05/05/2009

Another false immigration scare story from the Express

Airport zombie - possibly illegal immigrant

There's this great bit in Dawn of the Dead, where the four main characters fleeing zombie armageddon in Pittsburgh have to stop off to refuel their helicopter in an abandoned rural airport. Peter, played by Ken Foree, wanders off into the offices and gets attacked by a couple of zombie children, which would ruin anyone's day.

On his way back out, he's confronted by the airport zombie standing in the doorway. He raises his gun, and click! he's out of ammo.

Outside, flyboy Steve is taking aim. Peter ducks for cover as useless shot Steve pings a series of bullets off the doorframe around the walking corpse. Things are looking grim for Peter until his fellow SWAT team member, Roger, knocks Steve's rifle barrell out of the way and POW! the airport zombie is floored with one shot.

That's just happened to me. Except without the helicopters, guns or zombies. Another MailWatch/Daily Express front page immigration scare has shambled into view, and Tabloid Watch has shot it right between the eyes.

'EACH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT TO COST US £1M' moans the headline. Why, it's almost as if the paper remembers what living newspapers do. Some kind of instinct. Memory, of what they used to do.

The headline is, of course, rubbish. It's a completely exaggerated and misleading version of what was already pretty far fetched to start with. Here's Tabloid Watch's one shot wonder:
So that's '£1million' for a family of four. Not 'each illegal immigrant to cost us £1m' or a 'staggering £1million for each newcomer'.

MigrationWatch gets its total of £1m for each family of four by assuming that illegal immigrants are 25 when they arrive, will have two children and work at minimum wage for their entire lives, while claiming full housing benefit for the entire time. Housing benefit alone costs over half the £1m. More top notch work from the cutting edge think tank.

There you go. Pop over to Tabloid Watch for the rest, and have a look around while you're there.

5 comments:

septicisle said...

Nothing to add except Ken Foree plays Peter, not Roger ;)

MacGuffin said...

Thanks for the very kind words (and the plug!)

Five Chinese Crackers said...

Dagnabbit! Knew I'd get something wrong. I called him 'Ken' in the draft!

Fixed now. And nobody will ever know.

Five Chinese Crackers said...

"Thanks for the very kind words (and the plug!)"

They were sort of kind, but I did cast you as the bloke who rises as the Grinch looking zombie at the end and myself as the hero. Not that I'm a massive egomaniac or anything.

Will said...

nice post, I'm bookmarking your blog and tabloidwatch, I'm glad I'm not the only one horrified at the tone and focus of most newspaper reports.