Journalist gone mad

The Times has an interesting take on a piece by one of its own journalists, Satham Sanghera, about Breakfast at Tiffany's.

On the front page of the website is a link Breakfast at Tiffany's is 'racist', with inverted commas that seem to hint that some mad lefty politically correct academic has come up with some crackpot criticism of one of our favourite films. But when you follow the link to the piece itself, it is clear from the headline, "Sorry, but Breakfast at Tiffany's is simply racist", that the racism accusation comes from the journalist.

So why has the front page disowned, or diluted, the suggestion?

It's always families

The Times is leading on a claim that Gordon Brown "plans to take cash from the poorest families." It's an interesting story but quite complicated and significantly over-hyped.

The gist of the story is that the government, in fact the Department for Work and Pensions rather than the PM, is planning to make changes to local housing allowance (LHA). The Times claims that LHA "replaced the old housing benefit in 2007" but the truth is that it is replacing housing benefit, which is the benefit paid to the majority of people who need help with their rent. The Times says that 600,000 people get LHA, of whom 300,000 get paid, intentionally, more than they actually pay in rent. The government plans to remove that surplus income.

So undoubtedly a small minority of people will lose out and if you are on a low income, every bit of money counts. But the Times is saying that people will lose "up to £15 per week". This is the maximum surplus. How many of the £300,000 actually get this? It also reports claims from Crisis the housing charity, that "this could mean that people on £65-a-week jobseeker’s allowance losing 20 per cent of their income". Hang on a second. Crisis is a charity for single people. Who gets £65 per week? Single people over 25 - and that is their living costs, not their housing costs. What Crisis is saying is that the people worst hit by this will lose the amount by which their income after housing costs is increased by a surplus on their housing allowance. Somehow they have worked out that £15 is 20% of £80 (i.e. 65 +15), which it isn't. Undoubtedly some families will lose out but this will be a small minority even of those getting LHA and the money they lose will be a much smaller percentage of their income.

And what is the evidence to back up the article's claims of a revolt by Labour MPs? It quotes two Labour MPs who pay very close attention to this type of issue. One of them, Frank Field, plans to table an amendment opposing the change.

There is a good point in the article, made by Field, that removing the incentive for people to find a rent that is less than LHA destoys the whole purpose of the new benefit. But making it into a big political story comparable to the abolition of the 10p tax rate is way over the top.

Good news is no news

The Times says that the Treasury is looking at the options for selling - or privatising - Northern Rock. For the most part, its suggestion that a sale would be politically motivated looks fairly weak:

The Government is eager to sell Northern Rock to the private sector at a profit to prove to voters that Gordon Brown has overcome the financial crisis that brought the British banking system within hours of collapse.
However, Treasury insiders sought last night to dampen hopes that Northern Rock would be sold before the next general election. Ministers are understood to be cautious of selling the bank in the short term and want to ensure the best return
Treasury sources insisted last night that the Government was in no hurry to sell Northern Rock and was keen to leverage its control of the bank to extract substantial commitments to boost lending to the mortgage market.

Buried at the bottom of the story, we learn that:

The nationalised bank cut costs by reducing staff and has since been repaying the Government. By March this year Northern Rock was well ahead of target, owing a net balance of £8.9 billion on a loan that stood at £26.9 billion at the end of 2007.

Rather too much like good news to get widely reported, even if the scale of government exposure to the bank was once a very big issue.

Hidden Massacre

The Times reports that "more than 20,000 Tamils were killed in last throes of the Sri Lankan civil war". But it looks as if the Sri Lankan government will get away with it:

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka was cleared of any wrongdoing by the UN Human Rights Council after winning the backing of countries including China, Egypt, India and Cuba.

Here is its astonishing explanation:

A spokesman for the Sri Lankan High Commission in London said: “We reject all these allegations. Civilians have not been killed by government shelling at all. If civilians have been killed, then that is because of the actions of the LTTE [rebels] who were shooting and killing people when they tried to escape.”

The claim that the Tamil Tigers were shooting their own people looks pretty far-fetched, but to say that absolutely no civilians were killed by government shelling is entirely unbelievable.

No we don't... yes we did

Well done again the Times for keeping on about Israel's use of white phosphorus. Today the paper reports what seems to be an admission from the Israel Defence Forces that media coverage of the issue led them to stop using the very dangerous chemical.

The Times says that the IDF provided "its first explicit admission" on this issue although it does not make this entirely clear. It appears that the IDF is for the first time admitting that it used two different type of phosphorus shell, having previously denied using it at all.

Misleading

Meanwhile, the Times has a piece on the troops coming home six years on. It makes some good points but also engages in a shockingly cavalier rewriting of history.

British politics has been transformed by the Iraq war. The so-called dodgy dossier, the death of David Kelly, the debate over Guantánamo Bay and the allegations of torture have changed the political landscape. The perception, whether justified or not, that the British Government went to war under false pretences has seeped into public consciousness, and poisoned politics. Tony Blair's reputation will be judged on the Iraq war. The next election will be fought, in large part, on the issue of political trust, with the war as a backdrop.

More than half of British voters supported the war in 2003, earnestly believing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. When that turned out to be untrue, the nature of British politics was changed for ever, increasing political mistrust in Britain to a level that may be higher than it has ever been. It is hard to imagine what level of justification will be necessary, in the future, to persuade the British people to back a “just war”.

The lies told about the war did indeed cause a significant further erosion of trust in the government and government in general. But more than half of British voters did not support the war believing that Saddam had wmd. Before the war, there was overwhelming opposition, as this BBC report shows and Blair's evidence convinced very few people. There is a well-known effect that once British troops are involved in a war, many people support them even though they did not support the war itself. That is what happened in 2003. So while it is tempting to argue that people were misled, the majority of people were only misled in that they were lied to, not that they believed it.

And now the bad news

The mainstream press don't seem to want to report the aid convoy that George Galloway and others are taking to Gaza - unless it's bad news.

Today the Times reports that the convoy was stoned in Egypt as it waits to get into Gaza. The story refers back to an earlier one from 15 February which claim that the three members of a northern contingent of the convoy were terror suspects, seeking to leave the country "under the cover" of the convoy.

As far as I can see, that was the last time the convoy made the paper. And what a load of bollocks it was:

The men had been under surveillance for some time as part of what police described as “an ongoing intelligence-led operation”. Although details of the surveillance remain unclear, one source said the men were believed to be planning a terrorist operation abroad.

For a start, how does a convoy provide "cover" to leave the country? You either have the right travel documents or you don't. And why to the police, who have had the men under surveillance, decide to reveal this to a national newspaper? Were the men arrested just in case they might be up to no good abroad? Has it stopped them going abroad in future?

Lies, damned lies and Israel

The Times continues to follow up evidence that Israel used white phosphorous in areas where civilians would inevitably be injured by it, finding a blinded 14 year-old in a Cairo hospital.

With others such as Channel 4 News' Jonathan Miller actually finding the stuff - in a UN school of all places - there is little point in the Israelis denying it any longer. The Times notes:

Israel, which originally denied the use of white phosphorus in Gaza when questioned by The Times two weeks ago, has since said that all weapons used in Gaza were “within the scope of international law”.

The usual tactic when accused of a war crime is to deny it. If you are proved wrong later, what have you lost?

Your credibility next time? We shall see...

Don't mention Israel's nukes

The Times seems to want it both ways with a story claiming that Hamas rockets could threaten Israel's "top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona". It's hardly a secret that Israel has a nuclear facility at Dimona, or that it has nuclear weapons. But that last fact is buried deep in a very coy piece as a mere suspicion.

Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights.Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.

This is the best the paper can do to stand up the claim that Dimona is threatened, which seems to be more about justifying Israel's killing of hundreds of people.

Oh no he didn't

According to yesterday's Sunday Times,

In a speech tomorrow the government’s own green watchdog will increase pressure on ministers not to approve the expansion [of Heathrow].

[Chris] Smith will tell his agency’s annual conference: “The government has committed itself to rigorous targets to emissions 80% by 2050, which now include reduce CO2 aviation and shipping. It is impossible to see how they would be achieved if the current plans for a third runway go ahead.

I'm at the conference today and Smith said no such thing. He didn't mention Heathrow. Maybe he'll say it tomorrow...

Great prediction

Looking further into Labour's position on the third runway, I read this in last Tuesday's Times:

The Times understands that Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, strongly supports the proposal and is likely to make the announcement in its favour as early as November.

From Wednesday's Times:

Ruth Kelly has confirmed she will step down as Transport Secretary to spend more time with her family.

Try and keep up

Obviously, the way to get a bit of publicity for your website is to do a sensational poll and give the story to a national paper. The Observer says:

Gordon Brown is set to lead Labour into an election bloodbath so crushing it could take his party a decade to recover, according to the largest ever poll of marginal seats which predicts a landslide victory for David Cameron.

Unfortunately, a p0ll on this scale (35,000 people) can be out of date before it's published. The Independent on Sunday as a poll suggesting that Labour has halved the Tory lead. This may itself not be entirely accurate but it shows how pointless it is to read detailed outcomes into a poll, however large, a year and a half before an election.

Meanwhile, some of the papers are desperate to keep the anti-Brown rebellion story going. The Times says that the rebellion has spread to, er, Charles Clarke. Also:

Tom Harris, the transport minister, risked censure by expressing sympathy with rebel MPs who called for a ballot. He wrote on his internet blog that the resignation of the Labour rebel David Cairns, the Scotland minister, was “based on honesty and principle” and that he “deserves respect for what he has done”.

Is that the best you can do?

Same old Times

No-one should ever be surprised by the extent to which the Times is prepared to parrot Rupert Murdoch's anti-union agenda. The only surprising thing is that Murdoch is prepared to pay journalists so much to preach to the (mainly) converted. Today Rachel Sylvester has a rant:

After a long period of irrelevance, the trade unions are back - and that could mean trouble for the centre Left

By "centre Left" Sylvester means Blair, Milliband, Parnell or any other stooge Murdoch can engineer into the leadership of the Labour party.

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.

Hard Times

The Times has a typically biased non-story on Labour and the unions:

Gordon Brown has caved in to unions, allowing a series of concessions - including an extension of the minimum wage - in a move that sent shudders through the business community.

Changes to the minimum wage in particular could cost businesses an extra £88 million a year.

Quite a pathetic scare story, from a business community that said the minimum wage would cost jobs. Here's what the bolshevism amounts to:

Under pressure from the unions Labour has agreed to extend the adult minimum wage to 21-year-olds. At the moment the full minimum wage of £5.52 applies only to workers aged 22 and over. Those aged between 18 and 21 get £4.60 and 16 to 18-year-olds get £3.40.

Paying 21 year olds £5.52 instead of £4.60 an hour is hardly going to bring the economy to its knees. Some people might think paying 21 year olds £4.60 an hour is outrageous. But then some people think children should still be sent up chimneys.

Scraping the bottom

Meanwhile, David Aaronovitch shows what a grumpy old reactionary he has become, claiming that Ray Lewis has been a victim of a witch hunt:

But what had Mr Lewis done? It doesn't seem to have been anything illegal, for he wasn't prosecuted.

It must be for such stunning logic and incisive investigative journalism that Aaronovitch is payed whatever huge sum of money Rupert Murdoch is paying him.

Bottoming out?

Once again the Times spins a poll showing a seven point drop in the Tory lead as bad news for Gordon Brown. Instead of reporting that the cut in the Tory lead has been cut by a third, it says that voters think Brown isn't up to the job.

Peter Riddell describes this as a bottoming out:

This was bound to happen at some stage as Labour support could not go on falling.

It isn't clear that he understands what "bottoming out" is. It or be not be true that Labour support could not go on falling but both would imply that Labour stayed as far behind as it was. Instead it has bounced off the bottom. It may only be three or four per cent of voters who have switched back to Labour but if this happens again the Tory lead will be down to seven points and people will start to doubt whether David Cameron will have any kind of lead by the time of the next election.

Serious airheadism

In the Independent, an interview with Andrew Marr plugs the Bevins prize. Marr says: "it's time to save serious journalism." He laments

a discernible shift from policy stories towards reports focused on personalities.

In the Times, Camilla Long shows what he's talking about with another bitchy - and probably racist - attack piece on Michelle Obama, whose problem seems to be that she's not an airhead like Cindy McCain and Long herself. It's hard to believe that such a small-minded piece can appear in a national broadsheet - but then it is a Murdoch paper...

Times up?

The Times has a speculative piece asking whether wealthy donors who have previously given or lent money to Labour might be the people to pull the plug on Gordon Brown. Newspapers, especially those in the hands of the powerful, always to suggest that there are powerful people who can make things happen. It suits their worldview, but also provides good stories when they can get "inside information" from those people.

In this case the journalist, Rachel Sylvester is aware of the paradox in her own piece:

It is hard to imagine Labour taking orders from its super-rich paymasters - in fact, if the donors did go public with their concerns, their intervention could strengthen Mr Brown's position with MPs and activists who were always suspicious of Mr Blair's alliance with wealth. However, if the party suspects that the donors are reflecting wider public opinion, they could just tip the balance against the Prime Minister.

Of course, the super-rich-paymasters don't need to go public - their "friends" can talk to the Times.

A minor splash

On Comment is Free, John Gittings asks:

Are we so used to dodgy dossiers that the new evidence about the Iranian capture last year of British sailors and marines doesn't really matter?

He's referring to yesterday's Times story, that the captured sailors were not in Iraqi waters, as the government swore at the time, but disputed international waters.

I couldn't have put it better myself.