http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,31-2 ... 36,00.html

Some illogical Labour bashing there. Is this Murdoch as good as coming back to the Tories?

Aside from the amusing mental picture of terrorists 'flooding' into the country (They're not, are they? There's simply not enough of them to create a 'flood'. It's the power of the weapons available to them that makes them dangerous, not their number, you twats), what does anyone think regaining 'control of our borders' would entail? It's quite common to see complaints about losing control of our borders, but what does that actually mean, and how might it be reversed? I'm genuinely curious. Do we need to put barbed wire across our beaches, or what?

They are, coming over here running our media whilst paying little or no tax (he might pay some, but i was aware it was less than he was supposed too)

I'm confused as well. Losing control of our borders is a regular Mail/Sun/BBC Message Board moan, but no-one ever explains in what way this has happened. I wish someone would explain. But it's easier just to rant without justifying it...

I read in one of my psychology textbooks that persuasion to less educated, less intelligent people relies on powerful words and a one sided message, whereas a more informed audience needs the persuader to point out objections and to deal with them, showing all sides of the arguement and to leave the audience to make their own conclusions.

Ever noticed that there isn't many words on the Sun's front page? That's because lots of words intimidate their target readership, so the editors place word limits for the first few pages. There's no need to justify rants if you have readers that dumb.

Yep just read the letters page in the Sun. Its 90 percent empty rhetoric, right wing soundbites and anecdote, that I'm pretty sure could be demolished by reason in about 4 seconds. Theres a school of thought in the Sun that if you make a point using angry emotive sounbites you increase the validity of your point. You dont.

Its a sad state of affairs that we have such shoddy debate in this country. But I suppose its always gone on

The problem is that glib semi-factual soundbites soon become accepted as 'fact'. There are loads of examples from Brown's pension theft to last year's droughts being caused by leaking pipes. You find yourself having to demolish myths before you can even start a rational discussion.
Littlejohn, unsurprisingly, is the expert at setting these things up. "This government has legalised cannabis and banned tobacco" (neither true), and "This govenment wants to make it legal for old men to sodomise schoolboys" (I may have paraphrased) are classics of his.

Exactly, that pension claim when said in it's most simplest, which means in it's inaccurate terms does irrate me, even a tory spokeswoman used it on the news.

My eternal favourite remains 'wooly liberals', from people who then go onto refer to sounbites and myth as their 'argument'.

Wooly, moi? Check the mirror, dickface.

Who was it who coined the word "factoid", that is widely believed but untrue pieces of info that become accepted as fact (such as you use only 10 percent of your brain, and "Play it again Sam" being a line in casablanca. and in the case of the Sun in particular the Human Rights Act being imposed on the UK by Brussels), you get those factoids a lot in the tabloids.

I think the so called "big lie" works on a similar principle but I dont have time to check up on wikipedia.

See David Cameron's "Hug a Hoody" too. People talk as though he actually used those words when he said nothing of the sort.

Indeed any attempt by a pundit or an external source to try to burst a "factoid" is often met with scorn / anger from the readers and editorial comments. A good example this weekend being the derision of Nick Ross by the tabloids when he claimed that the press deliberately exaggerate crime figures to scare their readers. He was basically told he was talking bollocks by Trever Kavanagh of the Sun (Kavanagh had no evidence to back his rebuttal), the Mail on Sunday and surprise surprise that bastion of impartiality Civitas, and Norman Brennan (a man who converses entirely in right wing cliches, and appeals to base reactionary sentiment.) the Director of Victims of crime, or whatever the hell his NGO is called.

Kelvin Mckenzie and Rothermere were spot on when they said it was vital to tell their readers what they want to hear, they get pretty upset if you don't.

Here's something you won't be reading about in the Scum tomorrow:

'Cornish' shark photo was taken in South Africa

tell's you everything you need to know about the sun and it's readers

i hate the way that everything has been reduced to soundbites - politicians now talk in soundbites just like the papers and their readers do. one of my friends put it very well when he said that they aim at the lowest common denominator which brings it even further down.