06/08/2009

How racist will the Mail be this time?

Hello everybody!

It seems as though I spend as much time here posting about how I'm not posting as I do actually posting - but I'm doing it again.

Real life's still a bit - challenging - right now (trust me, you don't want to know) and this place has to take second place for a while but I promise I'll be back soon with a different look and everything. You might even get a profile picture. Here, I'll do you a deal:

If the Mail prints it's next scare story about the number of British people leaving the country this month, I'll be back this month. We're due one now, it being August (but we might have to wait until October - I'll be back before then though). It'll be interesting to see two things:

A) Whether the Mail has to play around and distort figures to make it look like the HIGHEST EVAR number of white/British people have left the country, and how the paper goes about it if it does. (Last year, it pretended Irish people were British. The number of white British people leaving wouldn't have been RECORD NUMBERS otherwise).

B) Whether the paper gets more racist, or less. Before last year, the paper only implied with innuendo and clever clumsy and ham-fisted positioning of pictures that nice, smiley white nuclear families were leaving the country to be replaced by swarthy looking single men who hang about in the street. Last year, it ditched the innuendo in favour of acutally explicitly worrying about the number of white people leaving, nudging the 'Daily Mail Racist-o-meter' up a notch.

Whatever happens, we'll be able to witness how this particular narrative progresses. With the same categories of statistic, the paper has already moved from outwardly worrying about numbers (only letting us know what it really meant with a nudge and a wink), to outwardly worrying about the race of the people leaving. This year, will we get outward worrying about the race of the people arriving?

How it's developed so far:

2005
October: This is why millions are leaving Britain, Mr Blair (no mention of immigration, either as a reason for people leaving or to frighten us about the population being replaced).

2006
August: One on four Young Britons want to emigrate (one mention of immigration, but not as a reason for leaving or to frighten us), One in three Britons want to retire abroad (No mention of immigration)
October: Exodus: a million Brits emigrate while three million enter (look at the chuffing headline).

2007
August: 196,000 out, 574,000 in: Record numbers leaving Britain for new life abroad - as immigration to UK soars (headline again)
October: One in three Britons dreams of emigrating to ease financial worries (mentions immigration as a reason for people wanting to leave)
November: Half a million migrants pour into Britain in a year, but 200,000 leave (and again with the headlines)

2008
May: Over 200,000 Britons fleeing the UK each year as record 160,000 foreigners are granted citizenship (headline)
August: 'White flight' as more than 400,000 Britons head for a new life abroad (wha?...It's the white people we have to worry about leaving now)
September: 'Flight of white Britons from UK leaps to 70,000 per year ... but population still rising as Eastern Europeans come to Britain' (ditto)

What about 2009? We shall see,

Ta-ra!

1 comment:

stirringupapathy said...

The irony that people will move to other countries, therefore becoming immigrants themselves, because there are too many immigrants being let into Britain is clearly lost on the Mail and it's readership.