Sunday 26 July 2009

Carole Malone and the BNP

Carole Malone, the awful, knee-jerk columnist, once described by Charlie Brooker as 'so repugnant in print you want to climb inside the page and vomit ink down her eye sockets', has given us the benefit (no pun intended) of her woefully ignorant - and, yes, repugnant - views on immigration.

In today's News of the World, she has written a column so bereft of intellect or evidence or sound argument, it's hard to imagine anyone getting paid for such crap. And not just crap - full of wild exaggerations and lies - but noxious and inflammatory crap.

In her third paragraph she refers to Migrationwatch as 'respected'. Oh yeh, by whom? She brings up this week's poll about a cap on immigration, but if you feed people an endless supply of misleading anti-immigrant propaganda, chances are they are going to start believing it. And Malone's column is the latest piece of ill-informed rubbish.

She's on the side of the working class - a side she would know all about given her no doubt highly paid column. And numerous TV appearances. But she says:

They're the ones who can't get houses, medical treatment or access to social services because immigrants are always first in the queue...all those British people who've paid their taxes and worked hard get shoved to the back of the housing queue, the health queue, the jobs queue.

And here is a quote from the Welfare and Housing section of the BNP's 2007 Mini Manifesto:

Britain has become a land where foreigners and scroungers come first, and decent, hard-working Britons are taken advantage of. Immigrants come here and are immediately given council homes while Britons are pushed further and further back in the queue. Scroungers - both foreign and home grown - sit at home and receive benefits paid for by high taxation.

Notice any differences? No. Nor me.

The access to housing queue myth was disproved just a few weeks ago. Where is her evidence for the other two claims? She doesn't provide any. And no, Carole, Barry down the pub doesn't count as a reliable source. She actually repeats the housing and healthcare claim three times.

She talks about these people 'simmering with anger' and 'resentment', but they 'aren't racist'. It would be hard to say the same about her obnoxious BNP-type rant.

She can't even be bothered to differentiate between immigrants, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, which shows just what a idiot she is. Here's her next gem:

All you have to do to get everything Britain has to offer is to turn up illegally with some sob story of how your own country is too dangerous or that you're a lesbian who'll be shot if you stay there and Hey Presto, it's like you've won the lottery! And, in effect, they HAVE.

Free houses, free cars, free healthcare and free money. Hell, they don't even have to work or speak the language. Even the suggestion they should is seen as racist in Brown's Britain.

They can just live as they did before, only with a whole heap more money and zero responsibility to the country providing it.


This is clearly referring to asylum seekers. In which case, of course, they can't work (unless she wants to join the Refugee Council Let Them Work campaign?).

I'm not sure I have heard of the 'free car' thing before. Where is her evidence for this? Who is giving out these 'free cars'? Fact: asylum seekers don't get 'free cars'.

As for getting 'free houses' this is very often very basic Home Office-paid-for accommodation. Asylum seekers do not get council houses or housing benefit.

And 'free money' amounts to £42.16 per week to live on. £42.16 is 'everything Britain has to offer' and a 'whole heap more money'? Perhaps Carole would like to try that if it is such a life of luxury?

And if she does mean illegal immigrants, then they wouldn't be entitled to even that.

Her suggestion that everyone turns up here 'illegally' is straight out of the BNP school of thought who believe there is no such thing as 'legal asylum seekers in Britain'. And to dismiss people's experiences of violence, intimidation and torture as 'half decent sob stories' is wretched. She says people

lie and cheat their way in and who are STILL entitled to housing and healthcare.

The truth now is that anyone can get into Britain providing they've got a half decent sob story and just one word of English - "benefits".

That's 'the truth'? Er, no. Of course not.

There are 30 comments in response, all but one of which are gushing in their support:

  • 'My hero !!!'
  • 'Everything you say is correct Carole.'
  • 'such a good and sensible column'
  • 'So true!!'
  • 'Carole, you hit the nail right on the head. What a great piece of writing.'
  • '100% THE TRUEST BEST THING IVE READ' and
  • 'a brilliant piece of writing and every word is true'

Except every word isn't true. But while ignorant people read and believe this totally ignorant, misleading and inflammatory rhetoric, the BNP will continue to thrive.

Well done News of the World. Well done Carole. My hero...

8 comments:

  1. This is the most depressing thing I've read in ages. How do we stop this? Is there any point making complaints to the PCC?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree. I was set for an early night until I read it and just had to post on it!

    I'm afraid there's very likely no point complaining to the PCC. They will probably say as it's an opinion piece, she's allowed to say anything she wants (within the law).

    Here's part of the PCC note on reporting refugee and asylum issues:

    "The clear majority of complaints – including those stemming from partisan comment and campaigning – raise no breach of the Code of Practice."

    Although there are clear factual errors in what she says, I can't see they would do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I commented, but I bet they don't publish. I just had to vent at them.

    I finished by saying 'Your article did make me angry that someone was getting loads of money for not doing a proper job and telling made-up stories. You.'

    ReplyDelete
  4. I happen to know where she lives. The only immigrants legal or otherwise she would have contact with, are the cleaners.

    ReplyDelete
  5. According to Wikipedia and various sites that focus on her Celebrity Big Brother appearance, she is married to a Bosnian.

    The irony.

    ReplyDelete
  6. check out Carole Malone's Wikipedia page (while it lasts): http://is.gd/1UH2J

    ReplyDelete
  7. My own mother spouted an "immigrants get free cars" story to me the other day, about the time that this story about "free cars" appeared.

    Someone she knows is selling a car, and someone came to look at it, accompanied by an interpreter. For some reason, she said the man was an asylum seeker. Has she been so hammered by The Telegraph that she thinks people with interpreters are automatically asylum seekers? Presumably the person telling her this story said that the person wanting to buy their car was an asylum seeker "and it's all paid for with OUR money." But I don't know where they got the idea from that the bloke was an asylum seeker. It didn't sound as if the interpreter told them.

    Isn't it plausible that it was the bloke's own money and that he can speak English but because he's buying something expensive, took an interpreter with him to make sure he didn't get conned into buying a heap of crap?! No, he's got an interpreter, we must assume that he's an asylum seeker and it's OUR money paying for the car and OUR money paying for the interpreter.

    Of course, I did wonder if he was an asylum seeker who was perhaps a politician who'd been kicked out of his country by an undemocratic regime and so he was being bought the car to work with his exiled parliament.

    It just seemed like such nonsense that anyone getting £43 a week would even want a car. The whole thing mystifies me and when I said I didn't think that was true and maybe her friend had got the wrong end of the stick, she said I was a liberal and a red and that I didn't know what I was talking about. :-0

    ReplyDelete
  8. Well done for highlighting this. There may be a lot of lies out there, but the truth will out.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

Comments are moderated - generally to filter out spam and comments wishing death on people - but other messages will be approved as quickly as possible.