ANGRY MOB

The reason for the argument

Reading the Mail or submissions from it's readers and commentators it becomes apparent that Mail readers are struggling to cope with living in the UK - it is, after all, in the minds of the Mail and it's readers, the worst country in the world. It is also true that Mail readers are great patriots, proud 'indigenous' Brits, the 'silent majority' who are standing-up for a 'once great' Britain. So why then, do Mail readers often threaten to emigrate, or have already become ex-pats? How can patriots leave and become the immigrants that they so despise?

In order to make emigration justifiable in the Mail world, Mail commentators have constructed the 'final straw' argument. The argument is anecdotal and consists of the reader having an experience that (although to a nuetral it may appear trifling) is so abhorrent that they have no choice but to emigrate to pastures new (and generally warmer). 

It is important to understand that Mail readers hate immigrants. The thought of someone coming to the UK to make a better life for themselves appalls the average Mail reader. It is therefore vital that the final straw argument justifies Mail readers leaving the UK to become immigrants, making a better life for themselves in other countries (especially because Mail readers consider themselves such patriots).  

The anecdote will therefore have to involve some trifling experience from a kind of Mail canon of terrible things, ensuring that all Mail readers will heartily agree the person is right to emigrate in the face of such terrible experiences (as of course, this anecdote is merely the final straw, thousands of previous straws, equally terrible are explicitly implied).

The final straw argument allows Mail readers to imply that they are a proud British citizen, fighting for the silent majority to reclaim Britain, but that they have suffered so much in doing so that they have no choice but to leave Britain. The final straw argument allows Mail readers to draw on a history of invisible, implied suffering; subsequently, although the anecdote they provide may seem trivial, it is the untold suffering that they imply that is really important.

It is the fact that they do not have to state any suffering beyond the trivial anecdote that makes the argument so compelling: each reader is therefore able to project their own fears and suffering onto the person putting forward the anecdote. The real suffering is therefore always a fiction in the minds of the reader; no-one ever need know what the previous straws were, each reader simply slots their own straws into the argument and waits for their own final straw to arrive.

How to spot the argument

The argument is normally pre-fixed in two different ways:

1 -  I’m leaving because [insert terrible repression by Nu-Liebour here]

or

2 - I left because [insert terrible repression by Nu-Liebour here]

The terrible repression is enough to exhaust the person's patience, and amply demonstrates that the country has 'gone to the dogs', 'to hell in a handcart' etc. Because of this, the person states that they plan to leave, are leaving or have already left.

If the person has already left, they are only commenting to either smugly point out that they no longer have to face living in a country which is 'broken' or to reinforce (or justify) their reasons for leaving the UK.

An example

‘I’m a white middle-class person, utterly law abiding in every way, yet, the other day the fascist Stalinist, Nu-Liebour, Gordon McBroon Nazi police force gave me a speeding ticket, for going at a safe speed of 90mph on the motorway! I feel so disgusted at the way this country is going when law abiding drivers like me are penalised for driving safely within our own speed limits. I shall emigrate at the first available opportunity.’

Remember, although a speeding ticket may seem a trivial reason for leaving the country, this is only the final straw.  Each reader projects their own fears (or insanity) to fill in the missing straws, and it is these missing straws that fully justify the person emigrating.

Other legitimate reasons for leaving the country (or suitable to fill in the missing straws): being forced to recycle, councils refusing to empty your bin once a day, seeing a traffic warden, seeing a speed camera, driving past any ‘yoofs’ within 5 miles of your castle, cold weather, hot weather, foreigners, the British underclass, Nu-Liebour, the pro-left BBC Nu-Liebour mouthpiece, any media product that posits a different viewpoint to the Mail, the gay community, the Asian community, the Muslim community, blacks, crime, the Nu-Liebour police force waging petty war on ‘law abiding citizens’, lack of police on the beat, the PC brigade, PC-gone-mad-I-Can’t-even-shout-Paki-anymore, the NHS, social workers, liberals and any other single reason the Mail reader can use to highlight that Britain has gone to the dogs and is – in fact – the worst country in the world to live in.

The importance of the argument

It is essential for Mail readers to believe that the UK is the worst country to live in. Without question. It is therefore vital to reinforce this belief at every opportunity. One of the best ways on enforcing this argument is anecdotally (it therefore matches the anecdotal style of the Mail) in the comments section of the Mail Online, or in the print edition of the paper. The beauty of this argument is that each reason put forward is so self-evident in the mind of the Mail reader. For example, speed cameras are a terrible thing, therefore anyone falling victim to this Nu-Lab abomination has every right to feel utterly disgusted. As the UK is the worst country in the world to live in such an incident becomes the final straw for the victim, and as such they have every right to leave.

The importance of the missing straws not being stated is that not being stated, they do not have to be justifiable to anyone else but the reader in whose mind they have been created. If the straws were stated then they might all seem trivial to someone else, and thus they would be unable to justify and Mail reader becoming an immigrant. Furthermore, Mail readers often dismiss Asylum seekers as merely seeking a better life, not escaping torture or horror in another country, if they stated all their reasons for migration then they might start to see how incongrious those reasons seem when put alongside the arguments of someone seeking asylum in the UK.

It is far safer to leave the worst unsaid, therefore the missing straws are vital in maintaining the Mail mindset in the face of reality.