[Helveticus]

Surprised to see so little on the forum about the disgusting racism and xenophobia being whipped up against various Eastern European peoples by the Mail. This has become particularly savage of late, with a series of inflammatory and disgustingly racist articles, which have really got the Mail readers frothing.

Based on wholly bogus claims about millions of people about to pour into the UK (no matter the facts that the great majority of those from South-East Europe who wanted to work abroad have already done so by going to EU nations that, unlike Britain, embraced the free movement of peoples, or that EU migrants statistically have a very low rate of claiming benefits).

Framed as part of a 'series' it is sickening to see how Mail journalists have sought out some of the homeless, disabled and destitute residents of Bucharest in order to whip up alarm:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ds-newsxml



Then Mail journalists travel on their way to Sofia to another Roma slum, exploiting every stereotype about gypsies in their book:

We're on our way to Britain: 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians will get the right to settle in Britain and claim benefits. And the gypsies can hardly wait.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -here.html

[Fflaps]

Those poor guys don't look like they could make it to the next town, never mind the UK. Seeing as Romania and Bulgaria are part of the EU maybe we and our fellow members could be discussing with them how they can make things better for their Roma population, seeing as if they want to leave they're clearly not having it too good there.

[BeaBoyd]

Don't need to worry about the hordes coming here in 2014. We have eaten their primary mode of transport.

[Safe_Timber_Man]

It's disgusting and completely relentless.

These articles are forgetting one point. Bulgarians DONT want to go to the UK at all. Since the press have started this campaign there have been protests in Sofia against these stories. I live and work here in Bulgaria, there is a large British expat community here, who up untill now have got on very well with their Bulgarian neighbours. There is the start of a backlash against the expats now as a result of this campaign.Bulgarians are a very warnhearted, friendly welcoming people, and despite the many problems they have here they are also very patriotic. This campaign is so wrong in many ways.
- Dave, Burgas Bulgaria, Bulgaria, 19/2/2013 7:08
Click to rate Rating 49

I found this interesting because it's not the first time I've seen this being said. Do they really all want to all come over here? What happens when/if the numbers are nothing like the sensationalist numbers touted by the Mail? What will they say about that? I've not really followed the story enough because, frankly, I don't believe it and some sleazy journos going to Bucharest to cherry pick some quotes isn't going to change that.

It sure as fuck has got the Mailites frothing at the mouth, though, and as we already know, it's not the fact they're worried about benefit cheats and tax avoidance, they simply don't like them because they look and talk different.

Personally I have no problem with immigrants at all as long as they are self supporting and able to speak English.
- hoochie, london, United Kingdom, 19/2/2013 3:18
Click to rate Rating 84

Yeah....so judging by the rating, even if they come and work their arses off and contribute they still aren't wanted here because Mailites don't like people who are different.

[National Anglia]

(Caption, some shit about if you can smuggle horsemeat into Britian why not us)

Bit surprised there wasn't more of a shitstorm about this from last week (13th Feb I think). Not just on here, but other places too. Outrage fatigue I suppose, which is understandable, but still... meathooks. Hmmm.

[Dacre Bleugh]

Surprised to see so little on the forum about the disgusting racism and xenophobia being whipped up against various Eastern European peoples by the Mail.

Most "Eastern European" stores end up on the "bloody foreigners" or the "EU news" thread.

And yes, I think you're right, the level of dehumanising vitriol aimed at Bulgarian and Romanians by the Mail is vile - not far shy of Der Sturmer standards imo.

as we already know, it's not the fact they're worried about benefit cheats and tax avoidance, they simply don't like them because they look and talk different.

Personally I have no problem with immigrants at all as long as they are self supporting and able to speak English.
- hoochie, london, United Kingdom, 19/2/2013 3:18
Click to rate Rating 84

Yeah....so judging by the rating, even if they come and work their arses off and contribute they still aren't wanted here because Mailites don't like people who are different.

Exactly. I think the photos are doing a lot of the talking here. If the people in the Mail's photo had "nice" clothes, a "perfect" physical form, and were standing outside a "nice and tidy" detached house - regardless if their aim was to come to the UK to do some "hard work" - then I don't think the level of foaming vitriol would quite have been the same.

[Fflaps]

Yep, they never show pictures like this



which is of a Romanian family (found it on a Romanian-language blog), or this



which is from a Bulgarian street-style blog,

but rather photos of poor, discriminated-against and unemployed Roma living in slums. If a Bulgarian paper were to take the same approach and only show pictures of homeless people in its reporting about the UK, I'm sure the Mail would be ecstatic. I'm also sure many of its readers would be happy to welcome the young lady in the second photo into the UK

[Bones McCoy]

Chap on the right of the top photo looks like Brian "Johnners" Johnstone.

Perhaps these forrins aren't so different to us after all.

[Kreuzberger]

Der Spiegel have a sensible and level-headed take on this;

http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 84236.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Disappointingly - and Spiegel usually has no qualms about gobbling up bandwidth with the length of its articles - there is no real hint at the underlying disenfranchisement of the Roma nor the fact that national governments must be forced to shape up and accept their responsibilities to all their citizens. It just simply isn't good enough to palm the Roma off as someone else's problem.

Ironically perhaps, free movement has served to absolve these governments who sit back and, through their own inaction, tacitly encourage these people to pop across now non-existent borders.

[Siuan]

I thought about putting the article at the top of this thread up at the time, under 'Utterly Disgusting Mail Articles', because that's just what it is. It made me so sick even reading the article (and looking at the way in which those unfortunate people in the pictures were being exploited by the DM) that I just wanted to be rid of it.

I think I read on another thread Malcolm saying Dacre had lost all control. Given some of the stories coming out recently I can fully believe it.

[Dacre Bleugh]

How 30,000 Romanians have been arrested in the UK for violence and sex crimes in just five years

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... years.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As with "burka photos" accompanying immigration stories, the DM are using the picture illustrating the article to do the talking here.

[Esqui]

I have so many issues with this, I don't know where to start. Let's take the headline:
"How 30,000 Romanians have been arrested in the UK for violence and sex crimes in 5 years"

Reading further in, the 30,000 is actually 27725 (8% fewer than the headline). And the "for violence and sex crimes" is completely misleading, as the figure relates to all arrests. This is probably the biggest problem here - the headline implies that there are 30,000 Romanian rapiss in the country, when in fact, the figure is nearer 900 arrests for rape and sex crime.

There's also a cynical bit of statistical manipulation going on here:

Since 2008 27,725 Romanian citizens have been held for serious offences in London.

Which ignores the fact that those 27725 will not all be different people. Nor do they take into account the fact that not all arrests lead to convictions.

I also despise the cynical way in which Romanians are the focus of the article, when it's not even the "top" country for arrests. This, I can only imagine, is to stir up more hatred. Why not focus on Poland? Or is it because "they" have already had freedom of movement for years, and that ship has sailed.

In short, it's a huge, xenophobic lie.

[Safe_Timber_Man]

I do wonder if sometimes the Mailites know full well they're being mislead by turn a blind eye because of confirmation bias. They can't all be this thick that they can't see through articles like that. Knowing you're falling for propaganda but doing it anyway is probably worse than just being stupid enough to fall for propaganda.

[davidjay]

I do wonder if sometimes the Mailites know full well they're being mislead by turn a blind eye because of confirmation bias. They can't all be this thick that they can't see through articles like that. Knowing you're falling for propaganda but doing it anyway is probably worse than just being stupid enough to fall for propaganda.

Therein lies the double standard. Ask people if they think newspapers are truthful and they'll say they aren't. But they'll still repeat the lies that they ant to believe, because 'everybody' know that they're the truth.

[oboogie]

I do wonder if sometimes the Mailites know full well they're being mislead by turn a blind eye because of confirmation bias. They can't all be this thick that they can't see through articles like that. Knowing you're falling for propaganda but doing it anyway is probably worse than just being stupid enough to fall for propaganda.

Therein lies the double standard. Ask people if they think newspapers are truthful and they'll say they aren't. But they'll still repeat the lies that they ant to believe, because 'everybody' know that they're the truth.

It's confirmation bias. There are even examples on here occasionally when a poster uses The Mail as a source to support their own argument.