may prove instructive for Germany: the Fed was set up partly in response to a series of banking crises and intended to act against bank runs. Crises and bank runs are what the Eurozone is facing right now.

Nevertheless, the German response is to refuse to allow the ECB to go the same way as the BoE and the Fed, and push instead for fiscal integration and reform. But if there is no lender of last resort, the markets will keep on teasing out the weakest links and betting on them falling. So the crises and bank runs will continue – until the Eurozone has what the UK and USA have had for decades.

The alternative – to keep kicking this particular can down the road – will merely invite more speculation, more uncertainty, more instability, less growth, potentially more unemployment, together with a growing number of dissatisfied electorates. That direction may lead to the single currency collapsing. The Germans don’t want that. So they need to ask themselves one question.

And a stable banking system does not depend on whether you feel lucky.

Gilligan Bendies History

Some habits are hard to kick: Maily Telegraph “London editor” Andrew Gilligan got found out being less than totally honest and principled when he dropped the BBC in the mire, and he’s still less than totally honest and principled when it suits him so to be. Today has brought an excellent example of Andy’s inconsistent relationship with reality as he once again sings the praises of his political hero.

That hero is of course London’s occasional mayor and regular collector of “chicken feed” from the Telegraph, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Bozza is about to complete his irrational crusade against the bendy bus, so Gilligan celebrates by marshalling a host of not always correct facts, while glossing over Bozza’s appetite for vanity projects and dishonest use of figures.

Andy starts badly by telling that the Routemaster managed 51 years’ service in London. Wrong. The first prototype was completed 51 years before the RM bowed out in 2005, but did not see service for another two years, and not regular service, either. Production RMs did not enter service until 1958, but then, what’s four years when you’re laying into the opposition?

That opposition, it seems, is not just Ken Livingstone, but the hated Guardian and its London man Dave Hill, who is portrayed as a “diehard bendy-bus fan”, rather than a regular user of public transport who would rather it worked half decently. Gilligan gets himself over-excited by telling that the vanity BozzaMaster will enter service next year on a route serving Dave’s manor.

Then it’s back to creative retelling of the facts, as Andy tells that removing “bendies” has meant “vastly more seats”. The TfL blurb he cites makes no mention of this, and with good reason: more buses does not mean more seats, but it does mean more drivers, more maintenance, and longer dwell times – especially for double deckers – which means slower journeys.

And the supposed cost savings for eliminating bendy buses (TfL estimate just over £7 million annually) are all to do with fare evasion. This is too often blamed on those buses, but in reality is down to TfL’s own revenue protection regime. The same kind of buses run in cities across the UK and mainland Europe without such problems, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

What Gilligan fails to mention is that the aforementioned BozzaMaster will cost rather more than that £7 million. Design, development and five prototypes into service equals £11.37 million. Compare that to off-the-shelf hybrid drive double deckers at £350k a throw, and no orders from outside the capital as yet. Why? Because all those rotten foreigners are happily running bendy buses.

What Gilligan failed to tell his adoring public, take 94. Cable car next, Andy?

Keeping Up With The Beeb

The line taken by the Daily Mail on the BBC and Christianity is at least consistent: the Corporation is said to be pushing an agenda of “aggressive secularism”, trying to “obliterate” Christianity, stands accused (falsely) of issuing “diktats” to ban the use of BC and AD, and is even accused by the likes of Peter Mullen and Melanie Phillips of being “bigoted”.

So last night’s main 2200 hours news bulletin must have posed a problem for those previously laying into the Beeb, as it gave prominent and generous coverage to the service at Westminster Abbey, attended by the Queen and Prince Philip, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. The Archbishop of Canterbury, another favourite target of the why-oh-why brigade, presided.

One can only imagine the darkening mood of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre as the piece was broadcast – the online version has video from the news item – as he and his obedient hackery tried to figure out how they were going to spin this apparent deviation from the often told mission to wipe out any trace of Christianity and install something unspecified but secular in its place.

The bad news is that the Daily Mail did not manage to get anything into its print edition – at least not the early one – but the good news for the Dacre hackery is that an article not mentioning the BBC even once, under the by-line of John Stevens, has been added to the paper’s sleb and goss heavy website, accompanied by a number of agency photos and stressing the Royal angle.

Sadly, though, the Mail does not go to the same lengths as the BBC, which provides links to two other online pieces, together with the King James Bible Trust and Radio 4’s “The Story Of The King James Bible”. Anyone might conclude that the Mail wasn’t really interested in the event: after all, much of the text of their piece is word-for-word identical with that in the Express.

At least the Maily Telegraph has produced, via its Religious Affairs Editor Martin Beckford, some reasonably original copy, and dated the same day as the ceremony, too. However, the Mail punditry, under the less than benign leadership of Simon “Enoch was right” Heffer, has remained silent. But then, it’s not easy to stand up accusations of “obliterating Christianity” when the target beats you to the punch.