What happened to the foreign job theives?

A classic, I think you'd agree

I used to get quite worked up about how the papers covered employment statistics. Whatever they were, we'd get made up headlines about how migrants had stolen ALL the jobs splashed across the front pages. Yesterday, some new employment figures were published and I got all nostalgic, so I looked to the tabloids to see if they were still pulling the same trick.

Turns out all sorts of things have been happening in the tabloid 'foreign worker scare story' petri dish while I've been away. I feel like a scientist who comes across a forgotten specimen at the back of a cupboard to find it's...mutated.

I'll have a racist 99 please!

Last week, two vans with massive posters on the side telling illegal immigrants to fuck off or get arrested were driven around six select London boroughs. Rumours that they played a plinky-plonky ice cream van version of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' as they went remain unconfirmed.

'In the UK illegally?' they asked politely of everyone before bellowing, 'GO HOME OR FACE ARREST' presumably at people who were indeed in the UK illegally. To assorted right wingers and racist people, however, they shouted 'WE ARE BEING ALL HARD ABOUT FOREIGNS. PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR THE UKIPS'. I'll leave you to guess which of those was the actual primary message. (HINT: It was the second one, Einstein).

Bulgarian government, Bulgarian TV station or British Sunday tabloid?

On last night's BBC Question Time, Diane James of UKIP claimed that a Bulgarian government survey showed that 56% of Bulgarians have said they want to move to the UK. 

This instantly sounded fishy to me. Last month, the Sunday Express said that 54% of Bulgarians wanted to come to the UK after it took UKIP's Paul Nuttall to Bulgaria on a fact finding mission. The paper claimed the figures came from a survey by Bulgarian TV station bTV. The Daily Star on Sunday reported the figure at 55%, leaving out mention of any source. These are probably the same numbers Diane James was talking about, since her leaflet mentions 4 million Bulgarians like the Express article.

Toby Young - not much better than Delingpole

A while ago now (although it was in my last post here) I looked at a James Delingpole column and went through the logical fallacies I spotted in it. I think I got most of them.

In it, I mentioned Toby Young, one of the other big professional Gumbys who earns at least some of his living spouting nonsense the media thinks someone should be representing, even if it's an idiot with a knotted hanky and wellies on standing in the middle of a field.

For larks, I decided to do the same thing with Young's latest Telegraph blog* as I did with Delingpole's and go through the logical fallacies. I must just miss the rock n roll lifestyle.

James Delingpole - not very good

A few weeks ago, I joined the Blocked by James Delingpole club on Twitter. It's not a very select club, it must be said. The criteria for entry seems to be disagreeing with him, whether or not you use the sort of colourful language I did. You can even get in if your name's not down and you're wearing jeans and trainers.

Delingpole is one of those professional Gumbys that are employed because they represent a point of view that people in the media feel needs to be expressed by someone, even if it's an idiot in wellies and a knotted hanky standing in a field expressing it in a stupid voice.

Frumpy A-Levels! 5 bits of advice for those who didn't do so well

Via the late sexyalevels

So, today was A-Level results day. If you picked up a newspaper you'd have seen the pictures of pretty girls jumping that decorate the occasion like tinsel at Christmas. Look at them, all excited because they got what they want. Aren't they lucky?

But not everyone's so lucky. You won't see any pictures of kids whose results look more like the name of a well known cable news channel thinking 'shit, what do I do now?' in the papers.

If you were one of those people today, you're not alone. I experienced A-Level results day three times. At none of them did I jump for joy outside the front of my school. So here's some friendly advice from some twat who has a blog and is desperately trying to fight off incipient middle-aged spread. Like a boss.

No offence

I told my first ever joke in front of an audience when I was eight years old. I was at my mate's ninth birthday party, and all the other kids had gone home with their parents. We were the only kids left, and our parents and aunts and uncles were busy boozing in the dining room while the two of us watched The Two Ronnies and something I think was The Comedians in the front room, until we thought we'd go and wow the grownups with the jokes we'd just seen. It was going to be great.