Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The patriotism of St George’s Day

Ah, what better way to spend St George's Day than buying paintings by one of the world's greatest racist murderers, who wanted to destroy England and everything it stood for? I suppose the timing of the auction may have been completely accidental, but it seems a touch on the clumsy side anyway. I mean, who in their right mind would even think such paintings had any merit at all?

Oh, hang on.

A bit of internet comment silliness, I grant you, but surely people complaining about Hitler - one of the world's most infamous hate-filled mass-murderers - wouldn't get voted down in the patriotic English Daily Mail, would they?

Oh, hang on.

And sticking the boot into Churchill as well! Goodness me. Maybe these Mail readers aren't as patriotic as they like to make out...? I mean, it's not as if they'd vote down comments attacking the hated racist idiot Nick Griffin in their dozens, is it?

Oh, hang on.

I don't know if the BNP leaflet and St George's Day are connected in any way either. I get the impression this has been knocking about for ages and isn't entirely new news. On the other hand, while it's not surprising to most of us that Nick Griffin is a tedious bigoted windbag who keeps his dark heart of hatred hidden behind a wafer-thin veneer of semi-respectability - while courting the usual mob of thugs, villains, nutjobs and out-and-out scum - it's still useful in the context of the 'we're not racist' crap that the BNP like to spout, generally unchallenged, whenever they have the chance. As Jamie points out, though, the Mail's article even helpfully agrees with the BNP's request to use the more respectable title of British National Party - and the commenters? Plenty of 'indigenous Britons' dog-whistles from the BNP bombarders voted up to the nines, and anything remotely liberal crucified by other commenters.

Is this what Daily Mail readers really think? I'm sure it isn't. Well, I'll put that another way. I'm pretty sure it isn't. Anyone who thinks immigration is 'genocide' is beyond help - and surely most Mail readers don't think that, do they? I would like to hope not. Mind you, I do remember Mail reporter James Slack's attempt to claim that second and third-generation immigrants didn't count as being properly British earlier this year - does that sound familiar to you? Yes, because Griffin's argument is that second and third-generation immigrants born and raised in Britain shouldn't be counted as British either and should be termed "racial foreigners". I'm sure Slacky wouldn't go that far - would he?

It's well documented how groups like the BNP can mobilise support on internet comments and messageboards to try and make their cause look more widely supported than it really is - and it would be foolish and misleading to say that the commenters on the Griffin story really do represent a cross-section of Daily Mail readers.

But then again, when a newspaper's own journalists, in supposedly factual pieces, are using almost exactly the same arguments as the BNP... what then?

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