Don’t Look Now, But Press Credibility Just Died

The thought that a referendum on the UK’s EU membership might not, after all, come about got the assembled hackery at the Maily Telegraph in a froth yesterday, as I noted earlier. Today, their opposite numbers labouring in the service of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre have taken their turn to go over the top and spray any residual credibility up the wall.

Hack Nigel Jones, in a piece titled “Don’t look now – but democracy just died”, has met the challenge superbly, with a high octane mix of hyperbole, demonisation, dishonesty and forthright ranting. The characterisation of the debate on Monday next (Jones wrongly asserts it will take place on Thursday) as “a tiny shaft of light in an otherwise dark night”, sets the tone.

Jones tries the idea that the UK in 1973 joined a mere free trade area and that this was transformed into the rotten EU by stealth, and of course by those who are “unelected”. Where is the first mention of “ever closer union”, Nige? When the EEC became the EC? When the EC became the EU? Wrong on both: it’s in the original 1957 Treaty Of Rome. Jones falls at the First.

Yet he remounts and continues in ever more desperate style, telling “the EU has crept up on us and taken away our ancient liberties ... something valuable and irreplaceable has been filched from us by thieves who came in the night, and ... stripped us of our birthright. And what they have taken is democracy”. So we now have less elections, being in the EU?

Well, no, we don’t. We have just as many Parliamentary contests as before, just as many local polls, and EU ones on top of those. But Jones has another trick up his sleeve: “we are the only European state to have had continuous representative Parliamentary democracy since the Middle Ages”. And to that I call bullshit. Rotten Boroughs and less than 10% of males allowed to vote doesn’t cut it.

The UK did not give all males the vote until after World War 1, with universal suffrage not following until 1930. So when Jones pontificates that “Dictatorship, not democracy, is the European norm”, he’s trying to con the Mail’s readership into believing that disenfranchisement of around 95% of the population, plus the “fix” of rotten boroughs, equals “democracy”.

The reality of democracy in the UK through the years is more complicated – and interesting – than Jones admits. Likewise the reality of the EU, and there’s the rub: the scare stories get more and more desperate for one good reason, and that is that some politicians, hacks and interest groups would rather we are kept in the dark on the subject, ignorant and frightened of a non-existent Brussels bogeyman.

Being informed on the EU means true democracy. Anything less is not good enough.

Trashing The Occupation – Revisited

[Update at end of post]

The modus operandi of the right, especially in the USA, when moving to dismiss or demonise perceived opposition, is for an accusation to be made – whatever little evidence there is to support it – and then for the pundits to pile in as one as that accusation is repeated, in order to reinforce it. The tactic has now been used against the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests, and the accusation is of anti-Semitism.

That might seem a difficult one to stand up, particularly as the protest just celebrated Yom Kippur, but a group calling itself the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) has managed to find an outlier in OWS making reference to bankers as Jews, and has produced a commercial where the odd nutter has become a “mob”, which is all about “hate”. The pundits have wasted no time piling in.

The deeply unpleasant Rush Limbaugh, for whom math may not have been his strongest subject, has asserted that “the 99%” means they are against “the 1%”, with the latter being the size of the US’ Jewish population. Rushie has been joined by the increasingly wayward Glenn Beck (no longer a “star” of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse)) making accusations of anti-Semitism.

So who is behind ECI? Their website does not say, other than they want to maintain “a strong US-Israel relationship”. And, of course, the commercial is featured prominently. They are supported by Bill Kristol, who was pro-Iraq war, pro-Sarah Palin, pro-military strike against Iran, and who has wants to characterise invasion of Muslim countries as “liberation”.

Interestingly, Talking Points Memo (TPM) has asked ECI for comment, but none has been forthcoming. Accusations have been made that ECI is more about the well-off trying to discredit OWS, and that the suggestion of anti-Semitism is being used to drive the campaign. If so, it’s a truly desperate strategy, but then, much of the vitriol thrown at OWS recently smacks of desperation.

Leading the counter-attack has been the one pundit who has been on the ball with OWS more or less from the start: Keith Olbermann, the right’s favourite hate figure, has addressed what he calls “smears” from Limbaugh and Karl Rove, and dubious polling regarding the alleged propensity of OWS to violence. As so often, when it needs saying, Olbermann says it. Worth a watch.

[UPDATE October 20: Fox Business Host John Stossel visited OWS and got a reception just as hostile as that accorded Geraldo Rivera earlier. For this, Bill O'Reilly dismissed the protesters as "loons", not the first time Bill-O has used the characterisation. Stossel's reception suggests that the attacks from the right are not helpful. At all]

Somebody Said Referendum

Out there on the right, an increasing number of hacks and pundits are getting themselves rather excited on the issue of the EU – more excited, even, than usual. Because there is going to be a vote in the Commons on our membership. This will be so much easier for the assembled MPs as the question is multiple choice. But some are already smelling a rat.

The Maily Telegraph’s Christopher “No” Hope, another paid mercenary of no fixed hairstyle, has news from “Government sources”. It’s bad news, too: Tory MPs, so his “sources” tell, will be instructed to vote against going for a referendum on membership, and subject to a three-line whip. Hope paints a picture of rebellion against Young Dave among back-benchers.

Which only goes to show that Hope is lost when it comes to doing his sums. Even if half the Tory MPs were to rebel, most of the other half, and most Lib Dems, together with the Nationalists and some Northern Irish MPs, would more than cancel them out. Mil The Younger and the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party could take the evening off.

This scenario, though, is not allowed to enter the world of the Telegraph punditerati, notably Benedict “famous last words” Brogan, who tells of “The slow implosion of the European project”. Indeed Ben, it’s so slow that you’ve been banging on about it for the last couple of years and it hasn’t happened yet. If I had a tenner for every time a Telegraph pundit made that prediction, I would now be filthy rich.

Even further out there in left field is Dan, Dan The Oratory Man, who kicks off his routinely dishonest rant by telling “Depending on how you measure it, between 50 and 84 per cent of our laws come from Brussels”. As I noted the other day, Dan and factual accuracy are only very occasional bedfellows: the latest study on the matter concludes that the figure is around 15%.

Hannan cannot get it into his head that telling whoppers – and of a kind that can easily be debunked – is not a good way to persuade voters of his case. But at least his invective stops short of abuse. No such restraint constrains the outpourings of James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole, who has likened Cameron to Sailor Heath.

The torrent of abuse is as vicious as it is ineffective: Cameron is “pointless, spiteful, vindictive, bullying” says Del Boy, while satisfying all four criteria handsomely. Young Dave is denounced as the “Worst Tory Prime Minister in British history”. But then, Del sprays his credibility up the wall: “most talented up-and-coming Tory MPs ... Douglas Carswell ... Priti Patel”. Oh dear.

And that sums up the Telegraph punditerati: dishonest, clueless and abusive.

Say Sorry, Ricky

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

Some comedy genres I get, and some I don’t, for reasons that I never stop and consider. They just don’t gain my attention. That doesn’t mean they’re good, bad or indifferent. Maybe it just means that you can’t get round to taking in everything in that area. I loved the Goon Show, Q, Monty Python, Pete and Dud, Blackadder, Ab Fab, the Daily Show, and Bill Maher, but missed Ricky Gervais.

So I had no strong opinion on Gervais. He’d done The Office, and has now become something of a celebrity Stateside. He does occasionally risqué and mildly offensive humour. There is, as the Beeb announcer might say, very strong language from the start. Those attributes do not apply only to him, though. But this week he’s appeared on the radar for venturing beyond the pale.

Gervais has a presence on Twitter, but again, this is not unique. What is unique is his use of the term “mong”, followed by attempts to excuse it by saying that the meaning of words changes over time, and so people will no longer take the word to mean a person who has Down’s Syndrome. And to that I call bullshit: the world still contains those who, like me, take it to mean exactly that.

And, as Tom Chivers – one of the few rational inhabitants of the bear pit that is Maily Telegraph blogland – has observed, there is nothing edgy or boundary-pushing in making life that little bit less pleasant for a group of unfortunate and vulnerable individuals, and perhaps more importantly those who care for them, something picked up by today’s Sun.

But Gervais tries to justify his word selection by suggesting that all one needs to do not to see his ramblings is to unfollow him on Twitter. Wrong again Ricky: I don’t follow Gervais on Twitter, but an open Twitter feed is open to everybody with access to the Web, following or no. And for someone in the public eye with over 400,000 followers, it’s effectively a public utterance.

And then suggesting that folks take exception to Gervais “because of [his] success” really takes the biscuit. I doubt that I’m alone in not being fussed how much dosh, property, silverware and the rest he has racked up. It’s not about getting at someone just because they’ve made it. It’s about someone in the position of being an example to others setting a very bad one.

The solution for Gervais is straightforward: just admit you were wrong, say sorry, and as Tone would have said, move on. That does not look so big an ask. But for those who are surrounded by the wannabes and the sycophantic, it may be difficult to realise that Healey’s Dictum applies even to slebs. Ricky, you’re in a hole. It’s time to stop digging.

[UPDATE 1 1600 hours October 19: the Daily Mail has arrived on the scene, which is never a good sign. In what may be a series of attacks, hack Emma Reynolds tells that Gervais "sparked fury among the disabled community", an interesting change of sides from last week, when they were laying into anyone who qualified for a Motability car.

The Mail may be a bunch of hypocrites, but that will not save Gervais. That defence didn't do Russell Brand much good. Time to say sorry, Ricky - like now]

[UPDATE 2 1050 hours October 20: the loathsome Toby Young has joined this debate. Calling Gervais "a conceited, vainglorious, self-aggrandising little tick" (quite restrained for Tobe), he then says that Gervais is entitled to make jokes about who he likes. Young thereby misses the point entirely: nobody is suggesting that Gervais should lose his First Amendment rights, rather that he has overstepped the line this time and should apologise.

Young also fails to consider the entry of other papers and pundits into the argument (see first Update above), which will cause it to keep running - again, until Gervais says sorry]

Being For Yet More Benefit Of Mr Lobby

The issue of right and libertarian leaning lobby groups is for some a very sore point, something that was brought into sharp focus today following George Monbiot’s challenge to them on transparency and accountability. Monbiot had already considered the transparency of many such groups and found it wanting, compared to those on the centre left.

Sadly, one poor soul failed to even read Monbiot’s latest piece, let alone the earlier one: step forward Christian May, formerly of the Young Britons’ Foundation (YBF) and now with lobbying firm (now there’s a coincidence) Media Intelligence Partners (MIP). May went off the end of the pier in some style on Twitter, expertly transferring the attributes of paranoia and hysteria to Monbiot after displaying them himself.

May manages not to notice that the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, and an arch-libertarian, agrees with Monbiot’s premise that those who seek to buy influence should be accountable. But May cannot stop spewing the platitudes: it is as if he is demonstrating a conditioned reflex, that once set off, the torrent of ranting must continue.

So he suggests Monbiot is against the choice to spend money as an individual sees fit (he isn’t), that “the right should have their ideas shut down” (impossible, and he isn’t), that Monbiot is only advocating transparency from the right (he isn’t), that there is a proposal to “regulate ideas” (no there isn’t), and that Monbiot is suggesting that funding debate be “state sanctioned” (he isn’t).

What May also demonstrates is a lack of basic courtesy towards those who are not in agreement with him: he is all too ready to fire off a salvo of abuse, rather than engage in discussion and accept peaceable disagreement. The thought that persuasion comes more readily through engagement, and is unlikely to come about by hectoring dismissiveness, appears not to enter.

But he does let slip the name of the lobby group for whom he holds the greatest fear of transparency: no prizes for discovering that this is our old friends at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA). This among all the Astroturf lobby groups is the one that shows the greatest determination to keep its funding secret, and whose staff are consistently defensive on the subject.

It is also why, ultimately, the sources of the TPA’s funding will be discovered and published, whatever the level of hostility displayed by its supporters. In the meantime, were I wanting to engage the services of a lobbying firm, Christian May would have ensured I did not consider touching MIP with my worst enemy’s longest bargepole.

Trashing The UK Occupation

Two weeks ago, I looked at the way that media outlets on both sides of the north Atlantic were trying to ridicule the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests, which are still in progress, have spread to dozens of towns and cities across the USA, and are now finding echoes in Europe, a common chord being sounded with movements such as the one in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol.

Given the hostile and dismissive attitude towards OWS, particularly from the right, it should come as no surprise to see protests in the City of London, mainly around St Paul’s Cathedral, also being rubbished by the usual suspects in the Fourth Estate. The problem for those doing the rubbishing is that their formulaic and unresearched knocking copy bears no relation to reality.

Protests, guv? It's just layabouts, innit?!?

And the conjunction of hackery with lack of reality means one name, and that name is Richard Littlejohn. Dick has to produce something to satisfy his legendarily foul mouthed editor’s agenda, can’t be arsed with fact checking, and hasn’t been anywhere near the protest. So he just engages quotation autopilot: “gormless rent-a-mob ... Toytown Trots from Mickey Mouse universities”.

There’s more: “social workers [demonisation: check!], lecturers [ditto], full-time mature students [ditto] and Swampy wannabes”. Very good, Dicky boy, but that last one only proves that you’ve not even bothered to watch a news report on the protest. But someone has told him that there was a priest involved, so Dick then lays into Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s.

“None of these demos is ever complete without a daft vicar from central casting” observes Dick, once again not having bothered to do a few minutes’ Googling: Dr Fraser is a seasoned broadcaster, lectures on moral leadership for the Army at Shrivenham, is responsible for the Church’s engagement with the City of London, and has written for the Daily Mail. That’s your paper, Dick.

But, as so often, Dick is off and running, impervious to comment: “demonstrators appear to belong to ‘The Revolution starts when the Special Brew runs out’ school of political thought ... those with jobs are likely to be in some kind of State-sponsored sinecure [demonisation: check!]. The rest are in never-ending education [ditto] or living on benefits [ditto]”. I almost expected a Motability reference.

The real jaw-dropper, though, is where Littlejohn tells his readers “It’s a fair bet that very few of them have ever contributed anything to the real economy”.

You need to wrap up warm in Winter when you live in such a draughty glasshouse. Mind how you go, Dicky boy.

Del Boy Does The Fylde Shake

Seeing those who claim to be so much sharper and brighter than those with whom they disagree revealed as not so sharp and bright at first yields a warm feeling, before one realises that we’re talking about those whose arrogant and loud self promotion brings them an authority before which the more easily led will readily yield. And far too many yield to James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole.

Del Boy has at long last learned that, following the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of the shale beds near Blackpool by Cuadrilla Resources, there were two earth tremors, which the British Geological Survey characterised as having a similar mechanism. It has now been confirmed that fracking was responsible for the tremors, but Del says it’s not a problem.

Whether it would be a problem if he were living closer than 200 miles away is not told, and Del Boy does not allow the thought to enter. Instead, he rubbishes the idea that the earth tremors following from fracking are in any way significant, while not mentioning that in one area of Arkansas, there were 1,000 tremors within a six month period, with one registering a magnitude of 4.7.

And residents in Texas have shown that these supposedly trivial earth tremors are on occasion serious enough to damage buildings – you know, like houses. There was also a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in Virginia recently, for which the shale gas industry is, not surprisingly, denying responsibility. Moreover, Cuadrilla has thus far only drilled a test well near Blackpool.

In any case, Del has no truck with talk of earthquakes: instead he backs Spectator editor Fraser Nelson (who doesn’t believe in man-made climate change, or that there is a link between HIV and AIDS, or in Darwin’s work on evolution) and likens the documentary Gasland to Nazi propaganda. Cuadrilla’s claims for the amount of gas in the shale beneath Blackpool are not seriously contested.

Nelson claims that Government would see the light, if only those rotten lobbyists could be removed from the equation, but fails to notice that the so-called Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), much loved by himself and Del Boy, is itself another Astroturf lobby group, and one that refuses to tell who is paying its bills, despite repeated requests.

It is no coincidence that those screaming loudest for shale gas drilling are also those claiming that man-made climate change is not occurring, are politically opposed to Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne being allowed to get out of bed in the morning, and live a long, long way away from where the fracking would take place.

And drilling because it would be someone else’s problem is not good enough.

For The Further Benefit Of Mr Lobby

The influence of lobbyists has, following the departure of Liam Fox over his association with Adam Werritty, been brought centre stage. So the Fourth Estate has been forced to wake up and cover the matter, typical being Andrew Pierce’s thundering headline “Malign power of men who peddle influence” in the Daily Mail. Pierce now tells that he knew of Werritty all along.

Pierce, sadly, homes in only on those paying for access to senior civil servants and ministers – something that can and possibly will become subject to closer scrutiny in future – telling readers of “lavish hospitality ... wining and dining mandarins ... days at the races ... opera ... sporting events”. He reminds Young Dave of the warning sounded by the future PM. But he misses the think tanks.

These, too, are lobby groups: they persistently push their line to a Government whose right leaning part is all too susceptible to the message conveyed. Their actual support is minimal. But the Government listens, and from that point leads a very dangerous road, where this ideologically driven yet unelected minority is prioritised over all others. Those paid for by the 1% overruling the 99%.

Anyone doubting those figures need look no further than two rallies that took place in London earlier this year. First came the March For The Alternative, organised by the TUC and which garnered around 500,000 supporters. The Government is not doing very much listening to the TUC right now, especially on public sector pay and pensions – and union reps’ facility time.

But being listened to rather more, especially on facility time, is the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), who promoted the Rally Against Debt as a counter to the TUC-organised event. Despite the support of a number of right and libertarian leaning pundits and bloggers, this damp squib managed a measly 350, including speakers, hacks and snappers.

So who are Eric Pickles and Francis Maude listening to? That’s right: the ones representing the 0.1%. Cameron is also making appreciative noises towards the TPA. The group now has a former staffer inside the DWP, and thus a conduit into the heart of the Government machine. And, as George Monbiot discovered recently, the TPA will still not tell who bankrolls them.

And all the while, the papers that churn over the TPA’s diet of slanted copy will say nothing about the influence they wield – or that wielded by the rest of the right-leaning think tanks, like the IEA, Policy Exchange, the ASI and the GWPF. The real lobbying scandal is that these groups are allowed to carry on as before, gaining influence without accountability. That is a truly dangerous prospect.

Dan, Dan The Dishonesty Man

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

Some figures out there on the right enjoy a popularity within their chosen constituency greater than mainstream politicians. Some also enjoy a freedom of expression that belies the inconvenient fact that they owe their elective success to membership of a mainstream party. One such is MEP Daniel Hannan, much loved by the “stars” of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).

Hannan is also a valued member of the bear pit that is Maily Telegraph blogland, where yesterday he joined the chorus rubbishing the protests outside the London Stock Exchange and St Paul’s Cathedral. Look at all the tax the top 10% are paying, urged Dan, not telling that the BBC article from which he nicked his graphic said something about taxation that didn’t fit his agenda.

That something was that “most people actually pay a similar share of their income in taxes when all taxes are taken into account, even up to the top 10 per cent as a whole”. In other words, the top 10% pay more of the total income tax take because they have a lot more income, not because they’re being unfairly squeezed. Dan’s being selective with his facts.

Note Fox rhetorical question at foot of screen

And that should surprise no-one who saw Hannan playing patsy for professional loudmouth Sean Hannity on Fox back in 2009, a performance that has gone down in infamy, not just for his obsequiousness, but also the jaw-dropping level of dishonesty he displays. Dan’s first porkie is to characterise health care reform in the USA as a “Government takeover of health care”.

This assertion became PolitiFact’s Lie Of The Year for 2010, with four associated rulings, one False and three Pants On Fire. Hannan then made it back to back whoppers by telling of that same Government having power over whether citizens live or die: this is the “Death Panels” one, PolitiFact’s Lie Of The Year 2009, with an associated Pants On Fire ruling (not the only one for Sarah Palin).

Once in porkie dispensing mode, Dan can’t stop: those who buy their own treatment have their NHS care cut off, he tells Hannity. Not according to the guide on NHS patients’ rights, they don’t. Then comes the waiting time whopper, which has already been debunked by Richard Blogger (video HERE). Then come the smears: it’s like Eastern Europe was, or Cuba, or North Korea.

The Hannity and Hannan NHS hatchet job is truly desperate, but nevertheless should be required viewing for anyone in any doubt as to just how trustworthy and honest this man really is. And having viewed Hannan on Fox, nobody should take him on trust again. Ever.

[UPDATE October 20: Hannan has been at it again, this time on the subject of his pet hate, the EU. On the subject of referenda, Dan has told that "since 1997 ... there have been a further 49". Wrong. The correct answer is eight, only one of which, the AV referendum earlier this year, was UK-wide. When a few minutes' Googling is all it takes to debunk such claims, one might think that those who Robin Day so memorably - and correctly - called "here today and gone tomorrow politicians" might desist from telling such blatant whoppers]

[UPDATE November 22: Hannan just can't help himself. In his latest Maily Telegraph blogpost, he asserts "Spending is above 50 per cent of GDP". Wrong. For 2010 it was 45.45%, and 2011 figures are for obvious reasons not yet in. And this is someone who has been entrusted with writing that paper's leader columns]

Innuendo? It’s Behind You!

And so the next phase of post-mortem hackery arrives, picking over what is left on the bones of Liam Fox’s ministerial career. This time the accusations are flying over suggestions that Fox is gay. This has particularly tested Peter Hitchens, who has decreed that such behaviour is coming exclusively from “the left”, and he has therefore called out “the left” for their alleged hypocrisy.

Who Hitch is trying to call out, though, is unclear. Kevin Maguire in the Mirror did refer to Fox’s former best man and pal Adam Werritty as an “oddball”, but then, a mere friend pretending to be a ministerial advisor when they weren’t, while jetting around the world bankrolled by a number of very well-off people with potential vested interests, should not object to that characterisation.

And Maguire’s talk of a “Cabinet of weirdos”, given that he was also talking about Oliver Letwin and his correspondence dumping antics in St James’s Park in the same piece, hardly qualifies as the “innuendo” that has so upset Hitchens. Moreover, the thought does not seem to have entered that much of the nudge-nudgery is coming from his own side.

Indeed, the Mail’s gay-basher in chief Peter McKay (aka Peter McLie, the World’s Worst Columnist), addressed the issue last week, and with a minimum of subtlety: “Although Fox has denied rumours that he is gay, his friendship with Werritty seems to go beyond what many might consider is normal in male friendships. But the more-inclusive-than-thou Cameron would instinctively steer clear of querying it”.

“Querying” – geddit?!? You want innuendo, Hitch, McHackey’s your man. And, as the saying goes, there’s more: the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole at the Guido Fawkes blog couldn’t resist publishing a photo of Fox laden with innuendo, as the usual comments sewer underlined. The Fawkes blog also quoted Peter McKay’s “querying” comment.

And it was the right leaning Sun that reported on a burglary at Fox’s London flat and then told that a “younger man” had been staying there at the time (although a Tory party spokeswoman said he was alone). “He told cops his pal was sleeping downstairs in the pad – and there was nothing untoward about the arrangement” say Rupe’s troops. More of that innuendo.

So Peter Hitchens might do better looking behind him at the right leaning hackery of his own paper and their pals, if he wants to locate the source of all the innuendo aimed at Liam Fox, rather than pointing over at “the left”, wherever that is.

Bit early for panto season, mind.

After The Fox

As Liam Fox passed through the out door, the Fourth Estate began the attempt to claim the story for itself, or rather the part of it that managed not to do the hard work and break the story. The credit for unearthing Fox’ particular can of worms, as with Phonehackgate, goes to the Guardian, this time with Rupert Neate leading the way. Acknowledgement has hardly been universal.

Over at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, the G-word is not uttered, though political editor Tom Newton-Dunn pontificates at length on the affair, claiming the Fox resignation proved Big Al’s “eleven day rule” (Campbell has his own take on his blog, which is worth a read). Trevor Kavanagh then claims prescience and urges Young Dave to fire Fat Ken, because, well, because.

The Maily Telegraph, which at least did some investigating of its own, is trying to continue to promote its own angle on the story, pitching the name of Tim Bell, former PR supremo to Margaret Thatcher and occasional performer of inadvisable acts while standing by open windows. Bell, it seems, may have observed a conflict of interest. Just the one? No word of the Guardian here, either.

Also not mentioning the G-word, but otherwise insufferably ecstatic, is the Labour supporting Mirror, which has linked the Fox resignation with Oliver Letwin’s morning document binning stroll through St James’s Park, and then followed this blog in invoking the memory of Laurel and Hardy. But they, like the Sun, have enjoyed the ride while managing to get someone else to shovel the coal into the engine.

And at the Express, there was also no mention of the paper that led the way, although at least some fractionally original copy was cobbled together by Macer Hall, who is nominally the paper’s political editor. Even so, much of the piece is quotes which look suspiciously like they have been lifted from elsewhere – others’ websites can be such a bonus for Dirty Des’ bottom line.

Even the Mail, with its top flight resources, did not feature until rather later in the day. Today they have claimed to “reveal” details on the affair, but they too are ungrateful enough not to name check the Guardian, while engaging in the pretence that they were on the case all along. The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, of course, could have gone after this case but did not.

After all, there were other far more important things to chase, like demonising Amanda Knox and inventing stories about the BBC. Priorities, priorities, eh?

TPA – Caught On The Jobless Fiddle

Last Thursday, the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) decided to pretend that they were concerned about the rate of youth unemployment. So head non-job holder Matthew Sinclair penned a piece titled “Britain’s Relative Problem With Youth Unemployment Has Been Growing For A While”. At its centrepiece is a graph which purports to show comparable figures for the UK versus those for the OECD.

However – and with the TPA there is inevitably a however – one look at the graph shows that either the data series have lined up remarkably consistently, or Sinclair has used only three data points for each, one each for 1997, 2002, and 2007. That smacks of cherry picking, and is shoddy statistical practice. Zelo Street has taken data for the first decade of the century, with values for every year.

The result – with the data displayed using a Y-axis that starts at zero, as it should – shows a more nuanced picture, and also that youth unemployment in the UK did not exceed the OECD average until 2006, whereas the TPA’s piece infers that this occurred in 2003. It also shows that the figures worsened across the whole of the OECD as a result of the recession.

Moreover, if what Sinclair calls “non wage” costs were adversely affecting employment rates, this would be borne out by comparing UK versus OECD for overall unemployment figures. It is not: for the whole of the decade, the UK has done better than the OECD average, although there was an increase from 2006, with youth unemployment rising from 2005.

And the figures do not support Sinclair’s attempt to blame the minimum wage (implemented in 1999) and the Agency Workers’ Directive (not incorporated into UK law until 2010) for exacerbating unemployment. Plus, his assertion that “we stop driving a wedge between what employers are able to pay and what employees receive” does not make sense.

Youth unemployment is an issue that deserves serious treatment. The TPA has shown through selective and misleading use of figures that it is not interested in giving that treatment, but rather using the issue as yet another way of pushing its own agenda of demonising Government, of fitting the narrative to the headlines, and that, as too often, is not good enough.

Who Is Felicity Parkes?

Anonymity does not keep well in the twin worlds of politics and journalism. The identities of those behind the pseudonyms used by hacks in the mainstream press – and even at Private Eye – have been known for years. The attempt at concealment by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes, did not survive a Newsnight encounter with the Guardian’s Michael White.

Nevertheless, another mystery alias has appeared on the scene recently, that of Felicity Parkes. Who she? Well, she calls her blog “Diary of a Westminster Bag-Carrier”, which sounds as if she is a mere secretary or office assistant. But this Tweet, from last week, suggests otherwise. Felicity calls the shots in her office: she’s either a PS or maybe even a SpAd.

What of her politics? Her response to the travails of veteran Labour MP Stuart Bell suggest she’s hot on politicians spending too much time aboard the Westminster gravy train, or waste generally.

And she appears to have a soft spot for the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere. So either Ms Parkes is a right leaning and libertarian spirit, or a sucker for the terminally clueless.

She’s also sympathetic to women on the Tory right, here telling her Twitter followers that Nadine Dorries (yes, it’s her again) is “not a happy lady”.

Then there is the media facing Felicity: here she relays a Tweet from Andrew “Brillo Pad” Neil, now of the BBC’s Daily Politics. She’s a keen follower of all things Brillo.

Moreover, she’s keen on putting the boot into Labour, here (admittedly, from the hashtag) being characteristically catty about Justine Thornton.

But Felicity Parkes didn’t just start Tweeting and blogging: a quick scan of that “diary” reveals someone who is confident in expressing themselves, and maybe good in front of a microphone – were she to cease being anonymous. Perhaps she did speaking or PR in a previous incarnation.

Zelo Street will continue to piece together the Felicity Parkes jigsaw, but in the meantime, anyone with more information or even a name is more than welcome to drop an email to the address shown. More on this particular Westminster bag carrier later.

Guido Fawked – Jonah Strikes Again

Defence Secretary Liam Fox has bowed to the inevitable, and has jumped, thereby saving Young Dave having to push him. All those shows of faux loyalty earlier this week in the Commons counted for nothing: the revelations about Adam Werritty and questions over who was paying whom for what, and what the various parties were getting in return, would not stop coming.

The inevitability – which I considered at the time – was, however, not universally accepted. At the Maily Telegraph, political editor Benedict “famous last words” Brogan – the man who said Andy Coulson had changes in store at 10 Downing Street, although he managed not to notice that those changes included Coulson leaving – concluded the matter was “Not worth a resignation”.

His colleague, the equally clueless hack Janet Daley, whose mugshot looks truly frightening, was in agreement: “Labour overplays its hand: Liam Fox will survive” she told her readers. “You could see the air going out of the balloon as the Labour benches responded to Liam Fox’s confident statement ... fulsome expressions of support ... generous tribute”.

Things did not get any better from those on the Government benches, as Nadine Dorries (yes, it’s her again) told the readers of her not-really-a-blog that Fox was “a good and decent man”, and that she would be in the Commons “to lend him ... support”. Sadly for Nadine, this intervention went the same way as her recent amendment to the Health bill.

But the icing on the cake was provided by the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines, who styles himself Guido Fawkes. In a typically clueless moment of self congratulation, he Tweeted unequivocally “Fox will survive”. Several were persuaded to relay the words of The Great Guido. Sad to say, though, that the Curse Of Staines has struck again, as it did with Andy Coulson.

Yes, “Jonah” Staines has claimed another victim.

Stop Moaning, You’re British

The promotion of victimhood appears to sell papers: the Daily Mail has decreed that it is Christianity that is under attack, generally from the vaguely defined “liberal elite”, the spread of “aggressive secularism”, and of course the dastardly BBC. Today the increasingly cheap and nasty Daily Express has gone one better: it is “being British” itself which is under threat.

This follows the use of Parliamentary privilege by Tory MP Henry Smith, who represents Crawley, to allege that a contract cleaning firm had sacked two workers because they were British. Moreover, one of the two claims that she was replaced by a Bulgarian. Both cases are disputed, but the Express is in no doubt: the headline screams “Workers Are Fired For Being British”.

The piece alleges that the cleaning company characterised British workers as “work-shy and expensive”, while one of those sacked claims that the firm’s area manager preferred to employ Eastern Europeans as they “don’t complain”. Well, both sacked workers are certainly complaining, with one apparently taking her case to an employment tribunal. So the Express is in favour of complaining, it seems.

But that impression does not stand a brief scan of the Express’ lifestyle section Express Yourself. Here, top article is about how “Recessions ... can spawn a new entrepreneurial spirit”. Not only is now the time to start a business, but readers are told how great ideas are “recession proof”. And the message to all those out there complaining? “Stop Moaning – Start Working”.

Facing both ways on an issue just to sell a few more cheap and nasty papers? That’ll be another Benchmark of Excellence.

A Right Royal Irrelevance

[Update at end of post]

Unemployment rose last month to 2.57 million – that’s the highest since 1994. The economy is growing, but slowly, very slowly, and forecasts are being pegged back over time. People are concerned about the rise in the retirement age, the effects of cuts on the NHS, maintenance of local services, law and order, energy security, the cost of food and much more.

So what is Young Dave going to focus his energies on right now? He wants to change the rules for the Royal succession. Now, this might be high on the wish list for the fawningly royalist Sun, Express, Telegraph and Mail, but I doubt that most citizens give a fig about succession only being through the male line. In any case, that hasn’t done those male monarchs so many favours.

Consider the past 200 years, or the period from 1810 to 2010. In 1810, George III was nominally on the throne but was deemed unfit to rule, so his son stood in as Regent, taking over in 1820 as George IV and then being succeeded by William IV in 1830. William’s death in 1837 brought the years of male rule to an end, and he was succeeded by Victoria, who then ruled for 64 years.

Moving into the 20th Century, Victoria was succeeded by Edward VII, who very nearly failed to make his own Coronation, and then managed to last just until 1910. George V at least celebrated his Silver Jubilee before telling his physician to “bugger Bognor” and shuffling off. Edward VIII abdicated before being crowned, and George VI smoked himself to an early death in 1952.

Which means that the male line managed another 51 years, but that it needed four of them. Elizabeth II has ruled since: up to 2010, that’s another 58 years. So between 1810 and 2010, with the present succession rule in place, Kings have ruled for 78 years and Queens for 122. And when there have been problems with the monarchy, as with Edward VIII, they’ve been sorted out at the time.

Cameron should realise that the Royal Family isn’t at present broken, and so does not need fixing. He should have better things to do, given the state of the country and its economy. Time to show some leadership and address peoples’ real concerns.

[UPDATE: the same conclusion has been reached, but not surprisingly with greater longeur, by the overbearingly pompous Simon Heffer at the Daily Mail. He even manages a similar form of words, telling that "The Royal Family isn't broke, and doesn't need to be fixed". I'm not so sure about his assertion that the Succession rule is "why we're not ruled by Germany today", though. That's probably been slipped in to ensure the Mail has at least one reference per issue, implicit or explicit, to the Third Reich, a subject that has been a Mail favourite since the 1930s]

Leveson – Enter The Sweary Man (2)

The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, for so long the provider of the aggression that Nick Davies called “the fuel in the Daily Mail’s engine” looked perhaps more than his 62 years yesterday as he addressed the Leveson enquiry. Holding himself upright by grasping the lectern, his breathing laboured, the Vagina Monologue was clearly past his prime. But his paper still delivers its regular ration of hate.

Who the f*** are you calling old?

After pausing to heap bile on the Blair administration, for allowing Richard Desmond to take over Express Newspapers, which in fact suited Dacre fine as Dirty Des has starved the Express and Daily Star titles of investment and turned them into cheap and nasty joke titles – sending readers to the Mail – he took aim once again at his demons in the media world.

In doing so, particularly in his attack on the Guardian and Independent (“papers that lose eye watering amounts of money and which are subsidised either by trusts or Russian billionaires”), Dacre once again points up the origin of the Mail’s editorial line. Littlejohn and Mad Mel sneer in unison at “Guardianistas” because that is what the editor has ordered them to do.

Likewise the broadcast media: “The BBC relies for its existence on a Government imposed poll tax” he rants, unaware that anyone can vote, whether they have a TV or not. He reveals his hatred of Big Al as an example of “how politicians can bully the BBC” while managing to forget his own titles’ daily – not merely occasional – assault on the Corporation, most recently inventing the BC/AD knocking copy.

All the while, Dacre shows a strange inferiority complex, complaining about “Britain’s liberal class” who “hate all the popular press”, and talks of “The Hampstead liberal with his gilded life-style”, further revealing where so much of the Mail’s editorial direction originates. It is as if he has to invent a series of demons against which his papers can rail.

What Dacre ignored completely – perhaps because he genuinely doesn’t realise it happens, or more likely doesn’t care – is the way the Mail tramples over not just slebs and sports stars, but ordinary citizens. Lottery winners, social workers, Police officers, nurses, councillors, teachers, students, travellers, and anyone not speaking English routinely see their names and reputations trashed in pursuit of sales.

It’s this abiding memory of the Mail that means it is difficult to feel sympathy for Paul Dacre as he labours through his statement to Leveson. He and his band of obedient, compliant and cowering hacks have deliberately set out to enrich themselves and Associated Newspapers by bringing misery to so many people in pursuit of their agenda. There will be few tears as Paul Dacre shuffles out the door.

TPA – Health Service Hatchet Job

[Update at end of post]

Today brings a supposedly authoritative “report” from the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), this time laying into the NHS. Under the title “Wasting Lives”, it purports to be “A statistical analysis of NHS performance since 1981”, which TPA observers will be unsurprised to learn it is not. It is, however, a classic of TPA output in that it selectively presents information to suit its conclusion.

The wasted lives of the report title are those hypothecated as being “amenable to healthcare”, assuming that the “amenable mortality rate” for the UK can be measured against that for “selected European countries” (which, to no surprise, have lower amenable mortality rates), with the difference multiplied out to give a suitably large number, just over 11,500 for 2008.

This figure is then put forward, together with increased spending on the NHS between 2001 and 2011, and is held to prove that the NHS is not such A Good Thing and should therefore be reformed, although what a reformed system would look like is not told, possibly because the models followed in those “selected European countries” (the Netherlands, France and Spain) are all different.

There are a number of problems with this approach. Firstly, as the TPA at least concedes, is the lifestyle factor, which is known to influence significantly life expectancy levels across the UK. Second, the TPA seems unable to limit its comparison to the Netherlands, France and Spain, bringing in comparisons with Australia, Sweden, Norway, Canada and even Cuba.

And thirdly and potentially most important, the only country that has its healthcare spending examined in depth, together with productivity, pay and increases in frontline staff versus managers – always a fertile patch for the TPA, for whom the thought that large private sector organisations have lots of managers does not enter – is the UK.

The nearest the TPA gets to making a cost comparison is when they describe the system in Switzerland (yes, yet another comparator thrown in to the mix) as “expensive”. So the NHS is getting rubbished by comparing it to systems across Europe and elsewhere, but there is no comparison of costs, just the inference that the NHS model is wrong and everyone else’s is better.

So what the TPA have presented is a partially researched hatchet job on the NHS, with sufficient information provided to fit the headline already written – rather like the Daily Mail, the kind of paper that eagerly churns over their press releases. The sad reality is that informed debate on the NHS cannot be other than A Good Thing, but this is not it. It’s a waste of time and money, and that’s not good enough.

[UPDATE: As Clifford Singer at The Other Taxpayers' Alliance has pointed out, the TPA "report" does contain comparative cost data, in a graph on Page 16. This shows that NHS spending between 1981 and 2008 was, on average, less than 90% of the level of what it calls "EU-peer spending" (whether that is the same three countries - the Netherlands, France and Spain - mentioned previously, or all EU member states, or some other grouping, is not told). The supporting narrative, though, does not mention this, and instead talks of spending increases while ignoring the inconvenient fact that spending on the NHS has not got even close to that "EU-peer" level for a period of almost thirty years.

The TPA's head non-job holder Matthew Sinclair has also not mentioned this in a post on the "report" on ConservativeHome (not, of course, that the TPA are Conservatives, oh no) until a commenter pulled him up on it. The vain and immodest Sinclair's measured reply to the heinous act of criticism was to whine "You have just set up a complete straw man", which is more or less word for word what he said last time he spat out his dummy at me for calling out the TPA on their creative use of statistics.

So yes, there is some comparative data there, but while visible, its presentation is veritably discreet. More slanted TPA copy - no change there, then]

Leveson – Enter The Sweary Man

Today was the turn of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre to make his appearance before the Leveson inquiry, and the Mail’s editor in chief did not disappoint, even managing not to swear at anyone. His statement was forthright and combative. At first sight it appears cogent and well argued. But a few minutes’ analysis reveals the same old bully at work.

What do you mean it's a no f***ing swearing zone?

Dacre starts by denouncing phone hacking. “But let’s get this in proportion ... Britain’s cities weren’t looted as a result. No-one died. The banks didn’t collapse because of the News Of The World ... The nation didn’t go to war”. Thus he admits to directing all the why-oh-why copy telling that too much emphasis was being placed on the hacking investigation.

Then comes an implicit admission: “The Data Protection Act means that reporters can be criminalised for ... obtaining ex-directory numbers which they need to do to check stories are accurate”. Ex-directory numbers are confidential – the description may give a clue – so no, they don’t. And that is as close as Dacre will go to confirming the presence of his hacks in the Operation Motorman records.

He gets better: “the Bribery act ... makes it illegal to pay a civil servant for information”. Terrible, eh? But do go on. “Establishing the truth and accuracy of ... news demands considerable resource and resourcefulness and is, frankly, becoming increasingly difficult”. Which explains stories like the Mail’s “ADHD is only naughty children and they all get free BMWs”, then.

But Dacre is at pains to show that reporting has changed since the 1970s: “It was not uncommon for reporters to steal photographs from homes. Blatant subterfuge was commonly used”. Yes, now hacks instead nick photos from photo websites, from blogs, from other papers’ sites, and off Facebook. And the subterfuge persists, but now the pretence is that they might pay, but often don’t.

The PCC, though, is talked up: that the body was absent all through the phone hacking saga he ends up pinning on the Police. And then he drops a corker: “I ... regard being obliged to publish a judgment as an act of shame”. Yes Paul, that’s because for once you haven’t managed to get away with it. Some of us have read Flat Earth News.

And his vision of the Daily Mail’s journalistic legitimacy is undimmed: “My own view is that as long as the code is observed and no law is broken, papers should be free to publish what they believe is best for their markets”. In other words, agenda driven copy, inability to separate news and comment, attack hackery and knocking copy is fine and dandy, and will continue, whatever Leveson may say.

No change there, then. More on Dacre’s statement later.

TPA – Frightened Of Reality

Today has brought what I believe is the first piece on the website of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) by their new political director Jonathan Isaby, whose work experience outside journalism and politics is precisely zero. His subject is the EU – maybe Lee Rotherham, author of the “dodgy dossier” on the ECHR was not available – and it seems that the low standard of TPA copy has been maintained.

The target for Isaby’s article is the EU’s new visitor centre in Brussels, which opens to the public on Friday. The centre, which provides information and displays on the EU’s past, present and potential future, will be a free-to-enter attraction open seven days a week, and will also explain to visitors the workings of the European Parliament and how it affects the everyday life of those living in member states.

So what is the TPA’s problem with what is known as the Parliamentarium? Well, Isaby homes in on the cost, which he reckons to be £15.5 million. Sounds like a large number. So how much has it cost the UK? Our net contribution to the EU was around 6% of the total budget in 2010, which means the UK is on the hook for rather less than £1 million in this case.

That isn’t such a large number, but nevertheless the TPA has a point: publicly funded visitor centres are not universally popular with hard pressed taxpayers. So can we expect to see Isaby and his colleagues going after those that cost rather more that we’re chipping in for the Parliamentarium? The answer from Belfast suggests not.

There, the Titanic Visitor Centre is taking shape ready for the centenary of the ill-fated liner’s maiden voyage next year. First two names in the list of funding sources (out of four) are the Northern Ireland Executive and Belfast City Council, which suggests that these two are making the largest contributions. The total cost of the centre is around £100 million. And on this occasion, the TPA is silent.

Which suggests that it isn’t about cost, or whether visitor centres are A Good Thing. So what is Isaby’s real target? This is not hard to discern: one look at the title of his piece (“Brussels’ New £15 Million Propaganda Temple”) says it all. He goes on “be in no doubt, it is propaganda central ... a special effort has been made to indoctrinate children”.

Yes, Jonathan Isaby’s overarching concern is that people might start to learn about the EU, and not from sources of which he approves. Whenever someone starts screaming “propaganda” and “indoctrination” (two terms much favoured by our old friends at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse)), you know that someone is frightened of reality, and wants to shut down the debate.

So the new man at the TPA is just like all the old ones.