Littlejohn makes up some figures

A small point on last Friday's Littlejohn column. During his latest diatribe about Gordon Brown selling gold, something he has mentioned at least eight times in the last year and a half, he wrote:

He flogged off our gold at car-boot sale prices a few years ago. With the price nudging $1,000 an ounce, if he'd waited he could have paid off the national debt several times over.

Firstly, the BBC's Robert Peston says:

the gold loss is spilt milk – and, as any great investor will tell you, it’s fatuous to weep over it.

Dictionary definition of fatuous:

Foolish or silly, especially in a smug or self-satisfied way

Which clearly doesn't apply to Littlejohn. At all.

Secondly, the impression Littlejohn has consistently given is that all gold reserves were sold, rather than just over half.

Thirdly, the national debt currently stands at £800 billion.

The price of gold when Brown held the sales was $275.6 an ounce and made $3.5 billion. If the price is now close to $1,000 an ounce, a sale now of the same amount would raise around $12.6 billion.

Which is around £7.9 billion.

Which isn't quite £800 billion once. Let alone several times over.

Corrections round-up

Three errors of varying seriousness exposed today. Firstly, the Mail on Sunday has agreed to pay undisclosed but substantial damages, plus legal costs, to Madonna for publishing pictures of her wedding to Guy Ritchie. MediaGuardian explains:

Associated Newspapers admitted liability for breaching Madonna's privacy and copyright infringement.

It had destroyed all copies of the infringing photographs in its possession and agreed to pay the singer damages and her legal costs.

Over at the Daily Star, the following correction appeared:

On October 1 we stated in an article headed “Hammer horror” that soldiers from 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards are having to resort to building their own furniture after being taught how to make chairs and tables at Mons Barracks in Aldershot, Hants, because of limited provisions in Afghanistan.

We now accept that the story was incorrect and that the training was worthwhile to prepare them for coping with conditions on the ground in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the PCC have given the Telegraph a slap on the wrist for what appears to be a slightly strange reason. During one of their many expenses stories, Brian Binley MP was referred to as a 'millionaire' with a 'multi-million pound fortune'. Binley denied he was, or had, any such thing. The Telegraph was reluctant to publish an apology and clarification.

It is very welcome that the PCC will adjudicate against newspapers for factual errors, and for dragging their feet, but it does seem a bizarrely inconsequential case. Take the recent ruling against Ken Livingstone when the Mail published two very misleading stories about him and the PCC ruled that they would not 'have altered the general understanding of the situation' despite all evidence pointing to the contrary.

Given that the slap on the wrist makes very little difference, it seems fairly unimportant either way. But it surely needs to be consistent.

Mail wants you to check out a teenager's bum

The Mail is reporting that a school in Nailsea has been sending female pupils home because they are wearing inappropriate trousers.

Several girls have been told off for wearing 'too tight' pairs of 'Miss Sexy'-branded trousers, and ordered to buy normal school issue ones.

The Mail decides to illustrate the story with a picture of one of the pupils, 14 year old Alex Dalby, with her back, and therefore bum, to camera.


The caption asks:

Too tight for school? Alex Dalby models the ''Miss Sexy' trousers

Is the Mail actually encouraging readers to look at this young teenager's bum, and see if her trousers are indeed 'too tight'?

More disturbing still is a comment from Dan Wilson in Bath:


Seems like Dan was just the audience the Mail were after...

Attack on Muslims graves ignored by newspapers

Twenty Muslim graves in Southern Cemetery in Manchester were vandalised at the end of last week. The BBC reports:

Staff found the Muslim section of the cemetery littered with broken headstones on Friday morning.

Det Con Rob Southern said: "Sadly, we are treating this as a hate crime. This sort of mindless, racist behaviour must be utterly condemned."

It appears that none of the national newspapers covered the story. The Mail did report on the desecration of a World War One cemetery in France just a month ago. But not this.

Given that the English Defence League are planning to protest in Manchester later this week, there would appear to be a big news story here. Why is it being ignored?

Two women buy toilet roll in Mail website exclusive

It has been mentioned on this blog a few times, but it's worth repeating Mail website editor Martin Clarke's statement that:

'news is far more important to us than showbiz'

Why? Because of this, currently the second highest story in the right hand column of his website:


Clearly a must-read. And it has taken two Mail journalists to write this?

Sun calls singer 'huge'; she isn't

'Mariah Carey is a huge star', sneers The Sun, in an article so pointlessly critical about a famous person's weight it could easily have appeared on the Mail website.

'Three dancers struggle to lift Mariah Carey,' it says, illustrated with this picture:
Which shows two lifting her quite easily.

The accompanying words read:

Wow, MARIAH CAREY seems to have put on some serious timber judging by these pictures.

I feel for the three dancers straining to lift the diva's junk-laden trunk...

Looking at the combined muscle the blokes had to use to hoist her off the ground, it might be better for Mariah to stick to floor routines from now on.

She's getting too heavy to Carey.

Nice. Of course, just a quick look at that pic shows Carey isn't anything like as 'heavy' or 'huge' as they make out.

Indeed, they admitted as much a couple of weeks ago, when they wrote:

the singer was on fine natural form at a screening of her new movie Precious in Toronto last night.

Clad in a black dress highlighting her actual boobs, Mariah proved she doesn't need computer geeks to make her look hot.

Still, got to make a narrative out of the photos they have bought somehow.

The Mail's running commentary on Strictly

The news that Strictly Come Dancing hoofer and Brucie-wannabe Anton du Beke described his partner Laila Rouass as a 'Paki' in a woefully misjudged 'joke' about her spray tan, leaves the Mail and its readers in a predicament.

They inevitably want to criticise the BBC and anyone who works for it.

But at the same time, they believe that everyone should be free to use words as offensive as 'Paki', and to stop their usage is political correctness gone mad.

What to say? Well, this apparently:


Incredible. For the record, Rouass has an Indian mother and Moroccan father.

But they all look the same, don't they?

In other Strictly news, the Mail claims that one of the dancing couples, Ali Bastian and Brian Fortuna, are in a relationship. Two single people start dating - hold the front pages! And follow them with long-lens cameras when they go for a walk.

Of course, the Mail does seem peculiarly obsessed with stalking Strictly contestants.

But what is interesting about the Ali and Brian story (yes, there is one thing) is the presentation. The headline is:

Ali does a Kristina: Yet another Strictly couple are getting closer in training...

The Kristina in question is Ms Rihanoff, who has apparently struck up a relationship with her dance partner, boxer Joe Calzaghe. If you search for their names on the Mail site, you get 30 results, charting exactly whether or not they are in fact a couple.

But notice how it is the women who are the subject. Why would the headline not be 'Brian does a Joe'? Or 'Ali does a Joe' if you are sticking to the celeb angle?

Not for the Mail - the women are always to blame.

Sunday Express scrapes the bottom of the health scare barrel

The Sunday Express may have produced the worst and the most irresponsible headline yet on the HPV vaccine story.

The story, by Lucy Johnston, doesn't remotely back up the ludicrous claim made in the headline. There certainly isn't a direct quotation in the story matching the words in quote marks in that headline. Or, indeed, anything like it.

It relies partly on Dr Richard Halverson, who has been touting his conspiracy theories (and trying to sell his book) all week.

Halverson was one of the 'experts' who frequently spoke to the media over the MMR scare, while running a private clinic offering single jabs to worried parents (reportedly to the tune of £480). According to Dr Anthony Cox, writing a couple of years ago, there was no evidence he had written any peer-reviewed papers on vaccines or vaccine safety.

He is the one referred to in the sub-head about 'new doubts raised over death of teenager'. Having no knowledge of the case other than media reports, he appears to know better than the coroner as to what killed Natalie Morton.

The other expert is Dr Diane Harper who was involved in the trials of the vaccine. She said a month ago that:

the vaccine is proven effective.

Before adding:

for most women it is safe, but there are real risks associated with it.

The Sunday Express quotes her saying:

in a small number of cases there are serious side effects.

Which still doesn't support that headline. Of course, there can be side effects with any medicine or medical procedure. But they are exceptionally rare.

So it appears the headline stemmed from this claim:

the risks – “small but real” – could be worse than the risk of developing cancer itself.

But it still doesn't say the same thing, is largely paraphrased, so we don't know what was actually said, and includes the rather crucial word 'could', which usually means 'could be but isn't'.

The number of people who may look at that Sunday Express front page and see this vaccine being compared with cancer in terms of how lethal it is, and take that on board, is hugely worrying.

Let's hope that most of them don't regard the Express as a credible source of medical advice. They shouldn't.

They should read instead official or more reliable sources of information here, here and here.

Max Hastings - lying about immigrants, and sounding like the BNP

Max Hastings' latest column appears to be an attempt to out-do The Sun in lavishing praise on David Cameron ahead of the next election. Max swoons:

Cameron possesses the brains, fluency and star quality to become a remarkable prime minister if he can also find iron in his soul...When friends express doubts to me about the Tory team, I respond simply: we must believe.

Testify Brother Max!

Does this mark an attempt by the Mail to become a louder cheerleader for the Conservatives than their red-top rival?

Max has listed all the problems he believes need fixing about modern Britain and - unsurprisingly - immigration pops up. But he displays an ignorance that suggests he doesn't even know what the problem is, by stating:

Immigrants, legal and otherwise, can often invoke human rights to gain access to Britain's benefits system.

By 'otherwise', he means illegal. And illegal immigrants do not get benefits. No matter how often he, or Carole Malone or Richard Littlejohn or Judge Trigger say it, it won't make it true.

Perhaps Max could tell us which benefits these illegal immigrants are getting?

He goes on:

Nothing would more swiftly check the immigration tide than calling time on newcomers' automatic claims to benefit and housing.

There's so much wrong with that sentence.

Firstly - does Max really believe that all immigrants to Britain just for benefits and housing? There are no other social or cultural reasons? Nothing to do with Britain as a fair, tolerant, multi-cultural, democratic society?

Apparently not.

Secondly - why peddle this myth that new arrivals get 'automatic claims to benefit [sic] and housing'? The benefits available to immigrants are far more complicated, and tough to get, than that.

So Max thinks people flock to Britain solely to avail themselves of free money and houses, and if these 'automatic' benefits were stopped, so would the 'tide' of people.

It's an idea that happens to be supported by the BNP. An article from May 2009 entitled 'Invaders Resort to Armed Violence to Get into Soft Touch Britain' says:

swarms of bogus “asylum seekers” know that if they can just get onto British soil, they will qualify for council housing and generous benefits...

Only once the scroungers of the world know that they will not get benefits in Britain, will they stop coming here.

Compare that with what Max says:

Nothing would more swiftly check the immigration tide than calling time on newcomers' automatic claims to benefit and housing.

'Swamp' may be more extreme than 'tide' but it's much the same idea. And it's not the first time Max has sounded like the racist far-right party.

Max also says:

It would be so irresponsible for uneasy Tories to cast a protest vote for UKIP or, worse still, the BNP.

Yes, we wouldn't want people supporting the ideas and policies of the BNP. That would indeed be worse than 'irresponsible'.

Mail puts Kim Kardashian into Letterman story

The news that David Letterman has confessed to affairs with female employees after a blackmail attempt has been covered by all the papers. For example the Guardian, Times, Sun, Express and Star:























All much the same. Because it's a story about Letterman you get a picture of Letterman. The Mail decides to play it a little differently:

And who is that woman in the pic with Letterman?

It's Kim Kardashian!

The Mail website really is obsessed with her. After four days since her last appearance, it was about time she was back.

Littlejohn makes up another dog story

As Jonathan points out in his excellent post, today's Littlejohn column is dismal.

The main rant is about how he wanted to get mad at something he thought would happen, but which didn't. Yes, really. He dedicates 949 sodding words to how his recycling wasn't collected one day, and when he phoned the Council, they said they'd come and get it. How dare those evil Bin Nazis!

But the biggest cock-up of the day comes when he turns his attention to dogs. Of course, we know Littlejohn has had problems with researching dog related stories before.

This time, it's another of his entirely invented PC-gone-mad police stories:

The increasingly absurd Devon and Cornwall force has started replacing their German shepherds with springer spaniels, which are said to be 'less frightening'.

Isn't frightening the whole point of police dogs?

But as Jonathan makes clear, only a cursory use of Google can find out how true this is (clue: it isn't). The springer spaniels in question are rescue dogs. This news was up on the BBC website on Tuesday, so there can be no excuse that he hasn't done his research (again). Indeed, why not congratulate them on being:

the first in the country to train dogs solely for use in search and rescue operations.

To quote Jonathan:

And so, after upwards of 26 seconds of reading the BBC's less rabid account, I finally get a glimpse of the truth...these dogs will literally only be used to rescue people and find people who have gone missing, like for example lost children, with the old big dogs used for everything else. Meaning that they're not being 'replaced' either.

Well done Richard. Expect a clarification in Tuesday's column.

He turns to politics, and mentions the fact Sarah Brown had introduced her husband at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. Littlejohn says:

In keeping with the latest political fad, I had thought of asking my wife to introduce the column this week.

Which sounds like a good idea. She can't be any worse, surely?

This piece includes a mention of Peter Mandelson's partner:

at least we were spared Reinaldo's version of how Mandy makes a mess in the bathroom when he's dyeing his hair.

Just in case you had forgotten Mandelson was gay. Something Littlejohn hasn't mentioned since 15 September.

The 'stuck record' effect also occurs when he refers to Gordon Brown who, he says:

flogged off our gold at car-boot sale prices a few years ago

Hmm - does that phrase sound familiar? Because back in June, he wrote an imaginary interview where Brown was asked:

Do you regret selling Britain's gold reserves at car-boot sale prices?

And then in March about how:

Gordon Brown would be convicted of criminal negligence for selling off Britain's gold reserves at car-boot-sale prices.

In February, he changed it slightly, to:

sold off Britain's precious gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

And in November 2008 Brown was:

wanted in connection with the disappearance of billions of pounds' worth of Britain's gold bullion

At the end of September 2008, he wrote about:

Gordon Brown, who sold off Britain's gold reserves for brass washers, costing us billions

That was just a few weeks after he mentioned - and stop me if you've heard it - that Brown:

decided we didn't need our gold reserves any more and sold them off at car-boot sale prices.

And back in March 2008:

his decision to flog off our gold reserves at the bottom of the market.

So now we know Littlejohn does do recycling. In many more ways than putting bottles outside his house.

Mail doesn't apologise to Dale and denies homophobia

As mentioned by Jamie at the Daily Quail, it appeared that Peter McKay had apologised to Iain Dale over yesterday's Ephraim Hardcastle piece. But Dale now says that was in fact a hoax. Instead we have a follow-up comment in the Hardcastle column today:

Tory blogger Iain Dale complains about an item here yesterday. I mentioned that Dale, who is gay, is hoping to become the Tory candidate at Bracknell, Berkshire, and invited subscribers to PinkNews, the homosexual website, to attend the open primary on October 17, saying: 'You don't even have to be a Conservative to attend.' Dale says my comment - 'Isn't it charming how homosexuals rally likeminded chaps to their cause?' - is homophobic, as is my description of him as 'overtly gay'. He has complained to the Press Complaints Commission, and suggested his readers email complaints. I have nothing against Dale. Nor am I homophobic. But if he wants to become an MP, surely he'll have to become a little less sensitive. Incidentally, the Tories are having their first gay pride event at their Manchester conference next week. They'll promote a new 'gay-friendly' logo, Conservative Pride. Isn't life grand?

The question for McKay/Hardcastle, if he wants to deny homophobia, is this: would you have referred to straight people 'rallying likeminded chaps to the cause?'

Answer: almost certainly not.

He might also want to get a job on a different newspaper.

Recommended reads

Anton has asked - what exactly is the Mail's bizarre, stalker-like obsession with Natalie Cassidy?

Uponnothing points out that a story about immigrant birds being shot brings out the true character of Mail readers.

Iain Dale shocked at homophobia in the Mail

Sarah at Paperhouse has posted on an ugly item in today's Ephraim Hardcastle column in the Mail. It focuses on blogger and would-be Conservative Parliamentary Candidate Iain Dale. 'Hardcastle' writes:

Overtly gay Tory blogger Iain Dale has reached the final stage of parliamentary selection for Bracknell, telling PinkNews: 'I hope any PinkNews readers who live in Bracknell will come to the open primary on October 17 to select their new candidate.

You don't even have to be a Conservative to attend.'

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

Dale writes:

I am damned if I am going to stay silent when I see a national newspaper indulge in a homophobic attack on me. A year ago, the Richard Kay column in the Daily Mail printed a fairly vile column about my civil partnership - full of innuendo and just plain nastiness. Today, the Ephraim Hardcastle column goes one better.

He has fired off a letter to the PCC, although that is unlikely to get him very far. But Dale then writes something which shows a rather bizarre naivety, stating:

I really thought that we had got away from this sort of thing and it's very sad that we haven't.

Did he really think that? For example, the Mail has twice attacked attempts to counter homophobic bullying. It has suggested young girls experimenting with same-sex kissing is a sign of an approaching apocalypse. It has Littlejohn continually referring to Screaming Lord Mandy and Peter Hitchens claiming We show tolerance to ‘gays’ and get tyranny in return.

And there are plenty of times when the Sun indulges in homophobia, such as with stories about George Michael, H from Steps and Boy George.

Dale writes:

worst of all, if I did say nothing, it would just encourage them to do it again to someone else in the future. I simply cannot do that.

Hmm. So why did only feel the need to complain about tabloid homophobia when he became the target?

Mail and Sun try to influence election; Sun tries to influence this blog

The lead story on the Mail website for most of yesterday was a very strange interpretation of an interview between Gordon Brown and Adam Boulton. Neither side emerged from the counter that well, but the Mail saw a bigger story:


Obviously a incident where the PM huffs out of an interview with a major broadcaster would be a big story. There's just one slight problem.

He didn't.

The Boulton & Co blog on the Sky website includes the line:

One man's "storming off" is another man's "getting up because it's over"...

Which immediately raises doubts about the veracity of the Mail interpretation. Watching the nearly twelve minute interview on the Sky blog reveals - shock of shocks - Brown doesn't try to leave at any point. The clip ends with Boulton saying:

Thank you very much Gordon Brown.

And Brown is still in his seat. Conservative blogger Guido Fawkes has posted part of what happened next on Youtube, complete with a juvenile Psycho sound effect. But it shows Brown remaining seated for a full three seconds before moving to get up.

So how does the Mail decide he 'cut the interview short' or:


He tried to leave once it was over. End of (non-) story.

Elsewhere, News International is clearly trying to set the agenda for the general election. During the interview, Boulton pressed Brown on Sky News' Leaders' Debate. Then yesterday the Sun revealed - to absolutely no-one's surprise - that it was backing the Conservatives to win the next election. These seem to be 'good' examples of where the media is trying to make the news - make itself the news - rather than just report the news.

Bizarrely, this blog received two emails (within 30 minutes of each other) from The Sun revealing the news about its change of allegiance in the early hours of 29 September. It even included a jpeg of the front page for inclusion. Why it would bother alerting a blog which has rarely written a good word about the paper is a bit of a mystery.

The Sun editorial writes about the:

failures of Labour in Government over the last 12 years.

Given the Sun backed Labour at the 1997, 2001 and 2005 elections, complaining about all twelve years seems a little...conveniently forgetful.

Inevitably, in listing Labour's failings, it mentions immigration, where they are accused of:

opening our borders without any regard to the consequences. Illegal migrants and bogus asylum seekers poured in.

The terminology here is very loose - 'illegal immigrants' and 'failed asylum seekers' would be far more suitable, but this sentence, which also includes the word 'poured', is designed to be highly emotive, rather than accurate.

The Guardian's Michael White points out that Rupert Murdoch does have a 'well-documented policy of being on the winning side' and with opinion polls putting the Conservatives well ahead, it was only a matter of when, not if, The Sun switched sides.

But even more importantly for David Cameron, he has the support of another key Sun figure, far more influential than Murdoch.

Yes, Page 3 girl Keeley (22, from Bromley, dressed in her blue pants for this special occasion) is backing him too:

[He] is the man...this is his time. Everyone will expect him to make things better. He can't possibly do this instantly as he will inherit huge, long-term, deep-rooted problems. We need to allow him time to implement fresh ideas and policies that will get the country off its knees.

Brilliant. With insight like that, she could get a reporting job at the paper.