Behind the Headlines 5

Actually not so much behind the headlines as behind the whole story!

The Daily Mail ran a piece on how in Watford barmy councillors had banned parents from parks and playgrounds, and had put special trained supervisors in their place. No longer can a family take their toddlers to enjoy time on the swings, they must watch from a distance.

Except- it wasn't true.  Not one word.

Well maybe one or two words. Parents have been told not to hang around after dropping their kids off at supervised adventurous play facility. The facility is not an open playground for the under 5s as you may find in a park, but has always been an enclosed area run by trained supervisors. The facility had become a bit lenient with the rule over letting parents stay for the session, but one or two had begun to get in the way of activities. So they put their foot down and began to enforce the policy.

Cue one disgruntled parent, and you've got a classic case of flat earth news!

Who's platform

I agree that it achieves nothing to censor Nick Griffin and the BNP. Banning his party from question time would have been counter productive, making them cause celebres. I don't believe that anyone watching will get the idea that the BNP have any ideas worth voting for unless they already had racist views.

I keep hearing though that the way to defeat the BNP is to engage with them. Must I? I want to see fewer people voting BNP sure, but I don't want to have to listen to Griffin's bilge. Sorry that's how I feel. I'm not boycotting Question Time in disgust at the BBC, I just don't want to hear that idiot speak.

It may seem undemocratic, or prejudiced, but freedom of speach does not mean people have to listen.

Yours truely, angry mob

The big story recently has been the reaction to a piece in the Daily Mail by columnist Jan Moir about the death of Steven Gateley. To date the press complaints commission have received 21,000 complaints about the piece.

I found the original piece mildly offensive, but that's nothing compared to what happened next. Instead of being chastened Moir hit back at her critics, calling the complaints the results of a mischievous and orchestrated twitter campaign.

I am amused by this. I think back to the last campaign orchestrated against someone who has offended people in society. What was it, oh yes, the campaign against the BBC over a couple of lines in a radio broadcast . Orchestrated by- The Daily Mail. That campaign was mischievous- as many had not heard the broadcast but just wanted to stick it to. Compared to this campaign where I feel people are genuinely aggrieved by what was written.

Moir's column was a written piece, not an off the cuff comment like that made on Radio 2, and what's more she has not accepted she did anything wrong. Ross and Brand both apologized for what they did. Ross was punished, while Brand resigned.

If the Daily Mail are consistent they should take on board that this column was far worse than the Ross_brand prank call incident and act as they feel appropriately.

Same old tories?

This is going to be one of those emotional political statements that I disapprove of myself, but I hope you can forgive me.

Listening to the headlines, I'm left with a feeling that the Tories haven't changed. Telling people that the Conservatives are bad news may not be what many people want to hear, particularly those riled to the point of rage with Brown and looking for reasons to justify it.

The overwhelming impression I got from listening to the message of "tough choices" and "all of us in it together", is that these weren't tough choices. Was it an anti-tory reaction, or are they using the post credit-crunch recession and the effect on the country's bank balance to do what they wanted to do anyway? I had the feeling that deep down they wanted to make cuts, and were scarcely suppressing the urge to rub their hands in glee at such an excuse.

Was the gamble that the electorate are so cheesed off with Labour that they'll just accept the Tory line, without any polish or presentation. They won't even be able to shout "liars" when they get what they voted for as its been given to them straight.


Edit: Well it appears my Lib Dem PPC Nader has a similar impression