No One Likes Us, We Don’t Care

Our free and fearless press prides itself on its ability to keep on selling its product day in, day out to the great British public. Sales may be in decline, but the Fourth Estate still enjoys the trust of its readers - or so it believes. Anyone suggesting otherwise is routinely ignored, a fate that has befallen the findings of the EBU’s “Trust In Media 2016” report, which most of the papers have declined to report upon.

Why should that be? Ah well. The EBU (European Broadcasting Union, or Union européenne de radio-télévision if you prefer), the body that brings us the Eurovision Song Contest among other delights, has found that, while the United Kingdom records a net positive score for both “Trust in Radio” and “Trust in Television” - that’s across all Radio and TV channels and offerings - the picture is less rosy when it comes to the press.

Although the UK’s trust of Radio and TV is very close to the average for all 28 EU member states, it is not for the press. And the “net trust rating” makes for grim reading. Although the EU28 average shows a negative trust score for the press, this at -7% is as nothing compared to the whopping -51% for the UK. Worse, the UK scores the worst trust rating for the press, by a whole 12 points - next to worst trust being in, er, Serbia.

Yes folks, even Turkey, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia mistrust their press less than we do. The press in much-derided France gets a positive score. So does Albania. And at the top of the pile when it comes to trust in the press is Finland. Not far behind are the Netherlands and Denmark. These are further reasons why our free and fearless press doesn’t want to talk about the EBU findings.

Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark occupy three of the top four places in the World Press Freedom Index for 2016 (the UK is in 38th place, behind Jamaica, Namibia, Uruguay, Surinam, Ghana, Samoa, Chile, Cape Verde, Belize and Tonga). As Private Eye magazine might have put it, “I wonder if the two are in any way connected? I think we should be told”. And there’s another inconvenient fact our press aren’t telling us.

Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark have rather more credible, and rather more independent, press regulation than the UK. That in Denmark is backed up, in theory, by judicial enforcement, although recourse to this has not yet been necessary. Finland’s press regulation is backed up by a strict privacy law. Yet we are told that such things would mean a loss of press freedom. Well, maybe, just maybe, our press got this one wrong.

Or rather, they call it the way they do because it best serves those running it. To admit that countries that do what Lord Justice Leveson hinted at have a more trusted press would be to admit they were wrong to slag off the Royal Charter, IMPRESS, Hacked Off and anyone supporting them. Better to avoid a tricky issue and not bother reporting on it at all.

I give you our free and fearless press, and their reprise of Millwall FC’s best known chant: No-one likes us, we don’t care. Because we don’t. And neither do they.

Corbyn Sidekick Sells The Pass

I am not supporting Jeremy Corbyn in his bid to retain the Labour leadership. But nor am I supporting his challenger Owen Smith. Nor am I in league with any interest group, cabal, conspiracy, or media organisation. So what you read on Zelo Street is how I see it. No other body has influence, or holds sway, over this blog. Why the need to stress this? Because, sadly, the mindset of many Corbyn followers necessitates it.

You talking about me?

Hardly a comment on Jezza goes by without complaints of bias, partiality, closet Smith support: I lose count of the “Your stuff is usually very good BUT” comments. Zelo Street has called out the press’ more ridiculous attempts to demonise Corbyn. It will also call out the more ridiculous attempts to justify his and his pals’ mis-steps. That is what freedom of speech is about - it’s not a freedom only to hear what you want to.

So we come to the latest manifestation of the Corbyn camp pulling off another “One step forward, two steps back” stunt, this one from shadow chancellor John McDonnell, usually one of Jezza’s more reliable lieutenants, who has suggested that Richard Branson should be stripped of his knighthood, because he is not currently resident in the UK, and not because of the Traingate row that involved his pal Jezza, honestly.

The Labour-supporting Mirror has put it plainly. “Labour calls for Richard Branson to be STRIPPED of his knighthood after Jeremy Corbyn Traingate row … John ­McDonnell slams the Virgin billionaire as a ‘tax exile who thinks he can try and intervene and ­undermine our democracy’”. And how has Branson intervened to undermine our democracy? God knows. But no doubt there will be a justification along soon.

And what would be the reasoning? Branson, as founder of Virgin Group, has a minority stake in the train operator that so irked Corbyn - 90% of Virgin Trains East Coast is held by Stagecoach Group. No move has yet been made to strip Stagecoach chairman Brian Souter of his knighthood, despite the latter’s past support for the Tories’ controversial “Section 28” law which banned the “promotion” of homosexuality.

Moreover, how does Traingate “undermine our democracy”? Did anyone become disenfranchised as a result? Was freedom of speech somehow curtailed? Or is a train carrying more passengers than its seating capacity deemed the ultimate mark of shame? If it is, that would disqualify the operators of every franchise awarded since the system was introduced - as well as Good Old British Rail, who did it too.

Whichever way McDonnell’s pronouncements are looked at, they do not make sense. If a future Government were to take rail franchises into public ownership, I doubt that it would fuss Branson, Souter or any of the other current participants. Sticking their bugle into that controversy is not where their heads are at. And if a future Government wanted to reform the honours system - fine, let them get elected and then get on with it.

The problem for Corbyn, McDonnell and the rest is that right now they are not going to get elected. And spare me the “look over there at Owen Smith”. Stop blaming him, stop blaming Branson, stop blaming pundits and bloggers who say you are wrong, and get real. Because without getting real, there isn’t going to be another Labour Government. Ever.

Telegraph Instant Brexit Unravels

The decline of the Telegraph titles from paper of record, to broadsheet version of the Mail, to what is now something far worse, has been well reported, not least by Private Eye magazine. What may not be as well reported is the increasingly poor and often desperate news coverage, which appears to have been framed with the sole intention of attracting clicks and more interest at the news stand.

Nowhere was this more clearly illustrated than in yesterday’s lead headline “May heads for Brexit without vote by MPs … Public’s decision is final, says Downing St in blow to last hope of Remain campaigners”. The supporting article tells “Theresa May will not hold a Parliamentary vote on Brexit … the Telegraph has learned”.

Do go on. “A Downing Street source said: ‘The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that the British public have voted and now she will get on with delivering Brexit’”. That does not support the claim in the headline. The rest of the article is comments from a range of politicians, together with a little supposition thrown in. That is a clear breach of the IPSO Editor’s Code Of Conduct. Worse, it is now unravelling.

As the Mail On Sunday has put it, “Theresa May will hold a 'back to school' Cabinet meeting this week during which she is expected to order feuding Brexit Ministers to end their turf wars … The meeting – the first to be held by the Prime Minister at her Chequers country retreat – will mark a sharp escalation in Mrs May's efforts to assure restless Eurosceptics in her party that she is on track to deliver an early exit from the EU and will not fob them off with ‘Brexit-lite’”. That suggests there is no firm plan at present.

Indeed, the Sunday Times has added that “Senior Tories say Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is resisting plans by other ministers to pull out of the EU single market … A Whitehall turf war has broken out, with the Treasury muscling in on Brexit negotiations - to the irritation of David Davis and Liam Fox, the ministers appointed to lead the planning”. The planning has clearly not even begun in earnest.

What most certainly has begun, though, is the briefing to receptive newspapers desperate for quick and cheap copy because their reporting resources have been so significantly depleted - like, oh I dunno, how about the Telegraph? And one name leaps off the page from that Times report, that of Liam Fox. The chosen conduit for leaks from departments Fox has been involved in of late is … you guessed it, the Telegraph.

The leakers may also include the likes of Iain Duncan Cough, no longer bound by Cabinet responsibility. Much of what is being leaked is “senior Tories” moaning that the Civil Service is holding up Britain’s departure from the EU, and the idea of “Instant Brexit” is something to which Duncan Cough, Fox and the rest of the flat earth brigade are highly susceptible. All that is needed is for someone to be foolish enough to take them seriously.

But as time goes on, the Telegraph hokum unravels further. It’s printed on big pieces of paper. But that does not excuse making up stories based on uninformed leaks.

Top Six - August 28

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have places to go and people to see later. So there.

6 Katie Hopkins - Beyond Bigotry The pro-am motormouth’s not-even-slightly-hilarious poll following the deaths of five young Londoners at Camber Sands was removed from Twitter - but she was too stupid to say sorry.

5 Corbyn Mired By Traingate Jezza got more than he bargained for when he claimed he couldn’t get a seat on a train from London to Newcastle and had to sit on the floor.

4 British Empire Olympic Fail The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog thought it would be a great idea to show how many Olympic medals the British Empire would have won. If only they had a GCSE History between them.

3 Murdoch Muscle In Decline Why do so many politicians, Slebs and sports stars do the bidding of the Murdoch empire, when its audience share has declined so significantly?

2 Simon Danczuk Through The Keyhole What kind of person makes claims against the Rochdale MP in the papers and then lets him stay at her place?

1 Sun’s Sick Drowning Migrant Claim The Murdoch doggies tried to frame the drowning of five men at Camber Sands as one of illegal migrants - but it turned out they were Londoners on a day out.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Rupert Murdoch And A Dirty Great Dossier

What happens in the Murdoch empire is, ultimately, down to one man, Rupert Murdoch. Others may make the decisions, crossing lines on decency, defamation and the criminal law, but it all comes back to Creepy Uncle Rupe. The involvement of the late and not at all lamented Screws in dark arts, phone hacking and the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan - along with its subsequent cover-up - happened on his watch.

Yes Rupe, two all too similar organisations

So did the smearing, bullying, lying and all the rest practised by the Sun under the editorship of the repellent and unrepentant Kelvin McFilth. It all leads back to Murdoch - he sanctioned it, even if only by his keeping schtum while Kel invented story after story demonising the Irish, gays, lefties, greens, travellers, and anyone who was not white. He kept schtum while the Screws hacked phones on an industrial scale.

And now we know that Rupe kept schtum over the overbearing and paranoid reign of Roger Ailes at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Ailes was Murdoch’s appointment, he was left to his own devices, and we now know he was a serial harasser of women. As one former host put it, “Fox News masquerades as a defender of traditional family values, but behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency, and misogyny”.

Not only that, we now know the lengths to which Ailes would go in order to, shall we say, dissuade anyone who might even consider passing adverse comment on him and FNC, let alone those who might do a little digging in order to shine a little sunlight on the murky world in which the operation existed. Ailes was a deeply paranoid individual.

Murdoch would not have been worth a fraction of his reputation if he did not know this. And the parallels with the Sun and Screws are as disturbing as they are uncanny: Gabriel Sherman wrote a book about Ailes, but a whole two years before it was published, the Fox News boss had had a 400-page dossier compiled on him. Much of the information it contained was in the public domain. But maybe not all of it.

The Murdoch press in the UK had its targets put under surveillance. Ailes had his enemies put under surveillance. Personal information was dredged up. Campaigns were run against them. In the UK, the papers’ newsrooms were infamously laddish and misogynist. FNC, it seems, was much the same. And there in ultimate charge of both was someone who didn’t know what was going on - until he was called to account.

Now, Rupert Murdoch has taken personal charge of FNC, and for part of the week he can be found occupying Ailes’ former office. It’s almost as if he knew the ropes already. Maybe he does. After all, Murdoch did not get where he is today without knowing the behaviour patterns of those he has trusted to run his empire. It beggars belief to dismiss the similarities between his UK newspaper operation and Fox News as mere coincidence.

That dirty great dossier is as much his doing as Roger Ailes’. Likewise the whole gamut of bad behaviour at the Sun and Screws. He now needs to own it. And own up about it.

[You can discover more on UNTOLD: the Daniel Morgan murder HERE]

Who Is Helen Carroll?

You may never have heard of Helen Carroll. And if you have recently done business with her, you may wish you had never heard of her. This is because Ms Carroll, whose Twitter bio claims that she is a “national newspaper and magazine journalist” who is “Always looking for case studies and great stories”, she is, in reality, looking for stories that will fit the agenda of just one major national newspaper.

Helen Carroll: desperately seeking desperate punters

And the level at which her stories are pitched can be deduced from this headline: “Our life in eight BRAS... that’s how many the average woman owns - and here three share the revealing stories behind their choices … A third of women own eight bras and yet wear only wear two - says survey … Women tend to hold on to bras for all kinds of emotional reasons … A bra worn every day should be replaced every six months, expert says”.

Ah, the sound of pointless clickbait combined with the mildly judgmental attitude towards a readership that is known to have a majority of women. Yes, Ms Carroll is on the lookout for case studies and great stories … that will suit the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery at the Daily Mail. The Mail pays good money. It fits everything to its Middle England agenda. So that is what its freelance contributors provide.

So who is in Ms Carroll’s sights? Or perhaps that question should be more on the lines of “who should be wary of an approach from Ms Carroll and bodyswerve it like the plague”? Well, it seems the Mail is about to get all judgmental about drinking Prosecco: “Are you a woman, aged over 35, who has done something you regret after drinking Prosecco? Good fee paid on publication”. Yeah, right. Not half as good as Ms Carroll’s fee.

Seriously, who in their right mind would reply to that? Well, apart from someone who was desperate enough and didn’t know what a complete and absolute shower the Mail was. What else is in the Carroll line-up? “Looking for people in their 20s and 30s who moved in with grandparents for financial reasons”. Ah, right, there’s going to be a why-oh-why article about how expensive house prices are. The ones that the Mail keeps talking up.

Ooh look, a really judgmental one: “are your parents spending your inheritance having a ball in their retirement”? If my folks want to spend money, that’s their business. It’s their sodding money and they spent decades earning it. Christ on a bike, that’s just nasty. And another old chestnut: “I'm looking for married couples who separated and then got back together”. Yeah, so you can drive the poor souls apart again. Next.

Can it get worse? It surely can: “Looking for separated parents whose children stay in the family home while they take turns to look after them”. Why oh why won’t they think about the children? Except for the ones who can’t afford to buy a house, the ones who are jealous that their parents aren’t destitute, and the ones who fall over after downing too much Prosecco. Don’t call us Ms Carroll, and we won’t call you.

Did Helen Carroll not make the grade as an estate agent? Just a thought, you understand.

Canary Corbyn Vote Paranoia

Voting is now underway in the latest Labour Party leadership election. It will be a straight fight between incumbent Jeremy Corbyn, and challenger Owen Smith, with Corbyn the strong favourite. The electorate is in the hundreds of thousands, so the result is more than likely going to be a majority - for whichever candidate - measured in the thousands, or even tens of thousands. Hang on to that thought.

At the same time, Labour is undertaking a process to ensure its membership actually consists of Labour Party supporters. Some applicants for membership are discovering that they have been rejected; others who had previously been members are being expelled. When your membership runs into the hundreds of thousands, and that membership is under constant media scrutiny, this is inevitable.

But for those at the staunchly Corbyn-supporting Canary, this is not a merely routine exercise, but a purge of the party faithful. It is evidence that dark forces are at work looking to disenfranchise Jezza’s fans and therefore to subvert democracy. To this end, the Canary’s Number 1 Corbyn backer Steve Topple has penned “Another Labour purge has begun, and this time it’s massive”. Yeah, y’know, it’s big … BIG. Really big.

“Countless members and potential members are being expelled or having their applications rejected … there appears to be no limit on who the party is willing to disenfranchise. Unless, of course, they are high profile members writing in right-wing newspapers … it appears many people are being denied membership on less than scrupulous grounds”. Something’s afoot, and it may not be twelve inches!

But do go on. “The Canary asked people to get in touch with their stories relating to the ‘purge’. And many came forward. Some felt angry. Others felt disappointed. Many were very upset. But the overwhelming feeling was one of confusion. Nearly 90 people got in contact, and most spoke to The Canary on condition of anonymity”. So how many specific cases can Topple muster in support of his “purge” idea?

Well, not that many. Even throwing in the case of Ronnie Draper, general secretary of a Labour-affiliated Trade Union, the number of individual cases does not get into double figures. Even if all of the “nearly 90” who got in touch were added into the mix, there would be no more than a hundred. A hundred cases in a party which numbers its current membership not in the hundreds, but the hundreds of thousands.

That does not stop Topple going into full tinfoil hat mode: “If you’re a grassroots member who says anything deemed inappropriate? Sorry. No vote allowed. But if you’re a political commentator writing in right-wing newspapers, or a senior party member? You can apparently say whatever you like … But don’t you dare support progressive ideas or stand up for what you think is right and just. If you do, you may also face the Labour purge”.

But not to worry - they’re not coming to get him, because he’s not paranoid.

Uber - Where’s The Money Going?

Driver and rider matching service Uber was Founded back in March 2009 - almost seven and a half years ago. It enjoys a market valuation of around $69 billion. It is backed by the likes of Google and Goldman Sachs. The app, which enables riders to call a driver, might have been expected to have paid for itself by now. Uber charges its driver around 20% of their incomes as a commission. They have hundreds of thousands of drivers.

So it may come as a surprise to some industry watchers to know that Uber is losing money, not just occasionally and in trivial amounts, but consistently, and billions. Worse, the losses appear if anything to be getting worse over time. In 2015, the company lost “over $2 billion” (how much more is not known). But in just the first six months of this year, Uber has lost $1.27 billion. Net revenue was just over $2 billion.

What was the reason for the loss? “The subsidies Uber grants its drivers was the main reason for the loss, finance head Gautam Gupta told investors in a quarterly conference call, Bloomberg said, citing sources”. Subsidies? What subsidies? Uber drivers are self-employed. They pick up the cost of their cars, insurance, licensing, tolls and congestion charges, and of course traffic fines, themselves. What subsidies?

Moreover, where can all the money be going? The app should need little more than customising for each new area in which Uber operates. Drivers just activate the app when they become available, deactivate it when they are not. Otherwise the whole thing should more or less run itself. At first, the scale of the losses is mystifying.

And then the potential reasons for those losses come to the fore. One, Uber has secured finance from a number of sources over the years. The conditions attached to loans and parcels of debt would be interesting to see - especially the rate of interest being paid, and for how many years Uber has been locked into the deal.

There is more: Two, Uber is embroiled in legal disputes with a variety of Governments, its drivers, and other groups on a regular enough basis for this to rack up significant costs. Another item that would be interesting to see - and in full - is the scale of the lawyers’ bills, not just now, but those pertaining to current legal actions, due for payment later.

On top of that is Three, the cost of all that PR and lobbying. Uber is in a constant PR war against established taxi and minicab operators, employing specialist PRs and lobbyists to persuade everyone from the ordinary folk all the way up to the top of Government that they should be allowed to have the playing field tilted in their favour. And then there is the constant rumour that journalists have been bribed to generate favourable copy.

Yes, it would be most revealing to see what Uber is having to pay for all that finance, the cost of its mammoth legal bills, and the whole PR and lobbying circus that it needs to keep on the road in order to convince authorities to let the show roll on.

All those self-employed one-man and one-woman bands in their London black cabs might find it interesting to see just how much Travis Kalanick and his pals are prepared to spray up the wall in an act of vindictiveness, just to put them out of business.

Sun Burkini Ban Pundit BUSTED

[Update at end of post]

The controversy sparked by banning Islamic swimwear - aka the Burkini or Burqini - by women has crossed La Manche and pitted usual soulmates the Sun and Daily Mail against one another. The Mail has, to its credit, gone with the personal liberty angle, that the women should be free to choose what they wear, but the Sun is for the crackdown.

You are English types, yes?

So while the Mail tells readers “The French ban on the burkini is threatening to turn into a farce as police officers armed with pepper spray and batons marched onto a beach today and ordered a woman to strip off”, the Sun has employed the services of genuine French pundit Anne-Élisabeth Moutet to counter-claim “If you’re upset by burkini cop image, you’ve have been sucked in by Islamist propaganda”.

Ms Moutet’s mildly paranoid screed tells “She has no book, no sun cream, no beach bag. Her clothes are not suited to swimming … Another [photo] shows her sitting quietly, looking around, as if waiting for the police to come. Hoping for the police to come? … [The photos are] professionally shot … The photographer was there long before the incident … A belief shared by many is that this ‘victim’ and the snapper wanted the police to intervene - the photos are brilliant Islamist propaganda”. Ri-i-i-i-ght.

One could also posit the opposite position, that the snapper saw the woman there, knew it was a beach where the ban had been imposed, and so hung around to see what would happen when Les Gendarmes fetched up. Journalistic and professional sixth sense.

Ms Moutet is not a disinterested neutral on this. Consider her Twitter excursions: after the FT suggested opinion in France was split on the Burkini question, she sniped “French opinion is ‘split’ 95%-5%. Fuck you, FT”, before telling her followers to Look Over There: “Of course, Islamophobia runs rampant in the Kingdom of Morocco”. They did it too!

We should also Look Over There at someone who agrees with her: “Why the burkini is WRONG, by the great @Nervana_1.Required reading before you start babbling on the French sitution [sic] … Hope you've also read @Nervana_1's great piece on why the burkini is wrong. Egyptian writer, doctor”. And well-known sample of one.

Ms Moutet was also prone to going a little Katie Hopkins: “Belgium: no Middle East colonial past, no headscarf or burqa ban. And yet…”. And yet we don’t know who did it and why. But she was firm on the Burkini ban: “Utile pour comprendre. L'interdiction du burkini est une décision d'ordre public nécessaire”. It was a public order measure; maybe all those Muslim women at the beach would get out of hand. And then came a dead giveaway.

“Liberal Outrage Over France’s Burkini Ban is the Latest Failure of Western Feminism http://heat.st/2bAyrK2  via @heatstreet”. Oh dear Ms Moutet! Quoting Heat Street with a straight face. But she’s not a right-winger, no sirree: “Been blocking a slew of Corbynistas eager to derail #traingate. I love the smell of napalm in the evening”. Or maybe she is.

And that 95% was only 64%: “Poll: 64% of French reject the Burkini on our beaches. My @TheSun guest column this morning”. Then the pièce de résistance: “She came to the beach without suncream,towel, bag, book, but with a professional photographer. It was police-baiting”. As I thought: a ranting, intolerant right-winger. And bang to rights.

[UPDATE 1505 hours: France's highest administrative court has overturned the "Burkini Ban", concluding that it "seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms to come and go, freedom of beliefs and individual freedom".

Amnesty International's Europe director has commented "French authorities must now drop the pretence that these measures do anything to protect the rights of women ... These bans do nothing to increase public safety but do a lot to promote public humiliation".

So it's all about the Liberté part of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, then. One might have expected a French journalist to understand that. Unless they were just another screaming right-winger hell-bent on spreading a little anti-Muslim prejudice, of course]

Katie Hopkins - Beyond Bigotry

The behaviour of some pundits out there on the rabid, paranoid, insular nationalist right does not improve over time, no matter how much slack they are cut or whether they are ignored and left to their own devices. This, inevitably, leads us to pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins, who saw the tragic drowning of five young Londoners at Camber Sands the other day not as a time for quiet reflection, but an opportunity to spread a little more hatred.

Viewers may want to look away now

So it was that, like the hacks at her previous berth, the Sun - the paper that dispensed with her services because she was too poisonous even for them - Hatey Katie did not concern herself with waiting for such minor inconveniences as facts, but immediately concluded that the five must have been illegal migrants. This may not have been true, but it fitted her agenda and her paranoid state, which for her is more important.

Ms Hopkins took to Twitter to conduct what she no doubt believed was a jolly funny poll, stating “5 dead at Camber Sands were …”, with the possible answers “Aspiring footballers”, “Mentally Ill”, “Fans of Anders Brevik [sic]”, and “Big fans of inflatables”. Thus her own prejudices: nobody who is not white is allowed to suffer from any kind of mental health condition, because they’re all Scary Muslims (tm) and terrorists!

And the Police all over Europe are covering it up! That, and the other equally unfunny and feeble not-so-wisecracks did not impress very many people, and those least impressed included Sussex Police, who, in a bizarre twist, concluded that, while nothing criminal had been done, they would report Hatey Katie to Twitter anyway. Whether forcibly or otherwise, the Twitter poll has since been removed. But that was not the end of it.

Why should that be? Well, if you’re going to have a self-awareness failure, you might as well do it properly, and Ms Hopkins has in her lack of wisdom decided that, no matter how significant the show of disgust at her bigoted insensitivity, she was right, and she would make sure all those rotten lefty whingers knew it.

So after the BBC reported “Six men are due to be interviewed by Border Force officers after being recovered from a small boat off the Kent coast this morning”, off went Hatey Katie to shout “look over there”, Tweeting “Not to worry, as long as we are policing Twitter, all will be well”. Hello Katie, the five dead were still not migrants.

Oh, and the Police were not “policing Twitter”, they had merely passed it on to, er, Twitter. That was a concept Ms Hopkins found too challenging to grasp, and hence off she went again: “Our police are busy policing Twitter. So I thought I'd go try and offer our hard grafting truckers any help I can”. Well, quite so, they might have some sympathy with all those refugees, and that would never do - Katie to the rescue to stiffen their sinews with few tutorials in plain old-fashioned paranoid bigotry.

Katie Hopkins is so blinded by her combination of prejudice and paranoia that she cannot see when she is not just wrong, but totally out of order. And it’s pointless suggesting she says sorry, because her intellectual capacity does not stretch that far. Sad, really.

Owen Jones And Public Ownership

In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn’s adventures on the 1100 hours Virgin Trains East Coast departure from London’s Kings Cross terminus last week, we now have the Traingate discussions rippling out from whether Jezza and his team were being slightly economical with the actualité to the wider question of who owns and runs the railways - and, for pundit and campaigner Owen Jones, to whom they might be accountable.

Owen Jones - asking the questions

To this end he has written “From the floor to first class, Britain’s railways are a disgrace”, which may surprise all those who use Virgin’s “other” franchise, that which traverses the West Coast Main Line out of London Euston. Jones begins with a straightforward claim.

“If you believe in free market dogma – that private ownership inevitably brings more efficiency, better quality and cheaper services – then there are two major embarrassments in Britain: the NHS and the rail industry … The NHS is embarrassing because it is a publicly run healthcare system that is superior to and more efficient than the privately run, fragmented mess that is the US equivalent … The rail industry is an embarrassment because it can demonstrate just how atrocious services run for profit can be”.

I’ll concentrate on the rail aspect. Jones also asserts “The desire for the railways to return to public ownership … is not born of mass false consciousness, of a failure to understand that privatisation has been a glorious success”.

His complaints are not new ones: overcrowding, potentially high fare levels, the level of public subsidy, perception that systems on mainland Europe are better-run, and that East Coast was better when in public ownership. To these, Jones adds the idea of passenger and worker representation in the running of franchises.

So let me take all of those one at a time: British Rail was, it has to be said, very good value for the taxpayer. Subsidy levels were far lower than they are today. But there were a lot of old, and ageing, trains, and service levels were not up to today’s standards, especially service frequency. But Jones scores one on subsidy.

On overcrowding, that was there in BR days too. It will not improve any time soon, whoever runs the railway. Modern passenger vehicles have a significant capital and maintenance cost, and keeping them in sidings waiting for the busiest rush hours, or even worse, kept in reserve for holiday periods, does not make economic sense. For long distance services, mainland European operators have a straightforward remedy: no seats are sold without a reservation. No seats available, you don’t get on.

That is, after all, what airlines do. Moreover, it’s what coach operators all over Europe - including the UK - also do. Only the railways retain the “walk up and go” concept. Whenever this is pointed out to pundits, they tend to find it a challenging one to answer. I will be interested to hear Owen Jones’ response to that one.

Fare levels come down to a political decision, made - if only by inference and default - by the last Labour Government, although the Tories have continued the policy. We can have lower fares, but the taxpayer - most of them do not travel by train at all - has to pay more. Government policy is for those taxpayers to pay less over time - and passengers, therefore, to pay more. Private sector operators using demand management to fill trains at quieter periods, while charging more for flexible tickets, are merely continuing a trend started by BR.

And that, as ever, brings us to the question of ownership. Here, some basic facts about the extent of private sector involvement need to be explained.

Let’s take Virgin Trains as an example.

They do not own the trains.

They run several, but not all, of their major stations, but do not own them.

They do not specify the timetable (the Government does that).

They have no say in train maintenance schedules (Alstom and Bombardier do that).

They do not own or manage the tracks on which their trains run.

Their East Coast trains are the same ones Government-run East Coast used.

Their franchise commitments are closely controlled by the Government - this is the same for all other private sector operators. For their East Coast franchise, Virgin contributes the branding and just a 10% share in the operation (Stagecoach has the other 90%).

The rail network is owned, maintained and run by Network Rail - a public sector company.

As to Jones’ more democratic accountability - this is an interesting idea, but it has to be stressed that the most important decisions affecting the railway - new trains, electrification, new ticketing, new lines, and so on - are not the kind of things that are done or varied on a day to day basis. And the scale of investment required is one that Governments will inevitably want to keep an eye on - as they underwrite the lease costs of all those trains.

I can imagine the frustration of Owen Jones, and everyone else for whom the railway does not always function as they might expect, but the private sector involvement is nowhere near as complete as it may seem, and as with so much else, turning this industry-sized supertanker around is not that straightforward.

But it’s good that mainstream pundits want to take the idea seriously. More please.

Murdoch Muscle In Decline

Why do politicians and others in the public eye fear Rupert Murdoch? For many media commentators, that might sound like a pointless question: the reach of the Murdoch mafiosi, through Don Rupioni’s ownership of the Times - which once upon a time really was a paper of record - and especially Britain’s best-selling daily, the Sun, gives him the means to bend those people to his will, and whenever he wants.

That's what I bladdy think of youse bladdy readership bladdy survey, ya bastard Pommie drongoes!

The fear is backed up, not by what we do know, but what we do not: the long-standing rumour that the Sun has in its offices a tall safe full of incriminating stories about the good and the great, and the knowledge that the paper also has the power to protect those in public life, not by putting them on the front page, but by keeping them off it, as was shown recently with former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale.

So MPs, peers, hangers-on, fellow media bosses, and a panoply of Slebs are prepared to doff their proverbial caps to Creepy Uncle Rupe. The media bosses back him up when he wants to bully the Government, the MPs and peers have showed they are prepared to let him into our newspaper market and support his bid for Sky - well, up to a point - and the Slebs mainly go along with the Sun’s promotional efforts.

And, as has been brought into sharp focus by a new survey on audience size and reach, there is now rather more of the myth, and less of the reality, in Murdoch’s media reach. True, the Sun is there at the top of the print pile, but when PC and mobile audiences are weighed too, the Currant Bun has fallen behind the Mail, Guardian, Telegraph, Mirror, and Metro. Even behind the Express. And behind the online-only Independent.

Think about that. The mighty Murdoch Sun back in 8th place in its overall reach. And it gets worse: all the titles doing better than the Sun are putting on readers, with the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and Express doing best there. But the Sun is merely treading water. And what of the Times? The paywall may be bringing in the money, but its presence puts the title at the back of the field - behind even the Daily Star.

True, the Sun is still bringing in the money, but advertising revenue is in free fall across the board. And the only response so far is to launch add-ons like SunBet - targeting readers for a little marginal income from betting commissions. But the marketplace for online betting is already well-filled with other players. So far, the political and Sleb class has managed not to cotton on to these particular shifting sands. But they will.

The crude desperation of Sun front page splashes - exemplified by this morning’s attempt to frighten readers into believing that the tragic drowning of five young Londoners yesterday at Camber Sands in East Sussex was actually illegal migrants - shows that the Murdoch mafiosi are flailing around for new ideas, and finding none.

So, having taken that reality check, the question has to be asked once more: why do politicians and others in the public eye fear Rupert Murdoch?

Sun’s Sick Drowning Migrant Claim

[Update at end of post]

During the recent spell of occasionally very warm weather - particularly in the South East of England - there have been several incidents where people have been drowned after getting into difficulties in the sea. It may be warm on land, but the seas around Britain’s shores are cold even in late August, and colder the further from the beach that you go. There are also tricky tides and currents to consider.

One location that had already seen a drowning this summer was Camber Sands in East Sussex, an area of dunes and gently shelving beaches popular with day trippers and holidaymakers. Although the water is shallow for some way out to sea, there are potentially lethal riptides. These could have claimed the lives of five men who drowned off the beach yesterday. But the Super Soaraway Currant Bun had other ideas.

“Clothed men drowned … Were victims migrants? MYSTERY OF FIVE DEAD AT BEACH” is today’s Sun front page lead, and it’s backed up by the usual presence of “An onlooker” - that’s someone who was looking on from the safety of the Baby Shard bunker - to tell readers “We don’t know if they were caught in a riptide or were illegal immigrants washed ashore”. Yeah, Sun readers, they’re illegal and they’re coming here!

There was more in the same vein: “One theory was that they drowned after being dragged out to sea by a riptide, which has caused deaths there in the past … But the beach has relatively shallow water and was said to be calm yesterday afternoon … Witnesses said the first three men were fully clothed and did not appear to have any family or friends on the beach with them … It led to speculation the victims could be illegal immigrants”.

That would be speculation in the Sun in order to frighten readers and flog a few more papers, then. Also, added to the accounts of real witnesses, the Sun has conjured up “Another witness” - that’s someone else in the Sun newsroom - to stir the pot a little more, with “They had all their clothes on - shorts and T-shirts … We found it quite odd because we didn’t see any family or anything for them on the beach”.

But enough: this is the Guardian’s report of the same incident: “Beachgoers and emergency services tried to save three of the men after they got into difficulties in the water at Camber Sands near Rye, East Sussex, at around 2.15pm on Wednesday. They were pulled from the sea within 20 minutes but died … Two more bodies were found at around 8pm as the tide”. And then the confirmation from the Police.

“Suggestions that the deaths may be linked to jellyfish have been ruled out and Sussex police said there was nothing to suggest the men were migrants”. That article also tells “According to figures released by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution as part of its ongoing Respect the Water campaign, 168 people drowned accidentally in the UK’s tidal waters last year”. 168 tragic deaths. Those off Camber Sands are five more.

But for the Murdoch doggies, they can be categorised as “Migrants” and used to generate more clicks and sales. High principles, eh? Pass the sick bucket.

[UPDATE 1110 hours: as the Evening Standard has now confirmed, the five dead men were day trippers from the London area.

"The five men who drowned in the sea at Camber Sands were Londoners enjoying a day out at the beach, it emerged today ... The group, believed to be in their late teens and early 20s, had travelled to the popular holiday spot from the capital yesterday to enjoy the hottest day of the year ... It comes after speculation that the group may have been migrants" tells the paper.

So that's the Sun's front page frightener shot down in flames, almost as soon as it hit the news stands. Way to go, Murdoch clowns]

Simon Danczuk’s Dodgy Job Offer

As the new session of Parliament is almost upon us, so MPs are rushing to appoint staff so they are ready for the demands of the new term. Spinners and SpAds for ministers, researchers and caseworkers for the Other Ranks, and a host of hangers-on, all are being recruited across the political spectrum. Those recruiting, for the time being at least, include Rochdale’s nominally Labour MP Simon Danczuk.

Spanker Si has advertised - under the banner of the Labour Party, so a real Ron Hopeful episode there - for a Parliamentary Assistant, someone to work for him in London. This is the kind of role that would appeal to young people both male and female, but the impression is given from his past form that Danczuk will be looking for a young woman to fill the post. And here we may sound a note of caution.

The claims of Danczuk’s involvement, or attempted involvement, with an increasing number of those young women have only grown over time. This is quite apart from his closeness to Tory Councillor Louise Dickens, the recent brief affair with a 22-year-old woman which was duly consummated over the desk in his taxpayer-funded constituency office, and stories of leering and unwanted attention in central Rochdale pubs.

Thus the potential risk of working for Spanker Si. Take for instance the claims surrounding Elsie Wraighte, such as that in the Sun: “THIS is the aide Simon Danczuk claims to have kissed at a Christmas party, leading to him being dumped by his girlfriend … But Elsie, of Ulverston, Cumbria, insisted she did not kiss Danczuk. She said: ‘It never happened. I have a perfectly clear memory of the night and I promise you it’s not true’”.

Then there was Nasreen Nazir, who has worked for Danczuk in both Manchester and London. The Mail was not backwards in coming forwards to tell “Labour rebel Danczuk gives £30,000 job to stunning aide who claimed he was a sex pest … Nasreen Nazir, 37, worked for Mr Danczuk's company a decade ago … She had begun proceedings against him for sexual harassment … The Rochdale MP denies he had affair with Ms Nazir”.

Ms Nazir was also spending time keeping the MP fit: “Jogging your memory, Mr Danczuk? MP's intimate workout with glamorous aide who once called him a sex pest” was the Mail’s take on this one. And the nudge-nudgery is not confined to those who work for Danczuk: last December, 17-year-old Sophena Houlihan, who had merely enquired about work opportunities, was the subject of a “sexting” advance.

All of which might leave all those ambitious young women eager to make their mark in the Westminster village more than a little apprehensive. Only this morning, Spanker Si has been caught following another on Twitter, someone who soon afterwards took her feed private. He does like them young. Meanwhile, the Labour Party continues to deliberate over whether he should be expelled from its ranks.

This may be one of those roles that takes a little longer to fill. As it were.

Janan Ganesh - Say Sorry

Zelo Street has previously discussed the body known as the Pundit Establishment, those who are most regularly called upon by press and broadcast media to give their suitably learned views on a range of subjects on which, by inference, they claim, as the old Frost Report sketch might have put it, a feeling of superiority over them. One such establishment pundit is an FT columnist by the name of Janan Ganesh.

Janan Ganesh

Ganesh has co-written a book on “Compassionate Conservatism”, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one, and a biography of the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, The Austerity Chancellor. He regularly appears on the panel of the BBC’s Sunday Politics. He has a presence on social media. And he may even rank as high as any in Rome. But his sense of entitlement has now led him astray.

Clearly, Janan Ganesh is not a supporter of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, nor someone with any time for Jezza’s followers. So it was that he took to Twitter yesterday morning and, under no pressure at all, informed the world “You can do analysis of Corbyn and his ‘movement’ (I have done it) but the essence of the whole thing is that they are just thick as pigshit”. The subject was, apparently, Traingate.

What analysis might this have been? Ah, but we mere mortals are not let into The Great Man’s confidence. All we can deduce is that his conclusions, given the “thick as pigshit” appellation, will have been suitably adverse, and, hopefully for his sake, rather more intellectually uplifting. We can also deduce that Ganesh felt sufficiently chastened by resistance to his product that he deleted the Tweet.

Sadly, having been published long enough to have garnered 670 Retweets and 1,082 Likes, the offending Tweet had also been cached, and so can be seen in all its glory, whatever the wishes of its author. Perhaps Ganesh would be further chastened, and sufficiently to show some sign of regret. He might even say … sorry.

But that is to reckon without the mindset of the Pundit Establishment: from their perches of entitlement, they need only look down on The Great Unwashed, not lower themselves to moving among them. So it was that Ganesh excused himself by Tweeting “Please excuse the trigger-happy tweet about Corbyn/ites. The train farrago didn't warrant it. No return for British Rail though, pls”. So that’s all right, then, is it?

Well, no it isn’t. Sneering that those of different opinion are as a result “thick as pigshit” gets us nowhere, coarsens and devalues political discourse, and ultimately gives readers and viewers yet less confidence in the ability of the pundit doing the coarsening. It would have cost Ganesh nothing to simply hold up his hands and apologise. That he has chosen not to tells you all you need to know about the attitude of the Pundit Establishment.

And the inevitable conclusion is that this attitude is not good enough.

Corbyn Mired By Traingate

Those with long political memories may remember the so-called War Of Jennifer’s Ear, an incident during the 1992 General Election campaign which was used by the Labour Party to show the Tories in a bad light, but which ended up being the subject of controversy, and ultimately a no-win issue which mired Neil Kinnock’s campaign.

Well, now we have Traingte, an issue sparked by Jeremy Corbyn’s team in an attempt to show the rail industry - and therefore the established politics - in a bad light. But, like the 1992 incident, it has resulted in push-back and subsequent needless argument, the whole issue descending into an unedifying spectacle of name-calling - all too much of it from those backing Corbyn. Let’s see what happened to cause the ruckus.

Jezza and his crew boarded a Virgin Trains East Coast (VTEC) train at London’s Kings Cross terminus to travel to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Someone sympathetic to his cause videoed him apparently having to sit on the floor in a coach vestibule as the train was so full. This enabled adverse comment to be passed on VTEC, Richard Branson, the Tories, and private sector involvement in the railways.

VTEC has now pushed back on the claims, telling that Corbyn and his team had walked past empty - and unreserved - seats in Coach H, past reserved - but unoccupied - seats in Coach F, sat on the floor, done their filming, and at around 45 minutes into the journey had taken seats in Coach H, with the help of on-board staff. Their confirmation Tweet was Retweeted by Richard Branson. This in turn sparked a furious response from Corbyn fans.

Now, I am well aware that many Corbyn supporters will not only not be swayed by anything I say in comment, but will also generate significant numbers of excuses to back up his stance and kick VTEC, but here goes anyway.

Other Passengers agreed with Jezza Fine. Now ask yourselves who is likely to have the most accurate information as to how full the train was - someone sitting in a coach vestibule, or the company operating the train?

Seats only became available after the train made a stop No. Corbyn and his team were seated around 45 minutes into the journey. The first stop was York, at around the 1 hour 50 minute mark.

Coach H is the Food Bar! Er, so what? It has unreserved seats.

But it’s the Food Bar, so there are few seats There are thirty (30) unreserved seats in Coach H - see seating plan HERE.

But it’s the Food Bar, so passengers will leave bags everywhere How did Mrs T once put it? No, no, no, no, no. Passengers take seats in other coaches, then walk to the Food Bar, Shop, Buffet Car, or whatever over terminology may be in use. No evidence has been supplied to support this claim.

The seats were all occupied by children who couldn’t be seen by the CCTV All those unaccompanied kids, by miraculous coincidence, travelling in Coach H of the train Corbyn and his team were on. No evidence has been supplied to support this claim.

Richard Branson Retweeted the response so he was involved No again. Branson does not involve himself in anything at that level. He has merely been tagged or otherwise advised - given the profile of the incident, this is understandable - and has then chosen to RT it.

Richard Branson is personally at fault Very good. Virgin’s stake in VTEC - apart from the brand usage - is a mere 10%. The trains were inherited from the previous operator of the franchise - which was Government-run Directly Operated Railways, who, as a nationalised entity, cannot by definition be the bad guys.

Richard Branson is petrified of Corbyn Do Jezza’s team ever stop to think how those who are of differing view see them? The question has to be asked if only because not only has Branson made no personal comment on this affair, but the idea that he, or any other business leader, is “petrified” of a politician who has so little chance of gaining power is beyond ridiculous.

The trains ought to be run like they are in France, or other European countries Very good. There certainly wouldn’t be any overcrowding on Inter-City services, but that is because in France, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere, if there aren’t any seats available, you can’t buy a ticket and won’t be allowed on the train. Then you could whinge about how rotten it is that, well, something would no doubt be invented.

Travelling by train is too expensive Ultimately this is a political decision - train travel could be cheaper, but then the taxpayer would have to pay more. It’s been a decision of both Labour and Tory Governments recently to make passengers pay more of the share, and taxpayers less.

Why can’t VTEC put more carriages on? There is no wand-waving solution. At present, VTEC are operating their services with the trains they inherited. They will also oversee introduction of new trains and more seats, but this does not happen overnight. And, guess what? There will still be overcrowding at busy times.

Trains get overcrowded. True. But, given the cost of building and maintaining trains, what do you do, buy enough so that no-one ever stands, only to find that for 95% of the time you are transporting large numbers of empty seats around the country and costing those taxpayers even more - even the majority who never use trains?

VTEC and/or Richard Branson are lying There is no evidence to back up this claim. That does not mean some will try and find some, or merely believe what they want.

Richard Branson was once photographed alongside Tony Blair Er, hello, this is utterly, totally and absolutely irrelevant. Here’s a straw to clutch.

Yes, I know, anyone who even suggests Corbyn and his team painted a less than totally accurate picture of their journey from London to Newcastle is a disaffected Blairite, part of a gigantic media conspiracy, a liar, and so much else. But sometimes, just sometimes, when someone says your side has got it wrong, maybe, just maybe, you should hear them out and take on board what they say, without being creative, defensive or abusive.

Because right now, a significant number of Corbyn fans are not doing themselves any favours. But they’re right, everyone else is wrong, and that’s that.

Channel 4 - Murdoch Double Standards

As Zelo Street discussed yesterday, the campaign waged by deeply unpleasant former Sun editor Kelvin McFilth against Channel 4 News, and specifically presenter Fatima Manji, has failed after 17 complaints to regulator Ofcom about Ms Manji presenting the programme wearing a headscarf were thrown out. Worse for Kel was the revelation that none of those complaints actually came from him.

Hayley Barlow ... Murdoch ambivalence

The Ofcom decision was recorded not just by the deeply subversive Guardian, but positively celebrated at Channel 4 itself, where their Head of Communications Hayley Barlow Tweeted a link to the Guardian article and added “MacKenzie urged Sun readers to complain about #c4news presenter @FatimaManji wearing hijab. Ofcom rejects all 17”. Quite so. And on that one subject she has this blog’s wholehearted support.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, while the stance of some Channel 4 News presenters on the machinations of the Murdoch mafiosi has been uniformly sceptical - lead presenter Jon Snow, who Retweeted Ms Barlow’s comments, is one who comes to mind - that of its Head of Communications is not, as Zelo Street regulars will be all too aware. Why this might be is not difficult to discover.

Hayley Barlow spent more than eleven and a half years as Head of PR at the late and not at all lamented Screws. As Martin Hickman observed, on the same day that Neville “Stylish Masturbator” Thurlbeck tasked Glenn Mulcaire to hack Milly Dowler’s voicemail, “the News of the World wrote to Surrey Police requesting an exclusive interview with the Dowlers - before mentioning that the paper was considering offering an award for information about her whereabouts … Hayley Barlow, the executive who wrote the letter, told the family an interview would be conducted with the ‘utmost sympathy’ and offered them the News of the World’s full support”. We know what happened next.

But of course that was then, and this is now, so perhaps Ms Barlow should also be cut a generous length of slack? Well, usually yes, but once again there is a teensy problem: there was Ms Barlow last month, taking to Twitter to tell “In an authored film on tonight’s [Channel 4 News], former No 10 spin doctor Andy Coulson on Brexit, the past and the future”. Andy Coulson. Who got guilty in the Hacking Trial.

As Popbitch observed at the time, “Coulson has finally accepted advice that he needed to be seen out and about again … Favours were duly called in from old friends like Tom Bradby and Piers Morgan - so if you were wondering why Coulson was suddenly appearing on TV as a Brexit analyst, now you know”.

Now The Great Man was also being touted as a Brexit analyst on Channel 4 News, thanks to his old mucker Hayley. Well, what are friends for?

The problem is that Channel 4 News becomes tarnished, if only marginally, as a result. And that’s not good enough.