Tory Abuse Ploy BACKFIRES

It was supposed to have been so easy: Tory MPs, armed with yesterday’s Daily Mail, together with its headline “EXPOSED: SHOCKING SCALE OF HARD-LEFT BULLYING … Damning Commons report lays bare hate campaign against Tory MPs during election”, only had to turn up to yesterday’s debate on the abuse they had been suffering, and they would have Jeremy Corbyn and his rotten lefties bang to rights.

After all, if the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient hackery said it was Jezza and his pals, who were they to argue? Sadly, when the debate got going in earnest, it turned out to be a campaign which progressed not necessarily to the Tories’ advantage.

As the Guardian reported, “Simon Hart, the Conservative MP who called the debate, said the party’s whips office had been dealing with ‘at least three credible threats to colleagues every week, including death threats, criminal damage, sexism, racism, homophobia, antisemitism and general thuggishness around and after the election’ … the latest contest was characterised by ‘swastikas on election boards, offensive slogans and language on posters’”. And the Mail said The Left Done It.

But then Diane Abbott put the Tories straight about what serious and sustained abuse looks like. Ms Abbott “said she receives racist abuse, including use of the N-word, ‘over and over again’ every day - both online and offline … ‘We are talking about mindless abuse and in my case the mindless abuse has been characteristically racist and sexist,’ she said”. The examples she brought forward did not make for pleasant hearing.

“‘And just to outline I’ve had death threats, I’ve had people tweeting that I should be hung if ‘they could find a tree big enough to take the fat bitch’s weight … There was an EDL-affiliated Twitter account BurnDianeAbbott, I’ve had rape threats, described as a pathetic, useless, fat, black, piece of shit, ugly, fat, black bitch’”.

She was not the only Labour figure to be on the receiving end of the nastiness: Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy has been subjected to abuse which only ended when one member of the brains trust was convicted and jailed for 18 weeks. Jess Phillips received more than 600 rape threats in one night. And Luciana Berger was targeted by sad nobody Joshua Bonehill Paine, who is now behind bars.

So while “Some Conservatives attributed higher levels of intimidation than normal to supporters of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn”, Ms Abbott strongly disputed the claim, and was backed up by her fellow Labour MP Paula Sherriff, who “said it was wrong for some Tories to suggest it was ‘only one party doing it’ … She could not remember a single day over the last two years in which she had not received some sort of abuse”.

Moreover, “Labour has also accused the Conservative party headquarters nationally of running a nasty campaign full of smears and untruths about opponents, particularly about Abbott”. The Tories did, indeed, make great play of their attacks on the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP. But anyone going a little too far when the target was a black woman Labour MP didn’t seem to fuss The Blue Team at the time.

Perhaps some Tories will think twice about this in future. I’ll just leave that one there.

Julia Hartley Dooda Is Jealous

For those familiar with the tedious and overbearing righteousness of Talk Radio host Julia Hartley Brewer, the last thing to which they would expect her to fall victim is jealousy. After all, Ms Hartley Dooda wants for nothing - well, apart from More And Bigger Media Appearances For The Benefit Of Herself Personally Now, of course - but now she finds that someone else has something she hasn’t got. And she’s not a happy bunny.

Yes thanks, we know who you are

Kirstie Allsopp, the moderately insistent co-host of Channel 4 property show Location, Location, Location, has, as is her wont, passed forthright and adverse comment on the idea of having one’s washing machine in the kitchen. She considers such a prospect “disgusting”. So, after the Murdoch mafiosi waved a suitably sized paycheque in her general direction, Ms Hartley Dooda was there in the Sun to put Kirstie straight.

“A posh flat, a holiday cottage, a mansion staffed by six… welcome to the wonky world of Kirstie Allsnob … As Mrs Rent-an-Opinion rages against the washing machine, she not only has more money than sense, but also more rooms”. As Derek Jameson might have asked, “Did Julia Hartley Dooda just call out someone else for having an opinion? She surely did”. Someone’s house wasn’t big enough to put it anywhere else. Oh dear!

“It’s all thanks to Kirstie Allsopp, host of Channel 4 property series Location, Location, Location - who has single-handedly sent Britain into a spin cycle over where we wash our dirty laundry … The uber-posh Kirstie has landed herself in hot soapy water after she expressed her horror at Brits keeping our washing machines in our kitchens … Not surprisingly, a lot of proud folk got into a lather over this oh-so-grand pronouncement”.

Well, I don't know who she is, and I don't care, either

Like who? I certainly didn’t: the Zelo Street washing machine sits in the utility room out the back. Convenient for hanging stuff out to dry on the rotary drier in the garden. But Ms Hartley Dooda was by now off and running: “As the daughter of the sixth Baron Hindlip, the Honourable Kirstie Allsopp, as she should correctly be titled, has since claimed her tweet was tongue-in-cheek … But it proved that she, like many a privileged toff before her, doesn’t just have more money than sense but more rooms than sense too”.

And then comes the admission. “Like pretty much everyone else in Britain I keep my washing machine where God intended   in the kitchen … Why? Because, like pretty much everyone else in Britain, I don’t have anywhere else to put it”. Oh! The shame!!

It gets worse. A lot worse. “And anyway, what’s so ‘disgusting’ about washing your dirty clothes in the same room as you wash your dirty dishes?” No way! Yes, the Zelo Street dishwasher is also out there in the utility room. Together with the dryer.

Anyway, back to the jealousy. “A shortage of rosemary and sea salt focaccia bread at her local Waitrose is the biggest problem in her life”. There’s an own goal for you: if she’s so well up on what can be found at the local Waitrose, it’s a pound to a penny that Ms Hartley Dooda shops there too. Now who’s calling “snob” on others?

Still, good to know I won’t have to risk bumping into her down the local Aldi. Small mercies, and all that.

Arron Banks - What Wealth?

The presence behind the funding of Leave EU, businessman Arron Banks, is never backwards in coming forwards to tell the public that he is considerably richer than most of them. He conservatively estimates his net worth to be around £100 million. He owns a large and apparently luxurious residence near Bristol. And, for all I know, he ranks as high as any in Rome. But questions are now being asked as to how rich he really is.

Banks was one of the names unearthed in the Panama Papers data leak. This was not the only low tax and/or offshore jurisdiction in which he was involved. But he then made great play of letting the world know that he not only paid tax in the UK, but that in May 2013, he had paid HMRC more than £1.85 million of it. Yet the questions persisted.

As the Guardian observed, “Under the name Arron Fraser Andrew Banks he is registered as a former director or former secretary of 34 different companies, but has resigned from all of them … A spokesman for Banks said that he declined to answer questions over his Companies House entries as well as other matters and preferred instead to ‘correct [the Guardian’s] mistakes in court’”. So when is the court case?

Moreover, some of Banks’ claims seemed not to add up: “Ukip claimed that he had given £250,000 to the Tories. But from Electoral Commission records, he gave £5,000 under the name Arron F Banks in May 2009 to Thornbury and Vale Conservative Association; and a second payment of £20,000 to Northavon Conservative Association in January 2007”.

There was more. “A Ukip source said that he had also loaned £75,417 to Thornbury and Yate Conservative party through his former company Panacea Finance in September 2007 … However, Companies House records show that Banks resigned from the company in September 2005, two years before the loan was granted”.

And then we have the current issue of Private Eye magazine (#1448, available at all good news stands right now), which has considered Banks’ investment in a number of South African diamond mines. He claimed to have bought  the de Beers’ mines. But the de Beers connection was rather more tenuous, as was their value.

It is in the conclusion of the Eye article that the question is put: “The Banks diamond mines’ value is unclear … on the basis of Banks’ own ‘water glass’ estimate, they are hardly a major contributor to the Brexit funder’s suggested £250 million fortune - rather like his investments in iodine producer Iofina and Manx Financial Group”.

Do go on. “Meanwhile, the flotation of his UK insurance broking business, Eldon Insurance Services - on which the generous £250m estimate appears to largely ride - is on hold. Said by the Sunday Times last Januery to be due ‘this summer’, Banks told the Financial Times last month it could take place ‘maybe next year’”.

Meanwhile, Banks’ piss-poor Westmonster propaganda website has resorted to carrying very prominent adverts for his GoSkippy online insurance service. So is Arron Banks worth all that much? Was he the source of the Leave EU millions? And if the answer to either or both of those questions is “No”, then who might he be fronting for?

Curiouser and curiouser. But we may be about to get some answers - stay tuned.

Piers Morgan Dumps Trump

The revelation that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s idiot son had, along with two of Dad’s close associates, met with a lawyer linked to the Russian state for the explicit purpose of obtaining dirt on Hillary Clinton, and that Dad very soon afterwards miraculously discovered the “33,000 deleted emails” line, have moved the bonfire under his Presidency from smouldering to ablaze in very short order.

This could be the end of a beautiful friendship

So now, all those pundits who had been willing to stick with The Donald through thick and thin had to ask themselves just how lucky they felt, especially his alleged pal, former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, no longer a CNN host but instead now co-presenter for three days a week of ITV’s Good Morning Britain. The mountain of evidence was set to precipitate an avalanche of bad news. Which way would The Great Man jump?

Slowly, oh so slowly, the Morgan loyalty began to crumble. “He spoke to someone he thought was a Russian govt. attorney offering information to influence an election. They're not allowed to do that” he mused. But was it an illegal act? “Probably not, as it would seem no information was acted upon”. Wrong, it seems - if it was indeed an agent of the Russian Government, the meeting itself is grounds for collusion or even Treason charges.

But he was still equivocating, not yet willing to throw his pal under the bus: “US media will intensify investigations into Trump/Russia pre-election links. I still don't think election-influencing collusion occurred”. Not much it didn’t, something he then appeared to believe himself: “I call things as I see them. This meeting suggests there was at the very least an appetite for Russian collusion from Trump camp”. He was starting to move.

Morgan was reminded that he didn’t think it was such a big deal yesterday: “The emails make it a much bigger deal”. The emails just underscore what he’d been told, and brushed off, so often in the past. And, inch by painful inch, he was beginning to distance himself from the Combover Crybaby: “I'm sure many real journalists are ... it all looks very dodgy to me” he replied to the suggestion journalists would be all over it by now.

And then, after driving it round the houses for so long, came the confirmation that on the next circuit, that bus would have Trump under it. “NEW: The Russia collusion story ain't no 'nothing burger' now.. it's a Triple Whopper leaking all over the place”. But just to hedge his bets, he was prepared to defend Trump Junior. “I've known @DonaldJTrumpJr a long time & he's definitely not stupid. But taking this meeting was not his smartest move”.

Wrong and wrong. He is stupid, and taking the meeting was yet more stupid. And just to signal that he really was dumping Trump, he returned to Twitter to confirm “The Trump/Russia collusion smoke just caught fire”. Real collusion, right now. But he had to maintain the pretence that he had been right all along, so when Emma Kennedy welcomed him on board, he sniffed “It's always better to go with evidence than prejudice, Ms Kennedy”.

If Piers Morgan has dumped Trump, there is really no way back. Whether there is any path to redemption for Morgan’s own credibility is another matter entirely.

The President’s House Is On Fire

Events in Washington DC have begun to move at a rather faster pace after Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s idiot son Donald Junior admitted he and two key aides to the Trump Gang had met a lawyer linked to the Russian state - in the Trump Tower in New York City, no less - to get campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton. But observers should also be keeping an eye on the UK actors in line for some serious blowback.

Soon available with bars. And very little hair

It is not a coincidence that the Trump-Russia imbroglio was absent from the front pages of the Murdoch Sun and Times today: the Times wanted its readers to look over there at all those migrants, and the Sun’s main splash was yet more lame, exposing, er, faulty glass-top tables from Argos. Rupert Murdoch has invested some serious credibility in Trump, not least using Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) to shill for him.

Spot the missing Stateside stories

But the latest revelations are damning: as Yashar Ali has observed, “June 7 - 5:16 PM - Don Jr. confirms meeting w/ Russian lawyer … June 7 - 9:13 PM Trump promises press conf the next week with Clinton dirt”. The claim that the meeting proved fruitless is going to be increasingly hard to stand up. And there is more. A lot more.

Keith Olbermann had bad news for Donald Junior: “Bad news, @DonaldJTrumpJr. The part in red on the email to you? That means you knowingly met with a liaison from the Russian government”. And he didn’t tell the Feds. Andrew Lawrence saw Fox News spinning for all it was worth: “We are at the point where Fox News is excusing ‘conspiring to subvert the government’”. And Evan Hill told “Investigators are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation helped guide Russia’s fake news attacks”.

Guide them at states they needed to turn Red, that is. And then Jesse Lehrich spelt out how bad it was for some of those backing Trump: “so we've got Farage, Assange & Roger Stone out there today 'defending' Don Jr … all of whom are key targets of the FBI investigation”. Farage and Assange are FBI targets. Have a think about that.

It gets worse: it’s now rumoured that Raheem “call me Ray” Kassam from the convocation of the irredeemably batshit otherwise known as Breitbart knows, at least in private, that the game is up. Does he hang in there, or try to cut and run? One to watch.

And what overrides all the excuses, all the claims by Trump that his son is a “high-quality person” (is he looking to sell him in the near future?), the very act of holding that meeting, as Olbermann pointed out, can have collusion and treason hung on it just for happening.

But hasn’t The Donald gone on record to say he knew nothing about what was happening in another part of the building in which he was a resident? Well, he has, but another damning piece of evidence is readily available to suggest his pants may be on fire.

OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY

You see, straight after the meeting with the Russian state-linked lawyer, which Trump senior allegedly knew nothing about, he took to Twitter to rant back at Hillary Clinton “How long did it take your staff of 823 people to think that up--and where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?”. The “33,000” figure originated right there. As did the promised press conference at which the dirt would be dished. That is why Trump is now toast.

And so, to a greater or lesser extent, are his UK cheerleaders. Just rejoice at that news.

Farage - One Step Nearer The Slammer

Yesterday’s events Stateside may soon be causing ripples on this side of the North Atlantic, such is the involvement with several politicians, pundits and other sundry hangers-on with the Trump Gang. And one of those politicians now wondering if spending time in the USA might not be the good idea they once thought it to be is former UKIP Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage.

Squeaky indictment finger up the bum time

Farage had made great play of his wish to relocate to the States, claiming that he received so much hassle here in the UK, although this was probably code for “insufficient fawning adoration”. After Combover Crybaby Donald Trump’s idiot son Donald Junior admitted he and two other key Trump campaign figures had knowingly met with a Russian state-linked lawyer to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, the vultures are starting to circle.

Words like “Collusion” and even “Treason” are being openly used across the US media, and indeed on Capitol Hill. High ranking GOP representatives are beginning to break ranks. And all the while, the closeness of Mr Thirsty to this crowd is being pored over, especially by the likes of Carole Cadwalladr at the Observer, who was dismissed rather too eagerly as a “Tinfoil hatted journalist” by the Guido Fawkes rabble.

Since then, Zelo Street has pieced together more of the jigsaw, including the presence of several of the key figures in the list of “Golden Dolphin” awards made by the now-moribund Young Britons’ Foundation. Meanwhile, those in the Farage inner circle have become jumpy enough for one of them to suggest legal action to throw Ms Cadwalladr off the scent. We appear to be getting closer to Mr Thirsty’s personal endgame.

Ms Cadwalladr Tweeted yesterday “What *is* the story here? New photo of Farage emerges. With "Putin's favourite congressman" & associate of Paul Manafort - @DanaRohrabacher”. A photo showed Farage and Rohrbacher on a fishing trip. Then she followed up with “Reminder of who @DonaldJTrumpJr forwarded that exciting email about the meeting with the Russians to”. Paul Manafort. Associate of Rohrbacher.

Then came the first giveaway: Arron Banks responded to one of Ms Cadwalladr’s Tweets, despite not having been tagged in it. “You are a person of interest to no one, Carole” he sneered, but despite there being no alleged interest, he tagged Andy Wigmore to be on the safe side. Wigmore deflected: “It's pure fantasy”. Don’t worry. Look over there.

However, and here we encounter a potentially game changing however, Liz Bilney, who is the CEO of Leave EU, then leapt into the Twitter exchange - once again, without being tagged. “I'm interested to see if there's a defamation claim … I will be looking very closely at @carolecadwalla” she warned. That really is a serious giveaway.

Carole Cadwalladr did no more than post a Tweet including a photo, and ask a question about it. Suddenly, Arron Banks is ostentatiously waving it away, and the Leave EU CEO is suggesting she’s going to get Lawyered up. But over what?

The thought enters that Nigel Farage could be in serious trouble - remember, he has not only the Trump connection, but the Assange one as well - and that those around him know the house may be about to fall in on them. More on this one later.

Gina Miller - Racist Gets Guilty

Yesterday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, a minor aristocrat called Rhodri Philipps, who is also the 4th Viscount St Davids, was found guilty of sending menacing messages on Facebook. The plain English translation of this is that he was caught posting threatening and racist sentiments about Brexit campaigner Gina Miller, and others. The presiding magistrate told Phillips he can expect a custodial sentence.

Gina Miller

The outpouring of bigoted bile was as spectacular as it was jaw-droopingly vicious: Phillips had offered “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant”. As the Guardian has reported, “He described Miller as a ‘fucking boat jumper’ and added: ‘If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles’”. And there was more.

“The judge also convicted 50-year-old Philipps for comments he made after reading an article about a migrant, Arthur Sube, who was reported to have turned down a five-bedroom council house for his family of eight children … Following the publication of the article about Sube in September 2016, Philipps wrote: ‘Please will someone smoke this ghastly insult to our country? Why should I pay tax to feed these monkeys? A return to Planet of the Apes is not acceptable’”. He wasn’t finished yet.

No mention of this today ...

“In a second post, he wrote: ‘I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces, piece of shit’”. But guess what? “Philipps - who also holds the titles Lord Hungerford, Lord de Moleyns, and Lord Strange of Knockin [!] - insisted he is not racist … ‘I know a number of Muslims who are dear friends’”.

This case has, to the credit of the EU-bashing tabloids, been reported comprehensively. What has not been so much as mentioned, though, is the abuse and incitement that was directed at Ms Miller, particularly by the Mail and Sun, over her challenge to the attempts by the Government to dispense with consulting Parliament over triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. None of that gets a look-in today.

So we don’t get reminded that the Mail went into meltdown, calling Ms Miller a “Guyanan-born ex-model … married to a millionaire financier” and “Nicknamed 'Mrs Wham Glam' by friends, she  has now been branded 'woman of the century' by Remainers”. The legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre got Sarah “Vain” Vine to pen a hatchet job, telling readers how Ms Miller was out of touch (I know, Sarah Vine calling out of touch on others).

... and no mention of this, either

That coverage spawned a series of unpleasant and threatening social media outbursts aimed at Ms Miller. Meanwhile, over at the Murdoch Sun, while their hacks protested that their attacks on those in the media who had incurred their displeasure was merely the exercise of free speech, those same hacks didn’t see fit to extend that free speech concession to Gina Miller. And this is where it has all led.

Fortunately for the Europhobic part of the Fourth Estate, no actual act of violence, no physical harm, resulted from their vicious campaign against Ms Miller. The problem is that it will take that kind of outcome for them to stop and think. And that’s not good enough.

Rupert Murdoch Approves Muslim Hatred

The old adage that if you want to know what Rupert Murdoch is thinking, you should read a few Sun editorials, can also be applied to at least one of the paper’s regular columnists. Trevor Kavanagh is the ultimate insider, the faithful retainer who has been part of the inner circle of the Cosa Rupra for long enough that when he posts his “opinion” on any potentially controversial subject, it is done with his boss’ implicit approval.

Why did Kavanagh cross the road? Because he understood that it was in his interest to do so

It is with this thought in mind that his singularly disturbing rant yesterday headlined “We need to root out evil lurking behind migration - as Donald Trump warns leaders they MUST defend Western values … The US president was talking about Islamic extremism and rogue states such as North Korea but he was also making reference to mass immigration from Africa” should be read. Western values. Do as The Donald says.

We know all about those so-called “Western values”. As Zelo Street regulars will already be aware, writers at Newsweek, The Atlantic and Elite Daily picked up on the Combover Crybaby using loaded remarks like “The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive”. Trump’s “West” is a Christian and white west. His was a racial and religious message. Kavanagh is obediently recycling it for Sun readers.

That would be those readers who have already been fed a constant diet of Muslim bashing copy for some years now. Kav casually chucks a match on this driest of tinder as he opines “Even tolerant, welcoming countries like Sweden resent the sheer number of single, unemployed young men amid claims police are covering up a surge in crime, especially sex crime”. Sex crime. Sheer number of single young men.

There was more: “Expressions of concern have been muted by taunts of ­’racism’ and ‘Islamaphobia’ … But they are exploding afresh this summer as TV images show thousands of illegals from Africa, Afghanistan and ­Pakistan swarming ashore in Italy and Greece”. Exploding. Illegals. Swarming. And it gets worse.

“This crisis is nothing less than an oil-and-water clash of civilisations”. Civilisation once more. “Very large numbers of the new arrivals have no ­experience of civil society”. It’s OK to call them dirty. They can’t use the bathroom properly, you know.

“They have mostly known only poverty, repression and corruption - the reason they upped sticks … Some will recreate these ­conditions rather than adopt a Western respect for the rule of law”. No go areas. The country going to hell in a handcart. Something imposed on us by “the other”. And who is “the other”? “More painfully to the point, almost all are Muslim”. Well, knock me down with a feather. It’s the Scary Muslims (tm) again!

Then Kavanagh lies to his readers about Islam. After all, most who read the Sun only know what they’ve been fed by the paper’s propagandists, so it’s an east hit. “Individually, Muslims are no worse and no better than ­anyone else, but they belong to an exclusive and frequently intolerant faith. They might accept our rule of law, but their first duty is to Allah … They believe the entire world belongs to Allah, not the nations in which they happen to reside”. A foreign body in our country. “The other” wanting to take us over.

“No Muslim dares question the Koran, the holy book which sets out these 7th Century teachings of the Prophet Mohammed”. See, it’s medieval! Oh, and forget that the Bible, which includes the Old Testament, which has more than enough violence in it, is an even older work. Think only of people with foreign names. And “the other” in our midst.

On drones Kavanagh: “We cannot have satire, ­criticism or jokes about Islam without risking death … those innocent men, women and children who have perished in their hundreds on the streets of Britain and Europe in recent mass killings … The argument that such ­killers were not ‘true Muslims’ does not wash”. And then he drops it.

“Of course, only a handful of Muslims would actually inflict such slaughter. But too many privately - and not so privately - applaud their actions”. Don’t worry, Sun readers - it’s OK to abuse all those Scary Muslims (tm), because they’re all at it. And there is yet more.

“It is not always easy to ­distinguish between news ­footage of boatloads of young men in orange lifejackets and CCTV images of young men in blood-soaked suicide vests … When they sometimes turn out to be the same people, Europe’s leaders must surely understand how badly they’ve got this wrong”. Stop being sympathetic to drowning refugees! They’re all part of “the other”! They’re coming here to kill you!

Small wonder that activist Miqdaad Versi has passed adverse comment on Kavanagh’s disgusting incitement of his readers, observing “Disgusting piece in the Sun by Trevor Kavanagh saying it is "painful" that most migrants are Muslim & attacking all Muslims' views … He does not even try and mask the bigotry in an attack on the faith of Islam …Instead he associates all Muslims with actions of a few & appears to intentionally distort the faith of over 1 billion Muslims”. But he misses the main point.

And that is that Kavanagh’s article takes a white supremacist view of “The West” and “Civilisation”. That is what underpinned Trump’s Poland speech. And worst of all, if Kavanagh is saying it, it’s come from the top. Rupert Murdoch is Trump’s number one cheerleader in the US media. He will have had no problem with Kav’s outpourings.

What has appeared in the Murdoch press is sheer poison. Worse, it is managerially sanctioned poison. For the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker, it is now open season on followers of The Prophet. But when the next white van gets driven into a crowd outside a Mosque, it will be a lone wolf. Or a mental health issue. Or something.

Our free and fearless press had the opportunity to give leadership, promote dialogue, and instil a climate of rational debate on this issue. Instead, the tabloids seem hell-bent on instilling intolerance instead. And that’s not good enough.

Sun Seumas Milne Hypocrisy

After the Sun on Sunday ran a story showing Seumas Milne, spinner to the Labour leader, in an apparently intimate moment with a woman who was not his wife, the Murdoch goons have been desperately trying to capitalise on their find. The tsunami of knocking copy has reached its nadir today with an article by Kate Jackson, which has backfired badly on the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker.

The headline, “Inside the world of Seumas Milne - the loaded leftie lothario who is Jeremy Corbyn’s most trusted crony … The privately educated ex-Guardian journalist is the Labour leader's chief spin doctor and was recently spotted cuddling up to a woman who is not his wife”, tells you all you need to know. What some Sun readers might not know is that there is a good reason for Ms Jackson’s name to appear on the by-line.

Exclusive fee-paying school and Oxford

The Murdoch press calling “privately educated toff” on others is always problematic - mainly because Rupe himself went to an exclusive fee-paying school and then went up to Oxford to read PPE. But Ms Jackson has her instructions.

Milne, she tells, “loves fine-dining”. Like the Sun’s editor Tony Gallagher, who makes a point of telling everyone about all the exclusive eateries he visits.

Fine dining lover - and out of touch

And while we’re talking exclusive fee-paying schools, the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn went to Marlborough College. Their alleged “Westminster Correspondent”, the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, attended Tonbridge School, where the fees for boarders are higher than those charged by Eton College.

Still, onwards and, er, onwards, eh? “Milne’s career began on Communist paper Straight Left”. Rupert Murdoch was a Labour supporter at Oxford. And, so what?

Exclusive school. Posh snob. Out of touch #1

“Milne is said to have enjoyed a close relationship with current Guardian editor Kath Viner”. Nudge nudge, wink wink, nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat.

Exclusive school. Posh snob. Out of touch #2

“Milne caused outrage by saying Fusilier Lee Rigby’s 2013 murder by Islamist extremists was not ‘terrorism in the normal sense’”. No, the only outrage was among unprincipled Sun creeps who edited what Milne actually said, “the attack wasn't terrorism in the normal sense of an indiscriminate attack on civilians” [my emphasis]. Try again.

“He has long supported President Putin”. So has Donald Trump - you know, Murdoch doggies, that bloke you all cheer for because he’s Rupe’s pal.

And another overpaid, out of touch hack

“His appointment as Labour’s director of communications in 2015 caused a furore”. Only among the right-wing press, who had no problem with Andy Coulson, who had overseen a borderline criminal enterprise at the Screws, becoming Young Dave’s spinner.

Oh, and he eats a Pret À Manger salad for lunch. Like loads of overpaid Sun hacks.

Once again, the Murdoch press tells the rest of us to “do as we say, not as we do”. They have no room to call “rich” and “out of touch” on anyone. Because that’s what they are.