Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

A tricky one for the Mail

As regular readers of Mailwatch will know, there's a sliding scale of disapproval. Terrorists are bad, but so are the police... so which way to go?

I think I've tried to work out the scale before on here, but here's a latest attempt. Starting with 'most disapproved of' and moving to 'least disapproved of', we have...

Jock McBottler
Political correctness
Muslims
Single mothers
The EU
Gay people (except feminine lesbians)
Black people
Ken Livingstone
Scientists
Health and safety legislation
Women who dare to have jobs
The police force
Man-made global warming
Human rights legislation
Scotland
Teachers
Trade unionists
Facebook
Anyone under 25 (unless they are an attractive blonde 18-year-old girl from Surrey)
Public transport

and so on, and so on, until you get to...

Mad Mel
Littlecock
Anyone who went to Eton
Inherited wealth
Tim Henman
Old money
Red-faced old bigots who live in the Cotswolds and wear blazers
David Cameron
'Bring back the birch'

Sometimes the Mail lets its readers make their minds up - though you have to look at the comments with the caveat that certain entries will not have been allowed through.

Here's the set-up. There was an 'armed incident'. A man was arrested by armed police at a train station. He was totally innocent, but he was black and had a rucksack on. Plod released him without charge minutes later when they realised he wasn't a jihadist.

The Mail gives you:

Pictured: The terrifying moment armed police held down an innocent man on train and put a gun to his head

So it would seem that they're leading us towards disapproval of the police, wouldn't it? But, as you see from my attempt at a Mail sliding scale of disapproval, Muslims (who therefore are terrorists) are much higher up the list. Hang on a minute, you're saying, this man may not have been a Muslim at all, not that that's of any relevance, and he certainly wasn't a terrorist.

Ah, but that doesn't matter if you're a Mail reader. Because...

If that guy had a bomb in his rucksack and it had exploded - they'd all be dead or seriously injured.
- Gary S, Weybridge, 7/7/2008 12:50

Well yes. If he had been a terrorist then he would have been a terrorist. But he wasn't a terrorist and therefore, I thnk it's safe to say, he wasn't a terrorist. Similarly, if he had been a herring, he would have been a fish, but he wasn't, so he wasn't.

Mistaken identity can happen anywhere and not by just by the Police, for goodness' sakes, what would have happened if this man was a real criminal and the police just didn't try to apprehend him? Seems to me that the Police are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
- Petra Court, Cardiff/Wales, 7/7/2008 13:15

Yes, what would have happened if he had been a real criminal? Then the arrest would have been justified, I would imagine. But seeing as he wasn't, he wasn't. How hard is this for people to grasp? What if he'd been a terrorist - well, that's kind of irrelevant, given that he wasn't.

BRILLIANT. This is what the police should be doing.
- Phil Davy, London, 7/7/2008 13:23

The next time you submit a comment to the Mail and it doesn't get published, remember this. Just write in capital letters and short sentences that don't mean anything at all - that'll get waved through with a cheery smile.

Real Policing, about time!
- J Wootton, Milton Keynes, 7/7/2008 13:29

Arresting the wrong man is real policing?

Heavens when they are not on the job - everyone grumbles but when they do do things everyone also grumbles. Well, I'm sorry for his hurt feelings, but I much prefer some hurt feelings to another 55 people dead. So good on them and good luck for the ungrateful job that they have to do.
- Violet, Paris, France, 7/7/2008 13:29

So you wouldn't mind if I came round your house with a gun and pointed it in your face then - if it was a mistake? That wouldn't upset you at all? That would just be 'hurt feelings' rather than trauma? Once again, there haven't been another 55 dead, because he didn't have a bomb, he wasn't a criminal and he was completely innocent - just like Menenzes, although this time he wasn't shot six times in the head, thankfully. Remember though, if this man had been shot six times in the head, no-one would have faced any action, everyone would have said it was a job well done and Sir Ian Blair would have grinned away while smearing him. Littlecock would write a piece saying he shouldn't have been in the country anyway, quickly U-turned upon but not forgotten, and that would have been that.

Gary S, Weybridge is right, if he had been a terrorist, and had a button a lot of people could have been killed.
- Cyber Mole, UK, 7/7/2008 13:32

And if you were an intelligent human being you wouldn't have submitted a pathetic comment to the Mail's website, but life is all about ifs, isn't it.

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