Thursday, April 09, 2009

"Homeless alcoholic"

The Daily Mail on the G20 tragedy



As new damning video evidence of police officers assaulting Ian Tomlinson emerged yesterday, the Daily Mail finds nothing better to do than calling the victim a "homeless alcoholic" (quote: "[the new video] appears to back up earlier film taken by a City fund manager and released on Tuesday night, which showed an officer striking the homeless alcoholic with a baton and then shoving him to the ground").

Because, of course, in the Mail's warped little world, that alleged piece of information is intended to water down the officers' contempt for the law.

Would the Daily Mail write "an officer striking the maisonette-owning pipe-chomper" if Tomlinson had been known as a pipe-collecting proud owner of a maisonette? Would they call him a "Porsche-driving champagne conoisseur" if that had been the case?

Or could it just be that, with the police's behaviour appearing increasingly indefensible by the minute, the tabloid's strategy is now to focus on discrediting the victim every way they can?

2 comments:

Madam Miaow said...

Oh, here we go, right on cue. Caught bang to rights attacking an innocent man and this is their rancid response.

Jemmy Hope said...

"Homeless alcoholic"? That's better than I expected. I've been waiting for the Mail or the Sun to come up with a link between Mr. Tomlinson and al-Qaidah.