A Europe Where Giants Are Ruled By Pygmies

It wasn't so long ago that any discussions relating to Europe would have centred around maybe half a dozen of the region's different sovereign states, rather than the continental federation of 28 which now constitute the comparatively new economic and politically driven construct, which is the European Union. Where once the international community spoke about and dealt with the likes of France, Britain, Germany, Holland, Sweden and Denmark, along with a raft of other ancient nation states, now the international community commonly speak to and deal with faceless appointees of the EU, rather than the national representatives of the individual sovereign countries, which for the most part have willingly allowed themselves to be subsumed by the growing continental monstrosity, with its unerring mantra of "ever closer unity".

 

It's hard to imagine that impoverished Portugal once led the western world in sea-borne exploration of the globe, producing some of European history's greatest ever maritime explorers and opening up the western coast of Africa, along with parts of South America, for trade, for settlement and yes for exploitation too! But who will remember all of that rich cultural history, now that Portugal has agreed to sell itself, its people, its future employment prospects, its national currency, all for the prospect of being good little Europeans, rather than remaining proud and independent Portuguese, or even Iberians?

 

The same might be said of their larger neighbours, Spain, the only European nation to have ever truly rivalled Britain on the global stage, in terms of its own imperial ambitions; and that but for the vagaries of the Atlantic weather, might well have become one of those small number of foreign states ever to successfully invade England. Alongside its Iberian neighbours though, Spain too has chosen to essentially abandon its rich cultural and nationalistic past in favour of becoming just another region of the proposed United States of Europe, sacrificing control of its currency, its jobs markets, its national borders and its traditional fishing grounds, simply to become a fairly unremarkable member of this new socio-economic club.

 

As for France! Well, what can one say? For hundreds of years, France and England have shared a love/hate relationship that generally defies rational explanation. Whether we have been fighting one another, or fighting against a common foe, our mutual and traditional antagonisms have never been that far away, but still our political leaders have managed to put them to one side, if only for as long as it takes for disaster to be averted, or for the danger to be confronted and overcome. From a purely French perspective, one can well understand that the emergence and development of the European Union, with its ethos of ever closer union, is generally not regarded as a threat or a danger to France itself. Why would it be, when France was one of the chief architects of the post World War II proposals that brought the first incarnation of the Union into being? Added to that is the fact that France commonly treats EU rules and regulations as a buffet of choice, picking out the bits that it likes and disposing of, or ignoring those parts that it doesn't quite like the look of. Even though France has been called upon to surrender its national currency, its border controls and a multitude of other national competences, in order to comply with the EU's myriad of new rules and regulations, overall, by benefiting from them directly, or by just ignoring those that don't add benefit to their economy or society, one can well understand why France would actually regard the EU as a worthwhile experiment.

 

As regards Britain's attitude to Europe generally and the European Union specifically, one supposes that it depends on who you ask? For the most part, it seems highly likely that a majority of Britons are largely indifferent to "Europe" as a general subject, either because they haven't given the matter a great deal of thought, or don't know enough about the subject to offer an informed opinion about it either way. Likewise, one would assume that most Britons don't really care that much about the EU as an organisation, unless of course it happens to be mentioned with regard to immigration, or the Human Rights Act, both of which tend to receive a significant amount of attention in the British media, often for the most negative sorts of reasons. The truth is though that if someone were to suggest filling in the Channel Tunnel and building a high wall around the southern coast of Britain, the vast majority of us probably wouldn't be that bothered by the plan, providing that some sort of reasonable justification was offered for doing it. We simply don't care enough about Europe, the EU, or anything else on the other side of the Channel, why should we?

 

Okay! So some poor souls might miss their Brie, their Champagne, their French Wine, their Swiss chocolate, but so what? Shit happens! For all such losses though, if someone were to justify the move by telling the British people that virtually all immigration from the continent would stop, or that they wouldn't be seeing any more Islamic clerics abusing our welfare systems through the use of the Human Rights Act, most people would welcome the move; and some would even help build the wall, or fill in the tunnel with their bare hands. Europe was, is and will always remain a nuisance to most Britons, as it simply represents a reminder of the complete waste of British lives, influence and money that have been invested in the place for the past two hundred years or more.

 

In fact, it might well be argued that it is not the success of the European continent or the European Union that has seen Britain attach itself to this particular political experiment, but rather the failure of our own British politicians to come up with a viable alternative. It's little wonder that the British people are so unenthusiastic about Europe and the EU when most of them recognise that in reality it is and always has been a really, really bad idea, but one that we've been forced to choose, because there isn't another on offer. To put it into some sort of perspective, the EU as an idea, is a bit like  pretending that a drainpipe is a bucket; and the user being constantly surprised when the water keeps pissing out of one bottom of it!

 

Of course the initial concept of the EU, a European trading bloc, where tariffs and duties were removed for member states, was a pretty good idea, but as with most politicians, the architects behind the scheme just couldn't stop tinkering with the idea. Clearly never having heard the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" they did try and fix it; and screwed it up entirely! Then when they found themselves in a socio-economic hole, they just kept digging, presumably on the basis that if they dig long enough and deep enough, then they'll emerge into daylight at some point in time?

 

Although we'd all like to think that the EU is being run by the brightest and the best, clearly nothing could be further from the truth. Small men having small minds can be the only explanation as to why what started off as a straightforward customs union, has subsequently morphed into a continental sized economic and bureaucratic nightmare that even the likes of Dr Steven Hawking would struggle to explain; and he's a clever fellow, unlike some of the political pygmies who seem to think they're in charge of the EU.

 

The less charitable amongst us might choose to believe that the EU is little more than a giant spider's web of deceit, woven with strands of financial impropriety, political shenanigans and sheer human vanity, at the centre of which sits the likes of Angela Merkel and her political associates in Germany. "She who pays the piper, calls the tune", so they say and there can be little doubt that financially strong and industrially active Germany is definitely pulling all of the various strands that constitute this particular web. There's nothing wrong in that of course, provided that Frau Merkel and her political cohorts are honest enough to admit that they're in charge, because they can be and choose to be, as well as admitting what their true intentions are. If their long term goal is to create a United States of Europe, similar to the USA, then tell people that. If they're determined to recreate some form of Socialist Federation, similar to the old Soviet Union, then they should tell people that also. Because, sure as eggs is eggs, people are going to figure it out for themselves at some point and if they don't like what they see, then what's going to happen then?

 

Obviously I can't speak for other countries, but here in the UK it has become something of a standard joke that most of our failed politicians are simply exported to Europe in order to work for the EU in some or other role, Lord and Lady Kinnock, Lord Mandelsson, Baroness Ashton, to name but a few of the so-called worthies that we've managed to off-load to the continent. Bearing in mind that they've hardly covered themselves with glory on this side of the Channel, therein perhaps lies a clue as to their actual abilities, after all one rarely disregards a star striker, whereas a clapped out old fart is another matter entirely. Sadly though, the fact that the EU accepted them in the first place is noteworthy, suggesting that the entire organisation is being manned and run by a variety of national rejects, has-beens and second stringers, with the odd few political exceptions , like Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall and Godfrey Bloom, thrown in.

 

The nearest comparison that one could point to when describing the EU and the European Parliament is probably the Eurovision Song Contest, which may in fact be fairly indicative of the way things work on the continent. The judging panel (in this case the Parliament) sits and listens to the individual song (in this case, the particular piece of legislation); and then when it's finished, they consult with their neighbour (in this case, representatives with a similar political outlook); and once they're sure that it's of mutual beneficial interest to them they vote in favour. However, as with Eurovision, any legislation connected with or of benefit to the United Kingdom, is automatically greeted with a "nil" point, so good luck to Mr Cameron when he attempts to recreate that "Bucks Fizz" moment between now and 2017.

 

Of course there's no good reason why our European neighbours should do us any favours, after all they're as indifferent about us, as we are about them. The only people who keep wittering on about being good Europeans are those EU employees, who generous salaries and over-inflated egos are entirely dependent on the project carrying on indefinitely, so a certain amount of self interest needs to be taken into account when considering such things. It would represent a massive failure for the EU project if Britain were to withdraw from the European Union, not least to those countries who are equally exasperated with its excesses, but too timid to say so publicly. Better to let Britain get all of the political grief, while they might gain some of the benefits, from any blood that the UK may be able to draw from the European Parliamentary stone. That's assuming of course that whoever we have as Prime Minister doesn't allow themselves to be as easily hoodwinked as Mr Cameron obviously was over the last round of European budget cuts, or his veto that wasn't a veto, until someone with a bit more commonsense explained it to him, although even then he still believed that he'd scored a victory, which just goes to prove what an embarrassment he really is!

 

Ultimately, the European Union may well have begun life with the noblest of intentions, that of preventing any future wars between Germany and its continental neighbours. The fact that this common treaty eventually evolved into a Common European Market was perhaps inevitable and laudable, had it remained simply that, a common customs union, or common marketplace. Sadly, earlier ill-conceived continental dreams of a Europe wide federation of states have subsequently been adopted by various politicians, often as much for their own personal vanity, or their individual nation's interests, without any real thought being given to how such radical socio-economic developments might impact on those less advanced nations who willingly chose to join the project.

 

One might well regard the European Union like a set of child's building blocks. Typically, the child on first use might simply continue to place the blocks on top of one another, unaware or indifferent to the instability affecting the structure, until eventually it falls over and crashes to the floor. It might take a child a few attempts to figure out that they need to secure the foundations of the pile of bricks, in order to ensure its stability, but eventually they'll work it out and no-one gets hurt in the process (unless of course they happen to be using real house bricks, in which case it's probably not a good idea to let them play with them in the first place) In a sense though that's exactly what the architects of the EU have been doing, allowing children to play with real house bricks, which in real life has resulted in the peoples of Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain and Ireland getting hurt. However, rather than taking the bricks off the child, they're currently in the process of inviting even more children to join in the game, including those from Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey and Serbia. One wonders if they too will be enticed by the supposedly cheap money, the new roads, the shiny new cars, as were their Greeks, Cypriots and Spanish counterparts, who are now busily extracting themselves from the mountain of debt that engulfed them?

 

It cannot be a coincidence that Germany, one of the chief architects of the European Union and the central financier of the project, also happens to be one of the main beneficiaries of this enlargement and the ongoing European indebtedness. Could it genuinely be the case that the entire EU project is little more than a glorified Ponzi scheme, where new members are constantly required in order to feed the financial rewards given to earlier participants? If that's the case then what happens when you run out of European countries who are desperate to join? Do you move into Asia, Africa, the Middle East? And where do you stop?

 

Maybe a simpler answer, is that the EU is a big project being run by small men, who have neither the capacity, competence, or the personal integrity to handle such a massive undertaking, always assuming that it should have been started in the first place. Big, old countries like Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Britain haven't become easier to govern, they've become far more complicated, so quite why, the likes of Catherine Ashton, Herman Van Rumpoy or Jose' Manuel Barroso believe they can represent them, understand them, let alone solve their problems is a complete nonsense. Why would Angela Merkel, David Cameron, or Francoise Hollande care about the day-to-day problems of Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Denmark or Sweden, when they're elected and paid to look after the interests of their national electorates? And if the answer is that Catherine Ashton, Herman Van Rompuy or Jose' Manuel Barroso are paid to do that job, then I'll pose the obvious question, how on earth would they do that? Small minded men and women dealing with big national and international issues....why would we rely on them to solve what are fairly insurmountable problems? That would be as stupid as asking a history graduate to run the entire British economy, wouldn't it?         

Don't Stop The World, We Want To Stay On!

I have to say that as a definite UKIP voter in any British elections that come along in the next few years, I just love this idea of people like me being regularly parodied as some sort of madly racist neo-colonialist throwbacks, who aimlessly wander the streets of Britain shrieking alarm at the numbers of coloured faces, foreign dress and multiple languages that we happen to encounter on an almost daily basis.

 

Attired as we must be in our Colonel Blimp type safari suits, complete with the mandatory pith helmet, swagger stick and a bottle of Imperial Gin, we must present some sort of fairly comical picture as we supposedly stumble around our city streets, madly pointing to the various foreign looking faces that surround us, jabbing wildly in their direction as they walk quickly away from we mad racist UKIP supporters, who by now would almost certainly be loudly proclaiming to the memsahib and anyone else who looks remotely British who'll listen "LOOK, LOOK , it's another one. Well I never did"!!

 

Alternatively, I suppose we might adopt that other traditional stereotypical look, which the mainstream media has tried so hard to associate with any and all supporters of UKIP; that of the skin-headed, knuckle-dragging, half-wit, who finds some security and reward in tattooing a Union Jack flag onto our foreheads, or any other part of our anatomy for that matter. Armed with flag of St George and attired in our knee length jeans, our Doc Marten boots and our BNP tee-shirts (either because we're dyslexic, or just too stupid to spell UKIP) we've almost always got our can of lager to keep us going, while we wander about the towns or cities of Britain terrorising anyone who doesn't look "indiginous". That means "white" right?

 

Of course intelligent, rational, non-racist people aren't allowed to vote for UKIP, or indeed become paid-up party members! According to the likes of Lord "Tarzan" Heseltine; that paragon of social and civic responsibility (overlooking his time in the Thatcher government obviously) has publicly stated that UKIP is a racist party; and so by inference implied that its membership therefore must be made up of racists, right? I obviously must have missed those speeches where Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall, Godfrey Bloom and the rest of the party's leadership publicly proclaimed that "Whites" are superior to "Blacks", or "Asians", or anyone else for that matter. In fact, even the United Nations, the international arbiter of all things human doesn't recognise the term racism, or racist, but rather defines the term racial discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life".

 

Now if UKIP or any other party was seen to be discriminating or advocating discrimination against a specific group purely on the basis of their race, colour, descent, ethnicity, or national origins, then I would probably agree that that is wrong. However, UKIP are not advocating any sort of immigration restrictions on any one particular group, but on anyone who wants to come into the United Kingdom, regardless of whether they're black, white, red, brown, pink, or even bright blue. UKIP's stated policy is to restrict ALL migration into Britain, taking only those who will add benefit to our country, be they Polish, German, French, Dutch, Nigerian, South African, South American, North American, Black, White, Rich, Poor, Clever, Stupid, Capitalist or Communist, which is probably the fairest and least discriminatory migration system of them all.

 

Now if someone can suggest a method of expanding our country's actual geographical surface, so that we can comfortably accommodate every single person on the planet who would like to come and live in Britain, then please put your solutions on a postcard and send it to David Cameron c/o 10 Downing Street, London, England, as I'm sure that he'd like to hear from you, urgently! In the event that no-one has a solution, then perhaps the best idea is to actually accept that we have a problem in the first place; then find a solution to the problem.

 

Like it or not inward immigration is a significant problem for our country; and unless you subscribe to the practice of shutting your eyes, putting your hands over your ears and shouting "La, La, La" very loud, it's an issue that will inevitably have to be dealt with, at some point in time. The only question that remains to be answered is "Do we do it now, or do we do it later, when it will probably be too late to fix the problem?"

 

For anyone to suggest that restricting immigration from mainland Europe into Britain is in anyway racist, or discriminatory, is quite honestly a wholly fatuous argument. Bearing in mind that the only real benefit most Eastern European's bring to our country is as a source of cheap labour, which in itself acts against the employment interests of the indigenous workers of Britain, then one could equally make the counter argument that the foreign migrants are deliberately discriminating against the British workforce by "impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life". 

 

The truth is of course that using the term "racist" and publicly attacking UKIP and its membership as "racists", is the progressive's way of closing down any sort of debate on the subjects of mass immigration, radical Islam, the loss of national sovereignty, the decline of national cultures and the increasing federalisation of the European continent. What better way of undermining a patriotic warning, than by deliberately marginalizing and disparaging the messenger and his underlying motives, regardless of how sincere they are. Where some might call him a visionary, or a patriot and people will listen, others will simply call him a "Little Englander", or a racist and people will turn a deaf ear to the message, no matter how important it may be.

 

What is particularly interesting at present is that representatives such as David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Michael Heseltine and the other British political glitterati of the moment, tend to offer no real meaningful rebuttal to the warnings that are offered by the likes of Nigel Farage, Paul Nuttall and the multitude of equally Eurosceptic messengers. Rather sniffily, the likes of Cameron will offer the British electorate supposedly funny one-liners like "to those who say, stop the world I want to get off....", or Lord Heseltines public pronouncement that "Of course UKIP is a racist party". No detailed analysis there then, no need or reason to substantiate their generally unfounded claims, just a case of I'm opening my mouth and every word's a pearl of wisdom! In other words, just more of the same old political bollocks that we've gotten used to over the past 40 years.

 

One wonders just how bad things need to get before even the most ardent left wing progressive finally has to admit that they were wrong? Will it be when we have full scale race riots on the streets of our major towns and cities? When we've built enough new houses on our country's greenbelt, in order to accommodate our new foreign born citizens, only to find that we can't feed ourselves, because all of our farms and fields have disappeared, or that we have no native wildlife left, or have no countryside left to enjoy? Will it be when every major town and city is dominated by the minarets of the local mosques, where the call to prayer has replaced the Sunday morning peal of church bells, or Sharia courts start making really important social judgements? Will it be when our children are forced to learn another language just to get by in their own country, or to be able to read Polish, German, or even Urdu to know what's going on?

 

Will it be when our national government resides in Brussels, or even Berlin? Perhaps it will be when your local MP will be born and bred in Marseilles, Dusseldorf or Dublin? Will it be when and if we ever have our first foreign born Prime Minister? When we no longer have our own national police force, army, navy, or air force? Maybe it'll be when the UK is no longer a sovereign country but a federal state of the United States of Europe, How about if and when we no longer have free health or education services and everything has to be paid for? Perhaps it will be when you're no longer able to afford to pay your energy bills, or your food bills, as everything has to be imported, because we don't make or grow anything in Britain anymore?

 

I'm having a laugh? Exaggerating the gravity of the situation? Couldn't happen here? Really? Who would have thought that people in modern Britain would be relying on food banks in 2013? Who would have thought that people would be spending their future wages, paying today's bills, by borrowing money at exorbitant rates of interest? Who would have imagined that the average family home would now cost in the region of £200,000 to buy? Who would have thought that Britain would hand a major part of its historic judicial system over to a foreign court? Who would have imagined that a major terrorist sympathiser and facilitator would find safe haven in the UK and be untouchable by the UK government and its security services? Who would have anticipated that numerous foreign criminals, rapists, murderers, war criminals, could safely find refuge in Britain and that the authorities here would be powerless to deport them? Who would have imagined that White Britons would now be a minority in our country's capital city? Who would have thought that foreign criminal gangs would be commuting from the continent to the UK to carry out their nefarious activities, only to jump on a plane and be home by teatime, along with their hard earned illegal swag? Who would have dreamt that Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies would be allowed to set up their illegal camps in the heart of London; and use the local parks as dormitories and toilets, only yards from the most expensive real estate on the planet?

 

A laugh? An exaggeration? Clearly not! And yet people such as myself, who would like to put an end to such abuses are the racists, the bad guys, the Little Englanders, the Colonel Blimps, the knuckle dragging fascists? Really? Well, if the spectacle of Eastern European migrants shitting in the rose bushes of Park Lane is a glimpse of the new progressive left wing non-racist utopia that we're being offered by Mr Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, then quite honestly you can stick it where the sun don't shine! Don't stop the world, I want to stay on, if only to see what a screw-up you and your kind actually make of our country and at least then we'll have the satisfaction of saying "We so-called racists, told you so".

Akin To Scrawling On Toilet Walls

Even though I'm no huge fan of Ed Miliband, or indeed of his personal politics, it speaks volumes about both the ownership and the editorship of the Daily Mail, when it judges that it is perfectly acceptable to publicly denigrate the political and personal reputation of a dead man, simply to undermine the firmly held beliefs and ideologies of his surviving sons, David and Ed Miliband. Whether or not Ralph Miliband wrote that he "hated" Britain when he was a 17-year-old refugee is generally immaterial, the same as Nigel Farage being a complete pain in the arse when he was a schoolboy is! To suggest otherwise is to try and make the rather senseless argument that people don't change as they get older, grow wiser, or become better informed, which they generally do of course. In fact, if these latest instances of the Daily Mail headlines are anything to go by, the only people who appear to be living in the past; and who are fundamentally opposed to change, to new ideas, are the owners and editors of that particular newspaper, the very same people who are happy to point out everyone else's failings, whilst refusing to recognise their own.

 

Had the editors and writers of the Daily Mail existed during the 16th and 17th centuries, one could have easily imagined them issuing the sorts of half-truths, gossip, rumour, or innuendo that would have consigned the entirely genuine Protestant or Catholic believer to their fate on the fiery stake, or sent the wholly innocent woman to her death because of their claims that she was a witch. In truth they are reminiscent of the rabble rousers who initially raise the mob of public indignation, the old crones who gleefully observe as the guillotine of civic outrage shreds the reputation of anyone who inspires their editorial wrath; yet like cowards, they are often the first to run away when any sort of reckoning beckons.

 

It seems both extremely ironic and deeply hypocritical that a newspaper which will so easily bemoan the fate of a teenager bullied into suicide, will quite contentedly bully a celebrity, besmirch a politician, or even the dead, without seeming to have the slightest sense of public or moral responsibility, regarding the effects that such stories might have on the individual themselves, on their families, or even on their reputations. Were it not so tragic, it would be funny to consider that a newspaper which regularly displays headlines closely akin to the sort of anonymous scrawling that one might witness on a toilet wall, then has the temerity to criticise other publishers and media providers for their behaviour, as if the Daily Mail is somehow any better!  

 

It is interesting that the Daily Mail is the same newspaper that has tried so hard to establish a link between UKIP, its leadership and its membership with the far right of British politics, yet seems to have conveniently forgotten that prior to World War II, its proprietor, Lord Rothermere, was said to be on friendly terms with both Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini, the leaders of Europe's two main fascist parties. And that its owner, Lord Rothermere was also reported to have penned an article, printed in his own media group, praising Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, for promoting sound, commonsense Conservative doctrine.

 

Having previously tried to establish its own political party within the British electoral system, with very little success, the owners of the Daily Mail have subsequently pinned their hopes on the coat-tails of the Conservative Party, the most suitable home for their anti-welfare, anti-immigration, anti-Labour, pro-business, low tax, minimal regulation, small government agenda.

 

In what has turned out to be a mutually beneficial relationship, the Daily Mail has become a public herald for the low tax, small government and pro-business ideology of the modern day Conservative Party, helping to find or sometimes simply inventing the newspaper headlines that will effectively underpin their chosen political partner's ideological thinking. If a story is required to undermine the Conservatives political opponents, the Trade Unions, the Labour Party, UKIP, or even the Liberal Democrats, the Daily Mail can be relied upon to furnish the goods. If the Conservatives need to promote a given policy, part privatisation of the NHS, Workfare, Welfare Cuts, massive reductions in the Public Sector Workforce, again the Daily Mail can be relied upon to supply the stories to help substantiate the government's "urgent need" to carry out their entirely ideological policies.

 

It is little wonder perhaps that health workers, the disabled and the unemployed have become the targets for the Daily Mail's army of avid reporters and feature writers. One can only imagine the sense of self satisfaction that they must glean from achieving their desired objectives, of undermining the work of the countless doctors, the nurses and the healthcares who struggle to cope in the most onerous of conditions, yet you can bet your bottom dollar that the Daily Mail reporters will somehow find those very small numbers of health employees who have failed in their task. After all, they're not really interested in the 99% of doctors, nurses, or healthcare workers who do their job properly, caringly, even lovingly, they're only interested in the 1% who don't!

 

The same Daily Mail ethos is obviously applied to the unemployed and welfare claimants. The fact that there are 2.5 million people out of work in the UK, the vast majority of whom are genuine claimants, is largely immaterial to the Mail's researchers and reporters, who are only interested in finding that very small minority who aren't genuine and who are cheating the system. Even assuming that they could find one benefit cheat per day, which they most certainly don't, that would equate to 365 benefit cheats per year, which as a percentage of the 2.5 million unemployed equates to 0.014% of the total number of benefit claimants, which probably wouldn't raise a ripple with any other news organisation in the world. For the Daily Mail however, such a insignificant number could quite easily be used to build a Conservative inspired house-of-cards, one that would publicly be regarded as being of such epic proportions that the government would be forced to act to stamp out such widespread abuse. Building mountains out of molehills is after all the Daily Mail's main line of business, as opposed to just blandly reporting the news as it happened, or as it is. Embellishment, elaboration and exaggeration are this particular newspaper's USP (Unique Selling Point); and if that helps convince their largely uninformed readership that the Conservative way is the right way, then so much the better.

 

Although the Daily Mail is currently trying to justify its reporting of Mr Miliband's father by implying that it is in the public interest, because of Ed Miliband's position as Labour leader and therefore potential future Prime Minister, the fact that it is and remains an organ of the Conservative Party, would tend to suggest that public interest is only part of the reason for its wholly unwarranted attack on the late Mr Miliband's reputation. Clearly, the still outstanding matter of the Leveson Report on Press Standards will have played a significant part in their decision making process, but how unwise it seems to try and publicly humiliate a Labour leader who might one day hold the political authority to impose legal regulations on the entire British media, including of course the Daily Mail.

 

The British mainstream media has never really been about educating or informing the masses. It's almost always been about exerting influence over the British people, making the political case and trying to shape public opinion, either through honest discourse or sometimes via deliberate misrepresentation. Ironically perhaps, Daily Mail readers probably consider themselves to be better informed than say a Sun, Daily Express or Daily Mirror reader, presumably on the basis of the "news" content that the paper claims to contain, or that they believe it contains. Nothing could be further from the truth of course, as the Daily Mail is first and foremost little more than a carrier for the views and opinions of its wealthy owner, its editors and writers, rather than a properly informed news publication. If you want one of those, then you need to pay a bit more for one of the quality papers, or better still use the power of the internet, which offers virtually everything you need, including completely unbiased reporting, all in one place.