Wii don't believe you

The Sun:

TEN people a week in Britain are hospitalised from playing Wii games.

The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers.

Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.

A rheumatology consultant said: “Most are admitted after playing the tennis and running games which involve sudden movements and violent tendon stretching.”

Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: “There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.

Spong:

We said we found all this difficult to believe and were going to ask the good doctor for the facts. We did, and Dr Mukerjee has kindly responded with the following.

"I have seen a few injuries related to patients using the Wii.

"I do NOT think its anything to do with the Wii itself, but rather the player over using the device.
There is no epidemic- I used to see 3 or 4 injuries and over the last few months there have been 7 to 10.

"The quote about 10 people admitted to hospital is INCORRECT. 10 people have been seen recently in hospital clinics is the fact.

"Broomfield (hospital) doesn't keep specific Wii stats, but we do have soft tissue rheumatism stats under which this type of injury belongs, and we haven't seen a great rise."

Health & science Editor Emma Morton used to be so full of praise for the Wii too.

Chrismas is a time for giving and for gratitude.

Sometimes you really don't have to add anything to these stories. They speak for themselves. Compare and contrast tomorrow's leader column with today's report regarding the "feast" which the bloodthirsty murderers, psychos and other assorted nutjobs (surely patients? Ed.) at Broadmoor will be receiving over the holiday.

CHRISTMAS is a time for giving — and for gratitude.

This year, many families face worrying challenges. Yet the generosity of the British people — and warm-hearted Sun readers especially — knows no bounds.

They are willing to dig deep, emotionally and financially, for good causes.

So as we do our last-minute shopping, let’s spare a thought and raise a glass to absent friends and those less fortunate than ourselves.

Think of children in care, the poor and the elderly, many spending Christmas alone.

Remember our brave troops who, even as we are toasting good health and a long life, are risking their own under enemy fire.

*continues in phony lachrymose fashion for another 250 words*

KILLER Robert Napper is set to enjoy FOUR DAYS of festive feasting in Broadmoor — as hard-up families struggle with the credit crunch.

Monster Napper, who last week admitted slaughtering young mum Rachel Nickell, will be treated to gourmet menus over Christmas and New Year.

He and other patients at the top-security hospital will be offered mouth-watering fare headed by a full Christmas Day lunch of roast turkey, pud and brandy sauce — served up by nurses in party hats.

Fiends including Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, Cannibal Killer Peter Bryan and Stockwell Strangler Kenneth Erskine can also tuck into full cooked or light breakfasts.

On Boxing Day the 278 patients will lunch on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

On New Year’s Day they can even have sirloin steak — and there are vegetarian, halal and “healthy option” dishes too. If they are still peckish they can munch a whole range of snacks including quiche, pizza, crisps, drumsticks, mince pies and gateaux.

In between scoffing platefuls many families can only dream of, Napper may find some time to do his job of feeding Broadmoor’s chickens.

Or he may listen to CDs or play games with other patients — many of whom will have used their Government benefits to buy gifts from catalogues.

In wards decorated with images of tinsel, stockings and holly, killers and paedophiles can watch jolly Christmas films on giant flat-screen plasma TVs.

And the highlight of Christmas Day is the awarding of a £50 cash prize to the best-decorated ward.

In contrast, staff get their Christmas dinner a week before December 25 — and have to PAY £7 each for it.

An insider said: “It’s a sick joke that taxpayers’ money ensures evil people eat like lords while staff have to pay. There are pensioners and people who have lost their jobs who just won’t believe these menus.”

An apology, cherish it.

Simply reproducing an apology from the Sun:

ON 20 August, we reported that funds given by BBC’s Children in Need to the Leeds Community School Charity were passed on to a neighbouring bookshop where two of the 7/7 bombers worked and it had been alleged that the money had then been used for propaganda videos.

We accept the assurance of Leeds Community School’s founder, Hanif Malik, that no Children in Need money was passed to the bookshop or the bombers nor was it used to pay for the propaganda videos.

We apologise to Mr Malik for the upset and distress caused.

In fairness, I think this story may well have started on Newsnight, but doubtless the Sun's hacks doubled checked it before running with it...

New sources needed

Gordon Smart gets it wrong. Again:

Fooled on knife crime.

The Sun is in full voice over the dodgy knife crime statistics released by the government:

"HOME Secretary Jacqui Smith says sorry for pretending stabbings are down.

Falsifying evidence is embarrassing for a minister responsible for fighting crime.

But nobody believed Ms Smith — even BEFORE statistics chief Sir Michael Scholar blew the whistle."

Nobody? Really? Does the Sun really think that its readers are so stupid that they can't remember back to last Friday? From that day's leader:

"That horrific total is reason enough to welcome the small fall in knife crime that has followed a police crackdown in a few targeted areas.

This is largely due to increased stop-and-search police action — an anti-crime measure once condemned by politically-correct whingers as racially biased.

Those caught carrying knives are now three times more likely to end up where they belong: behind bars."

The Sun then believed the statistics - as long as they confirmed their own prejudices and gave them an opportunity to rail against the ever handy "politically-correct whingers".

Back to today's leader:

"The Home Office is scandalously incompetent, negligent and secretive."

Three adjectives which apply more than adequately also to the Sun.

Update: As Tim points out in the comments, Friday's page 3 girl also believed the knife statistics, making Rebekah Wade an even bigger boob than the ones she publishes.

Monday morning quickie

Just a couple of bits from Matthew Norman this morning:
The first about that nice chap who spends half his life in Florida:

Kelvin MacKenzie leaps aboard Charles Moore's licence fee-avoidance bandwagon. Kelvin doesn't reveal whether he's criminalised himself like Charles intends, but he urges readers to do so, and well done to him for that. No one speaks with more moral authority on the failure to sack Jonathan Ross than the man who retracted a most sincere apology for libelling the dead of Hillsborough.

And the second is about your friend and mine, Gaunty:

During a joint appearance with Shami Chakrabarti on Jeremy Vine's Radio Two show last week, Jon Gaunt declared that "Magna Carta is for the nobs but the Human Rights Act is for the ordinary working man." Meanwhile, in his latest Sun meisterwork, he distances himself from every aspect of that legislation other than its enshrinement of the right to freedom of expression he believes should restore him to his berth on TalkSport.

£50,000 for breaking the law.

A highly curious but also insightful story into how "gotcha!" journalism works on the Sun has emerged:

"A man who plotted to covertly film a "hit list" of stars, including Amy Winehouse, taking drugs so he could sell the footage to newspapers was jailed for two years yesterday.

Johnny Blagrove, 34, and his girlfriend Cara Burton, 22, sold footage of the singer apparently smoking a crack pipe to The Sun for £50,000, but the video was later passed to police.

In the final scene of the tape, which was viewed by a judge at Snaresbrook crown court, east London, Blagrove laughs to himself after telling his reflection in a bathroom mirror: "You have succeeded. You have done it. You are going places. It's taken a while, but I've finally got what I want.""

What the Guardian article doesn't mention is that it seems to have been the Sun itself that turned in its source, having previously paid him £50,000, or far more than the average Sun hack will earn in a year. Having provided the police with the footage secretly shot by Blagrove of Winehouse, apparently smoking a crack pipe, they went on to raid Blagrove's home, where they apparently found additional footage of Peaches Geldof. Rather than keep this evidence for any potential trial, the police, having had their back scratched, seem to have given the video straight back to the Sun, resulting in their article of May the 5th:

"THIS is the video showing SIR BOB GELDOF’s daughter PEACHES buying drugs from AMY WINEHOUSE’s alleged dealer.

Peaches, 19, is seen offering to hand over up to £190 to the pusher – and then blurts out: “I need to get all that stuff off you tonight. Tomorrow I need Valium.”

Valium is often taken by users coming down from drugs.

TV presenter Peaches is now days away from a police quiz over the video obtained by The Sun.

...

But cops found the clip of her on a computer memory stick also containing scenes of Amy, 24, smoking crack cocaine.

Stills of Amy were published in The Sun four months ago.

Peaches’ dad Sir Bob, 55, said in the past he would “go f*****g ballistic” if she took drugs.

Cops seized the video from the East London home of Jonny Blagrove, 34, and Cara Burton, 22, suspected of running a celebrity drug empire.

Police sources said they believe Blagrove – a pal of Amy’s caged husband BLAKE FIELDER-CIVIL – and his lover wanted to use the Peaches video in a different sting."

Err, yes. Instead they apparently handed the footage over to the Sun for them to do just that, this time without them having to pay Blagrove any money for the privilege. 4 days later, this follow-up appeared:

"DRUG cops want PEACHES GELDOF to help them nail a drug dealer selling cocaine to celebrities.

Peaches, 19, has been quizzed under caution over an allegation of possessing the drug.

Her questioning arose from a video obtained by The Sun featuring her allegedly buying cocaine.

But cops have decided NOT to arrest Peaches — daughter of Live Aid hero Sir Bob Geldof — despite her being seen apparently handing over £190 for cocaine to a dealer.

She will be dealt with as a potential witness instead. Peaches was interviewed at a central London solicitor’s office on Thursday.

A report will now go to the CPS for consideration on charges. But one police source said: “It is hoped that Peaches, in particular, will appear as a witness in the case.

“We believe she was deliberately targeted by a drug supplier.”"

None of the accounts of the conclusion of the trial mention Geldof's involvement, so whether she actually did give evidence or not is uncertain.

To call this a very grey area in the terms of the law is something of an understatement. The Sun has to all intents and purposes paid someone £50,000 for breaking the law. It's not even as if it can fall back on the defence that it's exposing someone in the public eye taking drugs - it was hardly a secret that Winehouse was and still is a drug addict, having been in and out of treatment all year. Moreover, the Sun of course turned to its best friend: sickening hypocrisy. Having paid £50,000 to a man with 28 previous criminal convictions who ostensibly supplied a celebrity with the drugs which he then filmed her taking, their article contained the following platitudes:

"Amy’s spiral of self-destruction was revealed in a harrowing video filmed at her East London home and seen by The Sun.

It will horrify relatives and friends who fear she could soon end up dead.

...

Amy’s real friends believe she is now at constant risk of an overdose like the one which led to her notorious collapse last August.

One said: “Someone has to turn her around, otherwise a great talent will disappear forever very soon.”"

While on the side-panel "experts" including the Sun columnist Jane Moore call for her to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Strangely, although the Sun's website carried agency accounts of the trial under the "Staff Reporter" byline, there doesn't appear to have been any report of the trial's conclusion in today's paper. Also strange is that all of the agency accounts appear to have a crucial detail pruned from them: the £50,000 paid to Blagrove.

It's not as if this sort of hackery is anything new - the News of the World's Mazher Mahmood was notorious for entrapping celebrities either with them buying drugs or buying them for others. The difference is that he was employed by the NotW; here they instead turned a blind eye to their source and how exactly he obtained the material. Considering that he has now been jailed for two years, doesn't the Sun have a case to answer as well?

Guilty until proven non-Muslim.

5cc takes a look at the Sun's decision to blame a riot on Muslim prisoners, reminiscent of past decisions to blame Muslims first and ask questions later.

All the fault of social services, obviously...

The latest Private Eye (1225) comments on the Sun's relationship with Karen Matthews (thanks to Justin):

The Sun supports teenage pregnancy

There's an article in today's Sun about the fact that Manchester City Council are handing out condoms to under-16s. The aim is to lower its extremely high teenage pregnancy rate and by doing so the various associated negative outcomes.

The Sun condemns them for doing so - it must think that abstinence is the way forward - and in support of its position quotes the "Campaign for Real Education", which appears to be a right-wing group simply intent on complaining about anything that happens which improves teaching methods.

It also complains about the fact that parents won't be told when their kids are given contraception - which is perfectly reasonable on confidentiality and health grounds, given that this has been the main area of complaint in the past - but concedes the fact that they were consulted before the scheme started. Therefore the parents must support it.

In any event, I support the council's actions, as they have been shown to reduce the levels of teenage pregnancy which is a good thing. The Sun should not be condemning them for doing this, but supporting them, unless it wants people to grow up in poverty which leads to lower prospects and higher crime rates.

The Sun and Marxism

Today's Sun leader column supports the government's plans to "get tough" on "scroungers".

Nothing unexpected you might think. However, in doing so it has a go against "Labour Lefties" and in "support" of its position quotes Karl Marx's famous saying "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" which it says shows that "the welfare state was never intended to be a gravy train for freeloaders."

While I shouldn't need to state the obvious fact that not every unemployed person is a "freeloader", e.g. people who have been laid off over the last 18 months due to the economic downturn, the quote doesn't mean that.

It actually means that people get what they need no matter how much they have contributed to society.

Toytown Terrorist

Lego is great. Everyone loves Lego. You can make absolutely anything out of it and the little figures come in all sorts of designs to suit... including a jihadist follower of Osama Bin Laden:

A RANGE of Lego-style fighting figures — including an al-Qaeda terrorist — has been slammed by religious leaders.
The masked follower of 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden comes with a rocket launcher, assault rifle and grenades.

Mohammed Shaffiq, of Muslim organisation The Ramadhan Foundation, branded the toy “absolutely disgusting”.

He said: “It is glorifying terrorism — the makers should be ashamed.

Except it's not. It is just a generic bandit, called 'Mr White':

While his other siblings shun the day, Mr. White basks in the sunlight. Boldly attacking when the sun is high, each toss of his 8 fragmentation grenades erupts in a miniature supernova of destruction!

The manufacturers also make the good guys too, although they don't warrant a mention. Presumably because it's ok to glorify some kinds of violence but not others.
Their range consists of this bandit chap, some American army figures and your more traditional baddies, Nazis (which also gets a mention in the paper).

Fox News ran with the 'story' and gave the ower of the company, BrickArms, the right of reply:

We do not sell an ‘Osama bin Laden’ miniature figure. We sell a generic bad guy minifigure with a Ninja scarf head wrap, the same minifigure that we have been selling for over a year now, with no associated ‘outrage.’

It does not represent anything; it is simply a bandit — a bad guy for the good guys to battle. Attempt to assign it a ‘personality’ only serves to create controversy that does not exist.

Quite.

I also wonder if those pictures on the Suns' website are actually copyright of the Sun, they look everso similar to the ones on BrickArms site...

Keeley's careless climate change calculations

Let's begin with some comments from the Sun's discussion boards yesterday:

"They're clearly all dole scrounging students with nothing better to do but doing drugs and trying to be 'groovy'..."

"These people like to call themselves anachists...I call them bleeding pests..they are usually middle class guilt ridden unwashed pretend reds."

"NONE OF THEM WERE LATE FOR WORK THEN? QUITE A FEW LOOK AS THOUGH THEY ARE ALLERGIC TO SOAP AND WATER..."

Now you, like others, may have previously thought that the people protesting at Stansted were filthy work-shy hippies, or perhaps middle class posers, but today it turns out that they're actually idle rich:

THOUSANDS of ordinary families faced airport hell yesterday — as well-heeled youngsters blockaded Stansted’s runway in a demo over climate change. The protesters — whose Plane Stupid campaign counts sons and daughters of peers among activists — chained themselves together to halt flights... Adam May, 24, from Clapham, South London, whose flight to meet his girlfriend in Berlin was scuppered, raged: “It makes no sense. They should be banged up.”

In a clear attempt to paint the Stansted protestors in as negative a light as possible and set readers against them, the Sun's editor (who does very nicely for herself on overseas holidays, thank you very much) flexes her working class cred and brings us some completely irrelevant information about the alleged upper-class status of maybe 5 of the 57 protestors... plus a report from a war zone where "gun police" stand between us and chaos some bloke at the airport who, apparently, speaks for everybody.

Stepping quickly through yet another diversion into the discussion pages...

"The demonstrators don't seem to have realised that keeping planes up there waiting to land, or diverting them, simply burns more and more fuel... "

... we arrive safely at a very similar opinion to the one above, only this time on Page 3:

"I have some sympathy for the protestors, but causing so many planes to divert puts MORE carbon dioxide into the atmosphere."

1. Fifty scheduled services (to places much further away than the nearest airport) were cancelled yesterday, so unless Keeley has some clever sums to back it up, this assertion stands on very, very shaky ground.

2. A clearly stated aim of the protestors was the immediate prevention of "the release of thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere," but the act was also meant to highlight our cheap flight culture and its contribution to carbon emissions. One has to admire the brutal efficiency of Keeley undermining that legacy by the very act of discounting it.

That is, of course, to assume that this is actually Keeley Hazell's opinion we're talking about here. How these opinions manage to arrive on Page 3 and remain unfailingly in line with those of the editor is one of life's great mysteries, and several possibilities are open to us:

- Keeley arrived at this earnestly-held opinion all by herself and offered it unprompted when invited by Rebekah Wade to express an opinion on Page 3.

- Keeley offered a deliberate and disguised attempt to undermine the work of protestors when invited by Rebekah Wade to express an opinion on Page 3.

- Keeley read the comment about diversions and the related fuel consumption (posted to the Sun discussion boards by 'Cannydc' at 07:42 yesterday), found herself agreeing with it, and offered it as her own when invited by Rebekah Wade to express an opinion on Page 3.

- In a shock development likely to make the Andrew Gilligan saga look like a schoolyard folly, Keeley turns out to be 'Cannydc', a male civil servant from Norwich City.

- Keeley has allowed herself to be coerced into a minor role in a mild character assassination.

-

(Psst! There have been similar mysteries popping up like pert nipples recently, with a range of Page 3 lovelies expressing their opinion about specific measures to do with the economy. We are at present allowing these to quietly accumulate.)

Related news items:
BBC - Stansted protest cancels flights
Guardian - Stansted protest: Passengers vent frustration as officials pass blame

Getting it wrong

Another article that isn't specifically about the Sun, but, well, it's the only paper mentioned so...

The Guardian:

Buried away on today's [05/12/08] Guardian letters page is one of those short-and-to-the-point protests from a reader. If so many journalists who spoke to Karen Matthews and her dysfunctional family failed to rumble the fake kidnapping of nine-year-old Shannon, perhaps they will now be less judgmental about social workers who make similar mistakes, suggests Richard Moore of Bletchley.

Good point. Fat chance. Since her conviction yesterday of kidnapping Shannon to obtain a reward they hoped would be as much as £50,000, "Heartbreak Mum" Karen Matthews has been recast as "pure evil" across the Sun's front page this morning.

Kelvin MacKenzie vs the Manchester Congestion Charge

In today's Sun their ex-editor Kelvin MacKenzie has a column on the referendum in Greater Manchester on whether they should have a congestion charge, like in London.

MacKenzie isn't within my usual area on this blog. However, readers of my main blog will know that I have a keen interest in public transport matters and so I'll make an exception to comment on this, especially as I used to commute to work in Manchester from east Lancashire - by bus due to the appaling traffic, which has not noticably improved whenever I have been back - before I moved down to London, so I feel that I know a lot more about the topic than he does.

The idea is to charge people for driving into and out of the M60 with a further, higher charge for people who drive within Manchester city centre. It's not quite a blunt instrument as London's charge, as it would only apply during rush-hour, not the whole of the daytime and would only cover journeys which go with the flow of the main traffic, i.e. you would be charged for driving into Manchester in the morning and out of there in the evening, but not if you were travelling out of Manchester in the morning and into it in the evening. Furthermore, it would not be enforced until the planned public transport improvements which will eventually be funded by the revenue from it - including further extensions to the Metrolink tram network, including a badly-needed second line through the city centre, more buses and a version of London's Oystercard system - are actually in place.

Anyway, on to his piece.

He lists 10 "reasons" as to why people within Greater Manchester should vote against it, all of which boil down to the usual "War on Motorist" rubbish that the Sun seems to propagate. He also completely ignore the fact that Manchester does have a relatively decent public transport network at the moment and so it's not unreasonable to encourage people to use it.

He lists the fact that people would have pay £5 per day or £1200 to drive to work, ignoring the fact that lots of people already use public transport to get to work in Manchester and so would not be effected. He actually lists both the daily and annual charge as two separate "reasons" and
so that is in fact one "reason", not two, which is actually flawed so he's down to eight "reasons" straight away.

He also gives as two further "reasons" the fact there will be an initial charging area and that it may increase in size in the future, which in my experience would be no bad thing, and then states that this is a way to bring in road-pricing, i.e. it's the same point made three times. So that's another "three reasons" which are actually one "reason" which again is flawed, so that five "reasons" left.

He says that everyone pays and claims that the charge will lead to higher prices in, amongst other places, pubs and so he appears to be condoning drink-driving. He also states that the NHS will have to exempt people who have regular appointments. Not if they use public transport they won't. Four "reasons".

He states that each council in Greater Manchester would have to pay £120 million to pay for the planned public transport upgrades. He appears to miss - or, depending on your view, completely ignore - the fact that by raising money from a congestion charge, less would need to be borrowed. That's thee "reasons".

He rails against the fact that Manchester CC was told off by Ofcom for being biased. While it is correct that they were told off, he fails to say how and why this impacts on the charge itself. Two "reasons" against it.

He concern trolls (for the lack of a better term) about people on minimum wage having a discount, but states that only 7% of people would qualify. This suggests that there are a lot of jobs around which, if not decent-paying are enough to live off (this is Manchester and its suburbs we're talking about, not London). I'll won't allow this this reason either as another of the aims of the scheme is to have lower bus fairs, which would help people on low wages. One "reason" left.

The remaining "reason" is the fact that the roads aren't busy, but the motorways are and the charge does not deal with this. Experience from London shows that it leads to a drop in traffic levels over a long-term period (yes, the levels have finally gone back up to what they were pre-Charge, but that shows that it has had a big impact as they would be a lot higher if it was not there.). Anyway, as I stated above, I know from experience that certain areas, for example Bury New Road, are at virtual standstill during rush hour, so he's wrong. In any event, the charge does cover motorways so he's wrong on this as well. That's no "reasons" left. Oh dear!

By the way, he doesn't mention the fact that since the charge was introduced in London traffic levels have decreased and life expectancy has improved as well as the fact that it has raised money for public transport improvements. I wonder why?

Really unpleasant story.

With the Sun having been whipping up hate for the best part of three weeks now over Baby P, it's hardly surprising that those involved have been receiving death threats. Reports the Guardian:

"A threat, warning that her daughter would be killed, was sent to Shoesmith's home address in London. The typrewritten letter, containing a photo of Shoesmith taken from the Sun, with the words "a Christmas box - your daughter will be in" attached, is one of many items of hate mail she has received. As a result, the police have reinforced her doors and windows and offered her protection. Her daughters, both grown up, live in London."

As only the finest press in the world would, they've also been harassing her relatives:

"At the end of the trial, Shoesmith's mother was traced to her home and told her daughter had been involved in the death of a child. She phoned Shoesmith in a distressed state, unaware of what the reporters were talking about."

"Her former mother-in-law was also upset when it was reported in a number of papers that Shoesmith's in-laws found her "ice-cold" and wanted her to resign. One report said: "A woman, who asked to remain anonymous but spoke for the family, said: 'She should have done the decent thing by now'." Shoesmith has received emails entitled 100 Ways to Commit Suicide and ecards with pictures of Baby P containing messages such as "forever on your conscience"."

The Sun naturally carried one of those reports. And despite everything, it's still saying that yesterday's resignations and the sacking of Shoesmith are not enough. Indeed, the leader says that if there are any pay-offs to those involved, they would be blood money. The paper presumably won't be satisfied until there is blood on its own hands.

Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right...

Gawker:

Media critic Michael Wolff's new book, The Man Who Owns the News, is excerpted in the London Guardian today. But it glosses over the details of a joke in particularly poor taste that the reptilian Newscorp billionaire told his Sun tabloid editor Rebekah Wade—who was was arrested a few years back for assaulting her supposed "hard man"* British actor husband—after "a few drinks in a posh London restaurant," about gay sex. "Seeing [Wall Street Journal publisher Robert] Thomson arrive, Murdoch whispered: "For God's sake, don't tell Robert what I said. He's a gentrified man ... very clever," it reads.

Also in the book, apparently (from Radical Royalist):

...Murdoch was devoutly anti-monarchy but that "the internal cash flow of News Corporation became highly dependent on The Sun's obsession with Diana".

The day Princess Diana died, in 1997, Mr Murdoch met a News Corp executive at a bar and got blind drunk. He was "mourning" the passing of a woman whose life had been a circulation bonanza.

*Heh. If it wasn't for that line, I would've quoted the Guardian itself.

Gently stirring

The Sun is gently stirring things for the Conservatives.

Spectator Coffee House:

Tucked away in the Whip column of The Sun is this item:

“Now senior Tories are aghast at rumours that David Cameron was rubbishing them during a private dinner recently. He is said to have told a pal: “I’ve got six or seven people in the Shadow Cabinet capable of working in the government. The rest are useless.”

The way—and where—The Sun has reported this story suggests it is not totally confident in it.

Wot no outrage?

Mike Power ^(1:2):

Coooo! Miracle! Faith and Hope! Little fighters! Mother's decision will inflict pain, disability and possibly death on her children...so where is the outcry? Where are the headlines in The Sun.
Oh, here it is: 'They're Doing Great!' : http://is.gd/9GSU
Jeez.

A bit different to the headlines about another child having pain and suffering inflicted on it by his mother.

Update 03/12/08:
BBC:

One of the conjoined twins separated at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital has died, the hospital has said.