Caring Carole

First it was incredulity. Now it's anger. Raw anger. The people of Cumbria are raging - yet their anger isn't directed at Derrick Bird.

At least not yet. For now it's directed at a world that has suddenly and without warning invaded their lives, a world that is shining an unwelcome light on them at a time when they are scared and vulnerable and confused.

It's as if Derrick Bird is their shame, their failure and they want to deal with it privately in their own time.

These proud working class communities don't want to grieve, to heal themselves with the world looking on...

And where once tourists would come to see the scenery, now they'll come to gawp at Derrick Bird's killing fields.

That's Carole Malone, reporting for the News of the World.

From Cumbria.

Carole the Consistent

Carole 'liar' Malone is delighted by the new coalition government.

Watching it unfold on TV while in Spain, she was impressed, despite having voted Conservative:

I liked it. I liked the fact two smart, well-educated YOUNG guys were standing there talking about the 'new politics' and telling us the job of putting Britain back together was starting right there and then.

I liked their energy, their vibrancy, their determination...

if the result is change, if together Cameron and Clegg can modernise British politics, if the result of all this is that Britain becomes a better, more stable, more solvent place, then how that can be bad?

Don't you feel rejuvenated and refreshed by the winds of change that could well come back and blow our houses down, but which for now are blowing away the cobwebs and the detritus of 13 years of New Labour?...

We can keep banging on about self-interested, power-mad politicians or we can look at what's happening with optimistic eyes - and give it a chance.

Got that? Good, because that verdict might suprise anyone who read her recent columns.

For example, when she said:

those who voted tactically in order to get a hung parliament? Well, they got what they wished for and it's a big fat mess - the victims of which are already the British people.

And:

Britain will be run by a government that makes decisions NOT because they're good for us but because they're the best compromise both parties could agree on.

But now, she 'loves' the idea of the 'new politics' a coalition government.

And who has been 'banging on about self-interested, power-mad politicians'?

Here's Carole, just last week:

the Lib Dem pipsqueaks who - whatever they claim their principles and policies to be - are actually just gagging for power.

So whichever 'bribes' suit them best, whoever promises them the most clout to help run this country - and YOUR lives - is who they'll cuddle up to.

Are you scared yet? You should be.

But if the Lib Dems DO go with the Tories what does it say about THEM and their high and mighty principles - not to mention Cleggy, who you can bet your sweet life will end up with a nice little cabinet job out of all this.

Oh.

Two weeks before that, she targeted Nick Clegg more fully:

Clegg is already getting on my nerves.

Whinging about being smeared...Telling half truths about his crackpot policies, pretending his party is Holier than Thou...he's sure as hell not the man to get Britain out of the doo-doo.

But now he's a 'smart', 'well educated' and 'refreshing' 'YOUNG guy' who can make Britain 'better' and more 'stable'?

Oh and a few weeks ago, she added:

In this week's debate he was verging on the cocky...

He's a posh Del Boy selling himself and his party knowing full well that if he plays his cards right now he'll have massive personal power after the election when the Lib-Dems team up with Labour.

But now Clegg is 'energetic', 'vibrant' and 'determined'?

Also: 'when the Lib Dems team up with Labour'? Oops.

And it wasn't just Clegg she was unimpressed by last month. Reviewing David Cameron's performance in the first debate, she said he was:

the big shocker. It was like he'd had his personality surgically removed. He was passive, uninspired, almost weasly - like he had no guts or fight in him.

He certainly didn't look like a Prime Minister...[he] came across as a wimp with zero conviction.

Good job he's now just as 'energetic', 'vibrant' and 'determined' as Clegg, then.

Back in March, Malone was also attacking the leaders' wives:

Take the most recent obsession with party leaders' wives. It's bad enough Labour's spin doctors are desperately trying to canonise Sarah Brown. But now, with just weeks to go before the election, David Cameron has dreamily announced that wife Sam is his 'secret weapon.'

It's also no coincidence Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has now taken to dragging his very attractive wife Miriam around by the hand (her other hand shamelessly brandishing her 'eco' bag made from bottle tops) as if to say: 'If I can bag a stunner like this I'm more interesting than you all think.'

I'm sorry, Sarah, Sam, Miriam - all very nice women I'm sure - but frankly who gives a flying fig what they think about anything? We're not voting for THEM.

And just to make her position on the wives absolutely clear, she added:

I refuse to be patronised by spin doctors trying to con us into believing that if these men are married to great women there's obviously more to them - a softer, more loving, more caring side - than we're seeing on the political stage.

Alas, this week:

And talking of progress, doesn't it gladden your heart to see that that both Cameron and Clegg are married to bright, progressive career women - because it says much about what kind of men they are and how they think.

So two months ago, Malone hated politicians trying to con her into thinking the type of woman they are married to said something about them.

Now, she finds it heart-warming that David and Nick are married to women such as Samantha and Miriam because that says much about what kind of men they are.

Clearly, most people wouldn't go to Carole Malone's column for intellectual rigour, but is a bit of consistency too much to ask for?

Carole Malone isn't NICE either

Here's a typical example of how loudmouth columnists rely on other newspaper articles - rather than their own research - in churning out their rants and in doing so end up repeating mistakes from the originals.

The Mail's 'factually inaccurate' article of 8 April on cancer drugs was rebutted by the Chairman of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) the following day.

Yet Carole Malone - the one who thinks illegal immigrants get free cars - repeated all the claims against NICE in her News of the World column which appeared two days after NICE's clarification.

She wrote:

Yes, that very nasty organisation called NICE - which in recent years has become judge, jury and state executioner - has refused via West Kent Primary Care Trust to pay the £100 a day for cancer dugs that would allow Nikki to see her baby sons grow up.

This is incorrect. NICE has never made any decision on the drugs in question for this type of cancer because they've never been asked to. Moreover, NICE were not pulling the strings about the decision of the PCT.

The Mail article even included the line:

A [NICE] spokesman said decisions on funding it were entirely up to PCTs.

But Malone conveniently ignored that bit.

She goes on:

This is the organisation whose decisions have hastened the deaths of 20,000 people, the same organisation which in the past 18 months has said NO to 15 cancer treatments (that's not 15 people - but 15 classes of cancer drugs) and they've done all this despite a government promise in 2008 that people WOULD get access to life extending drugs.

Accusing an organisation of 'hastening the deaths of 20,000 people' is rather strong. It's based on a Rare Cancers Forum report (mentioned in the Mail article, she didn't find it herself) that said 16,000 people suffer with forms of cancer that may have been treated by four drugs rejected by NICE.

But it's only may have helped - for Malone to turn that into her definite accusation is a bit of a leap.

Then she repeats the Mail's 'factually inaccurate' claims about the number of drugs that had been rejected. And she did this despite NICE correcting the record two days before.

Hopefully, NICE will complain to the PCC to get both the Mail and Malone to retract the lie.

Back in 2007, Malone appeared on GMTV to attack Heather Mills (video on Youtube, watch from 05:06). She says about Mills:

Never once has she gone to the Press Complaints Commission, not once has she complained about any of the stories, not once has she sued over the untrue...she has sued my paper about a mistake we made.

So not once had Mills sued a newspaper, says Malone. Except the time she sued Malone's newspaper (at the time she worked for the Sunday Mirror). Got that?

Malone also says about Mills, with no hint of irony:

Time and time again we have found out things she has said are patently not true.

Hmm. Pot and Kettle? Malone has said illegal immigrants get free cars, has made claims about Cherie Blair that resulted in the News of the World paying libel damages, reviewed a performance by Cheryl Cole that hadn't happened, and has made claims about cancer drugs which aren't correct.

Time and time again we have found out things she has said are patently not true.

Most bizarrely of all, Malone told GMTV:

She [Mills] says the tabloids make things up - that is not true.

There are very strict laws governing all newspapers.

When Fiona Phillips groaned 'Oh Carole' in response, Malone reiterated the point:

No but Fiona, there are.

There aren't strict laws governing newspapers. There is a decent Code of Conduct that isn't very well upheld - as the complaint against Malone's totally made-up 'free cars for illegal immigrants' claim proves.

But does Malone really think she can say - with a straight face - that tabloids 'don't make things up'?

It's laughable. But given her position as columnist on the best-selling Sunday newspaper and her regular pitiful appearances on daytime magazine shows, it's not very funny.

Carole Malone: psychic or liar?

A few weeks ago, Carole Malone was proved to be a liar when her own paper retracted her ridiculous claim that immigrants get 'free cars'. This came soon after the paper had to pay damages to Cherie Blair for false claims Malone had made about her.

She lies about immigration quite often - pushing all the myths about council housing, health queue jumping and benefit scrounging, without producing shred of evidence to back any of them up.

And thanks to Somerset Bob, we have another example of Malone's dishonesty. In mid-October it was widely trailed that Cheryl Cole was to perform her new single on The X Factor and that she was not going to be singing live (although only some of it appears to have been mimed in the end). Noticing that the show goes out on a Saturday night, Malone fired off her column for the next day's News of the World. She asked:

why did she mime her new solo single on last night’s X Factor?

And then answered:

It suggests she can’t sing. It suggests that she isn’t capable of doing a big number on her own. It also suggests she doesn’t have the guts to perform in front of a live audience — all the things the inexperienced contestants are expected to do without a murmur...last night’s performance showed that, unlike the X Factor finalists, she’s not a real talent at all — just a coiffed, over-promoted, manufactured one.

All the usual Glenda Slagg-type bile you would expect. There were just a few slight problems.

One was that it was only a year ago that Malone was calling Cole a:

drop-dead gorgeous, incredibly successful singing star

Amazing how someone can be so firm in their thoughts until they decide to change them.

But the main problem with Malone's article was this: Cole didn't actually perform her single until the Sunday night results show.

So as the first editions of the News of the World went to press, it contained Malone's review of something she not only hadn't seen, but which hadn't even happened yet.

It's as if Malone had decided what she was going to think without waiting for the facts. Imagine that. The 'review' was not published online but was highlighted by Tony Blackburn in a series of tweets, and on some forums.

This is a deliberate piece of deception. Malone sat down and churned out her article knowing it was all a lie. So not only is she a dreadful writer, she is totally dishonest and lacking in shame.

In other jobs, pulling a trick like that would probably get a lot of people fired. At the phone-hacking News of the World, you just carry on.

How the PCC doesn't work

A couple of weeks ago, this blog revealed the extraordinary effort needed to make Richard Littlejohn and the Daily Mail withdraw the obviously incorrect claim most robberies were committed by Eastern Europeans. While you would think it would be easy to correct something so obviously bogus, it was a lengthy process because the Mail decided to ignore the Press Complaints Commission for over a month, and Littlejohn tried to repeat the claim in the clarification.

If you thought that was bad, read on.

The same reader who complained about Littlejohn also contacted the PCC about Carole Malone's claim that immigrants get 'free cars' when they arrive in the Britain. Thankfully, the article has been removed from the News of the World site but if you Google the headline 'I’ll give you a real benefits sob story!' it is still available on elsewhere.

In a column full of frothing anti-immigrant myth-making, Malone spewed:

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.

It's a dismal and depressing couple of paragraphs. But here's your starter for ten: who is she on about?

'Turning up illegally' implies illegal immigrants. But they wouldn't need a sob story to stay, and certainly don't get any benefits.

The 'sob story' and 'free houses and money' implies asylum seekers, but they don't turn up illegally and aren't allowed to work.

This becomes an important point in the correspondence that followed. But more on that later.

Because of the strict PCC rules on complaints, especially about columns such as Littlejohn's or Malone's, the complainant stuck to one fact: no one gets free cars.

Not only did this violate Clause 1 of the Code of Practice that the:

'Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information'

but also ignored the PCC Guidance Note on Reporting on Refugees and Asylum Seekers, which highlights:

the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts.

To their credit, the Deputy Managing Editor of the News of the World responded within a few days. The evasion started immediately:

Ms Malone is a famously trenchant columnist with forthright views and the tenor of her writing makes it clear that she is expressing an opinion.

Stating that people get treated like they have 'won the lottery' - as Malone does - is an opinion. It happens to be totally misleading and overblown (£35 per week is like winning the lottery?), but it is an opinion.

Claiming people get 'free cars' is not an opinion. It's either true or it isn't. And it isn't, so it breaches the Code.

But what was their excuse for the 'free car' claim anyway? Believe it or not, this:

Ms Malone is referring, for example, to the widely accepted and unchallenged reports of the £28,500 Toyota Prius that Omar Bakri Mohammed obtained from Currie Motors with a grant from the Government's Motability scheme.

Yes, really. Note the 'for example' as if this is just one of many they could list. Instead, they point to one example from over four years ago, where someone was granted a car because of a disability after being in the country legally for over a decade.

Clearly that does not justify the claim that someone turns up illegally and 'hey presto' they get a free car.

The paper also tried to explain who Malone was referring to:

Throughout the piece, Ms Malone refers to 'immigrants' and never once to 'asylum seekers'

before going on to explain that she only refers to 'illegal immigrants' in the paragraph before the 'free cars' one.

So the Deputy Managing Editor confirms Malone was referring to illegal immigrants having a sob story in order to stay in the country and as getting free houses, cars, money and healthcare. Clearly, all that is completely wrong. And suggests that neither he, nor Malone, nor the paper have a clue about what terminology they should use. Indeed, he went on to claim:

I believe it would be abundantly clear to any of Ms Malone's readers that this is to demonstrate the vast range of people who might benefit from this country's largesse.

So he does think illegal immigrants get those benefits. And in other words - we can chuck any word describing immigrants around and we don't care if they're right or not. As long as readers know they're all getting benefits and cars, it's job done. It's arrogant and it's stupid.

So to reiterate: Carole Malone and the News of the World think illegal immigrants turn up in the UK needing a sob story that their own country is too dangerous so they can stay and receive free money, houses, cars and healthcare. And these illegal immigrants aren't even made to work for it.

Needless to say the complainant rejected this explanation out of hand, highlighting all the problems it raised.

The response of the News of the World? This:

Perhaps a way forward might be for Mr (...) to write a letter which I would be happy to consider for inclusion in our letters column. While items in our printed letters column are relatively short and to the point, I would also be prepared to consider a somewhat longer version to be published online.

Pathetic. Note it's not even guaranteed for publication, but would be 'considered for inclusion'. And which of the News of the World readers would take note of a short letter from some unknown member of the public rejecting a claim by one the paper's star columnists?

Needless to say, our complainant rejected that out of hand, making it clear that any correction had to come from the paper. With the News of the World not even engaging in discussion on the substantive points, the complainant said there seemed to be little option but for the Commission to adjudicate.

A month passed and the PCC was back in touch. The Commission had met and discussed the issue.

And their decision? Err, they didn't make one.

Whether through cowardice or ignorance, the Commission suggested that a further negotiation begin between paper and complainant to agree the wording of a clarification. The PCC never explained why they avoided adjudicating as the complainant had asked. Are they so desperate to avoid any ruling against a newspaper that they abdicate all responsibility now?

So the PCC got a wording from the paper for consideration:

A comment piece of 26 July about immigration issues suggested that those arriving in the UK from abroad generally received “free cars”. We emphasise this was a broad comment and fully accept that this will generally not occur.

Notice the very same tactic as the original Littlejohn wording - try to repeat the claim while pretending to withdraw it. By saying it will not 'generally occur' suggests it may occur, in some cases. On top of that, they didn't even want to name the writer who made the claim.

It was a feeble effort but the PCC added:

such a proposal...would appear to fall in line with the Commission’s general view on the matter

In other words: take it or you get nothing. Our complainant rejected it anyway and suggested the following:

In Carole Malone's column of 26 July, she claimed illegal immigrants receive 'free cars' among other benefits. We now accept illegal immigrants do not receive any such benefits and apologise for the error.

This was never going to be accepted by the paper - claiming illegal immigrants get benefits is a tabloid staple - but it was worth a try, eventhough it didn't cover asylum seekers and immigrants generally.

The paper responded, and this wording was forwarded by the PCC:

On July 26, our columnist Carole Malone claimed illegal immigrants receive 'free cars' among other benefits. We now accept illegal immigrants do not receive such a benefit and regret the error.

Now the paper was trying to say although illegal immigrants don't get cars, they do get other benefits. The hair-tearing was increasing. The complainant rejected that wording, and also suggested that rather than 'regretting' the error they should be apologising for such a damaging and potentially inflammatory lie.

On top of that, he wondered why the original article had not been removed from the paper's website, as is normal when a complaint is ongoing. Only then did the paper take Malone's stupid column down and offered this wording:

On July 26, our columnist Carole Malone claimed illegal immigrants receive 'free cars'. We now accept illegal immigrants do not receive such a benefit and apologise for the error.

This corrected some of the problems with the previous wording, but others remained. If the News of the World admits that the 'free cars' bit referred to 'illegal immigrants' then the free house, money and healthcare did as well. So why wouldn't it be willing to correct those claims too?

The PCC note accompanying the latest News of the World offer added:

the Commission would consider this to be sufficient under the Code.

This left the complainant in a hopeless position. To accept it would mean something inadequate would be published. To reject it would almost certainly mean that nothing would be published. The Commission would have ruled that 'sufficient' remedy had been offered and so would probably have found against the complaint.

The complainant asked the PCC if they would push the paper to clarify the point about other benefits. The PCC confirmed they wouldn't:

The point about “free cars” is demonstrably untrue and, as such, the newspaper is willing to correct the point and offer an apology. It has also removed the article from its website following your request. Personally – and the Commission has already considered the matter initially – I think that this would be seen to be enough.

The PCC added:

I think that the problem relates to the manner in which the article was written, as it is not entirely clear to whom the reference in question refers.

So eventhough the PCC admits the terminology used is dreadful, they were basically saying: this is the best you will get.

The complainant was essentially cornered by the paper and the PCC. On top of that, after two months of wrangling, he was just fed up and disillusioned with the whole process - especially after having to deal with the Mail complaint too.

So our reader agreed to the wording. He asked that it appear on the same page as the next Carole Malone column. The paper refused, instead offering to place it in an above-the-fold box on page 19 (where the original column appeared) or earlier. The reason was that as the apology:

carries the weight of the News of the World as a whole

it wasn't appropriate to be on her page. You know, where people who might have read the original claim might see it. But being fed up and just wanting it over, the complainant agreed.

Although the paper has not published it on their website, as they should have, it appears on page 18 of today's edition. In a very small box. Hardly noticeable. Far more noticeable, is Carole Malone's latest column, which is another rant about how immigrants are getting everything, 'British people' aren't and that is why the BNP succeed.

Rather, she should be thinking the BNP succeed when the public believe there are no border controls and that immigrants get priority in health care and social housing because she, like most the tabloid media, keeps telling them it's true. Eventhough it isn't.

But back to the free cars, and this is not the way a complaints system should work. The News of the World and the PCC both knew that the claims made by Malone in that paragraph were bullshit but made it as hard as possible for the complainant to get any remedy. The process ground on for two months, with the paper having to have a vaguely suitable wording wrung out of it. And the PCC let them get away with it, by not helping the complainant push the paper for a entirely justified fuller correction.

By appearing to be on the side of the paper - as it so often appears - the PCC shows it is not doing the job a newspaper regulator should be doing. The press would be the first to complain if any other institution regulated itself. So why is it different? Other regulators - such Ofcom - are firmer, and can issue fines. Why can't the PCC?

These two complaints by our intrepid reader do raise another question, as highlighted by 5CC. What exactly is the PCC policy on third-party complaints?

In neither of these cases was the issue raised by either paper or PCC. Yet when the complaints started to flood in about the Jan Moir hate-fest, the PCC's initial reaction was to dismiss them as third-party complaints. As a rule, they say they will only deal with a complaint if the person who is the subject of the article is the one who complains.

Perhaps the Gately family were regarded as 'first-party' in that case. In these articles, aimed generically at Eastern Europeans and illegal immigrants, there was no 'first-party'. Yet in the past, this has meant the PCC would reject such complaints too.

It does make it all look rather arbitrary and like the PCC is just too cosy to the print media. Hardly surprising when there are newspaper and magazine editors all over the Commission's committees.

When everything is so weighted against the complainant, no wonder so many people don't bother complaining, and no wonder the press continue to get away with printing so much rubbish.

Carole Malone gets it wrong again (cont.)

Hahahahaha. Hahahahaha. Ha.

The News of the World has paid libel damages to Cherie Blair after 'star' columnist Carole Malone wrote a load of lies about her in one of her pisspoor rants.

Sadly, the amount is being kept secret, but with legal costs on top, it wouldn't be cheap.

Here's the paper's apology in its full glory:

In the Carole Malone column on 5 October, several criticisms were made of Cherie Blair after she appeared as a panellist at a fringe meeting attended by prominent victims of crime.

In particular, it was not right to say Mrs Blair arrived with hordes of security men, only appeared for publicity and was "inhuman" in her responses about the Human Rights Act.

We apologise to her for these assertions which we accept were unfounded.

Unfounded assertions in a Carole Malone column?

Surely that can't possibly be right?

Free car anyone?

Carole Malone gets it wrong again

Carole Malone is treating News of the World readers to more of her idiotic views on immigration, in an article on (yes) Judge Trigger.

Truth Triggers a rotten response uses 'truth' in the same way Littlejohn did. In fact, it's much the same as his rant - Trigger's telling the truth, you can't say what you mean any more, and on and on.

Needless to say, the 'truth' never comes into it.

Quoting Trigger's remarks on people coming to the UK to avail themselves of 'generous' benefits, Carole adds:

So what did he get wrong? What lie did he tell? Who did he insult apart from illegal immigrants who come here to sell drugs? And who the hell cares what they feel?

The linking of illegal immigrants to drug dealers may be related to the case at hand, although that phrasing seems designed to imply that it is more common than that.

And if she wants a list - welfare benefits are not generous, immigrants can't easily get them and they don't come here just to get them.

Judge Trigger also pointed out that the burden of the millions being handed out in benefits to people who come here illegally...

So what did he get wrong there?

Well for the hundredth time, illegal immigrants don't get benefits. Why is that so bloody difficult for these thick columnists to understand that?

Nothing the judge said hasn't been said by me, a whole host of other journalists

Yes, and you're all wrong.

Then her agenda becomes ever more clear:

So, again, I ask why is Judge Trigger being investigated? The Office for Judicial Complaints says that if a judge makes insulting or racist remarks he can be sacked.

Now, what Carole has done, in an entirely underhand, but absolutely deliberate way, is avoid repeating Trigger's remarks about national debt since 1997. When the investigation was announced, the statement made clear it was about whether his comments

extended overtly into the political arena

which a judge is meant to be above. So that's why he is being investigated. Read the one paragraph statement Carole. It's not hard.

So racism doesn't come into it at all. Anywhere. Maybe the Office for Judicial Complaints does say that racist remarks will lead to a sacking - as they should - but that's not what this case is about. That's just her way of pushing the tabloid readers' buttons. Warming to her theme she goes on to say:

The inquiry into Judge Trigger's remarks is an affront to free speech because what it says is that anyone who speaks out about immigration risks being punished, publicly humiliated or left with a career in ruins.

Yes, clearly you and Littlejohn are really struggling with your careers. And that 'free speech' argument is one that inevitably only extends to people she agrees with. And not to people like those Muslim protestors she wanted arrested for taking part in a demonstration.

Pathetic. And her big finish?

And there you have it - the insidiousness, the hypocrisy and the ugliness of this so-called democracy of ours writ large. In Britain today to say that an illegal immigrant who fraudulently claims benefits and sells drugs shouldn't be here or claiming those benefits IS now classed as racism.

So another outing for illegal immigrants claiming benefits, eventhough they can't, and there hasn't been anything in the (many) articles I've read on this case that says this drug dealer was on benefits.

And no one is actually classing this as racism; the criticism is that his remarks were both unwise for a judge, and just plain wrong. Racism is a straw man introduced by her, so she can knock it down in yet another nasty, ill-informed rant.

And she still hasn't explained where those free cars come from.

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...