Hypocrisy and hysteria smother everything.
And what am I bid for this historic, traumatised headscarf?For those who often, and on occasion quite rightly attack Polly Toynbee for her more vapid rantings, today's piece was one of those rare ones where she more or less gets it right. Sure, she overplays her hand in claiming we have the worst press in the western world when she should have instead said we have the worst "popular" press, as the broadsheet media is rightly seen by comparison as one which gives space to a wide range of different voices, whether you agree with them or not, but apart from that and the final paragraph which it could do without, there's little to quibble with.
It's always nice to have your suspicions confirmed, and to discover that the Daily Mail is indeed as hypocritical as you thought it was is uplifting, at least for a few minutes. If they hadn't tried to acquire Turney's story, as we know now for certain they did, then their anger which has been thrown towards the government would have at least had some legitimacy. Instead, the whole charade of making as much as possible out of the fuck-up just seems humourous, which is the attitude which ought to be taken towards the rag in the first place.
That said, equally amusing is how the Sun has now called on Randy McNob (© Alan Partridge) to defend both the newspaper and Turney herself. Some choice cuttings from this tale of woe are:
THEY volunteered to serve Britain by patrolling some of the world’s most dangerous waters.
This is complete nonsense. By the MoD's own admission, HMS Cornwall was mainly there to stop the smuggling of, err, cars. Truly a vital enterprise, and one which involves keeping your wits about you at all times, as Arthur Batchelor's angst about having his iPod stolen showed.
One of their most senior reporters offered a “very substantial sum” but Faye wanted to go with The Sun. The Sun is the Forces’ paper, the one most soldiers read. Many officers won’t even have the Mail in the mess.
Quite right, which is why the good people of ARRSE were referring to the Sun as the err, Scum.
I was in Afghanistan on Wednesday and the attitude of our troops there was, “Good on you, Faye.”
Yeah, well, I was in Basra on Tuesday and they all thought she was just grabbing the green.
In fact, it was the MoD who suggested Faye receive a fee for describing her ordeal in the first place.
Because the papers weren't already offering vast cheques to their families and relatives were they, one of the main reasons why the navy made the decision in the first place. Oh no, this is all the MoD's fault! The Sun was a mere bystander, the £60,000 just magically appearing in Turney's back-pocket without anyone so much as talking about payment.
It's times like this when you have to hand it to the Sun readers', or at least those that leave comments. They might come across as right-wing lunatics on some of the articles, but they can also spot a pile of excrement when they read it:
WASN'T MCNABBS BOOK BRAVO2ZERO LAUGHED AT ,BECAUSE IT WAS MORE FICTION THAN FACT?
Yes McNabbs book was more fiction than fact. In fact an ex SAS seageant fron the good old days of the Radfan battles, followed his footsteps and found out the truth from some locals, like one of the fire fights was an old bloke with an AK thought someone was trying to pinch his goats and started firing in their direction.
Andy Mcknob believes it's right for her to sell the story beacuse he did the same, though his stories ususlly involve magic beans & kingdoms far, far away.
It's hard not to sympathise with the Scum though when the Mail is printing such hysterical tripe as this from another ex-General they've bought off:
Leading Seaman Faye Turney and her 14 fellow captives were 'distinctly un-Nelsonic' in the way they failed to fight back and behaved as though they were on a 'Mediterranean cruise', he says.
Actually, there are more similarities between Nelson and Turney than you think. Both saw no ships, at least until it was too late in the latter's case.
'But as Wellington said, to live in disgrace is the worst thing of all. To die glorious is something to be envied.'
I'm more reminded of the old Italian man in Catch-22 who told Nately he had Zapata's quote backwards. He knew that it's better to live on your feet than die on your knees, as Rose would apparently have had the 15 sailors end their days for no discernible reason whatsoever other than "glory" or "heroism". There isn't anything noble about coming home in a body bag for Blair, as the families of those who did die last week know only too well.
We may have to wait a while for the Catch-22 of the Iraq war to emerge, although the madness of war, and especially this war, could not be more apparent when reading the tabloids tearing chunks off of each other because of the meaningless, moronic stories which they were prepared to pay far too much for. They'd rather regal us with those than actually act to bring the troops they claim to support home, instead only abusing their pointless deaths when it means they can bash the government over something inconsequential, especially to a war which has killed so many and done so much harm. As Toynbee said, death, particularly when it's not "ours", is boring. The screaming souls of Iraq are left to screech only to an empty sky.
Labels: Andy McNab, chequebook whores, Faye Turney, Mail-watch, Polly Toynbee, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid feuds
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