How the Express and Mail include figures released months ago as new

There's a technique hacks use when they want to reheat old stuff and present it as new. It's quite a simple one. It's called 'pretending the old figures are actually new'. Or 'lying'.

Our friend James Slack has provided us with a couple of examples. In February he gave us 'More than 860 immigrants enter Britain EVERY DAY - and two-thirds come from outside EU' that reheated three month old figures, and last summer we got 'A fifth of crimes committed by immigrants', which said:

Foreign nationals are now responsible for more than one in five crimes committed in London, police figures revealed yesterday.

When the paper had reported the exact same figures six weeks earlier.

Today, proving that the Express likes to outdo Slack's distortions, we have 'Knifing and shootings up as murder rates soar', which says:

Shocking statistics released last night show a 14 per cent increase in murder and manslaughter in England and Wales between 1998 and 2007.

So - some statistics were released on a Sunday - that is shocking - especially as:

The figures, supplied in Parliamentary answers by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker, emerged just days after Home Secretary Jacqui Smith claimed the Government was winning the battle against violent crime.

They were revealed in a Parliamentary answer that was given on a night when Parliament wasn't sitting? What the...?!

In reality, Vernon Coaker took part in a debate last Thursday about crime in London, and answered a written question about knife carrying. In the written answer, he refers to figures revealed three months ago when the Home Office published 'Homicides, Firearms Offences and Intimate Violence 2006/07'. Eagle eyed readers will spot that these are the exact same figures the Express used to scare its readers about the number of dirty murdering foreigners we have on our shores a couple of weeks ago.

Coaker doesn't contradict Jaqui Smith as the paper implies, saying this in the debate about crime in London:

It was interesting that the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) would not go back to 2002-03, but used 1998-99 as his baseline. The reason is that there was a different way of counting crime in 1998-99. Let me go through the figures, just as the Metropolitan Police Service has, from 2002-03 to this year, which are all counted in exactly the same way, so that the people of London know exactly what is happening. Between 2002-03 and this year, there was a more than 20 per cent. reduction in crime. There has been a reduction in the total number of murders in London since 2002-03 of 17.5 per cent, and a reduction in the total number of knife-enabled offences of more than 30 per cent. during that period. The year-on-year figures from the Metropolitan Police Service also show considerable reductions in crime. We need to ensure that the people of London know about these reductions, not because we want to be complacent or because the job is done, but because we want to move forward on the basis of facts.

More importantly, he doesn't refer to any of the figures the Express does, saying only this in the written answer:

Available data from the Homicide Index relate to offences currently recorded as homicide where the apparent method of killing is ‘sharp instrument'. Between 1997-98 and 2006-07 police in England and Wales recorded 2,333 such homicides, 635 of which were recorded by the City of London or Metropolitan police forces. These data cannot be broken down to a more local level than police force area.

And that's it. The paper has pretended that Coaker has contradicted Jaqui Smith, and pretended he's mentioned figures he actually hasn't, all so it can crowbar in some alarmist statistics.

As for the figures the paper chooses to focus on and imply come from Vernon Coaker - they're not much good. Lots of cases from last year will still be going on, and some of these offences will end up being no longer classified as homicide. There are caveats all over 'Homicides, Firearms Offences and Intimate Violence 2006/07' pointing this fact out. As an example, in 2005/2006, there were 769 cases initially counted as homicide, with 44 of those ending up being counted as something else. A similar number this year would show the lowest number of homicides since 2000/2001.

In 2006/2007, 757 were initially recorded as homicide, compared to 729 in 1997/1998, which is a much smaller gap than the one the Express gives us. That's because there were 121 cases that ended up not being counted as homicide that year. In fact, the number of cases initially recorded as homicide is at its lowest since 1999/2000. We have no idea how many of those from this year will turn out not to be homicide. The paper is going on and counting them all anyway.

And why? Because it's not trying to report the news or tell its readers accurately what is going on in the world. It's trying to create a specific false impression to scare them. Remember, kids. 'News' doesn't mean 'news' when we're talking about newspapers.

Migrants get 85% of new jobs in Britain? Not ALL?

Septicisle and Anton Vowl were there first spotting the Keystone Cops style comedy bungling with yesterday's Daily Express headline. Apparently 'MIGRANTS GET 85% OF NEW JOBS IN BRITAIN'. I though it was ALL of them.

The same logic that led the paper to conclude that ALL new jobs had gone to migrants and get the story removed for being potentially misleading is what led to this one.

The logic goes like this. Since 1997, the number of people in the workforce has increased by 1.7 million. 1.45 million migrants have been added to the workforce since then, therefore migrants have taken 85% of new jobs.

It sounds plausible enough on the surface, but it's this kind of logic that led to the paper claiming that ALL new jobs had gone to migrants in the last three years. That's clearly rubbish, since everyone in the country is likely to know at least one UK born person who got a new job since 2003.

It also led the Express to conclude in its previous article that migrants took more new jobs than the actual number of new jobs that existed. If you were honestly calculating the percentage of new jobs that had gone to migrants, and your working showed they took more than there actually were, wouldn't you decide there must be something wrong with your assumptions? Depends on whether you were looking for an honest answer, eh?

I can't link back to the article now since it's been taken off the site while it's being investigated for being misleading, but it said:

The total of migrant employees since 2003 has soared by 740,000, while the number of Britons in work has gone into reverse and dropped by 120,000. This means that foreign workers filled all the extra 620,000 jobs which were created during those four years.

The reason those figures don't add up is the same one that means you can't say 85% new jobs have gone to migrants. People retire. People leave the workforce. Some people who entered the workforce won't be counted because they filled those positions.

In fact, that's one of the main reasons people use for encouraging immigration. There are more people about to reach retirement age in the UK than are old enough to enter the workforce, so we need people to take up the slack. You can disagree with that proposition if you like, but if you use the argument that using immigration to take up the slack is a bad thing because more foreign people will get jobs, you're sailing dangerously close to the bit of the ocean known on the maps as 'Xenophobia'. The one with the dirty great whirlpool in it the sailors call 'Racism'. Arr.

If you wanted to honestly measure the percentage of new jobs went foriegn-born people since 1997, you'd have to use the total figure of new entrants into the workforce in that time - not the total for the overall rise because the number of people who leave the workforce will obscure the results. Doing it the wrong way in a shorter time period is what led to the Express's ridiculous 'ALL new jobs headline and the even more stupid 'more than ALL new jobs' calculation.

On top of that, there are the usual tabloid tricks, like the claim that:

Figures slipped out to MPs last month showed that the number of UK-born workers in employment increased by just 242,000 between 1997 and the end of last year to 24.1 million, the lowest level since 1997.

They weren't slipped out last month. They were published in Hansard last October which is available to the public. (The ones from last month cover the other figures in the article, about individual indistries. Those was published in Hansard too). Presumably 'slipped out' means 'publicly available but not given to us in a press release'.

And notice the 'lowest level since 1997', which gives the impression that the numbers of UK born in work have been in freefall for ten years, when in fact the number is higher now than it was then, but it's just that it's been higher in the intervening years.

There's also a nice bit of low level lying:

In contrast, the number of foreign-born workers in jobs in the UK increased by 1.45 million over the same period.

You could forgive the paper for rounding that up to 1.4 million, but adding the .05 on the end takes the biscuit. The actual rise is 1.365. Using the real numbers of new members of the workforce (1.682m) and foreign born workers gives only 81%. Still high, but not as scary as 85%.

Why is this on the front page? Are five month old figures really the most important thing happening in the world today?

To make it an almost perfect immigration scare story, there's even a quote from David Davis. Hurrah! Plank.

EVERY 4 MINUTES, AN EXPRESS HACK PULLS A FIGURE OUT THEIR BUM

SOMETIMES, you can look at a front page headline and instantly know it's bullshit. Like if it's on the front page of the Daily Express and...well, and nothing really. Just if it's on the front page of the Daily Express.

Funnily enough: not really true - and even if it was, it would mean that migrants are less likely to be arrested than everyone else. It's a win double!









'EVERY 4 MINUTES A MIGRANT IS ARRESTED IN BRITAIN' screams the headline, popping a metaphorical vein in the paper's metaphorical forehead.

So, what piece of research has the paper distorted to get this figure then? If the headline hadn't made your bullshit detector go off in wavy lines from your head like your own personal Spidey-sense, then these words are guaranteed to:

The Daily Express investigation presents the most detailed picture yet of the impact immigration is having on crime levels and police resources.

A Daily Express investigation, eh? That must be worth the paper it's printed on.

Here's the Express investigation's methodology. I should have put tabloid style scare quotes around 'methodology', because it's so rubbish:

Figures from 26 police forces received under the Freedom of Information Act showed that a total of 79,308 foreign nationals were arrested in 2006 – the latest year for which figures are available. They represented seven per cent of the total number of arrests.

If the level of arrests was reflected across the remaining forces which failed to supply information, it would mean more than 131,100 foreigners arrested in one year. That is the equivalent of up to 360 a day, or one every four minutes.

So, the investigation covers less than half the police forces in the country and includes the one that arrests more people than any other force - the Met.

Luckily, the Daily Mail tried to scare the shit out of us six months ago with figures for the number of foreign nationals arrested and charged by the Met. From it, we can see that 22,793 foreign nationals were arrested and charged by the Met in a six month period in 2007. That would work out at roughly 45,000 a year. Since many people who get arrested don't get charged, we know that the number of arrests of foreign nationals will be higher than that for those arrested and charged, so the Met accounts for way over half the arrests the Express has recorded.

Another thing we know is that police forces are not required to record the nationality of the people they arrest. Which forces are the least likely to bother recording those details - the ones who arrest lots of migrants and want to track how many get in trouble so they can call for more funding, or the ones who never even see a foreigner for most of the year?

In any case, the idea that the forces who didn't supply information even arresting as many as the Met, let alone the other forces that did, is very funny. Another thing that's very funny is the way the paper tries to scare us with that 7% of the total number of arrests figure, and tells us that there are 5.4 million migrants in the country. What the article leaves out is that 5.4 million migrants only makes up about 9% of the population, so migrants would actually less likely to be arrested than everyone else, even if we did accept the paper's shonky 'investigation' as accurate.

Another nice little bit is this:

One prediction estimates there will be 9.1million immigrants by 2030 – up from 5.4million at present.

Remember, that 9.1 million figure appears to have been made up by the Express in the first place.

A perfect example of a paper telling its readers what it thinks they want to hear regardless of the facts - which are that migrants are less likely to be arrested, and the overall crime rate is falling. Sure, there are places where Chief Constables claim certain types of crime have risen, and there might be an argument for increasing resources to these areas, but that doesn't make a really good vein popping headline.

*UPDATE* *EXTRA FISHINESS* I've had a closer look at the figures from the Mail and the ones from the Express. Lucky me.

The weird thing is, the Express claims that foreign arrests count for 15% of all arrests in London. Comparing the earlier Mail figures (roughly 45,000 in a year) with total number of crimes in the Met area for 2007 (876,298) shows only 9% of crimes were connected with foreign nationals.

This suggests either that a lower percentage of migrants are actually charged after they've been arrested than everyone else, there's been a big drop in the number of migrants charged with crimes or the Express is farting around even more with figures than I first thought.

Whatever is happening, these numbers sure do smell fishy.

Another classic Express headline - Part II

More wrong than even I thought

Sometimes I forget that what I'm supposed to be doing here is explaining exactly how tabloid stories distort the truth, and kind of assume too much knowledge.

I did this yesterday, covering the classic Express headline '1.3m Poles arrived in Britain last year'. I've also uncovered some other stuff about the story in rereading it. So today I'll look through the story again, point by point this time. I be kickin' it old school.

The headline

The headline is not true. Unlike most Express headlines that get withdrawn later in the story, this one isn't actually clarified anywhere. The article is supposed to be about the Office of National Statistics' 'Travel Trends' report, which measures the number of short term visits made by people from overseas to the UK, and the same from the UK abroad. So, although there were 1.3m visits by people from Poland last year, it doesn't mean that 1.3m Poles arrived here, since some could have made multiple visits.

Plus, the report only includes figures for visits of less than a year, so it's not that these are tourist visits mixed in with people arriving to settle, they're all tourists and business trips and so on. Every single one of them. The average length of visit is 17 days.

The subheading

The subheading, 'And even that's an underestimate', is backed up by one single quote from one single critic. Of course, the paper pretends the quote is from 'critics' plural, with:

But even that massive total was called into question when critics of the Government’s border control policy described it as a “drastic understatement” of the true picture.

The actual quote says 'is likely to be a massive understatement', so the paper has sexed that up a bit by removing the uncertainty. More on this quote later.

How are tourist visits linked with immigration in the story?

With a bait and switch
The link is made with a good, old fashioned bait and switch. The paper starts by talking about the figures in the 'Travel Trends' document, which it already is misleadingly claiming measure visitors rather than visits, and then switching to talking about immigration without making that switch sufficiently clear. The switch comes here:

At the same time, local authorities complained to MPs that the Government’s failure to monitor the number of people in Britain was leaving them with an intolerable financial burden which had to be borne by council tax payers.

There isn't any signal to show that short term visits to the UK have nothing whatsoever to do with why Local Authorities called for extra funding. Although the paper has tried to cover its back by talking about visitors rather than migrants up until this point, it makes no distinction between the two at all here, leaving the impression that the figures in 'Travel Trends' will lead to more pressure on Local Authorities.

When you consider that we're talking only about individual visits of an average of 17 days here, you'll see how far from the truth this is, and how frantically the paper is clutching at straws to link the two themes.

With quotes
There are then a couple of quotes from people with vested interests that further muddy the waters.

The first is from the papers' idiot quote favourite, David Davis, and it's unclear whether he is giving his opinion of the actual 'Travel Trends' figures or the Express hack's interpretation of them. Given that he mentions Local Authorities being stretched, it seems unlikely that the figures he's talking about are the 'Travel Trends' ones, since they measure visits of an average of only 17 days long and don't effect spending on schools and so on. of course, he could be trying to mislead people too.

The second is from Frank Field. Again, it's unclear whether he actually knows he's talking about trips of an average of 17 days. Part of his quote is actually a paraphrase, which suggests that bits have been removed. Maybe those that make it clear he doesn't know he's talking about short term visits. His hobby horse is the number of jobs taken by migrants, remember, so he could be talking generally about Polish immigration without realising these figures only measure short term trips. Of course, he could be deliberately trying to mislead, too - or have been misled by the hack that asked for the quote.

Back to the bait and switch
The article then switches back to the idea these visitors working, with this:

But adding to the impression that many coming as visitors were in fact looking for work, Poles spent just an average £24 a day in 2006, compared with £129 for visitors from Luxembourg.

This line is a boggling combination of the dunderheaded and the quite-clever-if-you're-trying-to-mislead. Whether or not these people are looking for work doesn't change the fact that they're only here in the short term.

It also selectively leaves out that 'Travel Trends' lists the total spent in these visits is £540,000,000.

As a further part of the bait and switch, the article goes on to say:

When Labour opened the immigration floodgates in 2004, it was estimated that barely 10,000 Eastern and central Europeans would arrive. But 743,000 have registered for work since 2004.

Including self-employed, the true picture is nearer 900,000.

By now, the reader must be well and truly confused. Of course, these figures in themselves are misleading. They fail to mention that many of these have returned to their home country. According to other figures this paper and others have tried to scaremonger with, up to three quarters of them may have gone. The paper also neglects to give any source for the 'real' number being closer to 900,000. Like I said in my last post, the story might as well have said 6 million people and a unicorn.

A further deliberate misdirection with a quote
We then get this:

The figures were revealed as a senior Treasury official confessed that the Government has no real idea of the true number of people who have arrived – legally and illegally – under Labour’s “open door” immigration policy.

Christopher Kelly told the Commons Treasury Sub-committee that the 10-yearly census was next to useless when it came to measuring the impact of migration.

But it seems that Christopher Kelly is only talking about the reliability of the census - not the figures in 'Travel Trends' or the survey they're based on. That's why this is a paraphrase rather than a direct quote. The direct quote comes with this:

He said: “We know we have a problem with migration statistics. Everyone accepts it.”

What's wrong with that quote in relation to these stats? That's it - these figures are only migration statistics in the loosest sense of the word, since they measure tourism. Here's a quick quote from 'Travel Trends':

Note that, although data collected on the IPS also feeds in to the calculation of migration statistics, this report does not provide any information relating to international migration.

The final paragraph
The final paragraph is again talking about the census, not the 'Travel Trends' figures.

One thing this article is a great example of is the way that the far right like to peddle their anti-immigration stance. Once you've poisoned the well of official statistics, you can claim anything you like. Bizarrely, you can then use the very same stats to support your own argument. You can even use figures that don't even measure international migration to support your contention that the migration figures are out of whack.

More on more on moronic use of stats in the Mail

Added to the doom and gloom about British citizens leaving - who according to the pictures the paper uses are all smiley white people with children while immigrants are all swarthy men standing about on street corners - there are two other articles to consider in the 'full story' mentioned on the front page.

1 in 4 babies had a parent born overseas

The first is 'A quarter of all UK babies have a foreign parent' in the online version, and luckily I don't have to do anything with it because Unity has exposed it for nonsense already by pointing out that they're not foreign, but born overseas which is not necessarily the same thing.

Anyway, the purpose of placing this article where it is is to create a connection between a record number of British people leaving with a high number of 'foreigners' in the country, compounding the false impression created by the weasel word 'soar' in the front page headline.

Fiasco lets migrants use 'human rights' to stay here

The last article, 'The failed migrants told its their right to stay' would probably deserve a post of its own, but I'll keep this as brief as possible.

The headline of the online version is great. What in god's name is a 'failed migrant'? Someone who's got locked in their house?

Don't be so feckin' silly! It means 'failed asylum seeker', but papers like the Mail are shifting away from attacking asylum seekers toward attacking immigrants generally now - who they call 'migrants' so they can include people here temporarily like seasonal workers and holidaymakers. That's right. People on holiday are migrants when the paper wants them to be.

Even the paper version of the article uses the word 'migrant' in favour of the usual 'asylum seeker' in the headline, and the article shifts interchangeably between 'asylum seeker' and 'migrant' in a manner that confuses the two terms - partly because that makes it fit in with the overall picture of immigration painted by the rest of this double paged spread. If I were being cynical, I'd say that it was also partly a deliberate attempt to carry the negative connotations the tabloids created around the term 'asylum seeker' across to migrants in general and ramp up the xenophobic suspicion of foreigners. And I'm very sodding cynical right now, so that's exactly what I'm saying.

The rest is just as confused as the online headline. Apparently, this article is dealing with the same people as the Express article I covered in 'Alice through the bonkers nut nut glass', and it says this:

Many are migrants whose initial applications failed and who should have been deported years ago. Others never had their claims considered.

So some are failed, others aren't and Councils have to assess who is, who isn't, and who deserves to stay.

Next:

Officials say the first 7,000 cases will be handled by the end of the year and seven out of ten, or 4,900, are expected to be given "indefinite leave to remain".

They are all families, many with children born in the UK. Because Government bungling has let them stay here for years, the Human Rights Act saves them from being removed as it would infringe their right to a family life.

I'm not sure that the Human Rights Act would have much to do with this - but anyway, the first 7,000 are all families with kids, which explains why a high number of them are expected to be allowed to stay. So when the story goes on to say:

If the 70 per cent approval rate applies to all the cases due to be completed over the next four years, 315,000 will be allowed to stay - the equivalent of a city the size of Cardiff.

That's just weird hogwash. Are all the 450,000 cases families with children - unlike the swarthy single men used to illustrate them?

Plus - what does it matter if they're given leave to remain since they've been here for years anyway? At least if they're allowed to stay they can legally work.

And this is especially misleading:

Technically homeless, they will become the top priority for council housing. Normally, only one in ten asylum claims is approved initially.

Although it mentions that the people would become technically homeless, it doesn't make it clear that that is precisely why they'd go to the top of the housing list. That sentence is tied into something else about asylum claims, which leaves the impression that they're top priority for council housing because they're former asylum seekers rather than because they'd otherwise have nowhere else to live.

This is funny, too:

Those who win their cases will be able to live and work freely in the UK and claim benefits and housing. Local council tax payers will have to pick up part of the bill.

Live and work and claim benefits and housing? Given how much of this article is devoted to banging on about how much of a burden on councils they'll be, we know which one the Mail thinks most likely.

Cue David Davis with a quote worthy of Smiffy out of the Bash Street Kids:

Last night Shadow Home Secretary David Davis called the policy a "stealth amnesty" and branded it short-sighted, reckless and utterly irresponsible.

I wonder if he has a selection of outraged nonsense for the tabloids on mail merge?

There's loads of stuff about how much of a burden this will create for local authorities, which is such bloody arse. At the moment, councils are expected to house and pay a certain amount of benefits to these people - at least those still seeking asylum. If any are granted leave to remain, they'll be able to work, which means quite a number won't need the measly fraction if income support they get, and some will move into privately rented accommodation while others might actually be able to try to get a mortgage. Not to mention the 30% who are expected to be deported.

I am thoroughly naffed off with these articles now, so I'm going to stop. But what they all illustrate is that the paper already has its narrative worked out, and every set of figures it gets its mitts on will be snipped and distorted until they can be crammed into the immigration=Bad Bad Thing mindset. The figures themselves are peripheral.

This is why people hate the Mail and look down their noses at it. It's not because the paper has opinions we don't like, it's that the paper assumes its conclusion in the face of evidence to the contrary. It's that the paper effectively lies by distorting some things and just plain making other stuff up. I don't care if the paper thinks immigration is a bad thing. I care that it distorts evidence and sneakily messes about with things to mislead its readers. I care that the things the paper creates a false impression about are particularly hateful and divisive. I care that it has so much influence on anyone's opinion, let alone the government's. It's not even difficult to work out how much is bullshit. All you need is to know what reports the paper's basing its articles on and you can easily see for yourself how thoroughly badly it's misrepresenting them.

I mean . . . 120 people a day from Romania and Bulgaria coming to be circus stars? Fuck off!

Comparing reactionary articles can be fun!

Two articles about an identical issue show how the Mail and the Express take different approaches to things, and how the Express has become even more red-faced and rectionary. You don't even have to read past the headlines to find that out - the Mail's headline is 'Migrants to be quizzed on benefits but not British history' but the Express's is the beautifully subtle 'Migrants taught how to scrounge'.

The first point, one that is suggested by both headlines, is that the tabloids now seem to have dropped their demonising of asylum seekers. This would normally be a good thing, but it looks as though they're replacing them with immigrants in general, and using the term 'migrant' as a catch-all pejorative phrase. The funny thing is - I think the tabloids started targeting asylum seekers in the 90s so they could claim not to be racist. They could claim to be critiscising people for what they do, rather than who they are. I'm pretty sure attacking immigrants wholesale would have had them branded racist, which is why they went the whole 'bogus asylum seeker' route in the first place. But the political climate seems to have shifted so far to the right that it passes without comment when immigrants, or 'migrants', to use the new pejorative label, are attacked wholesale as a group.

The Mail's article is the less frothing of the two. As is obvious from the headline, the paper is critical of the fact that people are being taught about their rights and entitlements and not some Whig interpretation of history. There's a quote from David Davis the paper uses in the classic Mail technique of ignoring its own actions:

'What ought to be taught to settlers is Britain's noble traditions of democracy, freedom of speech and tolerance. This is at least as important as how to deal with Government organisations.'

Anyone arriving on these shores and being taught about freedom of speech and tolerance would only have to open one of our many tabloids before busting a gut with laughter. In fact, they wouldn't have to go that far if they looked at one of the Express's infamous 'BAN IT!' headlines. Imagine being told how amazingly tolerant we are, and how much we value free speech and then reading yesterday's Sun story objecting to the lyrics of one song being changed in a Christmas concert. Imagine arriving from the West Indies and sending your kids to the school in the story, with other parents threatening to boycott the Christmas celebrations because one song was to be changed to something influenced by your culture. Imagine reading this article, which seems to be arguing for the suppression of information about your own rights. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd end up being sceptical of everything I was told from that point forward.

The thing that readers of this story might miss is that the citizenship test has been extended to people who aren't even after British citizenship. The test is actually including more stuff and applying to more people, but never mind that. It is included in the article, but in the middle of outrage about something else.

But the paper's main point is that the history section is left out of the test while stuff about people's actual rights are being iincorporated, and dammit, that's just not on. It quotes this:

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'These tests should place greater emphasis on our proud history and great achievements. We want settlers to work and to integrate into our community, not to claim benefits at the expense of taxpayers.'

There's an assumption in all this that people who know when the Normans invaded and when the Magna Carta was signed will be less likely to claim state benefits. Which is just weird. 'You know what? I was going to not bother getting a job and scrounse of your generous benefits system instead - but then I had to answer some questions about Mary Queen of Scots and now I've changed my mind'. And do you think his 'proud history' includes the invention of concentration camps and massacring poorly armed natives to nick their land and their stuff? I think perhaps not.

What this article entirely fails to do is point out how much benefit, if any, most new immigrants can expect to receive. In leaving this important information out, readers can be given the impression that these people qualify for a whole raft of new stuff. Houses, swimming pools, gold-plated BMWs, the lot. But as the Ministry of Truth pointed out a few weeks ago, this is far from the case.

Another thing the paper neglects to mention is that by including a section about what benefits people settling in the UK are entitled to, there will be less time taken up by people attempting to claim things they're not entitled to. So it's a bit more important than knowing a few dates.

There's also an assumption implicit in this article that if people wanting to settle in the UK are told about what benefits they can receive, they'll be straight on them and not bother getting a job. That's a bit patronising to say the least.

The Express article surpasses the Mail's indignation with rage, and has less emphasis on the history angle. Of course, it starts with the headline - which is today's front page headline - but it kicks off the first paragraph with:

MIGRANTS hoping to settle in the UK are to be taught how to rake in state hand-outs.

Check out the language on that! 'Rake in state handouts'. They'll be living like kings while we slave away providing their gold-plated BMWs, diamond-tipped canes and Cuban cigars rolled in the thighs of virgins.

It continues:

They will be shown how to claim benefits, demand equal rights, make full use of the NHS and get parental leave.

I demand that this be stopped right now! How dare they be told how to use the NHS. They should battle through illness or die so we don't have to pay a penny. How dare they 'demand' equal rights with the rest of us. The cheek of it! They're different and foreign and should know their place.

There's a fantastic bit of nonsense that follows:

Yet ministers have again ruled out any requirement that newcomers learn about Britain’s history.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “If the Government was serious about tackling our burgeoning welfare bill, then it wouldn’t be doing so much to flag up at every opportunity the benefits that immigrants are entitled to.

A few poinst about this:

The effortless lead in from ministers ruling out the history test to Matthew Elliott gives the impression that Elliott is a Minister, or Shadow-Minister or at least something attached to government. As I was leading into the quote, I almost typed that he was a tory MP before rereading it and spotting that he's some bloke from a special interest lobby group, and the same one quoted in the Mail.

The assumption is also here that the second newcomers to the UK know about benefits, they'll chuck any idea they might have had of working and lord it over all of us on Income Support.

It seems as though he's advocating keeping entitlement to benefits secret in order to avoid this. Think of how insulting that is to immigrants. 'Keep the benefits secret or they'll never bother to get a job. And don't tell them about the NHS so they battle through illness or just die so we don't have to pay'. Okay, the paper was indignant about immigrants being told about the NHS and not this guy, but still. That's how nasty this article is.

The article then quotes those fine, upstanding bastions of tolerance, MigrationWatch:

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch UK, added: “It is far more important that people should be aware of the history of the country than get access to the welfare state.”

It's worth pointing out that MigrationWatch are just a couple of old blokes. Not some big, respectable think tank, but two guys who don't like immigration. Why does any paper even bother to listen to them? Yeah, okay - that was a rhetorical question.

Anyway, that's so boneheaded. More important to know the history of the country my arse. Tell that to the bloke whose finger is half hanging off as he tries to enter Casualty.

The rest is all a bit blah, but we do find out that the questions inivolve more than just how to receive benefits, including:

The chapters even give practical advice on buying a house, using solicitors, utility companies, money, education and transport – and pubs.

So there's far more on life in the UK that people will be tested on. You'd think the papers would rather immigrants knew what society is like now rather than hundreds of years ago - but maybe they want to be able to spot immigrants by their ruffs, tights and snuff habit.

Of course, an article like this in the Express can't pass without having a dig at Eastern Eurpoeans:

However, thousands of people are failing to take English language lessons because courses are being clogged up by Eastern Europeans.

Damn those Eastern Europeans! Come over here, burden our system with interpreters in schools because they don't bother to learn English and then clog up English classes by learning English. Er. . .hang on.

The article ends with this fine piece of objective questioning:

*Do you think we are teaching migrants to scrounge? Comment NOW at Have Your Say.

The whole article is about teaching migrants to scrounge. The fucking headline is 'Migrants taught how to scrounge'. What are the readers supposed to end up thinking?

The final point I want to make is that both articles make something of the fact that people who fail these tests are allowed to retake. This suggests that both papers are actually less bothered about immigrants learning about the UK before entering than weeding people out and rejecting them. Not really demonstrating that fair play and tolerance much, eh?

No wonder their readers are ignorant tossers

Immigration tribunal lawyers are now allowed to wear the veil in courts. The Express is apopleptic. They have 'Fury as top judges gives in to Muslim hardliners on veils'. Who's furious? The Express, mainly. And racists generally, presumably.

There isn't really much in the way of logical arguments here, which is interesting. Just outrage. I'll get to the one argument that maybe approaches reason in a bit. I want to go through this pisspoor article in order.

First:

His decision was widely condemned by critics, who claimed he had caved in to Islamic hardliners.

Caved in to Islamic hardliners? What Islamic hardliners? The woman who had worn a veil without any problems for years until one day, a judge decided to try to force her to have to remove it? Why does she warrant being referred to in plural? Are these critics mainly Daily Express hacks? Probably - and ooh look, there are some angry Tory MPs as well. So unlike the tories to be intolerant about other cultures. Anyway:

David Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, said the decision caved in to Islamic pressure.

He added: “British courts are there to determine whether the truth is being told. How can they do that if they cannot hear? Allowing people to hide their faces in a court where all should be laid bare in the search for truth and justice is not good enough.

David Davies is a twat. Didn't he notice the bit about making sure the lawyer can be heard? Clearly not. When I said in my last post that there's nothing to hang outrage on, I forgot that it's possible to just ignore what Hodge actually said and pretend there's another problem.

The second bit is the only argument that approaches a logical one. Of course, I say approaches - but I really mean 'doesn't approach'. The thing about using glittering generalities is that people normally only do that when they haven't got a proper argument.

If it's vital that judges see lawyers' faces, does that mean blind people are prohibited from becoming judges?

He follows this up with the classic tu quoque fallacy, which I think must be said at least once whenever anyone says the word 'Muslim' by law:

“If we were in a Muslim court we would be expected to abide by their rules on dress. So why is it that this lady can work in a British court and wear whatever she likes?”

Yeah, and if we were in a Martian court, we might be expected to balance a sandwich on our face or something. We're not in a bloody Muslim court. We're in a British court - and you know what - the British court rules on dress say that you're allowed to wear a veil if you like. She is following the British rules on dress in courts.

Phillip Davies MP repeats the 'how can you be open if a lawyer will not show her face?' line. How can she be open? I'll tell you - by saying words with her mouth that you can listen to. See above.

The paper then does a classic out of context quote to make it look like there's some balance from a Labour MP. And a Muslim one at that:

But Labour MP Shahid Malik, one of Westminster’s four Muslim MPs, said: “Where a veil inhibits you from carrying out your job or your role in life, then your right to wear it is compromised.”

But as Hodge already states - if someone's role is inhibited, other arrangements will be made. Remember - if a ruling says something you don't like, you can always ignore it if you're the Express.

What this shows is that all the supposedly logical arguments applied to similar cases are so much window dressing for some people. Much concern was expressed for the poor children in the Aisha Azmi case. There are no children here, and there is no major need for a judge to see a lawyer's face like children learning English. If there were, there'd be a bar on blind judges. The argument that judges might not be able to hear is repeated even though it's taken care of in the ruling, because there really isn't another practical reason anyone can think of. And if there really were a practical reason for stopping lawyers in these cases from wearing a veil - it would have been raised ages ago. This particular woman has worn a veil to immigration tribunals for at least two years. How many other women have done the same, and how far in the past?

In fact, the whole idea that this is all about being able to see someone's face is a bit of a stretch. The Shabina Begum case shows that there will be objections to Islamic dress even when the face is visible. Why isn't the Express more honest and just admit that they object any visible indicators that a person is a Muslim?

*UPDATE* I removed an argument about Lady Justice atop the Old Bailey being blind - because she isn't, apparently.