The Daily Mail 3.4.13

Nothing personal Wildebeeste, as I know you'd be happy for other viewpoints regarding the way newspapers report things to fit their own agenda to be made available.

The Hypocrisy Of The Left

Actually, chaps, I was just inviting you to agree with me that this particualr article was gratuitously cruel, dishonest and cheap, but let's dig a little further.

James, I am surprised at you. If you can show me anything written by Owen Jones in a national newspaper which is as offensive as AN Wilson's article then be my guest. In any case, Wilson is just one of a stable of Mail writers, see also Melanie Philips, Richard Littlejohn and Lynda Lee-Potter, who follow Paul Dacre's bash-the-poor editorial policy to the letter. All the nationals led with the Philpotts' story yesterday but only the Mail made a spurious front-page connection with the welfare state. Even its bone-headed rival the Daily Express didn't stoop quite so low as to do that.

Funny thing is that while the Mail and Express pretend to be for a middle-class Tory readership they are actually squarely aimed at the "aspiring working class", or snobs, as I prefer to call them. Real middle-class Tories read the Telegraph or the Times rather than picking their daily paper from the gutter. Thus it tends to be the Mail, Express and Sun which print scrounger stories designed to make their readers feel superior to people who happen to be worse off than themselves. It was the Mail's Littlejohn who recently wrote an unnecessary and nasty article about a transgender teacher, who subsequently killed herself, and the Mail who promised never to use paparazzi shots again after Lady Diana's death but whose website regularly features long lens pictures of the children of celebs. It was also the Mail that ran articles entitled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" in the 1930s but it would be unfair to dwell on that now, wouldn't it?

Alpine Joe, you are an intelligent and an amusing and witty writer but those attributes tend to fly out the window sometimes. I don't understand what you are trying to say but you seem to be calling me a hypocrite. Why? I don't espouse violent revolution; I just want a society in which everyone has the right to work and to earn a decent living wage while those who are above pension age or infirm have a humane safety net to keep them free of poverty. I don't see how anyone could object or call me a hypocrite because of that.

Keep it respectful now!

Absolutely spot on with that Mr Wildebeeste and your wishes are totally in line with what most of us want and is completely in line with the thinking of the present Government. Indeed if what you say was actually the case British society would be a whole lot better for it. The elderly, the infirm, those temporarily falling on hard times, should have a safety net supplied by society as a whole. Those who make living on benefits a lifestyle choice or those that see producing more children as an opportunity to live in a bigger house and increase family income do not fall into the category of deserving poor.

The Mail article was typical Mail journalism and would be dismissed by most right thinking people (that's right thinking not right thinking!). Indeed I and I suspect most people wouldn't have even been aware of it were it not for the fuss kicked up by the trendy left!

I see sociologists have now established that our traditional three part class system now consists of seven parts. Quite where I fit I have no idea, but I am wondering if we will now see a proliferation of new newspapers to cater for these extended categories.

You have certainly identified the way ahead with your above observations on the benefits system and the quicker it is achieved the better.

wildebeeste 
Well there's gratitude for you !  I'd only just returned from walking down to the Post Box having cast my postal vote in favour of wildebeeste in the 'Most Promising Newcomer' category for the TFF end of season awards, plus I was one of the few who found his April Fools joke rather amusing, only to be rewarded with this scurrilous accusation 


For the record, I've found you to remain most consistent in your arguments, and I'm sure all your beliefs are well intentioned, however I will outline the sequence of events now that I see that confusion has arisen.

Yesterday, like most mornings, I logged onto Guido Fawkes' excellent order-order.com to find out what was happening in the world of politics.As can be seen on the right hand side of the site there is a section titled 'Seen Elsewhere' which gives clickable links to various other pieces of interest appearing elsewhere. He gives himself a bit of leeway, and the title of the link is rarely the same as the title given to the original article e.g today's link to a Daily Telegraph story has been titled 'Why We Need Nukes' but of course when you click on it you can be sure The Telegraph hasn't published an article with 'Nukes' in the title.

Yesterday's link to a Telegraph piece came under a link titled 'Hypocrisy of the Left' and later in the day when I wanted to link to the same piece I lazily used the same title that I'd seen used for it on order-order.com, without giving any thought that it could be seen as being aimed at you. So when I said 'nothing personal' I did actual mean nothing personal.


Of course that's not to say that there's never any room for some good natured highly personal fun, and from the 'Seen Elsewhere' section today, directly under the 'Benefits Britain Podcast' is a link titled Why Can't The Left Understand Public opinion On Welfare

' As the debate over welfare reform rages on, one mystery increasingly perplexes and infuriates the Guardianistas of the well-heeled, middle-class Left. Why, they ask over the Chablis, do the working-class poor so stubbornly refuse to share their enlightened belief in the wonders of the welfare state?' ....etc etc.

And of course when I read such articles, I do indeed, think firstly of you wildebeeste, but always in a most affectionate way 

 

Would just like to say at this point that order-order.com is awful and that "Guido Fawkes" is a prick. In my opinion

Also I'm not saying Owen Jones is as bad as the Mail. What I'm suggesting is the sort of writing style and rhetorical tactics employed by the Right media is starting to be used by the Left, and it's not something I particularly enjoy reading.

I think the idea that people are being "driven to suicide" by the cuts is a good example - the cuts are terrible, but I'm sure they are not the reason why people are killing themselves. That's just emotional blackmail, just as much as the Mail using headlines like "Vile Product of Welfare UK" is. The best way to argue against the cuts is to say "there's no evidence that austerity works, and indeed everything suggests it isn't work - it's just an excuse to make cuts to the public sector" and try as hard as possible to "prove" that, or at least get the point across to people that we don't have to accept this

The problem is Labour are just as much in this as the rest of them, so there's no proper mainstream Left alternative - it's just three slightly different brands of the same thing. The Labour Party has no balls (it only has Balls, unfortunately) and they and the rest of the mainstream Left are promoting an anti-Tory agenda rather than a pro-anything agenda - it's all well and good bashing the Tories, but you need to have something else in your armament as well

In the wider sense, I think the Left does have an image problem. Political incorrectness is fashionable amongst a number of generations, including the young with "lad banter". It's cool to like Boris Johnson, even though behind the bumbling exterior he finds himself quite far right within the Tory Party. It's cool to be libertarian, something Nigel Farage has noticed. It's cool to watch Jeremy Clarkson rip the piss out of minorities on Top Gear

And all the while people continue to grow up suspicious of facts. I support the idea of people being suspicious of authority, but the problem is they are being brought up to be suspicious of the wrong authorities - they are happy to believe the lies of the newspapers and politicians they like, provided that they suit them, and not believe other things which don't suit them. They choose to believe that climate change doesn't exist, despite plenty of scientific evidence saying that it does, and yet they also choose to believe things like benefit scroungers are what's causing the economy to stay stagnant, and that immigrants are all evil, which definitely isn't true

We are a selfish society. People believe what they want to believe, what would make them feel best about themselves, instead of believing the truth. That's why the Mail gets away with awful headlines treating human beings (whatever they have done) as animals

Oh, and if you treat people like animals, don't be surprised if they act like them

One of the last things we do have left in this country is a right to hold our own opinions and views. We come to hold certain viewpoints for all sorts or reasons; some may be due to personal experiences, others because we have been misinformed, or not given the whole facts. I have thought long and hard today if I wanted to add my opinions on this thread and decided as this is a forum and therefore a place we should be able to air our views, then I will.

I may have got everything wrong, end up not knowing what I’m talking about, I have never claimed that anything I write is correct, just how I see it. All I ask is that if you disagree with anything I write, then please do not stick some label on me or put me in some box, just tell me where you think I have got it wrong. That was I can consider all that you are saying and look at it all again.

I had to read that article several times, there were some bits I almost found myself agreeing with (well at least when it came to that man) most other bits I disagreed with. The first thing I want to say is those six children did not die because of any benefits, the two people who should have loved them, cared for them and protected them from any danger, set fire to the house they were in knowing full well they were in it.

I read like you all did what the prosecution had to say, making the claims it was all to do with benefits, maybe it was I do not know, but what must never be forgotten is six little children lost their right to grow up and hopefully enjoy a long and happy life.

Yes this man bragged how he beat the system, claiming he would never ever work, its no wonder some are asking why tax players money should have been spent funding the lifestyle he enjoyed. There are bound to be questions asking if the system is flawed, but lets be honest its keeping most people on benefits living hand to mouth and its going to get a whole lot worse for many of them.

During one debate I listened to yesterday the same old things were said, IE only pay for the first two children that will stop this happening surely? But the thing is it won’t and the ones that will suffer the most are the children and no one would ever want to see that happening. I do not know the answer, maybe stop giving them money and instead credits for the gas etc, food and clothing coupons to ensure the money gets spent where it is meant to be spent on the children.

It is totally wrong to tar everyone on benefits with the same brush, while there are some who milk the system, some who cheat it, most are decent people who would work if they were able to. The whole thing was set up to protect those unable to work for what ever reason, but it was never set up to become an alternative to work.

I gave my views on another thread concerning benefits a while I go, that thread was about cuts being made for the next three years, when it was more the case any rises were going to be capped at 1%.I gave those views as a low paid worker who had not seem a pay rise for a good number of years and them as honestly as I could, even if I did not get my points over as well as I wanted too.
But since then I have been angry at some of the real cuts those really struggling on benefits are having to face, I think the bedroom tax is one that has made me most angry and I’m starting to see just how a section of this country is really being treated by this government. One that is happy to force the very poor out of their homes, while paying for their second home on expensive's that came out of our pockets in the first place.

I’m also starting to think I’m getting conned, yes I fully agree with the government when it says people should not be better off staying at home than going to work. But the facts are some with children will be due to maybe only being able to get a low paid job. I was foolish to believed the government when it said it wanted to reward those who do go to work.

I have seen no such rewards, my money is still the same and the bills coming in this year are higher then they were last year, all I’m seeing is cuts being made to the ones who can lest afford to lose one single penny. I have been shocked with some of the stores I have heard of real hardship and now feel almost rich. In saying that I do wonder why I got up this morning at 5am and got home at 16.30pm just to earn money to hand over to someone else.

If not so much money was taken off of me, then I could have at least some rewards for working as hard as I do, I have no problem with some of my money going to those in greater need than me, but I resent every single penny taken off of me that ends up given to the likes of this man who should never be allowed to leave prison.