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Posted by 5cc
August 28th, 2010
For a few years now, the Mail has been telling us that England is the most crowded country in Europe. Thursday’s edition included the latest version of this, in ‘This very crowded isle: England is most over-populated country in EU‘. But is it?
This story is based on figures provided by the House of Commons Library, taken from the Office for National Statistics (here and here) and Eurostat (here). (They’re also mentioned in an answer to a parliamentary question in July, supplied by the ONS). They show that England’s population density in 2010 was projected to be 401 people per square kilometre by the ONS.
The Mail reports this as being 402.1 per square km, just under 4 people higher than the Netherlands, which it reports as being 398.5 people per square km.
The parliamentary answer says:
Eurostat publishes estimates of population densities for all EU countries up to 2007 (see table tps00003 under main demographic indicators at [this link]
Table tps00003 – the table that the Office for National Statistics suggests we use to find out the population density of European countries – shows that in 2007, the Netherlands’ density was 485.3 people per square km. The Mail said that in 2010 it was 398.5.
Official stats from the Dutch equivalent of the ONS show that the Netherlands’ projected population density for 2010 is 491 people per square km. Over 90 people higher than the Daily Mail reports.
According to the ONS figures, England won’t reach that level until some time between 2031 and 2056. So how has the Mail been suggesting for years that England is the most overcrowded country in Europe?
Nearly a fifth of the Netherlands is covered by water. The Dutch government takes account of that by measuring population density by land area only. Eurostat includes this measurement in its own figures, and the ONS advises we use Eurostat figures to measure population density. But for some reason, the Mail ignores this.
This needn’t be deliberate. It could be that the Mail or whoever provided the paper with these figures never actually noticed the Eurostat numbers, and made their own calculations that didn’t take account of water in the Netherlands.
Whatever the reason for the omission, it’s clear that England is only the most overcrowded country in Europe if you ignore official Dutch figures, ignore the figures the ONS suggest and decide that Dutch people can live underwater.
Categories: Immigration |
5 Comments
Posted by sim-o
July 29th, 2010
“I have been shunned, publicly abused and received numerous extremely distressing and frightening telephone calls and text messages,” he said. “I have received death threats and on occasions felt unable to leave my home for fear that I may be attacked.”
That, is Parameswaran Subramanyam. The Tamil who went on hunger strike in the middle of 2009 protesting against Sri Lankan governments last push against the Tamils.
The reason Parameswaran was shunned and abused and received death threats was because of the report in the Daily Mail that inspired other articles like this one. (The Sun also churned out copy based on the Mails’ article too.)
The Daily Mail piece has obviously disappeared, and they have now published an apology, but their claims of Parameswaran costing the Met Police over £7 million in overtime due to a hunger strike was designed to do more than make people gasp at the cost of the demonstration; the Mail even claimed the hunger striker was a fraud and was having sneaky meals of fast foods.
And what evidence did they have for this? None at all. Police “surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief as he tucked into the clandestine deliveries.” Apparently.
But the police couldn’t have recorded any McDonald’s being eaten by Parameswaran…
[T]he Met superintendent in charge of the policing operation had also confirmed that no video evidence existed because there had been no police surveillance team using the “specialist monitoring equipment” alluded to in the Daily Mail article.
Whether the Mail was fed that line about the surveillance from someone in the Met or they managed to think it up all by themselves in unknown, but the linking of it to the overtime bill for the whole protest concentrated all the hostility that these two pieces of information could generate on the one man who was making the ultimate political protest, and it seemed as if it were designed specifically to undermine him and his cause.
“Fasting was the sacrifice [Subramanyam] was making to bring the UK’s attention to the plight of hundreds of thousands of Tamils being killed and injured by the Sri Lankan government,” she said [Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh].
“To suggest that he had broken his fast in secret, at the height of the civil war was an insult to him, to his community and to those victims.”
The Mail doesn’t care about any of that though. To the Mail it’s just yet more foreigners costing us money.
(hat-tip Exclarotive)
Categories: Politics |
Tags: agendas, apology, hunger strike, Immigration, Tamil | 19 Comments
Posted by 5cc
July 20th, 2010
It’s not often that we’ll open a post on MailWatch by talking about the local press, but there’s always room for an exception.
Early in June, getreading.co.uk published ‘Blind passenger hounded off bus because of his dog‘, a story about George Herridge, who was asked to get off a bus last year because his guide dog had apparently caused ‘a woman and her children’ to become ‘hysterical’.
Mr Herridge says that this is not the first time someone has had a bad reaction to his guide dog, and tells of three more occasions involving people at the hospital, Asda and another bus the previous year. It seems this latest was the second time a bus driver asked him to get off the bus because of a distressed child.
He explains:
He is unsure what has provoked outbursts but said he thinks some have come from Asian people and that it may be due to religious or cultural differences.
So, he’s not sure, but some of these reactions may have come from Asians. He doesn’t say which ones. The paper explains:
If the people who were upset were Muslim, they consider dogs to be ritually unclean.
So, if the people upset were Muslim, which is by no means clear, the reaction might have been because of their beliefs.
The Daily Mail, naturally, picked up this story yesterday. The paper has given it the headline ‘Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board‘. Given that Mr Herridge wasn’t even sure if some of the people in his four stories were Asian or not, and the paper only surmised that they might have been Muslim, quite where the Mail can be so certain that the bus drivers were Muslim is a mystery. As is the plural to ‘guide dogs’, since we’re only talking about one dog here.
The rest of the story is set up nicely by the opening line:
Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their ‘unclean’ guide dogs.
Now the paper has introduced taxi rides, the entire story could be talking about bus passengers rather than drivers. Or even taxi passengers. The original story doesn’t seem to suggest that the bus drivers were Muslim at all. It seems to suggest that the passengers who over-reacted might have been.
If the paper were being dishonest, and attempting to beef up a weakly supported claim about bus drivers, this would be an excellent way to go about it.
The article goes on to say:
The problem to carry guide dogs on religious grounds has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.
Here’s the actual Written Question, from Lord Monson in Hansard:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether bus drivers can prevent would-be passengers with well-behaved dogs from boarding on the ground that one or more individuals on the bus may object to dogs on cultural or religious grounds.[HL936]
The first thing to notice is that it does not mention guide dogs at all. The second is that it specifically references other passengers, not drivers. Only the reply mentions guide dogs.
The plural to ‘guide dogs’ in the headline is supported by this:
Yesterday both the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the National Federation of the Blind confirmed the problem was common, and, according to the latter organisation was ‘getting worse’.
But what problem? The problem of Muslim bus drivers turning passengers away, other passengers causing drivers to turn passengers away, or Muslim cab drivers refusing to pick up passengers with guide dogs?
Curiously, although the article name-checks Guide Dogs, there isn’t a single quote in the story attributed to the organisation. So how to we know what Guide Dogs was talking about?
I contacted the press office to find out, and they kindly sent me a copy of a statement they’d released over the weekend. It opens:
Guide Dogs is appalled when a taxi, minicab or bus driver refuses to transport a guide dog owner because they have their guide dog with them…
It goes on to point out that this is illegal, and that the organisation had worked with the MCB and that the Islamic Council had issued a fatwa to allow guide dogs in mosques.
You’ll notice that it says nothing about the bus drivers being Muslim and rejecting the dog for that reason. Nor does it confirm that this is common.
The National Federation of the Blind (and you have to wonder why the paper would eschew mentioning the much larger RNIB than a smaller organisation, which probably has a less experienced press officer) provides quotes about being refused service by cab drivers. Nothing at all about bus drivers. The press officer is unavailable today for comment, but I hope to follow this one up tomorrow.
In any case, neither organisation talks specifically about Muslim bus drivers turning away passengers with guide dogs because of the driver’s beliefs.
Still, remembering that Mr Herridge thought some of the people who objected to the dog might have been Asian but he wasn’t sure, this is how the Mail covers both bus incidents (it completely ignores the other two):
Mr Herridge, who lives with wife Janet, 69, in Tilehurst, Reading, said that on the first occasion two years ago, he got off at the request of a Muslim driver because some Muslim children on board were ’screaming’ because of the dog.
So now every person in the story is definitely a Muslim! How did that happen?
And the second bus story goes:
He found himself in a similar scenario in May last year, when a Muslim woman and her children became ‘hysterical’. Mr Herridge this time refused the driver’s request to alight.
Notice how this doesn’t actually say that the driver is Muslim. Fancy that. The one person in the two bus stories who has been reprimanded and is therefore identifiable has not been described as a Muslim. It’s been heavily implied with the headline and the lead in that includes reference to a House of Lords written question, of course, but that’s all. Hey, you don’t think he maybe wasn’t actually a Muslim do you?
The best evidence that the Mail has that ‘Muslim bus drivers’ are ‘refusing to let guide dogs on board’ is that one bus driver who asked a man to get off his bus might have been one of the people Mr Herridge thought might have been Asian. Possibly. Well, possible-ish. And the only quotes the paper can get about guide dogs being refused entry to vehicles involves cab drivers, not bus drivers.
The evidence that bus passengers objected on religious grounds is that they might have been Muslim. Maybe. Well, one spoke to him in a foreign language at least. Still, both were in the company of hysterical, frightened children who didn’t like the dog. Maybe the screaming, frightened children are what made the drivers ask him to get off the bus, rather than religious sensitivities.
I’m just wondering. I know it’s far fetched.
**UPDATE**
Phil Coleman in the comments points out that this story made the front page of the Sunday Times. The Mail story seems to have been lifted from there rather than the getreading story.
See what you think. Here’s a passage from the Sunday Times:
The refusal, for religious reasons, to carry even guide dogs has become so widespread that it was raised in the House of Lords last week by Lord Monson, a crossbench peer.
Last night Norman Baker, the transport minister, signalled to bus companies that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved dog.
And here’s a passage from the Mail:
The problem to carry guide dogs on religious grounds has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.
The Mail sentence is very similar indeed, and where the Times says ‘the refusal to carry’, the Mail includes ‘the problem to carry’, which doesn’t make grammatical sense. That suggests that the passage has been clumsily rewritten.
The Times version ‘Muslims eject ‘unclean’ guide dogs from buses’ does not claim that any of the bus drivers were Muslim. It does imply that with a similar ‘drivers or passengers’ sentence, and in mixing the bus stories up with cab stories, but goes no further than that.
It does include more details about the earlier of the two incidents, with a quote from Mr Herridge:
“A few months previously I was coming home on the bus and there were some children screaming,” he said. “They were Muslims. The driver pulled over and told me to get off.”
The detail that the driver pulled over and told Mr Herridge to get off, showing that he was already allowed to board and was on the bus after it drove away was curiously absent from the Mail’s version, which claims that Muslim bus drivers refuse to even let guide dogs on buses in the first place. Also absent in this quote is any claim that the driver asked him to leave the bus because the children were Muslim rather than because they were screaming.
How did he know the children were Muslim? Perhaps probing this is what let the getreading reporter know that all he could say with confidence is that they might have been Asian, but we can’t say that for sure.
There is no quote from Mr Herridge that suggests the driver or passengers in the first incident later incident were Muslim.
Categories: Political correctness |
Tags: Muslims | 61 Comments
Posted by 5cc
April 14th, 2010
The most read story on the Daily Mail website today is labelled ‘Immigrant gang of eight molest girl, 14, in street – but no one is charged as it’s ‘not in public interest” on the homepage, and in the page title (which also includes a classic tabloid ‘fury as’). Clicking the link will show that the headline has been changed to ‘Eight boys molest girl, 14, in street but not one faces charges‘.
The change of headline could have been made because of a statement issued by the Crown Prosecution Service, reported in Peterborough Today, which says:
The Crown Prosecution Service refuted reports that it decided to drop the case because it was not deemed to be in the public interest. A spokesman said all decisions to press charges are based on two “tests” outlined in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
He said: “The first is the evidential test where we have to be satisfied that there is enough admissible evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
“If the evidence satisfies the first test, then we have to consider the second test – the public interest test. A prosecution will usually take place unless the public interest factors against prosecution clearly outweigh those in favour of prosecution.
“In this particular case, there was a lack of sufficient evidence to give rise to a realistic prospect of conviction before a criminal court and so the public interest test was not considered.”
So, the boys did not escape prosecution because it wasn’t in the public interest. It’s a shame, but there just wasn’t enough evidence to get a conviction from. This sort of thing happens, annoying as it might be.
What about the other claim in the original headline, that an ‘immigrant gang of eight’ molested a girl?
Speaking to MailWatch, a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said that although it would be accurate to say the boys were Slovakian, “some reports have called the boys ‘gypsy migrants’ which would not be accurate language to use,” and not something the CPS would have said. This is because the information the CPS has comes from the question on the police’s arrest form, which is self-reported by the suspect. It doesn’t include information like ‘gypsy’.
As for the ‘migrant’ or ‘immigrant’ – the Mail article has this to say:
The boys, from local Romany migrant families who settled in the city in the late 1990s…
So, since the boys are aged between 8 and 12 and their families arrived in the UK in the late 90s, they’re probably not migrants at all. Since their parents arrived before Slovakia joined the EU and movement between EU countries became easier, they may even be UK citizens.
The removal of the word ‘immigrant’ probably explains the headline change, since the boys aren’t called immigrants in the body of the story. It’s the only thing that has gone though. The story still falsely claims in its opening sentence:
A gang of boys who molested a girl of 14 have escaped prosecution because it is ‘not in the public interest’.
The paper gets around the ‘migrant’ and ‘gypsy’ references by saying:
…the boys, from Slovakian gipsy families…
[and]
The boys, from local Romany migrant families…
Where the idea that their families are gypsies comes from is anyone’s guess.
Although the paper may have been careful only to imply the boys are immigrants in the body of the story, it has been less than careful in moderating the comments, which say:
Good to see the CPS are obeying Government dictat and placing the human rights of immigrants above those of the indigenous population when the law is broken.
And:
We cannot allow bands of immigrant boys who perpetrate this type of crime to go unpunished.
And:
This country now belongs to benefits claimants, criminals and street gangs, bankers, human rights lawyers, and economic immigrants….
And:
I’ll bet the spineless, idiotic, moronic wombles from the CPS would soon be prosecuting if one of the immigrants had made a complaint.
And:
Soon, the UK will have the same problems as France (rape rooms in the ghettos) and the immigrant (youth) gang rapists in Australia, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands etc
And:
The reason is simple. There is not a penny to be made in the form of fines by prosecuting these illegal immigrants.
And:
Eastern European gypsies enjoy a doubly protected status in Britain as immigrants and as gypsies.
And:
In who’s best interest? This lying government, to keep the crimes of immigrants out of the statistics.
And:
Ah, but if the victim had been an immigrant and the offenders indigenous English do you think the CPS would have come to the same decision? Neither do I.
And:
Typical – One rule for immigrants and one for the people of this once great country
And:
Who makes these decisions? Whoever decided that allowing these immigrant thugs to walk free was the righ thing to do, needs to lose their job.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the picture by now. Lots of commenters say the boys are immigrants, as does the homepage link and page title.
Loads more comments also say the prosecution was dropped because it wasn’t in the public interest, but the paper didn’t bother to remove that bit from the article.
Still not true though.
UPDATE- For another look at this story and a possible reason for why it was told in this way, see TabloidWatch for ‘How the anti-immigration agenda works‘.
Categories: Immigration |
12 Comments
Posted by 5cc
February 25th, 2010
There has been a bit of brouhaha in the Mail over the last couple of weeks about immigration and the government’s motives for shifting to a policy of ‘managed migration’ rather than one of restricting it back in 2000/2001.
The story started with ‘Labour threw open doors to mass migration in secret plot to remake a multicultural UK‘, moved through ‘STEPHEN GLOVER: Using immigration to turn Britain into a nation of Labour voters is so shameful‘ and ‘Secret Labour plan to increase immigration for social reasons dismissed public’s opposition as ‘racist‘, to the latest: ‘MELANIE PHILLIPS: At last we know the truth: Labour despises anyone who loves Britain, its values and its history‘.
Explosive stuff.
But what are these new revelations about immigration policy, where do they come from, and do they stand up when they’re examined?
What are the revelations?
Last October, Andrew Neather wrote the pro-immigration ‘Don’t listen to the whingers – London needs immigrants‘, saying that there was an undercurrent in Labour thinking that said immigration was a way to increase multiculturalism and rub the right’s nose in diversity. The tabloids seized on this as evidence of a secret plot to increase multiculturalism, and Neather wrote a clarification ‘How I became the story and why the Right is wrong‘ saying:
Somehow this [his previous article] has become distorted by excitable Right-wing newspaper columnists into being a “plot” to make Britain multicultural.
There was no plot.
These new articles suggest that there is new evidence that reveals there really was a plot to do just that. Some go further and suggest that the real reason was to deliberately import Labour voters. Later articles claim the government ‘branded us all racists’.
Where do they come from?
The first of these articles in the Mail is from James Slack; ‘How Labour threw open doors to mass migration in a secret plot to remake a multicultural UK‘. Appended to this article is ‘Paying the price for a decade of deception‘ by Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch, who claims it is from:
…a Government policy document which he [Andrew Neather] had helped to write in 2000.
All these articles are about the same document, an early draft that includes information that doesn’t appear in the final version.
Does this all stand up when the evidence is examined?
Firstly, the claims about the document are not right. Andrew Neather did not help to write this document. The final published ‘Migration: an economic and social analysis‘ includes a list of authors. Andrew Neather is not one of them. He never even claimed to be one, only saying in both his articles that he’d written a speech based on it. Neather was far more removed from the process than Andrew Green suggests, which makes it more likely that he was mistaken than it would be if he was one of the authors.
Nor is the document a ‘Government policy document’ as Andrew Green should know, because even in the early draft version he has, a paragraph says:
This study is for discussion purposes only and does not constitute a statement of Government policy.
Both claims Andrew Green makes about the document have been beefed up. This document has been made to seem more significant than it was and Andrew Neather has been made to look as though he was more closely involved than he was.
So we’re starting from a much weaker base than we’re being led to believe, and the existence of a secret plot looks even less likely. Especially when the man who kicked of the whole fuss said:
There was no plot.
What are the edits to this document, and do they refer to increasing multiculturalism or importing Labour voters?
The earlier articles, from ‘Revealed, the REAL reason…’ through to ‘Using immigration to turn Britain into a nation of Labour voters…’ are based purely on the Executive Summary of the document, and not the full report itself. What has been removed are vague references to ’social objectives’. Nothing about Multiculturalism or importing votes.
Since we only have the Executive Summary, we’re not necessarily looking at these things being removed from the main document. There is still a full section about the social outcomes of migration in the document, so social outcomes of migration feature quite prominently.
Here’s what the Mail says some of the edits from the Executive Summary are, followed by quotes from the final published version of the main document to show whether or not there have been huge cuts to hide things. From the Mail’s edit no 2 (which is not actually paragraph 2 of the summary):
But this should not be viewed as a negative – to the extent that migration is driven by market forces, it is likely to be economically beneficial.
From the full document:
Economic migration is normally a voluntary market transaction between a willing buyer (whoever is willing to employ the migrant) and a willing seller (the migrant), and is hence likely to be both economically efficient and beneficial to both parties. Indeed, the basic economic theory of migration is very similar to that of trade; and, like trade, migration generally is expected to yield welfare gains.
Not that different, huh? You might even summarise this passage in the same way as the draft Summary.
From edit 3:
…argues that it is clearly correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy.
From the main document in the chapter ‘Objectives of current policy’:
It is important to integrate policies on migration with other Government policies, in particular on the labour market and on social exclusion, as well as wider economic and social policies.
And from the pull-out box ‘High level Government objectives’:
The Government’s overall objectives are:
- to increase sustainable growth (per capita) and employment
- to promote fairness and opportunity
- to deliver modern and efficient public services.
Doesn’t number 2 look like a social objective?
How about this, from the same box:
DfEE: to give everyone a chance, through education, training and work, to realise their full potential and thus build an inclusive and fair society and a competitive economy
HO: to build a safe, just and tolerant society, in which the rights and responsibilities of individuals, families and communities are properly balanced, and the protection and security of the public is maintained
DCMS: to improve the quality of life for all through sporting and cultural activities, and to strengthen the creative industries
Social?
From edit 4:
The more general social impact of migration is very difficult to assess. Benefits include a widening of consumer choice and significant cultural contributions. These in turn feed into wider economic benefits.
From the full document:
Not enough is known about migrants’ social outcomes…
Benefits include a widening of consumer choice and significant cultural contributions (e.g. in the arts,literature, science and sport); these in turn feed back into wider economic benefits.
Why, that would appear to be almost exactly the same as the summary.
From edit 5:
In practice, entry controls can contribute to social exclusion
From the full document:
In part, social exclusion can be the result of entry and settlement controls designed to deter entry.
From edit 6:
It is clear that migration policy has both social and economic impacts and should be designed to contribute to the government’s overall objectives on both counts. The current position is a considerable advance on the previously existing situation, when the aim of immigration policy was, or appeared to be, to reduce primary immigration to the ‘irreducible minimum’ – an objective with no economic or social justification.
First, I should say I couldn’t find this quote in the draft included on the MigrationWatch site. Either James Slack has a different draft, or he’s ‘paraphrased’.
From the full document:
Post-entry migration policy has a potentially powerful role in influencing migrants’ economic and social outcomes and their economic and social impacts on natives. Thus there appears considerable scope for more substantive and co-ordinated post-entry policies designed to ensure that migration does indeed achieve the Government’s economic and social objectives.
Not that different, huh? Even less different from the version MigrationWatch includes. And look, it includes the phrase ’social objectives’.
We’re clearly not talking about a huge slash and burn here. We’re talking about tweaks to the Executive Summary, and a document going through the motions of the editing process. The claim that the government cynically surpressed the real reasons for immigration by cutting the offending pieces from a document do not stand up.
In most cases, something almost identical to what was cut from the summary is included in the main document.
The idea that Labour were deliberately trying to increase multiculturalism, or rub anyone’s nose in diversity, or import voters is simply not suppoerted by the evidence Andrew Green has given.
What about the later articles?
‘Secret Labour plan to increase immigration for social reasons dismissed public’s opposition as ‘racist’‘ gets off to a bad start because we now know the evidence doesn’t support the idea of a secret Labour plan. The published document, which only presented evidence for discussion anyway, still included references to social outcomes of migration, referenced social objectives and includes almost everything cut from the summary in the main document in one form or another anyway.
Still, it has this to say:
Fuller details released yesterday showed that Tony Blair’s ministers opened the doors to mass migration in knowledge of public opposition and with the view that those who disagreed with them were racists.
And:
Labour’s accusation that opponents of immigration are racist has been dropped over the last two years as it has become clear that former Labour voters in party heartlands have been turning to the far right British National Party.
And:
It showed that ministers were advised that only the ill-educated and those who had never met a migrant were opposed to immigration.
This seems to be a reference to an earlier draft of the full document, but we’re not given the full quote to compare the claim to.
Full quotes did appear in an earlier version of the story, but they’ve been cut. Given that the paper has been claiming that cuts from a draft document are evidence of dishonesty, this is pretty ironic.
TabloidWatch examined the earlier version and has the direct quotes, so we can compare:
Recent research shows that anti-immigrant sentiment is closely correlated with racism rather than economic motives,
This is clearly not the same as saying that anyone who disagreed with the government or opposed immigration were racist. It was saying that some recent research showed that it was more often than not.
But this was cut from the version of the document that ministers were given for discussion. So the claim that ministers ‘opened the doors with the view that those who disagreed’ is not supported by this evidence.
As for the ‘ill-educated and never met a migrant’:
‘Education and people’s personal exposure to migrants make them less likely to be anti-migrant.
‘The most negative attitudes are found among those who have relatively little direct contact with migrants, but see them as a threat.’
Again, the quote says nothing about people who have never met a migrant. It doesn’t really say that only the ill-educated are anti-immigration either. From the context, it looks as though the document was talking of education about migrants. It would be better if we could see it in context.
Again, this was cut from the final document, so ministers were not advised this by this document. The evidence does not support the claim that ‘ministers were advised’, because they weren’t by the document this was cut from.
It’s odd that the paper should cut direct quotes and only include inaccurate representations of what the draft document said. It’s also odd that nobody has made the newer release of the full document available to look at to see how explosive it is too. I can’t help but wonder if that’s because it would make the new representations of it look less than accurate, in the same way the Draft Executive Summary makes earlier claims look very bad indeed.
Is there proof that Labour despises anyone who loves Britain?
Umm, no. *Ahem.*
Storm in a teacup
This whole storm has been built out of something really quite minor, and the evidence we’ve been given supports none of the claims that have been made about it.
We have a discussion document rather than a policy document, we have someone making claims who had seen a copy and wrote a speech based on it rather than one of the writers, and we have some alleged suppressing of things that were actually published and just not summarised. None of the things that were cut mention the things that have been claimed, and you’d have to make a great leap of faith, imagining what some vague language might mean in order to make the claims fit.
Where there were cuts, there are simpler reasons why they may have happened in a document outlining evidence for discussion like this one. Maybe the evidence wasn’t strong enough to be included. Maybe the ’social objectives’ were not high enough a priority. Maybe the civil servants who wrote it felt the economic arguments shouldn’t be overshadowed. Perhaps there was even the idea that the tabloids would zero in on social objectives rather than the more important economic ones and misrepresent what the dosument said. Who knows? That most of the material cut from the Executive Summary actually appears in one form or another in the main document makes a secret plot seem even less likely.
If you want evidence that immigration policy was based on a secret plot to increase multiculturalism or import voters, this isn’t it.
Categories: Immigration |
12 Comments
Posted by sim-o
January 13th, 2010
How are you doing? Is everything ok? Work going all right, family life good?
Good. That’s nice to hear. We, at Mailwatch, love our readers and wouldn’t want anything bad happening to you. We don’t want you getting all stressed at work, sat at that desk all day.
After a hard day at the office it’s nice to just sit down of an evening with your loved ones and unwind in front of the telly, isn’t it? You could even sit at your computer and catch up with friends on Facebook or, oh, hang on. Facebook causes cancer doesn’t it? And what’s this?
Quick! Stand up! What ever you do, don’t turn the telly on. Keep moving!
You too, skinny!
Categories: Healthcare |
Tags: cancer, death, doing anything at all, heart disease, sitting down, TV | 7 Comments
Posted by sim-o
December 18th, 2009
A lie, by definition, is something you say which you know is untrue. (The Iraq Inquiry may provide the right label for Tony Blair’s misleading statements.)
The vaguer category of ‘dishonest’ applies to all sorts of official statistics, as presented by the Government, in policing, immigration etc.
But how do you classify claims that are obviously false but are being provided by those who are apparently too stupid to understand them?
After an intro like that, whatever you say afterwards needs to be bulletproof. Unfortunately it doesn’t start well for Andrew Alexander. The first bit of gobbledegook is…
Smoking is an interesting area because the figures – intended to make your flesh creep – must be, by definition, false.
We are told that smoking ‘costs’ the National Health Service £1.7bn, or maybe £5bn. They are not just guesswork, they are patently contrary to common sense.
What definition of the figures? Why must they be false? They could be, but why ‘must’ they be? What are the real figures, then?
Andrew doesn’t say. The only figures Andrew quotes are the two numbers are in the above quote. He doesn’t say how much tax is raised from tobacco or anything mention any other numbers apart from the number 12 – the number of years he once gave up for.
We are told that smoking is a cause of lung cancer and heart disease and other potentially lethal disorders.
That may well be so.
But if smoking leads to premature deaths, it obviously saves the NHS money, since it is in old age that the cost of medical attention soars.
If we could all arrange to die at retirement age, the NHS would save an awful lot of money.
The whole article is written like this. I can just picture this guy sat tapping out this article in a dark room with his tinfoil hat on, curtains closed so ‘they’ can’t see what he’s up to. A cigarette with a long ash burning down in an ashtray filling the room with it’s blue smoke.
The problem is that not everyone just drops down dead. for many smokers, the unlucky ones that don’t die all of a sudden, death is a slow lingering one, full of respirators and pills and pain and pacemakers and amputations and transplants and regular visits to hospital and the gentle decline into a physical state that belies a persons real age.
All that care costs money. Money that is being prematurely spent on someones health.
Moreover, smoking is an appetite suppressant and may therefore reduce obesity, which is certainly a cause of heart disease, and other disorders, costing the health service an awful lot of money.
Smoking is not an appetite suppressant. If it was, you’d never see a fat person with a fag, would you? Obesity may be a cause of heart disease, but smoking causes lots of diseases too and also makes you lethargic, contributing to, yes obesity.
An outright lie is also included in the anti-smoking campaign.
Tobacco manufacturers have to warn purchasers that, among other things, ’smoking kills’.
If one said that prussic acid kills, it would be true. A more honest statement would be that tobacco can kill. Only the illiterate or mentally idle will fail to see the difference.
Only a pedantic denialist would bring it up.
Alas, there is something about smoking which damages the mind – of anti-smokers. Normal as they may be in other respects, they rave and rant about tobacco.
Anti-smokers, the ones that rant and rave, are generally ex-smokers. The reason they are so passionate is because i) in the back of their mind they are still addicted and the best form of defence for their will power is attack, or ii) they know first hand what being a smoker, the nasty side of smoking, is all about or iii) reasons i & ii together.
[Duncan] Bannatyne apparently had great trouble giving up many years ago. So he wants others to suffer, too.
Poor chap! I am sorry he found it so hard.
Andrew Alexander gave up too, for 12 years, but found it so easy, and had so much free cash and didn’t mind the smell or the panicky feeling of nearly running out of baccy in the middle of the night, that he went back to it. Oh, my mistake. he blames writers block.
I would watch a fellow pipe smoker as he sat down to do the same, slowly and thoughtfully filling his pipe (an art you have to master), finally lighting up and allowing that slow upward drift of the curling smoke.
Nice bit of romanticising there, eh?
Sensibly, I returned to the habit. Pipe-smoking is a very ruminative process. It creates the right spaces and pauses for a writer.
Smoking creates the spaces and pauses because the smoker is thinking about smoking, not writing. A non-smoker, goes for a walk or makes a cup of tea.
But we have not finished with the statistics yet. Second-hand smoke is claimed to cause many deaths and is the basis for tyrannical curbs on offices and pubs.
Finished with the statistics? I didn’t realise we had started with them.
This figure is arrived at by guesswork, inspired by hysteria, and masquerades as scientific ‘proof’ – a process which characterises our age.
If smoking isn’t as bad as Andrew says, and it is all assertion and opinion in this piece, then I would like to know if Andrew encourages and approves of his children, or if he doesn’t have any, his young relatives, smoking. If his son started smoking at, say, sixteen, would he slap him on the back and say ‘good decision, lad, you’ll really enjoy smoking. It’s great’.
Categories: Healthcare |
Tags: openly ignorant, smoking | 19 Comments
Posted by Esqui
December 17th, 2009
On Tuesday, the Daily Express published an article entitled Climate Change is natural: 100 reasons why. Of course, we’ve come to expect differing views on climate change from some of the media (as well we should on any major world issue), but this article was not only on scientifically dodgy ground, the article itself is of a pretty poor journalistic standard as much of it is padding, hypocrisy or downright irrelevant. I’m not going to do much debunking of the scientific points raised, the New Scientist has done much of that already (and it’s well worth a read), but I will give some other reasons as to why the article is not what the Express was hoping it to be, and why many readers left comments such as “my 14 year old neighbour kid is able to disprove more than 50% of this so called arguments why climate change would be natural…”
Firstly, hypocrisy: This revolves around point 8 –
“The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.”
Assuming this to be true, we are told to discount man-made climate change because only 60 people have written in favour of it. The overwhelming implication is that climate change does not exist except in the minds of a minority of scientists, and that most scientists don’t believe it. Now let’s look at some other Daily Express reasons. How about points 12, 13, 15, 16, 21, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 70 and 76? What do these all have in common? The Express cites just one person as evidence for these theories, among them such non-experts as Denis Lilley MP, and Lord Lawson. Either we are to accept that evidence from one person is true, in which case the Express’ suggestion that 60 people is not evidence enough is not valid, or that over a tenth of the article can be discounted because ‘not enough’ people have supported the opinions.
Next – irrelevance: Some of the points bear no resemblance on the climate issue today. The quote from Peter Lilley (point 13) would seem to suggest that climate change is not natural because fewer British people believe in it. This would be good if what British people believed actually happened. Several million kids believe in Santa, doesn’t make him real (sorry if I just spoilt that for you). Others, such as point 29, state things such as “The climate was hottest 7000 years ago”. Again, bearing no relevance to today’s issue.
Next up, the problem of repetition: This is where much of the article falls down. As an example, read points 3, 5, 33 and 85. All of these are different ways of saying “CO2 levels were higher in the past”, and reading through the article brings up more topics which seem to be repeated. The Express also seems to have used the copy/paste function more than once, with many points having the exact same wording, for example the number of points beginning “The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team…” – which is rather lazy journalism, if nothing else.
We also have arguments which seem to contradict the main point of the article: Point 88 intrigued me in this way. It says that CO2 has changed throughout history, and yet has been growing since the industrial revolution, and is still in constant growth. Again, I’m not arguing about the scientific content as that’s already been done, but I’m quite sure that one of the main points in favour of anthropogenic climate change is rising CO2 levels from industry.
And finally, a lot of the “reasons” are not reasons at all. Much of the article contains things which aren’t arguments against man-made climate change at all. Take for example points 40, 43, 44 and 45. These all mention that increasing CO2 levels are good in some way, for example, promoting crop growth. Try reading these in relation to the title: “Climate change is natural because… The increase of the air’s CO2 content has probably helped lengthen human lifespans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution”. One does not follow from the other. Another example here, would be the government-bashing point 60. What they’re saying with that is: “Climate change is natural because…The UK ’s environmental policy has a long-term price tag of about £55 billion, before taking into account the impact on its economic growth.” The cost of the UK’s environmental policy has no bearing on whether climate change is natural or man-made. The final one which caught my eye was point 79:
“Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is in actual fact very little we can do about it. (We are still not able to control the sun).”
As anyone with even a grasp of persuasive writing would attest, giving arguments which already assume the point you’re trying to put across is useless. It’s akin to saying “Because I say so” (which I’m surprised is not one of the points).
The Express feature is clearly designed to provide those who are sceptical about man-made climate change with some back-up of their views. The article looks like was titled before it was written – it’s a great premise, but the writer has not been able to find 100 reasons why climate change is natural. Instead, what has been published are a couple of reasons why climate change is natural (repeated numerous times), several facts about how hot the temperature was a few thousand years ago, some appropriate quotes from individuals who either have no scientific standing or only their own, possibly unverified research to draw on, and an overwhelming number of completely irrelevant points which are somewhat to do with climate change.
So why is there such a bias against man-made climate change in some papers? The answer, in my opinion is simple: they are reassuring their readers that their current lives are OK, and they’ve no need to change. The Mail, especially, is read by a huge number of people who are well-off and successful. Those same people might well be put off by their newspaper of choice telling them that what they’re doing could bring about major negative changes in their lives unless they inconvenience themselves to stop it. Climate is a hot topic (pardon the pun), and as with any such issue, there will be people on both sides. Some papers have picked up on this (on both sides of the question), and have been looking for any research which supports the views they want to put across to their readers (who want, in turn, to be able to justify their choices to others), and ignore anything in the research that could negate the point they’ve taken from it.
But whatever side a paper aligns itself with, there is no substitute for well-researched, well-thought-out articles. The Express took a gamble here, coming up with the premise of 100 reasons, and such features have worked (especially for the Independent), but here, the content was not up to the headline. It’s a commendable idea, but without being able to fully support the headline, the Express has fallen short.
However, we should note that it hasn’t failed completely. It’s aim was to give those sceptical to anthropogenic climate change a myriad points to back up and confirm their views, and maybe even convert a few undecideds. Which it will undoubtedly have done.
Categories: Environment, Media, News |
7 Comments
Posted by sim-o
December 13th, 2009
It’s Sunday evening and that can mean only one thing. No, I don’t mean X-Factor. It’s the second Mailwatch weekly roundup.
5CC and Anton both look into what, exactly, was Kwarsi Kwarteng defending in Rod Liddles’s Speccy article.
5CC carries on to look at what happens when one of the Daily Mails favourite myths turn out to be untrue. I’ll give you a hint, it involves fingers in ears and the words ‘la la la’.
Anton wonders if Andrew Alexander reads his own paper, and if so believes what it prints and has a little more proof that the Mail has it’s own one sided narrative, while noticing who the Mail decided would be better to go to to help Cadburys’ fend of a takeover.
Elsewhere, Tabloidwatch has some notes about the pay of the Mails’ top man, Dacre, Pickled Politics talks about persecuted Christians and Charlie Becket has some thoughts on copyright issues raised by a Mail article about ‘moneyfacing’.
Enjoy.
Update:
One last late link, Random Blowe explains, in detail, why it bothers him that his parents read the Daily Mail.
Categories: Media |
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