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.

Whether you believe it’s a tool used by the state to suppress freedom of speech and kow-tow to minorities, or think it’s just another example of different people forcing acceptance upon us, one thing is certain: political correctness is everywhere.

Well, it is if you’re a Daily Mail journalist and can’t think of anything to write about, anyway. All you have to do is take an utterly mundane, entirely innocuous event, twist it around a bit, add an agenda, misrepresent the details and – bam! a ready made tale of political correctness gone absolutely raving bonkers.

Such were the circumstances (probably) behind Master Daniel Bates’ storming piece of journalistic ineptitude ‘Blacklisting banned: Citizens Advice axes ‘offensive’ word and tells staff to use ‘blocklisting’ instead‘, which managed to slither itself limply onto page 3 of Monday’s Mail.

‘Blacklisting banned?’, you can almost hear Mail readers splutter with disbelief, ‘well that’s just politicalcorrectnessgonemad! For fear of upsetting the blacks, no doubt!’, they honk.

Bates has the scoop:

The Citizens Advice service has banned staff from using the term ” blacklisting” over fears that it is offensive and “fosters stereotypes”. The taxpayer- funded quango, which advises members of the public on consumer, legal and money issues, has instead replaced it with “blocklisting” to avoid appearing “prejudicial”.

‘Banned’ it, they have. ‘Replaced’, it has been. Pretty firm words. You can be sure that the word ‘blacklisting’ really has been done away with when such strong terms are used. Note the use of quotation marks around things that The Mail deems silly: ’stereotypes’ are silly, and ‘prejudicial’ is absurd newspeak. These are the crazy things that result in political correctness going mad and stop us talking freely. Also note the word ‘quango’. We all hate quangos, whatever they are, because they waste money and David Cameron said they were bad.

Bates adds wearily:

Critics branded it “daft” and “political correctness going over the top”, but the Citizens Advice has refused to back down, even though critics say it renders everyday communications unintelligible.

Notice how the traditional ‘political correctness gone mad’ has been replaced with ‘political correctness going over the top’. Presumably the politically correct brigade did away with ‘gone mad’ because it offended the mentally ill or something, and decreed that ‘going over the top’ would be an acceptable replacement. It’s political correctness gone mad.

But I digress. I wonder who the critics are?

John Midgley, co-founder of the campaign against political correctness, said: “This is just daft and another example of political correctness going over the top.”

A man who spends his time seeking out and decrying examples of political correctness is the source. Objective, I think you’ll agree, and I’m sure he was in full possession of all pertinent  facts when Dan Bates called him for a quote.

In fairness to Mr Midgley, he couldn’t have been aware of the intricacies of the case because, in fact, our intrepid hack Daniel Bates wasn’t either. When we spoke to Citizen’s Advice, they told us that, actually, the word ‘blacklisting’ and variations thereof have not been banned at all, and that the whole story has a somewhat prosaic IT related explanation.

Far from being some meaningless new PC term, ‘blocklisting’ is actually a word commonly used in the IT industry referring to a list of blocked IP addresses or users. Apparently, the IT department at Citizen’s Advice issued a memo in July regarding spam emails, explaining that a number of them had been blacklisted. In reply, an employee pointed out that ‘blocklisted’ was probably a more appropriate word, and everybody forgot about the whole thing because it was really quite boring.

The ‘offending’ word was not ‘banned’, and there was no communication or policy asking people to use ‘blocklist’ instead of ‘blacklist’. Our contact was also keen to point out that, contrary to The Mail’s description, Citizen’s Advice is not a ‘quango’, but a network of independent charities.

None of which matters of course, to the Mail commenters who will add the hackneyed saga to their catalogue of examples of things banned in the name of not offending those different to them, who splutter such outraged responses as ‘Good grief!! And we’re paying these idiots’ salaries!’ and ‘Makes me wonder why anyone would go to these idiots for advice.’ Nor will it matter to The Star or The Telegraph, who picked up on the Mail’s enthralling tale of IT memos gone mad without bothering to contact Citizen’s Advice for comment, thereby ensuring the story’s continued presence as just another example of bureaucratic lunacy.

It’s journalism gone rubbish.