The prolls creak into life
I've written before about what I like to call "prolls" - professional trolls who, instead of trying to upset people on internet forums by posting provocative ill-thought-out nonsense with the sole intention of getting a rise out of others, write provocative ill-thought-out nonsense for a bumper pay cheque in mainstream publications.
One saddening aspect of the Jan Moir Twitterstorm earlier this year was the sheer amount of traffic the Mail must have got to boost its stats, albeit at the expense of its brand reputation and a lot of the traffic consisting of outraged or soon-to-be-outraged people who couldn't believe the awfulness of what they were reading.
And it's for that reason that I don't really link to the Mail very often any more. They won't miss the couple of hundred clickthroughs generated by me, I'm sure, and you all know where to get a look at the original article, if you want. I know it goes against the etiquette of blogging, but I've reached a point where I can't be bothered to give these jokers any more traffic than they absolutely need - particularly when there's a lingering suspicion that they're simply trolling for traffic, trying to be as provocative as possible in order to lure in an angry mob of confused and annoyed liberals.
Which brings me to the Mail, where it appears the trolls have creaked into life after Christmas. Leo McKinstry, who must have moved from the Express in a big-money transfer and charmed his new employers with his ability to write not very coherently but quite provocatively on a wide range of subjects, has a bash:
Bollocks, Leo. You're not sorry at all. You fucking love it.
And then there's Liz Jones, ah yes our old friend Liz Jones, with a couple of stabs at rousing fury over homelessness at Christmas.
Part of me thinks that she's a wily old writer, cleverly creating a dimwitted and ignorant persona in order to wind the rest of the world up; but I fear I think that because I don't want to think of a world in which she can really mean what she's saying and really agree with the things she writes. I don't want that world to be true.
And of course, they're just the headlines. But it's not as if they're not representative of the stories beneath. From McKinstry:
Nice try, Leo. Good attempt. But it's fairly predictable, and stumblingly written, and it's so obvious that you're trying to provoke a reaction that it almost inclines you to not be bothered at all with him. So he wants people killed for being drug smugglers, even if there are extenuating circumstances. Yeah yeah. Yawn. Oh and it's all New Labour's fault for not chucking everyone in prison who's ever had half a bifter, and everyone else's fault for Kate Moss being popular somehow. That's why it's OK to shoot someone through the back of the head. Mm.
Can Jones do better?
Not really, but again, a poor effort. "I didn't know poverty really existed in India, but then someone told me it did, and I made a sad frowny face, isn't it terrible what other people have to put up with?" - it's not even fun, or witty; and even if it is an act, which I'd really like it to be, it's still not a particularly good one.
The prolls are trying - so very, very hard, but so very, very ineptly - to get our attention. I just wonder if it's worth giving any attention to them - whether it's even worth writing this, for example, although I've started it now and I might as well finish it. I'm certainly not giving them a link; you know where to go and find their nonsense if you really want to.
There's nothing wrong with provocative, insightful, intelligent writing, of course. I just wish that we were well furnished with it. Look at this article by Matthew Parris for a good example of someone swimming against the tide and challenging received wisdom, but doing so in a way that neither screams for attention nor has to go to extremes in order to make a point, nor cultivates a faux-personality of extraordinary thickness (or just is that thick) in a feeble attempt to entertain. And that's why it's worth linking to.
Now let these idiots fade away
It's only been a week since Jan Moir's spectacularly stupid column, but she's tried her best to outdo it today with a spectacularly stupid 'apology' that's more 'je ne regrette rien' than 'mea culpa'.
And no, I'm not linking to it. She got the link-love last week, quite rightly, as everyone wanted to share around the awfulness of what she wrote. But not this week. Go and find it if you want - if you can bear the thought of her web traffic going up by one more number. Last week everyone read her shite, and she claimed few of us did; this week let no-one read her pisspoor excuse of a gritted-teeth apology, and she'll probably imagine the whole world has been delighted by her brilliant words.
But she'll fade away, if we let her, and we should. It's all dying down now. She'll carry on with the same old crap, time after time, but she won't get the attention she so clearly was delighted with. It's time to let her fade away into the mass of other tabloid columnists, some of whom will outdo her for stupidity, for bigotry, for insensitivity in the coming weeks and months. There will be times to call out others when they step over the line. And there will be a chance for the PCC to appear to be anything other than the Wizard of Oz, an impressive front with nothing backing it up. But we'll see whether they decide to have some courage, or wait for the dust to settle and accept the matter has been somehow 'resolved'. I have a fair idea what the answer is.
And farewell to Nick Griffin, too. He's had his week in the sun. People feared he might come across well on Question Time, that he might appear statesmanlike or intelligent and might be able to dodge the questions cleverly. Not really, from the glimpses I've seen so far. He looked shifty, edgy, not particularly bright, and came out with the kind of bigoted shite you'd expect - shite that's not a million miles away from what the tabloids have been printing this week with regard to population growth, of course, or what they regularly print about Muslims, but shite nonetheless. It wasn't a sparkling performance and now the mystique has gone down a little bit.
So it's time for him to fade away, as well. He's been given the 'oxygen of publicity' and he's looked like a fairly crap politician. It's what I'd always suspected. He's not some evil genius who's going to hypnotise the world; he's just a racist who is marginally more clever than most racists. That's all. Just because someone went to Cambridge it doesn't make them Erasmus. To the Oxbridge elites who run our newspapers - and yes, I'm looking at you, The Guardian - it might seem that way, but it isn't.
So let's let them fade away, Griffin and Moir both. They've had their say and now it's time to tell them, with all politeness and respect, to fuck right off. Because there are more important things to detain us between now and the next general election, wars being fought in our name, torture happening in our name. It's easier to focus on something personal, an arsehole like Moir or Griffin, and less easy to focus on something wider, more complex, more detailed; but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. But these two clowns have had their time and have detained us for long enough, I think.
Daft or racist? Or daft racist?
I don't think Bruce Forsyth is a racist at all - he was just a bit daft when he said "Paki" was a bit like "Limey". Not really, Brucie, no. It's been said time and time again this week, and I know I've tried, but it's worth repeating: the word "Paki" is not the same as "Brit" or "Limey" or "Aussie" or anything like that. There's a backstory to that word that goes beyond a simple four letters, or saying that it's "just a word". It's not.
Brucie was probably just trying to dig his lantern-jawed mate Tony Beake out of the hole his daft racist language had put him in. Brucie's not racist, he's just a bit daft if he thinks words like Paki can be used as jolly banter. Ironically enough, he started his TV career up against these chaps
so you can see perhaps it's a generational thing. There was a time when it seemed perfectly normal for Welsh male voice choirs to perform in blackface as your teatime family entertainment. No longer. Political correctness gone mad? Or is it simply unacceptable to do that kind of thing in a multicultural society? And is that a bad thing?
Mind you, the days of the minstrels haven't gone completely, as the jaw-dropping story of five guys blacking (and whiting) up for a Jackson Five tribute on Australian TV recently shows. Is it just a bit of fun? Is it racism? Or is it daft racism? Or is it just daft?
As ever, the spectre of the PC Brigade has been hauled into the debate. As Stewart Lee once memorably said, people who complain about the PC Brigade seem to imagine that there was a halcyon time when it was perfectly OK to write racist abuse on people's cars in excrement, and no-one minded, but now you can't for fear of the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat. I think there was a time when it was acceptable to use words like Paki or nigger or sambo, but that doesn't mean it wasn't offensive, or hurtful, or wrong.
What's perhaps more disappointing about the whole Strictly Come Racism row is that real racism, based on hatred more than clumsiness or daftness, is alive and well in this country, yet carries on quietly doing its work without any kind of disapproval. It carries on without the kind of coverage given to the Du Beke / Forsyth row as well. There is a world of difference from Anton Du Beke being a berk and using an offensive term, mistakenly thinking he was being funny, and stuff like this: Muslim graves being desecrated.
No, you probably didn't hear about this story. But it's happening. Whenever graves are targeted - Jewish or Muslim - it's a crime of hatred, and the perpetrators do it not because they're clumsy or silly or get their words wrong, or tell jokes from a bygone age, but because right here, right now, they hate. The EDL are recruiting football fans to join their anti-Muslim crusade. The BNP are turning up on Question Time to tell the nation about their hateful views. The mainstream parties try to outflank each other on anti-immigration legislation. Maybe it's time to forget about some stupid dancer's faux pas and concentrate on the more dangerous racism at work.
An arms race of irresponsibility
Earlier this week it appeared that the Mail had turned up the irresponsibility in reporting Natalie Morton's death up to 11 and that there was surely no way that anyone could skew the story more incorrectly in order to create panic. But wait. Back comes the Express today with what could be the most disgraceful front page of all time (or at least since the Scottish Sunday Express's Dunblane atrocity):
I'm guessing you probably have an incredulous look on your face, a bit like the opening-night audience watching Springtime For Hitler. But no. I saw this in the paper shop earlier: it's real all right.
Apart from the headline you'll see the sub-headline 'new doubts raised over death of teenager'. Bear that in mind when we look at the story, which is here (if you can stomach it). Is the HPV jab really as deadly as the cancer it's meant to protect? And who thinks that - a trusted source?
Dr Diane Harper, who was involved in the clinical trials of the controversial drug Cervarix, said the jab was being “over-marketed” and parents should be properly warned about the potential side effects.
But... is it as deadly as cervical cancer?
Authorities in the UK should be on the alert because its sister vaccine, Gardasil, used in America, has already been associated with 32 deaths, she said.
So another vaccine which isn't the one in the UK has been linked (but not proven to be the cause of) some deaths. I'm going to have to be terribly rude [/Paxman] but... is it as deadly as cervical cancer?
“Parents need to know this and that in a small number of cases there are serious side effects.”
But... is it as deadly as cervical cancer? Well, nothing this 'expert' has said implies that. Even if we assume the dissenting voice the Express has found is completely correct - and we'd be fucking mad to assume that - the headline still doesn't stack up.
Now to the fresh doubts over the teenager's death. Who do we think is behind these doubts - an expert? Someone who presided at the postmortem and disagrees with the conclusion? Or... just a tinfoil-hat fuckwit determined to bulldoze through their antivaxx bullshit even if it means creating baseless hysteria and being utterly disrespectful to the family of a young girl who has recently died?
Yes, I fear you guessed correctly.
Dr Richard Halvorsen, author of The Truth About Vaccines, said: “One minute Natalie is an apparently healthy girl, she has the vaccine and within two hours she is dead.
We are told she had a terrible cancer inside her that killed her but this is implausible.
What the fuck? Why implausible? What, they just made it up at the autopsy, did they? They slipped in a tumour with a bit of a conjuring trick?
“If you have cancer you have symptoms. Clearly public health doctors are desperate to turn the debate away from the vaccine as a possible cause.”
I'm not making it up. He really believes this shit, stopping short of saying that this poor girl's cancer is a smokescreen, that doctors faked the postmortem results, that there's a huge conspiracy all the way to the top of Government just to promote a vaccine. These are the kind of people the Express uses as trusted sources for its stories.
Bearing in mind the story's about the 'deadly' jab, this is the evidence that the Express has for that:
Jabs, the vaccine support group, has received details of 19 girls who have suffered serious health problems, including seizures, fatigue or joint and muscle pain, since their jabs.
Do you think muscle pain is the same as a seizure and should be bundled together to bulk out the numbers? I don't. And to call Jabs a 'vaccine support group' is a little on the generous side.
But why should anyone care? It's clearly an arms race now. The Mail and Express are trying to outdo each other with ever more irresponsible stories. It's appalling that they should come out with a cockeyed conspiracy theory as to the real cause of Natalie Morton's death, with no evidence whatsoever to back it up. And it's deplorable that they should claim that the jab is more deadly than the cancer it's meant to protect, when even their wheeled-in expert on the matter doesn't say it.
You have to conclude they couldn't give a shit. Who knows, maybe they've flogged a few more papers today on the back of this complete shower of shit. I hope they're really proud of themselves, if they have.
Hat-tip: Adam Bienkov.
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Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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