The Mail, Mail on Sunday and Pippa's party book

On 30 October 2011, a 'Mail on Sunday Reporter' wrote an article stating that Pippa Middleton was:

close to signing a book deal on how to be the perfect party hostess.

But, the paper warned:

The sisters' parents, Carole and Michael, were widely criticised for appearing to promote their party business on the back of the Royal Wedding earlier this year.

Pippa's advisers will also be careful to avoid the pitfalls of Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's former butler, whose book on hosting parties, Entertaining With Style, was published in 1999.

Mail columnist Peter McKay thought the venture 'distasteful'. Under the headline 'For your sister's sake, don't cash in, Pippa!', he wrote:

In a perfect world, it would be preferable if Pippa Middleton did nothing whatever that was reliant on being the sister of the future Queen Consort. But we, the reading public, have a degree of responsibility for that. Don’t buy it, if she does. Publishers obviously think that, in large numbers, we’d purchase anything by Pippa....

There is an alternative. She’ll always be Kate’s sister. Why not simply be proud of that, avoiding anything that appears to exploit this happy stroke of fortune?

A month later, the Mail on Sunday's Katie Nicholl reported that a £400,000 deal had been signed for the book.

Then, Mail columnist Jan Moir tutted her disapproval:

Pippa Middleton seems a lovely girl, but not the sort who could teach anyone very much about anything. And I can’t imagine the Queen will be best pleased that the ambitious sister of the Duchess of Cambridge has trousered £400,000 for her first book, a manual on entertaining. But never underestimate the Pippa!

A sneak peek of her hostess with the mostest party tips tome reveals the following nuggets: 1. To be a social hit, make sure you have the right equipment: a lovely big sister. 2. Get her to marry the heir to the throne. 3. Remember, bumpkins, it’s napkins, not serviettes. 4. Serve the peanuts before the pud.  5. Is there a hyphen in cash-in?  6. Can I have my money now?

Months later, Amanda Platell attacked the Middletons who, she said:

have an unsettling air of snootiness about their behaviour.

She added:

Why, for example, were Pippa and her brother James in the royal box at Wimbledon last week? Not because of their party-planning and cake-baking credentials, that’s for sure.

Pippa is now about to release her own party-planning guide, for which she’s said to have secured a £400,000 publishing deal. If it wasn’t for the royal connection, she’d be lucky to be writing recipes for the Bucklebury parish magazine.

In July, the Mail published an article (headline: 'Gold medal for cashing in goes to...' etc) about the Middleton's company Party Pieces, claiming it may have been in breach of Olympic advertising rules. When they were given the all-clear, the Mail failed to update its readers. This followed attacks on Party Pieces for their Jubilee merchandise ('could they have been a bit less tacky?') and for 'cashing in' on the Royal Wedding.

However, in yesterday's Mail on Sunday:

Exclusively in this weekend’s Mail on Sunday, you’ll find the first part of Pippa Middleton’s glorious guide to simple, creative entertaining, from her sensational new book – Celebrate: A Year of British Festivities for Family and Friends. This weekend we have 24 glossy pages of magical Hallowe’en tips and brilliant bonfire night ideas.

The Mail on Sunday may have thought it 'glorious' by the Mail's Peter McKay was still not impressed:

Can Her Royal Bottomness really have received a £400,000 advance for this tripe?

And how much more did she receive from the Mail on Sunday?

Moir 'illogical' and 'distasteful' but not in breach of Code, rules PCC

To the surprise of absolutely no-one, the Press Complaints Commission have rejected complaints about Jan Moir's homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately.

Some have seen a conspiracy in the fact that Mail Editor Paul Dacre chairs the Code of Practice Committee, while Mail on Sunday Editor Peter Wright sits on the decision-making Commission.

But there is no conspiracy: the PCC are always this useless and ineffectual.

Essentially, the PCC have said that to rule against Moir and the Mail would have meant they were acting against freedom of speech and:

This would be a slide towards censorship, which the Commission could not endorse.

This is a bit of a red herring. To censure a journalist for writing lies is not censorship. It's what effective regulation should do.

They also repeat that as this was a columnist's opinion piece, there is more leeway on what can be said. Indeed, it seems at times that the PCC believes a columnist can say just about anything and, as it is an opinion piece, it's beyond criticism.

That doesn't fully apply in this case. After all, one of Moir's main themes was that this death was not 'natural'. This is not about interpretation of facts. This is whether something is correct or it isn't. And when Moir wrote:

healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again

she was factually wrong. The PCC claim this:

could not be established as accurate or otherwise.

Yet the postmortem said it was natural and the Mail itself has published the results of the official investigation saying the death was from 'natural causes'.

So how can the PCC state this 'could not be established as accurate or otherwise'?

They go on to say:

It admittedly did not take into account the possibility of SADS or similar, but the Commission did not consider that it could be read to be an authoritative and exhaustive statement of medical fact.

True, most people wouldn't rely on Moir's opinion for anything, least of all medical expertise. But this just looks like the PCC finding weasel-words to avoid upholding the complaint.

(See also the time they ruled that when Melanie Phillips said 'the fact is...' what followed shouldn't have been understood to be a fact, because the article was an opinion piece.)

So although the PCC say Moir's piece was:

a compendium of speculations

it did not violate Clause 1 of the Code which says:

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

Hmm.

It's worth looking at some of the other issues raised by the PCC's lengthy adjudication.

Clause 5 of the Code covers intrusion into grief and says publication of articles should be 'handled sensitively'. Moir's vicious article was published the day before Gately's funeral. Her follow-up column apologised for this (and only for this):

I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral.

Yet the PCC chooses not to rule against Moir on this point, even though she admitted it was 'insensitive' and the Code says handling must be 'sensitive'. It is decisions such as that that make people scratch their heads about how the PCC works.

But, interestingly, the PCC do include some criticism, if rather veiled, of Paul Dacre:

The timing of the piece was questionable to say the least, and the Commission considered that the newspaper's editorial judgement in this regard could be subject to legitimate criticism.

Not that the PCC is going to rule against the Mail because of that, it's just going to point out criticism of them for the timing is 'legitimate'.

No wonder Editors do not want the PCC to change.

Paul Dacre is Chair of the Code of Practice Committee. His is the most complained about newspaper, he's responsible for the most complained about single article and has now been criticised for his 'editorial judgement'. And yet he is still considered suitable to make the rules that journalists have to abide by. That simply isn't acceptable.

In its defence, the Mail said:

The record number of complaints was an internet phenomenon 'whipped up in a few hours on the social networks of Facebook and Twitter' and had to be kept in perspective.

This from the paper that 'whipped up' the entire Sachsgate furore. And the difference is stark: at least in the Moir case, people could - and did - read the article. Only a few of the complainants about the Sachsgate broadcast actually heard the show.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

When discussing Clause 12, which covers discrimination, the PCC say:

The question of whether the article was homophobic or discriminatory to gay people in general did not fall under the remit of the Code.

This seems very surprising, and presumably applies to all articles, not just this one.

But this appears to be a problem not with the Code (the discrimination clause is actually very good) but the narrow interpretation of it by the PCC. Do they really think judging whether an article is homophobic is not within their remit?

They go on to say:

The columnist had not used pejorative synonyms for the word 'homosexual' at any point.

This clearly isn't good enough. Just because a newspaper or columnist doesn't use some crass slang insult doesn't mean it's not being homophobic or discriminatory. Adopting arguments such as this one make the PCC look as if they are doing everything possible to avoid ruling against the papers.

The PCC add:

it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article.

Really? So when she said Gately:

could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk

that was nothing to do with his sexuality? (She said a few days later he was 'talented'). And nor was:

the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle.

Nor this:

Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. Of course, in many cases this may be true.

That was when she was talking about civil partnerships where she claimed Gately's death struck

another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

This followed on from her mention of the entirely unrelated case of Kevin McGee. The Mail in their defence said this was:

relevant comment

The PCC ruled the linking of these was:

illogical.

They are right about that. But what really annoyed people was the suggestion that this said something about civil partnerships. She later denied this, but it was too late. And the PCC say her view on this, although 'illogical' was not inaccurate or misleading.

But in what way was she right in what she said about civil partnerships?

Moreover, she never said that the antics of Tiger Woods or John Terry (and she wrote about both) struck a blow for the myth of happy-ever-after heterosexual partnerships. Why not?

In sum, the PCC said it was 'uncomfortable' with Moir's 'distasteful' 'compendium of speculations', it was at times 'illogical' and the timing was 'questionable'.

Yet they say it was neither inaccurate (it was), intrusive into grief (it was) or discriminatory (it was).

And so, apart from that exceptionally mild criticism, they aren't going to do a thing about it.

Links

Who knew?

Migrationwatch are advertising for a Director of Research. An opportunity to earn £45,000 for emailing press releases to the Mail explaining how there are too many evil immigrants in the UK, it sounds like very easy money.

Anton Vowl's application is here. 5CC can always be relied upon to take apart Migrationwatch's 'research'.

Some personal favourites from this blog: the stupidly worded poll (makes that polls), the million failed asylum seekers joining the NHS queue (which was plucked out of the air), and the amazing assumptions behind 'Each illegal immigrant to cost us £1m'.

Migrationwatch say they are:

recognised as the leading source for independent expert commentary on matters relating to migration into and out of the United Kingdom.

Apart from by themselves and the tabloids, who 'recognises' them as that?

Also from Anton, the Express gets into a 'fury' about @dianainheaven on Twitter. Good.

Over at Angry Mob, Uponnothing reveals how the Mail changed a headline on an anti-Gordon Brown story when the comments turned against them; and another classic example of the Mail choosing to highlight crime based on race.

The Daily Quail looked at Melanie McDonagh's unbelievable defence of Jan Moir, whose infamous column about Stephen Gately was, apparently:

off-message but factually truthful.

This despite the fact the coroner had said the death was natural and Moir said it wasn't. Still can't blame McDonagh for missing that news - the Mail buried it at the bottom of page 36.

Also worth reading is a post on the Beer Blog of Pete Brown (via Jeff Pickthall) - a look at how the media distorted figures on children and alcohol.

Meanwhile, 5CC has looked at why the Mail seems to have fallen out of love with Julie Spence.

Talking of the Mail and love: look - it's Kim Kardashian wearing two dresses in one night.

That article included yet another example of 'look what [insert name] has posted on Twitter', which the media seems to lazily rely on for celebrity gossip these days.

A particularly curious example of this was when The Sun took a jokey tweet from pop singer Katy Perry and turned into an actual article about her 'skipping work to watch porn'. But they hid some of what she said with this exceptionally cryptic bit of censorship:

*** ***** *****

Any guesses?

Back to the Mail and their oh-so-consistent coverage of swine flu continued with this article:

It's official, the swine flu 'pandemic' is over (shame it cost us £1billion and scared thousands witless)

'Scared thousands witless'? Good job the Mail wasn't involved in any of that. Oh:

How swine flu could be a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear warfare

That was another gem from Michael Hanlon, the Mail's Science Editor, who also produced this astonishing piece of scaremongering nonsense:

Killers in your kitchen: Gender-bending packaging, exploding floor cleaners and toasters more deadly than sharks...

'Gender-bending packaging'? Really?

Over on the evil Facebook, Hugh has created a list of all the things the Mail says give you cancer, from bras to chips, peanut butter to talc, and, of course, Facebook itself.

Another Mail obsession is ageism. When Arlene Phillips was replaced as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the Mail was delighted to bash the BBC over claims of ageism and wrote lots of supportive articles about her.

Until she dared go outside without make-up on. Then she looked:

washed out

and:

ensured she looked her 66 years.

With friends like that...

In Amanda Platell's unsurprisingly useless review of 2009, she called Alesha Dixon, Phillips' Strictly replacement, 'Clot of the Year'. She wrote she was:

Nicknamed 'Ditto' Dixon because of the hopeless way she drearily parroted her fellow judges' comments

Dixon was, of course, nicknamed 'Ditto' by, err, Platell. That doesn't really count.

And Platell's unjustifably nasty attacks on women (and they almost always are on women) continued into 2010, when she turned on Andy Murray's mum for no apparent reason at all:

Of course I'll celebrate if Andy Murray wins tomorrow's Australian Open final, but does he really have to grimace like a savage?

You wonder what makes a young man so full of ugly, uncontrolled rage - and then you see his fishwife mother screaming from the sidelines.

Charming.

(Hat-tip to the contributors of the Mailwatch Forum)

Jan Moir thrills us with her tales of cooking at Christmazzzzzzz

Stephen Gately's partner Andrew Cowles has complained to the PCC over Jan Moir's hate-filled, homophobic article about the singer's death. The Guardian reports:

Cowles complained through his solitictors, Mishcon de Reya, citing breaches of accuracy, intrusion into grief or shock and discrimination.

Given that in Moir's follow-up article (where she whined about the response to her article but said she wasn't complaining) she said:

I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column

then she seems to have admitted she did intrude into grief and shock.

But it still seems highly unlikely the PCC will act againt Moir or the Mail.

In the meantime, Moir is still churning out her dreadful columns, including two in the last two days. Is there no end to the torture?

Yesterday's effort was particularly painful. Offensive for her inanity rather than her intolerance, she begins:

First, a confession. I have never, ever cooked Christmas lunch. Not once.

Yeh, we guessed 'not once' from the 'never, ever'.

And then:

yours truly has not so much as sliced a cross into a Brussels' bottom and said arise, Sir Sprout, and prepare to meet thy chestnutty doom.

Err...what?

She then runs through a series of conflicting recipe ideas from Delia, Gordon and Nigella about cooking shallots and de-boning a goose. And painting ham with marmalade. She mentions Waitrose and Fortnum's. That's a Mail writer who knows her audience.

And it really is that fascinating. She goes, tediously, on:

For this year, for the first time, I am cooking the lunch. Yes. Me. In charge of Christmas. At last. Holy bacon-wrapped chipolatas, I have been itching to do it for years. Dying to do it!

Like her first sentence, she seems so utterly bereft of anything to say she has to repeat everything. Everything! Yes. Her.

She then refers to 'bacon-wrapped chipolatas' as:

wind[ing] bits of flat pig around bits of round pig.

Cringe. Does she think her readers have a mental age of three? Or is that just her?

Her blathering on and on about her tedious domestic life continues:

no Brussels sprouts because Mr Jan Moir hates them.

Thanks for that. She's married? Some poor sod has to put up with this drivel everyday?

And:

Now my niece has just made a special request for her favourite blinis instead of brown bread with the salmon.

Could it be that Moir is deliberately trying to be as bland and uninteresting as possible to curry favour with the PCC?

Or is that just her default setting when she's not being intolerant and two-faced.

Striking a blow for the likeable Mail columnist myth

Mail columnist Jan Moir has decided to give everyone the benefit of her opinions on Tiger Woods and his 'transgressions'.

Weirdly, as several of the comments point out, she hasn't decided that the single case of this married father-of-two having an affair

strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of heterosexual marriage.

Which, of course, she did say about civil partnerships in her infamous column about Stephen Gately.

She also declares that Woods is:

not in any position to lecture anyone at all about principles.

But the hatred-spewing Moir is. Apparently.

A round-up of Mail fail

A slightly different post, which is going to round-up several links to great posts elsewhere, and also take a very quick look over some of the other stories that haven't been mentioned here, despite best intentions.

Last Friday, the Express' disgraceful scaremongering front page and vile BNP-style rhetoric seemed on course to be the worst article of the day. But then up popped Sue Reid with the putrid Mapping out the strain on your NHS: 243 sick babies treated in one London hospital ward.... and just 18 mothers come from Britain.

It riled up the Mail readers in precisely the way that she and the Mail wanted. Health tourism, scrounging immigrants, look what they're getting instead of you - it's classic anti-immigrant fodder. It just wasn't true. Rather than some startling new report or any kind of reliable research, the story was based on the stickers on a map pinned to the wall of a hospital. Brilliant.

When first published, the article contained no statement from the hospital. When it was updated later to include this, the spokesman's words completely destroyed the story. So naturally it was stuck at the end in the hope no one would notice.

So eventhough the hospital said the stickers represented not just mothers of babies, but also of hospital staff, the Mail continued to claim it was about '243 mothers'.

Despite the hospital saying only 2 out of 550 admission this year were recorded as 'overseas admissions' the Mail continued to claim British babies were massively outnumbered.

In any case, as the Mail's graphic shows, the British Isles are completely covered by stickers, which would more than likely put people off adding yet another to that area.

And of course there's the basic decency of referring to sick babies as a 'strain' on the NHS.

Five Chinese Crackers covered the story fully, including background on Sue Reid's anti-immigration views.

5CC also asked Why 70 million anyway? as he wondered why the tabloids are so obessesed with that particular figure in the immigration debate. And in the latest 'PC gone mad: Xmas edition' saga, how the Mail reports on Scrooge police 'ban' Christmas carol singers because of stranger dangers'. Which, of course, they haven't. But you knew that just from the headline anyway.

Still with the Mail, Jonathan at No Sleep til Brooklands has done an excellent job destroying Jan Moir's latest idiotic column, called The madness of lessons in wife-beating. She deliberately misleads on what the 'lessons' actually are but thinks that teaching kids not to beat up women is, generally, a 'bad thing'.

She also, brilliantly, wants thanks for not invading Poland.

Jonathan has also looked at yet another Mail attack on the BBC over climate change, which was one of several non-stories about the Beeb that Dacre's rag couldn't resist.

Another was BBC radio presenter sparks complaints by playing When Harry Met Sally 'orgasm' clip on school-run show. DJ Steve Harris from Radio Solent played the 'I'll have what she's having' clip from said film. There was just one slight problem with the headline, which was revealed in the last paragraph (as usual):

Last night the BBC said: 'We've had not a single complaint or comment.'

Oh.

Talking of Mail obsessions, it's been rather quiet on the Kim Kardashian front recently, but she roared back into the Mail's good books when she posted a picture of her 'astonishing new figure', clad in a bikini, on Twitter.

And despite Twitter being evil and Kardashian being a nobody for most people in the UK, the Mail happily reprinted it. That was one of only four appearances in November, compared with eleven in October. Is she falling out of favour with the Mail Online 'newshounds'? Not quite - they've even given her her own section where all articles mentioning her are nicely date-ordered. Bless.

Of course, the Mail is fascinated by someone else now - Suri Cruise. The Daily Quail has done an superb job of rounding up the obsessive and genuinely creepy Mail coverage of this three year old.

Last week, this blog noted that in the last two months, Muslim graves in a Manchester cemetery had been desecrated three times. In that period, the Mail has run around 20 articles on Suri Cruise. It hasn't mentioned the graves once.

Still on the subject of Mail Online paparazzi garbage, there was a curious, but rather telling headline about last year's X Factor winner: Spotty Alexandra Burke braves her fans without any make-up.

So a 21-year old has spots. What news! And let's all point and laugh at her. But what the hell does the Mail mean by 'brave'? Being a soldier or fireman is brave. Going outside without make-up, err, isn't. Unless, like the Mail, you believe that women have to be covered in make-up and dressed flawlessly before they should be allowed out. What a hateful view the Mail has of women.

Still, at least Mail Editor Paul Dacre is the very pinnacle of fashion and grooming and would never be seen with a ridiculous hair style.

Here's a question for the Mail - why is it when two male musicians kiss it is 'crude' and 'provocative' and yet when two twentysomething actresses kiss it's (nudge, wink) 'naughty'?

Not that the Mail could ever be homophobic - the PCC has said so. On 4 November, the PCC ruled on Ephraim Hardcastle comments that Iain Dale was 'overtly gay' and implied something along the lines of a 'gay mafia' when he stated:

Isn't it charming how homosexuals rally like-minded chaps to their cause?

Dale called the Mail 'hateful' and 'homophobic'. Apparently, he'd only just noticed...

The PCC seemed to agree that the comments were 'snide and objectionable' but did not consider the piece:

an arbitrary attack on him on the basis of his sexuality.

As usual, that's totally puzzling, because without the references to Dale's sexuality, there would have been no article. The Commission concluded:

While people may occasionally be insulted or upset by what is said about them in newspapers, the right to freedom of expression that journalists enjoy also includes the right – within the law – to give offence.

To all the people who complained about the Jan Moir article, your might find a clue as to how the PCC will rule in that sentence.

Not that Hardcastle was in any way worried. A few days before the Dale ruling, he wrote:

Europe Minister Chris Bryant, who once posed in Y-fronts on a gay website, is wheeled out by BBC2's programme for chronic insomniacs, Newsnight, to promote Tony Blair as 'EU President'.

He ridiculed his Tory opposite numbers, Mark Francois, and William Hague, as 'Dastardly and Muttley' - the villainous characters in The Wacky Races TV cartoon.

With Bryant as the show's pink-car-driving beauty, Penelope Pitstop, presumably?

Pink. Girl. Because he's gay. Do you see?

In the same column, Hardcastle wrote this totally inane comment:

The performance of Peter Capaldi as a Number 10 spin doctor in TV's The Thick Of It, written by literary flavour-of-the-week Armando Iannucci, is nothing like the man he's meant to represent, retired Blair mouthpiece Alastair Campbell.

Yet it's praised to the rafters. How puzzling.

It's hard to figure out exactly what point he is trying to make, or what the point is of any of that drivel. He thinks it's 'puzzling' that an actor gets praised for a superb performance?

What?

Star continues lying about Jordan, Mail continues publishing pics of her tits

The Daily Star should be renamed the Daily Jordan. The tawdry rag has had the over-inflated, over-exposed (insert whatever it is you think she does/is here) on the front page for every one of the last six days, and for nine of the last ten.

Is there really nothing more important going on in the world?

And every front page headline is a piece of total fiction. So Jordan's 'girl on girl jungle lust' didn't exist. Her 'fumble in the jungle' didn't happen either and was her having a shower.

The next day they revealed:


The Star said she had:

let slip she is doing I’m A Celebrity to impress her ex-husband.

'Let slip'?

She told OK! magazine: 'Hopefully he’ll watch the show and realise what a decent person I am.'

So she 'let slip' to magazine with weekly sales of around half a million? A magazine that happens to be owned by Star owner Richard Desmond. Surely this isn't just some lame cross-promotional fluff is it?

For the full interview with Kate, see this week’s issue of OK! magazine out now.

Oh, it is.

But even in the excerpts the Star publishes, she says neither she wants Pete back, or that she wants to re-marry him. Indeed, she quite clearly says the opposite:

She said: 'I’m 100% not looking for love. The producers told me they’re putting a fittie in there, but I’m quite happy with the relationship that I’m in.'

The next day there was no pic, but her name still appeared in the headline:


Star front pages about 'fixed' reality shows emerge at least once per series (for Big Brother, X Factor, or whichever series is on at that time). But did I'm A Celebrity contestant Camilla Dallerup really reveal the, ahem, 'TV show's dark secret' as the sub-head suggests? Is there a direct quote where she says 'fix'? Take a guess...

On Friday, the front page was this:


The side-bar shows the Star is already running stories on Celebrity Big Brother, so that will be the paper's next obsession. The main headline is another lie though, and also, given the lack of punctuation, nonsense. But did she says she would quit? Not quite:

I’m absolutely ready to leave. I’ve had enough.

'Ready to leave' is not exactly the same as 'I'll quit' though, is it?

And then today:

At least the punctuation is correct. And there's a weird bit of innuendo too. But did she definitely say she was going to die on the reality show? Not quite:

She cried: 'I am petrified I’ll die. Please don’t let me fall. I feel like I’m being executed every day.'

Lots of people are petrified of dying. That doesn't mean it should be on the front page of what is supposed to be a newspaper.

Perhaps a dossier on all this should be sent to the Press Complaints Commission (for all that's worth). This is front page lie after front page lie. It's not accidental, it's a deliberate ploy to sell more papers and to hell with the truth.

Clause 1 of the Code of Practice says:

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

So how does all this muck not violate that?

And it's not just the Star who are obsessed with Jordan either. The Mail, which regards itself as the absolute model of middle-class reserve and good taste, now has a website which doesn't give a toss about any of that. It's become dedicated to celebrity flesh, reaching the nadir in the two upskirt pictures it has run this week. On top of that, it has now decided to publish as many pictures of Jordan's tits as it possibly can.

On Wednesday, Jan Moir wrote an attack on Jordan calling her - apparently without irony:

as charming as leprosy.

She accused her of 'whining' and 'self justification'. Also without irony. Moir also referred to her as:

rapacious, publicity-mad, boobilicious madam... KP Nutty... humourless, balloon-breasted, great, roaring She-Chav... ghastly... she looks like a toothy Donald Duck in an Alice Cooper wig. Five minutes after stepping out of a sheep dip of fake tan...

And the article comes with five pictures of Jordan just so you can see how 'balloon-breasted' she is.

The same day, another article included no fewer than 13 pictures of her and there were 13 more in following day's update, including this one, for which there is simply no excuse:


That can now be added to the many charges against Mail Online Editor Martin Clarke and his claim that 'news is far more important to us than showbiz'.

No, Martin, half-naked women are far more important to you than anything.

Jan Moir makes her position clear - she's an unrepentant bigot

So after a week of prevarication, Jan Moir has used her (advertising free) column today to clarify what she wrote about Stephen Gately last week.

Well, not clarify, exactly. Repeat all the same baseless, innuendo-heavy stuff for a second time. Claim she was entirely misrepresented, the victim of an orchestrated campaign (by who?) and complained about by people who hadn't read the article (proof?).

One of the most dismal aspects of this piece is the apology she gives to the Gately family:

I would like to say sorry if I have caused distress by the insensitive timing of the column, published so close to the funeral.

Right, so she's not sorry for what she actually said, just when she said it. Charming. She just doesn't get it.

To everyone else, there is no apology. She only says:

I regret any affront caused.

In other words: stuff you. Because if she really regretted causing affront, she wouldn't repeat many of the same allegations for a second time. She writes:

if drugs were somehow involved in his death, as news reports suggested, should that not be a matter of public interest?

We were told that Stephen died of 'natural causes' even before toxicology results had been released. This struck me as bizarre, given the circumstances.

Circumstances of course which Moir didn't really know, apart from some newspaper reports. Toxicology results which she didn't know either. But rather than wait, she decided she knew best - and clearly she still does. Better than the coroner, in fact. Sadly she didn't explain how the drugs she seems to know he took caused the fluid on his lungs which killed him.

She then claims she never said something which she did say:

I have never thought, or suggested, that what happened that night represented a so-called gay lifestyle; this is not how most gay people live.

Odd, given she said this:

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Now assuming she picked the example of George Michael because of his antics in public toilets, then she is saying not everyone is like him in 'many cases'. Not most.

She fails to clarify why the death of Kevin McGee was in any way relevant to Gately. Probably because she knows it isn't. She pretends that her vile observation that Gately's death:

strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships

was that:

there was a 'happy ever after myth' surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages.

But this was a myth she seemed to invent for her column. Whoever said that no civil partnership would ever end in separation? Who claimed there were never going to be unhappy civil partners?

Indeed, when she writes:

If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article

it's a blatant lie. She would not have written about the myth of happy-ever-after heterosexual marriage. She would not have mentioned whoever she thinks the straight version of George Michale might be, or suggested they were representative. She wouldn't have referred to 'straight activists'. And she almost certainly wouldn't have referred to a:

very different and more dangerous lifestyle.

She lies:

Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality.

And:

Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views.

Well, the article last week was poisonous, and if she really thinks people will believe her saying his sexuality had nothing to do with it, she's totally deluded.

She writes:

To be the focus of such depth of feeling has been an interesting experience, but I do not complain.

Followed by:

This brings me back to the bile, the fury, the inflammatory hate mail and the repeated posting of my home address on the internet.

And:

To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly

And:

I can't help wondering: is there a compulsion today to see bigotry and social intolerance where none exists by people who are determined to be outraged?

All of which sounds a lot like her complaining.

And a 'hysterical overreaction'? Clearly she's so repentant she's calling everyone who was offended 'hysterical'. Not in the least like the Mail-orchestrated Sachsgate affair, of course, in which Moir played her miserable role.

That applies to her point about people 'determined to be outraged'. The default position of the Daily Mail is to be 'determined to be outraged' day in, day out.

The fact is, people saw bigotry and social intolerance because it did exist in her sorry little rant.

And there are other contradictions. Last week she described Gately as a:

founder member of Ireland's first boy band, he was the group's co-lead singer, even though he could barely carry a tune in a Louis Vuitton trunk...popular but largely decorous.

Whereas this week, he was:

a talented young man

And of her claim that there was 'nothing natural' about his death, she says:

My assertion that there was 'nothing natural' about Stephen's death has been wildly misinterpreted.

What I meant by 'nothing natural' was that the natural duration of his life had been tragically shortened in a way that was shocking and out of the ordinary. Certainly, his death was unusual enough for a coroner to become involved.

When any 33-year old dies suddenly, a coroner would almost certainly be involved. This does not make it 'not natural', nor does it support her original claim.

And her attempts to explain 'nothing natural' is just bizarre. Here's what she said:

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this.

In her original response, she backtracked, saying:

Anyone can die at anytime of anything

But now she seems to be suggesting they can't, again.

She claims she was showered with support too:

I also had thousands of supportive emails from readers and well-wishers, many of whom described themselves as 'the silent majority'. The outcry was not as one-sided as many imagine.

Really? So homophobic Mail readers sent supportive emails. What a surprise. But as there were over 25,000 complaints, that's a lot of emails to receive if she is to justify the claim it wasn't one sided. How many thousands was it? Even the comments on the Mail website were hugely against her. That's how 'silent' they were.

Oh, and is she sure all those 'thousands' of supporters read the article? Because she repeats her claim that her piece was:

unread by many who complained.

Can she provide the slightest evidence for this? How can she possibly know that they didn't read it? What proof does she have?

It's also an odd claim for someone who spoke out about the BBC Sachsgate affair, where the tens of thousands of people who did complain only did so after reading about it in the Mail, not having heard the radio show live. Moir included. So add hypocrite to all the other charges.

She also tries to re-state her view that this was all:

an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own.

In fact, as she isn't on Twitter, she wouldn't have a clue. What was noticeable was watching the sheer number of people taking an entirely natural reaction against her column. After having read it.

Who does she think is the conductor of this orchestra? What agenda does she think is behind it? Naturally, she doesn't explain. And, of course, she's not complaining about it.

And then she admits:

I accept that many people - on Twitter and elsewhere - were merely expressing their own personal and heartfelt opinions or grievances.

Oh right. So a cynical, orchestrated campaign by non-readers and mischievous gay activists was also heartfelt and personal grievances. Last week they were 'mischievous', now they are 'heartfelt'? What is she on about? Have the Mail executives been adding bits to try and take the heat off? Because it hasn't worked.

Towards the end she sets up a straw man to knock down:

Can it really be that we are becoming a society where no one can dare to question the circumstances or behaviour of a person who happens to be gay without being labelled a homophobe? If so, that is deeply troubling.

Who has suggested you can't question? She entirely misses the point of what people found so offensive.

And frankly, if you have to spend 890 words explaining what you really meant in a 917 word article, you clearly ain't much of a writer anyway.

No doubt the Mail - and Moir - will expect this to be the end of the matter. Unfortunately, they will be wrong. This is not an apology, but someone who is in a hole and continuing to dig. There is nothing in here that corrects the egregious errors of judgement in her homophobic rant last week.

In fact, by playing the victim, stating she has been entirely misunderstood (yes, over 25,000 people all misinterpreted the words in the same way), saying the complainers haven't read what she wrote and then repeating claims that there was something untoward about Gately's death means this will rumble on.

Jan Moir: Twitter trending topic, for a second consecutive Friday.

Mail hypocrisy over Moir continues

Early this morning on the Daily Mail website homepage there were three stories which were less than favourable to the BBC:

No-one's watching their new drama!

They're all on cocaine!

Anton has made his dance partner cry again!

Curiously, the latter has disappeared from the site. Headlined 'Anton Du Beke makes dance partner Laila Rouass weep in another bust-up' and still visible on Google, you can assume it has been removed because it was completely inaccurate.

Then came news that the Question Time audience would contain BNP members to cheer on their leader.

The day before, they focused on The X Factor 'trouncing' Strictly Come Dancing in the viewing figures. And on Frankie Boyle's Mock the Week joke about the Queen, which the Mail approvingly calls 'grossly offensive' before repeating it, just so readers can see how gross and offensive it is.

And on Monday it claimed the BBC were altering Humpty Dumpty to make it 'politically correct', explained Conservative Party plans for the 'out of touch' organisation and revealed 'Two jobs and a pension for the BBC's £500,000 executive Alan Yentob'.

Nine critical articles in three days. Anybody would think the Mail was trying to divert attention to another media outlet so it could quietly slip out of the spotlight.

Yesterday, Five Chinese Crackers asked: Whatever happened to 'SACK THEM!' which was the Mail's front page demand to the BBC to fire Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross over the Sachsgate affair.

At various times the Mail accused the BBC of a 'week of prevarication', being 'painfully slow' to react and criticising the organisation because 'nobody takes responsibility'.

The sub-head of the 'Sack Them' front page talked of an:

unprecendented backlash.

Given the Jan Moir article has received more complaints than any other (25,000 and counting), it's reasonable to say the Mail has suffered an 'unprecedented backlash' too.

So has anyone at the Mail taken responsibility after five days? Has anyone apologised? Has anyone resigned or been sacked? Has the Mail said anything at all?

Apart from Jan Moir's insult to injury 'reponse' last Friday the answers are: no, no, no and no.

In any other organisation, employees caught behaving so revoltingly would be lucky to keep their jobs.

That was the Mail. In an editorial. Talking about Brand and Ross. Now they are on the defensive, the sheer hypocrisy of their stance matches the sheer nastiness of the Moir article.

And what of their columnists? Suzanne Moore and Janet Street-Porter had their say, rightfully attacking Moir.

But what about Allison Pearson, who wrote at great length about how awful Ross and Brand were, including repeating all their rudest jokes, just so readers could be shocked?

Not one mention of it today in the entire column. She does a piece about 'moral cowardice', but ironically, it's on a different subject.

More interested in the X Factor, she says Cheryl Cole:

would never have made it into the live final of The X Factor

somehow forgetting she made it to - and won - the live final of Popstars: The Rivals.

What about Stephen Glover? He also wrote plenty about Sachsgate, criticising the BBC for having to have an apology 'wrung' out of it.

Yesterday, in his weekly column in the Independent Media Section, he didn't criticise the Mail for not apologising. In fact, he forgot to mention it at all. For a media commentator to neglect one of the biggest media stories of the year suggests he's not much good at his job.

So what about Littlejohn? He talked of last year's events as a:

stunning victory for common decency over the self-appointed, self-obsessed, metropolitan narcissists who control so much of our public life.

Yesterday, he was bizarrely quiet. There was none of the spluttering outrage he aimed at the BBC over the Sachsgate affair. Whereas then he complained that Ross and Brand had been allowed to:

bully and ridicule an old man and his granddaughter in the name of 'entertainment'

bullying and ridiculing a recently dead man and his mother in the name of entertainment is, apparently, fine.

All he said was:

Forgive me, I know I really should get out more, but who is Stephen Gately?

Hilarious. Of course, that line means he can mention it without actually having to talk about it.

So is the Mail succeeding in slipping out of the spotlight? It seems they are being allowed to. Outside of the Guardian, there is very little reporting from other newspapers on the subject. The Mail ran four consecutive front pages on Sachsgate. This has had nothing like the same coverage. Is it the fact they all know where the bodies are buried and are reluctant to criticise other newspapers? There but for the grace of God etc.

We wait for Friday, to see if Jan Moir's column appears and what she says if it does. She may (have been told to) come over all contrite and apologetic so as to head off any possible censure from the PCC (eventhough that scares no one - despite what editors say to the contrary).

The broadcast regulator Ofcom can censure on the basis of offence; the PCC can not. The newspapers can be as offensive as they like, but if they are 'within' the Code they get away with it. Just ask Littlejohn, Malone or McKinstry.

And Ofcom can fine broadcasters for transgressions. The PCC can not.

Mail Editor Paul Dacre is Chair of the Editor's Code Committee, which reviews and revives the Code of Conduct policed by the PCC.

After the payments to the parents of Madeleine McCann by the Express and Star, Express Editor Peter Hill was replaced on the PCC. Some may wonder how an Editor as atrocious and dishonest as Hill could ever have been on the PCC in the first place. But there was an example of a huge failing by an editor, which resulted in the PCC replacing him.

It seems extraordinary that the man ultimately responsible for the most complained newspaper article ever can possibly imagine he can continue to be the Chair of the Code Committee. As their website points out:

The guiding principle has been that the Code should be observed not only to the letter, but in the full spirit.

Even if the PCC find the Moir didn't break the letter of the Code, which wouldn't be a big surprise, was it within the spirit?

The Codebook also explains about the Code:

It should not be abused...by editors trying to tiptoe around the rules

In his foreward to the Codebook, which explains how the Code works, Dacre states:

Sometimes we get it wrong...Where there are legitimate public concerns, we must respond to them.

Indeed. So when is he, and the Mail, going to respond to the Moir article? You know, like they demanded the BBC do over Sachsgate...

Moir complaints hit 21,000

The Guardian is reporting that 21,000 people have now complained to the PCC over the Jan Moir article on Stephen Gately. It is, they say, more complaints than the PCC has received in total in the last five years.

The Mail itself has written a page four story on the controversy, although seem to be following a slightly different controversy to everyone else:

A worldwide debate over a Daily Mail article on the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately spread over the internet at the weekend.

It's an interesting use of the word 'debate'. The headline even refers to a 'Stephen Gately debate' rather than a Jan Moir one.

That the Mail has chosen not to avoid the story, and following critical comments from its own columnists Suzanne Moore and Janet Street-Porter, it does look as if the it is trying to mollify critics.

It continues:

Thousands have been moved to comment on Moir's column

'Comment on'? Well, that's one way of putting it. They add the column was:

about the circumstances surrounding the star's death in Majorca, when he and his civil partner invited a Bulgarian man to their flat.

Which, again, suggests there was something untoward about both the death and the Bulgarian man.

And still there's no apology and no one has been sacked. How different to how it wanted the BBC to react after Sachs.

Mail on Sunday columnist calls Moir 'homophobic, repulsive'

It looks bleak for Jan Moir.

Mail - and Mail on Saunday - columnists are distancing themselves from her deeply offensive views. Is the paper preparing to sack her, or are they hoping publishing critical comments will dilute the anger?

Janet Street-Porter says she was:

astonished to read in Jan Moir's column last Friday that his death 'strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships', and 'under the carapace of glittering hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see'.

She points out that she disagrees with Moir, saying she:

didn't think that Stephen Gately's death was sanitised, as Jan claims.

Then she asks something many of us have wondered:

What exactly was bothering Jan?

The fact Stephen was gay, the fact he was in a civil partnership, or the fact that he or his partner might have enjoyed sex with someone they had just met?

But that was as nothing compared to what columnist Suzanne Moore had to say. Her article is damning, although conveniently - and rather cowardly - avoids referring to her by name.

But from the headline 'Whatever killed Stephen, it wasn’t being gay' it's not hard to know who she's on about. She begins:

Let's get just one thing clear: the cause of Stephen Gately’s death was not gayness...

Those who pruriently pick over the circumstances of Gately’s death will find that no doctor signed a certificate with cause of death ‘homosexuality’.

Which is exactly the implication that so angered so many people about Moir's vile column.

Moore continues:

What has been so offensive to many are the insinuations that his death is connected to the death of comedian Matt Lucas’s ex. How is it?

Or that these tragedies are somehow the result of civil partnerships – as though ‘straight’ marriages are non-stop heaven.

Again, she is giving voice to what so many people were asking on Friday. And then:

A man was kicked to death in Central London recently by two teenage girls because he was gay.

So while many of us could not care less, homophobia is alive and kicking. It is repulsive to see it repeatedly kicking the corpse of a popular young guy.

Oof. So there it is.

Moore calls Moir offensive, prurient, homophobic and repulsive.

Of course, for someone who writes for the Mail newspapers to complain about homophobia just because there has been this outcry is a little like shutting the stable door.

As Paul Dacre is Editor-in-Chief of the Mail group titles, it is likely he will have approved these two columns.

But it's still not an apology.

And, as far as we know, Moir will be writing her bile again this week...

Will the Mail react to Moir as it expected the BBC to react over 'Sachsgate'?

The obnoxious way in which the Mail tried to occupy the moral high ground over the Sachsgate affair should come back to haunt them in the wake of the Jan Moir article about Stephen Gately.

Take this quote from a Mail on Sunday editorial on 25 October 2008:

It is astonishing to discover that this torrent of verbal sewage was pre-recorded, approved by a nameless 'senior executive' and then deliberately allowed to go out on the air.

Quite so. So would the Mail like to name the 'senior execuitve' who gave the go-ahead to Moir's torrent of written sewage?

Moir, of course, has issued a feeble 'response' but there was no hint of an apology from her. Or from the paper. Surely the Mail wouldn't accept a failure to apologise if others caused offence?

Many of us would much enjoy the sight of Mr Ross and Mr Brand offering a five-star grovelling apology, with BBC Director General Mark Thompson at their side.

Change the names for Moir and Paul Dacre, the Mail Editor, and yes, we'd very much enjoy that sight, thanks.

Mail columnist Stephen Glover was also up in arms, asking:

How could a man of such high morals preside over the BBC's descent into the gutter

Is he equally worried about the Mail's descent into the gutter under Dacre who regards himself as highly moral, despite the filth his newspaper all too often spews out?

Of the BBC DG, Glover added:

His statement was certainly everything one might have wished for, referring as it did to 'a gross lapse of taste that has angered licence payers', but it had to be wrung out of him.

Obviously there will be no such trouble extracting such an admission from Paul Dacre over Moir's 'gross lapse of taste that has angered readers', or Glover will surely be the first to complain. Won't he?

He also wrote:

The BBC still pumps out many programmes that offend against decency and taste, and are often particularly offensive to women.

Now who could quibble with this slight change to that sentence:

The Mail still pumps out many articles that offend against decency and taste, and are often particularly offensive to women.

Anyone? No, thought not. No doubt Glover will be taking exactly the same line in his media column in the Independent on Monday...

Of course Richard Littlejohn also weighed in:

This was the week decent people stood up and cried, like Peter Finch in the movie Network: 'We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more.'

We don't have to take it lying down. This has been a stunning victory for common decency over the self-appointed, self-obsessed, metropolitan narcissists who control so much of our public life.

At last, the secret people of England have spoken.

We will wait with baited breath to see if he thinks the same thing happened yesterday.

On 30 October, a Mail editorial gloated:

It's been a painfully slow business, but yesterday the BBC finally woke up to the huge offence it has caused by broadcasting the puerile obscenities of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

The long-overdue decision to suspend the pair, followed by Brand's resignation, was a small victory for decency - and for licence-fee payers whose feelings the Corporation has insulted for far too long.

So how long before the Mail - which aside from the Moir statement has said nothing - finally wakes up to the huge offence it caused? Will it suspend Moir, who so many people think has insulted common decency?

This is, after all, reportedly the most complained about article in British newspaper history. That's some achievement and not one to be brushed off lightly.

In those circumstances, how can Dacre continue to Chair the Editor's Code Committee, which oversees the Code of Practice policed (ahem) by the PCC. He must be made to consider his position there, or it makes the PCC an even bigger joke than it already is.

The same editorial suggested:

Now he has finally broken off his holiday, Director-General Mark Thompson must address these questions with all urgency.

To which we ask - where is Paul Dacre and when is he going to address the questions raised by Moir's column?

The Mail also claimed:

when grotesque mistakes are made, nobody takes responsibility.

Moir certainly didn't take responsibility, choosing instead to lash out at mischievous gay activists who hadn't read her hateful article in full. So who at the Mail will?

The following day, another Mail editorial delighted in action taken by the BBC Trust:

After a week of prevarication, the BBC faced up to its responsibilities yesterday.

Well, that's one day of prevarication from the Mail, and counting...

The Mail added:

Lesley Douglas, the Radio 2 controller who recruited Brand and was ultimately responsible for the broadcast, rightly resigned.

So the person who was ultimately responsible did the right thing and resigned? Over to you then, Mr Dacre...

What Jan Moir said about Peter Mandelson

A couple of weeks before she became (in)famous for the dreadful bigoted tripe she wrote about Stephen Gately, Jan Moir came up with some bizarre imaginary attraction between Peter Mandelson and George Osborne.

Is it just me or is there a volcanic sexual tension bubbling under the crust of the fraught relationship between Lord Mandelson and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne?

Once again, it's just you, Jan. She continued:

So as they both clip-clop up this Brokeback Mountain of mutual political desire, my fanciful homoerotic narrative buried deep and unknown in their respective saddles, we can be sure of one thing. It will all end in tears.

George Osborne, it should be noted, is married. But frankly, what the hell is she on about?

But when she turns to describing Mandelson in detail, those 'undertones' (ahem) of homophobia raise their head again:

Mandelson seems more ebullient than ever before, intoxicated with himself and his own fabulousness.

With his blue suede shoes, his peach mansion and his green tea devotionals, he is like a rock star camping it up on a farewell tour.

'Fabulousness'! Green tea'! 'Camping it up'! Because he's gay!

And then, in a phrase she probably found in the same book as Amanda Platell's 'chocolate labrador' remark:

It is as if, after all these years of clawing his way up the soil pipe of politics, the psychologically astute Mandelson has suddenly realised that lots of people don't like him.

'Soil pipe of politics'! Because he's gay!

That's the work of the same Jan Moir who denies being homophobic or a bigot. Thankfully, today she has been exposed.

Jan Moir: homophobic bigot

Reading Jan Moir's hateful, homophobic rant about Stephen Gately's death on the Mail website this morning was one of those totally jaw-dropping, lost for words moments that the tabloids still manage to inflict.

As Anton and Jamie and many, many others quickly pointed out, the problems with the article began with the headline:

Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death

Of course, the coroner said he died of natural causes: fluid on the lungs. But the use of natural, in quote marks, was for no other reason that to point out Gately was gay. It's saying: his death wasn't natural because he wasn't 'natural'.

But Moir's article was just as vile as that headline. She wrote:

Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this.

So even when the coroner says 'natural causes', medical expert Moir says it can not be a natural death. Amazing.

And then there was the key passage:

Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

Let's be clear about this: the death of Gately says absolutely nothing about civil partnerships and it's an utter disgrace to suggest otherwise. Would Moir attack marriage because Harold Shipman or the Wests were married?

Of course not.

And notice how the second paragraph is phrased. 'Gay activists' makes it sound like heterosexual people don't call for 'tolerance and understanding about same sex relationships'. Moir proves she doesn't.

And then:

Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael. In many cases, that may be true.

'They say' and 'in many cases that may be true'? Clearly Moir doesn't agree that all gay men are not like George Michael. Why would one man be representative of everyone? That's as clueless as yesterday's Express front page where all Muslims are tarnished because of the beliefs of a few.

Those gays are all out for cheap thrills in public toilets, she's saying.

To Moir same sex relationships, which she claims to support, are just not the same as heterosexual ones, because homosexuals just aren't quite the same. They aren't quite 'natural'.

And why the need to drag in the suicide of Kevin McGee? It is completely irrelevant to Gately's death unless you are trying to make some cretinous point that same sex civil partnerships are somehow a danger to your life. She appears to be saying Gately died of being gay.

That's why at the end of the article she refers to a:

very different and more dangerous lifestyle

Unsurprisingly, Twitter went beserk. Jan Moir became the trending topic. Stephen Fry weighed in. A Facebook campaign began. Then the Mail's advertisers started to get targetted. Did they want their products on the same page as Moir's bile?

Marks and Spencer's said no thanks:

"Marks & Spencer does not tolerate any form of discrimination," said a spokesman for the retailer. "We have asked the Daily Mail to move our advertisement away from the article. This is a matter for the Daily Mail."

The MediaGuardian story added:

Nestlé added that it contacted its media buying agency MindShare to investigate having its ad removed, but the Daily Mail had already stripped the web page of advertising.

That is wonderful. A brilliant example of how reader power in the new media age can hurt newspapers.

The Mail also decided to change the headline to:

A strange, lonely and troubling death . . .

'Lonely'? It's an odd choice of (replacement) word given how much Moir is intent on telling us that there were two other men in his apartment when he died.

But that change completely fails to repair the damage - the main hate is in the article. Changing the headline is re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

Charlie Brooker wrote an excellent piece; the story became the lead on MediaGuardian.

The PCC were bombarded with over 1,000 complaints which caused their website to crash. And their response was to suggest that unless there is a complaint from Gately's family, they'd ignore everything else.

Apparently, a general outcry over homophobia isn't good enough to warrant considering a complaint.

Which is why people using Twitter or Facebook are going to increasingly take direct action against newspapers in this way - targetting advertisers and online campaigns, for example. The PCC is simply not up to the job of keeping them in line, and dole out the most ineffective and feeble punishments for transgressions.

And then Jan Moir weighed back in with a 'response' - defiantly not an apology - of such crassness, it makes it all even worse. She doesn't even say sorry for the hurt she may have caused Gately's family. She begins:

Some people, particularly in the gay community...

See? It's those gays again, causing the trouble. She goes on:

However, the point of my column-which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read

Which is a totally obnoxious response. We have all read it, that's why we're all so pissed off.

She went on to repeat that there's is clearly something dodgy about Gately's death:

Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately's death - out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger - did not have a bearing on his death.

'Anyone can die ay anytime of anything'? That's weird, because in the actual article, Moir stated quite clearly:

Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again.

But now they can?

And on the civil partnerships point, argued:

I was suggesting that civil partnerships - the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting - have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.

Well that's not really what you meant, is it Jan? Because that's not what you said. That's how we all came to misunderstand you. You were saying that two people in civil partnerships have died recently and tried to make the point that something about their lifestyle was to blame.

She ends:

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

It's an interesting use of the word 'undertones'. The homophobia and bigotry was there for all to see. Undertone doesn't even begin to describe it.

And for someone from the Mail - architect of the whole Sachsgate affair - to complain of a 'heavily orchestrated campaign' would be funny if Moir wasn't being so unpleasant. But the reaction was an entirely natural response to what was an awful, awful article. This is something everyone could read for themselves. It's not like, say, getting people riled up over a radio show from two weeks before that none of them had heard.

Of course, it was Moir who wielded the poison pen, but let's not forget that other people at the Mail must have OK'd the column before publication. Indeed the Belfast Telegraph reports that the piece did not appear in the printed Irish version of the paper. Was this an admission by Mail executives that they thought it was likely to be inflammatory?

And Mail editor Paul Dacre must seriously consider his position as Chair of the Code of Practice Committe. His paper has been responsible for what looks to be the most complained about newspaper article in PCC history. How can he possibly continue to sit on the Committee that oversees the Code, let alone Chair it?

Incidentally, on Sachsgate, Moir wrote:

They fatally underestimated public taste, values and our strong sense of British fair play.

Something Moir now knows all about.