Littlejohn in "predictable" shock

On Monday afternoon I was pottering around on the internet, having a look at the various reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden, and tweeted this little prediction:

Littlejohn's first post-OBL column appears today. I could go on about the way he equates a mass-murdering terrorist living near a military academy in Pakistan with some non-mass-murdering non-terrorists building a mosque near a military academy in England, but I figured it would be more fun to cut to the chase:

"From what we can gather, there was no British involvement in this operation, which is probably just as well. Judging by the rules of engagement now imposed on our armed forces, if we’d tracked down Bin Laden we’d have had to read him his human rights, assign him a Legal Aid lawyer, cook him a religiously appropriate dinner and hand out nicotine patches to any of his lieutenants trying to give up smoking and suffering withdrawal symptoms."

Does Richard 'Cloaca' Littlejohn have a single original thought in his tiny little mind? How much, exactly, is the Mail paying him to either recycle his old columns and books or spew out cliches as predictable as this?

Littlejohn plagiarises self, still gets things wrong

Economic migrant and convicted criminal Richard Littlejohn once again "justifies" his enormous Daily Mail salary by listing a bunch of HILARIOUS "non-jobs" he claims to have found in the Guardian over the past 20 years. But it's eerily similar to the column that he churned out on 28 March last year. For example, last March he wrote:

"When the Government announced plans to encourage people to abandon their cars and walk to work, I predicted that it would spawn a whole new job creation scheme. Within weeks, the Guardian was running adverts for 'community walking coordinators'."

11 months later he managed to come up with:

"When the last Labour government unveiled an initiative designed to encourage parents to walk their children to school rather than use their cars, I joked that within days councils would be hiring legions of ‘walking to school’ officers on thirty grand and a Mondeo. Yet again, I should have known better. The ink was barely dry on that column when dozens of councils did just that. The following week’s Guardian was full of adverts for ‘community walking co-ordinators’ to organise what they dubbed ‘walking buses'."

Original stuff, Dicky. There was also this from last March:

"the old breed of town clerk with a sense of duty has been replaced by 'chief executives' who pretend they are employed to run major commercial organisations and expect to be paid accordingly."

After 11 months of careful pondering, he managed this:

"...town clerks restyled themselves ‘chief executives’ and demanded private sector rewards."

And the self-plagiarism didn't stop there. The March 2010 column had this:

"There was the great AIDS scare, when no self-respecting council could bear to be without an army of HIV prevention workers. At one stage, I worked out there were more people in Britain earning a good living from AIDS than were actually dying from it."

So what has he turned out to justify his wages this week? Gosh:

"In the 1990s we were all going to die of Aids, so no council was complete without a dedicated HIV unit ... At one stage, I worked out there were more people in Britain earning a living from Aids than actually dying from it."

Last March:

"Take the council threatening to close down burger vans, which don't offer 'healthy options'. What gives them the right to do that? It's none of their business what people eat."

This February:

"There was the ‘healthy options’ officer in Guildford, who tried to ban hamburger vans from plying their trade in the name of fighting obesity ... Where the hell did local authorities get the idea that it was any of their damn business to tell people what to eat? "

And so it goes on. There is one original thought in the piece, where he claims that Haringey Council advertised someone to "teach Asian women how to play hopscotch", something that, despite being utterly bonkers-sounding - has never been reported anywhere else, not even in the Daily Mail. Nowhere on the internet is there any mention of hopscotch lessons for Asian women in Haringey, or of anyone being employed to provide them.

However, in the neighbouring borough of Camden there IS the Hopscotch Asian Women's Centre, which provides support and advice on issues such as domestic violence. Surely even Littlejohn couldn't be stupid enough to think the Hopscotch Asian Women's Centre provided hopscotch lessons to Asian women? Could he? Oh my...

UPDATE!

Macguffin from TabloidWatch flagged this post on the Mailwatch forum, where someone suggested that the "hopscotch for Asian women" story first cropped up in a speech by former top Tory Brian Mawhinney back in the mid-90s.

It seems that in a speech to the 1995 Conservative conference, the party's then-chairman entertained the crowd by reeling off a list of "loony left" council policies including, oh the hilarity, the Camden Hopscotch Asian Women's Group. Seems HE thought it was all about teaching Asian women how to play hopscotch too. Littlejohn remembered the sneering attack but didn't bother to find out the truth about what Hopscotch actually does, nor could he be arsed to check which borough the centre was in.

Swine flu is harmless (except when it kills you)

Back in the summer noted medical expert Richard Littlejohn was holding forth on the great Swine Flu Con:

Labour blew £1.2 billion on the swine flu epidemic that never was. A new study says all the money spent on patronising advertising campaigns, vaccinations, anti-virals and face-masks probably saved just 26 lives. Each case cost £46million, which would have paid for six months of cancer drugs for 3,000 patients. And no one can be sure if those 26 people wouldn’t have died anyway. Swine flu claimed fewer lives in Britain than a normal winter flu outbreak. That’s despite hysterical predictions from the ludicrous Liam Donaldson, chief medical officer and Whitehall’s resident Dr Death, that 65,000 people would die.

The Mail itself was also displeased with the Government's handling of the pandemic, stating that millions had been "wasted" on vaccines. The TaxPayers' Alliance even weighed in, calling the whole thing a "hugely expensive farce".

Of course, back in the summer of 2009 the Mail was chief among the tabloids in stirring up panic with apocalyptic predictions of death and disaster. And now, in the winter of 2010, guess which paper has this headline:

You guessed correctly, it's the Daily Mail. The same paper also notes that:

The Government has also been accused of doing too little to prevent the spread of flu, such as using adverts to remind people to wash hands or catch sneezes in tissues.

Yes, those would be the "patronising advertising campaigns" that predatory paedophile Richard Littlejohn was complaining about six months ago.

A letter to the PCC

So you may have guessed that I wasn't too thrilled with the PCC's outright rejection of my complaint about Richard Littlejohn. Based on comments on the blog and on Twitter (not to mention the traffic figures for Primly Stable going through the roof - thanks for your support, everyone!), I wasn't the only person out there who was displeased. So this morning I replied to the PCC case officer. I'm not expecting to hear anything back, but what the hey...



Many thanks for your response.

While I accept that PCC rules mean I have no right to take this further, I have to say I am extremely disappointed with the decision. Essentially the PCC has said it is acceptable for newspapers to publish lies, provided they support the views of the columnist. And that is what Richard Littlejohn did in the column in question – he lied to his readers. To try and claim that he was making an ”amplified statement for rhetorical effect” to make a point about the state not helping people “who do the right thing” is absurd. He lied about the benefits on offer to immigrants and asylum seekers in a story about the plight of a homeless soldier, even though the two cases are entirely separate. This was not a “rhetorical device” in any recognised definition of the term. It was a naked attempt to blame foreigners for the lack of available council housing.

I’m also deeply suspicious of your claim that “readers would be aware that the columnist was not accurately reflecting the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants”. The Mail’s website also contains a news story about Lance Corporal Lance Corporal Craig Baker, the soldier at the centre of this issue. Comments from readers underneath the story include the following:

“He should just have told that council he was an illegal immigrant from Afghanistan....And he would have been housed immediately!!”

“expect no better from Bracknell Forest Council, because they are fast-tracking immigrants to the head of the housing queue ... just the same as all councils throughout Britain are daily doing”

“He should go back to Aghanistan, throw away his British passport and come back as a 'refugee'. Apartment in Mayfair awaits him.”

“Single mothers come on top of the list dont they plus foreigners”

“criag ,you should have lobbed your passport on the way back from afghanistan you would have gone way up the list”

“Why is it that the UK gives housing, benefits and anything else that migrants want.”

“Throw your passport away,make out you can't talk understand English. Answer?, the life of riley!!!!!!!!!!!1”

All of these comments have received hundreds of “positive” ratings from fellow Daily Mail readers, which rather suggests that they ARE NOT aware of the finer points of the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants. What evidence does the PCC have to support its view?

Had Littlejohn compared the soldier’s situation with, for example, a convicted criminal who had been released from prison and promptly housed in local authority accommodation than he may have had some grounds to claim that he was making a point about people who “do the right thing” losing out. But he didn’t. He chose to make something up entirely. To lie. And with this ruling the PCC has said such conduct is perfectly acceptable.

I had very little faith in the PCC’s ability to hold the media to account before this episode. Now I have none. The organisation proudly boasts of its rapid response to the shocking inaccuracy that led to one organisation being called “the first specialist thumb-sucking clinic in London” when in fact it was the second. But it is happy to give the seal of approval to a newspaper that publishes lies in order to whip up racial tensions.

I shall be sending copies of all our correspondence to my MP, along with a request for him to raise the issue of media self-regulation with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.

PCC says it's OK to lie

So after a couple of months of pondering, the PCC have got around to replying to my complaint. You remember the one, where I pointed out that Richard Littlejohn was talking out of his arse when he claimed that "any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list"?

He said this despite the fact that it is simply not true - asylum seekers do not even join the housing queue and illegal immigrants (for fairly obvious reasons) aren't entitled to council houses and benefits at all. So Richard Littlejohn, who likes to portray himself as a man who speaks uncomfortable truths, made something up. He gave false information to his readers. He lied. And he did all this in an article that essentially blamed Afghan asylum seekers for the fact that an ex-soldier who served in Afghanistan couldn't get a council house, thus continuing the Mail's policy of whipping up anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hatred based on misinformation.

The PCC code is very clear on such matters. Section one, clause one says:

i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures

And they've gone further on the subject of asylum seekers, issuing a note to editors that says:

"The Commission – in previous adjudications under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code – has underlined the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts."

So obviously after I pointed out that Littlejohn had published inaccurate, misleading or distorted information that generated an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts, there was only ever going to be one outcome:

Commission’s decision in the case of Stable v Daily Mail

 

The complainant considered that the article falsely stated that “Afghans climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover” were given precedence in the allocation of council housing.

 

The Commission acknowledged the complainant’s concern over the statement; however, it had to consider the remark in the context of the article in which it appeared. The article had been clearly presented as a comment piece, in which the columnist expressed his concern that a soldier who had served in Afghanistan had not been granted a council house. The Commission considered that the columnist had exaggerated and simplified the example of housing immigrants for the purpose of stressing his assertion that the “system of government exists simply to punish those who do the right thing”. It emphasised that the newspaper should take care when using such rhetorical methods of expression that readers would not be misled into understanding that they reflected statements of fact. In this instance, on balance it considered that readers would be aware that the columnist was not accurately reflecting the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants, but that he was making an amplified statement for rhetorical effect. It was therefore the Commission’s view that, on this occasion, readers generally would not be misled in such a way as to warrant correction under the terms of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code of Practice.

The covering letter notes that I can't complain about the decision or ask them to reconsider, but notes that they'll forward my letter to the editor. You couldn't make it up.

Now that the PCC has been quite clear that it's OK for journalists to lie for rhetorical effect, I think I'm on safe ground when I say that Richard Littlejohn is a fine, upstanding journalist, the Daily Mail is a wonderful publication whose employees can be proud to work for it, and that the Press Complaints Commission is an effective, relevant and entirely useful organisation that continues to make an excellent case for ongoing self-regulation of the UK media.

Does Richard Littlejohn know how to use Google?

I only ask because of the final "comedy " item in today's rant-a-thon:

If we’re going to give ­prisoners the vote, why not go the whole hog and let them stand for election. I’m sure there are embezzlers and bent accountants who could do a good job reducing the deficit at the Treasury. ‘And coming up before The One Show, a party political broadcast on behalf of the Yorkshire Ripper'

The thing is, prisoners ARE allowed to stand for election, provided they're serving a sentence of less than 12 months - something that may well cover a fair number of embezzlers and bent accountants.

I was fairly sure that this was the case and took all of three minutes to confirm it via Google. First I looked up the Bobby Sands article on Wikipedia (as surely any serious journalist knows that Sands was elected as an MP while serving in the Maze Prison), from where I followed a link to the entry on the "Anti H-Block Party" (which states that after Sands' election the law was changed to ban people standing if they're serving more than a year behind bars), and after than I Googled up the Electoral Commission's Media Handbook for General Elections (page six) to confirm it.

One hunch, two websites, three minutes.

How much does Richard Littlejohn get paid each year? Is it really so little that he can't afford an internet connection? And are the Daily Mail subs who check his copy too scared to change it, even if it's wrong?

Oh, and even if people serving more than one year WERE allowed to stand, Peter Sutcliffe would still be disqualified becasue section 141 of the the Mental Health Act says you can't be an MP if you've been sectioned for more than six months. Sutcliffe has now been in Broadmoor for 29 years.

Mind how you go, Richard.

"A new low"

The Daily Mail is clearly not a fan of GMTV's replacement:

Is this why nobody's watching Daybreak? New low as Christine Bleakley and Adrian Chiles interview Aleksandr the meerkat

What kind of "lightweight" media organisation would treat everyone's favourite animated anthropomorphic insurance salesman as if he were a real person? Perhaps one that, less than a year ago, ran this story:

Compare the Meerkat star releases first podcast featuring interview with David Hasselhoff
He's already attracted more than half a million fans on Facebook and can boast nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter. And now Aleksandr Orlov, the meerkat made famous from the Compare the Market adverts, is set to feature in a new podcast where he will interview celebrity guests.The first interview will be with David Hasselhoff which will be released tomorrow and can be downloaded from the Compare the Meerkat website and itunes. Hasselhoff joked: 'I’ve heard so much about Aleksandr - it was a real pleasure to finally meet him and an honour to be the first guest on his monthly chat show."

Could it be the same outlet that, last Christmas, proudly boasted of this EXLCUSIVE story from Georgina "Spawn of the Devil" Littlejohn?

Exclusive: Meerkat Aleksandr Orlov hyped up to epic scale as Lawrence of Arabia for new ad campaign
He has become one of Britain's biggest stars, an overnight sensation that the viewing public has taken to their hearts. But exactly how aristocratic Russian meerkat Aleksandr Orlov came to be an advertising entrepreneur will soon become clear when he stars in his first film. The anthropomorphic animal and his trusted IT sidekick Sergei star in The Journey of Courageousness, a 60-second film chartering the meerkats' journey from the rolling dunes of the Kalahari Desert to the cold wastelands of Russia ... Aleksandr said: 'I am very exited about new films The Journey of Courageousness. Anyones not watching is a moongoose'.

Yes, yes it could be. And of course it would be the Daily Mail, which appears to have reached a new low.

Poppycock: in which a cock talks about poppies

Richard Littlejohn spends the bulk of today's column calling on his readers to break the law, suggesting they emulate a convicted killer by opening fire on anyone they find inside their house or, indeed, passing by outside. As I pointed out a while back, extrajudicial killings are to be welcomed in Mailworld, but only if done by white people.

In order to pad out the rest of his page, violent criminal (and economic migrant) Littlejohn joins the Mail chorus in attacking the BBC over Poppygate:

"Some Left-leaning broadcasters and mainstream politicians are sporting poppies already, even though there are more than two weeks to go to remembrance Day ... Someone should quietly explain that wearing a poppy in the middle of october is as inappropriate as having easter eggs at Christmas."

Obviously Littlejohn knows much more about this issue than those chancers at the Royal British Legion, who just yesterday told an obscure little paper called the Daily Mail:

"It's really down to the individual as to when they choose to wear their poppy. We would never say they're wearing their poppy too early."

But, hey, what do they know about anything?

Also, Dickie, I think you'll find that "Remembrance Day" takes a capital R. Why do you disrespect our fallen heroes so?

Mail goes strangely quiet on "elf N safety" and "com-pen-say-shun"

The damning narrative verdict on the death of Charlotte Shaw probably came too late to be included in today's Littlejohn ramblings - maybe he'll mention it on Thursday, although I suspect he'll give this one a miss. Likewise, the Mail seems to have overlooked the demands of the namby-pampy nanny state for improved health and safety rules.

Charlotte Shaw was the 14-year-old Devon girl who drowned on Dartmoor three years ago. As the inquest heard this week, the teachers who were supposed to be supervising Charlotte and her friends were not properly qualified. The coroner also complained that Health & Safety Executive guidelines for state schools running outdoor trips are not automatically made available to their private counterparts.

This is why health and safety is important - because it saves lives. Every time a cretin like Littlejohn or an anonymous "Daily Mail Reporter" calls for the HSE to be scrapped or makes up a story about "Elf N Safety gone maaaad" it chips away at the credibility of both the organisation and the whole concept of health and safety.

Just 10 days ago the Daily Mail was celebrating the fact that school trips were to be freed of the "stranglehold" of red tape. A quick search of the Mail online archive reveals a steady stream of articles calling for "more danger" in schools or demanding that we stop "mollycoddling" our children in the name of health and safety.

There is obviously a balance to be struck between risk and the benefit kids get from getting out and about, but the Mail and its ilk consistently portray the very idea of "health and safety" as some terrible invention of killjoys that should be done away with. The tragic death of Charlotte Shaw shows exactly what can happen if this approach is taken to its natural conclusion, which may explain why the Mail hasn't published an outraged editorial attacking the coroner for destroying good old-fashioned fun and attempting to wrap our children up in cotton wool.

I also see that Charlotte's mother is suing her daughter's school for negligence. What are the odds that in Thursday's column Littlejohn will complain about her being a money-grabbing ambulance-chaser in search of com-pen-say-shun?

Richard Littlejohn is a lying sack of shit

Richard Littlejohn. Two words to strike fear into the heart of any right-thinking individual, but two words that never cease to provide media-watching bloggers with an endless stream of material.

Littlejohn's usual form involves taking some fairly innocent real-life event, removing a few key facts, then using it to support his twisted world-view: "gypsies given com-pen-say-shun to buy free mobile phones under elf-N-safety rules to protect Yuman Rites because of Cherie Blair", that kind of thing.

In today's column he gives up on such subtleties and instead opts for being what can best be described as a "lying sack of shit".

"During the General Election campaign, David Cameron promised that his government would help people who did the right thing. How does that square with the news that Lance Corporal Craig Baker and his family have been refused a council house after he returned home to Bracknell ­following a tour of duty in Afghanistan? Especially as any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list."

Really Richard? Really? "Any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list"? This isn't even twisting the truth, this is simply making things up. And if you make something up, know it's not true but present it as if it is, that makes you a liar. Not a journalist, not a commentator, a liar.

When our hypothetical Afghan jumps off the back of a lorry in Dover, he's not allowed to go on the council housing list. That's because in 2001 responsibility for housing asylum seekers was taken away from councils and handed to the UK Border Agency. UKBA "has a contract with housing providers rather than tenancy agreements with asylum seekers, who are excluded from social housing lists".

In other words, the Afghan arriving in Dover will not even be on the same list as Lance Corporal Baker, let alone able to automatically go to the top of it. So the plight of the Baker family and the status of the Afghan have literally nothing in common. They are totally unrelated. The fact that the UKBA will try to find somewhere for the Afghan to live temporarily while his asylum application is handled will have absolutely no bearing on whether or not Bracknell Council find the Bakers a suitable home.

But let's give Littlejohn the benefit of the doubt and say he was talking about the longer term. What then? Well, if our Afghan friend's asylum application was successful - and as the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal ruled last year that the level of "indiscriminate violence" in Afghanistan was not enough to permit Afghans to claim general humanitarian protection in the United Kingdom it's far from a given that refugee status will be granted - he could then apply for council housing under the same system as Lance Corporal Baker and his family.

How would he get to the top of the council housing list? By waiting, just like everyone else. There is no legal way for any kind of immigrant to "automatically" get priority over anybody else on the list, other than by fulfilling the same factors that apply to everyone else, British, European, Afghan or whatever. To say otherwise isn't just distorting the truth, it's lying.

In order to be accurate, Littlejohn should have written:

"During the General Election campaign, David Cameron promised that his government would help people who did the right thing. How does that square with the news that Lance Corporal Craig Baker and his family have been refused a council house after he returned home to Bracknell ­following a tour of duty in Afghanistan? Especially as any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover can be added to the council housing list and treated like everyone else on it provided he successfully applies for refugee status. While his asylum application is pending he would be temporarily housed under a system that has nothing to do with the one Lance Corporal Baker is applying under."

But that wouldn't have supported his narrative. It wouldn't have pandered to the prejudices of his readership. It wouldn't have been his "unique style".

The PCC are always reluctant to take action against columnists on matters of accuracy as people know when they read a column they are getting opinion rather than news. But on this occassion Littlejohn has simply made something up, and done so in a clear attempt to create a "them and us" society and reinforce urban myths about foreigners. Such lies would not be out of place in a BNP leaflet, yet here they are in one of Britain's best-known and longest-running newspapers.

David English must be turning in his grave.

UPDATE!
I've just submitted a complaint to the PCC. Full text is below, I'll keep you posted on any reply I receive:

In his column published on Tuesday 28 September, Richard Littlejohn mentions the case of a former soldier who has been unable to secure council housing from his local authority. In the article he states that: "any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list."

This is a breach of section 1 clause 1 of the Code of Practice:
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.

Littlejohn's comments are clearly inaccurate and misleading.

No "Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover" will "automatically" be moved to the front of the queue for a council house. For one thing, asylum seekers are not even allowed to join a council's housing list until their application has been processed and they have been granted permission to remain in the country. Even after that has happened, there is no mechanism for them to be "automatically" given priority over anybody else.

To state otherwise is inaccurate. This is not a case of a commentator expressing an opinion that some people may be uncomfortable with; Littlejohn's claim has absolutely no basis in truth, and is therefore in breach of the Code.

In addition, publishing such a grossly inaccurate statment flies in the face of the Commission's own guidance to editiors on the issue of asylum seekers: "the Commission – in previous adjudications under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code – has underlined the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts."

Closing something because people don't like it = health and safety madness

Earlier this week David Cameron trailed an announcement about "the end of health and safety madness", which was predictably lapped up by the tabloids. Richard Littlejohn was clearly worried that this might leave him with nothing to write about*, as he makes clear in his latest column:

"For the past 15 years, this column has made a good living out of elf'n'safety. Now, though, the Government is promising to put an end to the madness, scrapping the stupid rules and risk assessments, and derailing the spiv lawyers cashing in on the com-pen-say-shun culture. No one has told Lancaster City Council, which has banned revellers from watching the city's annual fireworks display from Castle Hill, citing - you guessed - elf'n'safety."

Something else you can probably guess is that Littlejohn isn't telling the whole story. As is so often the case you have to go to the local paper to get some actual journalism with a bit of balance. Over in the Lancaster Guardian we learn that:

"Lancaster City Council has decided not to allow people into the Castle and Priory area on November 6, citing negative feedback from visitors last year and potential safety issues."

Right from the off they're clear that the dreaded safety issues are just one of the factors in play, but Littlejohn overlooks this as it doesn't fit his narrative. The Lancaster Guardian also spoke to the council’s "assistant head of community engagement", Gill Hague who said:

"Visitors told us that the castle precinct was cramped and is not a particularly good area from which to view the fireworks due to its historic layout. Many people found that their view of the fireworks was blocked by spectators, buildings and trees. Last year we experimented with limiting numbers at the castle but we received similar comments.”

Which begins to make it sound like the primary reason for closing the hill is not "elf and safety" at all - it's just not a great place to watch fireworks from something that the council learned by SPEAKING TO THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY WENT THERE, something highly paid migrant Richard Littlejohn can't be arsed to do.

The only mention of safety comes when Ms Hague states that

"...People's safety was one consideration."

So not the only consideration. Yet even if it WAS the only consideration, is this necessarily a bad thing? Littlejohn trots out the favourite line of the "common sense brigade" when he states that

"...it has taken place for the past 18 years without anyone getting hurt."

But is this really relevant? As the Lancaster Guardian states:

"the event has grown in popularity over recent years, making it increasingly difficult for people to get into the Castle area and see the event."

So if more people are coming to watch than in previous years, the area will become more overcrowded and hence more dangerous - especially in the dark, in potentially bad weather and with lots of small children, all of which are expected at bonfire night displays. The council isn't banning fireworks, it's not stopping the display, it's not insisting that kids wear goggles in case fireworks fall out of the sky and impale them. It's just closing one viewing area that is getting too crowded for people to enjoy and too crowded to be policed safely.

If this is the sort of elf-and-safety gone mad that David Cameron wants to ban, we may be in more trouble than I thought...

*Apart from the Muslims and the gays and the immigrants and the gay muslim immigrants, obviously. Oh, and the feminists - bunch of lesbians, the lot of them.

Littlejohn's bonfire inanities

Oh dear. Richard Littlejohn has decided to tackle the thorny issue of "International Burn a Koran Day". He seems to start off rather well, calling pastor Terry Jones "crass". But he's a man who knows what his readers think, so once he's done just enough mild condemnation to avoid being accused of agreeing with Jones, he reverts to type and launches into yet another attack on Islam.

"the last time anyone looked evangelical Christians from Gainesville weren’t flying hijacked airliners into skyscrapers and blowing themselves up on crowded railway trains."

True. But Christians have killed plenty of people in terrorist attacks - just look at the murders of abortion doctors, the bombings carried out by Eric Rudolph in the USA, the wholesale relgious violence of Northern Ireland, the actions of the National Liberation Front of Tripura in India and, worst of all, the actions of The Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. However, as I'm not an complete idiot I'm able to recognise that none of the actions of these individuals or groups can be used to "prove" that most Christians are homicidal maniacs.

"The other part of the conundrum is the fact that the tolerance America and Christians throughout the West extend to other religions is not reflected back. For instance, there are no Christian churches or symbols allowed in Saudi Arabia, where possession of a Bible is a criminal offence. Bibles are confiscated, shredded and, yes, burned by the Saudi authorities."

I've never understood this argument. It's wrong that the brutal totalitarian regime in Saudi Arabia does not allow religious diversity and to show how wrong it is we should do the same? It's some kind of intellectual lowest common denominator, like saying "they have vigilante justice in backward third-world countries, so we should have it here, too". Although actually the Mail is pretty cool with that.

"Across parts of the Muslim world, every day is Burn-A-Bible Day."

Really? Any examples to prove that rather wild claim? Any evidence? Any detail, even, of which these "parts of the world" are? No? And even if it were true, is Littlejohn saying that this is wrong (in which case burning a Koran must be wrong also) or is fine with the idea (in which case he's a bit of a twunt)? I guess we'll never know, because the Mail's noted theological scholar is taking the rhetoric a step further:

"Under the more extreme interpretations of Islam, the punishment for any Muslim who converts to Christianity is death."

Under the more extreme interpretations of pretty much anything you can come up with similar stuff. That's what makes it an extreme interpretation, you see. The clue's in the word "extreme". It doesn't mean "normal," or "mainstream". To demonstrate, have a think about extreme interpretations of the following Bible passages:

"But for the cowardly and UNBELIEVING and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
Revelation 21:8

"He who is not believing the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God doth remain upon him."
John 3:36

"The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:49

"His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."
Matthew 13:12

But because Littlejohn's narrative is that Muslims are somehow asking to be treated like shit, he doesn't note that extreme interpretations of Christianity (or some pretty literal ones, based on John 3:36) can lead to conclusion that non-believers should be put to death or, at the very least, face eternity burning in hell. Back to Littlejohn's rantings:

"If a rural vicar tried burning an effigy of Osama Bin Laden on ­Bonfire Night in Britain, he’d be banged up for incitement to ­religious hatred."

Except they wouldn't. In November 2001 the people of Lewes burned an effigy of the al-Qaeda leader, but mass arrests did not follow. In fact, I've done a bit of research and can find no media reports of anyone ever being arrested for burning an effigy of the world's most-wanted mass murderer. Perhaps everyone's just too scared of the consequences if they do.

In any case, what does Osama Bin Laden have to do with this? The equivalent in this country would surely be a rural vicar burning a pile of Korans, but that wouldn't let Littlejohn to both trot out his tired "political correctness gone mad" line - "You can't even say you hate Osama Bin Laden without Harriet Harman arresting your for being anti-Muslim!" - and draw an implicit link between Islam and terrorism.

The whole column underlines the Mail's consistent approach to Muslims, the idea that there's one rule for "them" and one for "us". "They" get treated differently, "they" get offended at everything "we" do... There's never any evidence given for this, never any proof. Counter-arguments can be safely brushed under the carpet as "political correctness".

Right at the very end of the column, Littlejohn writes:

"In a perfect world, everyone would have written off Pastor Terry as a crank and ignored him."

I'd suggest that Dicky do everyone a favour and ignore Jones himself. But then, in a perfect world, there would be no Littlejohn, either.