Let's do down the country again - and take a different angle on it so it sounds new

What Peter Hitchins seems to have forgotten in his article today is that Britain has historically punched above its weight. We're a small island nation which established one of the biggest empires in the world, it was inevitable that when our empire fell (as all empires eventually must) that would lead to the country no longer being a superpower, this isn't a recent thing. Hitchins seems to blame every overblown problem this country has on fighting WWII, which apparently means we currently face...

conditions we might normally associate with defeat and occupation?

I'm sorry? Are the people in this country being denied basic freedoms? Do we have an undemocratically elected government? No, we don't, this country may not be perfect but it's a better place to live than Soviet occupied countries during the Cold War.

We are a second-rate power, rapidly slipping into third-rate status

By what measures? Britain is part of the G8 group of economic powers, we are in the top 20s of lists of GDP per capita, London is one of the world's leading trading centres, this is not a second or third rate economic power. We have considerable foreign influence, being one of the America's closest allies. Britain may not have an empire anymore (nobody does) and we may not be a superpower but we are one of the world's foremost powers.

The rest of his article is used to tell us how bad the country is... feral youths... blah blah blah... anti British dogma... blah blah... unelected government... squalid hospitals... everything's bad... AREN'T YOU LISTENING, the country is terrible...blah blah... foreigners... immigrants.

In conclusion, your life is terrible, you don't live in an economically developed democratic country that is mainly safe and not that corrupt... you're living in Broken Britain..

Worst columnists ever

What is the point of Liz Jones? Her column from a couple of days ago is as sexist, reversely misogynistic and appallingly written as usual, every Mail columnist needs a group to stereotype and Liz has chosen men.

Whilst managing to be appallingly flippant about what Caster Semenya has gone though Liz manages to show her true prejudices against men, calling them, amongst other things

“faster and stronger than us, but you are as obsolete as a VHS video: in the way, useless and gathering dust.”

“you should be flown to Switzerland and put out of your misery. “

Charming, no wonder no “femail” columnists can find a man.

Let's hate the 'gipsies' - Daily Hate time

It’s obvious to anyone other than a hideous bigot that all sorts of people are bad neighbours, middle class, working class, all ethnicities… and not just ‘gipsies’ as the Mail seems to believe.

The people in this article may be a nuisance but is there any need to point out that they are gypsies? Is there any need to use this family to continue this paper’s vile stereotypes about travelling people?

First come the attempts to portray this as some kind of utopia with everyone living together before the big bad gipsy family turns up…

In the peace and quiet of a summer’s evening, family life in Totteridge — where professional couples pay up to £1million for a substantial home a stone’s throw from good schools, shops, restaurants and trains direct to the city — appears to be a picture of idyllic suburbia.

So only middle class people should be allowed in Totteridge, good to know that.

John and Serena Connors and their seven children — an Irish traveller family — have been in residence at this five-bedroom £1million home since February, when they were moved by Barnet Council into privately-owned accommodation under the Local Housing Allowance scheme.

So not ‘gipsies’ then, is there any distinction in the eyes of the Mail?

Since then, there have been several cases highlighted by the Daily Mail where families, living off benefits, have been rehomed in some of the most exclusive and expensive neighbourhoods in Britain — all at the taxpayers’ expense.

Yes, we know, you already said that poor people shouldn’t be allowed in nice neighbourhoods, regardless of the fact that they obviously have been re-homed in a big house because they have 9 children. I know, let’s put them in a bedsit instead, that’ll help you sleep better at night.

This is not snobbery. As Hannah’s solicitor husband Jeremy puts it: ‘We don’t have a problem living next door to anyone. We don’t care who pays their rent or what they do for a living as long as they’re decent neighbours. But these people aren’t even decent human beings.’

It may not be snobbery from you, but the Daily Mail has turned a story of woe for you into another part of their bigotry towards ‘gipsies’

Who’d expect anything else?

It seems that Alan Duncan MP (a shady character if there ever was one) has been duped twice by the same person. After he had to pay back several thousand pounds worth of expenses he'd spent on his garden, activist Heydon Prowse from the online magazine Don't Panic dug a pound sign into his garden. The stunt left Duncan red-faced and let everyone else have a titter at the deeply unpleasant MP.

Now it has been revealed that he is not just unpleasant, but an idiot. Whilst having a drink in the commons bar with the same person he said the following things...

MPs had been "Treated like shit"

Granted, but you've been acting like a shit for years, I'd say you deserve it.

"You have to live on rations"

Poor you, only £64,000 a year plus a lot of benefits. Talk to someone who lived through the war and you'll find out what living on rations is like.

Asked how much he spent on his garden "About £2,000 a year and this was £1,000 a year on expenses" an amount he earlier dismissed as a "tiny fraction"

And in what way is spending £1,000 on your garden something that is essential for your work as an MP?

I love the fact that only after several thousand pounds were spent on the garden, the fees office decided that the claim could be seen as exorbitant.

The final irony is that Duncan is the overseer of expenses for the Tory party. Despite his apologising and claiming the comments were made in "jest" don't think that this scandal will stop him doing what he wants.

Littlejohn has a fucked up brain

Isn't it ironic that Richard Littlejohn, who rails against 'political correctness' proceeds to get offended by anything.

Today he gets his knickers in a twist over the fact that a children's book contains characters who are travellers, or as he'd call them 'gyppos' 'pikeys' and various other offensive words.

Now meet Tess the Traveller, her son Toby and their dog Teabag, the new stars of a reading book for three to seven-year-olds being distributed in primary schools across the country.It's part of a government initiative aimed at promoting tolerance and understanding towards gipsies and travellers.

And what's wrong with that may I ask? Surely children's books should contain as wide a variety of characters from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds as possible, rather than just married middle class couples with two or three children in a suburban semi-detached. This book would hopefully teach tolerance towards people with different lifestyles to the norm, and no bad thing.

Needless to say, Tess, Toby and Teabag lead an airbrushed, romanticised existence. This well-scrubbed trio roam the land, attending traditional gipsy dances, horse fairs and even an eco-camp.

And the Gypsies in your mind do what Richard?

"They're all thieving scumbags. ALL OF THEM"

OK, calm down Richard, and stop generalising, you're done it in every column you've ever written.

There's a whole industry dedicated to pandering to the needs of travellers, even though most contribute absolutely nothing to society.

And how did you find this out Richard? Or did you make it up to fit the ideas you have in your fucked up head.

This story is just a crusade against the imaginary PC brigade with an undercurrent of bigotry and discrimination... as are all other Littlejohn columns.

P.S. He spelt gypsy wrong throughout the whole article

The Sun's vendetta continues

This Sun article is a perfect example of the way that they use the terms "Illegal Immigrant" and "Asylum Seeker" to mean the same thing.

Before I start ripping the actual article to shreds, I think it's time to clarify the difference. An illegal immigrant is someone who enters a country illegally, undetected by the authorities and does not attempt to claim asylum. Asylum seekers enter the country and apply for asylum, if they succeed they are allowed indefinite leave to remain in the country, and if they fail they are (theoretically) deported back to their country of origin.

The intro to this article starts in the vein it means to continue:

A MILLION illegal immigrants could benefit from proposals to let failed asylum seekers use the NHS, it was claimed last night.

The Government came under fire for unveiling plans to give free health care to thousands of asylum seekers AFTER their applications have been rejected.

Experts warned the decision to loosen the rules could give the green light to a million illegals already in Britain to use the NHS.

Writing like this just reinforces the view held by many Sun readers that asylum seekers are the same thing as illegal immigrants and that they both scrounge off the state when neither actually do. As I pointed out in another blog, illegal immigrants can't claim benefits and are only entitled to emergency treatment on the NHS and asylum seekers similarly so.

Halfway down the article (where most Sun reading halfwits will have stopped reading) they reveal that actually only...

Failed asylum seekers who have a "recognised barrier" to returning home - or who are surviving on state handouts - will get free NHS treatment.

So if someone is a bogus asylum seeker, who is not so poor that they have to survive on the measly state allowance they won't get any treatment.

Now, this is the point where an expert, unbiased opinion would be useful. Who have The Sun used? An organisation campaigning against immigration. Of course they're going to point out how this is going to bring in lots of illegals in and continue the "overcrowding" of this country.

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green blasted the move last night. He said: "These proposals amount to an open door for one million illegal immigrants to get access to the NHS.

"It's little wonder that thousands are queuing up around Calais to get in."

Where are these thousands queuing up again? In your imagination?

The quote implies that asylum seekers would prefer to come to this country rather than stay in France, something which is untrue and borne out by the facts that France has more applications for asylum than Britain.

The whole idea of sponging asylum seekers, as put by this article is rubbish, they have an allowance of around £30 a week, a ludicrously small amount to live on, temporary accommodation along with free healthcare. On top of this they are not allowed to work and therefore many do illegally, costing £1bn in unpaid tax a year.

This policy of free healthcare is one of the few on asylum seekers that this government has got right.

Mr Mouth, meet Mr Brain - He doesn't exist.

As usual a column by Richard Littlejohn in the Mail fails to grasp the facts at all. The Mail has seized gleefully the story of a judge's rant against immigration and brilliantly promoted it without in any way pointing out the flaws in what he's saying. Now Littlejohn starts his ill-informed rant...

The only semblance of a good point is the idea that the asylum system doesn't work, as it took two years for this case to be processed, but instead of a critique of the asylum system backed up with relevant facts, Littlejohn decideds to embark on a rant on his favourite subject: How asylum seekers and illegal immigrants have it so easy.

Enter the country illegally, steal, sell drugs, forge passports and you'll be lavished with unlimited Legal Aid, benefits and sympathy.

Within four words Littlejohn manages to lie, stating that this person came into the country illegally rather than the truth of his entry on a student visa. Then he seems to decide that this person was a criminal because he was foreign and that he should have been denied any kind of legal aid and presumed guilty. He continues with the lie that illegal immigrants gain benefits and that this man -sentenced to two years in jail - has been showered with sympathy.

And there appears to have been no serious attempt to track him down.

Do you know this or did you make it up Richard?

That's why the remarks by Judge Ian Trigger at Liverpool Crown Court were so refreshing. At last, here was a judge in touch with the real world and prepared to tell the truth about illegal immigration, which he said was 'creating an enormous strain on resources'.

Warming to his theme, the judge added: 'In the past ten years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central government has wasted billions and billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments.

The rubbish spewing forth from Littlejohn's mouth continues as he proceeds with the inherently wrong idea that illegal immigrants get benefits... THEY DON'T. How can someone who is here illegally (meaning that he doesn't have a national insurance number) claim for benefits?

The fact that Ian Trigger, Littlejohn plus thousands of Mail readers continue to believe this garbage is mind boggling.

How to make up a story

Rosie Boycott's article about the tragic suicide of a mother of three has the headline:

"She was a mother of three and top lawyer who jumped off a bridge into the Thames. What does her death tell us about Britain today?"

This immediately jumps down the normal Mail attitude of - something bad happened, society is doomed - let's not get carried away...

...but Rosie does, spinning a tale of what she thinks might have happened, with no actual research or facts.

"The coroner's report, made public on Tuesday, states that post-natal depression played a big part in her final, ghastly decision. But I suspect many other factors contributed to her awful and untimely death - factors that will be familiar to all-too-many professional women in Britain today."

She manages to ignore the fact that this woman had post-natal depression as a reason for her suicide and speculates about a multitude of other things that could have caused this tragedy. Showing her ignorance, she assumes that the law firm she worked cared little for their employees welfare, something which she has no idea about.

"I dread to think of the levels of stress she must have felt herself under as the school holidays approached: corporate law firms like hers seldom countenance an employee who says she needs to stop work for four weeks to be with the children."

Astonishingly, this gets worse, Boycott recognises that she's made up all these things that could have caused this tragedy...

"I am speculating here"

... but continues to write something completely imaginary, without any research or basis in fact.

"but I wonder whether that desire to display to the outside world the visible signs of success played some part in the stressful life she led."

With that the Mail moves into the frankly astonishing territory of denouncing consumerism, despite being one of the most superficial newspapers on the news stands.

She then ridiculously overblows things again managing to blame you and me for this tragedy.

"For in many ways I believe we are all responsible for Catherine's death."

In what ways, may I ask?

"We have created a world that is monstrous in its demands: to earn more, to buy more, to display our worth to the world through the stuff that we own and the high status we acquire in the workplace."

Who created this world? Was it the media with articles like this, this and this which all display brilliant snobbery against buying cheap things and place a huge value on consumerism.

So there we go, Rosie Boycott manages to take a tragic suicide and turn it into a crass, ill informed rant about the society we live in and about the evils of consumerism that her newspaper perpetuates.