ANGRY MOB

He was once a sprightly young man who according to one eye witness 'would stalk through the newsroom... shouting "what the fuck is this, you cunt, there's not a fucking brain in this office" - tearing up pages' and terrifying staff [1]. Yet recent video footage of Paul Dacre has revealed he is a grey, balding, plump-faced pensioner who struggles over basic sentences.

It seems a far cry from the man dubbed 'the Vagina Monologue because he call[ed] so many people a cunt' [2]. He also seemed to be obsessed with incoherent ideas and concepts that seldom bore any relationship with reality; at one point he claimed with a straight face and earnest voice that rather than members of public sue the Daily Mail he would: 'obviously encourage people to go to the PCC [instead] where they get free and instant justice'. As well as claiming that 'we have, i think, quite an effective system of self-regulation in the media, we come under a lot of scrutiny, rightly'. Amazingly, such was the sympathy garnered by Gollum's dilapidated cousin, not a single peel of laughter rang out from the committee room. It was clear that Dacre was no longer a feared and powerful newspaper editor, but rather a senile old man who really thought the most useless 'regulator' ever created was a great success.

He increasingly looked like the father of Richard Littlejohn (which I really think he does and would certainly explain a lot), and his sense of victimised conspiracy - as well as complete disregard for reality - could have been plucked from any of Littlejohn's Daily Mail columns.

The above is an attempt at a 'Daily Mail Reporter' style article pointing out that someone has got a little older, bolder, greyer and fatter. Something that Paul Dacre's paper takes great pleasure in doing, as if it somehow constitutes news. Following yesterday's post on what I consider to be the real outrages of the taboid press - the constant lies and inhumanity - I had a message from Macguffin from Tabloid Watch, who made a small correction: Dacre didn't provide a written statement to the HoC Culture, Media and Sport Committee, he actually turned up to answer questions. He actually said the following with a straight face:

So I was curious to see what else Dacre said, so the above quotations are actually transcribed from his grand day out, yes, he actually said those things with a straight face as well. Dacre goes on to say far more completely hypocritical things, like his statement on the human rights act.

The 'Human Rights Act was a very well intentioned act, I mean who could deny human rights to anybody' he says, seriously (15:58), which is presumably why the Daily Mail has spent years campaigning to have the act scrapped. In a typical Daily Mail article entitled: 'What about OUR human rights' the Mail reported that a poll showed 61% of people where in favour of scrapping it, largely thanks I imagine to the negative reporting of the tabloid press towards the HRA. The Mail also stated that the act had caused many 'affronts to natural justice', listing numerous cases of criminals not deported, bombers let in and so on to support their view that the HRA was an act of madness. However, as the Guardian pointed out: the majority of those cases had nothing to do with the HRA and everything to do with legal loopholes. The HRA was a convenient target because the Mail does not support equality or basic rights to 'others' such as ethnic minorities.

He also bangs on about privacy - of course, that is the point of the committee - but here he again seems to be a complete hypocrite. As the Guardian points out, 'until recently, Dacre has studiously avoided the public gaze' and enjoys his perceived right to privacy. That is why I took a small delight above in looking at the man behind the hatred, judgement and bullying articles that make up such a huge bulk of Daily Mail content. He is, after all, a human being, as frail and as flawed as anyone. I would argue, though, that he deserves more limelight for most after his years of editorship of the Daily Mail, he dishes out the abuse but rarely seems to be on the end of it.

1 & 2 - Nick Davies, Flat Earth News, p379.

Reading the Daily Mail you often get the feeling that you've seen a certain story before, often at least once. Today was no different when I came across a story about Dennis the Menace being made less menacing thanks to the 'PC brigade': 'That new Dennis is a softy' (link is to online article, title has been copied from print edition - don't worry, I didn't buy it). Not surprisingly, it was a story that had been run before (in 2008 and 2009), albeit with the slightest new angle: the changes are happening to the print edition and an 8-year-old by called Jacob Rush has complained about that. Hold the front pages, 8-year-old boy writes letter of complaint about a comic strip book.

Naturally the Daily Mail jump at the chance to rehash old 'news' as space filler and Andy Dolan takes it upon himself to try to take the whole thing seriously. His main point seems to be that PC just isn't fun. Dennis 'doesn't have his catapult or water pistol anymore and he's not menacing enough' whines Jacob, before the article states that he still retains his catapult and a peashooter, he just doesn't fire them at people anymore. Surely, as far as the fearful Mail reader is concerned, the improvement of Dennis' behaviour is a positive thing, seeing how he must be a role model for and influence on our nation's feral youth?

Not so. The Daily Mail seem to think that it is absolutely fine for children to 'live out their naughtiness through him', yet most TV and other youth cultures will turn your child into a crack-addicted killing machine. Perhaps it is because Dennis first appeared in 1951 and the rose-tinted spectacles worn by Mail readers and writers look at him with a certain fondness, because he was a proper scamp. He isn't like these modern feral chavs who look at you funny on street corners and smoke, no, Dennis was a loveable rogue who would simply clobber you with a catapult after spending the day at school bullying people - which never did no one any harm in the '50s either and wasn't even an issue in schools you know. If you told a teacher in the '50s you were being bullied they would have given you a swift caning and sent you home without any lunch. Things were hard then, but good you see, so much better than the 'PC softness' that has infected our children.

I wonder how many deliquent youths could get away with the Daily Mail describing them as 'a loveable tearaway', I'm guessing Dennis is probably unique unless Paul Dacre has spawned some devil-children.

David Cameron has suggested that 'the moment a burglar steps over your threshold... I think they leave their human rights outside'. The Daily Mail published an article on this that has so far attracted over 338 comments, of which the majority (and best rated) are people saying it is about time we're allowed Carte Blanche in our own homes. The Daily Mail have done their best to hype things up a little bit with a few choice phrases such as: 'Under existing laws, homeowners are allowed to use only ‘reasonable’ force to tackle a burglar'.

This is put forward as if it is unreasonable that homeowners are only allowed to use reasonable force, as if somehow homeowners are being cheated out of a basic right to defend themselves and their homes. This is, of course, utter rubbish. Reasonable force sounds vague precisely because it is designed to be flexible. For example, if a burglar breaks into your house and is subdued merely by being discovered and cowers in fear whilst you call the police, who then turn up to arrest him; it is safe to assume that reasonable force in this instance would be making sure the burglar did not leave the premises. Unreasonable force in this instance would be knocking the burglar to the ground with a cricket bat and beating him to within an inch of his life.

However, should the burglar try to escape by grabbing a kitchen knife and trying to stab the homeowner; then reasonable force would cover the homeowner grabbing a chair and knocking out the burglar and so on and so forth. Reasonable force can cover pretty much any act carried out by someone protecting their home and perhaps more importantly their family as long as the circumstances justify the force. This - to me at least - sounds reasonable and I can see why the phrase legislation is called 'reasonable force'.

The idea that burglars are no longer human beings once they enter your house is to suggest that we can just give anyone a damn good beating and worse even if they don't pose a real threat. It's a slippery slope which we perhaps don't want to go down when reasonable force can protect 'law abiding citizens' who - according to the comments on the Mail article - seem to be suffering from the advent of universal human rights.

Perhaps now is a good time to examine just what rights homeowners should have in their own home and consider the case of Paddy and Stephanie Lynch, who invited into their home a maths tutor for their 14 year old daughter who is unable to attend school because she has Leukaemia. This couple invited the maths tutor - Olive Jones - into their 'non-religious' home to tutor their daughter in maths. However, according to this couple Olive Jones:

However, rather than report this story as more evidence that homeowners need more rights and that visitors 'should lose the right to convert your loved ones to their religion once they enter your house' the Daily Mail attacked the parents and suggested that this was another disgraceful attack on Christianity.

So there you have it, you should be allowed to give anyone who breaks into your home a damn good kicking whether it is necessary or not, but you should not be allowed to defend your daughter from a maths teacher with a penchant for distressing your daughter with religious propaganda.

For full details and the latest on the appalling Daily Mail reporting of the Olive Jones case - attacking the family for trying to protect their child - see Tabloidwatch's post: 'Who are the zealots? (cont.)' and his original post on the subject: 'You can't upset a 14yo girl with leukaemia any more - it's political correctness gone mad!'.

For more on the 'burglars should lose human rights at the door' story you might also want to look at Nadine Dorries' tweets on the subject which are looked at over on the Nadine Dorries Project: 'Not All Humans Have Human Rights'.