McKinstry and The Mentalist

Leo McKinstry's column in today's Express ran with the headline:


The intro to the article says:

Move over Morse. Columbo, hang up that raincoat. Shut it, Sherlock. There’s a new TV detective on the prowl. LEO McKINSTRY is bowled over by 'The Mentalist'...

The Mentalist? Really?

Yes, although the rest of that sentence might help explain why:

LEO McKINSTRY is bowled over by 'The Mentalist', which returns to Channel Five tomorrow.

Ah. It's a programme broadcast on Channel Five which is owned, like the Express, by Richard Desmond.

What a coincidence.

McKinstry is gushing in his praise throughout this shameless puff-piece:

But there has never been a maverick in the crime genre quite like Patrick Jane, the hero of the US TV series The Mentalist, which returns for its third season on Channel Five tomorrow.

That's just in case you didn't catch when the new series starts when it was mentioned three paragraphs before.

And it just goes on and on:

Until the arrival of The Mentalist I had always thought that Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes was in a league of his own as the ultimate TV crime-solver.

And:

The Mentalist is completely different to anyone who has gone before.

And:

So striking are Patrick’s powers of perception he could be taken for a mind-reader.

And:

The Mentalist has a host of other qualities that enhance his appeal, such as his rich sense of humour, reflected in the wide smile. Again this contrasts with the innate grumpiness that seems to characterise so many detectives.

And:

Another crucial ingredient that [write Bruno] Heller provides is a tremendous sense of narrative power.

And the final paragraph:

As series three starts there is a dark sense of foreboding, eerily similar to Sherlock Holmes’s fateful battle against Professor Moriarty, which ended with both of them plunging to their doom at Reichenbach Falls. Whatever the final outcome for the Mentalist it will make gripping television.

In all, the Express has devoted just under 1,200 words to plug a programme on Channel Five.

According to the Express website, McKinstry has written 84 articles for the paper this year, the overwhelming majority of which are about politics. This is the first one devoted to a single television programme.

Of course, it is entirely possible that McKinstry genuinely believes The Mentalist is this good.

But given he writes two columns a week for the Express, it seems odd that he doesn't appear to have mentioned it at any time during the previous two series.

The two series broadcast on Channel Five before Desmond owned it.

The vile rhetoric of Leo McKinstry

Leo McKinstry is a nasty, intolerant man who gets paid to churn out deeply unpleasant, utterly charmless and endlessly repetitive rants on the Express op-ed page twice a week.

Yesterday's column was one that has been seen many times before: Britain is crap, and it's all the fault of Labour and the immigrants. In 'Labour is guilty of a sickening act of national betrayal' he writes:

Many parts of our towns and cities no longer resemble Britain.

All sense of social cohesion has been lost. We no longer have a common culture, shared heritage or even universal language.

'No longer resemble Britain'? He doesn't say explicitly that there are too many people around who aren't white, but he might as well.

Later, he makes a direct link between immigration and violent crime:

the consequences of mass immigration: the violent crime; overcrowded transport and overstretched hospitals and schools.

It's really quite depressing to read these views getting such a platform. But it's hardly a surprise - he's being repeating the same things for years.

At the start of February, when calling Gordon Brown the worst PM in history, McKinstry said:

Our sense of national identity has been destroyed by the twin forces of mass immigration and multi-culturalism.

Hmm. Sounds familiar. He goes on to claim the Government is engaged in a:

desperate appeasement of militant Islam

although fails to produce much evidence for that. As usual.

In the column before that, 'We are betrayed by Labour's sick, so-called justice' he says:

the Government wilfully destroys our borders, appeases militant Islam, turns London into the global capital of jihad

Ah. That again. But London? More than, say, Afghanistan or Pakistan? Really?

The previous week, in an article about how he would save billions of public spending, he advocated abolishing the entire overseas aid budget as well as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and its 'politically correct bullying'.

And, of course, the immigrants and Muslims got a kicking too:

It is particularly outrageous when the benefits go to grasping migrants who have made no contribution to our society, as highlighted by a string of recent cases where new arrivals have been given housing benefits worth more than £100,000 to live in luxurious houses in west london, far beyond the dreams of most Britons.

Why should we be required to support in our jails foreign criminals who should be de- ported, or give welfare hand- outs to Muslim extremists who want to blow us up? This abuse of the taxpayer has to end. Radical surgery of the state would be a gain, not a pain.

The lack of capital letters and other formatting errors, incidentally, mark all McKinstry's online articles - it's not clear why.

'It is time to stand up to this plague of violent crime', he raged on 18 January. Guess who's responsible for that, according to McKinstry:

Mass immigration has not only shattered social cohesion but also brought a vast influx of criminals into our society. According to police figures, one murder in every five is committed by a foreigner.

That figure is totally untrue, but just because it's not true, doesn't mean he won't keep mindlessly repeating it.

Then there was 'Immigrants squat in your house and you're powerless' on 14 January, in which he claimed:

large swathes of our country have been taken over by hordes of migrants who have made no contribution to our society yet still believe they are owed a living by the British public.

His two rants before that didn't mention immigration or Islam, but on 28 December normal service was resumed:

For Brown has wilfully put the British people at risk from terrorism by promoting the Islamification of our country, appeasing the radicals and encouraging the settlement here of over two million Muslims.

A 2009 Labour Force Survey put the number of Muslims in Britain at 2.4 million. As there were 1,591,000 at the time of the 2001 census, Brown hasn't encouraged - or even overseen - any such thing.

This blog had previously exposed the repetitive nature of McKinstry's columns - he refers to Labour as Marxists who loathe Britain repeatedly too - as well as their inaccuracies.

But the far more serious concern is that his rhetoric is so inflammatory. In his world, migrants are benefit-grasping, violent criminals who ruin Britain and are responsible for most of the problems in the country today. Muslims are all would-be terrorists who are constantly 'appeased' (a carefully chosen word given its historical context) by Government.

McKinstry never writes anything in praise of immigrants. Indeed, he never mentions immigrants at all unless it's to castigate them or blame them for some ill.

And who does that benefit? It certainly doesn't help that 'social cohesion' he claims to be so worried about.

His language often sounds much like the language of the BNP. So it's no surprise to find a thread with the title 'Fantastic article by Leo McKinstry' (about one of his efforts on immigration and the Government hating white people) on the Stormfront forum.

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.

Express turns comments from forum into 'story'

On 19 August, the Express and Star both carried a story about some comments posted on the forum of the Islamic Awakening website about the war in Afghanistan.

The Express' Sick fanatics cheer body bags begins:

British Muslim fanatics sparked fresh fury last night by praising Taliban “heroes” for sending our troops back from Afghanistan in body bags.

Of course, any time the word 'fury' turns up in a story, it immediately means they've phoned up some of their favourite quote whores and got some suitable 'outraged' quotes (see TaxPayers Alliance, Campaign for Political Correctness, Philip Davies MP).

There are many problems with this story, and the way it has been presented.

Let's be blunt - running stories based on a few comments from a forum is pathetic. If you look hard enough you could find someone saying anything you want on a forum somewhere. It really doesn't mean anything.

The Express then says:

Last night there were calls by senior politicians for the Home Office to crack down on the hate-filled rants that will distress even further the relatives of troops who gave their lives fighting the Taliban.

This is a ridiculous statement. If these 'hate-filled rants' are so distressing, why are the Express and Star going to the trouble of reprinting them? It's more than likely that the families of soldiers aren't reading the Islamic Awakening website (or have even heard of it).

But the Star and the Express sell 1.6m copies a day. So who is really causing the distress?

The Star goes on to blame favoured hate-figure Abu Hamza in their headline Hooky rants over 'body bags' toll. But the story offers only this:

Meanwhile sick rants have been posted on websites linked to hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza.

Which is not really the same thing. Indeed, the picture caption on the story admits:

Abu Hamza is said to have launched a sick rant

'Said to have'? Hardly conclusive then is it? So why bring him into the story at all?

And then there are those comments that the Express seems so bothered about. Are they really 'hate-filled rants'? Take the third and fourth ones they mention:

“Waziri” said: “By command of Allah, the invading forces will be forced to withdraw humiliated and defeated by a group of men who between them do not possess even one transport helicopter.”

“Noorah”, said: “They are really getting whooped. Don’t know how they think they can win.”

Are those really 'hate-filled rants'?

And then there is the first one they list which reads:

“Isma’eel”, said: “Man, they really are dropping like flies over there lol [laugh out loud].”

Except, that isn't all that Isma'eel said. They conveniently ignored the rest of his post:

The ppl of the UK need to wake up and start demanding for their sons and daughters to return home instead of fighting in a useless war. They've been lied to for so many years.

A sentiment that many people would agree with, and which is nothing like a 'hate-filled rant'.

Indeed, Express columnist Leo McKinstry said in his 20 August article:

Ministers in charge of the campaign have been both incompetent and deceitful. Not only have they systematically failed to provide sufficient resources for the fight but they have also lied to the public on an epic scale...

We should bring home all our services personnel immediately.

Which sounds very similar to the 'vile' message of the 'fanatic' Isma'eel.

Oops.

Although McKinstry often does write hate-filled rants against Muslims and immigrants, the Express thinks those are acceptable. So why is the Express and McKinstry allowed their free speech so say what they want, but other people - namely Muslims - are not?