The Expresses "Pull Out of Europe" Crusade is Just Like that Bit in Braveheart, But Quite a Bit Shitter.

The Daily Expresses petition to Downing Street about pulling out of Europe has taken a distinctly "you will not take our freedom" sort of slant, but considerably more shitter than Braveheart was. They had Mel Gibson and a huge army pretending it was the olden days, standing in a field. The Express had to make do with a load of gaudy bin bags full of petitions and a self conscious looking man pretending to be St George and holding a shield made out of cardboard (and I bet this was what he went into media for.). Hollywood this aint! To be fair though they recruited a small army though. They may not have had woad smeared over their faces, or dirty hair and mucky beards (though they should have done this in fancy dress, it would have been well funny.), and an Irish guy with pluck. No all we got was a few dowdy looking Eurosceptic MP's, an Express columnist who was probably there on pain of sacking, and one of the readers who had obviously been paid to turn up and offered a free pub tea into the bargain for showing up.

So far so shit. Why do I even comment on this ridiculous PR stunt? Well it is the wording of the article that tickled me. The Express bigged up the whole thing with this ludicrous comment that shows they haven't quite figured out how this democracy thing works.

"DAVID Cameron was yesterday given the clearest message yet that the UK should leave the European Union."

Hell, we aren't going the way of Egypt are we?

"Editor Peter Hill led a delegation to hand over the bulging sacks of petition coupons signed by 373,000 of our loyal readers."

Er. No. Cancel the threatening flybys of the capital.

373,000. Fucking hell I mean a skateboarding cat on youtube can get more hits than that! I actually checked to see what sort of thing could get 373,000 people to be vaguely interested in something, by getting a comparative viewing figure on youtube, and a video called "I'm Nicki Minaj!! Ask Shane #26" actually topped that by a few thousand. (It's well over 400,000 at the time of writing.) Yes a spoof video of a Noel Gallagher lookalike wearing a Lady Gaga wig, and dancing to a comedy rendition to the tune of "Video Killed the Radio Star" with some camp Jango Fetts as backing dancers (honest) drummed up more interest than a political campaign by a piss poor national newspaper. Why doesn't Richard Desmond ask Shane to do a comedy video of himself dressed up as Gwen Stefani, accompanied by some Hobbits, who take it in turns to shit on a large pretend Euro, whilst dancing to backing music of Hazee Fantasees "John Wayne is Big Leggy" that has had the lyrics changed to "Fuck you, Hermann Van Rumphoy" It could work.

I mean seriously for a national paper crusade, 373,000 signatories for a petition is pathetic. the Express has a daily circulation of around 640,000. That's just circulation. It is reckoned total readership is roughly 2.5 people per single paper. So about 1.6 million perhaps saw this crusade. There were apparently four petition cut outs per paper, so it isn't a case of to few slips to go round. Hell one person could potentially post all four to have four fake signatories. How the hell is this a clear message to David Cameron that we should cut our losses and leave the EU? On the basis of a petition signed by 0.74 percent of the UK population aged over 18. That's the level of popular support the Monster Raving Loony party had for it's policy to paint grey squirrels red to balance the numbers out a bit! Not a monster blow to the establishment that the Express editorials are claiming was it?

I had to laugh at this comment by a Downing Street spokesmen:

"A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “We will respond in the usual way.”

Which translates to "We'll wait till you've gone home and then we'll burn the bloody lot of them."

The Daily Express Get Britain Out Of the EU Crusade.

The Daily Express has gone where the Sun and Mail have yet to tread, and openly called for Britain to leave the E.U completely in one of its daft "crusades" that it comes out with. I'd imagine this "crusade" was cooked up by Dirty Des and Nigel Farage over a pint somewhere. Desmond probably reckoned an anti - Europe theme would appeal to the readership, though how long this crusade lasts will remain to be seen. These things in the Express tend to last as long as the jaded people writing it can be bothered to keep them going. Though it seems that the Express is pretty keen on this one, so keen that they even made up a fake statistic for the front page (The Eurosceptic Dan Hannon says the figure is roughly 55% want out, which sounds much more accurate.) Whether this is the start of the deliberate demise of a paper with declining readers, that is sent out to die vocally, becoming a single issue lobbying piece for it's proprietor is any ones guess. The paper interviewed a few random members of the public about whether they agreed with the Expresses stance (though it is not that clear how they came to the 99% figure), the responses given showed that those interviewed knew as much about the EU as I know about the TV show Ugly Betty (AKA fuck all), which is a bit worrying if ever the call for a referendum ever came up. Everyone seems to have strong opinions about it but do they really know all that much about it? I have to wonder whether there is a strong vein of practical opposition to the EU or is there a strong seam of possible xenophobia in the UK towards the continent. Not the best basis to oppose it. I would be genuinely interested to see how the Express readers would rate their reasons for wanting to leave the EU (of course the ones who do take that view.) in order of what they were most hacked off about. A list of stuff like:

1. THEY'D RATHER WE WERE IN NAFTA

2. THE EUROPE OF COMPETING, EXCLUSIVE NATION STATES LEADS TO BETTER AND MORE PRACTICAL GOVERNANCE.

3. THE E.U IS TOO PROTECTIONIST, TOO SOCIALLY DEMOCRATIC, AND TOO INTRUSIVE ON NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.

4. THE C.A.P IS THE STUPIDEST POLICY EVER INVENTED BY A HUMAN BEING.

5. HERMAN VAN ROMPOY LOOKS A BIT WEIRD.

6. I'M INCREDIBLY NOSTALGIC FOR A TIME WHEN YOU COULD BUY ELECTRICAL GOODS WITHOUT A PLUG FITTED.

7. THESE PEOPLE MADE WELSH AN OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE E.U. WHAT'S ALL THAT ABOUT?

8. BENDY BANANAS. NUFF SAID

9. I DON'T LIKE FOREIGNERS STICKING THEIR NOSE IN JOHN BULLS AMPLE GIRTH.

10. THE E.U INVENTED YOOMAN RIGHTS. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, DO-GOODERY AND LESBIAN GYPSY OUTREACH WORKERS, OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT BARRY DOWN THE PUB SAYS.

11. IT HAS FRENCH AND GERMANS IN IT.

My own hunch is that the ones at the bottom of the list will be the top of many a Express readers concern list. My own response to whether Britain's membership of the EU is a good thing or a bad thing is -depends on who you are. It really only affects people like me indirectly. If I was a big ultra free market proponent then I'd probably not like it too much. The other main anti-EU argument about the sovereignty issue, is a little exaggerated. I mean some of the talk about how the EU is trying to take over Britain when we have one of the largest and most powerful economies, and the largest military force of all the members, I'd like to see how they could seriously threaten us as much as some say. I'm sorry to say that a lot of anti EU sentiment seems largely down to a lot of Little England insularity, a purely emotional reaction that is not based on any practical objections. To quote Johann Hari:

"I find it hard to believe Eurosceptics when they say they are genuinely concerned about the erosion of national sovereignty, rather than dislike of Europeans. If they were really worried about sovereignty, surely they would occasionally complain about the fact that foreign multinationals have bullied sovereign British governments into whittling corporation tax and workers' rights to almost nothing.

Or they would complain that large parts of Britain's sovereign army - including its nuclear weapons - cannot be used without American authorisation. Or that large parts of our incredibly powerful media are accountable to foreign billionaires who shamelessly use their newspapers to pursue their own business interests rather than Britain's (or - wild idea! - a human rights agenda).

In fact, the totally independent nation state - which is so selectively fetishised by Eurosceptics - was always a myth. Nation states deal with the world as they find it, with all sorts of messy bargains and ad- hoc pooling of sovereignty."

I think that really sums it up very well. Pulling out of Europe - and I think a referendum could be easily possible, Cameron will have to face his Eurosceptic MP's one day, who knows after the Lib Dems are out of the scene next election? - is a BIG deal and not to be taken lightly. The case has to be put before us all, rational arguments for or against (I personally think there's more in the for camp. But since they can be never be bothered to do this, the anti camp will lead the debate, and do so.). If you only dislike the EU cause Britain ruled the waves once, and we hate the French etc.. Buy yourself a poster of a big bussomed girl in a Union Jack bikini to masturbate furiously to, because it may be a bit too late if we slam the door on the continent and perhaps retrospectively wish we hadn't been so hasty to do so, a few years down the line.

Outright Racism at the Express

This headline from the Daily Express is one of those occasions when a Northernbloke post writes itself:

Obviously the Daily Express defines "Muslims" as this grotty looking bloke holding his stupid placards (or as they are technically known - A4)

The story is about a bunch (3 of them) of Muslim "fundamentaslists who heckled the courtroom after Roshonara Choudhry was jailed for life for the attempted murder of her MP

Stephen Timms after she was caught up in radical Islamism and decided to take "revenge" on Mr. Timms by stabbing him for voting for the Iraq war. Now I may be a cynic; but does that headline have a dual implication, not just that some deluded blowhards made absolute dicks of themselves in a free court that would be abolished if these planks ever got their way. But that by extension the British Muslim population often take the same attitude with the country as a whole? Because it seems like crass labelling to me, and a deliberate distortion of events to put a greater rhetorical point across.

There is no excuse for headlines like this. Roy Greenslade has often described Richard Desmond as a rogue proprietor, who blatantly obfuscates and insinuates with his headlines (think the more lurid "Maddie" headlines.). This headline is up there with the "Muslim Schools Ban Our Culture", a rhetorical device designed to highlight how these alien fifth columnists are nothing but ungrateful traitors who loath "our way of life", and can never ever meet any common ground with "us". This is the mindset that made a 21 year old straight A student throw her life away in a senseless attack on someone who did something she didn't like, and why a loner from a suburb of Burnley had a fucking cache of weapons prepared for a race war. And this kind of mindset, of monolithic, mutually irreconcilable "camps" is all being indulged on a national newspapers front page headline available all over the country.

Express Racism

I honestly don't know why Nick Griffin bothers shelling out for PR campaigns to pump his racist bullshit to all and sundry, when the Daily Express seems to be only too willing to do the job for him. But don't worry because we have a strong press complaints commission who will take the Express to task for crap like this headline. Won't they?

I Wonder Why This Made the Front Page

I came across this headline on the Express in Sainsburys this morning. Yes apparently a decision to put a bit of film on some ground level glass panels at a swimming baths in Walsall is the single most important thing to have happened in Britain this week, in Express land. I'm not surprised they went with this story, when I saw it. Firstly it's been doing the rounds from about Sunday. Secondly it's a PA story from the local papers, and since the Express long ago gave up trying to report real news, when you can just pinch it from wire agencies and stick your own take on it instead. And lastly, it can be used as a stick to beat the evil Muslims with, which gets a story a zillion star points in the Express. The paper now frequently prints headlines purely designed to stir up resentment towards Muslims, as it knows it works a treat on their more "extreme" readership.

The story is pretty boring in itself. A modern swimming baths had a fully glass fronted panel, allowing passers by, on the streets to see the bathers in the pool. Some bathers (never stated how many) objected to this, and some of the objectors were said to be Muslims. And this has brought it to prominence. The full spectrum of papers have run with it, and it has been turned into a "Muslims demand special treatment" story. The Sun even has a handy picture of a Muslim woman in a full veil (completely unrelated to the story) in case we forget what a Muslim is.... I suppose? Then they say the exterior glass panels have been replaced by opaque ones. Not true of the 250 panels, 58 have been coated with a film layer, as can be actually seen on the photos of the supposed blacked out swimming baths (sheesh.), on the bloody articles itself. Then we have all the rhetoric about outrage, and PC gone mad, and "its one rule for them." from furious pool users. The kind of soundbites that are a written substitute for "angry pose" photos, so beloved of the press. Hell even the Taxpayers Alliance got their (non taxpayer funded, I might add.) tuppenceworth in about it It was a perfect storm for this kind of shit. Editors know that the ones who get the hump about this, will allow their ire to override their ability to see it as an overblown storm in a teacup.

I don't know if the people responsible for covering the panels are overreacting. I don't really care either. It's faintly absurd for me to be blogging about the window arrangements on a provincial swimming pool in the West Midlands. But that is paradoxically the point. These non stories are being used to stir up hatred towards the Muslim population. There is no other purpose to this kind of thing, they aren't trying to say anything insightful on community relations, or integration. This story, and others like it are designed to portray all Muslims as ingrates who are privileged above everybody else, and catered to every whim they can think of by the councils / politicians. And that the press are doing this so blatantly - Lets piss off our readers off more; with the latest outrage. This kind of sentiment has been stirred up in the past to horrible ends, and it is discomforting to see it on display so much.

It might have worked a bit too well on the Express article. All the comments have been taken down. But a sample of the Suns comments, show how it went down.

" Why are we doing everything to please Muslims. if we go to their country we have to abide by their laws and yet they come here and we roll out the red carpet, give them nice big houses and pay them to live here. If they dont like our ways then don't come here. what is wrong with this bloody country. Im ashamed to be british.The english that use the pool should refuse to use the pool until it changes, that way the council wont be able to afford to stay open."

"Hate our way of life but love our benifit system!!!"

"If these women wish to swim in a public pool in privacy perhaps they would like to go back to a muslim country and do it."

These do seem to assume that all Muslims are both immigrants, and claiming benefits. No evidence that those who complained are either. But shows how blanket stereotypes take effect. Also most Muslims in the UK are British, so deporting them would be tricky.

" Why aren't hundreds of people from this borough complaining about this? If hundreds of people complain, then it will have to be put back to normal. Remember that local councillors have to be elected so if they won't fix it, vote for the opposition next time."

Because most people have better things to worry about.