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Ok, so im well aware that the Daily Mail is primarily made to wind up our lower and working class citizens into a foaming frenzy of racism and bigotry, and as a result of this, i never read the bloody thing.. but alas, i followed a link from a forum and wound up here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1237988/Failed-asylum-seeker-killed-12-year-old-girl-wins-court-bid-stay-Britain.html?ITO=1708&referrer=yahoo

So, what i want to know is, from someone better educated than me on the workings of the media, do tabloids such as the Daily Mail leave things out of the story altogether, or fabricate things entirely?

I was always under the impression (though i am not a journalist and have little interest in what i see as a very shady and back-stabbing business) that no tabloids make anything up, they just "spin" it. You know, like a left wing Tabloid like the Daily Mirror will tell a story about the Conservatives and use words like "oily" Cameron and "Toady" Hague or whatever, but the actual content is all true, and vice versa.

The reason i want to know is because after reading that story my head almost exploded with rage. Im well aware the Daily Mail wants this to happen and always goes for the sensationalist right wing story. Just like Fox News for example in the US.

Are they making this gak up? (i really hope so)

I dont like to read tabloids, but, even if i try to get into a more, left leaning peace loving mindset i just cant bring myself to see the big picture on a story like this. If i was let down this badly by the powers that be and my 5 year old nephew was killed, i genuinelly think i would have to take the law into my own hands, kill the guy on his doorstep and then deal with the jail sentance, because i doubt i would be able to sleep at night with the fury flowing through my veins.

I don't claim to be any more educated or informed than you, but yes, papers do make things up and omit details in order to spin a story towards their key demographics. You said it yourself; the Daily Mail publishes stories which will whip their readers in apoplectic fits of rage. Why? Because the people that buy the paper want to be outraged, they want to have something to rage at so they buy the Daily Mail - it's a self fulfilling prophecy if you will.

EDIT - as for the story itself, well it seems to be indicative of the way the justice system in this country is progressing. For years now, we have been moving towards a more liberal prison system - ie. prison is supposed to be a rehabilitative process rather than punitive like it used to be. Prison is no longer the deterrent it once could be relied upon to be. Judges make appaling decisions like this because the guidelines tell them to.

We haven't been moving towards a rehabilitative system, if anything we are going backwards from that.

In Victorian times there was a much stronger belief in rehabilitation of the criminal than there is now. The prisons of the time were almost palaces.

Over the past 30 and 10 years, the Conservative and Labour have introduced many new criminal offences and longer mandatory sentences for a variety of crimes.

I would refute that Killkrazy; after all we are talking about a penal system that included transportation to Australia right up until the 1860's. I would hardly call that a rehabilitative or progressive system compared to what we have now.

But I have to caveat it all by saying I am neither a criminologist or historian; it's all my own opinion so if you are, then I bow to your superior knowledge.

Look at the later Victorian era. 1860 was only the first 1/3rd of the period.

Well anyway I'm just going by a Google search, using

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/lesson24.htm

It's a little Mickey Mouse (for schoolkids I think) but then again, it's on my intellectual level!

The Daily Mail work around being entirely one sided in their Right Wing, Knee Jerk, Unreasonable Reactionary bile.

For instance, Immigration into Britain. Fact One. Britain is a popular destination for Immigration. Fact Two. More Britons have emigrated to other countries than people have imigrated to it.

Guess which fact the Daily Bastard likes to publish. Day on day. Without remorse.

Also, illegal immigration. Of course the Government has no firm numbers on this. Thats kind of the point, sneaking people in, without papers, to work more or less as slaves. If the Government had firm numbers on this, then I'd be asking how they can come by such data WITHOUT tackling the issue.

And finally, the Daily Nazi is far more aimed at the affluent, shockingly paranoid Middle Class of Middle England.

Personally, I wouldn't wipe my arse with it.

Daily Mail? More like Daily Fail!

They made up stuff about the MMR vaccine.

Kilkrazy wrote:They made up stuff about the MMR vaccine.

They did indeed, I was visiting the schools on the MMR vaccination runs and saw the notes excusing kids from it and the 'angry mothers' ranting in them about how we were trying to give their kids autism.

'Journalists' like that, who threaten LIVES with their bs, should be subject to prosecution.

This story seems a bit 'over the top'. I truly hope it isn't real. But I very much doubt the reputation of this article, all I needed to see was the warning on the side to set the 'extremist' alarm bells off.

Whilst I cetainly don't claim to be educated, in my opinion the Daily Hate is the worst sort of paper out there, designed primarily to enrage and enflame the lower clases. It is full of racist and xenophobic undertones.

I remember vividly the faked pictures of Britsh troops abusing "Iraqi" prisoners. The pictures were clearly faked and came from a highly dubious source but the paper ran with it as a headline story regardless of the impact it had on our forces morale, the distress it caused to the public and the danger it put many service personel in. Sure, Piers "I hope you die of cock rot" Morgan got hanged out to dry but as far as i am concerned he was the scapegoat for the whole organisation who have a culture of sensationalism over fact.

Not to nitpick but wasn't it the Mirror that ran with the fake 'abuse' photos and not the Mail?

Not that I am defending the Mail in any way...

All newspapers exagerrate, the difference is the Mail and Express were against a well tuned propoganda machine, and thus get the wrong end of the stick.

Why does everyone get at Daily Mail and not the Sun or Mirror anymore? Are they suddenly paragons of truth? Get real.

Daily Mail gets it because it was not in with the regime which has in many ways ruined this nation, and successfully kept what it has done seperate from the popular consciousness.

The main problem was not with the Daily Mail, but because the true gutter tabloids: Sun and Mirror were until very recently both singing the same tune, and that is not even so sure because New Tory is all but indestinguishable from New Labour.

I dont know about MMR but many of Daily Mails crusades have logic behind them. Immigration problems, yes there are.

Anyone who says there isnt has to explain why so many terrorist suspects caught have British passports, Glasgow airport attacks and 7/7 were not myths mde up by the Daily Mail.

To put something else in perspective,
Grotsnik brings up again this ridiculous commentary:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

For instance, Immigration into Britain. Fact One. Britain is a popular destination for Immigration. Fact Two. More Britons have emigrated to other countries than people have imigrated to it.

Guess which fact the Daily Bastard likes to publish. Day on day. Without remorse.

Grots posted his 'facts' before. Source a TV stand up comedy programme, he even provided the link to the show. It was a few months back and is still there, but I can't be arsed to find it right now, he has 5k plus posts to look though.

Now 'facts' one and two are highly dubuious anyway allowing for the amount of misinformation regarding official immigrations figures which even the government were forced to admit were underestimated. But its the idea that emigration exheeding immigration (which is unlikely anyway) being seen as a good thing. Do we see loyal new Britons arriving? By and large we do not some are but many immigrants want to just milk the system and are guite open about it to, ethjnic tensions are rising and its no all the fault of the far right despite government claims to pin the blame on indiginous groups for the failure of multi culturalism. Do we see people leaving because the nation is going downhill? Yes we do, many emigrants have means and see a decline iof this state, now many are Poles and other recent immigrants who made their money and went home, but in general both for poles and ex-pats there is a general understanding that getting out is good because Brtiain is going downhill fast. I cannot see the happy positive here.

However what is even more telling is that any story the Daily Mail, and presumably others print indicating there is a problem is dismissed as vile lies while any source no matter how incredulous is grasped as incontrovertable truth if it supports the idea that there is no problem. That selective denial is clutching at Jack Straws.



I am also concerned with menthodolgies for press control that have escalated since 1997. When Blair took office he issued more censorships in the first term than Thatcher and Major combined bespite there being no Cold war, no Gulf war, no Falklands war and a general cessation in reduction in hostilities in Northern Ireland. Wars and conflicts are a prime cause of necesasary censorship. While we cannot get details on cenorship for obvious reasons there is a counter of number censorships issued that figure is available, and is balooning. So without all these wars (remember this is prior to 9/11 and 2nd Gulf) where does all the secrecy go? The most likely answer is: censoring things the public would normally be allowed to know.
You have proof of critique of Thacher or Major, by and large you could go ahead. You got critque of Blair, no you cant, official secrets act etc etc. Part of the maintainance of such an apparatus is to allow some leakage as a blowhole, to stop overpressure. In comes Daily Mail, unwitting pawn of New Labour. Now some of what they print is bollocks, but no more or less than the bollocks you find elsewhere in the press, though I would not be suprised if they were given a bad stoy every now and then to harm them. In the meantime they get to print issues others papers cannot.

Here the censorship kicks in, censorshp normally works very fast, but not under New Labour. Got a scandal, yes you can print, got ahead week after week if its a Tory, print once if its labour, then and only then issue the gagging order. Gagging is properly to prevent leaks of dangerous information, the purpose of which is to prevent enemies from gaining information of course. The purpose now however is also to allow a story to get out (completely irrational as far as national security is concerned) then let the story expire so it becomes old news quickly.

Now of course I dont 'know all this' or I would be facing prison, but the hints are there, not just from the Uk but abroad where the new UK press censorship and decline of freedom in our cociety is more widely noted. I will leave you with an example.

Ther Uk government has made a secret deal to return Gibraltar to Spain. Its a long term deal designed to cook off well after Blair left office, figures I hear say 2010-2012. This is despite the hard fact that of a prebiscite of Gibraltarians IIRC all but 2 voted to remain as part of the UK, as clear a mandate as you can find in any election anywhere. To New Labour that isnt good enough, which I am angry about because this government will bend over backwards for immigrants, often to the tune of millions and millions of pounds earmarked purely for minorities. Gibraltarians, feth em, this was one minorty New Labour didnt want. You have to wonder why.
Now some of the US press knew of Gibraltar, Spanish press did, so did the Uk press, it was in the Daily Mail for one day, yes one day only. Then it disappeared. I looked for more, not in any other paper, and the Daily Mail made no mention of it the next day or therafter. Some Gibraltarians know the story is true, I know some in the Spanish community in London who know this story too, so even if you disbeleived it yourself if they think it true #perhaps there is enough of a story to take a look, yes.

Do you think the Daily Mail, Express times or for that matter Sun and Mirror wont be interested beyond one days coverage in the Daily Mail?


I have seen this phenomena before and since, but one good example should be enough for you. There is far more going on to the UK press than meets the eye. Even Frazzie can see that the Uk press is in controlled, and the Uk pres stuill doesnt like to admit that the Texas postal soldier had Islamic roots. You telling me the Daily Mail wouldnt run with that?

They are allowed to print just enough, without support for the low IQ squad to shout 'Daily Nazi' and 'Daily Fail'. ?You say they hate and in claiming so hate hate hate yourself. So they are Nazis? No they arent Nazis, a lot of the Daily Mail journalists are jewish for a start. So they should be prosecuted, for what? Being less hateful than you. But hey the real angry mob are allowed to hate them because the beloved Brown and Blair, whos words they hang on allow them to. Hypocracy rules OK after all.

Paul Dacre, the editor of the Mail is a massive and longterm friend of Gordon Brown's.. I expect him to get a peerage in the next year or so, presumably just as/when he steps down from his job, the owners want him gone sooner rather than later.

People call the Daily Mail nazis as Lord Rothmere, once owner of said paper, came out in favour of the Nazis in the 1930s and wrote a series of articles saying what a splendid chap this Mr. Hitler fellow... that didn't really turn out too well in the long run.

How would you know about the gagging orders if they are secret?

Why did the Daily Telegraph print so much info about MPs' expenses if they were being gagged?

Apparently it is also the UK's second biggest selling newspaper. I would assume that it has had to become more aggressive and less circumspect about its articles to get up to this level.

In a nutshell the Daily Mail is about reporting the evil conspiracy of immigrants in collusion with HRH Prince Phillip and the royal family undermining our way of life and battling with the saintlike protector of Mail readers aka Princess Diana.

reds8n wrote:Paul Dacre, the editor of the Mail is a massive and longterm friend of Gordon Brown's.. I expect him to get a peerage in the next year or so, presumably just as/when he steps down from his job, the owners want him gone sooner rather than later.

Professinal coutesies are irrelevant. There are many cross party friendships, particularly amongst old school politics. the idea was that when you went into politics you saw what party would give you a chance at a seat, and chose your rhetoric afterwards. ther core of Labour and Conservative went to the same schools and go to the same clubs.
Some things have changed, others haven't.

reds8n wrote:People call the Daily Mail nazis as Lord Rothmere, once owner of said paper, came out in favour of the Nazis in the 1930s and wrote a series of articles saying what a splendid chap this Mr. Hitler fellow... that didn't really turn out too well in the long run.

Sure that was the 30's. You do know that Stalin isnt in charge or Russia anymore, things change over 70 years. Some memories remain long term, that is true for example Likud party politicians are not welcome in the Uk, but only the Jewish press reports that now. This old wound is technically irrelevant but the ban remains to to activities from 1942?-48.

In any case singling out Daily Mail or Lord Rothmere is grossly unfair there was a lot of support internationally for Hitler in the 30's. Please remember he was nominated for the Noble Peace prize in 1936, and narrowly missed selection. Also please note that Hitler was democratically elected and at first could have been a force for healing Europe as it was widely understood that the Versailles treaty insisted on by the French was grossly unfair. his actions as far as 1936 were justifiable, but rhetoric against minorities escalated and after Crystalnacht and the Sudeten crisis it was clear we were dealing with a monster.
Some saw through Hitler early, but not all that many outside obvious early victims of Hitlers regime. Churchill only saw through Hitler early because he hated Germans in general and saw this as a poltical opportunity for an MP who was put out to pasture, as late as 1936 it was quite reasomnable to have a normal reaction to Hitler, and only by 1938 did the threat become truly obvious.

Reds8n is this historical tidbit taken in isolation a stick normally used to beat Daily Mail in your offices, or just your own lack of historical perspective talking?

I don't work in an office and don't really have an opinion on the DM one way or another. I mentioned the Rothmere fact purely to help explain why so many people refer to the paper and its writers as nazis. It's a longstanding tradition and "in joke" amongst the UK press. Every now and again the Mail group and Desmond will have a spat and they'll start referring to him as a pornographer and his rags' will drag up the fascist thing for a couple of weeks, then they resolve their disagreement and they call him a publisher and media magnate and his papers stop upsetting the remaining Rothmere's who, understandably, find the whole thing rather embarrassing.

Personally I don't call them/it nazis as.. well.. it's obvious they're not.

As to the Dacre/Brown link, that, more than anything, is why the paper is remarkably easy on Brown compared to Blair ( I gather their shared loathing of Blair helped cement their friendship) and other politicians.

You just fethed up big time mate.
So, you want media to tell the truth all the time, 100% how it is?
I doubt you will find anything close.
If they can twist a few words and bend the truth here and there to make more money then they will.

Not that i dislike them you can understand, i just have a very low opinion of them.

Kilkrazy wrote:How would you know about the gagging orders if they are secret?

Why did the Daily Telegraph print so much info about MPs' expenses if they were being gagged?

Good questions.

1. How would you know about the gagging orders if they are secret?

Proof is hard to come by in any form of politics, we can only by comparing what we can see and cannot see. this doesnt mean that its rubbish though. Like proving a conviction beyond reasonable doubt without the murder weapon, it can be done, its just more difficult. You need skills in extrapolation and analysis.

Let us look at the facts of the case study given.
a. US press and Spanish press reported a deal over Gibraltar.
b. UK press reported the deal for one day in one newspaper.
c. Newspapers are monitored in every country between the time of holding the front page and going inrto print there is time for a government to censor, some states have an easier time than others but all have methods.
d. (This much is rumour) The Uk securuty services are known to be particualrly efficient at this.

Why did the story leak? one paper one day. Slip up possibly, but that is very unlikely you can bet that MI5 watches Daily Mail like a hawk, and with Blair in charge two or three hawks. the uy did not like critique. (yes that last bit is rumour too).

Now before the low IQ squad comes in and shouts 'hearsay hearsay', this is not hearsay, its what is known as double sourcing. Mulitple rumours often show a common truth. besides many many dictats posted as fact especially by this government hold far less evidence than what I present to you today.

I have indicated that this is one case study of a phenomena I have seen several times, I will have to dig up notes to see other examples.

Also please remember than while official secrets cannot legally be leaked, a tally of official secrets made is kept for public record, and the amount of gagging ordered by Blair is mid bogglingly large. Journalists I know are itching to imply they have been censored frequently, but cannot of course do so openly to their credit. There has been a major change in press freedom and public information policy since New Labour took office. The public information act has many holes in it, and a lot of the information you have a right to collect is set by a date delimiter, which is set for some reason to 1997. You can dig up dirt about HM government far easier for events before that date. Anyone hazard to guess as to why 1997 was chosen as the delimiter year... any takers?


2. Why did the Daily Telegraph print so much info about MPs' expenses if they were being gagged?

I dont conclusively know, but some things are different. First Brown doesnt have his hands on the presses balls in the ame way Blair did. Brown is a far softer character and should never be Prime Minister like John Major before him. He lacks the hard edge needed to keep the civil service and party in line. Major had stones that Brown does not, he was truly excellent on the international stage especially because most foreign leaders underestimated him (thanks to our press esp Spitting Image) he was a very impressivbe man far at odds to his weak/grey/boring reputation. I never met him but know others who knew him, Reds8n claims to have met him perhaps he can corroberate this.

John Major couldnt keep his party in line and therefore keep the scandals underwraps, though to be fair to him he was facing joint tabloid assault with the Suns defection and the new form of politics under the rising Tony Blair. To be very frank John Major was in many respects our best post war leader, but was an appaling choice as political enforcer for the nation. In time he paid the price for being a decent chappy, and became grossly unpopular because people were told he was. His policies were solid and were quietly adopted by New Labour. On the strength of John Major we had a decent economy and peace in Northern Ireland which Brown and Blair gained credit for respectively.

How fast forward to today. Brown inheritied a fearsome propoganda machine a very wired control state built up with draconian legistlation and a politicisation of the civil service and a plethora of yes men in both houses. However all this means nothing if the guy in command of the spiked steamroller is a wimp, and Brown is nothing if he is not a wimp. Its a bit like Papa Doc handing over to Baby Doc, or Oliver Cromwell being suceeded by Tumbledown Dick, the iron state falls down due to the lack of iron inn the successor. Brown cant control the regime Bair set up, controlling and evil though it is, so things are getting out.

Its not just the expenses scandal that iscoming out now, other messes are emerging. However expences are what has caught the public imagination, New Labour should have learned its own lesson, you defeat an incumbent party with a solid grip on the economy by calling 'sleaze!' incessantly. So how much more will it count with the trainwreck economy an grossly increased sleaze we have now.

Saying that three more bits of evidence to look at, it is rumoured so hold this lightly that New Labour sniffed the scandal and didnt act because the scandal hit Tories worse than Labour on day one due to a clever release order in ther Telegraph, by day two everone wanted the story and a blanket censorship would not have washed. The Daily telegraph handled the information release very well, you normally serialise a scandal anyway to help it run, but by peaking and keeping public interest before dropping the hammer that hit the government made it impossilbe to hide.

However it had been stopped before. Martin Bell was made an PM in 1997 to kick out a particularly sleaze ridden Tory MP in a safe seat, but Labour and Lib Dems abstained so the seat would fall. His campaign was titled 'Independant anti sleaze'. I remember raido quotes of him on 2006 saying that sleaze was a 'million times worse under New Labour'. The comments disappeared from the press the next day.

One UK paper has run several stories over the years on MP salaries and backhanders off and on as it finds them, normally the stories last for one day in one or two papers and noone else picks them up. One of the papers was the Daily Express I wont need to ask you to guess which other paper it was. Of course MP's on the fiddle its just 'hearsay' isnt it?.. but recent leaks prove otherwise which brings us right back on topic.

Going back to the orginal post I can beleive the story printed about a failed asylum seeker who has a hit and run being allowed to stay on compassionate grounds, I can beleive that he is possibly no good and just taking advantage of our system. After all itts an old trick, get in then get someone pregnant/get pregnant. Its not just New Labour, it happened long before. I was a homeless worker and know of many cases of deliberate pregnancy to get council houses. This is no different. Though the PC lobby will have no end of lawyers to cover bleeding heart cases like this - and get rich off them due to the new dogmas, cue Cheri Blair.
Many asylum seekers are scum, just like there are scum in every walk of life, Daily Mail will not need to lie or go very far at all to find a piece of owrthless trash who shouldnt be here who has sone something wrong and ought to be kicked out, but cannot because of this or that or some PC reason. Now if they find a new piece of human scum every day five days a week its only 52x5 260 scum a year. Find that many bad cases amongst the millions of asylum seekers and immigrant in this country is a doddle for any paper, it would have hard not to fit that 'quota', not saying Daily Mail have a quota, its just statistics. You can find such cases every day in just about every town. It takes no real skill to find such cases and its not necessarily a lie, but it is wrong to imply that all asylum seekers are like that. However conversely Daily Mail dont do so, its detractors claim it does, often while mainting that all such stories are lies and stick to a dogged belief that just about every asylum seeker must be a nice well balanced vitim coming to make a new life together with us. That pie in the sky idiocy would be almost acceptable if those who don't automatically presume to beleive otherwise are not labelled Nazis bigots or racists for doing so.

Actually Orlanth, I have no idea where you're getting this idea Gibraltar is going to be Spanish from, my housemate and fellow dakkite is a Gibraltarian, and as far as him and the rest of the population know, they're British and intend to stay that way.

As a historian and Mail reader, I would completely agree with the thoughts of the Daily Mail making stuff up occasionaly, that's why they often have little boxes in the side apologising after they've published complete fallacies and been threatened legally about them.

The Daily Mail are a right wing paper that obsesses over 'British issues', and talks a fair bit of a twaddle, like most papers. Despite that, I enjoy reading it, simply because they're very good at ferreting out things the Government would prefer we didn't know. Anything that makes Brown look a fool can't be all that bad in my books.

I recall reading in the Private Eye how one of their campaigns (the dustbin one) was only drummed up because the guy who started it's superior was going on about how he lacked initiative and persuasiveness. Not through an overwhelming surge of patriotism then, more about sticking it to his boss.

Ultimately, its a paper. It prints some good stuff, it prints some pure balderdash, but like with all papers, it's out to make money at the end of the day, so take everything you read with a pinch of salt.

I would suggest Private Eye and Have I got News for You? for the slightly more discerning, and cynical voter.

John Major was very pleasant and polite, perhaps PM was a step too far for him at the time, but he was, and is (?) a thoroughly decent man... that minor indiscretion aside.

.. the women I worked with at the time -- ranging from 25 to around 60 ish -- all reckoned he was sex on legs and was more desirable than Orlando Bloom..

I think even Edwina Currie (sp ?) still says good things about him.

As for the Telegraph and the expenses ...look at the owners of said paper and what they want.

I would suggest Private Eye

QFT.

reds8n wrote:I don't work in an office and don't really have an opinion on the DM one way or another. I mentioned the Rothmere fact purely to help explain why so many people refer to the paper and its writers as nazis. It's a longstanding tradition and "in joke" amongst the UK press. Every now and again the Mail group and Desmond will have a spat and they'll start referring to him as a pornographer and his rags' will drag up the fascist thing for a couple of weeks, then they resolve their disagreement and they call him a publisher and media magnate and his papers stop upsetting the remaining Rothmere's who, understandably, find the whole thing rather embarrassing.

Personally I don't call them/it nazis as.. well.. it's obvious they're not.

Ok, I withdraw the last part as it was a little loaded. But it looked like it was your opinion and not an opinion of others you werre commenting on. Intersting that I was still close to the truth, when Daily Mail needs bashing bring out the 'they are just Nazis' stick, the only bit wrong it's that its not your office politics, but office politics you know of.
Remember that ridicule is a good stick to beat with, and while its an old stick, I would not be suprised if it has been brought out a few times recently to help socially isolate Daily Mail from the rest of Fleet Street.

reds8n wrote:
As to the Dacre/Brown link, that, more than anything, is why the paper is remarkably easy on Brown compared to Blair ( I gather their shared loathing of Blair helped cement their friendship) and other politicians.

Brown fethed up our economy while still pretending to be economic genius. Daily Mail still get at him for that, and rightly so, but apart from being a ditherer there isnt much negative to put on him now. He is a truly different character from Blair who the Daily Mail seems to beleive as little less than a force of evil, and for many good reasons to consider him such. Brown would not have done what Blair did, partly because he lacked the political ruthlessness and partly because he is a genuinely nicer person and partly because his family get less involved and the less said on that the better.
Blair was a control freak, and I have hear many stories about him and those with him that I won't repeat here, some of the nastier ones are double sourced, others arent but are in keeping with the charactger of the man. He broke many people for trival reasons of protocol, in the same way a control freak dictator would. He would have been more at home running a dictatorship, the only reason hs wasn't a Saddam or Stalin is because he was not in a position to be one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mr. Burning wrote:
Apparently it is also the UK's second biggest selling newspaper. I would assume that it has had to become more aggressive and less circumspect about its articles to get up to this level.

Its accidental but because when the Sun started turning New Labour the right had no other tabloid to speak to them. Daily Mail is followed by Daily Express but that paper is transparently a clone, it says the same stuff just no as well and missing the scoop by a day or two. So by extension Daily Mail is seen as alone as the clone can be ignored. This means Daily Mail got the brunt of ther New Labour propoganda machine, it also meant it got the bulk of the right wing readship. Combine the two together and you naturally get accusations of fascism whether justified or not.

Mr. Burning wrote:
In a nutshell the Daily Mail is about reporting the evil conspiracy of immigrants in collusion with HRH Prince Phillip and the royal family undermining our way of life and battling with the saintlike protector of Mail readers aka Princess Diana.

I won't get started on Diana only to say this: Every paper raped her daily while she was alive and idolised her daily now she is dead. Daily Mail were guilty, but so were all the others. I am still angry at the British press for this, and a not alone in thinking this way but some good fruit came of it. The Princes have been mostly protected from the same tratment an overally treatment of all Royals has improved somewhatover the years. It means a lot that William was allowed to grow up in peace, we will be needing him soon enough and there will be no rest for him then and no provision for error so he needs to be up to the job.

No worries.

*unbans hurriedly*

I think the daily mail = nazis thing is mainly just modern "shorthand" .. perhaps 'net inspired.. as a quick way of labelling X/Y/Z as EVIL AND BAD more than an attempt to isolate the paper as such. That said it has been interesting to note this sems to have happened more recently, after certain very rich Russians took over rivals to the some of the mail groups' papers so... you never know.

You'll note the Mail was very easy on him over the whole sad handwritten note affair... (what's big, black and brings tears to women's eyes ?.. Gordon Brown's handwriting ! ba dump tish ! )

I think you might be a little OTT with regards to your opinion on Blair... I don't really see him as the sending millions to their deaths in camps kind of guy, but who knows.

I think he was somewhat of a control freak.. I would suggest that any political leader has to be to an extent, let a alone a PM/equivalent. And New Labour was run very smoothly and efficiently. Granted the opposition at the time were generally pretty useless and tried to compete in the wrong ways and areas.. but they appear to have mastered that now and lo and behold here comes that nice Mr. Cameron man...

..be careful what you wish for, you might just get it etc etc.

I agree that Blair did some crappy things to people though, his treatment of Mo Mowlam was especially shabby. But to an extent i think that's why he was/is a better leader than Brown, as you need, alas, that ruthless edge to succeed in that enviroment.

Ketara wrote:Actually Orlanth, I have no idea where you're getting this idea Gibraltar is going to be Spanish from, my housemate and fellow dakkite is a Gibraltarian, and as far as him and the rest of the population know, they're British and intend to stay that way.

They certainly do want to stay that way, but the treaty was signed and Gibraltarians and UK populace are largely ignorant of it. The Spanish press said a little but dont want to blow the story because they know the pulbic will likely get angry and I learne some from a US source who said it's all about the cost of keeping the rock. Gibraltar costs the UK to keep, so save money and hand it over. The wishes of Gibraltarians means squat to Blair, who had little if any care for our populace. He only 'cared' about immigrants because it changed the demographics in his favour to have as many as possible. There is plenty of money to set up immigrant groups smaller than the Gibraltar population time after time, but Gibraltarians are just a waste of money - as far as he was concerned. They don't vote for him, if they left Gibraltar to come here they wopuldnt vote for him, so feth em. This is along the lines of how Blair thought.

I am hoping Cameron wil give Gibraltarians guarantees, but he is just a carbon copy of Blair in too many respects. He sees how Blair made New Labour practically undefeatable, and wants New Tory to use the same strategy. I dont think it will entirely work, but it will be bad news all told.

I have asked about on this, my journalist sources talk but their sources are very tight lipped, but do get angry about the topic when reminded, though not with the asker, something bad has happened that shames them and we dont know exactly what and when its due to happen. I personally suspect that the Gibraltarians wont know what until one morning the find the colony covered with Spanish police; allowing for Gibraltarians very vocal and explicit attitudes on the subject I expect them to be kept well out of the loop. This saddens me as a patriot, but it wasnt be the first time Blair directly sold out British values, identity, traditions and heritage, he made many such moves.






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reds8n wrote:

I think you might be a little OTT with regards to your opinion on Blair... I don't really see him as the sending millions to their deaths in camps kind of guy, but who knows.

I note you said little. Perhaps you heard the same stories perhaps not. Some people Blair went heavily after were brought down for utterly trivial oversights that proved harmless to anyone. I wont give the true analogy but its like flogging the waiter who spills the soup level of self important pride.

Allowing for how he transparently didnt give a feth about tghe populace time and again i can see the dictator in him. one common example but looked at in a different way. Blair didnt care his soldiers went into Iraq without body armour, but did care how he was seen in the press at the time. then and now i saw this as 'sod the soldiers, lets get to the real issue, do I look good'.

As for executing dissidents and disappearances and other things dictators do, I was never satisfied with the David Kelly story, and the new enquiry is close to allowing vocalisation of what many in the press strongly beleive. it was not a suicide and journalists who thought otherwise were very heavily leaned on. I know of two different journalists who imply this, and know people who were around the same steets as Dr Kellys family. It took a wgile for the lobsided protection to get properly noticed, but several sources compare the media protection given to Alaistair Campbell and other government spinmasters over the death in comparsion to the complete lack of protection given to the families. to these journalists credit tghe ones I spoke to never even attempted to get the Kellys personal opinions. There was a lot of reading between the lines and a clear impression amongst some that the Kellys were expect to cooperate with saving the faces of suspected killers of the father of their household from press embarassment. The local community saw it that way and it more than stank.

I'm sorry, but what? If the UK ever decided that they didn't want Gibraltar to be a part of it anymore, its not up to them to decide to give it to Spain. The Gibraltarian government would be free to decide exactly what they wanted to do. Gibraltar creates a tremendous amount of its own law, and is largely self-governed. What you are proposing is along the lines of the government deciding to give Northern Ireland to France. It would be highly illegal, and wouldn't work.

If you expect me to take this seriously, please provide verifiable sources. Until then, I'll treat this with the same amount of regard that I give to people who proclaim they see the face of Jesus in a piece of toast. You are providing highly generalised statements about Tony Blair, which I doubt you can prove unless you're psychic, and are attributing a huge amount to 'sources' in the same way people who claim DE are coming out next week do.

Daily Mail is 99% evil. I was always bemused by their hate campaign against Maxine Carr, but then nothing raises the the Mail's ire more than a woman letting the side down (Mail is only paper in Britiain with a greater than 50% female readership). Anyway, they gave her worse press than Iain Huntley. Laughably, the paper then had the cheek to scream blue murder when they dug up the cost of keeping Maxine Carr in witness protection.

Their one decent campaign was against the presumed murderers of Stephen Lawrence. Let off on a technicality due to failings by the Metropolitian Police, the Mail hounded the suspects into a hopefully miserable existence, because the paper knew it would win any civil action against them in this particular case.

Orlanth wrote:
Let us look at the facts of the case study given.
a. US press and Spanish press reported a deal over Gibraltar.
b. UK press reported the deal for one day in one newspaper.
c. Newspapers are monitored in every country between the time of holding the front page and going inrto print there is time for a government to censor, some states have an easier time than others but all have methods.
d. (This much is rumour) The Uk securuty services are known to be particualrly efficient at this.

When did this information become available? There have been numerous deals involving Gibraltar and Spain since the territory passed to Crown Dependency status in 2006. A move passed by popular referendum with 60% assenting.

I've not seen the stories you're discussing, but I'm willing to bet that the discussion revolved around an independent deal between Gibraltar and Spain, or the move by Gibraltar to distance itself from England.

Orlanth wrote:
Also please remember than while official secrets cannot legally be leaked, a tally of official secrets made is kept for public record, and the amount of gagging ordered by Blair is mid bogglingly large.

Not that I doubt you, but what is this total, and where is it publicly available?

Orlanth wrote:
Anyone hazard to guess as to why 1997 was chosen as the delimiter year... any takers?

Why even use a delimiter year? The document doesn't require that any type of information be disclosed at all. Its more of and "ask us, and we'll think about it" sort of thing. There's simply no reason to even mention a date of restricted access, which is why no such thing exists in documentation.

I mean sure, the inability to acquire information about the state is pretty ridiculous. But it doesn't really point to sweeping conspiracies of censorship so much as a lack of accountability. The only way you reach that conclusion is by beginning with malice in mind.

reds8n wrote:Paul Dacre, the editor of the Mail is a massive and longterm friend of Gordon Brown's.. I expect him to get a peerage in the next year or so, presumably just as/when he steps down from his job, the owners want him gone sooner rather than later.

... .

It is SOP for ex-prime ministers to get knighted.

I mean Dacre will get one.