Letts Pointlessly Smear Clegg

The gratuitous attacks by the obedient hackery of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre on politicians who are not allied to Young Dave do not end with Mil The Younger, and to demonstrate this has come Quentin Letts (let’s not) with a pointless and spiteful hatchet job on Corporal Clegg, who has committed the heinous crime of, er, appearing on the Lorraine show with his wife.

Harry Potter and the Gobshite of Arslikhan

Quent is, on this occasion, even more desperate that usual, which may be down to his being forced to watch this ghastly proletarian broadcast experience and then make something up about it. I mean, the poor dear would normally be having a lie in at his club, followed by a leisurely breakfast and an approving perusal of his previous day’s handiwork in the Daily Mail.

The tone is set early on as Letts derides Clegg as a “halfwit”. Very good Quent, he speaks five languages (four more than you), and has been elected to both the European and UK Parliaments. I suspect he is also capable of taking notes at presentations. But it is what the Lib Dem leader got up to in the Lorraine show’s kitchen that really gets the Letts goat.

He chopped the carrots too slowly. He grated too much Red Leicester (Quent so disliked this aspect that he mentioned it twice). He failed to correctly identify fresh basil (and so sodding what, most folk might struggle, given their only knowledge of herbs is to find them pre-prepared in an appropriately labelled jar). And, worst of all, the Deputy Prime Minister did not wear an apron.

HE DIDN’T WEAR AN APRON? Oh just f*** right off Quent, that’s so intercoursing feeble it’s not true. Can it get any more lame? You betcha, says Sarah: Letts has to have a dig at Clegg’s wife. Because she’s Spanish, and that’s foreign. Let me guess the line of attack. “Mr Clegg did not travel to the ITV studios alone. He took with him his lovely wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez – the castanet clacker!”

Zelo Street regulars will remember this one from some time back. And that it is another example of Letts’ geographical ineptitude. You wouldn’t call someone from Newcastle a Bristolian, would you? Perhaps castanets are one of those few things that Quent knows about Spain. But they don’t do castanets where Ms Gonzalez Durantez hails from (Olmedo, and I doubt Letts knows where that is, either).

But he does know that “Senora Clegg is a TV natural, elegant, soft-spoken – and subtly ruthless about insisting that she ‘keeps out of politics’. Likely tale! What was she doing on this show if it was not a blatantly political act?” SHE’S HIS SODDING WIFE, THAT’S WHAT SHE WAS DOING.

The Mail hates Clegg. We know that already.

Hacking – Trinity Mirror In The Mire

Until recently, Trinity Mirror, the company that owns the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, maintained that there had been no instances of phone hacking at its titles. That was clearly untrue: in September, the firm began to pay compensation to those hacked by its, er, hacks. And with a court case going on right now, they are yet deeper in the mire.

This morning, Graham Johnson, who worked for the Sunday Mirror from 1997 to 2005, pleaded guilty to hacking phones in 2001, and during the course of his employment. Johnson’s admission is in itself not a surprise: he handed himself in last year. Granting him unconditional bail, “the magistrate said he deserved great credit for turning himself in”.

But it is the potential ramifications for the paper that are being weighed right now: Johnson was not made aware that voicemail interception was a crime at the time. That suggests Trinity Mirror was at the very least careless in its legal training – or that they just didn’t care. Alternatively, it could have been a case of inadequate control of staff who were inclined to use their initiative rather too much.

It gets worse: Johnson had been “shown by a senior person in a supervisory capacity how to access voicemails”. The hunt will now be on to find out who that was – which in turn will show us the level of management that knew about it, and knew about it enough to be able to train their subordinates in the practice. Was it someone at the Sunday Mirror, or were they on the Daily title – or the People?

The questions won’t end there: a “senior person in a supervisory capacity” is not going to have only one hack working under them. When the identity of this person is revealed, it will lead to enquiries as to which other journalists worked for them, and in turn, whether that person had given this unofficial training to any or all of them. Johnson’s admission has opened a whole new can of worms.

And it isn’t over yet: as Jane Martinson of the Guardian observed, “the gravity of the offence ‘even after a relatively short period’ meant that only a crown court had the powers to sentence. The crime was a ‘grave intrusion of other people’s business and is very serious indeed’. [The magistrate] referred the case for sentencing at the Old Bailey on 27 November”.

As to reporting this case, once again it appears that most of the Fourth Estate is ignoring it in the hope that nobody will notice. It’s a strange industry that thinks criminal wrongdoing is only a bad thing provided someone unconnected to them is doing it. Then they wonder why sales are falling.

The Sunday Mirror is now well and truly in the phone hacking mire. Will its daily and Sunday stablemates be following it? We await any evidence with interest.

Guido Fawked – Loadsamoney Reincarnated

[Update at end of post]

Business must be good right now for the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog: recently, they hosted a dinner which tempted hungry and thirsty hacks and politicians to drop by and freeload in their customary style, and last night, maintaining the pretence that he is operating in the spirit of the Gunpowder Plot, Staines hosted “readers’ drinks” in Westminster.

How does The Great Guido acquire his friends?

Sadly, this appears to have been a rather less grand affair, except that Staines, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, and newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham appear, as is customary, to have descended on the Rub-A-Dub and then become Elephant’s Trunk and Mozart. Fawkes rabble get ratarsed, film at 11. But one feature was shared with the earlier dinner.

And that feature is that The Great Guido did not merely host the gathering, but paid a significant part of the drinks bill. That would be everyone’s drinks bill: in order to incentivise the thirsty of Westminster to drop by, Staines put a whole Bag Of Sand behind the bar before the off. Either that, or someone bunged him said Bag. It’s yet more sad that he has to buy friends.

So who was up for this act of liquid bribery? The Fawkes folks made great play of an appearance by Bozza’s younger brother Jo Johnson, although they managed not to tell their readers that he is married to a journalist at the deeply subversive Guardian. Also in attendance was Madsen “Dr Mad” Pirie, still at the Adam Smith Institute after all these years, and still not being listened to by the real world.

By behaving like this, that's how

It was only fitting that someone from the ASI would come to sup at Staines’ expense: after all, he’s drunk enough of their booze, and it was at their place that he started off, on the fateful evening in 2008 that culminated in his being pulled over by the rozzers while driving “at speed in the Kennington area”, and subsequently handed his second drink-driving conviction.

But what of all the other star names to grace the Fawkes presence last night? All that has so far been claimed is a few party spinners. Didn’t any out of town MPs look in? None of that press pack who so happily accepted the dinner invites? What about all the Television folks that Staines suggests are so willing to invite him and his pals on their shows? Was that all he got for his grand?

Maybe the Fawkes magic isn’t so magic after all: The Great Guido has already been knocked off top blog spot by Labour List, and he has to resort to channelling an old Harry Enfield character in order to get his readers through the door. “Look everyone, I put a farsand pahnds behind the bar! Thassa whole Bag Of Sand! Look at me, I’ve got LOADSAMONEY! Yeah! Woah!”

He waved his wad. For a Bonfire Night damp squib. Another fine mess, once again.

[UPDATE 1550 hours: the creative spin has begun. Over at the Spectator, Mr Steerpike, who in reality is the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, has inadvertently set his trousers alight as he declares "Dame Vivienne Westwood and model Alice Dellal told to frack off by Guido Fawkes gang".

Master Cole tells grandly that his boss "had whacked a hefty wodge of cash behind the bar", and that "Dame Vivienne Westwood and the heiress model Alice Dellal were turned away", all suggesting that Staines and his pals had done the turning away.

Unfortunately for Cole, the Fawkes blog has already confirmed that "Vivienne Westwood was turned away by the cops". There had been a protest in central London yesterday evening. Master Cole can't even lie credibly. Another fine mess, indeed]

UKIP – Press Tory Pact Fantasy

The right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate has, since the elections to the European Parliament (EP) earlier this year, been soiling its collective trollies as it tries to figure out what to do about Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers at UKIP. That would be the same part of the press that gave the Farage fringe all that free publicity and shilled for their pet project.

Squeaky coalition finger up the bum time?

Yes, somehow it didn’t occur to those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet that once they let the UKIP genie out of the bottle, by their incessant demonising of the EU, it would not be possible to just ask it nicely if it wouldn’t mind turning round and going back in. The result is a significant weakening of the Tories’ electoral prospects – the team the right-wing press wants to win.

What to do? Simples. The call from pundits, and those wanting to project the values of their editors and proprietors, has been to tell Young Dave to form some kind of alliance with the Kippers. This is, however, easier said than done, especially after Cameron – rightly – called them “Lunatics, fruitcakes and closet racists”, the last quality not helping Mark Reckless in his fight to return to Parliament.

The Kippers loathe the Tories. The feeling is mutual. A pact would haemorrhage UKIP support away to Labour and the Lib Dems – anything to stop the Tories benefiting. Tories at the centre would do likewise. Yet still the pundits plead, as witness the loathsome Toby Young proposing “Vote Exchange day - a radical new plan where UKIP supporters and Tories swap votes to keep Ed out of No 10”.

Yes, Tobes wants to see not just a Tory Britain, but a Britain built on Bellends. And he is not alone: in support have been Simon “Enoch was right” Heffer, no doubt being leant on by the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, concluded that the Tories “will have to consider an electoral pact with Ukip, or face at least five years out of government”. But nobody was listening to him either.

Dacre also urged Jack Doyle over the top to tell “A pact could, for example, consist of a series of local deals where Ukip would agree not to stand against a Eurosceptic Tory. Or the two parties could even band together across the country”. His call was reinforced by Dan, Dan The Oratory Man, frightening readers with “Only a Tory-Ukip deal can stop Labour winning power”.

Then it only took Young Dave saying “Until [the] election is over, you won’t get me speculating on what would happen if I fall short” today to have the Telegraph projecting this daft idea on to him: “David Cameron won't rule out Ukip deal in hung Parliament”. He said nothing of the sort, but the right-wing press is so frightened of Mil The Younger that it will cling to any sign of hope, however fleeting.

You built UKIP up, press people. It’s your problem now. So deal with it.

Telegraph Migrant Spin Busted

The dwindling band of hacks at the Telegraph are having to stretch their talents rather thinly right now, and there is no finer example than today’s lead story, for which David Barrett should hang his head in shame, such is the crude and obvious slanting of reality. “£120bn cost of Labour’s policy on immigration” it proclaims, or, in plain English, “for God’s sake vote Conservative next May”.

“Immigrants who came to live in Britain from outside Europe cost the public purse nearly £120 billion over 17 years, a new report has shown ... The report analysed figures from 1995 to 2011, during most of which the Labour government was pursuing vigorously pro-immigration policies” tells Barrett, not letting readers know that Labour did not ease its non-EEA migration policy.

Yes, I know, that got lost in the fog of battle, but back to the hatchet job: “It found that migrants from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) made a negative contribution to the public purse of £117.9 billion because they consumed more in public expenditure – including NHS costs, welfare hand-outs and education – than they contributed in taxes”. That is what the headline is about.

And, as the man said, there’s more: “The report, to be published in the Economic Journal, said the non-EEA group – largely made up of immigration from countries such as India, Pakistan and African Commonwealth countries – contributed less because families tended to have more children and lower employment rates”. Note that countries with predominantly White populations are not mentioned.

So that’s it, is it? Well, no it isn’t: “The native population made a negative contribution in 12 years during the period, running to £591 billion in total, as the British economy ran at a deficit”. HOLD IT RIGHT THERE. Why are readers being told to “look over there at those Black and Asian people” when most of the negative contribution was coming from those already living here?

And, while we’re at it, why do we have to wait until the tenth paragraph to read “European migrants made an overall positive contribution to the British economy of £4.4 billion over the period” followed by “Since 2000 European migrants were 43 per cent less likely than native Britons to receive benefits or tax credits, and 7 per cent less likely to live in social housing”?

This is not quite as bad as the article that took an NHS patient satisfaction survey that registered a 99% positive rating and translated it into a headline telling of “NHS Shame”, but it’s moving in the same general direction. That much is confirmed by including a quote from the hyper-litigious Andrew Green of Migration Watch.

The Telegraph might as well circulate Tory party literature. After all, think of how many more hacks they could send down the road if they did.

This Is What A Mail Smear Looks Like

The Mail On Sunday was congratulated by other journalists for its lead story last weekend, as it thundered “62p An Hour”, describing in the most unflattering terms the factory where the “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirts were manufactured. It was supported by a typically scathing editorial, pouring scorn on Mil The Younger and Corporal Clegg for wearing the garments.

What's so f***ing wrong with kicking politicians I don't like, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

That this was an organised Mail smear was confirmed the following day by Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, which called the factory a “sweatshop” and, after tarring Miliband with another broadside of abuse, declared “The T-shirts are now being withdrawn from sale but the damage is well and truly done”, thus letting slip that this was a pre-planned hit.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, all was not as the Mail titles had painted it. Yes, the wages paid in the Mauritius factory that made the T-shirts was a fraction of the UK’s minimum wage, but it is higher than the statutory minimum in the country where it is located. And the factory is clearly not a sweatshop, being well laid out and equipped.

It gets worse for the Dacre doggies: management willingly showed the MoS round, because their factory, as the Fawcett Society said, meets a high level of ethical standards. Workers come from Bangladesh because they are paid a lot more, and treated rather better. Moreover, the Mauritius factory is a far safer and better organised proposition than what they would find at home.

The claims that workers have to put in twelve hour shifts every day are not true – otherwise, the standard working week would be a lot longer than the 45 hours which the MoS concedes. Many work longer hours voluntarily, and “workers are compensated (at a higher rate of pay) for any overtime worked”. They are able to join a trade union, which has representation on site.

The Fawcett Society noted that “An audit into the CMT factory was carried out in October 2014 by an independent not-for-profit organisation and this did not reveal any material concerns on the working conditions, the welfare or the health and safety of workers”. It would be interesting to see the full text of what workers said to the MoS, so that the context could be analysed. We won’t be seeing that, though.

This story is, like so much that comes out of the Mail titles, carefully fashioned to fit the agenda, which is, let us not drive this one around the houses for too long, crude character assassination of Miliband, Clegg, Harriet Harman, and anyone else that might stand in the way of a Tory majority next May.

One can only guess at the prize Young Dave dangled before Paul Dacre at that recent Downing Street lunch. Arise, Lord Dacre of Effingham Blindingham!

Tower Hamlets – Gilligan Silent

The report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers into alleged wrongdoing by councillors and officers at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has been passed to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles. He is to send in a team to take over some functions at the Council. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the report does not appear to contain any evidence of fraud.

As the deeply subversive Guardian has noted, “In a statement to the Commons, Pickles said he did not know whether or not the PWC report amounted to evidence of fraud, but that he was sending it to the police anyway”. This may be something that Pickles can wave away, but for one paper and its star reporter on anything to do with Tower Hamlets, it could be a serious problem.

The Telegraph has been using this particular F-word for rather a long time now: typical was “Tower Hamlets: Pickles orders fraud investigation into Lutfur Rahman ... Fraud investigators sent into Tower Hamlets as Eric Pickles passes file of evidence to the Met Police looking at allegations of financial mismanagement in Lutfur Rahman's London borough”, from last April.

And Tower Hamlets has been a personal campaign for the Tel’s keenest seeker-out of Scary Muslims (tm), Andrew “transcription error” Gilligan, who last January told “Borough of Tower Hamlets: a byword for sleaze ... Muslim mayor Lutfur Rahman in line of fire over public grants in Tower Hamlets, East London”. Gilligan made great play of calling Rahman “extremist-linked” at every opportunity.

He also kept up his claims of criminality: “Lutfur Rahman and police denials fall apart: there is a criminal investigation of Tower Hamlets” he told, then claimed never to have alleged any of that criminality himself. The sale of Poplar Town Hall was cited as one of the failings of the Rahman administration. But what the PWC team found was, as so often, not so clear cut.

Here’s what they found: “The authority accepted a late bid from the winning bidder after other bids had been opened, creating a risk of bid manipulation ... The winning bidder also asked for and was granted changes to the contract it had signed, which further undermined the purpose and credibility of the contract race process”. That suggests someone was allowed to beat the other bids after they became known.

What it does not support is the idea that Rahman was having the asset flogged off on the cheap, although it is undeniably against the Council’s own rules. Some of Tower Hamlets’ officers and Councillors have behaved less than impeccably. But claims of fraud do not appear to have been stood up. As for Andrew Gilligan, he is uncharacteristically silent. But his opinion is irrelevant.

This affair has seen a lot of heat expended. Perhaps we will now get some light.

Guido Fawked – Sadiq Khan Hypocrisy

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog were ecstatic yesterday: they had been sent a series of photos that, so they claimed, showed Labour MP Sadiq Khan, who is also a road safety campaigner, using his phone while at the wheel of his VW Golf. They even gave out a number “for picture syndication”, in a customary show of rank pretentiousness.

The image Paul Staines wants you to see ...

Sadly, the press outlets that did run this dubious story – the photos are not clear enough to tell what Khan is holding in his left hand – have had to caveat and qualify it rather heavily. Typical was the Mail, telling “he was accused of using his mobile phone while driving ... A picture sent to the Police appeared to show the ... MP for Tooting ... with a phone in his hand”

As for the Fawkes rabble crowing that Khan was “driving in the bus lane, blocking the path of the NHS vehicle, which Guido understands to be an organ transport van”, the Mail did not even bother with that. The van, after all, did not have its blue lights on, and was therefore as much in the wrong as whoever was driving the Golf – and it had strayed into the bus lane somewhat earlier.

This morning, The Great Guido is trying to prolong the life of this story, but a thought has already entered: bad road behaviour and VW Golfs is a subject that Staines knows rather more about than he is letting on. It was back in 2008 that he was at the wheel of such a vehicle, somewhere between the Kennington Tandoori and Victoria Station, when the Met’s finest pulled him over.

... and the one he would rather you didn't

Staines’ own words show why: “I had been speaking at the Adam Smith Institute. They have made a lot of money so the booze is usually pretty good. I moved on with a few people to the Westminster Arms, where I bought drinks, and then to the Kennington Tandoori to show everyone the picture of Prezza on the wall. Then I was giving a few people a lift to Victoria station when the f***ers pulled me over”.

He had been “driving at speed in the Kennington area”. This set off a speed camera. The rozzers stopped him. He “seemed to be having difficulty staying in a straight line ... [Staines’] eyes were bloodshot, he strongly smelt of alcohol and his pupils appeared to be dilated”. It is believed that having the Golf registered in his wife’s name is the only thing that stopped the court seizing it.

The Great Guido was banned from driving for three years – it was, after all, his second drink-driving offence – a three month 2100 to 0600 hours curfew enforced via electronic tag, and an 18 month supervision order. Yes, a 41 year old man was given a supervision order. And this is the same person pretending to sit in judgment on someone who, he claims, glanced at his phone while sitting in queuing traffic.

You didn’t know Paul Staines was a shameless hypocrite? You know now.

IPSO Fails Duck Test

It was hailed as the western world’s “toughest” press regulator. Its new head, retired judge Alan Moses, would be totally independent of press and political interference. After all, as Spectator editor Fraser Nelson had claimed, the papers had offered to meet the recommendations in the Leveson Report “to the millimetre”. The so-called Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) would be different.

There would be no more of the “looking the other way” and being asleep at the wheel that had sealed the fate of the discredited PCC. IPSO would be a new beginning. However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, as campaign groups like Hacked Off had warned, the press would still be pulling the strings, and IPSO would not meet most of Leveson’s recommendations.

No matter: Alan Moses showed that he was determined to demonstrate his independence. He arranged a meeting with victims of press misbehaviour. As might be expected, I am not able to disclose who was present, but can give Zelo Street readers a one word description of proceedings. The meeting, I am reliably informed, was, for Moses and IPSO, “disastrous”.

It gets worse for Alan Moses: not only does IPSO have the same registered office, the same company registration number, and the same staff as the PCC, it now has the same head of its Editors’ Code Committee. Yes, settling back in to the seat he supposedly vacated – but in reality didn’t – is the Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre. And, as the man said, there’s more.

Mail On Sunday editor Geordie Greig will also sit on that committee. Two of its five “lay members” will be Alan Moses and IPSO CEO Matt Tee, thus stacking the deck even more in favour of the industry. The board of the Regulatory Funding Company, which holds IPSO’s purse strings, has representatives of Trinity Mirror, Northern and Shell, News UK, and now the Telegraph Media Group, after Murdoch MacLennan joined it this week. A total, 100%, industry stitch-up.

Any transparency in the way these appointments were made has been lost on industry observers: this really is the PCC piss in a differently labelled bottle. It is reminiscent of the Monty Python “Cat Licence” sketch: “This is a Dog Licence with ‘Dog’ crossed out and ‘Cat’ written in in crayon”.

IPSO looks like the PCC. It walks like the PCC. It quacks like the PCC. It can therefore be concluded that IPSO has failed the Duck Test. We’ve been through the whole Leveson Inquiry and Report process, only for most of the press to stick their fingers up to their readers, and their democratically elected representatives, and defiantly carry on as before. That’s not good enough.

All it needs is the next episode of bad press behaviour, and the public will know too.

Don’t Menshn Romanian Beggars

In a supreme irony, it was the Daily Mail, the most virulently anti-EU, anti-Labour, anti-Miliband and anti-begging of papers, that discovered the reality of what some of the more Ron Hopeful types on the right are calling “beggargate”. In doing so, the obedient Dacre doggies have effectively called themselves out for telling their own readers a pack of lies about Mil The Younger’s Manchester awayday.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

But the lying is not confined to the Mail: one hates to devote too much time to the self-publicising idiocy of (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, but the blatant and wilful nature of her dishonesty, together with the frequency at which she has set her pants on fire, is without parallel. The lying starts with the accusation that 14 year old Rebeca State was part of an organised gang.

“Our streets are plagued by organised beggars run by East European criminal gangs. Ed Miliband just endorsed that” she declared. Ms State was operating alone, so Ms Mensch is lying. She is also lying to assert that Miliband endorsed criminal gangs. He merely showed her an act of charity.

Louise then changes tack and lies about the EU: “Angela Merkel, what first attracted EU to massive multi-billion Euro net contributor the United Kingdom?” she demands, suggesting that the German Chancellor runs the EU, which is also untrue. So what’s the reality? Oh look, we pay less per head than even the Italians. So Ms Mensch is lying once more. And then it’s back to lying about Miliband.

“Disgusting. Beggar Miliband wouldn’t talk to an exploited Romanian 14 year old who should have been in school”. But he did talk to her – IT SAYS SO IN THE MAIL ARTICLE SHE LINKED TO. Didn’t she bother reading it? And nobody is exploiting her, bar herself. So that’s two more blatant lies.

Can she top that? You betcha, says Sarah: “he did NOT show her an act of kindness he showed her utter indifference. 14 year old exploited here because Labour signed Lisbon”. Let’s look at the facts, shall we? Romania joined the EU as a full member at the beginning of 2007. The Lisbon Treaty was not signed until December of that year, and not ratified until 2009. Lisbon has nothing to do with this.

So that’s another lie. And they keep on coming: “why was a 14 year old trafficked to England and dumped by Romanian parents? Because [Gordon Brown] signed Lisbon”. Louise Mensch likes to use the word “trafficked”. She should look up the definition some time. It suggests illegality. There was none. Ms State was not dumped; her parents had to return to Romania, and will be back.

So that’s two more lies. Add to that she lied about what Miliband donated. And the lie about school: “cannot go to school until her parents return to the UK and find somewhere to settle permanently”. They let Louise Mensch become an MP.

Guido Fawked – Fawning Over Murdoch

After Creepy Uncle Rupe opened his wallet in order for Mazher Mahmood, aka the Fake Sheikh, to delay the broadcast of a BBC Panorama programme about the latter’s less than savoury behaviour, one might have thought that anyone and everyone around the blogosphere would be saying something about this blatant censorship of free speech. And one would have been wrong.

What's this - another failed Bond villain?

Perhaps they did not want to be embarrassed by being behind Zelo Street – again – but the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have not said a dickybird about the affair. Think about that. Staines, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, and their newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham, crusaders for free speech, are schtum about censorship.

It gets worse: yesterday evening, and this morning, this less than august trio have been parading their propensity to crawl so far up Murdoch’s arse that it would need a search party to locate them for all to see. So the impression is given that The Great Guido has no problem with media censorship – so long as he can do as he pleases, while trousering More And Bigger Paycheques For Himself Personally Now.

Such is the tendency for Staines to prostrate himself before The Dirty Digger that when Rupe wibbled “In UK only Salmond and Farage connecting with people. Big Tory asset Marxist Miliband trusted even less than opportunist Cameron”, instead of noting that Murdoch was out to lunch – Salmond just handed over the SNP leadership to Nicola Sturgeon – he faithfully Retweeted it.

And it wasn’t only Staines: teaboy Wickham also knew to fawn before His Master’s Voice. On top of that, the deeply unpleasant Cole then made great play of broadcasting to the whole world how he approved of this exhibition of Olympic-standard all-in freestyle grovelling.

Staines then doubled down on his crawlfest first thing this morning, by pretending that faithful Murdoch retainer Trevor Kavanagh is still capable of original and independent thought: “Good stuff from Trevor Kavanagh on the snobbery towards the red top free press” he gurgled. Yes, O Great Guido, and stuff the Beeb and anyone else who wants to lift the lid on what’s really going on, eh?

It got worse: as Peter Jukes pointed out, “During [the hacking trial] the Sun complained about prejudicial comment: here’s [Trevor Kavanagh] prejudging active trial”. So not only is The Great Guido happy to ignore media censorship, he’s fine with prejudicing a trial – so long as both work in the favour of Creepy Uncle Rupe.

The Fawkes rabble cannot unmask wrongdoing in the media when they are swimming in the same cesspool as those doing wrong. I said some time ago that they had sold out. Now everyone knows. Another fine mess, once again.

Mail Still Casually Racist

In Flat Earth News, Nick Davies devoted a whole chapter to the aggressive and righteous behaviour of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Mail. And one thing that came clear was the casual racism: “I have never come across a reporter from the Daily Mail who did not have some ... story of black people being excluded from the paper because of their colour”.

Which foreign c*** just called me a f***ing racist? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

It was, apparently, not just black people. “A district reporter told me he would call up from Manchester to tell the news desk a story, ‘And they would always ask “Are they our kind of people?” ie “Are they white, middle class?” Or more often it would be : “Are they of the dusky hue?” And if they were of the dusky hue, then they didn’t want the story’”. Straightforward, if casual, racism.

And this seeps out into the kind of language used by the Daily Mail and Mail On Sunday, with the latter providing a typically gratuitous example in yesterday’s Black Dog column. Under the hilariously mis-spelt sub-heading “Sleepy Suffolk gets a taste of the erotic” – they meant to say “exotic” – readers are told, in patronising and sneering terms, about the Tories’ potential replacement for David Ruffley.

“If you want to see how much the Tory Party has changed, go to quintessentially Olde English Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk on Tuesday” it tells. “Olde English” and “sleepy”? If only the MoS hack who cobbled this together had gone to Liverpool Street and taken a train there. They might have seen that rather large sugar factory and the equally substantial Greene King Brewery. Sleepy indeed.

Call casual racism for what it it - racism

But do go on: “Favourite to succeed retiring local Conservative MP David Ruffley is the exotically named Zehra Zaidi – a young law student and human rights worker with family roots in India and Pakistan. She speaks French, Urdu and Italian – very handy when buying turnips in the town market”. And what, pray, is “exotic” about her name, unless this is code for something else?

While we’re at it, why the sneering at her speaking four languages? Oh, but I forgot: for the Mail titles, speaking other languages is what Johnny Foreigner has to do, isn’t it? We British can make ourselves understood merely by speaking English VERY SLOWLY AND VERY LOUDLY. I mean, she’s even leant to converse with the dastardly garlic-crunching French, which must be A Very Bad Thing.

At least there is no longer any reference to “The dusky hue”, or “Our kind of people”. But the casual racism lingers on: instead of saying that Ms Zaidi has been shortlisted for the Conservative Party’s candidate for Bury St Edmunds, it has to trowel on that she’s got family in India and Pakistan, and can speak foreign.

What would be good to know is whether Ms Zaidi will be a good MP if selected, and then elected. Being “White British” is no guarantee of that, Mail people.

Murdoch Censors Free Speech

[Update at end of post]

The proprietors and editors have been mostly of one voice: the recommendations coming out of the Leveson Inquiry would have grave consequences for our allegedly free and fearless press. There would be state control. There would be censorship. Journalists would be subject to all manner of restraint on their reporting, and, worst of all, it was all the fault of people who resort to takeaway pizza.

That's what I think of youse bladdy Leveson Report, ya bastard Pommie drongoes!

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, there was, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, only one thing wrong with this idea – it was bollocks. Leveson specifically excluded any form of censorship – or prior restraint, as it is more politely called – and sought to continue and protect press freedom. That wasn’t what the owners and editors were really about.

No, what they didn’t want to happen was to lose control of press regulation – their ability to mark their own homework, and backed up by turning to the lawyers to fend off attempts to wring apologies, or even corrections, out of them. And those lawyers are doubly useful: they allow the press to censor other media outlets. Free speech is, for the most powerful of the Fourth Estate, a moveable feast.

So how does this work? Happily – or maybe not – Creepy Uncle Rupe has today provided us with a text-book example. As Zelo Street noted a few days ago, the BBC had scheduled a Panorama expose of Mazher Mahmood, aka the Fake Sheikh, whose successful sting operations had recently been brought down by the discovery that he had been lying and manipulating evidence.

Update of this photo may have to wait

News has arrived on Zelo Street – sorry, no names, no packdrill – to tell that the attempt by the Murdoch empire to prevent the programme going out tomorrow evening has just proved successful. So, yes, that means censoring free speech is fine, providing the BBC is the target (see also under Channel 4). Most of Rupe’s pals in the press will keep schtum. What was that about “chilling effects”?

The only chance of getting anything like the whole story will be when the Guardian and Independent report on it. The justification used to gag Panorama will probably revolve around the possibility that Mahmood’s identity would be revealed, with the Murdoch press arguing that this would put him in danger – just like other members of the public, then – and it would be commercially damaging to them.

One could argue that it is a moot point: Mahmood’s commercial value has already been effectively expended by the discovery of his dishonesty, and there is bugger all public interest being served by entrapping a parade of slebs into arranging drug deals. But what it exposes is the rank hypocrisy of the press: free speech is, for them, the freedom to please themselves, and anyone else can go hang.

That’s something to think about next time they start blubbering about Leveson.

[UPDATE 1925 hours: Roy Greenslade at the Guardian has now confirmed what Zelo Street has already told you - that the lawyers have stopped the Fake Sheikh edition of Panorama being broadcast.

The good news is that the Beeb expects to broadcast anyway - but with John Sweeney's expose delayed by no more than a week. Remember folks, you read it here first]

Don’t Menshn Muslims

The Sun is hidden away behind a paywall, but a Zelo Street regular has made extracts from today’s paper available (see how that works, Rupe?). And from these, it is all too clear that the attack on Mil The Younger is being joined in earnest, even at the expense of what little factual accuracy the red-tops can usually manage. The event is, to no surprise at all, Miliband’s donation to a homeless woman.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Who will lead the charge? Will it be a down-to-earth man or woman of the people who walks among them on a daily basis? You jest: for this task, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has enlisted the dubiously honed skills of (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, now representing the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket. The detachment from reality is palpable from the word go.

“Everything about this incident shows just why Labour is imploding” she asserts, managing not to notice that the party suffering in-fighting and defections right now is the Tories, but then, she and her paper are shilling for Young Dave and his jolly good chaps. “Ed only handed out a copper” she claims, although, as I pointed out yesterday, it was at least two coins, and neither appeared slim enough to be a 2p bit.

But it does not take too long for Ms Mensch to go way over the top: “let’s throw in the fact [that would be ‘personal observation’, actually] that this street vagrant looks clean, well-dressed and is wearing a headscarf that indicates she is some kind of immigrant”. I’ll just capitalise that: “WEARING A HEADSCARF THAT INDICATES SHE IS SOME KIND OF IMMIGRANT”.

Wearing a headscarf means that the wearer is, er, wearing a headscarf. No other attribute can be given with any certainty, although in most cases, it shows that the wearer is a follower of The Prophet. So what Louise Mensch is saying is “All Muslim women in the UK right now are immigrants”. Had that been a Labour, Lib Dem or indeed UKIP pundit saying that, the Sun would have been outraged.

We’re left with one of two alternatives: either the Sun’s subs – or, worse, its senior editorial staff – thought that kind of singularly nasty comment was OK, or they couldn’t be arsed subbing Louise Mensch’s column, which, given the litany of wacko opinion masquerading as fact that she has come out with in the past, is most unwise. And that she meant to say what she said is not in doubt.

The Sunday Sun has shown here that its desperation to smear the Labour leader is so great that it is prepared to base opinion columns on speculation dressed up as fact, and then to reinforce them by smearing people in the basis of their religious affiliation. Louise Mensch and her paper are veering too close to the racism line; one more wobble and they’ll go straight across it.

That remark is bang out of order. So don’t expect an apology any time soon.

Christopher Booker – Pants On Fire

While the Telegraph titles continue to haemorrhage hacks at an alarming rate – well, alarming for those still clinging on to their seats within the Victoria bunker – one Sunday fixture remains constant. Yes, serial fraud Christopher Booker churns out the dubiously sourced garbage on cue, every week. Every week he tries to slip in more of those whoppers. And every week he gets caught out.

Decades of service. And of getting it wrong

Today’s diatribe, “Millions for the Met Office to carry on getting it wrong”, is no exception. Here, the great man brings his superior insights to bear on the subjects of weather forecasting and climate change, where he stands alone as the one who is telling the right tale, fighting against the dastardly Met Office and all those scientists, who cannot possibly hope to match his level of awareness.

“In 2007, its computer predicted that this would be the ‘warmest year ever’, just before global temperatures temporarily plummeted by 0.7C, equal to their entire net rise in the 20th century” he tells. Global temperatures in 2007 actually rose slightly; the following year they fell, but by little more than 0.1C. Still, the odd transcription error, and all that. And, as the man said, there’s more.

“From 2008 to 2010 the models consistently predicted ‘warmer than average’ winters and ‘hotter and drier summers’: three years when much of the northern hemisphere endured record winter cold and snow”. Wrong. No absolute predictions were made. Saying there is a greater chance of one weather outcome over another is something different entirely. And there was no “record winter cold and snow”.

The coldest recent spell – December 2010 – was not part of a record coldest winter. That winter did not come close to 1978/9, which in turn was not as severe as 1962/3 or 1946/7. But have another go: “temperatures have now not risen for 18 years, and not one has got near 1998’s record as the ‘hottest ever’”. So how does he explain 2005, 2007, and 2010, which were all warmer?

Booker then segues effortlessly into energy policy: “those same computer models are the basis ... for Britain’s crazy national energy policy” he asserts. But there will be enough in reserve to stop the light going out: “enough is already in place to give it a ‘hidden reserve’ of another 7GW, equivalent to four large nuclear reactors”. The largest single reactor in the UK is Sizewell B – 1.2GW.

Sums clearly do not come easily to Booker. But he does know that, by 2030, “we will have shut down all our gas and coal-fired power stations”. That would be news to all those planning and building new gas-fired ones. The thought enters that Booker is recycling so much discredited rubbish that the Tel may have secured his services on the cheap – hence his remaining when so many others have been binned.

The level of accuracy is at least consistent – rather too low to be credible.

Top Six – November 2

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 domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Don’t Menshn The EU Louise Mensch suggested that Young Dave would be doing his renegotiation on a one-on-one basis with Jean-Claude Juncker. This fount of total ignorance was allowed to become an MP.

5 Football Racism Hypocrisy Players get fines and long bans. Pillars of the establishment get a slap on the wrist. Football is not doing itself any favours here.

4 Has The Telegraph Sacked Toby Young? No word from the loathsome Tobes via the Tel for three weeks, despite the Spectator still running his self-promoting copy. Telegraph blogs is effectively dead – so what has happened to him?

3 Smear The Mil – Tuppence A Lie The sneering and cat-calling that descended on Mil The Younger because he gave money to a homeless woman just about sums up the depths to which the right-wing press is willing to sink.

2 Surly Burley’s Pliable Libel Sky News host Kay “Surley” Burley claimed that Alex Andreou had libelled her. From that point, it all went downhill until her claim fell flat.

1 Guido Fawked – Silent On Piers Morgan The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have in the past been on the case of the former Daily Mirror editor. Now that it looks as if there could have been phone hacking under his watch, they have gone silent. This may not be totally unconnected to their now doing business with the Mirror titles.

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

Fiona Woolf – Murdoch Hypocrisy

As this blog said yesterday morning, Fiona Woolf’s position at the head of the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Inquiry had become untenable; by the afternoon she had resigned. Some in the press were not as fortunate in their reading of the runes; others were unfortunate in their subject selection. What they had in common was a collective failure to spot the bleeding obvious.

That's what I think of youse bastards and your smartarsed blogs, ya bladdy Pommie drongoes!

For the Mail, this was the routine business of playing both sides of the field: yesterday it breathlessly reported that Labour MP Jim Hood had brought up, under Parliamentary privilege, allegations from the 1980s about then Home Secretary Leon Brittan. Today has brought a condemnatory outburst, telling how it was all untrue, despite the rumours, and that it was an MI5 smear.

That would be the same MI5 that we should otherwise trust, especially when the deeply subversive Guardian is concerned. But the Mail brass neck is as nothing compared to the Murdoch Times, where, overnight, the fastest editorial U-Turn has been executed in no style at all. Fiona Woolf was in the right earlier this week, but by this morning, it approved wholeheartedly of her departure.

First the Times faces one way ...

Like all Murdoch titles, the Times is behind a paywall, but the incriminating articles have been copied and put online (see how that works, Rupe?). Before Ms Woolf went, readers were told “The grounds for criticising Mrs Woolf are weak. They suggest that mild social acquaintance with the former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, one among thousands of people whose conduct the committee may wish to review, makes her unsuitable. It does not”. And there’s more.

“Mrs Woolf is independent-minded and capable, and is chairing a committee with varied and impressive experience. The panel can and will augment her knowledge and each member will act as a check on the other. The hounding should end and Fiona Woolf should now be allowed to get on with the job”.

... and then it effortlessly faces the other way

That’s pretty unequivocal, as is today’s comment in the same paper. “Fiona Woolf was right to step down as head of the child sex abuse inquiry ... The independence of Mrs Woolf was put in question by her acquaintance with the former Home Secretary, Leon Brittan”. That would be the acquaintance that was “mild” and merely “social”, and the grounds for criticising it were previously “weak”.

The Times goes on to conclude “The mishaps dogging the Inquiry are due, however, more to its encyclopaedic breadth than the quality of its leadership”. While the mishaps befalling the Times are due to its lack of encyclopaedic breadth, and the sheer ineptitude of its leadership. The former paper of record took days not to detect the wind direction. It took Zelo Street just one blogpost to make the right call.

This paper is taking its readers for fools. It does not deserve their trust.

Grant Shapps’ Bad Road Trip

The Tories have accepted the loss of Clacton to UKIP with moderately good grace, bowing to the inevitable as Douglas “Kamikaze” Carswell timed his jump to join Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers perfectly. But it would be different with Rochester and Strood: there was no way they would let Mark Reckless make the same jump and return to the Commons afterwards.

Spiv has problem offloading dodgy motahs in Kent

After all, Young Dave and his jolly good chaps have a secret weapon: the Team 2015 organisation, which would be summoned by Grant “Spiv” Shapps and Mark Clarke to cover the constituency with bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young activists, all willing and able to get the Tories’ message over to a sceptical electorate. With that behind them, what could possibly go wrong?

First up was to exploit UKIP’s “woman problem”. Female voters in the Heywood and Middleton by-election had not been persuaded by the Kippers’ candidate to anything like the extent that men had. So, to ensure the Tories got a female candidate, they had an open primary – but only two women were shortlisted. And lo, a smiling Kelly Tolhurst was selected. Things would surely now improve.

Then the youthful hordes of Team 2015 descended on Rochester and Strood, fronted by Shapps, who is a less than youthful 46, and Wimbledon MP Stephen Hammond, an even less youthful 52. But they were “leading the charge” and waving their Kelly Tolhurst banners eagerly, so that was all right, then.

Shapps was soon along to remind anyone not already asleep “Excited to say Team 2015 now has over 30,000 volunteers. Sign up to join them and secure Britain’s future”. Heck, tens of thousands of them, and all converging on the Medway towns. This would soon put paid to Farage and Reckless!

And, just in case there was someone out there not inclined to mosey on down to Rochester this weekend, Team 2015 announced “Join Jeremy Hunt next Saturday as he leads a huge Road Trip 2015 to Rochester”. Wow. With the former Culture Secretary on board, this was bound to be a success.

Alas, despite Shapps’ hot air, Team 2015’s enthusiasm and Hunt’s not at all swivel-eyed presence, the campaign has developed not necessarily to the Tories’ advantage: as Mike Smithson at Political Betting has reminded them, the latest opinion poll for the constituency, from Survation, shows UKIP opening up a whopping 15% lead. What a stunning result for Team 2015!

Of course, there are still almost three weeks to go before Rochester and Strood goes to the polls. But the postal votes are stacking up and all that money being thrown at the contest by the Tories doesn’t seem to be working. Well done Grant Shapps, eh?

Smear The Mil – Tuppence A Lie

As if one needed reminding that the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate are frightened shitless of the prospect of Labour winning next May’s General Election, along came a prime example as Mil The Younger’s gesture of generosity towards a homeless woman on the streets of Manchester was turned into a barrage of sneering, judgmental abuse and cat-calling.

He still hasn't resigned, press people

Miliband was committing the heinous crime of Walking On The Cracks In The Pavement, and with clear malice aforethought, when he responded to the outstretched cardboard cup by dropping some coins into it. This was, of course, wrong. Had he simply passed by, that too would have been wrong. And, worst of all, he did not perform the act stylishly enough.

If this sounds ridiculous, that is because it is: the Labour leader was condemned for “looking awkward” or even “terrified”. Well I never: there is clearly a style manual for donating to the homeless. There is also an acceptable level of donation. You didn’t know that? Time you all sharpened up! Everyone knows that, if only in the retelling, and they also know that Miliband failed the test.

Well, the Daily Mail knew: “Toe-curling encounter sees Labour leader drop just 2p into homeless woman's cup”. Really? Let’s see what the article actually says, shall we? He “appeared to drop just 2p into a cup”. Never mind though, the Mail also nails him with “failed to even make eye contact”, but then has a photo of Miliband very clearly making eye contact to make sure he’s put his coins in the cup.

Clean trollies for Mr Abell, please!

It doesn’t get any better over at the Telegraph, where the reduction in staff has been matched by an equivalent increase in desperation to find something – anything – to fill those big broadsheet pages. “Labour were forced to deny that Mr Miliband had given the woman ... just 2 pence”. I mean, “critics on Twitter were unconvinced”. Yep, the Tel is that desperate right now.

So is the Sun, as Stig Abell has demonstrated. But where did the “2p” story originate? As if you need to ask: the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, and newly anointed teaboy Alex “Billy Liar” Wickham at the Guido Fawkes blog concluded thus, despite their photo showing Miliband with at least two coins, neither of which was slim enough to be a 2p piece.

Never mind, though, The Great Guido knows that his lies are off and running before mere facts get their shoes on. After all, beggars are for kicking, aren’t they, Fawkes folks (this is alluded to HERE)? All those braying right-wingers are deliriously sneering “tuppence”, while not realising that they are broadcasting to the world how frightened they are of Miliband. Poor dears.

In other news, the real world was a day older. Boring but true.