Once again, selected acts of wickedness are being used by the hypocritical tabloids to forward their political agenda. But the list of people who murdered their kids and weren't on benefits is endless.Alas, this is going to go on for a while. Yesterday the Sun wrote about "Scrounger Sensation". Likewise, today's News of the World is out with all guns blazing against the "good-for-nothing scroungers". Carole Malone, of course, knows best. "I USED to live next to a council estate in the North East, much like the one in Dewsbury Moor", she writes, adding that "it was full of people like Karen Matthews. People who’d never had jobs, never wanted one, people who expected the state to fund every illegitimate child they had—not to mention their drink, drug and smoking habits". And in case you had any doubt, today's column carries the headline "Force low-life to work for a living".
It's been like this all week. Fresh from their Baby P "crusade", our favourite tabloid columnists have been on it like a broken record. Benefits equal dependence equal council estates which in turn leads up to killing children. Wickedness as the sole prerogative of people on benefit, single parents and the unemployed. All those tracksuited scumbags are fair game.
Yet I don't remember The Sun banging on about middle-class evil when cold-hearted Ian and Angela Gay were convicted of the salt poisoning of their three-year-old adopted son*. How cruel and calculating was that?
In February, a married 47-year-old metal worker from Yorkshire stabbed his four-year-old son to death and slashed his teenage daughter as he went on a "horrific knife rampage" motivated by jealousy. The story made the news, but it didn't lend itself to a typical tabloid "crusade", that's why you may not have heard about it.
In February, a married 47-year-old metal worker from Yorkshire stabbed his four-year-old son to death and slashed his teenage daughter as he went on a "horrific knife rampage" motivated by jealousy. The story made the news, but it didn't lend itself to a typical tabloid "crusade", that's why you may not have heard about it.
Only last June, an RAF Iraq veteran, one of 'our boys', was sentenced for shaking his baby daughter to death. He even tried to blame his wife. Did the Sun columnists queue up to write that all married army people are short-tempered nutters? Of course not.
Around the same time, the vice-chairman of Karate England, 53-year-old Brian Philcox, was sentenced for having murdered his children, aged 3 and 7, on Father's Day. Did Littlejohn write a piece explaining the scientific correlation between martial arts and a penchant for violence?
Last September a Southampton car salesman smothered his children, aged 13 months and three years and then proceeded to kill himself. One more time, unless I blinked at the time, Jon Gaunt and Carole Malone didn't write about middle-class evil and their loss of basic values.
In 2006, and I quote the Daily Mail, "A wealthy businessman who killed his wife and concealed her body at a spot where he had sex with his lover was today found guilty of her murder. Michael Gifford-Hull, 43, showed no emotion as the Winchester Crown Court jury convicted him of killing his wife Kirsi, 38". The guy was an entrepreneur. Gowon Suzanne Moore, write us a column about money and ambition turning us into emotionless killers.
And by no means is this a one-off. City banker Neil Ellerbeck, owner of a property worth £650,000, strangled his wife to death, leaving their two children devastated for life. Surely you'd have to be a monster to do that, broken Britain, bone idle and the rest. Again, is there a link between greed, money and acts of wickedness? Where are you Kelvin McKenzie?
* Ian and Angela Gay were later acquitted on appeal. But the fact remains no tabloid "crusade" had ever taken place (thanks to reader John B for pointing that out).
9 comments:
Or that millionaire who set fire to his house and shot his family last summer. It annoys me that everyone always shrugs the tabloids off like something not serious enough while, really, they wield such massive power.
Good stuff there are some blogs out there dissecting the Sun et al.
There she is.
This morning Melanie Phillips calls for the ABOLITION of all child benefits.
Far from challeniging this daily bombardment, Labour are dancing to its tune (see Mr Purr Nell).
Britain's in for some nice time in the future, me thinks.
But, as usual, nobody's saying what needs to be stated in CAPITAL LETTERS: SCUMBAG KAREN MATTHEWS DID SOMETHING VILE.
And all you leftie bloggers. How can you be blind to the despair and crap of most council estates, areas where people are afraid to venture?
There are parts of London where cab drivers won't take you.
Not that it defeats your point about the press at all, but might be worth noting that the Gays were acquitted on appeal on the grounds that, err, they didn't do it.
As usual, nobody's saying what needs to be stated in CAPITAL LETTERS: SCUMBAG KAREN MATTHEWS DID SOMETHING VILE.
Why the fuck does that need to be stated in capital letters, when it's completely obvious to everyone? The issue is whether that means it's fair to equate all other benefits-claiming mothers with child-abducting scumbags - which it isn't.
"There are parts of London where cab drivers won't take you."
Anywhere south of the river, I'm told...
John B:
Equating, like you say, may be wrong. But you are blind if you don't see the following chain of events.
We have the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Europe. It's endemic. The greatest majority of those girls remain single as the feral chavs who impregnate them simply disappear (a kid? responsibility? fook off, will ya?). Those girls are handed out council flats or houses like sweets in a playground.
Their mates take notice, they ralise how easy it is.
That creates an underclass. More children, more state handouts, bigger houses.
Gradually those estates become more degrades. The children grow up and start thinking like their mothers. They never grew up seeing mum and dad toiling away to make a living.
These people gradually turn into creatures without references that arent the dealer, day time trash on tv and car chases.
I admit Karen Matthews is a particularly bad examples. But she is a good example.
thepatriot,
it's funny how you accuse John B of "equating" when the entirety of your comment is a large generalisation of what you think ALL single-parent families are like in the UK.
There are large numbers of scummy families with no principles who have both parents intact and also a great deal of single-parent families (including my own when I was growing up) who don't spend their time in front of Jeremy Kyle, taking drugs and getting pregnant at 15.
There's also a number of middle class people who get pregnant very young who come from wealthy families and don't necessarily get impregnated by chav scums.
Singling out a category of people in the way it's happening nowadays (and the way you've just done) can be dangerous.
Some of what you wrote is true, but a lot of 'underclass' people work. It's just that their wages are disgustingly low.
Just because you're a member of the so-called 'underclass' doesnt mean you're on the dole or 'scrounging'.
My mum was never on the dole and worked full-time since the age of 17 and there are millions like that except that the Sun and the Mail don't report it, so people like you never find out about them.
"Those girls are handed out council flats or houses like sweets in a playground."
You obviously know nothing about social housing allocation. Can we stop using the above phrase - it turns serious debate into a Jimmy Carr routine.
Can't say I agree
That salt poisioning case got plenty of publicity.
And what about the McCann's the tide turned against them and every tabloid went for the juggler? You don't get more middle class that this pair! Bad parenting became a pseudonym for Jerry and Kate.
No, love, Darwen Reporter.
I ain't taking any of this.
The coverage The Sun devoted to Baby P+ Karen Matthews has NOTHING - I repeat: NOTHING- to do with the McCanns.
The salt poisoning got some publicity, I'm not denying it, but like 1/50th of Baby P's.
The Baby P case has been literally like a military operation, with seniorministers involved. Unless you don't live in the UK you wouldn't know...with vigils in every big city and the Parliament discussing it.
The Commons were never involved in the Ian and Angela Gay case. Period. The Sun never started any petition or parked any truck outside their local council. Period.
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