Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Littlejohn: I like the idea of health & safety, if it backs up my bollocks argument

It saddens me to have to write about Littlecock sometimes. But it's something you need to do when faced with another torrent of turd from Billericay Dicky.

There is a suggestion in some circles that Littlecock doesn't really mean what he says; that he's just a silly devil's advocate who takes pleasure in enraging 'the usual suspects' (lentil-munching yogurt-weaving Guardian-reading bastards) by advancing a series of arguments that will piss them off, regardless of how wholeheartedly he might believe what he's saying. Henceforth I'll call this 'The Littlecock Defence'. It's a popular one among right-wing wingnuts who like to have their cake and eat it: I'll say something really offensive, but I don't really mean it, I was only winding you up and making you look silly by being so passionate about it, innit?

The problem with the Littlejohn Defence is that at some stage you have to question this convenient get-out clause. If I said "idiotic columnists who live in Florida but pontificate about Britain as if they live there are total scumbag bastards who should be burnt alive" and such a person was upset, but then I said, oh I didn't mean you Richard, I just meant it in a general provocative way, that would be not only dishonest but also a load of old bollocks. I've shown before how Littlecock likes to distance himself from his poison by claiming it's been said to him by one of his northern mates. What we're dealing with here is someone who doesn't have the courage to say what he thinks. (Interestingly enough it's not just people like me who level this accusation: the extreme racist right, who are sure Littlecock is one of their own, are constantly frustrated by the fact that he doesn't back them. Such are the problems you get when you play devil's advocate without thinking about the consequences.)

To Littlecock's latest offering, then, and this section about knives.

If you listen to the Guardianistas, there is no epidemic of violent crime. It’s all the fault of the meeja (by which they generally mean the Daily Mail) going round stirring up hysteria.

We stand accused of exaggerating the extent of the problem of stabbings, murders and general mayhem.

Now, I've done a little bit of research this week into knives and crime, following up the excellent bullshit-cutting-through of the BBC's Mark Easton.

Stabbings - now, is there an epidemic right now, or are we simply reporting with more attention than previously a level of crime that has been there all along?

The 2006-7 crime figures show that 258 people were stabbed to death that year, out of a total of 734 homicides (that's 35 per cent). So that works out at more than one fatal stabbing every couple of days. Do you remember any headlines about 'Broken Britain' and a 'knife crime' epidemic last summer? No, of course not. The papers couldn't give a fuck - they were concentrating their resources on the disappearance of a single three-year-old girl in Portugal, relegating violent deaths and the tragic story behind every single one to the 'news in brief' columns.

So in a sense, Littlecock is right: yes, these crimes should be reported more often. That they weren't is down to his own newspaper as much as any other, including the Guardian. But isn't it funny that at the very same time as the Conservative Party have put knife crime on the agenda, the entirety of the right-wing press has done the same? Of course you could look at it another way: the press puts knives on the agenda and Big Dave hops aboard the bandwagon with a thudderingly brainless idea to imprison everyone found with a knife.

Littlecock again:

There are shootings every week in our big cities, which not only fail to trouble the scorers in Fleet Street, they barely make their local papers.

Number of people killed in the UK by shootings in 2006-7: 59.
Number killed in Littlejohn's home country in 2006: 10,177.

Just making a little comparison, that's all. In fact, more people were killed by the US police in 2006 (617 'justifiable homicides') than died in stabbings in the UK.

And there's another reason why a lot of these crimes go unnoticed, in the States and in the UK: the victims are overwhelmingly poor and black, as are the perpetrators (93% of black homicide victims in the US are killed by black offenders). So long as the underclass keep violence to themselves, we (and the media, including Littlecock's precious Mail and his former employers The Sun) couldn't give a shit. As soon as a nice-looking white boy or girl dies in such a crime, it's a maelstrom of evil and violence tearing apart our society. I saw the Metro on the bus yesterday and illustrating a story about a black youngster who'd been in a stabbing was a photo of Ben Kinsella: that said it all for me.

Here's another comparison for the purposes of perspective. If you compare the causes of death in the UK with the crime stats, you'll find the following bits of info from the most recent (2005) England & Wales figures:

3,000 people died in falls, 700 of whom died falling down the stairs;
910 people died from accidental drugs overdoses;
3,172 people committed suicide.

Why no outrage about stairs? Why no outcry over falling deaths? Why no sympathy for those killed by drugs? Why no campaigns to tackle the suicide rate?

I remind you: 19 people have been stabbed to death in London this year, which is enough for it to be called an 'epidemic' for which 'Broken Britain' is responsible. But look at those suicide figures: that's 9 lives lost every day, completely preventable, a total tragedy for the families and the individuals. Isn't that more indicative of a broken society? Isn't that what we should really be worried about? Isn't that more of a danger to our young people than the knife-wielding bogeyman? Or don't we give a shit about fall deaths, because it's the elderly, drug deaths because it's only druggies, and suicide deaths because it's people with mental illness?

Anyway, let's let Littlecock tell us how evil those elf'n'safety jobsworth bastards are!

Meanwhile, the NHS orders 10,000 stab vests for accident and emergency staff and one of the Oasis brothers blames Mrs Thatcher for the present wave of knifings.

So... hang on Dicky, ordering stab vests isn't elf'n'safety gawn mad, but actually a good thing, simply because it backs up your argument? Usually when it comes to precautionary safety measures, it's lambasted as a barmy waste of taxpayers' money... but this time it's unquestioningly waved through. Funny how you can about-turn when you've got an agenda, isn't it?

And one more thing: Littlecock repeats a (totally false, but you knew that) story about police and even police dogs having to wear shoes when raiding houses owned by Muslims.

Will he say sorry about this utter anti-Muslim lie? Or is he just comedy Billericay Dicky, being devil's advocate, you shouldn't take him too seriously and therefore it doesn't matter? But then that's the danger of the Littlejohn Defence.

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