David Cameron, the "truth"

Perhaps inverted commas should be used in the Telegraph's piece by self-confessed posh social climber James Delingpole, promising "the truth" (my quote marks) about David Cameron's days at Oxford.

Dave was just an ordinary bloke. If that isn't the ultimate in spin, I don't know what is.

Inverted commas gone mad

The Telegraph also makes interesting use of inverted commas, telling us that, Kevin McGee, the former partner of Matt Lucas, has been 'found hanged'. The link to the article tells us that Lucas and McGee "divorced" (their quote marks) ten months ago, while the article itself calls Lucas a "divorcee" (again, their quote marks).

But then what other expression do you use to describe people who weren't actually married and then stopped not being actually married?

Don't bother

On the front page of the Telegraph website is the headline "50p tax to stifle economy", which carries the explanation:

New 50p tax rate to stifle economy and increase unemployment.

When you click on the link, the story itself, which is about consumer/personal finance instead of economics, suddenly uses inverted commas and the sub-headline reveals that it is based on a "study" by the Taxpayers Alliance.

No need to read any further.

Fair Game

In a fascinating piece that uncovers the unseemly side of spin, the Telegraph reports that

"Labour ministers are threatening to launch a concerted effort to tarnish the reputation of British Army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt."

The story is a bit hard to follow, not least because of the omission of the word "that" at a vital point:

Relations between the Chief of the General Staff and the Government hit a new low after senior Labour sources warned the general will be “fair game” for political attacks when he leaves his post at the end of August.

You have to read this very carefully to realise that no-one "warned the general" about anything but warned that he would be fair game. The basis for this assertion is a quote from a minister:

“Once he’s gone, we can have a go at him. He can write his book and talk all he wants, but he’ll be fair game then.”

The idea that a concerted effort is planned is backed up by the fact that they are already at it:

A Labour source accused the general of “building up his own reputation at the expense of the Army” and added: “The man’s a hypocrite. He’s sat in these meetings and approved these things, and then he comes out in public and complains about them.”

Pretty gutless really. And pretty inept, given the Telegraph's loyalty to the military. It turned the story round and it looks like backfiring.

Not cleared for publication

The Telegraph has an interesting lead story, pointing out that the report that supposedly cleared Labour MP Shahid Malik over his rental arrangements has not been published. We therefore only have Number 10's word that he is in the clear. The Telegraph says:

Sir Christopher Kelly, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said last night the report should be published.

Number 10 says that the report "goes into quite a lot of detail about Mr Malik's personal affairs" and they may have a point, but then it has been the dragging out of MPs' personal affairs has exposed how corrupt many of them are.

Mr Toad indeed

It's hard to believe a national newspaper could print the kind of tosh today's Telegraph has served up from Clive Aslet, Editor at Large of 'Country Life'. The piece is headed: "Speed limits are about money, not safety". How does someone spin a proposal to ban speeding drivers rather than fine them as being "about money"?

Well, first Aslet comes up with the usual argument that it's not speed that causes accidents but bad drivers. Then he brings up the circular claim that road safety measures have alienated the poor motorist:

Show the British motorist a plausible idea for improving road safety, and he'll laugh in its face. He has lost faith in the system.

The fact that the Telegraph, the Mail, Top Gear et al repeatedly churn out this sort of nonsense has nothing to do with it, presumably.

Finally, Aslet says;

on speed, part of me rebels against a regime whose priorities are so badly skewed. We all know which aspect of motoring is most rigorously patrolled: parking. Around here, you'll be given a ticket within minutes of overstaying your meter. That isn't about safety, but money.

So even if banning speeding drivers can't possibly about money, the fact that you get fined for overstaying your parking means that it is, after all. I am truly lost for words to describe this childish self-indulgent nonsense.

Going round in circles on Heathrow

Patrick Hennessy's piece in the Telegraph on Heathrow expansion is certainly more spin than substance. He probably correctly analyses that the decision to hold a debate on the issue this week is a clear sign that the government is likely to back the scheme but he claims that ministers:

also believe that David Cameron has allowed his party to get on the "wrong side of the argument" by officially opposing the plans

Once again a leading journalist uses the "believe" construction to put forward the government's spin on a topic. Hennessy also claims:

Mr Hoon, backed by Gordon Brown, is confident he has seen off objections to the runway raised by some cabinet ministers, including Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader.

Hoon seems to be short of friendly newspapers to plant this type of story as the Sunday Times runs a leader against Heathrow expansion.

You haven't really thought that through

The Telegraph is reporting that Gordon Brown will approve the third Heathrow runway within weeks. It's a rather naive take on the political process that imagines it's just something that the prime minister can say will happen, in spite of a cabinet revolt.

The report also says:

The decision will be announced before the end of the year, and could come as soon as next month.

As it's now November, before the end of the year does really mean next month at the latest, doesn't it?

Motorists threatened again

The Telegraph is very confused this morning. "Motorists face tolls to drive on hard shoulder," it says, as if it is some kind of a threat. Of course, motorists are not currently allowed to drive on the hard shoulder in normal circumstances, so it's really more of an opportunity - for the better off. It seems like a bit of a crazy idea to me.

The problem for the Telegraph is that it has a campaign against road pricing. Therefore every example of road pricing must be bad.

Meanwhile, Alistair Darling has called for cheaper petrol prices, because it's a populist cause. Never mind global warming.

Who's spinning?

The tories are continuing to row with British Airways, perhaps happy to show that, unlike Labour, they are not in the pocket of big business. Today Theresa Villiers is accusing BA chief executive Willie Walsh of spinning the figures over the impact of a high speed rail link. Walsh had said the tories were all over the place on aviation policy. Villiers says:

“We are not all over the place on aviation policy,” she said. “We have made a firm decision on the third runway at Heathrow. It is not a decision Willie Walsh wants but it is decisive.

Fair enough, but it looks like it's the tories' figures that don't add up:

"Willie Walsh is challenging our figures on the basis that only Leeds and Manchester flights are included.”

Ms Villiers said that, based on the Government’s own figures, there were 63,200 flights last year between Heathrow and the six destinations – 13,200 to Leeds and Manchester and 50,000 to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

“If roughly 63,200 flights were substituted by high-speed rail, that would free up slots at Heathrow equivalent to 28pc of the total 222,000 capacity the Government say would be generated by a third runway,” Ms Villiers said.

Are the tories really saying that a high(er) speed rail link between London and Leeds and Manchester would mean no-one flying between Heathrow and those four destinations? And even if they did, according to the tories that would be only 28% of the capacity of a third runway.

One grumble about the frequent absence of the word "that" from news stories. Sub editors don't like the word and don't understand how it provides clarity and how its absence causes confusion. In this piece:

She denied scrapping the runway would infuriate big business and believes she can convince firms of the greater merits of high-speed rail.

Five words into the sentence, I'm wondering which runway Theresa Villiers is denying having scrapped. But no, what the Telegraph means is that she denied that scrapping the runway would infuriate big business....

Greywash

I've been researching eco-towns for a couple of articles and have tracked down a copy of the order made by Mr Justice Collins, allowing a judicial review of the government's programme. The review was brought by the BARD group, which was set up to make sure that an eco-town is not built in its green and pleasant backyard of Warwickshire/Worcestershire.

It's clear that all the news stories were based on BARD's press release, of which an MS Word version includes Collins' statement. The Telegraph is perhaps most guilty of muddying the waters.

Hazel Blears 'biased' over eco-town decisions

The Government's eco-town programme faced a fresh blow last night after a judge warned that the minister charged with deciding whether projects should be built could be seen as "biased" in favour of the controversial developments.

The problem is that Collins said that there must be concern that Blears (Secretary of State at the Department of Communities and Local Government) may have disqualified herself from considering any planning application for an eco town because of perceived bias in favour. The story is conflating the current process of selecting of eco-towns with the possibility that Blears may in future have to rule on a planning application, which is initially the job of local councils.

Capitalism - on or off the rails?

Left and right have different takes this morning on the carnage that continues to flow from the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

The Guardian has an extended leader saying:

It is a moment Karl Marx would have relished. From every angle financial capitalism is taking a battering.

Meanwhile, in the Telegraph, Jeff Randall says: "Capitalism - it's painful, but it works". Or does he? In fact, he says:

Soon enough we will discover if the core of Western finance is just an elaborate Ponzi scheme, underpinned only by new waves of suckers, or an imperfect but flexible machinery that, despite its flaws, has the capacity to withstand shocks.

Either way, it seems to me, [US Treasury Secretary] Paulson was right to turn off the tap. If the system is rotten, why shore it up? If it's not, then it will - somehow - survive without more state aid.

The closest Randall comes to an endorsement of capitalism is this:

Nobody said that capitalism was devised to provide soft landings for hopeless losers.

Hardly a ringing endorsement.

Derring don't

Who's got the best tale of Derring do this morning?

Is it the Times, with its propaganda laden "exclusive: British forces Triumph in Afghanistan:

Vital generator reaches Kajaki hydroelectric plant after one of the most daring operations since Second World War

or the Telegraph?

A British engineer who was being held in Gambia accused of illegally mining uranium has broken out of the country in a daring escape.

Someone accused of a crime has escaped. How marvellous! Except that of course it's a British businessman, unfairly (obviously) charged in a foreign country.

Will or could?

The Telegraph has a very confused take on the leaked Home Office memo:

The economic downturn is set to lead to more crime, fewer police, more illegal immigration and a rise in far right extremism, a leaked Home Office letter reveals.

"Set to" is a favourite newspaper construction, saying something will happen without absolutely committing. The story's intro is in do doubt:

A blunt assessment of the pressures that a recession will bring on law and order is detailed in a document which is to be sent to Number 10 from Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary.

But the next paragraph is less sure:

It outlines the potential rises in crime, including violent crime, that could occur because of the credit crisis.

"potential...could" - make up your minds!

Unconvincing

In the Telegraph, Simon Heffer has a rant about Barack Obama's speech, the piece claiming that it has left the election wide open. He argues that:

As Mr Obama came out to speak on Thursday night a poll gave him a sudden six-point lead over his Republican rival, John McCain. This “convention bounce” is a long-recognised phenomenon of election politics in America; Sen McCain may well get his own this time next week. If so, it would suggest that the last eight weeks of the campaign will settle it, rather than anything that might happen at either convention.

Faultless logic. If McCain cancels out Obama's lead, they will be all square. To think he gets paid for writing such circular nonsense.

Wot not to say

Brian Cathcart continues to write a brilliant column on the media for the New Statesman. This week he analyses the so-called codes used by politicians and the proclaimed ability of political journalists to decode them, including drawing inferences from what politicians don't say:

The theory is that, because political correspondents know what politicians should say in any given circumstance, they are instantly alert when one fails to do so. And having identified a point of deviance, these correspondents are able to construe, from unnamed sources or circumstantial evidence, the true intention behind it - a signal or manoeuvre the ordinary reader would otherwise miss.

In short, these people know the meanings of the things that politicians don't say. So, for example, when David Miliband did not mention Gordon Brown in his Guardian article a few weeks ago, and went on not to swear undying loyalty to Brown in a subsequent press conference, he was obviously launching a leadership bid.

And his intentions were all the more transparent, we are told, because Miliband also knows the codes. Since he knew that reporters would construe what he didn't say in the way they did, it follows that he must have not said it deliberately because he wanted it construed that way. QED.

Of course, politicians and their spin doctors also tell journalists how to interpret what they do or don't say - like when Tony Blair didn't have the guts to tell the Labour conference that he would re-write Clause 4 but Alastair Campbell told the media that this was what he meant.

In the same column, Cathcart takes issue with Simon Heffer of the Daily Telegraph, on Gary Glitter: "Most rational people would find it quite acceptable if he were to be taken out and shot in the back of the head."

Cathcart observes:

no matter how much the Telegraph comment pages try to be modern or intellectual - and there have been heroic strivings down the years - somehow they can't quite shake off the attitudes and tone of the officer's mess, circa 1937.

This puts into a nutshell what I have been trying to say about the Telegraph lately. Shame about the misplaced apostrophe.

More on Habbush

Salon.com adds a new twist to Ron Suskind's allegation that the CIA forged a letter linking Iraq with the September 11 attacks. It shows that Ayad Allawi was at the CIA just days before he gave the letter to Telegraph journalist Con Coughlin.

We're still waiting for Coughlin's take on this. The Telegraph reported the story on its website on Tuesday night, coyly adding in the final paragraph that

The letter's existence was first reported in December 2003 after a copy was passed to The Sunday Telegraph by a member of Iraq's transitional government.

On iraqdossier.com, I ask a bit more about why the UK's official inquiries were not told - or at least didn't report - that an Iraqi source had told MI6 that Saddam had no wmd.

How do you prove a negative?

The revelations in Ron Suskind's new book (see e.g. the Times) that the UK and US were told before the war that Iraq had no WMD are fascinating. It's not clear that the claims of Iraqi intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush should have been believed but where do they appear in e.g. the Butler Review?

Trying to work out the timing is quite difficult. The Times says:

The book claimed that the former Prime Minister sent a top British spy to the Middle East in 2003 — three months before the invasion

With the invasion taking place on 20 March 2003, three months before that would be 20 December 2002.

The other main claim from Suskind's book is that after the war the CIA used Habbush to forge a letter linking Iraq with the September 11 attacks. The Times gleefully says:

The forgery, adamantly denied by the White House, was passed to a British journalist in Baghdad and written about as if genuine by The Sunday Telegraph on December 14, 2003.

Watching the Olympics

Today's non-story from the Telegraph is a claim that the more than 600 publicly-funded British workers attending the Olympics will exceed the number (313) of British athletes.

Unfortunately, the figure is arrived at mainly by including the 437 staff sent by the BBC "at a cost to the licence payer of £3 million" to produce 2,750 hours of coverage. It doesn't seem that expensive, in the grand scheme of things.

The Telegraph's criticism of the relatively small number of government officials is that:

government ministers and officials may not play any part in the 2012 Olympics, as opinion polls suggest Labour will have been voted out of office by then.

Giving campaigning journalism a bad name

Today's Telegraph shows the perils of campaigning journalism. It claims that the government's policy on changes to road tax are in "disarray" following a report by the Commons Environmental Audit Committee. According to the BBC, which does its best to made it a negative story, the committee says the plans are "step in the right direction" and should be bolder to increase the environmental impact.

But the Telegraph is not campaigning for a bolder policy and is determined to pull out the negatives.

The rise in road tax offered "little benefit" to the environment and gave green taxes "a bad name", the MPs said.

Having thrown objectivity out of the window, the Telegraph is also making the best of the committee's finding that the application of the tax to existing cars is not a retrospective tax, pointing to a minority of the committee who think it is.