'Overly optimistic'

The front page of Wednesday's Daily Express saw the paper proclaim another 'miracle cure':

A 'pill to beat alzheimers'. The paper's health correspondent Jo Willey explained:

A daily 10p vitamin pill could prevent millions of people being struck down by Alzheimer’s disease.

Research has found that vitamin B can help protect the brain from dementia.

A large daily dose of a combination of three types of vitamin B has been shown to slow mental decline in the elderly who suffer from mild memory problems.

Only a few months ago, Willey and the Express were claiming 'cake' was a 'cure' for dementia. That article claimed:

cinnamon, used in everything from cakes to curries, could be the “holy grail” in slowing or even eradicating dementia in patients.

Now it's Vitamin B:

The breakthrough could lead to a simple new treatment for people at risk of dementia which would be the “holy grail” of research into Alzheimer’s.

Skip to the end of the article and there's the inevitable clarification:

Professor Robin Jacoby, research author and Alzheimer’s Society trustee, said: “These studies add weight to the argument that vitamin B is good for our brains.

“However, people shouldn’t rush out and empty the shelves of vitamin B tablets. More research is needed to establish if it could prevent dementia.”

And the NHS Behind the Headlines team express further doubts:

While its results look promising, this small, well-conducted study does not show that vitamin B can help prevent dementia. However, it suggests that high doses of the vitamin may help some people with MCI, which sometimes develops into dementia. A larger trial is required to explore the possible role of the vitamin in slowing progression to dementia.

They add:

Newspaper coverage of this research has tended to be overly optimistic about the study’s findings. For example, the Daily Express described vitamin B supplements as a “Pill to beat Alzheimer’s”.

The Express also listed some “natural ways to beat dementia”, which include eating meat, fish and vegetables.

This information is misleading, as none of these foods has been found to prevent dementia. While the foods listed in the Express can be dietary sources of vitamin B, the amount of vitamin B in the pills used in this study was extremely high, and the study’s authors have been quoted as saying that they should be considered to be medicines rather than regular vitamin supplements.

The Mail, Mirror, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent also covered this research.

'Left struggling for words'

Yesterday, freelance journalist Rob Hastings tweeted:


The newsroom in question was the Independent's and his article appeared in that paper today:

There's a stink in the cheese world, and it smells unedifyingly of chicken tikka masala.

The Blur bassist Alex James, formerly a darling of the dairy community as a past winner at the British Cheese Awards, has astonished food critics by launching a supermarket range aimed at the family market, with flavours including curry, tomato ketchup and sweet chilli.

It's a far cry from Little Wallop, his goat's cheese wrapped in vine leaf and washed in Somerset cider brandy, which was a winner with judges in 2008. Even the cheesemaker who created it with him has been left struggling for words.

The article obviously went down well with the people at MailOnline, as Daily Mail Reporter soon produced an article on the same subject:

There's a stink in the cheese world, and it smells of chicken tikka masala.

Blur bassist Alex James, a past winner at the British Cheese Awards, has come up with the unusual creations including curry, tomato ketchup and sweet chilli.

It's a far cry from Little Wallop, his goat's cheese wrapped in vine leaf and washed in Somerset cider brandy, which was a winner with judges in 2008.

Even the cheesemaker who created it with him has been left struggling for words.

Indeed, Daily Mail Reporter 'produced' almost exactly the same article on the same subject.

Hastings continued with some quotes from:

Juliet Harbutt, an expert in the field and the founder of the British Cheese Awards, did her diplomatic best to contain her distaste at the prospect.

And:

Jeremy Bowen of the high-end artisan cheese sellers Paxton and Whitfield was supportive of the Alex James Presents line, which will be available solely at Asda from Monday.

Daily Mail Reporter also 'got' some quotes:

Juliet Harbutt, an expert in the field and the founder of the British Cheese Awards, did her diplomatic best to contain her distaste at the prospect.

And:

Jeremy Bowen of the high-end artisan cheese sellers Paxton and Whitfield was supportive of the Alex James Presents line, set to hit Asda shelves from Monday.

When Helen Lewis-Hasteley pointed out the 'similarities', Hastings tweeted:

(Hat-tip to Helen Lewis-Hasteley)

UPDATE: The MailOnline article was re-written and updated at 1.20pm. It now acknowledges the Independent as the source of the quotes.

Old stories become front page news

The lead story on the front page of Sunday's People is about Shem Davies, who has become a grandad at the age of 29. It is, they say, an 'exclusive':

But can they really claim it is an 'exclusive' when the Sun reported on Shem's family two weeks ago, on 15 July?


It's not the only example of a tabloid splashing an old story on its front page in the past week.

On Thursday, MailOnline published an article about Naomi Jacobs, a woman in her thirties who woke up one day thinking she was 15:

Naomi's story of suffering with transient global amnesia was picked up by the Sun for Friday's front page:
It's an interesting story.

Indeed, the Independent newspaper thought it so interesting they published an article about it back on 14 June.

Sorry we said you lazy and uncaring in the Baby P case

On 10 June, the Sun published the following apology to Sylvia Henry - a social worker in the Baby P case:

In our campaign to highlight the failings of the authorities to protect Baby P from his killers, we identified staff at Haringey Social Services including one of the social workers Sylvia Henry. It is now clear that Ms Henry was not at fault or to blame in any way for decisions contributing to Baby P's tragic death and should not have been a target of our campaign. She did her best for Baby P. It was also untrue to suggest that she was lazy and uncaring in her work and deserved to be sacked.

Our articles referred to Ms Henry's involvement in the tragic case of Victoria Climbie, a young girl who had been abused and killed by her carers in Haringey some 8 years previously. We accept that Ms Henry's evidence to the Laming inquiry was truthful, and withdraw any suggestion that she lied to avoid criticism. We sincerely apologise to Ms Henry for these untrue allegations and we have agreed to pay her compensation.

The Sun wasn't alone in making these false claims. The BBC explains:

Last year, Ms Henry accepted compensation from Haringey Council after the authority made false claims about her and the Baby Peter case on its website.

And the Guardian points out:

Henry accepted compensation and apologies in 2010 from the London Evening Standard, Daily Mirror and Independent

The Independent's apology referred to one article:

On 12 November 2008 we published an article about the death of Peter Connolly, who was also known as Baby P.

It wrongly alleged that Sylvia Henry, who is a social work Team Manager employed by Haringey Council, had been one of the social workers who had culpably failed to protect Baby P from his guardians and thereby bore a share of responsibility for his suffering and death.

We acknowledge that this was not the case and we apologise to Sylvia Henry.

As did the Mirror's:

On December 2, 2008 we published an article headed "Baby P social workers are still drawing full pay while on suspension" concerning the events which led to the death of Peter Connolly, who was also known as Baby P.

The article alleged that Sylvia Henry, who is a social worker Team Manager employed by Haringey Council, had behaved negligently in her dealings with Peter and had thereby contributed to his suffering and to his death.

These allegations were untrue. We acknowledge that Sylvia Henry was not to blame for the mistakes which contributed to Peter's death and we apologise to her.

We have agreed to compensate Ms Henry for the hurt and upset caused by our article.

According to the Guardian, however, the Sun's claims:

are understood to have been published in about 80 articles and Henry was also named in the Sun's Justice for Baby P campaign, which called for Haringey social services staff it alleged were responsible for Connelly's death to be sacked and barred from any future work with children.

Henry:

...was accused in articles published in the Sun of being "grossly negligent" in her handling of Peter Connelly's case and that she was "thereby to blame for his appalling abuse and death", the high court heard.

Henry's solicitor, Daniel Taylor, told Mr Justice Eady the newspaper also said she had shown no remorse for these failings and was "shameless and had ducked responsibility for Peter's death".

In a series of articles published over four months from November 2008, the Sun also alleged that Henry was lazy and "had generally shown an uncaring disregard for the safety of children, even in cases where they obviously required urgent protection".

Taylor added:

"The Sun accepts that Ms Henry was not at fault or to blame in any way for anything done by Haringey social services that may have contributed to Peter's terrible abuse and death...

"They accept that she did her very best for Peter and particularly that she made repeated efforts to have him kept safe by being placed in foster care rather than being returned to the care of his mother."

The solicitor for News Group Newspapers, Ben Beabey, said:

"The Sun fully accepts that the claimant played no part and bears no responsibility for the circumstances surrounding the death of Peter Connelly and that she did her best for him. The Sun apologises to Ms Henry."

Septicisle has more on the background to this case, noting:

Henry was one of the five individuals the paper demanded be immediately sacked for having failed to prevent Connelly's death. The paper's campaign continued even after the BBC's Panorama had disclosed that Henry had wanted Connelly taken into care in 2006...

She should never have had to pursue such a lengthy libel action though: if the Sun had bothered to investigate the case anything approaching properly in the first place they would have found, like Panorama, that she had worked conscientiously and with Connelly's best interests at heart throughout.

Another newspaper falls for spoof Twitter account

The Mail and the Express were both caught out last year, and now it's the Independent that has been forced to apologise for being fooled by a fake Twitter account:

In yesterday’s Independent, Ian Herbert attributed quotes to the ITV football analyst Andy Townsend which suggested that he had made sexist comments on Twitter as part of the Andy Gray/Richard Keys story.

Those quotes originated from a spoof Twitter account. We apologise for any embarrassment caused to Mr Townsend, who has no connection to the @AndyDTownsend account.

Has the Independent not learnt the lesson of 'Wanky Balls' yet?

Sorry we said you were a Nazi war criminal

The Independent has had to publish this apology after making an unbelievable cock-up on its front page three weeks ago:

As MediaGuardian reported at the time:

The large front-page picture purporting to be Kunz showed a sinister portrait of a man in the uniform not of the German Wehrmacht or SS, but of Croatian wartime fascist movement the Ustasha. The Ustasha "U" was clearly visible on the front of the man's cap.

It appeared that the picture was a doctored still from The Living and the Dead, a 2007 Croatian film about the 1990s Bosnia war which also features flashbacks to the war in the Balkans in 1943.

Sorry we said you 'stormed out'

Minority Thought reports on a curious apology from the Daily Express:

In our article “And here’s the latest...it’s all over for Wright” on 13 August 2010, inaccurate information was published about Ian Wright.

We accept that Mr Wright did not “storm out” of 'Live from Studio 5' and that he was asked not to attend the television studio after it was decided that his contract would not be renewed.

We apologise to Mr Wright for any distress or inconvenience which may have been caused by this article.

The Daily Star has also published the same apology today, although their original headline was 'TV host out after off-screen bust-up.'

Minority Thought wonders:

Given that the Express' [and Star's] owner, Richard Desmond, recently also became the owner of Channel 5, would I be the only one in thinking that this "error" might not have been an accident?

No.

Meanwhile, the Independent has also had to apologise today:

On 21 July 2010 we published an article about terrorism in the UK which included photographs of eight men with the caption: "Liquid bomb plot – 2006". We wish to make it clear that one of those pictured, Donald Stewart-Whyte, right, was acquitted of all terrorism-related charges. We apologise for any distress caused by the inclusion of his photograph in this context.

Poppycock

The Mail's latest attack on the BBC is:


If BBC presenters were not wearing poppies, that would be wrong. Now they're being criticised for wearing them too early.

Primly Stable has already blogged on the Mail's article. She points out that their original headline was 'BBC presenters criticised by charities for wearing poppies too early' eventhough there are no 'charities' being critical, just a few individuals (including the usual BBC messageboard people).

Indeed, the Royal British Legion were quoted as saying:

'What we do say to people is that when you receive your poppies – organisations, retailers, whoever – we set guidelines and say the national launch will be from 28 October,' said a spokesman.

'But 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.'

So no real problem then.

However, a second version of the article has severely reduced this quote.

The Telegraph, jumping on the BBC-slating bandwagon, have churned out their own version of the same story, but at least they point out that BBC presenters starting wearing poppies on 23 October this year - exactly the same date as they did last year. The Independent was also concerned, explaining in an editorial:

The wearing of poppies, like the preparations for Christmas, seems to start a few days earlier every year. The artificial red flower was already adorning many a BBC presenter's lapel on Saturday, more than three weeks before Remembrance Sunday on 14 November... By stretching out the time in which the poppy is worn, we devalue its significance.

And yet, this year, the Yeovil branch of the British Legion launched its poppy appeal on 23 October. Will these papers criticise them too?

Or will they criticise the Sun and Express for flaunting their poppies before the official appeal launch date on 28 October?



And what about the Daily Star? They were equally happy to report on the criticism of the BBC, but there was just something about their article which made it feel a little hypocritical:


Yes - their own banner poppy rather undercuts the message 'don't put on poppy too early'.

Sorry we said you were dead

On 10 September, the Independent published this embarrassing apology:

In the graphic accompanying today's article, 'Police to reopen phone hacking investigation as more witnesses emerge' (9 September 2010), we wrongly stated that Les Hinton had died in 2009. We are aware that he is very much alive and is the CEO of Dow Jones Company Inc. We regret our error and apologise to him.

Let's hope no-one at the Daily Mail gloated too much about that because today, they've prematurely killed off the very-much-alive Tony Britton:


(Hat-tip Jeff Pickthall)

'Wanky Balls'

Last Saturday's Independent included a report on the Big Chill festival which, it claimed with a straight face:

was founded in 1994 as the Wanky Balls festival in north London.

And where did the paper get that startling bit of knowledge from?

The Big Chill's page on Wikipedia. Oh dear.

As Kat Arney - who spotted the error - said in her blogpost yesterday:

Looks like someone’s been having a bit of childish fun editing the page – and also that someone at the Independent should check their facts a bit better.

Independent apologises for 'hooker' headline

The Independent has finally apologised for a disgraceful slur against writer Zoe Margolis:

On 7 March 2010, we published an article by Zoe Margolis. In part of the first edition of the newspaper and online, this article carried the headline, “I was a hooker who became an agony aunt”.

This was written by the newspaper not Ms Margolis. We accept that Ms Margolis is not and never has been “a hooker” or otherwise involved in the sex industry.

The wording of the headline was a mistake and seriously defamatory of Ms Margolis. We offer our sincere apologies to Ms Margolis for the damage to her reputation and the distress and embarrassment which she has suffered.

Given that they hurriedly changed the headline online and in later editions of the print edition, it seems odd that they've waited five days to publish the above.

Moreover, have they released it on a Friday afternoon because that's a good time to bury bad news?

This is the second clarification this week (see also Mail and Facebook) to appear quickly after the original article appeared. In both cases, the complainants went through lawyers, not the PCC.

That's not a coincidence.

The Independent: tabloid by size, tabloid by content

When the News of the World ran a front page story about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie 'splitting up' on 24 January, other media outlets fell over themselves to follow up.

There didn't seem to be much evidence of any of them stopping to ask whether it was true or not. They just wanted to get in on the story as quickly as possible.

Today, the couple's lawyer announced they were going to sue the News of the World over what he called 'false as well as intrusive' claims.

He said:

'The News of the World has failed to meet our clients' reasonable demands for a retraction of and apology for these false and intrusive allegations which have now been widely republished by mainstream news outlets. We have advised them to bring proceedings, which they have now done.'

Following the News of the World's splash, the Mail seemed to think 'everyone' was talking about the story. And a couple of days later, the Mail certainly was talking about it again, reporting the 'ridiculous split' rumours with the same gusto and straight face it reported the, ahem, split rumours ('Will he go back to his ex?') in the first place.

That's not that surprising from an organisation that has become obsessed with paper-thin sleb gossip and sleazy pap shots in a desperate attempt to boost its website visitor numbers.

More surprising was the way the Independent scraped the bottom of the barrel with a dreadful feature on the saga.

That the paper was bothering to dedicate the whole of page nine to something that might have happened, but which equally might not have happened, shows how far it has fallen since Roger Alton took over as Editor.

It's not just that this was purely speculation - and speculation about something so thoroughly unimportant - but the article itself was dreadful.

They had Amy Jenkins, writer of This Life, paying 'tribute' to the relationship which wasn't (and it appears, isn't) actually dead. She wrote:

They seemed to have it all, but, crucially, they got their comeuppance. Now that's entertainment.

It's not immediately obvious what is 'entertaining' about a couple with six kids ending their relationship. But you just get the impression Jenkins simply doesn't like Jolie.

She says:

Jolie, arguably, has never made a good film

Of course, any opinion is 'arguable', but is that really fair? Certainly in recent years she has made critically-acclaimed films such as A Mighty Heart and Changeling, and Kung Fu Panda, Beowulf, Wanted and Mr & Mrs Smith have their fans.

Yes, she's made a lot of dross, but then Jenkins was responsible for This Life +10 which The Times described as:

Terrible. Witless. Insubstantial. Saggy. Navel-gazing. Or, as Anna might have put it in better days, after taking a large gulp of red, “Total f****** b******s.”

Glass houses and all that. She goes on to say:

Neither Pitt nor Jolie has won an Oscar.

That's true in Pitt's case - although he has had two nominations. But what about the Best Supporting Actress statuette Jolie won for Girl, Interrupted? Conveniently (possibly idiotically), Jenkins has forgotten about that because that wouldn't fit her agenda - which appears to be to blame Jolie for everything. How very Daily Mail to blame the woman.

She blames Jolie for ruining Pitt's career saying it has:

been pretty much in the pits ever since.

See what she did there?

Yeh, she got it wrong again. In the past five years, Pitt produced the Oscar-winning The Departed, and A Mighty Heart, and starred in Burn After Reading, Babel, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Ocean's Thirteen and Inglourious Basterds, all of which score highly on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yes, they may not be to everyone's taste, but to say that is a career in the pits is clearly nonsense.

It's not just that it's all inaccurate, it's that a supposedly quality newspaper was filling pages with such drivel. A story on the Afghanistan parliamentary elections was given half the space, 16 pages further back. They found room for Jenkins on Monday, but not for an obituary of Jean Simmons, who had died on Saturday.

Now that really is the pits.

Mail doesn't put Haiti on front page, plugs free DVD instead

The horrendous events in Haiti dominate Thursday's newspaper front pages, with shocking images appearing alongside words such as 'devastation' and 'hell'.

Although leading with the McCann case, the Express is, unsurprisingly, the most sensationalist. It reports a death toll of 500,000 as a definite:

That figure came from Haitian senator Youri Latortue, although he 'conceded no one really knows.'

No matter that no one really knows, the Express decides to run it - as fact - on its front page anyway. As does sister paper the Daily Star ('500,000 are killed'), who manage to find a little corner for Haiti alongside a tedious lead about Celebrity Big Brother and Jordan.

The Metro, meanwhile, settles for 'up to 500,000' which is quite a margin of error.

Other headlines are more circumspect, and rightly so in such an uncertain situation. The Guardian says there are 'fears' the death toll could rise above 100,000. The Independent and the Times simply state 'thousands'. The Telegraph says 'at least 100,000'; the FT that it 'could be well over 100,000'. Even The Sun plays safe with its '100,000 quake toll fear' headline.

Curiously, the Mirror thinks it is appropriate to drag the title of a Nicolas Cage film into its coverage:


But at least the biggest news story of the day is there on the front.

Because one national daily newspaper (and only one) thinks Haiti isn't worth mentioning on its front page. Apparently, the Daily Mail and its Editor Paul Dacre, regard their Femail magazine and their free Poirot DVD as more important:

An immigration story you won't read in the tabloids

In today's Independent, a feature from Paul Vallely about children in immigration detention centres:

The thundering knock came early in the morning. It was 6.30am. Without waiting for an answer the security chain across the door was smashed from its fittings. Feet thundered up the staircase. The five children, all under the age of 10, were alarmed to be woken from their sleep by the dozen burly strangers who burst into their bedrooms, switched on the lights and shouted at them to get up.

This is not a police state. It is Manchester in supposedly civilised Britain in the 21st century. There is a clue to what this is about in the names of the children: Nardin, who is 10; Karin who is seven; the three-year-old twins Bishoy and Anastasia, and their one-year-old baby sister Angela.

Their parents, Hany and Samah Mansour, are Coptic Christians who fled to the UK after a campaign of persecution by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt whose friends in the secret police tortured Hany. But even though six Coptic Christians were shot dead by Muslim extremists only last week in a town not far from their home, the British Government has decided that it does not believe them. And so Britain's deportation police have launched another of their terrifying dawn raids on sleeping children.

Once again, positive immigration story totally ignored

In yesterday's Independent and Financial Times, there were a reports about Eastern European migrants taking jobs and benefits in Britain since EU expansion in 2004. The stories were based on some academic research from University College London, namely Professor Christian Dustmann.

And what did the research conclude?

Immigrants from the eight Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union in May 2004 are less likely to be claiming welfare benefits and less likely to be living in social housing than people born in the UK, according to a new paper from UCL. What is more, they have made a positive contribution to the UK fiscal system, paying more in taxes than they receive in direct and indirect public transfers (such as benefits, NHS healthcare and education).

Here are some of the key facts from their press release:

• A8 immigrants who arrived after EU enlargement in 2004, and who have at least one year of residence – and are therefore legally eligible to claim benefits – are about 60% less likely than natives to receive state benefits or tax credits, and to live in social housing.
  

• Comparing the net fiscal contribution of A8 immigrants with that of individuals born in the UK, in each fiscal year since enlargement in 2004, A8 immigrants made a positive contribution to public finance.

• In the latest fiscal year, 2008/09, A8 immigrants paid 37% more in direct or indirect taxes than was spent on public goods and services which they received. This is even more remarkablebecause the UK has been running a budget deficit over the last few years.

• In 2008/09, A8 immigrants represented 0.91% of the total UK population, but contributed 0.96% of total tax receipts and accounted for only 0.6% of total expenditures.

Prof. Dustmann is quoted saying:

“A8 immigrants are on average more educated than natives and figures show that they experience rapid wage growth during their stay in the UK. We should therefore expect their tax payments to increase considerably over the next few years.”

A quick search of each newspaper's website, and Google News, indicates that the Mail, Express, Sun, Star, Telegraph, Times and Guardian have all ignored these findings. You would think the usual suspects would like a bit of academic research on immigration, rather than relying on half-assed, biased Migrationwatch bullshit.

But when the answer doesn't suit their agenda, they clearly don't have any interest in reporting the facts.

In Janaury 2007, Express editor Peter Hill gave evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Amongst many extraordinary and unbelievable claims ('I constantly reinforce this message, that we must be truthful in what we say'; 'It is very wrong of people to suggest that we cannot be truthful in our headlines. We must be able to be truthful in our headlines') he said the following:

'I think all my journalists are well aware that I do like the newspaper to be fair, and certainly to be truthful; but we have to report what we see. Quite frankly, there is not an awful lot of positive news on this particular subject. I am afraid most of the news is of a very negative nature'.

So here's a positive immigration story. And he doesn't bother running it.

At the same hearing, Mail Managing Editor Robin Esser said:

The idea that they are running around looking for inflammatory things to say about asylum seekers is wrong.

Really? So why has the Mail ignored this UCL research to report on the 'Bloody Siege of Calais', One of Queen's guards is an illegal immigrant, and Three Ethiopian exchange students 'vanish' during trip to Houses of Parliament?

(The Queen's guard story is interesting for the language used. An unnamed military officer uses the phrase 'the potential damage an enemy could do there' as if an illegal immigrant is not only automatically 'an enemy' but also a definite security threat. This was in the same manner as the the Sun's Loo Goes There story about a stowaway on a bus that went to Sandhurst. That story said: 'Afghan illegal who got into Sandhurst could have been a Taliban suicide bomber bent on causing carnage'. Because - of course - all Afghan's are Taliban, and all illegal immigrants are dangerous potential suicide bombers. The Mail version of the Afghan Illegal Immigrant at Sandhurst story, incidentally, included a crucial line towards the end: 'They were unable to confirm the man's nationality.')

Anyway, the same that Hill and Esser were lying through their teeth, The Guardian's Alan Travis told the Committee:

Recent Mori research in this area showed that Daily Express readers think that 21% of the British population are immigrants. The Daily Mail readers say it is about 19%. Guardian readers say it is about 11%. We are all actually exaggerating. It is only 7%.

Yesterday's Independent also included an investigative feature which claimed that in the past 23 days, 21 foreign language students in Brighton had been targeted by criminals. Some of these crimes were thefts from their homes, but there have been several more violent attacks, including two Uzbeki teenagers (14 and 15) being told to 'Speak English' and being called 'Pakis' as the attackers tried to force their way into their house.

Cause and effect. Cause and effect.

Mail's D-Day campaign farce

The Independent has an interesting story today (We'll fight Brown on the beaches) that, sadly, doesn't have the courage of its convictions.

The story reads (abridged, but these are the important bits, with my bold):

Survivors of D-Day reacted angrily yesterday to what they claimed was a belated attempt to politicise and hijack a nine-month campaign to take British veterans to mark the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings.

A public appeal for funds to take 500 ex-service personnel to the commemorations in France, launched in The Independent on 6 June last year, has been assured of success for weeks.
...
But Peter Hodge, secretary of the Normandy Veterans Association (NVA), said: "Ministers on the beaches is not really what we wanted or needed. We never complained about the Government not giving us money. We wanted this to be between the veterans and the British people. The public response to our appeal, first publicised in The Independent, has already been fantastic."
...
After reading The Independent's story about the appeal, the advertising executive Trevor Beattie took up the cause...[he] said: "Everyone who wants to support these magnificent men is very welcome. But it would have been courteous to recognise all that has already been done by Peter Hodge and myself and The Independent. Most of all I object to the clear attempt to hijack and politicise our campaign. This was never about attacking Labour or Gordon Brown. It was always about supporting our veterans in a practical way."
...
Mr Hodge wrote to every British newspaper last May asking them to highlight the plight of the veterans. In 2004, the Labour Government paid for veterans to travel to the 60th anniversary, and he said this was more than any previous government, Labour or Conservative, had done. The NVA accepted that the Government could not pay again, so it appealed directly to the public to help raise funds for a "last parade" of D-Day survivors in 2009.

The only national newspaper to respond to Mr Hodge's letter at the time was The Independent. "The truth is that it is rather too late to be raising funds now," Mr Hodge said yesterday. "We are talking about elderly people and that means you have to plan well in advance. Luckily, thanks to Mr Beattie and others, we already look like we will have all the money we need."

So there you have it. The NVA tried to kick start this campaign 9 months ago and the Indy was the only newspaper that bothered. All the money was then raised. But like Voldemort, who is the un-named evil who can not be named?

Step forward the Daily Mail. 'The Great Betrayal' it thundered on the front page on the 18 March edition, with the continuation: Ministers are treating the anniversary with disdain. The editorial said it was 'dishonouring the heroes of D-Day' and blamed 'petty-minded, mean-spirited ministers'.

On 20 March, the Mail led with the story again (The tide is turning). Suddenly, it became clear that Gordon Brown hadn't been invited by the French organisers, so the question of him going or not was rather moot. The PM's spokesman is quoted saying: 'If it were decided by the organisers that heads of government should be there, then the Prime Minister would be pleased to be there.'

The Mail claimed this was a 'u-turn' and marked a 'triumphant first day for the Daily Mail's D-Day campaign'.

They go on to claim 'the veterans themselves voiced their delight and thanks for the magnificent response to the Daily Mail's fund-raising appeal - and called a halt to further fund-raising. Generous readers donated £70,000 on the first day of our campaign'.

Now, let me repeat what Peter Hodge said in the Indy story: 'The truth is that it is rather too late to be raising funds now'.

So what is the Mail going to do with the £70,000 it has apparently raised, if the veterans said they have all the money they need?

There is something so despicably cynical about the way the Mail has run this campaign. It chose to ignore the veterans' plea a year ago, and once the money had all been raised by other people, it cranks up a campaign knowing it will be able to claim success.

This isn't the first time the Mail has done this - it launched its anti-plastic bag crusade at the time Marks & Spencer had pre-announced it was going to charge for bags, then claimed the M&S move was in response to their campaign.

But this is a more important issue. They love to promote themselves as patriotic and they love a chance to bash the Government on an issue like this because it fits their anti-immigration agenda of Britain not being what it once was - they can claim the Goverment doesn't care about British history and doesn't care about people who fought for the country. It's the thread that runs through all their coverage of political correctness, Islam and immigration.

Recommended reads

Worth reading yesterday's Independent front page story Sent back by Britain. Executed in Darfur.

And the Guardian's UK accused over asylum seekers left to live on $1 a day from the day before.

These are the type of stories the anti-immigration papers always seem to forget to write about.