That darn cat!

After two years and one political spat, the claim that a cat saved a man from deportation refuses to go away.

It dates back to a Sunday Telegraph article from 17 October 2009 which had the headline 'Immigrant allowed to stay because of pet cat'. The following day, the Mail, Express, Sun and Star all ran the story, the Express going with the headline 'Got a cat? OK, you can stay'.

The story was then repeated by columnists including Richard Littlejohn, Amanda Platell, Sue Carroll and Eamonn Holmes, who stated:

If you are an illegal immigrant facing deportation from the UK then don't worry - just tell the authorities that you have a cat and they will let you stay.

Except, they won't, because - as Dominic Casciani makes clear - that isn't what happened. The Telegraph's Tom Chivers explains:

There never was someone who could not be deported because he had a pet cat. It goes back to a Bolivian student (not an illegal immigrant) who applied to stay in this country. In his application, he does indeed mention a pet cat. But he was granted leave to remain in Britain as "the unmarried partner of a person present and settled in the United Kingdom", not as the owner of a British cat. Under UK Border Agency rules (not the Human Rights Act), if a couple has lived together for two years in "a genuine and subsisting relationship akin to marriage", they have a right to stay, regardless of whether they're married.

Yet the cat has popped up occasionally since 2009. In March 2011, a text to the Daily Star made a 'joke' of it. It was mentioned again in the Star on 14 July, in the Mirror on 13 June and in a Daily Mail editorial on 20 June.

And on Tuesday, Home Secretary Theresa May said:

“We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act...The illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because – and I am not making this up – he had a pet cat.”

As Kevin Arscott noted, she was right to say she wasn't 'making this up' - instead, she was repeating something that wasn't correct that had appeared in several newspapers.

But it had been debunked. The lawyer in the case, Barry O'Leary, was quoted saying the cat was 'immaterial' - including on on Radio Five Live - but this was either ignored or overlooked.

As Adam Wagner of UK Human Rights Blog, writes:

Put it this way. If I had a client who was facing deportation and I wanted to show that the simple fact that he had a cat meant that he should stay, and I tried to use the Bolivian cat judgment as a precedent, I would be laughed out of court.

Following May's speech the Judicial Communications Office reissued their two-year old statement which pointed out:

"This was a case in which the Home Office conceded that they had mistakenly failed to apply their own policy - applying at that time to that appellant - for dealing with unmarried partners of people settled in the UK.

"That was the basis for the decision to uphold the original tribunal decision - the cat had nothing to do with the decision."

But that didn't stop today's Daily Mail claiming it had the 'truth':

A judge allowed an illegal immigrant to dodge deportation because he feared separating him from his cat risked ‘serious emotional consequences’, it emerged yesterday.

The human rights ruling, obtained by the Daily Mail, vindicates Home Secretary Theresa May over the ‘cat-gate’ row with Justice Secretary Ken Clarke at the Tory Conference.

She claimed that the cat, Maya, was a key reason behind the decision to let the man, a Bolivian national, stay in Britain

They were so sure of their version of events, they put it on the front page.

Yet on page 17, even their own columnist wasn't even convinced. Stephen Glover said May was:

partly misinformed as well as uninformed

Back to the front page article, however, and there was the inevitable clarification towards the end, in which the Mail admitted:

the Bolivian – whose name is blacked out in the court documents – won on different grounds at a later hearing which found the department had not followed its own rules.

Today, Barry O'Leary has issued a lengthy riposte to the Mail and others. He says:

The Judicial Office has already made a statement in this matter and I wish to give my support to that statement.

The case referred to was not decided on the basis of ownership of a cat. It was decided on the basis of a Home Office policy which the Home Office themselves had failed to apply. This was accepted by the Home Office before the Immigration Judge. The Home Office agreed the appeal should be allowed. The ownership of a cat was immaterial to the final decision made. Any press reports to the contrary are not based on fact.

The Mail claimed:

Yesterday it was revealed that the Bolivian not only argued that he would suffer from being separated from his cat, but also that his pet’s quality of life would be affected.

But O'Leary replies:

I stress that it was not argued at any point by this firm, nor by my client, that he would 'suffer from being separated from his cat' nor that 'the pet's quality of life would be affected.' Our arguments were based on the long-term committed nature of the couple's relationship. Their ownership of a cat was just one detail amongst many given to demonstrate the genuine nature of their relationship.

He continues:

It was, in fact, the official acting on behalf of the Home Secretary who, when writing the letter of refusal, stated that the cat could relocate to Bolivia and cope with the quality of life there. This statement was not in response to any argument put forward by this firm or my client (and was, frankly, rather mischievous on behalf of the official).

The appeal against the refusal was successful and, when giving judgment, because the reasons for refusal did refer to the cat the judge commented on the couple's cat. It was taken into account as part of the couple's life together. However, it was not the reason for allowing the appeal. The appeal was allowed because of the couple's relationship, and the judge also relied on the Home Office policy that had not been applied.  

There is one further problem with the Mail running this story today. When the paper mentioned the cat on 20 June, a complaint was made to the Press Complaints Commission. The complainant stated that as Mr O'Leary had already made clear the cat was 'immaterial', the article breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code of Practice.

As the complainant was a third party, the PCC contacted Mr O'Leary who told them that his client did not want to make a complaint about the article. Without the participation of the subject of the story, the PCC did not feel able to adjudicate on the complaint.

But in its conclusion, it said:

The Commission fully acknowledged the concerns raised by the complainant in regard to the accuracy of the article...

While it emphasised that the complainant’s concerns were indeed legitimate, it did not consider, in the absence of the participation of the Bolivian man or his representative, that it was in a position to investigate the matter, not least because it would not be possible to release any information about the outcome of the investigation or resolve the matter without the input of the man.

That said, it recognised that the complainant had raised concerns which had a bearing on the accuracy of the claim made in the article and, as such, it trusted that the newspaper would take heed of the points raised in the complaint and bear them in mind for future coverage. 

Today's Daily Mail goes to prove how much the paper 'takes heed' of what the PCC says.

(More from Channel 4 Fact Check, Full Fact, David Allen Green, Alan Travis, Adam Wagner, Alex Massie, Ed West and Minority Thought)

Poppycock

The Mail's latest attack on the BBC is:


If BBC presenters were not wearing poppies, that would be wrong. Now they're being criticised for wearing them too early.

Primly Stable has already blogged on the Mail's article. She points out that their original headline was 'BBC presenters criticised by charities for wearing poppies too early' eventhough there are no 'charities' being critical, just a few individuals (including the usual BBC messageboard people).

Indeed, the Royal British Legion were quoted as saying:

'What we do say to people is that when you receive your poppies – organisations, retailers, whoever – we set guidelines and say the national launch will be from 28 October,' said a spokesman.

'But it's really down to the individual as to when they choose to wear their poppy. We would never say they're wearing their poppy too early.'

So no real problem then.

However, a second version of the article has severely reduced this quote.

The Telegraph, jumping on the BBC-slating bandwagon, have churned out their own version of the same story, but at least they point out that BBC presenters starting wearing poppies on 23 October this year - exactly the same date as they did last year. The Independent was also concerned, explaining in an editorial:

The wearing of poppies, like the preparations for Christmas, seems to start a few days earlier every year. The artificial red flower was already adorning many a BBC presenter's lapel on Saturday, more than three weeks before Remembrance Sunday on 14 November... By stretching out the time in which the poppy is worn, we devalue its significance.

And yet, this year, the Yeovil branch of the British Legion launched its poppy appeal on 23 October. Will these papers criticise them too?

Or will they criticise the Sun and Express for flaunting their poppies before the official appeal launch date on 28 October?



And what about the Daily Star? They were equally happy to report on the criticism of the BBC, but there was just something about their article which made it feel a little hypocritical:


Yes - their own banner poppy rather undercuts the message 'don't put on poppy too early'.

Payouts for man wrongly named in child porn case

In December, the Press Association wrongly identified a man convicted of child porn offences.

While the guilty Martyn Smith had worked at the BBC, he is not the same Martyn Smith as the producer of Dragon's Den - but it was this Smith that the PA named as the one involved.

The PA's error was compounded when one media outlet after another mindlessly repeated the mistake - a clear example of churnalism.

Last Thursday, it was announced that Smith had received £50,000 in damages from PA, £10,000 from the Mirror and £5,000 each from the Telegraph and Times.

Although others - such as the Daily Mail website, Brighton Argus, Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Scotsman and Belfast Telegraph - repeated the same error, they haven't yet paid anything to Mr Smith.

It's not quite clear why that should be - given the seriousness of the crime, every newspaper who wrongly identified him should be putting their hands in their pocket to pay him the damages he deserves.

It's 'PC gone mad' on gritting and knife-wielding popstars

The front page of the Sunday Telegraph from two days ago hasn't entirely held up under scrutiny.

The main story - a classic bit of health and safety gone mad nonsense which also appeared in the Mail on Sunday - suggested that if you try to clear the snow from outside your house, and then someone slips on it, you will be sued.

This was, they said, the 'warning' from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).

Alas, before Sunday was over, the IOSH issued a statement denying this:

This is not the IOSH position on gritting public areas. Neither has IOSH issued this as guidance.

Ah. And:

The words are, in fact, taken from a Croner contribution to the 'Just Ask' column of SHP magazine, in February of last year.

The IOSH Communications Director Ruth Doyle added:

'To lift this wording from an outside contribution to SHP magazine, published nearly a year ago, and pass it off as ‘IOSH guidance’ is completely irresponsible.'

Not content with that, they issued a second statement on Monday, which began:

The leading body for health and safety professionals is urging businesses and communities to do the right thing by clearing snow and ice from public areas.

Blasting the 'irresponsible' and 'inaccurate reporting' of the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph they repeated - in bold - that the papers' claims were:

not the IOSH position on gritting public areas.

And yet, both articles remain online, exactly as they were.

(Another Mail on Sunday story has also been challenged by the person quoted in it. Climate expert Mojib Latif has said he 'cannot understand' the paper's interpretation of his views on climate change).

The Sunday Telegraph's other main story was about Myleene Klass apparently being 'warned' by police for waving a knife at some intruders who appeared in her back garden. The story rocketed around the media (including two articles in the Guardian) as commentators lined up to dismiss the police for their political correctness gone mad.

Even David Cameron spoke out about it, despite admitting he:

did not know the full facts of the case.

Yet something just didn't seem quite right.

For one thing, Hertfordshire Police issued a statement saying:

'Officers spoke to reassure the home owner, talked through security and gave advice in relation to the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately to allow officers to act appropriately,' says a spokeswoman.

'For clarification, at no point were any official warnings or words of advice given to the home owner in relation to the use of a knife or offensive weapon in their home.'

Hmm. The fact that her agent Jonathan Shalit had fed the story to the media raised an eyebrow. Klass then said she had 'no regrets' - given the amount of free publicity she's had, no wonder.

A local paper tried to get some clarification from her agents following the police denial, but all they got was this:

'We are not making any comment on this as the police are now backtracking on what was said so we are leaving it there.'

Which could be read as: blanket coverage got, job done. Because, as Glen McNamee noted, a new TV singing contest (yes, another one) is about to start on ITV and she's co-hosting it with Alan Titchmarsh (appealing, isn't it?).

And perhaps the main reason to be sceptical that all might not be as it seems?

Richard Littlejohn was using it as an example of how PC the police have become these days. Needless to say, he made no mention of the police's statement but he did manage to spew out the hilarious 'Mind How You Go' and 'Yuman Rites'.

He's imaginative that way.

(Hat-tips to Liberal Conspiracy, Enemies of Reason, Glen McNamee)

Mail and Sun apologise but why won't the Telegraph?

On 14 May, the Sun, Mail and Telegraph published articles claiming a gang of Gypsies has smashed up a Surrey Police helicopter in revenge for surveillance flights over their camp.

Even then it seemed dubious - the stories quoted a police spokesman saying the identity of the vandals was 'unknown'.

So, two months later, it was hardly surprising when The Sun printed a retraction:

Surrey Police have not blamed gipsies for an attack on their force's helicopter, no staff in their operations rooms were threatened by gipsies and no gipsy site was being targeted for a raid as we reported on May 14. We apologise for the mistakes and are happy to set the record straight.

At the time, this blog questioned why the Mail and Telegraph hadn't published this too, as they had made the same claims.

Well, on 9 November, an apology crept out on the Mail website ('due prominence' indeed...).

Given that the wording is identical, where is the sense in the Sun apologising after two months, but the Mail taking nearly six to do the same?

Moreover, why is it that the Telegraph's article by Ben Leach is still available? Especially when the Telegraph even admit their article is all 'according to The Sun newspaper'?

So while the Sun's story has been retracted, Leach's re-write - based solely on that now withdrawn article - remains online.

This is an absurd situation which, unsurprisingly, reflects poorly on the PCC. Surely it can't be too difficult for them to do the following:

1. If, as in this case, several newspapers print the same lies, and the PCC then brokers a retraction on one of those articles, the PCC should be pro-active in ensuring the other versions are also removed and an apology published.

2. If the original story was trailed on a newspaper homepage, the apology/retraction/clarification should be trailed there as well.

Would that be so difficult?

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?

Mail returns to attacking immigrants and Muslims

The Daily Mail appears to have decided that it might need to stop picking on the gays for a bit and so has turned its attention back to immigrants and them Muslims.

There's the ludicrous cat story, a Melanie Phillips article about the BNP and another story about numbers of immigrants. And then there's this rather oddly worded headline:


'The schools told'. What?

This story, like the cat one, has been stolen from yesterday's Sunday Telegraph. The impression given by the Mail's headline is that this is widespread. This is a usual tactic - such as when seven policewomen in Bristol were given headscarves for when they enter mosques and the media made it sound as if everyone was getting one. Or when the Express said all Muslims believe one thing last week.

In fact, it is only two councils (Waltham Forest & Newham) in east London who say schools should close for Diwali, Eid-Ul-Fitr and Guru Nanak, but are now launching a review of the policy after complaints from some headteachers and others.

So it is a story which fits in with the 'minorities dictating our lives' agenda of the Mail and other tabloids.

But on the Mail website homepage, the headline is this:


Which makes it clear it's them Muslims causing the trouble again. The councils instruct schools to shut for three significant holy days: one Muslim, one Sikh and one Hindu.

So why 'Schools ordered to close for Muslims holy days'? It's only one Muslim holy day (not days), as it is equally one Sikh holy day and one Hindu holy day.

The Express have done the same thing with their headline: Ramadan? No school today. A headline which isn't even accurate as Eid-Ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan. Nonetheless, the story begins:

Parents and headteachers are furious after schools were given permission to shut for Ramadan and other non-Christian holidays in the name of multiculturalism.

Again, the focus is on the Muslims. Despite the fact 'shut for Ramadan' doesn't really come into it.

But there is an interesting point raised in an Evening Standard article by Felix Allen, which states:

All state schools under Waltham Forest's control have been closed for Eid-Ul-Fitr, Diwali and Guru Nanak's birthday - as well as Christmas and Easter - since the Eighties.

One of these councils has been doing it for twenty years? Certainly this article from 1995 makes clear it was happening in Waltham at least fourteen years ago.

Why do the articles therefore imply it is something new? And why do they focus on Islam more than the other religions?

Mail and Sunday Telegraph: cat-alysts for more anti-immigration feeling

Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph story Immigrant allowed to stay because of pet cat, has turned up in the Mail today as Migrant facing deportation wins right to stay in Britain... because he's got a cat.

Both articles make clear the cat was

one detail among many.

So how come the 'many' other details are not the focus of these articles?

Because both papers have an agenda to make the immigration system seem ridiculous and worthless, and to make immigrants appear engaged in any trick they can dream up in order to be allowed to stay.

It wouldn't take a genius to work out that those headlines may not be the whole story, and a look at the forty-plus comments left on the Mail website at time of writing rather proves the point.

One, claiming to be from the 'EUSSR' (see what he did there?) says:

Is it any wonder the UK is currently the laughing stock of the entire world?

You could not make it up.

Oh. Littlejohn quotes? Really?

However, it must be added that the Mail have only told half the facts, so it is perhaps small wonder the readers who are always ready to jump on any anti-immigration story pile in. The paper stops copy-and-pasting from the Sunday Telegraph article just around the point where the truth of the case comes out. Why would they do that?

Disgracefully, the Sunday Telegraph pushes in this paragraph:

The case comes a week after The Sunday Telegraph disclosed how the same court had given permission for more than 50 foreign criminals, including killers and sex offenders, to avoid deportation because of human rights concerns.

It has nothing to do with the case at hand, but serves to link immigrants with criminals, again.

But back to the 'cat' and the Mail states categorically:

An illegal immigrant was allowed to stay in Britain because he had a cat

The Mail has gone from 'migrant' in the headline to 'illegal immigrant' in the second line of the story. The Sunday Telegraph doesn't use 'illegal immigrant' at all, referring to him as 'immigrant' throughout.

But the Mail have made it clear - it's all because of that cat:

The unnamed Bolivian was spared deportation after he told a court that he and his girlfriend had bought the animal as a pet.

The Mail goes on to quote the disgust of Damien Green and Migrationwatch's Andrew Green. Hold on, what was that about Littlejohn quotes? Here's Andrew Green:

Drawing pets into the consideration of issues of such importance is so utterly absurd that you could not make it up.

Oh dear. (Incidentally, this is just the type of story Littlejohn is likely to cover in his column tomorrow...)

The Mail also quotes from the Bolivian man's lawyer, but not these crucial statements, included in the Sunday Telegraph:

Mr O'Leary [the couple's lawyer] added that his client originally brought the case because he should have benefited from a Home Office policy on unmarried partners which gives credit to couples who have been together more than two years. The Bolivian had been with his partner for four years, he said.

How convenient the Mail forgot to include that bit. And this bit:

"It was made clear by the initial judge and then by Senior Immigration Judge Gleeson that the appellant should benefit from that policy and be granted the right to remain," he said.

"Furthermore, it was accepted by the Home Office representative at the hearing before Judge Gleeson that the policy should apply and any other errors in the initial decision by the judge, including too much detail on the cat, were immaterial."

And this bit:

He added: "This case was won because the Home Office had a policy which they did not initially apply but later, through their representative, they accepted should have been applied."

A spokesman from the Judicial Communications Office said: "This was a case in which the Home Office conceded that they had mistakenly failed to apply their own policy for dealing with unmarried partners of people settled in the UK."

So the actual story is the Home Office had a policy which it didn't adhere too.

Moreover, the 'too much detail' on that cat was 'immaterial' and accepted as much by the Home Office.

So how does that become 'immigrant stays because of cat'?

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.