Posts Tagged ‘daily mail’
Poppy monoculture: a draconian silence falls over Wembley
Without any hint of irony the Daily Telegraph hears that England – the national football side rebranded ‘The Three Lions’ – are allowed to wear pictures of poppies on their shirts and calls it a “major victory for the British game”. England might not win many meaningful football matches but when it comes to decorating our tops, decades of hurt have been undone. On November 10, England will wear poppies on their shirts as they play – get this – Germany at Wembley.
Before last year’s Armistice Day, FIFA banned England and Scotland — as well as Wales and Northern Ireland — from wearing the poppy, the symbol of remembrance, for matches on that day. FIFA says “political, religious or personal” designs should no infect the national shirts. But England and Scotland players wore them anyhow, albeit as black armbands with a poppy motif. Odd, no? Football is about rules. It’s all about rules. Without rules there is no sport. Flouting the rules is no small deal.
Rory Smith notes that “Until 2009, it was rare for British club teams to display a poppy on their uniforms at this time of year… A campaign led by the Daily Mail that year changed all that. The intention, of course, is an admirable and honorable one: to show that football, as the slogan goes, remembers. That is not, however, necessarily the effect. Wearing a poppy is designed as an individual act; when it becomes compulsory, it loses not just much of its impact, but some of its meaning.”
An act of remembering in a minute’s contemplative silence became enforced duty. And it became political. Theresa May called it was “utterly outrageous” that FIFA should rule on poppies. The FA says “common sense” has won. The Sun calls it “VICTORY – Poppy ban KO-d as FIFA sees sense”. “POPPY VICTORY,” declares the Express. “POPPY POWER,” hails the Mail. “Sportsmail ran a successful campaign in 2009 for all Premier League clubs to have the poppy emblem on their shirts, which is now commonplace.” No. It’s compulsory. And anyone who objects is portrayed as morally repugnant.
In 2010, Celtic fans protested a decision for their club’s shirt to feature the poppy. Their banner declared: “Your deeds they would shame all the devils in hell. Ireland, Iraq, Afghanistan. No blood-stained poppy on our hoops.” Celtic vowed to ban he protestors. The Sun called them “hate mobs”. Don’t sing sectarian chants about past battles and loss, goes the top-down directive, but you must wear the poppy.
This is not about heartfelt remembrance, giving private thanks to the sacrifices of so many for our freedom (to choose) and supporting the armed forces; it’s about public displays of group think and compliance.
Posted: 25th, September 2017 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets, Key Posts, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
After Parsons Green, sympathy for the bombers
“Is THIS the Tube bucket bomber?” (Daily Star). Or to put it another way, “ON HIS WAY TO BOMB TUBE?” (The Sun). Or “Is this the Bucket Bombed On Way To Tube?” (Daily Express). To which the answer is ‘Dunno, is it?’
All that cash once earmarked for pre-Leveson shag ‘n’ tells could to be used to investigate jihadis in our midst. But the big-budget tabloids are content with playing catch-up. So around a grainy photo of a figure dressed in a grey tracksuit carrying a Lidl shopping bag in Sunbury-on-Thames, we get to wonder if he’s the one who placed a bomb at Parsons Green station. And, of course, we don’t know what to make of the video caught on a homeowner’s CCTV. We also don’t know why a homeowner in leafy Surrey is filming the street. Is it a dangerous area?
The Express has more on the attack over pages 4 and 5. Two men have been arrested. One arrived in the UK when he was 15, having “fled” Iraq. He was fostered by Penelope Jones and Ronald Jones. The other man is 21. He’s an Iraqi refugee also once cared for by the Joneses. The couple’s neighbour says the lad “wanted to leave home”. Well, job done. Another neighbour says the 18-year-old “seemed a really nice chap”. But he “seemed to be up at unusual hours”. In the Mail, however, he’s a “tearaway” who “was held by police just two weeks ago at Parsons Green station”. The Mirror hears him called “out of control”.
In other news, the terror threat has been reduced from ‘critical’ to “severe”. Just two weeks ago, it was at ‘Armageddon’, what with North Korean threats and Hurricane Irma. We live in hyperbolic times.
Think Of The Children
In the Sun, we get to know the name of the 21-year-old suspect. He’s Yahyah Farroukhm who was pinched at Aladdins [sic] Fried Chicken in Hounslow, West London, not far from his home in Stanwell, which is within inhaling distance of Heathrow Airport. At the time of his arrest, Farroukh was carrying a Kitkat and a drink can, which he dropped. The Mail says he has posted about his passion for smoking weed and anti-Israel images. But if those interests mark your out as a jihadi, then so much the worst for snowflake students and the hard-Left, although neither of those groups would be seen dead with a high-sugar KitKat.
Only in the Mail do we see the story couched as an asylum issue. “Council struggle to cope with influx” of “thousands of troubled teenagers” says the paper. It counts them all: a “staggering 4,2010 asylum-seeking juveniles” in council care across Britain”. The Mail says this is not to say they are all nutcases, just to highlight how many “vulnerable” children could “fall prey to radicalisation”.
A few words from some loon on the internet, and the normal, caring lad morphs into a mass murderer. Well, so goes the narrative. What it misses, of course, is the bit about what draws people towards radical and violent Islam? Why do they think it’s a worthy cause?
Policymakers and the media continually refer to young Muslims as ‘vulnerable to radicalisation’. The term ‘vulnerability’ suggests passivity, powerlessness and gullibility. It suggests, in short, that those called vulnerable lack the intellectual resources necessary to cope with challenges. No doubt there are some weak and confused individuals drawn towards the jihadist subculture. But the reality is that most people who travel to Syria, for example, do so because they are inspired by a cause they believe is worth fighting for. Often such individuals show a capacity for planning, dissimulation, inventiveness and, above all, initiative.
The idea of vulnerability invokes individual characteristics that are often the very opposite to those actually possessed by people making the risky voyage to the Middle East. Contrary to the myth of vulnerability, these young people are – albeit misguidedly – attempting to exercise a measure of agency over their life.
If the would-be killer is so vulnerable – groomed by sick adults – is he recast from perpetrator to victim? It’s not terrorism. It’s child abuse. And how can the vulnerable be protected? The Mail says we should clamp down on Google and all that easy-to-reach knowledge. Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP, agrees. “The internet giants have made it much harder for people to find child abuse images online,” she says. “It’s time they showed the same commitment to tackling terrorism.” See images of child rape and become a paedophile, goes the thinking? See instructions on bomb making and blow up the London Underground. To see is to download and do.
The terrorists will never win, comes the declaration. But if their aim is to reduce our hard-won freedoms and make us distrustful of adults, then the enemy is having some success.
Posted: 18th, September 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Parson’s Green bomb: Islamic State shop in Lidl and read the Daily Mail
The bomb on the London Underground is wrapped in a shopping bag. On the side you can read ‘Lidl’, the name of the German discount supermarket chain. That the bomb – believed to be a peroxide device – fails to detonate fully at Parson’s Green Tube station is blessed relief. But some of the 29 people injured are badly burnt by the explosion shortly after 8am.
One ay on the media tuck in.
In the absence of a bomber’s face to feature on the front pages, the paper opts instead for the bomb, and with the Lidl carrier bag it was contained within. Once a byword for cheap and trusty family goods, will Lidl become synonymous with terrorism? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Lidl has offered to assist a police investigation. The company states: “We are shocked and concerned to have learned of an incident at Parsons Green this morning and our thoughts are with those affected. We will, of course, support the authorities should they need our assistance in their investigations. We are closely monitoring the situation as it develops over the course of the day.”
Unenviable stuff.
Meanwhile…the Daily Mail blames another brand for an act of would-be mass murder.
Got that? The Mail says that because knowledge can be accessed through Google rather than simply buying a book, say, or talking to someone on the phone, the messenger is to blame.
Like most of you, I have no idea how to build a bomb. But I did pick up a few pointers in the.. Daily Mail.
The Lidl coolbag was used to ‘keep the device stable’. Got it.
There’s more. After the Manchester bomb, the Mail captioned a photo: “Suicide bomber Salman Abedi carried the explosive in a metal container, believed to have been in a Karrimor backpack.” The paper said the bag costs £20.
Other tips came:
A 12-volt lead acid battery found at the scene suggest the makers were careful to reduce the risk of it not going off, experts say. It is more powerful than most seen in backpack bombs or suicide vests and is commonly used for emergency lighting.
If you want more, the Mail directed loons as to where more could be found:
AL-Qaeda has published detailed instructions on how to build a ‘hidden bomb’ to use to blow up a passenger jet… In the latest issue of its online magazine, Inspire, the group outlines how to make the bomb from household goods and without using metal components that would show up in airport security checks.
But hold on. The Mail has other news – bigger news:
‘Newspaper Giant Triggers Armageddon.’ What you won’t read in the Mail.
Posted: 16th, September 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Blitzkrieg: Arsenal fans beyond parody as German ‘Nazis’ invade from Cologne
At last night’s Arsenal v Cologne match in the Europa League, things did not go smoothly. Fans behaved as football fans used to, arriving at the stadium without tickets and in high spirits. Around 20,000 fans of FC Koln arrived with just under 3000 tickets between them.
The sensible move would be to flog tickets on the gate, letting fans be with their mates and follow their side without need to register with clubs, load up credit card details and be processed in a way the Stasi would find a bit much. But no. Everyones needs a seat. And with a seat comes a number. And with that number comes control.
(Cologne’s 50,000 capacity: 50,000 has space for 8,175 standing fans.)
And so it is that 20,000 Germans football fans in London for their side’s first European match since 1992 are portrayed as an army of Nazis. “Thug urinate in street, make Nazi salutes and storm the turnstiles,” says the Mail. If pissing in the street makes you a thug, well, we’re all doomed. The definition of ‘thug’ according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary is: “a brutal ruffian or assassin: gangster, tough.” Hold the prison tats, knives, guns and bare-knuckle fighting. You just need a full bladder and a lack of public loos to be a thug.
CARNGE!
I was at the #Emirates with my other half when Twitter was going wild. But we seen no violence or madness. pic.twitter.com/J1xNeyTeOU
— Bryce Dunn (@BryceDunn11) September 15, 2017
And what of the Germans being Nazis? Well, for that there is but one source. “ITV political editor Robert Peston reported Nazi salutes and ‘peeing on doorsteps’.” Jim White on talkSPORT (“FANTASTIC! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU MY FRIEND THANK YOU FANTASTIC! etc…”) introduced “highly respected Arsenal fan Robert Peston”, who complained that the Germans “made a terrible mess” by dropping litter and urinating – “and I’ve got a few mates who live near the ground”.
Deary dear, eh. But Peston’s not alone is being upset. On the BBC website, the corporation has collected a narrow range of views, which were it not for any knowledge of what football now represents – moralising, family-friendly entertainment for a TV audience – we’d think the work of a parodist.
Rachel: “In the Emirates as a home fan. Ashamed of Arsenal right now. All the warnings about turning away fans away and they’ve done nothing. No stewards to be seen. Feeling so intimidated.”
Ade: “Currently inside the Emirates, thousands upon thousands of German fans everywhere around us. Horrible tense atmosphere. Tens of thousands of fans being made to feel very unsafe, including very young children.
Foz: “Got to my usual seats in Club level with my 11-year-old son. Surrounded by Cologne fans. So unsafe we have been moved to the other side of the ground. Worst feeling at football in 40 years of watching home and away.”
Chris: “Currently in the home end at Emirates – away section (corner) full and in full voice. Hundreds of people joining in the singing in the adjacent section behind the goal that should be for Arsenal supporters. Can only assume they are Cologne fans.”
Steve: “Don’t feel safe inside and won’t feel safe outside. Should be called off and the Cologne fans sent packing. Arsenal fans who sold their tickets should be banned.”
All pitiful stuff. But at least in the Sun, Dave Kidd does note:
But this did not feel like the bad old days of hooliganism…. A walk around the outside of the Emirates shortly before the original kick-off time, before the turnstiles finally opened, simply showed thousands of English and German supporters shrugging their shoulders and asking each other politely what the hell was going on.
Blitzkrieg! We march at dawn.
Posted: 15th, September 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal versus Cologne balls: German ‘army invades’ London and media prays for blood
Good fun in Soho as a large contingent of Cologne fans marched along singing their songs. The police didn’t kettle them, send for the attack dogs nor smash their heads in. And so about 20,000 Cologne fans clutching 2,900 tickets between them arrived at The Emirates for the club’s match with Arsenal.
FC Koln fans taking over #OxfordStreet ahead of tonight's #EuropaLeague clash with #Arsenal #Cologne #FCKoln pic.twitter.com/xaSsFOwwAo
— Gary Stonehouse (@garystonehouse) September 14, 2017
They can’t all get in. So the match has been delayed.
Has there been any bother, then? Lots of fighting and broken class? Patio furniture tossed about the place and blood on the pavement?
Oha sayın seyirciler. Köln taraftarı 20 bin kişiyle Arsenal deplasmanına gelmiş. Hepsi içeriye girmeye çalışıyor, maç bir saat ertelendi. pic.twitter.com/ChJSFMIyyK
— Okan Okumuş (@okumusokan) September 14, 2017
A Met Police spokesman tells us: “At around 15:00hrs on Thursday, 14 September a large group of football fans gathered in Oxford Street, W1. The group were at the location for about 30 minutes whilst they boarded public transport to travel to a football match this evening. They did throw bottles and let off flares, but there was no significant disorder, police were on scene and there have been no arrests. The group has now left the area.”
Bit of a laugh, then. A few berks throw bottles but that’s about it. No more (surely much less – ed) than the high spirits you see at rugby matches.
So how does the Daily Mail report on the joyful rowdiness?
Germans invade London: Fights break out as an army of 20,000 Cologne football fans march through centre of the capital as kick-off of Europa League match with Arsenal is DELAYED for ‘crowd safety’
An invading army! The Mail’s ‘Crime Correspondent’ begins his report thus:
Violence erupted onto the streets of London after an army of German football fans marched through the centre of the capital.
Carnage! Or as the small print notes: “footage later emerged of two men being punched and kicked in a street during clashes.” Two men fighting. Call of the RAF. Stand down the nuclear submarine. The war might over as soon as the Hans and Jurgen tire.
At the Ground.
Well, a load of Cologne fans seems to be in the Arsenal end. Good-oh. Lots of atmosphere for a change.
Pretty much everyone you see in this pic are Cologne fans – All those in the Arsenal end. They are everywhere. pic.twitter.com/5ca4X2S8Nt
— Charles Watts (@charles_watts) September 14, 2017
Koln fans fighting with stewards inside Emirates stadium. Group arrived in home end and fought their way into away section. pic.twitter.com/7RC17WZyz2
— Richard Conway (@richard_conway) September 14, 2017
Arsenal home section at the moment pic.twitter.com/ueEMiWaAuz
— Alex (@AlexTasker12) September 14, 2017
And finally… get his down to forensics!
Seats still aren't clean! @arsenal @LeGrove @SheWore @REDactionAFC @CharlieWyett pic.twitter.com/6Hl1lpHuJo
— The Block 5 Gooner (@Block_5_Gooner) September 14, 2017
PS – Arsenal fans are flogging their tickets to Cologne fans.
PPS: Reports that Cologne fans arrived yesterday to reserve their sets with towels as yet unproven.
Posted: 14th, September 2017 | In: Arsenal, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Louella Michie is dead and the Press all ask: ‘Who is John Michie?’
Louella Michie is not the subject of reports on her untimely death. The 25-year-old woman’s body was found dead on her birthday at the Bestival music festival. And ever since that unhappy discovery, the Press have been telling us who did not die: her father. The Daily Mail has produced 7 stories on Louella Michie’s unexplained death. It’s hard to spot Louella as the media zoom in on John Michie, her dad.
The Evening Standard had the news first, sticking to the facts. The body of a young London woman had been found at Dorset’s Bestival. Police were investigating. Murder was one line of enquiry.
And then the media realised that the dead woman’s father is on the telly. The pick of the front pages being the Daily Telegraph’s, which amid talk of her alleged ‘MURDER” described Louella as a “TV detective’s daughter”. John Michie had for a while appeared in Taggart, the Scottish detective show. In the twilight zone between fact and fiction, Telegraph readers might wonder if DI Robert “Robbie” Ross would be investigating.
These are the Daily Mail’s headlines. See if you can spot Louella Michie:
Holby City and Coronation Street star John Michie insists death of his daughter, 25, at Bestival was an ACCIDENT as he mourns his ‘angel’ after a man was arrested on suspicion of her murder – September 11th 2017, 11:54:26 am
Man held after daughter of Holby City star John Michie dies at Bestival – September 11th 2017
Man arrested over actor’s daughter’s death released under investigation – September 12th 2017
Drugs quiz for man held over death of daughter of Holby City´s John Michie – September 12th 2017
Holby City star’s daughter looked ‘odd and unsteady’ in the hours before she was found dead in secluded woods in drug-related death – September 12th 2017
But our pick of the Mail’s barrage of stories on the death of ‘John Michie’s daughter’ is this one about Louella Michie taking the ice-bucket challenge:
The daughter of TV actor John Michie, took part in the internet craze.
Today’s story in the Mail begins in customary fashion, with the victim absent:
The rapper boyfriend of Holby City star John Michie’s daughter has been released by police after being arrested over her death at Bestival, with the actor’s family saying they believe the pair had taken drugs
As the Mail thinks the “dead girl” not worthy of mention by name, the Sun (nine stories so far) knows so little about Louella Michie it’s reduced to focusing on her looks. Today’s update begins:
A festival-goer claims the forest area where the green-eyed 25-year-old died had been used by drug dealers and that she “didn’t look very well” when spotted before her death
As police investigate the death so other green-eyed women and look for a pattern, Sun readers find Louella Michie missing from the paper’s headlines:
FESTIVAL TRAGEDY – Holby City star John Michie’s daughter Louella was found dead at Bestival – 13 September 2017
Pals reveal Holby City star’s tragic girl looked ‘unsteady and odd’ in woods used by drug dealers before she died at Bestival as boyfriend is released by cops – 13 September 2017
BESTIVAL SUSPECT RELEASED Boyfriend of Holby star John Michie’s tragic daughter is released as her devastated family say ‘there was no malice’ in her death – 12 September 2017
BESTIVAL PROBE Man held on suspicion of ‘murder’ over Holby star’s daughter is also being quizzed over supply of Class A drugs – 12 September 2017
BESTIVAL DEATH DASH – Holby City star made 130 mile 1am dash to Bestival after WhatsApp map pinpointed where his daughter was found dead – 12 September 2017
DAYS BEFORE DEATH – John Michie posted haunting photo of daughter sewing outfit for Bestival days before she was found dead – 12 September
HOLBY PAL’S HEARTACHE Strictly star’s heartbreaking message to Holby co-star after his daughter is found dead at Bestival – 11 September
But top prize goes in the John Michie news frenzy goes to the Daily Mirror, which has published no fewer than 11 stories on Louella Michie’s dad, the pick of which being:
Who is John Michie? Tragedy as ex-Coronation Street star’s daughter confirmed dead at Bestival
At a guess, we’d say he’s man grieving for his daughter.
Posted: 13th, September 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Paul Hollywood’s Nazi shame – Bake Off star battered
Paul Hollywood, 51, once pulled on a Nazi uniform and strode into the White Stag pub in Monkon, Kent. His wife was dressed a member of the French Resistance, albeit unarmed and of a sort imagined by writers of British sex comedies (low cut top, perky beret, fishnets and lots of ooooo-la-la).
That Hollywood pretended to be a Nazi officer 14 years ago as part of a private fancy dress do is neither here nor there.
The British public accord unquestioning respect to presenters on TV cooking show The Great British Bake Off, and as a role model for impressionable amateur bakers, Hollywood should be rightfully shamed. Yes, the Pope wore a Nazi uniform, often, so too Kurt Waldheim, the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations, Prince Harry, and rockers like Lemmy, Keith Moon, Siouxsie Sioux, Sid Vicious and Brian Jones also pulled on the feldgrau and Swastika, but they never made cakes on the telly. And for that we should be grateful.
Keith Moon
Former Labour Party MP and shadow Chancellor Ed Balls
“I am absolutely devastated if this cased offence to anyone.” says Paul, whose picture emerged in yesterday’s Sun. “Everyone who knows me, knows I am incredibly proud of the effort of those, including my own grandfather, who fought the Nazis during the war.”
In the Daily Mail, the paper that once infamously cheered for Hitler’s blackshirts, we hear not advice on how to sport the Nazi uniform and why Hollywood’s get-up is an affront to the shirt, rather the words of former Bake Off finalist Ruby Tandoh, who opined on Twitter: “Absolutely creasin at pple telling me: “IT WAS TEN YEARS AGO” as is the Nazis weren’t bad back then.”
To say nothing of them not being on he telly all that much.
We march at dawn.
Posted: 11th, September 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Prince George’s first day at school: beaming with nerves and mind control
Prince George has started school. His big moment is all over the papers. He’s “His royal Shyness” on the Mirror and Mail’s front pages, and “Heir to learn” on the Sun’s.
The Mirror says he looked nervous. The Express says he was “all smiles”.
It all depends on how you decode the look George is giving his new headmistress. Head down, eyes fixed as Miss curtsies to her new pupil, who’ll be treated the same as everyone else.
Tom Jamieson muses: “Please release me Sire…please, it’s been almost two hours now…” “Crush her, crush her George like you will all the peasants.”
Shy and nervous in the Mirror
All smiles in the Express
‘Glum’ in the Sun
‘Wobbly’ in the Mail
Miss Kate-alike in the Mail
Best of luck, George! No pressure.
Posted: 8th, September 2017 | In: Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Hetty Douglas is your internet hate figure of the day
Vying with Robbie Travers for the title of Hate Figure of the Minute is Hetty Douglas, a 25-year-old artist, it says here, living in south London. On anthropological manoeuvres in the McDonald’s restaurant in London’s Piccadilly, Hetty thought it a good idea to take a photo of three men in the queue and caption the image: “These guys look like they got 1 GCSE.” The men were not jumping in the air for joy, clutching their exam results and screaming ‘YES! DONE IT!!!”. They were facing the other way and minding their own business.
Superior Hetty Douglas was making fun of them in a snide and sneaky way. It adds grist to the mill that Hetty is as the Star captions her photo, “posh”, although how it knows this we’re not told. It fits the narrative of the rich looking down on the poor, and that’s enough to bash her with.
The Sun tells Hetty to “Burger off!” The paper finds out that the three men are scaffolders with have a combined total of 8 GCSEs. It also tells reader where they can find Hetty, who works at “skate shop Supreme, in Soho, central London”. Is that fair?
The Sun is disgusted that anyone should mock another person like that. It’s not as if the scaffolders play football, like Wayne Rooney.
The Sun salutes the captain’s intellect and physique
In the Mail, “a close friend of the family says Hetty was actually speaking up in defence of the McDonald’s staff who were being abused by the construction crew”. The unnamed source tells the paper:
“They were being rude and swearing at those youngsters working behind the counter and Hetty thought they were out of order. I’m sure the builders would just dismiss it as banter but they were very unkind and intimidating… It was bullying to her mind. So she thought she would take these lads down a peg or two. Sadly it has backfired but she meant well. It’s typical of social media that people go off half cocked with their opinions and threats without knowing the full story. Well now the real facts are out there a lot of people will be regretting what they have said about Hetty. She’s not some posh little rich girl. She’s actually as working class as they come it’s just as a model some of the pictures of her are upmarket.”
Assumptions can be a problem.
and you look like a spoiled rich girl gentrifying south London pic.twitter.com/0bysFYfc9c
— rhi (@rhiharper) September 4, 2017
On student website The Tab, art graduate Hetty Douglas has her entire being analysed. You can know everything about someone from a single Instagram post, apparently:
The real reason so many people have rounded on Hetty is because we all know someone exactly like her. Posh, privileged and seemingly not really aware of what’s going on in the world around them.
Johnny Long (wealth not noted) adds:
This upbringing has afforded these types of people a lot, but sometimes it appears as though they don’t have the empathy to think about anything from the point of view of people who are not like them
Bitchy stuff.
Tomorrow… some other poor sod will get it in the neck.
PS: Hetty Douglas might be auditioning for a leading role in the Labour Party. After all, Emily Thornberry is the hard Left’s choice to replace Jeremy Corbyn as Party leader. More about her empathetic attitude to workmen here.
Daily Mail gives Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs an unwarranted kick
Giving footballers a kicking is lazy. Take the Mail’s treatment of former Manchester United great Ryan Giggs, who was in Malta for England’s World Cup Qualifying match on Friday 1 September. The game kicked off at 19:45. Around 2 hours later, Giggs was wrapping things up and heading back to the hotel.
As McDonald’s Head of Welsh Football, Giggs had to get some sleep before heading home to present the Welsh Community Football Awards “to recognise those who dedicate their time, effort and hard work into grassroots football throughout Wales”. The ceremony was set for September 2 at the Cardiff City Stadium, where Giggs’ Wales were taking on Austria in their own World Cup qualifier.
Giggs is working hard
But this is how the Mail reported things:
Ryan Giggs is well known in Malta due to the time he has spent on the island, starting from his early days at Manchester United. He also invested in a hotel group there with Gary Neville.
Nevertheless Giggs, along with ITV colleagues Paul Ince, Ian Wright and Glenn Hoddle, chose to return home from Malta as soon as possible after the game on Friday – even if it meant a 5.30am exit from their hotel on Saturday.
Task! And after all Malta has done for him…
Posted: 5th, September 2017 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Sports | Comment
Dear Coleen: Wayne Rooney tips and where you can find Laura Simpson
Everton’s former Manchester United and England footballer Wayne Rooney only had a “kiss and a cuddle” with Laura Simpson, 29, whose car he was driving when police nicked him for drink driving. All the tabloids wonder what this means for his marriage to Coleen Rooney. The Mirror says she’s fearful for the couple’s three children, “worried about playground taunts” because kids can be cruel.
Coleen, we learn, is also worried about media intrusion. Which is presumably why she, as the Sun reports, uploaded photos of her boys on Instagram and wrote: “No matter where I am they always follow me, and I hope that last forever.” No, not a coded message to the paparazzi, marketeers and celebrity magazines. That was a “heavy hint that she would keep the kids with her if Wayne and she split”.
By now you’re itching to know more about pneumatic Laura Simpson, who “boasts” (Mirror) of having 32E breasts, which Wayne “ogled”, hair extensions, false eyelashes, Botox and lip enhancers. Unlike Wayne, she does not smoke and have a spouse, but she does have a child.
The Sun then pinpoints the single mother struggling to make a living, helping anyone who wants to bounce into and off of Laura find her. We learn that she works at a lettings agency (wages: £38,000 a year); once went on two trips to Dubai in one month; is “cash-strapped”; and lives in a “terraced house in Irlam, Greater Manchester”. If you can’t find her there, maybe you can reach her on the sugar daddy website, where the Sun says she functions under the name “Lolaura”.
As journalists and pornographers stampede to Laura’s door, the kindness of strangers kicks in. In “Dear Coleen”, Coleen Nolan, writes an open letter to her namesake. “Oh love, my heart ached for you yesterday,” says Coleen, to say nothing of her mouth and she dictated 300 words of to-deadline advice. “Back from holiday, piles of washing to sort, school uniforms to get ready,” says Nolan, proving she has the inside track on the life of a woman who counts her millions by the dozen. “Whenever anyone askw me for advice,” says Nolan, “my first tip is…” Call my agent? “…never, ever, make life-changing decisions when emotions are high.” Coleen’s life is far from over because as Nolan reminds her, she too has been cheated on by a wayward and well-known husband, and had her private life scrutinised in the national press. She moved on, forging a new life as the Woman Whose Famous Husband Cheated On Her And Had Her Life Scrutinised In The Press in the Mirror and on TV’s Loose Women. Hang in there, Coleen. There’s a multifaceted career in this, maybe.
More advice for Coleen in the Mail, where Bel Mooney has “inimitable advice” for the Rooney. “Dear Coleen,” begins the heartfelt advice once more, it being a well-established fact that Coleen is a dear and likes to surround herself with dear things, some very dear, some very, very dear. “Bloody men, eh,” says Bel. “At it again!” As with Nolan, Mooney presents herself as Coleen’s kindred spirit. Coleen was born in Liverpool and so too was Mooney. Wayne was boozing with Laura in Alderley Edge’s Bubble Room.”My best friend lives in Alderly Edge,” says Money, “and I’ve been to those upmarket joints, Piccolino’s and the Bubble Room”.
“Good luck, Bel,” says Mooney, which sounds a bit like Rooney, and a bit self-obsessed.
Good luck, Coleen!
Gina McCarrick
Posted: 4th, September 2017 | In: Key Posts, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Fostering fear and division in Tower Hamlets: the Christian child and her Muslim carers
The Times‘ scoop became a big talking point: a five-year-old, white, native English specking Christian girl had been placed with a Muslim foster family by London’s Tower Hamlet’s council. What problem with that? If the vulnerable child needed help and help was forthcoming, what matter respective religions? The council surely vets foster parents and made an informed choice.
Maybe not.
The girl spent four months with her substitute family. She says the family did not speak English in the home, encouraging her to speak Arabic. Her primary foster carer veiled her face in public. When placed with a second foster family, also Muslim, the girl spoke of regularly eating meals on the floor. The girl was scheduled to return to the first foster carers, but a council worker heard her complain of having had her necklace removed and not returned. The necklace featured a cross-shaped pendant. The girl claimed the family had refused to let her eat carbonara prepared by her family because it contained bacon.
The girl is now back with her family, living with her grandmother on the orders of Judge Khatan Sapnara – the Mail tells readers on its front page, the judge is a Muslim; a fact the Times repeats on page 6 in a lengthy profile on the woman who arrived in the UK as child from her native Bangladesh. Judge Sapnara told the council to seek “culturally matched placements” for children. She also made a stand for free speech. Tower Hamlets tried to block the Times story but failed when Judge Sapnara made it clear she “would not stand in the way of the freedom of the press to report, within the law and in a responsible manner, in respect of this case.”
The Mail adds that the girl’s family had “pleaded” with the council to let her live with her grandmother. The girl “begged” not to be returned to the Muslim family. By page 17, Sarah Vine is telling readers about the value of “a granny’s love”. But taken in isolation, without us knowing why the child was in care at all, why grandma was overlooked in favour of foster parents and what the foster parents hope to gain from their role, opinion rides roughshod over fact. But Vine tells us that Tower Hamlets advertises foster carer allowances of “£313 and £253 a week”. “That’s a nice little earner,” says Vine.
Easy money? On the Tower Hamlets website we read:
If you are interested in becoming a foster carer you will need to meet with a social worker many times to talk about yourself, your family and your experiences of looking after children. Some people find the idea of this daunting, but our social workers are highly experienced and will do everything they can to help you feel reassured during this process. You will also need to have police and medical checks and will need to ask employers, friends and families to give references.
And Vine’s undersold the job: “Fostering fees and allowances up to £474 per week (per child in placement depending on age).” But, yes, the payments for a five-year-old are as she says. Fostering is a cottage industry. Why the public sector is turning child care into a job creation opportunity is not touched upon. And it costs:
In the 2013/14 financial year an estimated £2.5 billion (gross expenditure) was spent on the main looked after children’s services in England. The majority of expenditure (55%) was on foster care services (around £1.4 billion, 55%) and children’s homes (around £0.9 billion, 36%).
So much for the money.
What’s wrong is when Vine says the “real scandal” is that social services “would rather pay someone, irrespective of whether or not he child will be miserable, than find a home where someone wants to offer the one thing that has no price: a mother’s love.”
Eh? Surely is can be argued that the “strict Muslim” women was offering just that: a place where the child would be treated like one of their own. Moreover, where is the child’s mother? Is she able or capable of offering the kid of love Vine seeks? Let’s not pretend a mother’s love is the ultimate nurturer of life and love.
Also troubling is that the story is presented as one of child abuse. The child was refused food. The child was with “strict” adults. The child was upset. The child “sobbed”. Everything is presented to make readers suspicious of adults. The child’s view is pure and passes challenged. We’ve not heard from the Muslim women at the centre of the story. The overriding impression from reading this story is that when society revolves around child protection, everyone who works with children is cast as a suspect.
Posted: 30th, August 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal balls: rewriting history without Patrick Vieira
Using Arsenal’s 4-0 defeat at Liverpool to rewrite history is the work of the Daily Mail’s Sami Mokbel. The journalist has been in New York, where he spoke with former Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira, currently expanding the Manchester City brand with New York City. The tone is very much one of if only Arsenal had a player of Vieira’s calibre now.
Across the page, Mokbel talks of Arsenal’s “broken dressing room”. Mokbel likens the place to a “morgue” – although the Daily Telegraph hears the deathly quiet punctuated by the roar of fury as players rip into one another. Mokbel rearranges his earplugs and tells readers:
How Arsene Wenger could do with Patrick Vieira in his ranks. Sunday’s harrowing experience at Anfield would never have happened on the Frenchman’s watch.
Eh, yes it would have. December 23, 2000: Arsenal are beaten 4-0 at Anfield in the Premier League. Vieira plays the full 90 minutes.
The Arsenal team on that daty: Manninger, Dixon, Keown, Luzhny, Silvinho, Parlour, Vieira, Grimandi, Ljungberg, Bergkamp, Henry. Subs: Stepanovs, Pires, Wiltord, Lukic, Kanu.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 30th, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Arsenal balls: ‘no Sanchez news’ excites the Mail and BBC
The BBC is engaging in a spot of clickbait. Below the question”Is Alexis Sanchez heading out of the Emirates?” it writes “Wenger not ruling out new Sanchez deal.”
Readers might well put the two headlines together and concoct the notion that Alexis Sanchez is leaving the Gunners. But that would be wrong. The BBC stokes the fires, noting “speculation linking the forward with a move away from the club”.
So what did Wenger says about that? Nothing.
“I don’t think he’s too much disturbed by all the noise, players at that level are used to it now. He is very focused, very happy and the fact he goes into the last year of his contract doesn’t mean we cant extend it.
“At the moment we haven’t, we just want to focus as a team and not look too much at the contracts of everybody.”
The BBC links to a Daily Mail story, one telling readers:
Manchester City still want Arsenal forward Alexis Sanchez, 28, before next week’s transfer deadline.
From the off that story is utter tosh:
Pep Guardiola identified the Gunners forward as a primary target this summer but has been surprised by Arsene Wenger’s resolve in keeping his prized asset.
The Man City manager is shocked that the Arsenal manager wants to keep his best player?
Guardiola is willing to wait until next summer to sign Sanchez for nothing should a transfer fail to materialise.
Unless Sanchez signs for Arsenal, in which case the plan’s foiled.
Posted: 24th, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Manchester City, Sports | Comment
If George Clooney looks ‘frazzled’ you should see his nanny
Clooney looks “ace” in the Daily Mirror. The paper has a paparazzi shot of George Clooney and Amal Clooney at a tennis match lose to their home in Italy. Neither is holding a racket, but they are holding hands. They look like a well-groomed couple minding their own business.
But over in the Mail, Clooney is “frazzled”. He’s a new dad “after two months of sleepless nights”. No, not or the couple’s umpteen nannies, for George. To prove its point (surely to spin a story from a papped photo? – Ed) the Mail shows us Clooney looking “fresh-face and beaming” in April.
PS: on the day the the Mail leads once more with news of Princess Diana 20 years after her death, odd indeed it should feature a half-page paparazzi photos of the Clooneys. After all, it was in the wake of Diana’s death that the Mail made this pledge:
8 September 1997, eight days after the death of Princess Diana:
“Mail leads the way in banning paparazzi pictures.
“The proprietor of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard announced last night that his papers will not in future purchase pictures taken by paparazzi
“Viscount Rothermere, chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc said: ‘I am, and always have been, an admirer of Diana, Princess of Wales, and nagged my editors to protect her so far as they could against her powerful enemies.
“In view of Earl Spencer’s strong words and my own sense of outrage, I have instructed my editors no ‘paparazzi’ pictures are to be purchased without my knowledge and consent.'”
Such are the facts.
Posted: 21st, August 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids | Comment
Daily Diana: everyone hates Prince Charles and Dodi was a mug
It’s Diana-mania all over again in the tabloids as papers mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
The Mirror leads with a Diana pullout, four pages of revision featuring the wedding day kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony (awwww!); Diana getting Charles’s name wrong at the altar (d’oh!); Charles mentally repeating “Must not call her Camilla” over and over (cheating, lying bastard!); and how the couple, as Marje Proops told us on July 30 1981, “could have been quite alone. It was look of love and longing” – her love for him and his longing to be Camilla’s tampon.
Too harsh on Charles, the poor lamb? Nah. The Press are all diving on the swine. The Express, with the vanishing of Madeleine McCann deemed a story no longer to be of much interest, leads with the pre-Maddy blonde Diana and news that she “saved” the Royal Family. This follows news that, when polled, most time-rich Britons who respond to YouGov polls think Charles is unfit to be King.
The Mail begins its Daily Diana by looking at a poll. This one says only a third of Britons think Charles is worth his salt and 14% think Camilla should be Queen (yeah, that many). How many think Diana was murdered is not investigated, but it might be more than the number who think Charles should put his hair in a bun and his **** in a toaster.
Over on the Sun’s cover, big news is that Diana was not in love with Dodi Fayed. This we know because Michael Gibbins, her private secretary, believes she was simply “having a lovely summer at somebody else’s expense”. Diana was freeloader? A tart? “When the summer was over, everything would have disintegrated,” says Gibbons. He then adds: “If she’d lived she would have been looking for other things – and rushing into my office saying why hadn’t I found them for her?” Although her husband Dodi might have been with her, carrying their child, little Michael Paul Burrell-Gibbins and his twin sister Fergie.
In tomorrow’s papers: why Diana loved the paparazzi.
Posted: 21st, August 2017 | In: News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Why did William and Harry walk behind Diana’s coffin?
To mark the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, we’re seen lots of photos of the funeral procession. In today’s Mail, we see the family shot of the young princes, William and Harry, their father Prince Charles, Diana’s brother Earl Spencer and the Duke of Edinburgh. The story of why the princes were walking behind their mother’s coffin seems confused.
The Mail on Sunday says: “The decision for the boys to join the cortege was not made until an eve-of-funeral family supper when their grandfather, Prince Philip, promised them: ‘If you walk, I’ll walk.”
We know this was an act of selflessness by the caring Duke because on the ITV documentary Diana: The Day Britain Cried, The Queen’s senior aide Sir Malcolm Ross, opined:
“And I understand that it was at a family supper on the Friday night in Buckingham Palace that the decision was made and Prince Philip, after some discussion, said to the boys, ‘I’ll walk if you walk’.”
But talking to Newsweek magazine, Prince Harry tells us:
“My mother had just died, and I had to walk a long way behind her coffin, surrounded by thousands of people watching me while millions more did on television. I don’t think any child should be asked to do that, under any circumstances. I don’t think it would happen today.”
And there’s Earl Spencer, who told the BBC is was a “very bizarre and cruel thing” for Diana’s two sons to be told to walk behind her body. He says the Palace “lied” to him, telling them the boys had wanted to walk behind the coffin, which, he says, they did not want to do.
Not that anything about Diana is new. We’ve heard it all before, sort of.
In 2015, Hello magazine reported:
When the late Princess Diana died in 1997 her sons William and Harry did not want to walk behind the coffin, but Philip thought they would regret it later and told them: “If you like, I’ll walk with you.”
In 2007, the Daily Express told its readers:
Vanity Fair also prints excerpts of The Diana Chronicles, by former magazine editor Tina Brown, which reveal how the Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh clashed before her divorce from Prince Charles.
Philip is claimed to have threatened to remove her HRH title if she failed to behave properly.
But the Princess is said to have responded by informing the Duke that her title as Lady, referring to the lineage of the Spencer family, was a lot older than his. Ms Brown also claims Philip cajoled Princes William and Harry to walk with him behind Diana’s coffin at her funeral, overruling objections from her brother Earl Spencer.
In his Diaries, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, Alistair Campbell, noted:
William believed the plan was designed to appeal to the media. Campbell writes: “William was refusing to speak to anyone and he was consumed by a total hatred of the media … I sensed the boys were holding firm, and they seemed to feel it was being done for the media and the public, not for their mother.”
The Mirror reported in 2011: “William and Harry walked behind Diana’s coffin to prevent a mob attacking Prince Charles.”
Such are the facts.
At least no-one is still harping on about her having been murdered. Which she wasn’t. Right?
Posted: 20th, August 2017 | In: News, Royal Family | Comment
Chelsea balls: Diego Costa and the Daily Mail pile into blameless Conte
Following up its interview with Chelsea striker Daily Mail, the paper leads with “WE BACK DIEGO”. News is that “Antonio Conte’s decision to exile Diego Costa is threatening to damage his strong bonds with other Chelsea players.” Other papers go with “Rebel Will Be Left To Rot” (Sun) and “Blues lay down law to AWOL star” (Daily Star)“.
Costa is currently sulking at his mum and dad’s house in Brazil. He’s been fined for not showing up at Chelsea. And he says the Blues are treating him “like a criminal”.
The Mail says it’s not wantaway Costa in the wrong; it’s Conte. The story continues: “Costa is a popular figure in the dressing room and remains in regular contact with close friends Willian, David Luiz and Spain team-mates including Cesc Fabregas.” Well, so says Costa. And then this: “Some fear they could be the next to be discarded in brutal fashion by title-winning manager Conte.”
That Conte, eh, what a heartless swine. What the Mail omits to mention is that in July 2016, Costa demanded to leave Chelsea for Atletico Madrid. Conte, as was reported widely, persuaded him to stay. Said Costa:”I did all that I could to return but it didn’t happen. When Atlético had to wait for me, they didn’t wait.”
Indeed, one news organ has reported on Costa’s unhappiness at Chelsea many times:
Costa has never properly settled in London after moving there in his own £32m deal and has remained in contact with various former team-mates telling several of them that he would like to return. – Feb, 4, 2016
Antonio Conte unsure if Diego Costa will stay a Chelsea player: ‘If you ask me if Costa will remain, I don’t know’ – July 31, 2016
Antonio Conte won a battle of wills with Diego Costa after Chelsea’s leading scorer demanded to be taken off during the 3-0 Premier League victory over Leicester at Stamford Bridge. The Spain international started the game on four yellow cards for the season, meaning another booking would see him miss the highly anticipated clash with Manchester United on October 23… the Blues striker gestured angrily towards his manager that he wanted to be substituted 20 minutes before time to avoid a potential suspension, but Conte was having none of it – despite Costa holding his leg late on. – October, 2016
All in the Mail.
Having supported Conte for telling Costa who’s boss, the Mail now tells its readers:
Could Diego Costa last longer at Chelsea than Antonio Conte? Champions order rebel striker back to London as their manager feels the heat
Not if Costa’s got anything to do with it, no. He wants to leave…
Posted: 15th, August 2017 | In: Back pages, Chelsea, News, Sports | Comment
Chloe Ayling: My kidnap ‘n’ tell hell
On August 9, the Sun led with the “16 questions that must be answered by kidnap model”. Over two more pages, the Sun puts its 16 questions to glamour model Chloe Ayling, allegedly kidnapped by “sex slavers” and now free.
The grilling is illustrated by a photo of Chloe, who “appears drugged in ‘dark web advert'”. The Sun blurs Chloe’s left nipple, which has escaped her bodice. But in a second photo, the nipple is left in and ,er, out. As we wonder why, Sun readers get all the answers to the paper’s questions and more in the Mail, which has bought Chloe’s Ayling’s story.
Once upon a time a photogenic young woman’s tale of topless modelling, crime and sex would have been News of the World manna. But that paper was spiked. Blessedly, the Mail and not the Sun on Sunday, the NoTW’s weak replacement, has taken up the mantel, reasoning rightly that tabloid readers will lap up a story of sex and crime told by a pneumatic blonde.
Model Chloe Ayling breaks her silence today to reveal her full astonishing account of how she was lured to a fake assignment in Milan then drugged, kidnapped, and held hostage by masked men to be sold as a sex slave in an internet auction.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, the 20-year-old tells, in her own words, the dramatic story of her capture and release that has made headlines around the world.
Held for six nights in a remote Italian farmhouse, the model was finally freed when her alleged captor Lukasz Herba, 30, a Polish national living in Oldbury, West Midlands, took her to the British Consulate in Milan.
And as the Sun casts aspersion on the allegations – “Why did she buy shoes with kidnapper?”; “Does her behaviour at home seem incongruous to a trauma victim”; “Why did she and Herba sleep in the same bed and did they have sex?; but not ‘Why the bloody hell didn’t we get her story?’ – the “Mail on Sunday reveals new court documents confirming key details of her story”.
Responding to suggestions of doubt about her story, Miss Ayling said last night: ‘I understand why people have questions. People need to understand that everything I did was so I could survive. I was in a crazy situation and I was terrified. It has been so frustrating and hurtful to have people not believe me. I know the truth, my family knows the truth and it will all come out at the trial.’
Might as well wait for that, then…
PS: on no other pages: ‘My ISIS sex slave hell’ – non-blonde kidnap victim tells all.
Daily Mail readers confused by EU borders news
The Daily Mail is upset that the European Union has imposed “tough” security checks at airports causing British families to “suffer most”. Maybe the EU wonks hard that we Britishers like to queue?
As the Mail grumbles and moans about beefed-up security at airport in the EU zone, we hark back to a time when the same paper was grumbling about slack security at airport in the EU zone:
When the UK’s Border Force closed gates at Stansted Airport, causing 5,000 people to queue at Passport Control at midnight – “Children were crying and tempers flared”and “holidaymakers battled” – the Mail published the story on page 10.
The Express is just as confused:
Such are the facts.
Alexis Sanchez was in Paris to get his UK work permit
You read the news that Arsenal striker Alexis Sanchez has “agreed“a four-year contract with Paris Saint Germain? You read that the Arsenal player had been in Paris to meet with PSG reps? And like me you thought it odd that no-one had a photo of Sanchez in Paris. Now Sanchez is in London, training with – yep – Arsenal. But the Daily Mail has news: “Judgment Day: Wantaway Sanchez flies back to London ahead of return to Arsenal… but what was he doing with his lawyer in Paris?”
He was, er, agreeing to play for PSG?
The Mail doesn’t answer. It just notes that “his brief stop-off in France has led to some fans questioning whether PSG is his next destination, while Man City supporters are still hopeful he will arrive at the Etihad.”
Hie next destination turned out to be Arsenal. Which leaves us to wonder what Sanchez was doing in Paris, if it wasn’t to sign a contract with PSG? The Daily Telegraph explains:
Ruben Inostroza Povea, who is Sanchez’s lawyer, uploaded a picture of the pair preparing to leave Santiago airport, Chile, on Sunday evening.
Odd. The paper said he was already in Paris. But at least his time there was a photo to prove that he wasn’t. But why was Sanchez heading to the French capital?
According to Povea’s Instagram picture, the trip included a stopover in Paris, where the forward is thought to have renewed his British work permit.
Just like he did in 2014, when he first joined Arsenal.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 1st, August 2017 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Key Posts, Manchester City, News, Sports | Comment
Charlie Gard has died and journalists are ‘digging for dirt’
Charlie Gard, the 11-month-old boy whose life pitted reason against emotion, has died. Charlie’s mother, Connie Yates, tells the Mail, which seem to have bought the parents’ story from Alison Smith-Squire’s Featureworld: “Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie.”
Over at Featureworld, another story is brewing. Smith-Squire writes an “open letter”:
While myself and the Charlie Gard family contemplate the death of a little boy, Alexi Mostrous ‘Investigations Editor’ at the Sunday Times is ringing me to dig up dirt on all of us for a nasty little story …
Smith-Squire addresses Mostrous:
Dear Alexi Mostrous
Do you have children? Are you a father? If you do you then you should be ashamed. Because in my opinion if you have any heart whatsoever you, Alexi Mostrous, never would never have rung me as you did today as Charlie is about to die and asked me how much money are myself and the Charlie Gard family making out of their story.
Many parents have been and are nasty sods. To be a breeder doesn’t make you any more or less compassionate than a man who has not fathered children. Are we impressed by people who have had children? Mostrous has merely asked a question. The top of the Featureworld site does include a section “HOW MUCH MONEY”.
The Mail framed Charlie Gard’s story as a “fight” not only for the child’s life but against medical advice and the ethics that underpins it. Surely a story can be told more than one way”? Isn’t Mostrous trying to do just that? As the late AA Gill noted, “Journalism isn’t an individual sport like books and plays; it’s a team effort. The power of the press is cumulative. It has a conscious human momentum. You can – and probably do – pick up bits of it and sneer or sigh or fling them with great force at the dog. But together they make up the most precious thing we own.”
You can read Smith-Squire’s letter in full here. In it she writes:
Let me tell you how it is. Let me show you, Alexi Mostrous, how compassion for interviewees and a desire to help them rather than ‘getting the story and making money’ is what my sort of journalism is about.
Let me guide you away from the nasty little world in my view you clearly exist in – where everyone is in it for money and you, a salaried staffer at the Oh so squeaky clean Sunday Times and The Times are apparently not…
Without someone like me ensuring vulnerable members of the public are guided through the media hell, some media individuals circle like vultures to take, take, take.
I am a mother myself of three children. So I can glimpse at the hell that Connie Yates and Chris Gard have gone through and the dark days to come.
Yes I am also a journalist . Of course I have to make a living. Like you, Alexi Mostrous I write stories for a living, I report on stories for a living, I supply photos to the media for a living.
This is why interviewees never pay me a penny. It is why I can represent them for free and indeed in some cases also broker deals so that newspapers and magazines are paying them.
The story of Charlie Gard’s plight captured hearts and minds. But ultimately it had something to do with money – if the child’s parents had more of it they could have funded treatment privately.
Transfer balls: Bale joins Manchester United is a recurring fantasy
Transfer balls: questioned by Real Madrid’s official website, the club’s manager Zinedine Zidane was asked if Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo (the so-called ‘BBC’) were likely to remain.
“I hope the BBC stay for this season,” he replied. “I hope everyone remains. I want everyone who is here now to stay…but anything can happen right up until August 31.”
On the chance of Kylian Mbappe joining Real, Zidane added: “I’m the coach here and you’d have to ask someone else about that. We’re working on things and we’ll see what happens. We’ve got the players who are here now and we’ll just have to see what happens.”
All coy stuff, then. But stick it through the tabloid mincer and you get:
That follows the Daily Express’s news of July 19 2017:
Real Madrid star Gareth Bale has secret agreement to join Man Utd next summer
And there was the Manchester Evening News story of May 8 2017:
Gareth Bale has agreed to join Jose Mourinho at Old Trafford next season, should the club be able to guarantee involvement in next season’s elite European competition by winning the Europa League .
The story of Bale to United is a familiar one. In November 2015, the Sun said Bale was heading to Old Trafford and Real were in “crisis”. Bale never came. Real went on to win the Champions League.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 28th, July 2017 | In: Back pages, manchester united, News, Sports | Comment
Charlie Gard: an emotive trial by media
Charlie Gard’s face is splashed across the Daily Mail’s front page. His face hovers above the word “MANSLAUGHTER”. The accusation is not levelled at those who have ruled that the child should die but given some of the reaction to his story it might as well be.
A judge, a rank the Mail not long ago labelled “enemies of the people”, has “ruled” that Charlie Gard cannot die at home. His parents’ words – “We’ve been denied out final wish” – complete the picture. This is another chapter of the story of parents v State – and once gain the State is winning.
Charlie Gard has featured on the Mail’s front page many times. His loving parents sold their story and we got to know about the chronically ill baby boy and his parents’ fight to defy the experts and allow him to leave hospital and undergo experimental treatment.
The court case is now over. Charlie Gard will not be subjected to any further treatment. His parents conceded defeat in their legal battle. He is being allowed to die. Reason has triumphed over hope. One US website told is readers that Charlie Gard is the baby the “British courts sentenced to death”. But the ruling was never that callous. Nothing close to it. The therapy on offer was no cure. The High Court judge heard from eight doctors and two nurses. He told the court: “The entire highly experienced UK team, all those who provided second opinions and the consultant instructed by the parents in these proceedings share a common view that further treatment would be futile.”‘ Charlie Gard is living what might be termed a faux life, kept going by machinery but not living autonomously. Medical opinion is in total agreement: he will never get better.
The judge added: “If Charlie’s damaged brain function cannot be improved, as all seem to agree, then how can he be any better off than he is now, which is in a condition that his parents believe should not be sustained?… with complete conviction… that it is in Charlie’s best interests that I accede to these applications and rule that Great Ormond Street Hospital (SOSH) may lawfully withdraw all treatment, save for palliative care, to permit Charlie to die with dignity.”
But emotions run high. Reason fails to inspire. The Star notes how “some on social media channels for campaign group ‘Charlie’s Army’ believe the tot will breathe on his own.” Would you take belief over medial knowledge?
So now news that Charlie’s parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, have been denied time with their child. They wanted to spend “a week or so” in a hospice with their son before the machines keeping him alive were switched off. But GOSH says that would require a round-the-clock intensive care team. And with none forthcoming by the courts’ deadline, a GOSH spokesman tells media: “Sadly, as the judge has now ruled, there is simply no way that Charlie, a patient with such severe and complex needs, can spend any significant time outside of an intensive care environment safely. The risk of an unplanned and chaotic end to Charlie’s life is an unthinkable outcome for all concerned and would rob his parents of precious last moments with him. As the judge has now ruled, we will arrange for Charlie to be transferred to a specialist children’s hospice, whose remarkable and compassionate staff will support his family at this impossible time.”
Intensive life support cannot be supplied away from a hospital intensive care unit. So Charlie Gard cannot die at home.
This, says the Mail, is “heart-wrenching”. Charlie’s mother tells the paper amid photos of a family picnic by GOSH: “We just want some peace with our son, no hospital, no lawyers, no courts, no media just quality time with Charlie away from everything to say goodbye to him in the most loving way. Most people won’t ever have to go through what we have been through, we’ve had no control over our son’s life and no control over our son’s death.”
The parents now agree with his son’s doctors that he should die in a hospice. They want him to be kept alive for up to a week but medics say he should “slip away” within a few hours of arriving.
And so a baby kept alive for five months will be allowed to die. The medics who looked after Charlie Gard are not uncaring pen-pushers. GOSH and the courts are not places where children are sentenced to death and human life is cheap. Ethics matter.
But something nags. Was it all about money? And if it was – and money must always be a factor when resources are not infinite – why can’t a rich country provide for its own?
This struggle was for Charlie Gard and the future for us all. It was for those not yet born. It was for love, reason and force of argument. Through that we hope to get to the truth.
Brexit supporting Daily Mail plans to stay in the EU by relocating to Ireland
The Daily Mail’s owners are considering relocating from Kensington, London, to Ireland (EU). The Times reports:
July 1, 2017:
Spencer-Churchill also let slip that the Daily Mail’s publishers are considering upping sticks after the Brexit vote. “I was talking to my friend Viscount Rothermere yesterday,” he said. “He’s thinking about moving his whole operation of Associated Newspapers [now DMG Media] to Ireland.” So much for crushing the saboteurs.
Previously in the Mail:
Take a bow (out), Daily Mail!
Spotter: @bellamackie
Posted: 23rd, July 2017 | In: Broadsheets, News, Tabloids | Comment
