Kevin recently revealed on Twitter that Paul Dacre’s hounds, or lawyers, whatever term you prefer, issued his internet hosting provider with a threatening letter telling them to remove an article that was written two years OK. The article “Paul Dacre Must Die” (Google Cache) is the second result on Google when you search for Paul Dacre which is probably why it got his attention. It helpfully shows what I assume is the offending line, “Paul Dacre is an absolute cunt. I hope he dies and that people queue up to shit on his grave.”

Unity at Ministry of Truth and Kevin himself have done an excellent job of describing why the original article isn’t unlawful and I suggest you read those posts since I won’t be doing that here.

This blog post is a call to arms to all the other bloggers out there. If the Daily Mail want to bully bloggers into submission then lets make sure the rest of the internet knows about it. Part of the way Google ranks results is by the amount of other pages that link to that page. The more of us that link to this blog post: Paul Dacre, Abuse and Defamation, the higher up the rankings it will go and the more people will know that although the Daily Mail and Paul Dacre preach the free speech they do not mean it. When those that have the right to speak for themselves use that right to point out the hypocrisy and failings of The Daily Mail and their editor they will use their money and power to silence them.

Update

Having discussed this issue with Martin Robbins on Twitter I want to make my position absolutely clear. You may not agree with Kevin’s tone and what he said but you should still defend his right to say it.

Just how could this happen?

How? I don’t get it? Where could a young girl learn to become obsessed with her body?

Does anyone have any ideas? She’s only SIX YEARS OLD! SIX! Girls should be at least, oh I don’t know 11 or something before they learn to hate their bodies right? I mean it’s not like a paper like the Daily Mail would print any stories about the image of girls as young as six would they?

Oh.

I wonder if Angela Epstein has copies of the Daily Mail kicking about.

All the sidebar story images were taken from the same day appearing just above and below the first story. If you’ve ever read 1984 and thought that doublethink was a crazy concept you only have to spend a day perusing the content of a tabloid newspaper.

But it doesn’t stop there does it? It isn’t just the sports star it’s the people that come into their lives that get judged as well. I’m not interested in the details of this story but I really don’t think that anyone deserves to be called a “slapper” on the front page of a national newspaper.  On their website they call her a “tramp” while showing a pornographic picture of said ‘tramp’ in her underwear. This girl didn’t, systematically cover up child abuse or condemn millions to die of AIDS in Africa (guess who did); all she did was allegedly sleep with someone famous for money. For that The Sun seems to think it’s OK to point fingers and call her names, it’s like bullying, and since when did name calling and bullying become a substitute for journalism?  

Tabloid reporting isn’t really reporting anymore when it isn’t judgement and tragedy porn its like a 5 year old kid pointing fingers at people and shouting “LOOK MUMMY LOOK”. Look at that person over there, look at that bra they are wearing, look at them without makeup*, look at them in the rain, look at them having a break up, look how thin they are, look at those muslims, look at all the filth and squalor, look at it, JUST LOOK AT IT!

The tabloids should be ashamed of what they have become, but they aren’t. Like the playground bully they just go back to their mates and laugh with each other until the next victim comes round the corner.

*I typed “without make-up” into the Daily Mail search engine and it came back with 3422 results. Let me repeat that 3422.

Here is a Sun Poll conducted by YouGov which clearly asks in respect to voting reform “Regardless of how you vote do you support the principle of holding a referendum?” To which 69% of people said yes. 69% of people are in favour of a referendum on voting reform. Keep that in mind.

The Sun has made no secret of its support for the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party have made no secret of its plans to campaign against electoral reform so you can see how that 69% figure might prove a bit of a problem. But why would The Sun let a little thing like popular opinion get in their way? If there is one thing polls are good at it’s asking leading questions to manipulate the public into giving the answer you want. So here is another poll done by YouGov on behalf of The Sun asking a similar question only this time with a slight bias.

46% against a referendum now is hardly a resounding no but at least it’s a bit more in line with the Tory position. Let’s be clear about what it says; 46% of people think it is inappropriate to spend £80million on a referendum now. Presumably some of these people still want a referendum on electoral reform they just accept that maybe now isn’t the best time if it is going to cost £80million. That figure seems a bit of an exaggeration anyway, according to the Electoral Commission you can use the general election as a guide for how much a referendum might cost and that this was in excess of £80million. However they state that “costs would depend on the level of public information activity required, but would likely be in the range of £10-30m.”

So 69% of people want a voting referendum and of these 35% think it should happen now despite being told it would cost £80million. How does The Sun report this?

The Ministry of Truth would be proud.

Thanks to @AdamBienkov on Twitter for the heads up.

Except you could or rather they could; on checking the Food Standard Agencies regulations I can find nothing that states cafes are not allowed to reheat cooked chicken for any reason. (I have emailed to ask but they are yet to get back to me at time of posting) In fact there are guidelines that suggest if you are to reheat chicken that you should make sure it is hot enough to ’discourage the growth of bacteria’ – yummy! 

You hear these sorts of stories all the time and if I hadn’t bothered to check then I might walk away tutting thinking this was yet another example of the nanny state oppressing my right to have hot chicken.

I don’t want to single this café, or their misinformed staff, out as acting foolishly, they are only doing what they think is right. But I do wonder how this misinformation spreads, and how many other people harbour health and safety protocols or fears that simply aren’t true? How much of this nanny state, that the government is currently reviewing, is actually down to the general publics’ irrational inflation of health and safety regulations rather than genuine guidance? We all know Cameron likes to touch the tabloids’ hot spots and maybe we should have seen this coming. But rather than towing the old line that there is too much red tape perhaps this government review should ask how these health and safety fears are sown. Maybe just maybe, if our media wasn’t peppered with stories of ‘elf and safety’ gone mad, then we all might be a little less sensitive when it comes to this stuff. But they just report don’t they? Not make shit up.

It is very easy to blame the government for being over protective but in my experience most actual health and safety guidelines seem quite reasonable when you think about it and are there because accidents happen and guidelines are introduced to try and prevent them happening again. Sometimes it maybe just common sense, but what is common sense to you might not be to everyone else; a quick read through some Darwin Awards will confirm that.

Yes there are some people that take health and safety regulations too far and it can seem ridiculous when they do. At this point I am reminded of an exchange I had with the cleaner in my first year at University in the Halls of Residence during a room inspection.

Your bin needs emptying

It isn’t full yet

You still have to empty it

Why?

Health and safety

What do you mean health and safety?

It’s a fire hazard How is it a fire hazard?

It is a half full bin, I don’t smoke and even if I did we aren’t allowed to in out rooms. The bin isn’t even near a plug socket in case you thought some freak spark might set it alight.

There might be food in there, that’s dangerous if you leave it.

There isn’t any food in there. I eat in the canteen like all the other students in halls.

Its still health and safety.

But I don’t understand what is dangerous about a half full bin.

You still have to empty it every day.

Do you empty your bin at home every day?

(At this point she stuttered for a bit said yes and then walked off.)

In hindsight the cleaner probably didn’t deserve some presumptuous eighteen year old pointing out the flaws in her argument. She was just following what she thought the regulations were and they may well have been the regulations, I don’t know. Either way it was a stupid rule and I enjoyed a good debate at the time never mind who it was with.

That exchange happened 10 years ago, these health and safety fears have been part of our everyday life for years and no matter how much the government review it I don’t think that will change. I suspect the media will keep saying ‘elf and safety has gone mad and people will continue to invent regulations so we end up in a kind of perpetual motion health and safety regulation making machine. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go empty the bin.

Update

The Food Standards Agency got back to me, this is what they said;

I am not aware of any restrictions on reheating chicken, as long as it is reheated properly and served straightaway. I have attached a link to the guidance we provide to businesses which you may find useful for your article:
 
http://www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/hygleg/hyglegresources/sfbb/sfbbcaterers/
 
I hope this is helpful.

Now I know the video is a month old, but if the tabloids can resort to pulling up articles from 8 years ago in order to slur Nick Clegg I see no reason why I can’t bring this up now.

This is really an update to my previous blog post Are the Tories Homophobic and shows David Cameron responding to his Party’s voting record on gay rights. This video alongside Cameron’s rabbit in the headlights look during the previous leaders debate raise doubts that transcend just the usual criticism about Tory policies. 

I am starting to have serious doubts about Cameron’s ability to deal with pressurised situations and questions.  If this is how he responds to a little bit of pressure from a magazine journalist what is he going to be like should he ever get to govern this country?

These are legitimate concerns, unlike the vitriolic criticism we have seen recently of Nick Clegg and The Liberal Democrats in the tabloids which has prompted even Conservative bloggers to  reel in disgust.

That’s right millions of people are changing their voting allegiances to the Liberal Democrats after Vince Cable and Nick Clegg’s fantastic performance at the Chancellors’ and Leaders’ debate. The tabloids have gone on the offensive, heaven forbid the public decide to vote for someone against the wishes of the tabloid press, manipulating and lying to the public in order to get their own way.

A recent Daily Mail article tries to first undermine the nature of the leaders’ debate and then undermines the public’s motives.

“There can be only one credible explanation for the utterly irrational outpouring of support for the Liberal Democrats after a mere 90 minutes of X Factor-style TV politics: the public, disgusted by the near moral bankruptcy of the last Parliament, is looking for revenge.”

Apparently the public aren’t smart enough to make rational decisions for themselves, no the only ‘utterly irrational’ reason anyone could want to vote for the Liberal Democrats according to the Daily Mail is out of revenge. The article reads a bit like a child complaining when it hasn’t got its own way. “But MUM, its not fair. The public don’t want to vote with me! They must be poo poo heads or something, that’s the only rational explanation.”

This kind of comment makes me sick, how fucking dare they! How can they get off telling us why we are choosing to support someone? Since when did “Daily Mail Comment”, I presume they couldn’t get a real person to say exactly what they wanted, get a hotline to the public consciousness and know each and every one of our motivations? Spin it how you like but you can’t hide the fact that the public didn’t turn their vote in some fit of pique, but after watching a debate in which only one of the leaders of the political parties seemed the right man for the job. The tabloids can fuck off for all the public seem to care about what they think.

The Daily Mail doesn’t stop there though, in its usual style it goes on to make shit up in order to defend its political alliances.

As this paper reveals today, Mr Clegg and many of his MPs have been some of the worst expenses offenders.

Now they are making quite a specific claim there, one that we can check. During the expenses scandal the Telegraph, who broke the story, wrote an article revealing the worst expenses offenders. According to them ten of the worst offenders were Labour and six were Conservative MPs, none of them were Liberal Democrats. None.

This fantastic graphic in the Guardian shows that although the Liberal Democrats expense claims were the highest of the parties on average, they also had to pay back the least suggesting that these claims were legitimate. In fact the average Conservative repayment was £4,227 more than DOUBLE the average Liberal Democrat repayment of £1,910 and nearly £1000 more than the average Labour repayment of £3,237. Now I am not great with numbers but even an idiot can see that it takes nothing short of a massive manipulation of the truth to imply that the Liberal Democrats were some of the worst expenses offenders.

This is the kind of tactics that we can expect to see across the tabloid newspapers in the coming weeks as they try to influence and lie to the public in order to get their own way. It is almost laughable that The Daily Mail accuses the BBC of having a “risible lack of objectivity” within the words of such a bias and manipulative article but nothing should surprise you when you are left in the hands of a tabloid hack. You have been warned.