You say Halal, I say goodbye
(I'd already done Halal, is it meat you're looking for?)
There's a debate to be had about a secular institution like a state school providing food that conforms to certain religious standards. There's also a debate to be had about the animal welfare standards of halal (and kosher) food, and whether it inflicts undue suffering on the animals that are being slaughtered. But this story in yesterday's Daily Star isn't that debate:
Let's get the 'exclusive' out of the way first. This isn't a new thing. Halal-only meat in schools has been around for ages - I managed to find this story from 2006, and I'm sure there are plenty more from down the years. Actually if you compare that story
Halal meat is being served to pupils in state schools without their knowledge, even if they believe the religious slaughter is cruel.
Parents have reacted furiously after being sent letters telling them their children's school dinners have been all-halal for 'some time'.
To conform with Jewish and Muslim religious tradition, animals are prepared for halal products by having their throats slit while conscious - a method many people believe is inhumane and which the RSPCA has condemned.
with the Star's story of yesterday:
PARENTS are reacting with fury as children across Britain are served halal dinners even if they do not want them.
Schools are not offering youngsters any alternatives to the Islamic-prepared meat.
Fuming parents hit out after the Daily Star revealed plans to force halal-only lunch on children of all faiths in London borough Harrow, to avoid offending Muslims.
You can see the similarities. Parents reacting with anger/fury at the decision. All parents? Well I dare say some parents might be pleased that halal meat is being served in schools as the standard rather than an option; others might not be fussed either way; some might think that all animal slaughter is equally cruel, and not be bothered; others might give their children a vegetarian diet anyway, and so on. But the focus is on the ones who are shocked, annoyed, angry, and so on.
The main difference is the 'to avoid offending Muslims' bit of the Star story. It's a common phrase from 'PCgawnmad' stories wherever you might see them. Even Baroness Warsi, as we saw this week, had bought in to some of these myths. It's always 'to avoid offending Muslims', which was what the Mail said with its KFC Halal story back in March. I bet 'to avoid offending Muslims' has bugger all to do with it.
Actually it's a pretty good rule of thumb when reading the papers: when you see the phrase 'to avoid offending Muslims', you can be pretty sure that's not why something's been done. With KFC it was a matter of simple market forces; with these schools I imagine it's to do with there being such a significant proportion of pupils being from a Muslim background that it's more straightforward and cost-effective to offer halal-only meat.
But this isn't an argument about parents demanding RSPCA-certified freedom food in their children's school meals because of concerns about animal welfare. No. It's about 'BRIT KIDS' being 'FORCED' to eat 'MUSLIM MEALS'. You could make the point, and I wouldn't entirely disagree, that it's almost as if the Star are suggesting that children from a Muslim family are not 'Brits'. It's not as if the Daily Star and their stablemates the Daily Express have been shy about doing that before:
It's all about 'us' and 'them'. I think the image that's meant to be conjured up with the latest story is of some bearded fanatic forcing a chicken dinner down a poor seven-year-old's throat from an animal that was possibly slightly more unpleasantly treated than most other factory-farmed meat.
The thing I find interesting is the idea of 'offence'. As I've said earlier, the idea of 'to avoid offending Muslims' isn't quite the right way of putting it. But then again, if non-Muslims are a minority in an area with a large Muslim population, do they then become the 'offended' minority who should be catered for? Are people offended by a chicken that's bled out from a knife wound, for example? Or are people just offended that the majority's needs or wants should trample all over their freedom to eat what they want? Which makes you wonder: would the offended minority be such a concern for our newspapers if they were Muslims, as opposed to non-Muslims?
It's an interesting situation, and like I said at the beginning of this, there's a debate to be had about secularism, education, religion and so on, as well as the animal welfare aspects. It's just that our newspapers choose not to have that debate. They choose to have the one in which PCgawnmad Britain bends over backwards to those pesky Muslims.
PS You'll be pleased to hear that this story has already been picked up by our friends in the ultra-nationalist and anti-Muslim community and used as an example of why there's a 'jihad' against the 'indigenous' population. Well done, Daily Star!
PPS See Tabloid Watch's post.
Daily Express & Daily Star racism: It’s not going to stop
It's not going to stop, but that doesn't mean that it's pointless to be angered by it; or that there's no reason to try and stop it.
It's been going on for some time, as 5cc chronicles today, this pandering to racists, this out-and-out fearmongering about the scale and impact of immigration, this filthy stain on an already tarnished profession of journalism. And it's going to carry on. It's not just one accidental putting of the wrong word in a headline box, or a few mealy-mouthed liberals getting their knickers in a twist over some transgression of the arbitrary lines of political correctness; this is a deliberate policy*.
There's no way that by expressing our anger at the Daily Express and the Daily Star, or by correcting the falsehoods when they appear, or by declaring that we don't want to have anything to do with this kind of lowest-of-the-low reporting, that we're going to change anything. This is the policy. The people who run these businesses believe their readers want to be fed a diet that appeals to racists. They may well be right, but that doesn't make it the truth. And it's not going to stop.
But still, you have to try. We have to try. I'm assuming here that you think racism is a bad thing, and that newspapers misrepresenting minorities to pander to people's very lowest dregs of humanity is not a good idea. I may be wrong, but I like to hope that I am right; without hope, there is nothing. And so while it's unlikely that any of us, individually or even collectively, can stop any of this disgraceful excuse for journalism from appearing on our news-stands, or from making millions of pounds from it, there's everything to hope for.
Today's Express is at it again, of course. Of course it is. After yesterday's atrocity using the archaic racial slur 'ethnics' in a headline - with an accompanying editorial complaining about ethnic minorities being 'over-represented' in professions and linking crime with immigration, while also saying that people who said that Britons were being taken over in the 1960s and 1970s were wrongly labelled as racists - and last week's abomination saying NOW ASYLUM IF YOU'RE GAY - backed up by the memorable NO ROOM FOR GAYS headline in the Star - comes today's little effort.
Is there really 'mounting pressure' for Britain to ban the burkha? I suppose it depends on what you call 'mounting pressure', really. If you think 'mounting pressure' is 'a significant and growing number of people demanding something', then probably not. If you think 'mounting pressure' is 'some rentagob Tory zealot wanting to make a name for himself', then yes, it certainly is. You have to see the front page in the context of the others; it's the policy, it's the pattern, and it's not going to stop.
But that doesn't mean anyone should stop bothering about it. Easy to dismiss the Express and Star as just a couple of nutters shouting in the precinct; but they're 20% Britain's daily newspapers. In the same style as yesterday's Express front page, you could say ONE IN FIVE NEWSPAPERS IS RACIST GARBAGE - but then that would ignore the similar stories being churned out, albeit with a half-ounce more of subtlety, by the Daily Mail and the Sun, and even the Telegraph. It's probably more than 20% of newspapers that happily trot out this vileness on a fairly regular basis, if truth be told.
It's a big and influential target to try and attack, then. And it's not going to happen overnight. We're never going to knock Richard Desmond out of the park in one hit, or smash his polished desk of oak, or stop his boring dirty joke and make him yell. But that doesn't mean it's not worth fighting back. Will targeting advertisers make a difference? It's hard to tell, but Glenn Beck staggers on in the US as brands desert him. Will targeting readers work? It's hard to win the hearts and minds of racists; but there are plenty of people, no doubt, who pick up the Express or Star because it's what they've always done - or because they're cheap - and don't necessarily buy into the politics. There's still a chance for them, and it would be wrong to alienate them by calling them all racist scum - although some undoubtedly are.
But we are many, they are few. And we've got a long way to go before this kind of bilge is regarded as being unacceptable. I don't want to censor anyone; I just want this kind of thing to be seen for the naked racism it is, and for readers not to want to buy it. This isn't about freedom of expression; this is about some people's expression being seen as influential, and important, and somehow representing the truth, whereas in fact it's far from that. The more these newspapers are allowed to keep peddling this awfulness, the more eroded the image of journalism is as a whole, and the less credibility the real, decent, honest reporters have, purely by association.
And I think it's important for very simple reasons. I'm pleased I live in a multicultural society, where people from different backgrounds, beliefs and nationalities can exist together. I feel almost apologetic about saying this kind of thing, as if it's somehow naff or cliched or will be scoffed at as being naivety of the highest order, but do you know what? It isn't. It really isn't. I don't care what the racists say, or do, or try to tell me is the truth; I know what I think, and I'm not going to be part of their lies. Now we're in a recession it's more important than ever that minorities aren't seen as scapegoats or parasites - it's very easy for them to be portrayed as such.
I have limited skills and I am afraid I am not very good at organising people, or things, or anything. All I able to do, as able as I am to do it, is to write about this stuff and to challenge it when I see it, and to call it out for what I believe it to be. It may make no difference at all; it may be a tiny drop in the ocean. But I can't just sit back and let it sit there unchallenged.
It's not going to stop, but sales of newspapers are declining - apart from the cut-price Daily Star, which is why it's important not to dismiss it as simply some kind of comic that no-one reads. People are getting their news from other places now, and they're more and more sceptical about the printed page. It's going to take time, and it's going to be a slow process. But anything that fights it is worth it. Don't ask whether it's worth it or not to try; just try. We may not get anywhere, but let's try.
* It could have been even more explicit. It was only staff standing up to their employers that saw the "Daily Fatwa" edition of the Star fail to make it into print, so we were spared the 'hilarious' sight of "What Britain would look like under Muslim rule".
Open letter to Express advertisers
Here is a letter I am planning to send to advertisers in today's Daily Express, and also those on the Express and Star's website.
Dear all of you,
I don't want to criticise any of you. You're just trying to make a living and advertise your products to the widest possible range of readers. I understand that, and I don't want to in any way imply that you are, through your advertising, condoning the editorial content of the Daily Express and Daily Star, publications owned by Richard Desmond.
Of course, it's perfectly acceptable for any newspaper to say whatever it likes - and that free speech is one of the cornerstones of the society we enjoy today.
But I just want you to be aware of the kind of views your product is associated with. These newspapers unfortunately seem determined to pander to racists with their coverage. This isn't just a question of one or two articles, balanced as part of a lively debate; this is a pattern of offensive and unpleasant articles.
Today's front page stating that ONE IN FIVE BRITONS WILL BE ETHNICS is clearly offensive and misleading. We are all 'ethnics'. We all have a mixed heritage and to imply otherwise is to create an artificial distinction between white Britons and those from other backgrounds.
Furthermore, you should read today's Express editorial, which states:
THERE is no point in hankering after a return to the ethnically homogeneous Britain of the Forties. It is never coming back.
Nor is there much point in complaining that some of those who were pilloried as racists for claiming that immigrants were “taking over” their neighbourhoods in the Sixties and Seventies were telling the truth – though they were.
The Express is clearly saying that people who were described as racists in the 60s and 70s for saying immigrants were taking over were telling the truth. Is that the kind of opinion that fits the brand values of your business? Do you think that people who say 'immigrants are taking over' are not only right, but shouldn't be called racists?
Of course, juxtaposition is not tacit support. But does your brand have international values? Do you aspire to have customers from all ethnic backgrounds?
Last week, the Daily Express front page said NOW ASYLUM IF YOU'RE GAY. The Star said there was NO ROOM FOR GAYS. Again, do you aspire to have customers with a wide variety of lifestyles, or just straight white people? Perhaps if you are looking to advertise to the widest audience you can, there may be more suitable places to go.
I have no particular axe to grind with Richard Desmond or Northern and Shell, other than to be someone who despises covert and overt prejudice against minority groups in newspapers. I am afraid that this kind of thing is becoming more and more commonplace in these publications.
I should be very grateful if you could respond to me at your earliest convenience.
Yours etc.
For your information: brands advertising on the Express website today include Npower, Lidl, Jeep, South West Trains, Pfizer, Expedia, The Economist and Drayton Manor Theme Park.
Express and ‘ethnics’: Now the veil has gone
Previously, I've talked about racism so thinly veiled that you can hardly see it with regard to Richard Desmond's Daily Express and Daily Star.
Now the veil has gone.
'Ethnics' is such a 1970s word, dripping with contempt. It's not the first time that Richard Desmond's Daily Express has used it:
'Ethnics and women' lumped together in that delightful front page splash from June 2008. But to have it slap bang in the centre of the front page, as if there's nothing wrong with it at all, is one step further down the road to out-and-out racism. This has gone beyond dog whistles. This is not about a nudge and a wink any more - Richard Desmond's Express and Star leave that kind of subtle signposting to the Daily Mail, who are more than capable.
No, this is what it is. Leave aside that we're all 'ethnics' of one mongrel sort or another; this makes it quite clear what's going on. There are whites and there are 'ethnics'. How much more explicit does it have to be before we start calling it what it is?
And what image does the Express use to illustrate its vile story online?
Of course. Women with their faces covered - veiled more discreetly than the racism on the Express front page, ironically enough. But it's clear what's going on: this is all about fear.
It's the same story we've seen countless times before: panic about the population, with an added dose of pressing whitey's worry buttons by saying 'black and Asian families' will move out of inner-city areas (hey, some of them even have dared to get out of their enclaves already!) and move into the suburbs and countryside.
And of course it's all about pressing to 'curb immigration' in Richard Desmond's world. Someone whose family was once immigrants, and maybe described as 'ethnic' themselves, now quite happy to peddle this kind of thing on his front page to try and go for the racist market. And don't worry, there's a quote from Sir Andrew Green of MigrationWatch. Phew! Just when you thought there'd be a story without a quote from him, no bother, there he is. (Sometimes I wonder if the Express just ring him up about every story to be on the safe side.)
There is no veil any more.
Weatherfearporn!
We British are such a bunch of pussies dicks when it comes to the weather. Anything slightly warmer than a tepid bath and we're all like "Oh my God! We're all gonna die!!!!"; anything slightly colder than a tepid bath and we're all like "Oh my God! We're all gonna die!!!!"; anything drier than a tepid bath and, well, you get the general idea. Essentially, if it's not like a tepid bath outside, we're all at risk of freezing/frying/drowning/drying up to death.
And so, dear friends, to today's Daily Express. While it lacks the snarling at minorities of yesterday's poison-filled slurrybucket of a front page, it still persists with a similar narrative: that of us being under attack!
You can see the weather story and the Abu Hamza story as pretty much the same thing: we're under attack, and there's nothing we can do about it! We can't even extradite HOOK! We're going to fry in the hot weather! There's nothing we can do! Panic! Panic now! Panic soon! Panic quickly! Stay indoors! Don't keep calm and carry on! Panic! PANIC! This isn't just a WARNING, it's a DANGER WARNING! Aaargh!
Hang on, this reminds me of something.
Did 60,000 die in the snow? No. Did gas supplies run out? No. Did the snow chaos prove that global warming was a load of codswallop? Er, no - just as the latest 'heatwave' doesn't prove conclusively that climate change is a reality either (it's a bit more complicated than that, I reckon).
I know Brits are obsessed with the weather, but bloody hell. It's not like it's The Day The Earth Caught Fire (a film which ironically has the Daily Express as the arbiter of quality journalism), is it? Just a couple of nice days. Get a fucking Cornetto, or a 99 with monkey blood and sprinkles, and go out and enjoy yourselves! It's not the end of the world, just as the snow wasn't either!
Enough of this weatherfearporn! A few warm days are something to enjoy, not be afraid of.
It’s worth bothering to get angry at Express scum
You know and I know that today's Express front page
is pretty unpleasant. The headline itself is misleading - it's not just 'asylum if you're gay' but then you knew that already - but it's the story below that turns something with a whiff of prejudice into something deeply nasty.
Home secretary Theresa May, a Conservative, yesterday welcomed the decision not to deport gay asylum seekers back to a life of suffering prejudice and abuse. (Most decent human beings welcome it too - though it makes New Labour look as illiberal as, well, New Labour really were, I suppose; in their rush to placate stinking tabloids like the Express and look tough on immigration, they forgot about actually caring about other human beings.) So the Express don't want to quote her directly - they want to find a Tory who disagrees.
When you need someone to slag off immigration and there's a deadline looming, who you gonna call? Philip Davies!
Conservative MP Philip Davies said: “It’s a dangerous game to play to go down this line because it’s quite feasible that this could offer an ideal line of defence for someone who wants to try to avoid being kicked out of the country, whether it is true or not that they are gay."
What should we have then? Gay tests? Or should we just send these refugees back to a life of misery and hatred, just in case someone might be pretending to be gay? Hey, what does it matter if people are sent back, eh?
One of the men in the case – known only as applicant “T” – had appealed against a decision that he had to return to Cameroon, where gays can be jailed for up to five years and where he had been attacked by a mob after he was seen kissing a male partner. Applicant “J” had been told he should behave discreetly in Iran, where homosexual acts can be punished with public flogging or execution.
Flogging, jail, execution? Pah! We might let a few more brown people in the country - horrors!
Oh and of course, MigrationWatch are involved. Every time there's any story about anyone doing anything remotely humanitarian towards people who face awful situations back in their homelands and who have ventured many thousands of miles to escape the hatred, up pops MigrationWatch to blow a gasket and go "wurrrrgh forrins!" - and here they are:
MigrationWatchUK chairman Sir Andrew Green warned: “This could lead to a potentially massive expansion of asylum claims as it could apply to literally millions around the world.
“An applicant has now only to show that he [or she] is homosexual and intends to return and live openly in one of the many countries where it is illegal, to be granted asylum in the UK. The judges are no doubt interpreting the letter of the international convention correctly but the consequences are potentially huge.
“The principle of asylum is, rightly, widely supported but it should be a matter of domestic law. It is high time that we reviewed our adherence to an international convention drawn up nearly 60 years ago in entirely different circumstances.”
He 'warned'. No he didn't. He came out with the same rubbish as ever, justifying sending people back to a life of torture and despair if it saves us having a couple more foreigners in our beloved ruddy country. So there might be millions more applicants - really? Or not? Because it's not, as Andrew Green says, a case of simply proving you're from a country where homosexuality is illegal - you have to prove you yourself are at risk of jail, torture or execution. That was the case with the two men allowed to remain in Britain yesterday. To assume that everyone from any country would be simply waved through is to assume a lot of things - or, you could speculate, to try and misrepresent a perfectly reasonable situation to stoke up fear against immigrants.
You have to see the Express's front page in context. They've come out with thinly veiled racism and xenophobia so many times now it's hard to know where to begin - and even this week there was a load of garbage about swimming pools being apparently forced to black out their windows 'because of Muslims' - but it was rubbish. Today's story isn't just some accidentally bad bit of reporting - it's deliberately bad. They aren't smart enough to try and provoke a reaction that garners them publicity for their paper by doing this; but they are dumb enough to think they can get away with thinly-veiled drivel like this... because they get away with it pretty much every day. Why bother doing it properly when you just get away with it all the time? Why bother being fair? Why bother at all?
But then you might ask why bother getting angry about it. "It's just the Express," people often say to me. "Everyone knows it's rubbish, why do you bother writing about it?" Well, I get angry because I can't not get angry. It's worth bothering to get angry because every single person who protests about crud like this is a little victory against this kind of scum-sucking filth polluting the national papers. It taints the press as a whole, not just the Express, with the stain of prejudice and can't-be-bothered non-journalism. Sure, we can't change anything - we can't make the PCC do anything, because it's not set up to do anything - but maybe that's not the point. Maybe that's not the point, at all.
Media commentators belittle moments when the general public get annoyed with their masters in the papers. Oh look, they say. People got wound up by something silly what a columnist done - look at the horrible sheep all trying to censor the freedom of our beloved Her Majesty's Press. Except that isn't the case at all. It's legitimate to protest, to criticise, to demand better standards, especially in a free market where people can choose to buy or not to buy - and to advertise or not to advertise. What do Express advertisers think of having their products next to borderline racism and nastiness on a daily basis? Do they care? Should they care? Does it matter? It's a good thing to get angry when people bend the truth, distort reality and lazily trot out the same old faces time and time again to fit a narrative of - for example - immigration is out of control. That's not censorship, that's freedom to get angry.
And so I demand my right to get angry with the Express. Lazy, bad journalism, wheeling out the same tedious rentaquotes to back up the immigration scare story, misrepresenting the facts just to provoke a reaction. It's rubbish, and it's not wrong to call it out as rubbish.
See what you want to see
Official figures now show that the UK is experiencing net emigration to, not immigration from, the former A8 countries of Eastern Europe, as Mark Easton explores in his blog over at the BBC:
Armed with this information, what do you think the most immigration-obsessed newspapers did with it? Did they lead off on the net emigration to the former A8 countries?
Well...
Oh.
And...
Ah.
Of course I wasn't expecting them to rejoice at the net emigration, or lead off on it at all; because that's not the point, and that's not what they're there to do. These stories are about seeing what you want to see, not what you don't want to see. I don't dispute the figures they're using, but it's a good example of cherry-picking what you want from a set of figures to find the thing which most represents your point of view.
So if there's news that more people are leaving than arriving, that's not good enough - find instead the scariest-sounding stats about people earning the right to citizenship, then dress it up with the most pejorative language you can dig up, calling it having passports 'handed out' - you know, like sweets. 'Handed out' is a classic misleading bit of journalese, and we've seen it before used in reference to allowing people access to certain recreational drugs in a controlled environment. How to make it scarily misleading? DRUGS HANDED OUT! Job done. The Mail adds a bit of spice to the mix by pearl-clutching about homes in the Southern heartland - horrors! Will they be building migrant hostels in Abinger Hammer?
The Express, meanwhile, just goes for a big scary number. If in doubt, big scary number. Wurrggh! Look at the hundreds of thousands of 'em! And, oh look, not quite the space there to mention the thousands who are emigrating... ah well. Maybe in tomorrow's paper...? Well I wouldn't hold my breath.
See what you want to see. If the whole picture isn't scary enough, then just use a snapshot of the scariest bit. It's not lying; it's just not quite the truth.
2 days left: Too subtle up till now
As David Cameron dashes around our septic isle in one last push for votes, he'll be delighted if one of his skivvies brings in a few newspapers for him to read. Up until now, the papers have all been pushing him and his agenda, but they've been just that little bit too subtle. Headlines such as "DAVID CAMERWON" or "CAM THE MAN" or "YES WE CAM" or "DAVID CAMERON IS ACTUALLY THE BLOODY MESSIAH"* might have led readers to think that their paper of choice might have backed the Conservative Party, but apparently that wasn't enough. So today's leave us in no doubt at all.
The Telegraph are, with others, going for the 'bandwagon effect' - the idea that if you present someone as a winner, or the winner-in-waiting, people will want to pile on to associate themselves with success and victory, to pick fleas out of the silverback's fur. Their endorsement is inside, but we've seen this kind of thing throughout the election - presenting the Tory win as a likelihood if not an inevitability, but constantly pushing the idea of a victory. You can see that pretty clearly in this kind of thing:
where the 'Tory win' is taken for granted, and Cameron is presented as the fit, athletic, dynamic personality that he's desperately trying to portray himself as as I write this with his 36-hour publicity stunt so he can avoid tough questions from Radio 5 listeners and Channel 4 News brilliant campaigning marathon that shows what a good egg he really is. Is it coincidence that the Tory presentation dovetails so nicely with the Telegraph's? I don't really think so.
But then that's the most subtle example today. The others have thrown it right out of the window.
I'm pretty sure the Express has used almost exactly this front page before. Let me have a look... ah yes.
So now it's just a question of reinforcement. The Express has told you again, and again, and again, and now it wants you to know that it's telling you the same thing again. While the Telegraph just gives you a wink and a nudge, and points you in what it thinks is the right direction, the Express doesn't trust you. It needs to shout at you and order you to do the right thing; it needs to tell you that Britain needs to be SAVED and that only THIS MAN WITH THE BIG FACE can do it. And it needs to tell you again and again.
The Mail are even less subtle, mind.
Vote DECISIVELY. As if we go into the polling booth and put half a cross because we're not sure. Again, it's that didactic attitude. Readers are juveniles and need to be told what to do IN CAPITAL LETTERS because otherwise they'll just do something stupid like think for themselves, and that would never do. If you don't do what we tell you, Britannia herself will WALK OFF A CLIFF and we're all DOOMED. It's classic Mail territory, but it takes something to be even less subtle than the Express. At least they assumed that their readers might understand 'save Britain' - the Mail has to draw you a picture because it thinks you're too fucking stupid to get even a blunt instrument in the face like that.
I'll do more on the Sun later, because it's dredged up one of its hoariest old chestnuts today, but for now, here's their celebrity endorsement. Sun supremo Rebekah Brookes's ex-husband Ross Kemp was on telly the other night promoting Labour - another one of the awful celeb attachments we've seen during this campaign, which have added nothing and persuaded me of nothing - so today they've wheeled out their own national treasure: Simon Cowell.
I don't know about you, but Simon Cowell wouldn't convince me to do anything. Here's a man who's been on a one-man mission to destroy popular music and turn it into McDonald's; here's a preening fake-toothed smarmer in an overly tight t-shirt manipulating people on TV every Saturday night for the forseeable future. Do I want the creator of Robson & Jerome telling me how to vote? Maybe I'm wrong though, and maybe he's hugely admired and loved by everyone in Britain - maybe Ross Kemp is equally seen as not "that spamheaded bloke off the telly who goes around pretending he's a soldier" but a dignified and respected figure. Maybe I've got this whole thing wrong.
Anyway, it's not just the right-wing papers who've abandoned all subtlety in these final hours, as you can see from the Indy
and the Mirror
It's getting less and less subtle.
There's a myth going around at the moment that goes like this: "We were all told this campaign would be won on the internet, but actually it's the mainstream media who are shining." Which is drivel. No-one seriously said this campaign would be won on the web, and if they did, they were insane; this is the first campaign where social media and the web have played a significant minor role, but no-one ever thought it would be the web wot won it. And besides, while the leaders' debates have been a touchstone for the campaign, they've only served to make the dead-tree papers even more obsolete, reduced to a level of telling you that what you saw wasn't what you saw and looking more ridiculous than ever.
No, this isn't the election where the MSM bravely fought off the internet and proved they'd be around forever. It's considerably more complicated than that, and probably for another time to analyse. But what you can say is that for the next day or two, our dead-tree inky friends are more shrill, more obvious and more blunt than they ever have been. They're telling us what to think and how to vote. It's come to that point - and we should bear it in mind in a few weeks' time, when all this is over, and they go back to pretending they don't have agendas, and they're just there to report the facts, and they're asking for our trust. Let's not forget days like this.
* Not all of these are exactly true.
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