Further to Eric’s observations, I bring you the main frontpage banners from England’s Sunday papers.
The Independent on Sunday:
“Inside School Number One: the full horror of Russia’s 9/11”
The Sunday Times:
“Terrorists hid bombs weeks ago”
The Observer:
“The Last Goodbye”
The News Of The World:
“322 DEAD”
The Sunday Telegraph:
“Russian school death toll rises over 350 as families curse Putin”
The Sunday Express:
“CHECHEN BUTCHER TARGETS BRITAIN”
The Mail On Sunday:
“LABOUR TO BAN HUNTING WITHIN WEEKS”
I don’t need a manifesto or a bible when the Mail will always be there to remind me of whatever I should be against at any given time. It collects the truisms of the polo-shirted golf club bore, the complacency of the not-as-pretty-as-she-used to be but still well kept trophy wife, the certainty of the line-toe-ing “executive” and edits them into a handy tabloid package of pure wrongheadedness.
The Book tells us that the accursed ones must cast aside their earthly robes at the gates of Hell and don papier-mâché nethergarments fashioned by the slaves of the Evil One from the pages of the works of The Associated. Though they are bound by the saliva of demons, their fibres offer no respite from the heat, nor shall they be kindled by the flames of the fiery pit; they serve only to deny the damned the pleasures of the flesh. Verily, I say unto thee, the Mail is the stuff of Satan’s underpants.
Still, you have to remind yourself of the levels to which the Mail have to reach to surpass their all-time low.
“The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage.”
August 1938 Daily Mail.
What’s wrong with hunting?
And the prize for missing the point goes to…
Oh I got the point just fine.
I know all about the Beslan tragedy, I DON’T know why Labour feels the need to ban something as inoculous as hunting. Is there a point to that? What’s the purpose? Honestly, what’s the benefit? “Because I said so”?
A better question would be “Who cares?”
Labour has been threatening to ban hunting for the best part of a decade, but the same (tiny numbers of) people are still galloping around our countryside bothering foxes and falling off their horses, unhindered by the law.
There are slightly more important things going on in the World right now, as just about every other newspaper on the planet seems to be realising. If the Mail spent as much time covering real news as it did pointlessly raving about even the most trivial Labour Party pronouncement I might be slightly more likely to read it, that is, not very likely at all.
I don’t know the Mail’s history or agenda, and there is always going to be something “more important going on”. The Beslan incident is terrible, but not entirely unexpected. There’s an extensive history after all. I suppose I don’t find Labour’s apparent desire to suppress personal liberty to be something so “trivial”. Ban on guns, ban on hunting, ban on spanking, ban this, ban that, it hurts someone’s feelings or gives them the heebiegeebies so we can’t have it at all. Sounds like Tyrrany of the Ninny to me. I want a ban on boiled cabbage, it makes sick to even smell it.
Well, here‘s Samizdata on an example from the Mail‘s recent history to give you an idea of their agenda when it comes to personal liberty. [Free and worthwhile registration with the Spectator site needed to read the linked-to article.]
My word, you are a Mr. Sneery today: “It [The Daily Mail]collects the truisms of the polo-shirted golf club bore, the complacency of the not-as-pretty-as-she-used to be but still well kept trophy wife, the certainty of the line-toe-ing “executive” and edits them into a handy tabloid package of pure wrongheadedness.”
And that post collected together the “truisms” and the knee-jerk-off re-action of the arrogant, smart Alec, we-know-better-than-you-what-you-should-read-about (and we know where you live if you give us an argument) of your typical Uni-educated(?) (paid for by the “golf club bore”, “the not-as-pretty-as-she-used to be… trophy wife” and “the line toe-ing executive”), New Labour, know-nothing suck-ups who are determined to crush anyone their pygmy brains think of as a class enemy.
David: That did not make any sense. You can do better than that.
Hilarious, in as much as it highlights a greater problem in a very round about way. The Mail may be running headlines of importance to a minority of people (eg. Some members of the public vs some members of the house of commons) but it is this Labour government that has continually placed this issue on its political agenda (an issue too relatively unimportant to headline at such a time, and the mail should know better).
You damn the Mail for the use of its ink and paper, lets see you do the same to this government for its use of parliamentary time and, probably, the parliament act when there are more important things to be getting on with.
David Duff wrote:
your typical Uni-educated(?) (paid for by the “golf club bore”, “the not-as-pretty-as-she-used to be? trophy wife” and “the line toe-ing executive”) New Labour, know-nothing suck-ups
Are you reading this ‘Blog at all, David? Because, in your now familiar style, this squeal of yours buts right up against a post where I enthuse about a university drop-out and follows God-knows how many posts from me and even an interview where I complain about the state having to pay for “Uni” educations. Much as I enjoy citing my own opinions I’m bored with linking to myself because you can’t be bothered read what I write.
In aggregate, it’s the golf club bore’s offspring who are being helped through university by ordinary working men and women. That’s why the Mail is so staunchly against “top-up” fees. Free higher education is a state subsidy to the rich at the expense of those who can’t afford a good secondary school. The rich should be free, if they so choose, to spend fifteen grand a year trying to get their kids into Oxbridge; I don’t want stop them—they make me look cleverer than I am. I don’t want to tell rich people what to do with their money. I do want some say in what they do with mine. Much as I like most Eton graduates I meet, I don’t see why should I subsidise their alma mater‘s swimming pool or pay for its graduates’ Cambridge college supervisions. The Mail can’t stand scroungers, but, unlike me, it keeps very quiet about the middle-class and upper-class ones.
If you think I’m a “New Labour suck-up”, then you really haven’t been paying attention. So far this year I’ve mocked my party practically every time I’ve mentioned it and I’ll probably carry on that way. Even you, David, recently accused me of being hypocritical in standing as their candidate when I disagreed so strongly with them. Only you could respond to an invitation to come up with Tory policies to attract Labour voters by throwing a tantrum about how awful this administration is. If you need to vent your anger over the perceived harm done to you by the government at some clueless apparatchik, please take it somewhere else, because, as everyone else but you is aware, you’ve got the wrong man; and as everyone else but you is aware, it’s getting repetitive.
I’m guilty as charged on the “know-nothing” front, though. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from studying science it’s the vastness of my ignorance. You should try it.
arrogant, smart Alec, we-know-better-than-you-what-you-should-read-about
Sure, I’m a “smart-alec”. What do you come to PooterGeek for? Considered, measured arguments like your own?
I wish I could work out what the trigger for your “dervish”-like reaction was. Are you a keen hunter? Because I’ve already made clear I’m not bothered about that. The Mail‘s support for hunting does, however, give me pause. Perhaps I should change my outlook from one of indifference to violent opposition. Are you a regular Mail reader? Just as I don’t care what rich people do with their money, I don’t care what they or you read. You’re free to buy whatever publication you want to. And (whatever you might believe) no one in Labour—“New” or otherwise—is going to stop you. The Mail, in contrast, is very enthusiastic about stopping the publication of all sorts of things. (It’s also worth noting that one of the most linked-to and commented-on posts on this site was my “Dear Jane” confession about dropping the Guardian—me being an arrogant smart-alec again, I know.)
Aside from sneering, my original post made one real point: that the Mail was—unlike almost every other newspaper in this country yesterday—more interested in class war than the real war. Perhaps that’s the best evidence that you’re a subscriber: you seem to be obsessed with class war too. Now, if you are a hunter as well as a subscriber, you could go out for a gallop in the countryside and take it out on a fox. They’re red as well, but if you went after one of those instead you’d be much more likely to draw some blood.
Eric, I see your anti-Semitism and I raise you—my favourite Mail headline: “Hurrah for the Blackshirts!” (1934). There’s nothing like “sound, commonsense, Conservative doctrine”, what?
JohnJo wrote:
You damn the Mail for the use of its ink and paper, lets see you do the same to this government for its use of parliamentary time and, probably, the parliament act when there are more important things to be getting on with.
Tbere are two sides to the time-wasting over this piffling issue, and I’ll be happy to put the boot into both of them with my usual enthusiasm if it comes to them wrangling over that particular piece of constitutional arcana at the taxpayer’s expense.
Will is quite right, my confused and confusing final sentence was not up to my usual standard of crystal clarity. (Is a crystal ever clear?) It was meant to be a pastiche of PG’s original post, in which he made the usual mistake of class warriors, and, er, hacks on papers like the Mail, of lumping individuals together as types. The “golf club bore”, the “trophy wife”, the “line toe-ing executive”; they’re the equivalent of ‘the cloth cap miner and his whippet’, ‘the horny-handed son of the soil’ and all those other lazy clichés we throw around—me included, I regret to say.
I have mentioned before that PG likes to dish it out, and he does so with great style and relish which is why I read him so often, but he has difficulty in keeping his cool under return fire. It was he who boasted that ‘New’ Labour had twice invited him to stand as a candidate, so he can hardly blame me if, Duncan-like, I suspect “Thou wouldst be great/ Art not without ambition.” I do indeed buy The Mail every day, and it takes me approximately 3.25 minutes to read (one has to be scientific on this site, you know!). My particular ‘trophy wife’ then spends the rest of the day on it! What she finds in it beats me!
I am not a member of any Hunt but I will share an experience with you all. Last December we moved to Dorset, a beautiful county made more so by the fact that visitors all rush through it without stopping on their way to Devon and Cornwell! On Boxing Day morning I went to Castle Cary to see the gathering of a Hunt for the first time in my life. Castle Cary is a lovely Georgian village, and with the Huntsmen and women in their traditional dress, the superb horses standing patiently and the dogs milling, it was like turning the clock back a hundred years. It was a wonderful and evocative experience. It would be wrong to say that this was the real England, but it would be absolutely correct to say that it was one of the ancient, cultural strands that make up the warp and woof of this country. (I kept thinking of that civil war battle where both sides were lined up ready to go at it, when a fox shot down between them followed by the local squire and his hunt!)
I should add, I suppose, that personally, I am such a wimp, I actually open windows to let flies escape rather than swat them. Perhaps I can ingratiate myself back into PG’s good books by telling him that part of my squeamishness stems from my knowledge of the incredible chemical wonder of what goes into the creation of even the humble fly. If that makes me a hypocrite over my support for fox hunting, so be it, guilty as charged.
“I do indeed buy The Mail every day, and it takes me approximately 3.25 minutes to read (one has to be scientific on this site, you know!). My particular ‘trophy wife’ then spends the rest of the day on it! What she finds in it beats me!”
“…with the Huntsmen and women in their traditional dress, the superb horses standing patiently and the dogs milling, it was like turning the clock back a hundred years…”
I go to great lengths to win an argument sometimes, but I swear this comment by someone claiming to be David Duff is not one of my parodies.
Hmmm! I get the distinct impression that you’re thrashing around, PG. The first of my paragraphs that you quote was an ironical indication that I, too, don’t think that much of The Mail, but my wife evidently does. The difference is that I don’t sneer at those who do enjoy it. ‘ Each to his own goat’, as they say in France!
If you, and others, found my description of a Hunt meeting amusing, then I’m happy for you. It was meant as a simple and sincere description of a small part of English life that I found endearing and, in its way, moving. On the other hand, the sight and sound of your leader throwing his pack of brain-dead cretins a bone in the form of an anti-hunting bill after, how many years?, just to keep what passes for their minds off other things, well, that too produces a movement in me, but of a totally different kind. Pass the sick bag someone!
David Duff – for it is he! Do not accept any imitations
I got an email yesterday from somewhere in Africa offering me an imitation David Duff for $30,000,000. I didn’t accept it.
My Shocking Return
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