Recommended reading

Yesterday morning, the Mail website's top story was The £18,000 council job you can't apply for if you are white.

It was a lot of sound and fury about Bristol City Council advertising two training posts (not jobs) for BME graduates.

By early afternoon, the BNP had the story on their website, claiming:

The anti-white and anti-British establishment has abandoned any pretence at fairness and at last broken its cover with the advertising of local government jobs for which white people are forbidden from applying.

Both Five Chinese Crackers and Angry Mob have looked at the story and both articles are well worth reading.

As 5CC says:

The [Mail] could approach issues from a far more sensible perspective, but chooses to exaggerate and lie instead. When those lies and exaggerations extend to how much of a wonderful and unfair advantage ethnic minorities and other out-groups get, it's particularly nasty, and so are the potential consequences.

That's when the paper stops being just disappointing and starts being potentially dangerous.

Sun falls for April Fool, and other mistakes

April did not begin well for the Sun.

On 2 April, it ran an 'exclusive' story under the headline Cambridge to strip BNP boss of degree. It said:

BNP leader Nick Griffin is set to be stripped of his degree by Cambridge.

It would be the first time EVER an ex-student's qualification has been revoked.

Bigot Griffin, 51, graduated from the university's Downing College in 1980 with a 2:2 honours in law. But chiefs want to cut all ties with the extremist.

The BNP rushed out an angry press release blaming not Cambridge University but (surprise) them Muslims:

Bosses at Cambridge University are trying to take away the 2:2 honours degree in law gained there by the British National Party’s Chairman Nick Griffin because they believe it might be losing them fees from foreign Muslim students who could be put off coming to the university.

But, as Matthew Weaver revealed in the Guardian, the story was an April Fool put out by Cambridge student paper The Tab.

Both the Sun and the BNP removed the story from their websites once they realised it was a joke.

But it raises two points. Firstly, the lack of fact-checking from journalists who re-heat stories (which they label 'exclusive'...) without bothering to find out if it's true or not, and secondly, the ease with which the BNP will blame anything - even things that aren't happening - on Muslims.

Also on 2 April, the Press Complaints Commission upheld (in part) a complaint against the newspaper:

A married couple complained to the Press Complaints Commission through the charity Mermaids that two articles headlined "Boy, 12, turns into girl" and "Now boy, 9, is girl", published in The Sun on 18 September 2009 and 19 September 2009 respectively, contained inaccuracies in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) and intruded into their daughter's private life in breach of Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Editors' Code of Practice.

The complaint was upheld.

Separate complaints under Clauses 3 (Privacy), 4 (Harassment), 6 (Children) and 12 (Discrimination) were not upheld.

In explaining its decision, the PCC said:

The Commission agreed that the cumulative effect of the inaccuracies served to give a misleading impression of the girl's appearance and behaviour at the school. This was unacceptable and the newspaper should have taken greater care when publishing details of such a vulnerable child. This raised a breach of Clause 1 of the Code.

In addition, the newspaper had passed on the family's details to a third party - therefore identifying the child - at a time when it had been specifically informed that further contact from the media was unwelcome. Given that the newspaper had recognised the need to avoid naming the child publicly, the decision to identify her to a third party (who would not otherwise have known who she was) was clearly an error.

The paper had shown a failure to respect her private and family life in breach of Clause 3 of the Code.

The Sun has printed this part of the adjudication on its website but it hasn't had to apologise and, strangely, it hasn't removed the original article either, which also appears on Mail's website.

And although the original stories were published on the front page, the adjudication did not. So it buries that, doesn't apologise and doesn't remove the originals.

That's what an upheld complaint amounts to.

Two days later, the Sun was forced to print an article about Mohammed George's libel victory against the paper - which it had conveniently forgotten to mention. It blamed an:

unfortunate internal communications breakdown.

Yeh. Right.

Their lack of interest in correcting the record is reflected in their grudging language:

Former Eastenders star Mo George has been awarded £75,000 libel damages over a Sun article which a jury ruled wrongly branded him a woman beater.

The actor's lawyer, Ronald Thwaites, QC, told the High Court the article left Mr George depressed and unwilling to go out.

After the case, Mr George, 26, said: "I want to thank all my friends and family who have supported me through all of this."

Publishers News Group Newspapers had denied libel, claiming justification and maintained the article was true.

Scaremongering about immigrants and the NHS

On Saturday, immigrants were being blamed for problems in schools:

On Sunday, immigrants were being blamed for problems in the job market:


On Monday, immigrants were (again) being blamed for problems in the job market:


And on Tuesday, immigrants were being blamed for problems in the NHS:


Predictably, the BNP wasted no time in regurgitating each story for their own website.

The racist party's article on the Mail's school story was followed by this ugly comment:


How proud the Mail must be to help foster such hatred.

But back to the Express' front page about Poles getting abortions on the NHS. This story was actually in Monday's Sun, so it's no surprise to see it appear in the Express the following day.

The Sun said:

Ten thousand Polish women came to Britain for NHS abortions last year.

The phrasing is deliberate. 'Came' to Britain for an abortion. As if that was the sole purpose of their visit. And there's little evidence to suggest that is true.

Nonetheless, the Express suggested the same:

A Polish source said yesterday that thousands of Polish women already flee the strict Roman Catholic country’s anti-abortion laws every year to undergo the procedure on the NHS.

There's not a hint of any sympathy in any of this coverage for Polish women based on the fact that:

Poland practises one of the most restrictive abortion regimes in Europe, banning and criminalising it except on medical grounds, risk to life, and where pregnancy results from sexual violence.

The Department of Health said in a statement:

The NHS is provided primarily for the benefit of people lawfully resident in the UK.

There is no provision in the UK Immigration Rules for people to come to this country for the purpose of obtaining NHS treatment and with certain exceptions non-residents are expected to pay for any medical treatment they receive while they are here.

We do, however, choose to exempt from charge the residents of some countries for some treatment needs when they visit the UK, under reciprocal healthcare agreements, meaning that UK citizens receive similar benefits when they visit those countries.

But in any case, are 'thousands' of Polish women coming to the UK to have abortions?

Well, no.

The latest Department of Health figures for abortions carried out in England and Wales cover 2008.

They show that the number of women who are residents of Poland and who had an abortion in England and Wales was just 30.

Compare that with the 4,600 women from Ireland.

And yet, would the Express put 'Now Irish get free abortions on NHS' on it's front page?

Indeed, of all the abortions for women classifed as non-resident in England and Wales, 90.6% came from Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.

The 30 Poles equate to 0.4%. There are more from Italy (150) and France (60), while Spain accounted for 29.

So why pick on the Poles?

Clearly given the increase in the Polish population of Britain since EU enlargement there are likely to be more Polish women who are living and working here but they are as entitled to NHS treatment as anyone else.

But the tabloids are not framing the story in that way - it's all about scaremongering about health tourism and immigrants getting things the papers think they shouldn't.

(More by Unity at Liberal Conspiracy)

Report says media is a motivating factor in anti-Muslim hate crime

A report published today by Dr Jonathan Githens-Mazer and Dr Robert Lambert MBE, from the European Muslim Research Centre at the University of Exeter, looks at anti-Muslim hate crime and Islamophobia in London. It is, they say, the first report in a ten-year project to look at these issues in cities across Europe.

Lambert, incidentally:

headed Scotland Yard's Muslim contact unit, which helped improve relations between the police and Britain's Islamic communities. The unit won praise from even long-standing critics of the police, and Lambert was awarded an MBE.

So he's well-qualified to write about such issues.

Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hate Crime: a London Case Study reveals:

how perpetrators of hate-crimes against Muslims are invariably motivated by a negative view of Muslims acquired from mainstream or extremist nationalist media reports or commentaries.

So not something that is going to widely covered by the tabloids then?

No:

In this report we introduce empirical evidence that demonstrates tangible links between Islamophobia or anti-Muslim bigotry in both

(i) mainstream political and media discourse and
(ii) extremist nationalist discourse and anti-Muslim hate crimes.

That is to say the report provides prima facie and empirical evidence to demonstrate that assailants of Muslims are invariably motivated by a negative view of Muslims they have acquired from either mainstream or extremist nationalist reports or commentaries in the media.

And then, in a section entitled 'Motivation of anti-Muslim hate crimes':

Islamophobic, negative and unwarranted portrayals of Muslim London as 'Londonistan' and Muslim Londoners as terrorists, terrorist sympathisers and subversives in sections of the media appear to provide the motivation for a significant number of anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Although she is not the only one to use the term, Londonistan is the name of a book by Mail columnist Melanie Phillips. A book that appears on the BNP's recommended reading list. Other than that, the report does not name particular writers or newspapers or articles, which seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to provide some academic analysis on some of the worst excesses of the right-wing press.

It is not just the media to blame, or who are the focus of the report, with recommendations for the police and for policy makers too:

Anti-Muslim hate crimes have not been afforded the same priority attention government and police have invested in racist hate crimes.

But the recommendations for the media are worth highlighting:

• Sections of media unwittingly provide Islamophobic motivation for anti-Muslim hate crimes.
  
• Media should embrace and promote victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the same way as victims of other hate crimes.

The use of 'unwittingly' seems a bit generous given some of the anti-Muslim filth the tabloids publish which are designed to do nothing but increase hostility towards Muslims. Front pages such as this and this do not appear by accident.

On the second point yes, of course, the media should report all hate crimes equally. As indeed it should report all people convicted on terror offences equally. But that just doesn't happen. And that doesn't seem at all likely to change.

Why not?

Well, at time of writing, this report has been available for many hours. And, apart from the Guardian, none of press appears to have written one word about it.

More fact-free mud-slinging from Littlejohn

The final section of Richard Littlejohn's latest column reads:

The equalities commission is within its rights to prosecute the BNP for dragging its feet over lifting the ban on non-white members.

But these Toytown Nazis need to be beaten at the ballot box, not in court. Sending Nick Griffin to prison on a technicality will only feed their sense of victim-hood and martyrdom.

Especially when other overtly racist organisations - the Black Police Association, for instance - are free to carry on with impunity.

It's funny, isn't it, that whenever Littlejohn wants to pick on a Police Association he always goes for the Muslim, Black and Trans ones and never the Christian one.

But Littlejohn has just called the Black Police Association 'overtly racist' and compared them to the BNP.

His 'overtly racist' claim seems to be based solely on the fact that the organisation has 'black' in its name.

Because if he'd bothered doing even the smallest bit of research and gone to the homepage of the National Black Police Association website, he would see clearly that:

The NBPA is open to all in policing on application and there is no bar to membership based on colour.

And from the homepage of one of the regional BPA's, Merseyside:

membership is open to all police officers and police staff and organisations and individuals of any rank or grade, irrespective of ethnic origin... we have a number of white full members, one of whom is currently an MBPA [Merseyside Black Police Association] Executive Committee member.

As the NBPA is a registered charity, Littlejohn should write to the Charity Commission with all his evidence about how and why they are 'overtly racist' and let them investigate.

But he won't. Why find out facts when you can get paid huge amounts for lying and myth-making?

Things to come

After yet another stupid health scare story yesterday (too much salt is bad for you, shock), the Express was back to one of its other favourite topics today: Islam.

Or should that be anti-Islam hysteria?

There is so much wrong with the Express' article that it's hard to know where to start.

But let's try this: the headline '£113,000 aid to fanatics who want to kill us' no longer exists on the Express website. They have changed it to a much less inflammatory David Cameron: Brown soft on Muslim fanatics, which strongly suggests they have backed away from their own ridiculous front page.

Secondly, the word 'us'. Seasoned followers of the Richard Desmond papers will be well used to their use of 'them and us' to separate 'them' Muslims, immigrants, asylum seekers, foreigners and 'us' white, Christian, British people (and that's the blinkered BNP definition of British).

Thirdly, despite the use of 'fanatics' there's little doubt the paper is trying to link Muslims with murder.

Fourth, the headline and the picture (no, not Alesha Dixon, the other one) strongly suggest the 'fanatics' in the headline are linked to loudmouth trouble-maker Anjem Choudhary. And yet, the story isn't about him at all.

Although the Express says David Cameron did raise the banning of Choudhary's organisation (Islam4UK) during yesterday's Prime Minister's Questions, the main thrust of his argument, and the paper's coverage, is about another issue, and another organisation, entirely.

But Choudhary is their number one Muslim hate figure and so his face is stuck below the headline so people will make the link.

Fifth, the money went to two Muslim schools which, they allege, have links to Hizb ut-Tahir. So it isn't 'aid to fanatics' anyway but 'money to schools'.

As for the substance of what Cameron said, it seems to be part of an on-going debate between the Government and the Opposition and won't be gone into here. But the Express, more blindly loyal to the Conservatives than the recent converts at the Sun, have repeated every allegation made by Cameron despite not all the facts being known.

And now more of them are known, the Express have changed the headline online. That's not a coincidence.

On the page 4 continuation, the headline asks:

How can cash meant to fight extremism be given the extremists?

It's not in quote marks, which is a usual Express tactic. But this time it actually should be, because they have used Cameron's words:

'How can you have an anti-extremist fund that results in a Labour local authority handing out money to extremists?'

He added:

'They have secured a total of £113,000 of Government money, some of which was from the Pathfinder scheme, whose objective is meant to be preventing violent extremism.'

Which is where the front page comes from. Except, it's not true. The BBC reports that:

the local authorities said the Pathfinder fund in question was one for helping parents find nursery places

and not the fund for tackling extremism. The Conservatives appear to accept this is the case, with Cameron telling the BBC that:

the 'fundamental point' that state money was being used was still true.

Well, yes, but that's not the same as the claims made in the Express. And consider this: if this £113,000 was indeed for 'helping parents find nursery places' then what the Express calls:

fanatics who want to kill us

are actually

children from three to five.

That last quote came from the Mail which runs the story - without the hysteria - under the headline Embarrassed Tories admit error over 'Muslim extremist schools' funding. The Times also say Tories admit David Cameron Islamic schools claim 'had mistakes'.

Do you think the Express will admit similar errors or mistakes tomorrow? No, of course they won't.

Accompanying the Express' article is their daily phone poll, which asks:

Should your taxes fund extremists?

'Funding extremists' is an exceptionally twisted interpretation of this story (if it can even be considered an interpretation of this story at all). Hard to imagine many people would want to 'fund extremists' of any description, so expect another entirely unrevealing result in a few days time.

And then there's the Express' editorial, which is not online. It repeats all the allegations made in the story - that the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation is a front for Hizb ut-Tahrir (the latter's press statement denies this), and that money from a fund to combat extremism has gone to 'homegrown Islamists'.

At the end, the paper concludes:

What these exchanges demonstrate is just how deeply in hock the Labour party is at every level to Muslim vested interests.

It's hard to know quite what to make of that bizarre sentence. Where is there any evidence to support that claim? What are these 'Muslim vested interests'? Does the Express really believe that the 'party' that went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq is 'in hock to Muslim interests'?

Of course, what the Express really wants to do is attack the Government and imply (again) that there is some Muslim conspiracy to takeover the country, as if 'vested Muslim interests' are pulling the strings on a puppet government.

If the consequences weren't so serious, these paranoid delusions might be amusing.

And, to hammer home the point a bit more, the Express editorial continues on with the headline:

No funding for Christians

So while the main editorial comment claims not just Muslims, but Muslim extremists, are getting Government funding there is 'no funding for Christians'. If that were literally true, then there would be very little 'funding' going on in this country.

The claim is based on a comment from Poirot actor David Suchet, who has said:

A charity I work for got turned down for Government funding recently because it was a Christian charity, even though it had been funded by the Government for several years.

So there is 'no funding for Christians' eventhough this Christian charity has 'been funded by the Government for several years'. That makes perfect sense. Do the cretins at the Express even think about the rubbish they write?

It may well be that after several years of funding, the Government has decided to back other organisations. There may be many other reasons behind the decision.

But the Express knows it's all the fault of the Muslim-run Labour Government:

It does not take a brilliant detective to work out what is going on here, just an ordinarily observant person: Britain's cultural identity is being systematically dismantled by a government of traitors.

'Loss of British identity' is a claim made in the BNP's statement on immigration. They also have a list of Britain's top left-wingers, including Brown, Miliband, Harman and Straw which they title 'Traitors All'. Why does the Express continue to use the language of this far-right, racist party?

With the general election looming, the BNP are going to get a lot of coverage because of Nick Griffin's candidacy and because of the European election results. Today's edition of the Express only helps them by pushing lies, fear and hysterical comment into the mainstream.

And if yesterday's PMQs, following on from Brown's immigration speech, are signs of what the election campaign will bring, then the Express and other tabloids will have plenty of opportunity to push those lies and that fear some more.

How the Mail and Sun reported the Nick Griffin court case

On Monday, the Daily Mail was reporting on the case of Tauriq Khalid, who was in court accused of racially abusing and threatening to kill BNP leader Nick Griffin. It appeared in the first section of the Mail website homepage, as one of their top stories, like this:

On the actual article, in the blue bar at the top of the screen, the 'court hears' bit is missing. Moreover, the headline has been changed to:

Yes, it's partly in quote marks - a favourite tabloid get-out to attribute to someone else a statement they believe - but there is still something very definite about the phrasing. Probaby because in the toss up between a Muslim and a white racist, the Mail would always side with the latter.

Khalid said he called Griffin a 'fucking wanker' and aimed a V-sign in his direction.

Griffin said Khalid called him a 'white bastard', made a gun with his fingers and, according to the BNP leader:

He shouted out, "Griffin, you bastard. I am going to..." but I didn't at the time catch it. But I took it as to "kill" or "shoot you"

So he admitted in court he didn't actually hear the alleged death threat.

The jury took a whole 45 minutes to find Khalid not guilty. Which means a court has listened to something Griffin had to say and didn't believe him. Imagine that.

But how did the Mail react to the news that Khalid was cleared of racist abuse?

Firstly, they couldn't even be bothered to give a named journalist the assignment. Rather than James Tozer, who wrote the original story, 'Daily Mail Reporter' did it instead.

Secondly, the story has not been on the Mail homepage at all today and wasn't last night either - in complete contrast to the high positioning of the 'claims'.

Thirdly, the headline on the article is this:


Notice how the possibly guilty 'Muslim' from the original has become an innocent 'Asian'. In fact, the word 'Muslim' is not used once in the entire article about the verdict. Can the Mail not bring itself to think a Muslim man might not be guilty of something? Or is it that Khalid is not in fact Muslim? None of the other newspaper stories about the verdict identify him as such - in which case why did the Mail claim he was in the original headline?

The differences between the two articles and the prominence given to them is stark. And, sadly, unsurprising.

Still, at least they covered the end of the case in some form. On the Sun's website, Griffin's claims were reported, but the verdict hasn't been mentioned at all.

Recommended reads

Angry Mob has revealed how the latest PC gone mad story from the Mail - about parents being banned from playgrounds - has been rejected by the very Council accused.

He also explains how the story of a man's death has been twisted by both the Mail and the Mirror to make it something it wasn't.

Anton reveals the latest anti-Muslim nonsense from the Express, as the paper goes to Islam4Uk for yet another story. It's almost as if the Express can't function without reporting on loudmouths spouting deliberately inflammatory crap, and the loudmouths no doubt enjoy seeing their utternaces in a national newspaper.

Anton has also written about the Mail's quite unbelievably hypocritical article complaining about naked female flesh on the cover of men's magazines. This is the same website, which has this pic on it.

At Hagley Road to Ladywood, Claude has pointed out that the Mail's rhetoric on immigrants and against the BBC sounds suspiciously like the BNP.

Leo McKinstry and the BNP

At the start of August, Leo McKinstry wrote in the Express about how all Britain's problems are caused by immigration.

Yesterday Leo McKinstry wrote in the Express about how all Britain's problems are caused by immigration.

Then it was: Labour's lies have brought the UK to ruin - Labour's rhetoric on immigration is a colossal exercise in deceit.

Yesterday it was: Labour's biggest lie of all is about mass immigration.

This cost-cutting at the Express really is getting out of hand...

Then, without any shred of irony, he begins his latest with this:

Josef Goebbels, the sinister chief of Nazi propaganda, wrote: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it"...

Those words apply exactly to the Government’s rhetoric on immigration.

Yes, repeating lies so people begin to believe it. Not that the Express or McKinstry would ever repeatedly use dishonest rhetoric about immigration. Or Muslims. Or political correctness. Or Diana being 'murdered'.

And so begins yet another anti-immigration rant:

As our country sinks deeper into the mire of recession, despair and social dislocation, the full extent of [government] lies on immigration has been exposed.

And:

The dramatic rise in immigration has coincided with the deepest recession since the Thirties.

As the numbers continue to flood in, unemployment rises and living standards fall.

That's funny - the dramatic rise in the use of, say, Twitter has coincided with the deepest recession since the Thirties. Shall we blame that too? Does it have nothing to do with the bank system then? Or the

grotesque mismanagement of public finances

which McKinstry blamed for the economic crisis back in April.

He continues:

the mass arrival of foreigners has imposed an intolerable strain on public services, especially the NHS, social security, housing and education, as well as creating a huge burden for the taxpayer, costing more than £30billion a year.

It's not totally clear what that £30billion refers to, it's not clear he knows either, but after suggesting immigrants are costing the taxpayer that much (by which he means white British people, as 'foreigners' don't appear to be taxpayers), he doesn't have to. The damage is done.

There are other outright lies. He talks about:

rising crime and ethnic tension

as if the latter is the fault of immigrants, rather than, say, racist newspapers which carry BNP slogans on their front page.

He should take a look at last night's Panorama too.

And 'rising crime'? The last British Crime Survey said the crime rate was stable and recorded crime was down 5%.

With no apparent logic at all he also states:

no fewer than 733,000 National Insurance numbers were handed out to newly arrived foreigners, making a mockery of Government claims that net migration is on the decline.

It's hard to see how those two things are related, or how one disproves the other. But he's wrong. As his own paper stated when the last immigration figures were released:

Overall, 118,000 more people arrived in Britain than left, the lowest net immigration figure since the EU expanded in 2004.

So, er, net migration is on the decline then.

McKinstry also uses the term

bogus refugees

eventhough it is meaningless. What is a 'bogus refugee'?

Towards the end he says:

the Labour lie machine goes on remorselessly, bullying us into “celebrating” our nation’s own demise.

It's hard to know exactly how McKinstry thinks the nation is in 'demise' or indeed how this is being 'celebrated'. Apart from frothing, fact-lite soundbites, what evidence does he have or examples does he give? None. It appears as if any change to the population or the work-force is, to him, ruining the country.

Therefore, here's a quote from the BNP on immigration:

The current open-door policy and unrestricted, uncontrolled immigration is leading to higher crime rates, demand for more housing (driving prices out of the reach of young people), severe extra strain on the environment, traffic congestion, longer hospital waiting lists, lower educational standards, higher income taxes, lower wages, higher unemployment, loss of British identity, a breakdown in community spirit, more restrictive policing, higher council taxes, a shortage of council homes, higher levels of stress and unhappiness and a more atomised society.

And here's a paragraph assembled from quotes in McKinstry's column:

Immigrants 'continue to flood in' as the 'Government has lost all grip on our borders'. This is leading to 'rising crime' and has 'imposed an intolerable strain on public services, especially the NHS, social security, housing and education'. 'Unemployment rises and living standards fall' and there is a 'huge burden for the taxpayer'. We see a 'transformation in our society' with 'ethnic tension' and 'recession, despair and social dislocation'. 'Britain has become a place of apprehension, fear and suspicion.'

The differences are minimal. And the conclusion both want you to reach is this: immigrants are to blame for everything that is wrong with Britain.

In a week when the BNP will probably get more publicity than at any time before, McKinstry doesn't use his column to attack the nasty, racist party, preferring instead to use the platform he has to peddle a load of anti-immigration myths that only help that party get its message out.

It's the manure that helps the BNP grow.

The unsavoury Richard Littlejohn

The main part of Richard Littlejohn's Tuesday 20 October column is an attack on the BNP. He spends part of it recalling the time he had a show on Sky News (yes, really) and of meeting various BNP people.

He says:

I put it to [Nick] Griffin that what set the BNP apart was the large elephant not in the manifesto, namely that it is the 'Wogs Out' party.

Yes, one of those odious 'Wogs Out' types. Not like Littlejohn at all, who in his dishonest look at the Bolivian immigrant who was(n't) saved from deportation by his cat story writes:

If the couple are determined to have a family life, they can have one in Bolivia.

'Wogs Out' indeed.

He moves on to talk about the time in 2004 that he 'moderated' a discussion between a BNP supporter and the Independent's Johann Hari:

The researchers had also invited an excitable teenage 'cultural commentator' from one of the unpopular papers by way of balance.

He managed to work himself up into such an hysterical, nasal lather of sweaty indignation - squealing like Ned Beatty in Deliverance - that he succeeded only in making the BNP man seem reasonable.

Of course, referring to him as an 'excitable teenager' is a way of belittling and patronising him so he doesn't have to admit the fact that Hari utterly humiliated him. He showed him to be a complete liar about the benefits asylum seekers get (Littlejohn wrote £117 per week, rather than £33 they actually recieved) and Littlejohn had absolutely nothing to say in return.

Enjoy - and savour it - here.

Hari's point was that the constant lies and exaggerations spread by Littlejohn (and others) about immigrants and Muslims gives the BNP a platform on which to build. The way Mail stories on these subjects appear on the BNP website within hours of being published by newspapers - including the cat story - is clear evidence of that.

But look again at way Littlejohn describes Hari.

'Squealing like Ned Beatty in Deliverance'. That is the infamous scene where Beatty's character is raped by another man.

And it is surely no accident that Littlejohn uses that reference solely because Hari is gay.

In a Tweet a few days ago, Hari revealed:

The BNP on their website call me "the notorious fat homosexual Johann Hari". I am considering changing my name to this by deed poll.

Attacking Hari and pointlessly raising his sexuality - clearly Littlejohn is appalled by the BNP.

Coming so soon after the infamous Jan Moir article, the Mail should be careful about insidious little homophobic remarks from their columnists. It would seem to raise similiar problems under Clause 12 of the PCC code, which deals with:

prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's...sexual orientation

and

Details of an individual's...sexual orientation...must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

Not only that but he sounds like the school bully, pathetically settling old scores now he has thought of a response five years later.

And, on the subject of Moir, Littlejohn is bizarrely quiet. There's 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 says is:

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

Hilarious. The man is a fool.

(Hat-tip to Killer Whale at the Mailwatch Forum for the Wogs Out comparison)

Littlejohn lies about a cat (to go with the two recent lies about dogs)

As predicted earlier today in a blog post about the nonsensical 'cat saves immigrant from deportation' story, Richard Littlejohn has included it in his column tomorrow.

He has lied twice about dogs recently, so why not lie about a cat too?

The story as presented by the Sunday Telegraph, Mail, Express, Sun and Star (and BNP) is not accurate, but that has never stopped Littlejohn before. He writes:

A Bolivian man living illegally in Britain has won his appeal against deportation on the grounds that he has a cat.

Well, it wasn't on those grounds at all. But never let the facts get in the way of a good anti-immigrant rant, eh?

Littlejohn even includes the scaremongering - and entirely irrelevant - bit from the Sunday Telegraph article that implies all immigrants are up to no good:

The case comes in a week in which the same court refused to deport 50 foreign criminals, including killers and sex offenders, because it might infringe their human rights.

Indeed, the whole piece is like a lazy copy-and-paste job from the Sunday Telegraph. As dreadful as Jan Moir's article was, Littlejohn churns out the same fact-free intolerant drivel twice a week. When will we get such a backlash against him?

He states:

Surely if joint ownership of a cat has to be taken into consideration, his application was bereft of all other merit.

And likewise, if the cat was 'immaterial' - as it was - then the case wasn't bereft of all other merit. And then there is no story. The Mail itself included the fact there were many other details, but Littlejohn conveniently ignores that.

But it's worth noting a comment left in response to this blog's take on the story from Barry O'Leary, the lawyer who represented the Bolivian man in the case. Here is what he has written:

Dear Tabloid Watch,

Thank you for your comments. You have made me feel sane in a day when insanity has ruled.

I am the lawyer quoted in this article. I was contacted by the Sunday Telegraph last week who had found this case on the Immigration Tribunal website. I explained clearly that the cat was irrelevant and, learning from experience, followed up with written comments as to why the case was won.

The Home Office conceded this case - they were not 'aghast', they accepted they had not applied their own policy and the cat was immaterial. As you have shown, the Telegraph begrudgingly explained this in the article but added a completely misleading headline. Of course, it was then picked up by all and reportedly completely inaccurately.

The sad fact is that it is now on the BNP website and people will believe it.

Where do I go from here? I agreed to an interview with a national radio station to try to get the message out but they lost interest when I explained the facts. I called Damian Green's office. they will 'send me a letter'.

The Telegraph were unfair but accurate on my quotes. Other sites have made up quotes.

I have been here many times as I have being doing immigration law for a long time but still do not have the answer to how to deal with this. Let it die a natural death? What do others suggest?

Once again, thank you reading what I said fully. I was starting to wonder if I had said something completely different.

Barry O'Leary

It is impossible not to be sympathetic that when he tells the media the cat was immaterial, he finds every article that follows focusing on it. And that now includes Littlejohn's.

Now that it has done the rounds it is probably too late to undo the damage. And we have seen how difficult it is to get any joy from the Press Complaints Commission. Perhaps it would be worth contacting them anyway. It might be possible to get a clarification from Littlejohn, although it will be hard work.

The cat was immaterial, the papers all say it was central. On that basis, some of the online articles may get removed and if Mr O'Leary can get the papers to mark their archives it may be able to stop the story being repeated in the future.

Unfortunately, for the BNP, Stormfront and other racist website/forums where this story has appeared, it is now accepted as 'fact'.

And that is why the papers should think far more carefully about the way the present such stories. Starting with someone that might seem obvious but clearly isn't when there is another agenda: is this true?

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'.

Giving the far-right a platform

Today's Express front page:


'Britain is full up'? Now where have we heard that before? Oh yes, in a BNP report from Calais entitled 'BNP Tells Calais Asylum Invaders to Go Home':
And at a BNP 'British jobs for British workers' demo:

The Express front page: home of BNP slogans.

Recommended read

5CC has an excellent post entitled The tabloids and right wing extremism which provides further evidence of said extremists using misleading, scaremongering tabloid headlines for their own ends.

Various posts on the same theme here.

Max and Mohammed

Last week, while this blog was taking a well-earned break, the Office of National Statistics released the list of the most popular baby names in 2008.

The coverage has been mentioned fairly comprehensively elsewhere, notably by Anton and Claude.

The Telegraph claimed in its headline that Jack had 'pipped' Mohammed to the top of the list, despite the fact Mohammed came in...err...16th.

But what they did was add up all babies with names which are variations of Mohammed (Mohammad, Muhammed and so on) to give the impression that England and Wales is being overrun with Muslim babies. Despite the fact, as Martin Belam as pointed out, Judaea-Christian names are totally dominant on the list.

The Telegraph neglected to mention that there doesn't appear to be any outwardly Muslim-sounding names in the top 100 girls list.

But it does get a juicy quote from Douglas Murray, the Director of the never-not-complaining-about-Islam-think-tank the Centre for Social Cohesion, who howls:

'It’s pretty disingenuous to put out these different spellings. The names are pretty much spelled in the same way.'

It's a theme that Max Hastings took up in his nasty rant in the Mail.

But why is it deemed beyond criticism that the girl's list contains Isabel, Isobel and Isabelle, but separating Mohammed and its variants is 'shabby' and 'disingenuous'?

You could make a similar case for the (separate) appearances of Joe and Joseph, Ben and Benjamin, Samuel and Sam, Zak and Zachary, Reece and Rhys.

But they don't.

In fact, there are perfectly sound (and rather obvious) cultural reasons for the fact Mohammed is so high. As Alex Massie wrote in the Spectator:

Muslims are much more likely to name their sons Mohammed than Christians are to call their son any single name. That is, there's much greater variance amongst non-Muslim families. In other words, unless you're wanting to stoke panic and resentment what kids are called is not a terribly useful metric.

Quite so. But stoking panic is the order of the day. Here's a quick look at the available figures. Based on the three top 100 entries (that is Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohammad) there were 6,591 babies given those names in England and Wales in 2008. That represents 1.81% of the total (362,963) of boys born that year.

Even of you include all the other variants mentioned by the Telegraph, it only comes to 2.09%.

In 2007, those top three totalled 6,245 out of 354,488 - 1.76%.

In 1997 it was 3,635 - 1.12%.

So the number of boys being given the names Mohammed, Muhammad and Mohammad - the three most popular versions - has increased by 0.69% in ten years.

This is what the BNP refer to as 'Islamic Colonisation via the Cradle'. And here's what Hastings says:

The ONS's hit parade of children's names, as released for publication, seemed designed to mask a simple truth which dismays millions of people, and which politicians and bureaucracies go to great lengths to bury: the Muslim population of Britain is growing extraordinarily fast.

Obviously there are other factors that increase the 'Muslim population of Britain' - such as immigration - but an increase of babies called Mohammed of less than one percent over ten years doesn't appear to warrant the claim of 'growing extraordinarily fast'.

But Hastings talk of masking truths is apt given his very next paragraph:

In 2007, 28 per cent of children born in England and Wales, rising to 54 per cent in London, had at least one foreign-born parent. In 2008, 14.4 per cent of primary school children claimed some other tongue than English as their first language.

See what he did there? Talking about Muslims one sentence and then slipping into overall immigration figures the next and hoping Mail readers think the two are the same thing. And he has the cheek to accuse the ONS of being 'deceitful'.

He goes on to repeat claims of a Muslim takeover of Europe, suggesting it is respectable American neocon (no, those words shouldn't go together) pundits, rather than the BNP, who believe:

Europe, and Britain in particular, is threatened by a Muslim tide which will not merely transform its traditional culture but, frankly, bury it.

In a series of recent books, they argue that Islam is colonising this continent in a fashion that will render it unrecognisable a generation or two hence.

It's a crass and unpleasant bit of rhetoric and could easily have come from the BNP. And indeed has. In a recent story about Europe being 'overrun by Islam' they wrote:

The controlled media has finally admitted what the British National Party has been saying all along: that all of Europe stands on the brink of being overrun and colonised by masses of Third World Muslim invaders...

The BNP has been the only party to warn about the coming demographic tidal wave which, if left unchecked, will extinguish all of Europe and bring an end to thousands of years of Western civilisation.

Spot the difference? So the BNP is taking comfort from the 'controlled media' peddling myths that supports its racist views. Well done Max. Again.

In fact, that BNP article was based on an earlier Telegraph piece which was discussed on this blog before and which doesn't really stand up to any close scrutiny. And Max draws the same incorrect conclusions.

He goes on to claim:

Today, the adolescent children of immigrants tell pollsters that they feel much less integrated into British society than many of their parents profess.

It's hard to know where is evidence is for this, because the latest academic research done on integration showed:

Watching soaps, reading tabloids and turned off by politics – the children of International Migrants in Britain show a high degree of cultural assimilation compared to their European Neighbours.

Alas, most of the media ignored the findings, for obvious reasons, so no wonder Max (conveniently) missed that one.

But Max warms to the theme, suggesting unless they read Jane Austen or listen to The Archers they aren't integrating. As less than 5 million people a week listen to The Archers, that seems a hard test - and one that anyone with no tolerance for utterly tedious radio programmes would probably fail.

But it's also a very particular test. Because The Archers is so crushingly Middle Class, Middle England, white it reveals what Hastings is really on about: They aren't like you, the Mail reader, and me, the Mail columnist:

Parts of this country - its middle-class islands - are still wonderful places to inhabit. They are still definably old Britain.

Others, above all the inner cities, seem lost to civilisation. Everyone outside them, and especially our politicians, have abandoned them to unemployed families, feral children, unchecked crime and huge immigrant communities which may live in this country, but are tragically not of it.

Got it? If you aren't in Middle Britain, you aren't British. If you are in Middle Britain, you won't find a single criminal or out-of-control kid or unemployed person. And most importantly, no bloody foreigners.

He doesn't exactly hide his real thoughts either:

in Birmingham or Leicester...Muslims are soon expected to outnumber whites.

Is Hastings really peddling some imaginary battle between Muslims and whites here?

But he surely misses another point. If he thinks there is a problem with Muslims integrating into British society, maybe he should consider the impact of daily, misleading scare stories from tabloid newspapers and their ill-informed columnists about how evil and threating Muslims are. The type of articles that give succour to racist groups such as the BNP and the English Defence League and which put a 'respectable' face to their intolerant views.

In other news, Mail columnist Melanie Phillips has found her latest book added to the BNP's 'recommended reading' list.

BNP repeats Mail's racist story on immigrant 'killers'

Predictably, the BNP have posted their version of the Daily Mail's disgusting One out of every five killers is an immigrant story. 'Immigration is literally killing us' is once again a complete cut-and-paste job and leaves out comments such as:

The figures showed foreigners were also more likely to be victims of murder or manslaughter.

This is buried deep in the Mail story. Why is that not a major story? Could it because the Mail might then have to deal with what causes people to hate and murder immigrants?

Incidentally, the figures the Mail uses - already proved to be bollocks by 5CC - are based on people:

accused or convicted of murder or manslaughter

The BNP makes no such distinction on this point, and although the Mail includes that caveat, it ignores it. Surely including people who were only 'accused of' a crime along with people actually 'convicted' makes the figures worthless.

Or even more worthless.

About those population numbers

A few short observations on the coverage of the population statistics, looked at in greater length over at 5CC.

1. It was entirely predictable that the one element of the stats that was in the favour of the anti-immigration lobby - the births to migrant mothers - would be the focus of the tabloid coverage. That the Express and Mail chose to use much the same headline on their front pages shows how little they otherwise had to cheer about.

There is the old problem of who these papers consider 'migrants', as many may well have become British citizens. As the Mail admits deep in its story:

Some of these [babies], however, will be of British descent.

But is Migrant Baby Boom even accurate? Well not entirely. Yes a quarter of all births were to migrant mothers. But the percentage increase was only 0.9% from 2007 (23.2%) to 2008 (24.1%). Does an increase of less than one percent make it a 'boom'?

And is Migrant Baby Boom even news? After all, both the Express and the Mail were telling us in May how 1 in 4 births were to migrant mothers.

Oh, and then there was the Mail article in July 2007 revealing...wait for it...'One in four babies born to migrant mothers'.

And this is what the Star refers to as a 'huge immigrant baby boom'.


2. There is the same old problem with the coverage and the 'experts' used. No TaxPayer's Alliance, surprisingly, but Damien Green, Migrationwatch and Balanced Migration, who all have the same agenda.

But what about the Refugee Council? What about the IPPR? Dramatic fall in migration figures exposes the scaremongering of anti-immigration groups is not what the tabloids want to report, so the Express was the only one to quote the IPPR at all - in one sentence at the very end of their coverage.


3. The Express phone poll of the day is: Has Labour's migration policy wrecked Britain?

Vile.


4. The Express editorial claims immigration 'weakens' and 'threatens' British society, and raises the spectre of 'militant Islamism', just so the readers know immigration is bad, damaging and dangerous.

Despite a fall in immigration, and the lowest net immigration for five years, they claim the government is 'deluded' for claiming immigration is under control.

The editorial ends with the highly inflammatory line:

Unless sanity prevails Britain will become grossly overpopulated and tragically unrecognisable.

It sounds like something the BNP would say, who warn of the:

extinguishing of Britain and British identity under a tsunami of immigration.

5. The Express is being more than a little dishonest in its story Exodus of Britons growing. The first line claims 400,000 left Britain - the website version even illustrated by a wholesome white family with three children. Allied with the headline the message of 'white flight' is clear. But it is also wrong.

For one thing of the 395,000 who left the UK in 2008, 237,000 were foreigners returning home, and 158,000 were British citizens. Therefore Britons are in a minority of those leaving.

Also, the population figures from two years ago showed 196,000 British citizens leaving, so the 'exodus' is less, not 'growing'. If it is an 'exodus' at all.

Mail and Express stories turn up as BNP press releases

It is a point that has been made on this blog many times before, but the BNP has done its usual cut-and-paste job on stories that have caught their racist eye in the last few days.

The first was the Express/Star story on the Islamic website forum discussing the war in Afghanistan which became the BNP's 'Islamist Muslims in Britain Celebrate British Deaths on Internet'.

And then yesterday's pisspoor Mail investigation into foreign workers was twisted again by the party and turned into 'More Immigrant Jobseekers than Indigenous Brits, New Figures Reveal', which isn't what the already dodgy figures revealed at all.

The Mail and Express - providing fodder for the BNP.

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...