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Maret 28, 2022

SubScribe

Cronyism and a tale of two honours lists

Posted: 07 Aug 2020 03:23 AM PDT

It was a textbook case of burying scandalous news.Having decided to create a raft of new peers from among his family, Brexiters, Press friends and party donors - in spite of vowing to reduce the size of the House of Lords and having postponed the Birthday Honours because of covid - Boris Johnson needed to minimise the flak. First step was for the list to be leaked to a selected outlet, in this

Honours uneven

Posted: 07 Aug 2020 02:52 AM PDT

A low-key Trooping the Colour went ahead at Windsor Castle, but the Birthday Honours were shelvedIs there any institution, convention, tradition – up to and including the monarchy – that Boris Johnson will not disrupt, traduce, usurp? We know the answer to that from the unlawful prorogation of Parliament and the lying to the Queen to achieve that end - albeit temporarily. Yet still, he has this

Double speak and double standards

Posted: 16 Jun 2020 02:39 AM PDT

They are playing us for fools. They said we were prepared for the coronavirus. That we had "fantastic, world-beating" testing; that the NHS was fully equipped and ready. Then the bug arrived. And it turned out that we'd sold all the fantastic equipment abroad or run it down in austerity. They told us not to worry. We must wash our hands, but apart from that, it should be "business as

That Downing Street walkout

Posted: 07 Feb 2020 01:13 AM PST

Three cheers for Lee Cain and his clumsy Downing Street rug apartheid. Two cheers for the political journalists who walked out in sympathy with those on the "wrong" side of the mat. One cheer for the Tory loyalists who remonstrated in print, on radio and on Twitter this morning. Why three cheers for Cain, the villain of the piece? Because the Prime Minister's communications director's

Right to Rent

Posted: 25 May 2019 01:54 AM PDT

It is the role of the Opposition to oppose and the role of the Press to hold those in power to account. So, putting Brexit aside for once, how have they fared with regard to the Government's attempts to tackle illegal immigration over the past five years or so? Last week the High Court ruled on Theresa May's "Right to rent" policy, which requires landlords to check that they're not

Paperchase, the papers and a question of bullying

Posted: 05 Dec 2017 12:41 AM PST

This is an inordinately long post. I'm sorry if it's indigestible. Thank you for your thoughts on how to deal with this. I've now tried moving some bits to the end as "asides" - and attempted superscript! I hope this makes it better, even though it's still long. "The British people relish a good hero – and a good hate." Thus spake Sunny Harmsworth, first and only Lord Northcliffe

How the Express won Brexit - by its editor

Posted: 12 Sep 2017 03:15 AM PDT

National newspaper editors don't often explain themselves or their strategies, so Daily Express editor Hugh Whittow's contribution to a book about Brexit and the media is a rare delight. Here are some extracts from his chapter. The words are his, the bold bits are mine: "A newspaper which believes it can dictate what readers think or how they should vote is doomed to failure."

In defence of Ryanair

Posted: 08 Sep 2017 11:47 PM PDT

Oh we do love to hate Ryanair. Low-cost airline? Pah! It's a nasty little organisation, always looking for sneaky ways to charge customers more. You could hear the sigh of whatever-next exasperation/outrage yesterday as the Mail brought out the "Now" word to report the company's latest luggage policy – to revert to its old practice of allowing only one free item per passenger. "Now Ryanair

Election day anger: a valedictory rant

Posted: 09 Jun 2017 05:21 AM PDT

I'm just off to the polling station. My cross won't make a jot of difference. The defending MP took 58% of the vote last time and won't be dislodged. The parties I have voted for in the past have always come a poor third, fourth or fifth, so I'm used to having my voice drowned out electorally. Not only that, I colluded in this state of affairs, having backed first-past-the-post in that other

Dementia tax life stories: a portrait of the future

Posted: 22 May 2017 03:45 PM PDT

This is fancy. But not, I think, fanciful. Photograph from Disability Direct, Derbyshire  Caz is in her fifties. Divorced, she lives with her teenage son in a rented flat. She has a minimum-wage job at the local school that just about keeps the pair of them fed and clothed. Caz has two brothers, Graham and Michael, both happily married with young families of their own, in

Dementia tax or fair play on social care funding? How the papers changed their tune

Posted: 21 May 2017 03:13 PM PDT

There is a perception that greedy baby-boomers are responsible for any and every economic ill; that younger generations are suffering while they cruise into the sunset on the profits of successive housing booms, their steamer chairs cushioned by generous final-salary pension schemes. It's true that some older people are very comfortably off, thank you. Others are in no fit state to go

Kelvin MacKenzie the fall guy?

Posted: 17 Apr 2017 08:26 AM PDT

How did it get in the paper? And on this Hillsborough anniversary weekend? 1: Because, after the Ipso rulings on cockroaches and hijabs, the Sun believes that it can be as obnoxious as it pleases? 2: Because no sub or backbencher dares question star columnists? 3: Because there are no subs left? 4: Because comparing a man to a gorilla is a mild insult by Mackenzie's standards? 5: Because

The Press v Google - or pots v kettles

Posted: 21 Mar 2017 11:35 AM PDT

You could almost touch the schadenfreude as big-name advertisers walked away from YouTube after finding themselves appearing alongside extremists.  "At last!" proclaimed a Daily Mail leader hailing the "fightback against web anarchy". Google (which owns YouTube) rightly stood accused of profiting from hatred, it said: Day after day, the already deeply tarnished reputations of the

The Sun piles on the agony for Lizzie Kelly

Posted: 26 May 2020 06:56 AM PDT

Last week Lizzie Kelly became the second woman to ride in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Her horse fell at the second fence. It's the sort of story that would get decent coverage on the back  pages and a sentence or two in the news report of the race. It is, after all, one of those events that transcend the sports section. The Sun found a better line, however. It could "reveal" that some intimate

British Press pays homage to Emperor Dacre

Posted: 18 Mar 2017 09:33 AM PDT

The Daily Mail covers itself in glory It's nice to win prizes. We may say they don't matter, that they're not the reason we do whatever we do, but a bit of recognition is always welcome. Last Tuesday, The New European was presented with the Chairman's Award at the British Press Awards. Newspapers cannot "enter" this category, the prize is in the gift of the judges and is awarded only

The Press and immigration, part ii: the inside story

Posted: 28 Feb 2017 07:43 AM PST

​  Last September, SubScribe looked at the prevalence and tone of anti-immigration stories produced by Fleet Street, accompanied by a bar chart of front pages. At the time there were 195. By the end of the year, there were 277, with more than half coming from two newspapers – the Daily Mail and the Daily Express.That original study dealt only with stories relating to immigration and a rash

Have your say on the rules that govern the Press

Posted: 26 Feb 2017 03:16 PM PST

Does this conform with the code? Should it? A strictly regulated Press fighting for survival against fake news, unregulated social media and subsidised broadcasters - or a lawless bunch of ne'er-do-wells intent on marking their own homework? Five years ago some of us became daytime television addicts as Sir Brian Leveson, Robert Jay and a parade of celebrities, politicians, police officers,

The Mail and the Dubs refugees: Day 2

Posted: 10 Feb 2017 02:57 AM PST

More interesting coverage from the Daily Mail this morning of the Government's decision to end the Dubs scheme to give refugee orphans the chance of a new life in Britain. This was the scheme trumpeted by the paper in a front-page splash as a "Victory for compassion" - and by extension the Mail - when it was approved last May. Yesterday the paper reported the scrapping of the policy at the

The Mail and the Dubs refugee children

Posted: 14 Feb 2017 05:28 AM PST

The question of foreigners - immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, hospital patients, murderers, rapists, mobile phone-using lorry drivers - coming to Britain is of abiding concern to the Daily Mail. It was deemed the most important issue of the day 56 times last year, accounting for 18% of the paper's lead stories. It is probably fair to say that the Mail did not regard these arrivals (or

Have newspapers got nastier?

Posted: 03 Feb 2017 01:42 AM PST

We've always been below the salt, required to use the tradesmen's entrance. Journalists are proud to see their work as a trade rather than a profession. But people don't trust us. Survey after survey tells us that we are ranked down with estate agents and politicians in public esteem, while doctors and teachers soar away at the top. Actually, nearly all of us work pretty hard at what we do and

Section 40, Press freedom and the rival regulators

Posted: 09 Jan 2017 11:04 AM PST

Newspaper readers have been bombarded this week with dire warnings about how the Government, the Left, a gaggle of press-hating fanatics, celebs and vindictive tycoons want to censor what they read. Reporters, leader writers and columnists on both national and local titles have been called to arms to hammer home the argument. Their articles take a similar approach: "This is really boring and

Blood brothers: the Mail and the NHS chief

Posted: 04 Jan 2017 02:01 AM PST

It does seem odd that hospitals are allowing lawyers to set up shop in their foyers to advise patients on how they might sue the people treating them. The Mail sees personal injury claims as a bane of modern life and it will be pleased to have secured the support of the NHS chief executive Simon Stevens in its mini-campaign on medical negligence suits. Stevens obligingly says that lawyers'

Why did the Daily Mail bury the story about the white terrorist who murdered Jo Cox?

Posted: 25 Nov 2016 12:11 PM PST

Killers: Michale Adebolajo, Thomas Mair and Michael Adebowale If Jo Cox had been a pro-Brexit Tory MP and her killer Thomas Mair a jihadist Syrian, what would the Daily Mail have done with the story? As with many questions posed by that newspaper, the answer is that we don't know - but we can speculate. And most Mail watchers would speculate that the report of Mair's conviction and sentence

How Lego changes the game by doing nothing

Posted: 14 Nov 2016 03:04 AM PST

The Mail's Lego promotions in May and October this year.  @StopFundingHate We have finished the agreement with The Daily Mail and are not planning any future promotional activity with the newspaper — LEGO (@LEGO_Group) November 12, 2016 And so Twitter erupted in joy. The BBC, the Independent, the Huffington Post reported that Lego was pulling its advertising from the Mail. It isn't.

Sun vilified over true refugee story

Posted: 28 Oct 2016 03:04 AM PDT

Don't disbelieve everything you read in the papers. Just because it's in a newspaper doesn't mean it isn't true. Last Sunday the Sun carried a page lead about a woman called Rosie who claimed that a 12-year-old Afghan boy she had fostered turned out to be a young adult Jihadi sympathiser. Her own children had become suspicious about his age when they noticed while swimming that his body was

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