Sim-O

The Daily Mail hasn’t earnt itself the nickname The Daily Fail for no reason. This one is an epic.

Apparently some failed asylum seekers are to be allowed free health care on the NHS, that is currently denied to them. Sorry, I should’ve said ‘proposed’. They’re not currently allowed, and it isn’t definately going to happen.
It’s just a proposal.

According to the Daily Mail, the headline goes…

A million failed asylum seekers will get free NHS care in human rights U-turn

A million people will get NHS treatment. That is an assertion of fact. But it’s not a fact. It’s a proposal.

Digging deeper, but not much deeper. In fact only as far as the first line of the story itself…

NHS treatment will be available for tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers to ensure their human rights are honoured, it was announced yesterday.

So it’s not a millon failed asylum seekers, after all. it’s only tens of thousands. Not quite so shocking that number, is it?

The number has dropped significantly because certain criteria would need to be fullfiled, rather than just any asylum seeker. They would need to be destitute with children and various other things. So the proposal’s not open to all.

Strolling through the article the figures get a little more specific still…

There are understood to be around 450,000 failed asylum seekers who have not left the country, although only 10 or 20,000 are directly affected by the new rules.

So there is ‘understood’ to be less then half a million failed asylum seekers in the country and only just tens of thousands at the biggest guess or estimate.
Just think a little about what is being told here.

There are 450,000 failed asylum seekers. What proportion of total applications these failures are I don’t know.
Lets take the bigger 20,000 number that would be directly affected by the proposals. Which means that approximately 4.5% of failed asylum seekers are affected (for the better, remember).

But for the headline to be correct, 50x more failed asylum seekers would need to be eligible, which if it stayed at the same rate would mean there would have to be 22,500,000 failed asylum seekers. Let that sink in for a moment.

Twentytwo and a half million. Failed. Asylum seekers. A number equivalent to a third of the population of Britain.

As I said earler I have no idea of the proportion of total asylum applications the failed ones make, but how many applications are gonna be needed to get a failure rate of 22.5 million?

And where did this original one million figure come from?

According to the Mail, MigrationWatch.

Notes:

1. I originally came to this Mail article via a post on the BNP site. That article says pretty much the same thing but with out the 10-20,000 figure and a bit more pro-BNP propaganda.
2. I just realised that there is no time scale mentioned, either. Are these figure for a five year period? A year? Month? Half a week?
3. I hope my maths has not let me down

Apparently in March it was reported in the Mail that Ken Livingstone dodged a train fare and avoided a fine.

The PCC (via email)…

Articles published by the newspaper in March concerned an allegation that, despite not having a ticket for a train journey between London and Slough, Mr Livingstone was not asked to pay a penalty fare. This, said the newspaper, contrasted with his ‘zero tolerance’ policy when Mayor of London.

Red Ken complained to the PCC that the Mail misrepresented the situation and should’ve spoke to him to get his side of the story before going to print, as Ken may not have had a ticket for the whole of his journey, but neither did about 10 other passengers. They all paid for the unpaid part of their journey when they got off the train.

The main thrust of Kens’ complaint is that how the story appeared in the Mail was that he received preferential treatment or was a hypocrite (avoiding paying for a train journey whilst having a zero tolerance whist Mayor).

The PCC hasn’t upheld the complaint because…

…the Commission did not agree that the newspaper should have obtained Mr Livingstone’s comments because it was clear that the thrust of the story was true (and had been witnessed by the freelance reporter responsible for writing it). The Commission did not consider that the newspaper’s coverage was misleading or that the “failure to mention that ten other individuals had avoided the fine…would have altered the general understanding of the situation…in breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code”.

What bollox. The thrust of the story (from what I understand) was that Ken either used his ‘fame’ to get himself let off a fare or that he is a hypocrite for avoiding fares whilst espousing zero tolerance. If he had been a lone in in what had happened, then yes that charge may have some validity, but if ten other people did the same, then it is a bit of a non-story and has detail has been omitted to blacken his name.

Nice one, PCC. Showing us some of the common sense there that makes a mockery of self-regulation.

PCC statement on phone message tapping claims

In 2007, the PCC conducted an inquiry across the whole of the British press into the use of subterfuge by journalists. This followed the convictions of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire for offences under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the Criminal Law Act, which the PCC considered threatened to undermine public confidence in investigative journalism. While the specific allegations of criminal behaviour were matters for the police and the courts, the PCC made clear that there were outstanding questions about the application of the Code of Practice, Clause 10 of which bans the practice of intercepting phone calls and messages unless there is a strong public interest.
As a result of its inquiry, the PCC published 6 specific recommendations to publishers to ensure that phone message tapping – where it had taken place – was eliminated, and that steps were taken to familiarise journalists with the rules on using subterfuge in the law and the press Code of Practice. It also had a number of specific questions for the News of the World.

The PCC has previously made clear that it finds the practice of phone message tapping deplorable. Any suggestion that further transgressions have occurred since its report was published in 2007 will be investigated without delay. In the meantime, the PCC is contacting the Guardian newspaper and the Information Commissioner for any further specific information in relation to the claims, published today about the older cases, which suggests the Commission has been misled at any stage of its inquiries into these matters.

Here is the main stories on the front of the online editions of the papers at a bout 9 o’clock this morning:

The Mail goes with Prescott calls for police probe into claims Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper bugged his phone down at the very bottom of the page..

The FT has Murdoch reporters accused of phone hacking.

At the top of the shop in the Independent is Commons to study phone tap claims and a couple of small links to related stories underneath.

The Guardian has at the top of it’s page Murdoch papers paid £1m to phone-hacking victims, with a picture of a rather fed-up looking Rup and another story under that, Met pressed to investigate hacking. Both have links to related stories under them too.

On the pile of internet vomit that is the Express frontpage, that is in apparently still in beta according to the URL, has nothing.

The Times, the Sun, unsurpisingly, also have nothing to say on the subject.

Update:
Arse! I knew I’d forgotten one. I needn’t have worried, the Telegraph has bugger all about it as well.

Update II (I am trying to work as well, you know):
And then there’s the Mirror, too. They’re a bit quiet and all.

While I’m here, the Star is not just missing this news of the phone hacking, but just news in general really. Nothing new there then.

A measured analysis of why the Telegraph Twitterfall gave us lols. Well, I say measured, it’s a bit more than just ‘hahahaha! Idiots’
I blog, you blog, they blog, weblog…

…the Telegraph’s major error in this case was that they put the thing up two days before the budget is actually going to be announced. The amount of natural real-time discussion of the budget was therefore minimal; in the absence of anybody saying anything else, it was possible to hijack what was displayed on the Telegraph site almost by accident – this wasn’t a co-ordinated attack in any sense, just a few people idly goofing around.
…
It’s as if Newsnight, in the middle of a piece on Bolivian land reform, suddenly announced “and now we’re going over live to the saloon bar of The Dog & Duck to see what their opinion is” – except the patrons of The Dog & Duck hadn’t been discussing Bolivian land reform, and weren’t told anything about Newsnight’s plans until the moment that they blinkingly realised they were on national television. What would you expect? You might get lucky, and someone who’d read the papers might mutter something about Evo Morales’ significance as the country’s first indigenous leader. But most likely there’d be a bemused pause, followed by nervous laughter, followed by someone shouting “wankers!” and Terry getting his knob out.

I’m not sure about the rest of it, to be honest, but the comparison with the pub is spot on.

The BBC has got the vid of the copper showing how, according to some, a woman should be treated. But once again there is a little bit of caution thrown in. Y’know, just in case…

The footage shows the woman swearing at a police officer who then appears to hit her in the face before apparently striking her on the leg with his baton.

The woman is swearing at the copper, but he only appears to slap her with the back of his hand, whilst wearing leather gloves that wouldn’t look out of place on a biker, and then he strikes her on the leg, apparently.

If we’re going down that sort of path, then surely, the woman only looks like she is swearing at the Filth.

But then, the girl probably hasn’t got institutions the size of the Met and the IPCC to defend her honour, has she?

Update:
The officer, a sergeant, it would appear, has been suspended.
David Howarth (LbDem justice spokesman)…

“The fact that this video shows another example of an officer with his number obscured assaulting a member of the public indicates that there is a systematic problem here, not just a series of individual acts of misconduct.

“The question is on my mind whether the police are using a some kind of ‘designated hitter’ system.”

Link via Rwendland in the comments on Bloggerheads.

Bloggerheads…

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve all seen the recent/sudden downturn in the quality and reliability of mainstream news and comment, coinciding with alarming outbreaks of carelessness and sheer malice in some places.

We’ve got at least one rogue publisher (Richard Desmond) thumbing his nose at the PCC, and while every news outlet is begging us for chunks of our private lives that they can publish for profit (with or without our permission), no bugger will answer our emails or address our concerns when something that is clearly false has been published, and no effort has been made to remove, correct or (Dog forbid) alert readers to the error. Meanwhile, pretty much the same applies to the (blissfully) few ‘leading bloggers’ who claim to be challenging the establishment.

The only news outlet that’s in any way compelled to answer is the BBC, who find themselves crippled since Andrew Gilligan shot off his fat gob, and under constant attack by the same parties described in the previous paragraph (i.e. those who demand accountability of others, yet think themselves above it).

Clearly the time has come for us to form organised squads and start hitting people with sticks.

If you’re of a mind to do something positive and powerful about outright lies in the media, I invite you to join the Media Watch Rock-a-Hula, now in progress.

C’mon, guys. It;s time to clean up Dodge.

A free press is supposed to be the sign of a healthy democracy. We might have a free press but that doesn’t mean it is doing it’s job.

A newspaper is supposed to tell the truth, expose the corruption and duplicity of the ruling classes. What we have at the moment is a press that tells us what the propriotor wants us to know or how we should think. The press should be on the side of the common man but it isn’t. It is on the side the vested interest and the ruling classes.

there are roles that pretty much anyone can play.

Yes, even you.

You could easily be that one person in a thousand with the right expertise, contacts, access or influence required to get a specific job done quickly, and if not, someone has to carry the pitchforks and kerosene.

Me? I’m a pitchfork and kerosene bloke. What are you?

Does he really?

If you’re going to shout outrage at someone for boasting about drinking and drink-fuelled antic, don’t boast about drinking and drink-fuelled antics.

If you’re going to shout outrage about people having sex, don’t work for pornographer.

I’ve just been looking at the new Mail Watch site, seeing who the editors are.

It’s been relaunched because, in the words of site owner BigDaddyMerk…

…because it’s what this site needs, it’s what it’s always needed.

I’m looking forward to some excellent posts because of the rich seam of bullshit that is the Daily Mail, but look who Tim and Merk have got to mine it. A team almost, almost as good as the one on The Sun Lies.