What a difference 4 years makes...

The Sun's editorial the day after the collapse of the court martial against six of the men accused of being involved in the abuse of Baha Mousa:

COMMON sense prevailed when two British soldiers were cleared of abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Major Michael Peebles and Warrant Officer Mark Davies served with courage and bravery in the most difficult conditions.

This ludicrous show trial, which has already seen four other soldiers cleared on the judge’s orders, has been a waste of time and money.

These men risked their lives in Iraq but were repaid by being hung out to dry.

Every aspect of investigating so-called crimes within the military needs to be re-examined.

Our servicemen and women deserve nothing less.

Today's Sun editorial following Sir William Gage's report into Baha Mousa's death:

NOTHING can excuse the savagery that led to the death of an innocent Iraqi prisoner at the hands of British squaddies.

As David Cameron says, it was shocking and appalling. And it must never happen again.

There are vital lessons for the Army over the scandal of hotel worker Baha Mousa, who died of 93 injuries inflicted by brutal captors in a detention centre.

The Sun's security expert, Andy McNab, points out that squaddies on active service are pumped up and highly aggressive. In war, their lives depend on it.

Responsibility for channelling that aggression, and enforcing rules on treating prisoners, falls to senior commanders and top brass at the Defence Ministry.

Yesterday's public inquiry report condemned a shameful failure of leadership. It also hit out at the conspiracy of silence over the killing of Mr Mousa.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox must act decisively with sackings — although he is right to insist that firm interrogation techniques remain an option.

Most Service personnel are fine men and women doing a tough job.

Yesterday the latest soldier to die in Afghanistan was brought home, a tragic reminder of the perils our brave troops face daily.

A handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole Army.

Whatever happened to common sense? And perhaps the Sun can also elaborate on whom outside the military contributed to the "conspiracy of silence" following the "savage" treatment meted out to Baha Mousa. After all, a handful of bad apples must not be allowed to tarnish the whole of the British media.

Did "Labour double kids on the sick"?

The Left Foot Forward blog has performed a masterly take down on the Sun's incredibly misleading "Labour doubled kids on the sick" article from today. It comments on the headline:

A misleading conflation of Disability Living Allowance, which is not an out-of-work benefit, with Incapacity Benefit/Employment Support Allowance: less than half of young DLA claimants receive IB or ESA.

And goes on to present the actual data so you can judge for yourself whether the rise in the numbers claiming since 1997 has been justified or not on the basis of the conditions those receiving the benefit have. It concludes with:

There is a line between selective presentation of data which makes the case for a particular policy, which is legitimate, and suppressing details in order to encourage gross misinterpretation of the evidence, which isn’t. Today’s Sun story is on the wrong side of that line.

The Sun also commented on the story in its leader, presented below in full as the paper's editorials are not archived:

DID Britain's young people get sicker under Labour?

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Of course not. But the number of 18 to 24-year-olds on Disability Living Allowance DID explode, from 61,000 in 1997 to 142,000 now.

Labour encouraged people to claim a handout for ailments as slight as an allergy. The bill is now an incredible £12billion a year - equal to Britain's entire transport budget.

No wonder the Coalition wants urgent health assessments. This has to end.

Just imagine...

There are some subjects on which the Murdoch press is on incredibly shaky ground. For some reason known only to Dominic Mohan, the Sun's editor, he's decided to dedicate an editorial to exactly one of those topics:

Taxing times

CONGRATULATIONS to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. They hope to recover up to £3billion from tax dodging accounts over the next five years. And that's JUST from tiny Liechtenstein.

Just imagine how much they would net if they managed to claw back ALL the money stashed in illegal accounts around the world.

It would be enough to pay off a big part of the debt that is making life tough for almost everyone.

Yesterday's jobless figures, showing the total soaring 49,000 to 2.5million were causing "huge concern".

So with bankers sticking two fingers up to the rest of us again over massive bonuses, it's hardly surprising that - for once - we are all cheering the taxman.

Yes, just imagine! The leader does rather hedge its bets: it talks of both tax dodging accounts and illegal accounts. While outright tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance itself is not. Tax avoidance is something News Corporation, the Sun's parent company has in the past been incredibly proficient at: from around 1988 to 1999 Rupert Murdoch's main British holding company paid no net corporation tax, saving a total sum of around £350 million. Were Murdoch to be generous and magnanimous enough in this country's hour of need to turn over a similar amount, it would at the least ensure that some of the harshest cuts being made, such as the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance, could be either curtailed or dropped entirely. After all, we are - for once - cheering the taxman!

The appalling irresponsibility of EastEnders.

You may well have to forgive me for thinking there's something ever so slightly redundant about complaining over the sensationalist and unrealistic nature of soap opera storylines (especially considering a good part of this blog is regularly given over to doing something similar when it comes to tabloid newspapers, and indeed as this post is also going to). It's rather like whining about quiz shows for containing questions, moaning that Noel Edmonds pretends there's something more than pure luck to Deal or No Deal or being surprised when Live at the Apollo isn't funny.

It therefore doesn't really strike me as especially beyond the pale, insensitive or going too far for EastEnders to have a character's baby die of cot death and in a moment of grief stricken madness for her to swap it with a friend's perfectly healthy child. If anything, it seems in remarkably good taste compared to Emmerdale's infamous plane crash storyline, coming as it did close to the fifth anniversary of the Lockerbie bombing, and certainly no less plausible than Coronation Street marking its 50th anniversary with the the celebratory plot of a gas explosion causing a tram crash. This is to say nothing of Neighbours having characters apparently return from the grave, or Crossroads finish its short-lived revival with the revelation that the entire series had been the dream of a supermarket checkout assistant. It's true that EastEnders has unlike the other soaps somewhat tried in the past to deliver hard-hitting plotlines while giving over time to the social issues behind them, and tried to at least keep the notion of realism involved, even if not narrative realism as Claude argues, and this latest development goes somewhat against that, yet it still doesn't seem any more outlandish or offensive than the burying alive of Max Branning, which Ofcom decided was inappropriately shown before the watershed.

Where it starts to get even more ridiculous is when newspapers use editorial space* to attack broadcasters as a whole for even considering using such "warped sensationalism" as "entertainment". Already in the past year we've seen the Sun condemn the BBC for the perceived anti-Conservative bias of Basil Brush; now the paper has taken up the complaints of Anne Diamond and the apparently permanently indignant whingers at Mumsnet by calling the EastEnders storyline an "appalling misjudgement" when it could have tackled the subject "responsibly". Whether the paper was always going to strike out at the corporation over the subject regardless of being leaked the news that the actor portraying the character who lost her baby is leaving the show is impossible to know, but it hardly helps the paper's credibility that despite claiming she was leaving as a direct result of the storyline, her agent has since made clear that in fact the decision had been made months ago. Not such a "huge embarrassment" to the corporation then as the paper's editorial had so confidently stated.

The Sun taking almost any opportunity to criticise the BBC is hardly a new development. It does though really start to enter into the realms of abject hypocrisy when only last week the paper had to apologise for claiming that there was a specific al-Qaida threat against the filming of Coronation Street's live episode, despite Greater Manchester police making clear at the time that they were only involved in policing the perimeter of the set at the request of Granada, with the officers involved being paid by the production company for the time spent away from their normal duties. If anything smacks of warped sensationalism, such a ridiculous and potentially damaging story does; it hardly comes across as responsible either. While the paper had no problems finding the space to feature criticism of the BBC, it strangely didn't mention the controversy featured in other papers concerning Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights on Channel 4, something which doubtless has absolutely nothing to do with the man himself penning a column for none other than Sun rather than the paper deciding that it was a non-story.

Still, now that the storylines of fictional dramas are considered to be worthy of comment in the leader column of the paper's biggest selling newspaper, we can no doubt rely on the fact that the Sun will be giving the plots of the programmes on the new Sky Atlantic a similarly critical once over. It would certainly make a change to the company being plugged endlessly in every other section.

*As the Sun's editorials are not properly archived on the paper's website, the leader column in full can be read below:

COT death is a nightmare that haunts every parent of a new baby.

So who at the BBC imagined sensationalising such a heartbreaking theme would make good "entertainment"?

We are used to EastEnders being grim. It was no surprise that a particularly depressing episode was lined up for New Year's Eve.

But this time, the level of outrage proves the show went too far.

Actress Samantha Womack did her best to play tragic mum Ronnie Branning with sensitivity as she switched her dead baby for the infant son of Kat and Alfie Moon.

But, as The Sun reveals, Samantha was so distressed by the storyline she handed in her notice after seeing the script and will leave in May.

The actress made it clear she thought the plot was a mistake and would cause a backlash. But bosses ignored her.

Her resignation is a huge embarrassment to the BBC.

As broadcaster Anne Diamond, who lost her baby son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, said, not even cot death was dramatic enough for EastEnders. It had to go one better with the ludicrous baby swap.

Campaigners like Anne have helped reduce the cot death toll from 2,000 a year to 300.

EastEnders could have helped that campaign by tackling the subject responsibly.

Reducing it to warped sensationalism was an appalling misjudgment.

Do Sun journalists tell lies?

Does the left hand know what the right hand's doing at the Sun? You have to ask based on today's incredibly familiar editorial attacking the same old "Leftie union dinosaurs" it's been fulminating against for over 20 years:

UNION brothers nibble mince pies at No10 with David Cameron.

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The PM wants to defuse tensions over spending cuts. Asking the TUC round was a friendly, constructive step.

But some union barons are hell bent on trouble. Rabid Leftie Len McCluskey, new boss of Unite, calls for war against the Government.

He orders union members to "prepare for battle" and praises "magnificent" student demonstrators who brought mayhem to London.

The Sun does not believe sensible Unite members want sickening violence and vandalism of the sort we have recently seen.

Will Labour's Red Ed Miliband personally slap down Unite's Red Len McCluskey?

Do turkeys vote for Christmas?

If the leader writer had bothered to read the paper's own article on the meeting, they would have already known the answer:

Labour leader Ed Miliband has already distanced himself from Mr McCluskey's "battle" remarks.

And if that doesn't count as "personally slapping down" McCluskey, then the actual statement from Miliband's spokesman should make clear that was exactly what he intends to do:

Ed warned about using overblown rhetoric about strikes in his conference speech and this is a case in point. The language and tone of Len McCluskey’s comments are wrong and unhelpful and Ed Miliband will be making that clear when he meets him in the near future.

Still, why bother with small things like accurately representing the leader of the Labour party when portraying him as a cartoon character is so much more amusing?

The Sun misleads over BBC, Panorama, and the World Cup.

There's something almost wearingly inevitable about the Sun criticising the BBC for daring to broadcast last night's Panorama on corruption within Fifa, coming as it did only 3 days before the body decides on the host of the 2018 World Cup. After all, this is the same paper that back in March claimed Basil Brush was biased against the Conservatives, in one of its most insane outbursts since the days of the attacks on the "loony left" in the 80s.

As only a paper owned by an Australian-American can be, the Sun is nothing if not cynically patriotic. It doesn't then matter much if our bid never had much of a chance in the first place, the idea that even the possibility of "bringing football home" could be put in jeopardy by an outbreak of investigative journalism is wholly repugnant. At least, this would be the position the paper would take if it could; unfortunately, the Sun's sister the Sunday Times only 6 weeks ago exposed two members of the committee that will decide on which country hosts the tournament as either agreeing to take money in return for a vote or asking for a payment which would influence it.

Not even the Sun could be brazen enough to ignore entirely the actions of their fellow prisoners in Wapping, and so this puts the paper in a rather difficult position. How to criticise the BBC without coming across as completely and utterly hypocritical? Well, it's easy as it happens. Just misrepresent the programme broadcast entirely, as the Sun's article does. Both in the main body of the text and the "explainer" panel it claims that Panorama's accusations were either "re-hashed" or contained "few fresh allegations". While the programme did deal with previously aired claims of corruption within Fifa, Issa Hayatou's name had not been raised before in connection with what is known as the International Sports and Leisure affair. Likewise, while Jack Warner previously donated $1 million to charity after Panorama showed he had sold 2006 World Cup tickets to touts, the claim that he tried to do exactly the same thing again this year, only for the deal to fall through, was new. Both Hayatou and Warner will be among the 23-strong committee voting on the various bids. Worth noting is that through portraying Panorama in such a way, the paper is taking exactly the same line on the programme as Fifa themselves.

The paper's leader doesn't even bother to suggest that Panorama's allegations were a unnecessary dredging up of the past, or even that as the claims don't involve specific accusations of vote buying that they're irrelevant to the bidding process. Instead it just concentrates on the timing (temporary link, leader is quoted in full below):

WELL, that should do our chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup a power of good.

The BBC chose last night of all nights to accuse FIFA members of corruption - as they gathered in Zurich for Thursday's vote.

Don't the Beeb want England to win?

The timing of last night's Panorama TV investigation, targeting the very officials deciding England's fate, seemed calculated to inflict maximum damage on our bid.

Legitimate inquiries earlier by The Sunday Times, a sister paper of The Sun, have already revealed dodgy dealings involving FIFA members, for which two were suspended.

The BBC could have shown its film any time. Why pick the worst possible moment for English football?

Dismayed England bid chiefs fear our prospects could be wrecked.

Is this what we pay our licence fee for?

The reason for the timing is simple, as Tom Giles explains over on the BBC Editors blog. The key information behind the new allegations was only obtained in the last month. As for the argument the Sun appears to be making without actually setting it out, that the BBC should have delayed it until after the vote, if we ignore the risible claim that the corporation has deliberately set out to sabotage the English bid, isn't this exactly the time that such revelations should be made? It might not be exactly earth-shattering to learn that individuals within Fifa may well be corrupt, yet the very fact that those on the body which decides whom to award the tournament to have been alleged to have either taken back-handers or tried to sell tickets on the black market should cast into doubt their ability to make a decision based on the merits of the respective bids. Also of note is how the host country has to enact special legislation for the duration of the tournament, protecting the chosen sponsors, who also have to be given tax exempt status along with Fifa. Then again, seeing as Rupert Murdoch has in the past tried to avoid paying his fair share of tax in this country it's not surprising that his papers make nary a peep about such demands. The public, as the likes of the Sun would normally doubtless protest, have a right to know such details ahead of the decision being made, rather than after it.

In any case, the idea that the Sunday Times investigation, denounced by Fifa's "ethics committee" for sensationalism and twisting the facts has been forgotten because it happened more than 3 days before the bid is made is nonsense. Also worth remembering is the Mail on Sunday's truly unnecessary publication of an indiscreet conversation the then FA chairman had, which involved unprovable claims that the Russians had been bribing referees for the Spanish, who in return would vote for their bid for the 2018 cup. The Mail, strangely, came in for very little actual criticism from its rivals who instead focused on "rescuing" the bid. Dog doesn't always not eat dog in what used to be known as Fleet Street, but what is clear is that the right-wing press always bites the BBC, regardless of how it would never allow such concerns expressed in the Sun's editorial, even patriotic ones, to influence when and what they decide to publish.

"Lying Labour rat Phil Woolas".

Today's Sun editorial couldn't be much clearer in its views on the now ex-MP Phil Woolas (temporary link):

SO voters in Oldham East and Saddleworth must wait to find a decent MP to replace lying Labour rat Phil Woolas.

Speaker John Bercow rules a by-election must be delayed to let Woolas have a judicial hearing.

At least Mr Bercow's Labour-supporting wife Sally will be pleased. That was what she asked him to do.

It's good that judges have seen off Woolas.

Could the paper possibly be covering for something? Like being quoted approvingly by Woolas in his now notorious 8 page newspaper-esque missive? Surely not. Here in full is just how impressed the paper was by "lying Labour rat Phil Woolas" less than two short years ago:

IN one interview, Phil Woolas speaks more sense on immigration than every minister combined in 11 years of this Government.

Such good common sense, in fact, that he'll need to watch his back.

Not just because it'll rile so many left-wingers. But because it so harshly exposes the abysmal failure of previous Labour immigration policies.

Woolas leaves no stone unturned.

He'll wipe away the scandal of immigrants handed a golden life of benefits and council homes.

He'll make them spend five years earning a passport and up to five more earning the right to welfare.

He'll ensure they don't take vacant jobs from Brits in the recession.

He'll prevent our population from topping 70 million - and attacks his own Government for failing to check numbers in and out and making it too easy for illegals to stay.

He even savages Labour's beloved multiculturalism that allowed insular immigrant communities to fester dangerously on our soil.

We can only hope the Woolas revolution, in a Bill next month, gives us the fairer society he wants.

Meanwhile we can applaud both his vision and his bottle.

Silenced already once by the Home Secretary, he knows he is walking a tightrope, but it doesn't faze him: "If I lose my job, I lose my job."

Let's hope not.

Maybe we should give the Sun the benefit of the doubt: it might just be subtly hinting he should have kept to his previous promise.

How to take advantage of a parliamentary misunderstanding.

We all know how dearly the Sun loves "Our Boys", even if the feeling is not necessarily mutual. It's therefore hardly surprising that it's instantly leapt to their defence, having apparently been accused by Labour MP Paul Flynn of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". The problem is that almost every single thing about the report by Tom Newton Dunn in which the claim is made, and the leader comment which accompanies it, is wrong.

WIKILEAKS and a Labour MP were accused of giving the Taliban "a propaganda gift" yesterday by spreading wild smears about Our Boys.

Foreign Secretary William Hague mounted a passionate defence of troops in southern Afghanistan after reports were leaked to the website saying British soldiers had shot at civilians 21 times in four years.

Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, after a Guardian Freedom of Information request based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable than the second hand one which the US recorded?

The MoD said on each occasion the troops were under grave threat of suicide attack or vehicles being driven at them had failed to stop.

Despite this, anti-war Labour MP Paul Flynn jumped on the statistic to brand the incidents "atrocities".

Mr Hague hit back: "I condemn the unauthorised release of information which can endanger our forces and give one-sided propaganda - a propaganda gift, for insurgents."

He also hailed British troops, saying: "They are the finest any nation could hope to have."

Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:

The Labour MP Paul Flynn called for an inquiry into the conduct of the units in what he said could be "atrocities in the name of the British people". "Truth has a cleansing function," he added.

Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.

It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:

What is the Foreign Secretary's assessment of last weekend's WikiLeaks reports, which made reference to 21 incidents in Afghanistan involving British troops?

Hague's answer was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes comes from the statement, and so has been taken entirely out of context.

Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.

Here's the paper's leader:

AS if facing death from the Taliban wasn't enough, our Forces have to face snipers back home.

Labour MP Paul Flynn accuses Our Boys of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people".

His basis for this slur? Irresponsible and unsubstantiated internet leaks claiming British troops fired on Afghan civilians.

The Defence Ministry insists this would only ever have happened in self-defence when our soldiers came under threat of suicide attack.

Our troops have spent nine years doing their best for Afghan civilians, laying down their lives for them.

As Foreign Secretary William Hague says, these smears are a Taliban propaganda gift.

Ed Miliband should order Flynn to apologise.

The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.

P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth Abu Izzadeen's remarks on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:

His every word was cheered by a flock including sidekick Anjem Choudary and jailed hate cleric Abu Hamza.

Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release, unsurprisingly.

The usual wholly dishonest fashion.

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson gives an interview in which he says there was a massive left-wing bias at the corporation when he joined it 30 years ago. How do you think the Sun responded to his revelation?

If you read its article, it makes clear that Thompson was speaking about how the corporation was over a quarter of a century ago. If you just read its leader, well, here's what you'd read:

CONFIRMING what everyone knows, BBC chief Mark Thompson admits the Beeb has been guilty of "massive" Left-wing bias.

He insists impartiality is improving, claiming regular invitations to Coalition leaders prove his point.

Here then is a wonderful example of omitting a vital piece of information to paint a picture of an organisation the Sun's parent company is in direct competition with.

Yes, the BBC invites Tory and Lib Dem chiefs on air.

But it is the contemptuous way they are treated - and above all the failure to report fairly the reasons for the Government's cuts policy - that shows the BBC is as Leftie as ever.

Perhaps there's a hint there to the fact Thompson was referring to the past, if we're being completely fair. Why should we bother to be though when the Sun itself never is? "Failure to report fairly the reasons?" Can that really be anything like an accurate description of this blog by the deputy director-general and head of BBC journalism's Mark Byford detailing the BBC's season of programmes on exactly those cuts?

Why this sudden hand-wringing from Mr Thompson as he is carpeted by No10?

Could it be because the Coalition is looking at the BBC's bills - including his own salary last year of £834,000?

Two can play this game. Why this sudden reporting of Thompson's comments? Could it possibly be because these can be misconstrued, unlike his MacTaggart lecture last Friday, which attacked News International directly and accused Sky of not investing in original British programming? After all, not even the Times last week felt the need to make clear to its readers how Thompson had responded to the rant last year by James Murdoch. Indeed, here's the first possible opportunity for the Murdoch press to strike back at Thompson's impertinence, and it's been taken with both hands, in the usual wholly dishonest fashion.

When white is in fact black.

A very short one this. From today's Sun editorial:

CHANCELLOR George Osborne's emergency Budget was a genuine attempt to spread the economic pain fairly.

A think tank claims the result is turning out worse for the poor than for the rich. But that's not true.

The wealthy are clobbered with huge tax rises and are set to lose child allowance and heating benefit.

Firstly, nothing has been decided on the score of means testing child benefit (it was frozen in the emergency budget) or the winter fuel allowance. Second, it's always fascinating when a newspaper overwhelmingly read by what used to be known as the working class tries to tell them that white is in fact black. To be fair to the Sun when perhaps I shouldn't be, it goes on:

The Government has pledged to keep the welfare safety net at the bottom while stopping abuse.

Most importantly, the coalition is serious about moving the jobless off welfare into work - the best long-term way of lifting families out of poverty.

It will take time. But the result will be a more prosperous Britain. For everyone.

Try reading that without either laughing or crying.

The Sun and endless false dichotomies.

No other comment really needed on this especially vile leader. The line on welfare is remarkably tasteless, even for the Sun:

SOME people are saying they can't see the point of voting on May 6.

They could not be more wrong.

Next month's General Election will be a defining moment for Britain.

However sick you may be of Westminster's antics - and The Sun shares your disgust - this is not the moment to look the other way.

The decision Britain makes will chart our course for a generation.

On the ECONOMY we must decide between reckless Labour spending or sensible Tory savings to cut debt.

On EMPLOYMENT we must decide between Labour's tax on jobs or Tory growth.

On STRIKES we must decide if we want unions running our country.

On DEFENCE we must decide who will best look after Our Boys.

On IMMIGRATION we must decide how to find the right balance.

On CRIME we must decide between yob rule or tough justice.

On HEALTH we must decide whether endless public money will stop filthy hospitals killing patients.

On WELFARE we must decide how to bring thousands of benefit skivers back into the mainstream of society.

On EDUCATION we must decide whether State or parents know best.

On the ENVIRONMENT we must take far-reaching decisions that will shape our children's world. Likewise with ENERGY.

On EUROPE we must decide how far Brussels can push us around.

It does though keep the best line until near the end:

But the choice is entirely yours. We will keep you informed so you can make up your own mind.

Informed along the lines of this completely free of bias and lucidly argued editorial, one presumes.

A great victory for the liars at the Sun!

How then do you respond when it turns out you've been telling ludicrous lies, claiming that teachers couldn't confiscate 4-MMC when any actual teacher would have told you the absolute opposite?

Easy. Claim that the rules have been changed because of your highlighting of the problem:

TEACHERS were given the power to confiscate killer drug meow meow yesterday - in a victory for The Sun.

After dithering for days, Mr Coaker wrote to every head in England, saying: "Schools do have the power to confiscate inappropriate items, including a substance they believe to be mephedrone (or any other drug whatever its legal status). They do not have to return such confiscated substances."

As is abundantly clear, this is Coaker just reiterating what the current rules are. Here's part of his letter to schools unedited:

Some questions have been raised as to whether teachers can confiscate such substances, given that they are not prohibited substances. As current guidance makes clear, schools do have the power to confiscate inappropriate items, including a substance they believe to be mephedrone (or any other drug whatever its legal status) in line with the schools behaviour policy. They do not have to return such confiscated substances. As School discipline and pupil behaviour policies: Guidance for schools makes clear, schools may choose not to return an item to the pupil, including

• Items of value which the pupil should not have brought to school or has misused in some way might – if the school judges this appropriate and reasonable – be stored safely at the school until a responsible family adult can come and retrieve them.
• Items which the pupil should not have had in their possession – particularly of an unlawful or hazardous nature – may be given by the school to an external agency for disposal or further action as necessary. This should always be followed by a letter to the parents confirming that this has taken place and the reasons for such an action.
  

The Sun's claims that teachers had to give back 4-MMC to students as it isn't yet illegal have thus been utter nonsense from the very beginning, and their editing of Coaker's letter is cynical and misleading in the extreme.

Nonetheless, the paper's leader continues to claim that it's all thanks to them:

IN a victory for The Sun, teachers are told they DON'T have to give back a deadly drug seized from pupils...What's surprising is that there was a millisecond's doubt.

Day was when school heads could dictate what their pupils wore, how they behaved and whether they could use mobile phones during class.

Never mind not handing back meow meow because it is technically legal.

Makes you wonder precisely what those who run our schools these days are taking.

Or rather, it makes you wonder what those who write the newspapers are taking these days. The idea that heads don't decide on what pupils wear, how they behave or whether they can use mobile phones isn't just beyond ignorant, it's an outright lie. It really is impossible not to absolutely hate the scaremongering liars who write for the Sun, and to be incredibly fearful of the power which they continue to wield, both over this government and the one likely to come.

The anti-Conservative bias of Basil Brush.

Has the BBC done something I haven't noticed to upset the Murdoch stable? I know there doesn't generally need to be a reason for the Sun to attack the corporation, only it seems rather odd to suddenly decide to "investigate" the inherent "bias" that the Beeb has against the Tories, especially when the evidence produced is so completely laughable. In fact, laughable really doesn't do justice to the dossier they've produced to prove that the BBC favours Labour over the Tories: pathetic, hilarious and carpet-chewingly insane only begin to describe the scraping of barrels involved.

This apparently is the best that Tom Newton Dunn and Kevin Schofield could come up with:

BBC News gave disproportionate coverage to the row over Tory donor Lord Ashcroft's tax status;

...

The BBC's Lord Ashcroft coverage alone triggered 104 complaints.

When the row over his "non-dom" status broke three weeks ago it led the Beeb's TV and radio bulletins for up to six days - long after commercial broadcasters dropped it.

But controversy over the similar status of up to eight Labour donors got just a fraction of the coverage.

Taking the Sun's word for it that it did lead broadcasts for up to six days, that doesn't seem "disproportionate" when compared to the coverage not just on other "commercial broadcasters" but to that in newspapers, another prism through which it should be judged. It certainly is however disproportionate when compared to the Sun's coverage of the Ashcroft affair, which to judge by the reports on their website was a complete non-story. There are only three reports dedicated to the revelations concerning Ashcroft's non-dom status, all of which are either favourable or overwhelmingly favourable to the Tories: the first is headlined Tory Lord vows to pay full tax, the second is a report on the spat between Labour and the Tories over non-doms, and the third is on Ashcroft being cleared over the donations to the Tories through his Bearwood Corporate Services company.

Next, and we're already onto hardly the most convincing of evidence:

LABOUR panellists were given more time to speak on flagship political show Question Time;

...

The Sun's analysis showed Labour politicians on Question Time were allowed to speak for a full minute longer than Tory counterparts.

On March 11 ex-Labour minister Caroline Flint got SIX minutes more than Tory Justine Greenings.

And on February 18 Labour veteran Roy Hattersley spoke for nearly three minutes longer than Tory Rory Stewart.

This couldn't possibly be anything to do with the Tory politicians giving shorter answers rather than not being allowed to speak, could it? There's also the minor point that if you're not the first to be called on, the others can rather steal your thunder with their answers, hence there being no point going over the same ground. Also worth keeping in mind is that as Labour are in government the audience often directly ask questions of them, and are sometimes also given an opportunity to respond to a criticism of the government either from a member of the panel or the audience. None of this is evidence of bias, and if the politicians themselves are annoyed with how much time they've been given they can take it up with the producers afterwards, which there has been no indication of them doing, or even during the show if they so wish by complaining to David Dimbleby. Incidentally, there is no such politician as Justine Greenings; there is however a Justine Greening.

A POLL on The One Show ignored issues with Gordon Brown to ask only, Is David Cameron too much of a toff to be PM?

...

A total of 219 viewers complained about The One Show poll, which followed a five-minute piece about Mr Cameron's "posh" upbringing.

Dozens more wrote on the show's blog.

One said: "The BBC should be ashamed of its blatant electioneering."

That would be the One Show which is renowned for its high standard of investigative journalism, would it? For those imagining that this happened recently, it was in fact screened over two months ago, and the BBC said that the piece wasn't good enough at the time. They have since ran in-depth looks at all of the political parties. In any case, why isn't Cameron's background a reasonable topic for discussion? As the New Statesman points out, Cameron hasn't received anywhere near the same amount of scrutiny as Brown.

THE Tory leader was stitched up when footage of him adjusting his hair was sneakily fed to all broadcasters;

...

Last week bosses tried to make Mr Cameron look a laughing stock by putting out footage of him checking his hair in the wind before making a serious statement on Northern Ireland.

Party chiefs complained.

And who was it that initially shot this footage? Why, that would be Sky News, who may themselves have "sneakily fed" it to all broadcasters, or they could have picked it up from YouTube. Sky News we should point out, has absolutely no connection to the Sun whatsoever. They just provide the video on the Sun's website. Oh, and the ultimate parent company of the Sun controls a third of the shares in Sky. Apart from that they're completely separate entities.

Lastly, the real clincher:

THE Basil Brush Show featured a school election with a cheat called Dave wearing a blue rosette.

...

Then last Sunday BBC2's Basil Brush Show featured nasty "Dave" - complete with blue rosette.

He beat nice Rosie, with a purple rosette, by promising free ice cream but was arrested because it was out of date.

No, I'm not making this up. The Sun really is trying to suggest that Basil Brush is biased against the Conservatives. Then again, perhaps it isn't so ridiculous: after all, the Tories have promised to bring back fox hunting. To be serious when perhaps it doesn't deserve it, when you start seeing political bias in a children's programme featuring a puppet fox, it really might be time to start questioning your own sanity. In any case, and because I'm truly sad, I went and looked to see when this episode was made: surprise, surprise, it was first broadcast on the 22nd of October 2004, before the last election, let alone this one. Unless the Sun is suggesting that the writers of Basil Brush are so prescient that months before David Cameron became Conservative party leader they were already out to get him, this really can be dismissed as the mouth-frothing madness that it is. They also got the girl's name wrong: she's Molly, not Rosie.

Away from ludicrous accusations of bias, the paper is still trying to claim that teachers are having to give 4-MMC back to students they confiscate it from:

DEADLY drug meow meow is rife in prisons, warns the Justice Department.

An urgent memo urges governors to stop inmates getting hold of it.

Yet while the Government protects convicts, it won't save schoolchildren. Teachers must return confiscated meow meow to pupils even though it may kill them.

Just in case you didn't take my own word for it, some actual journalists as opposed to scaremongering tabloid hacks bothered to ask both teachers and police what their real approach to 4-MMC is:

Despite national reports claiming teachers would be forced to hand back seized packets of mephedrone at the final bell, Plymouth police and the vice-chair of the Association of Secondary Head Teachers in Plymouth, Andy Birkett, have insisted it will not happen here.

"We already have effective policies to deal with substances found in schools; if we're in any doubt we ask the expert's opinion," said Mr Birkett.

"The police have always advised us that if we don't know what we've seized, regardless of what the child tells us, then call the police. We seek to put the child's safety and the safety of the school first and will hand over such items to police.

"As far as we're concerned, nothing has changed. We'll deal with this drug in the same way we always have."

Drug liaison officer Det Con Stuart Payne said: "The advice we have given schools is if they seize a suspected item, then they can give it to us to deal with.

"The school may wish to deal with the matter in-house or they may wish to tell us who it came from. People should note that current force policy is that those found in possession of the suspect powder will be arrested.

"It should be remembered that samples of mephedrone we have already seized have been mixed with controlled drugs, including cocaine and amphetamine, or legal drugs such as benzocaine, which is used by dentists. It emphasises that you don't know what you're taking."

Moral panic time over Meow Meow.

This whole post comes with a very hefty hat-tip to Carl, a crime reporter on a local newspaper.

If yesterday's reporting on Mephedrone or 4-MMC was slightly hysterical, then we now seem to be moving into full moral panic territory. Moral panics are not just driven by exaggeration and overreaction through fear, but directly fuelled by downright lies, obfuscation and completely inaccurate media reporting, all of which has come together in today's Sun in a quite remarkable fashion.

Not content with just wanting 4-MMC to be banned, it seems determined to inflate the number of deaths associated with it, claiming that there have been 5 while only 1 has today been directly linked to the drug, but also spreading likely myths. The paper is suggesting that "dealers" are adding Crystal Meth to it, which seems highly unlikely on two grounds: firstly that Meth is not a popular drug in this country, especially when compared to the US; and secondly that the most popular methods of taking it are different. Meth is almost always either injected or smoked, whereas 4-MMC is mainly taken either by snorting it, by swallowing it in capsule form, "bombing it" or mixing it into a drink. Meth can be snorted, and it can potentially be mixed with 4-MMC, but if anyone is doing so, my bet would be only those who consider themselves truly "hardcore" are likely to chance it.

The paper's main claim today though is that teachers are having to hand 4-MMC back to pupils who have it in their possession, as it has no age restriction and isn't illegal. The paper here seems to be using a typical tabloid short cut: what it does definitively report is the comments made by Mike Stewart, head of Westlands School in Torquay:

Mr Stewart said: "Both teachers and police are powerless to do anything about it.

"Items can be confiscated, but because this drug is still legal it would have to be given back at the end of the day and that's disturbing.

"This drug is highly dangerous and must be banned."

Note that Stewart doesn't actually say that he has had to give 4-MMC back to a student after it's been confiscated, because in all likelihood he hasn't. He does though seem to be one of these teachers that love to talk to the media, as this video on the BBC shows. From this the paper has directly taken the line that teachers are having to give it back, which there is absolutely no evidence for whatsoever.

My school days aren't that long behind me, and teachers then were all too confiscate happy, and the time the item was kept was often far longer than just until the end of the day. The idea that a teacher would confiscate a white powder, even if told that it was 4-MMC and still hand it back to a student is ludicrous. The very first thing that would happen is that a higher authority (probably up to head of year, deputy head, even head level) would be brought in for something so potentially serious, and then almost certainly the police as well. After all, you can't take a student's word for it that the white powder they have in their possession isn't cocaine or speed. The Devon and Cornwall police themselves issued a press release today which ought to fully debunk this claim (Update: .doc, thanks again to Carl):

"If the seized drugs are found to be mephedrone no charges will follow under the Misuse of Drugs Act, but it is possible that other offences such as those under Intoxicating Substances Act 1985 could be brought. If, after testing, the seized substance is identified as mephedrone the Force will retain and destroy the product."

No chance whatsoever then that teachers or even police would have to give it back. The Sun could have checked this themselves, but instead thought that scaring people would be a better option.

Having then created a nightmarish picture of teachers having to give potentially deadly drugs back to their students, the paper moves on to lambasting the government, its other favourite popular past-time :

Home Secretary Alan Johnson was blasted as it emerged that a decision on a ban had been delayed SIX MONTHS.

An official review was launched last October, then postponed when the scientist in charge quit in protest at the sacking of chief drugs adviser Prof David Nutt.

The committee has still not reported, meaning any ban is still months away.

Not true - the ACMD is due to give advice to ministers at the end of the month, regardless of the problems caused by the sacking of Prof David Nutt, whom the Sun previously smeared by association, targeting his own children. The government has said it will take "immediate action" upon receiving that advice, although how much they can do considering parliament will have to rise on the 6th for an election on May 6th is difficult to see. The best plan to deal with it in a prohibitive fashion, as pointed out yesterday, was to stick it in a "Class D" classification, age-restricting and taking control of the supply until more research and studies had been carried out. This though simply isn't good enough for those who have already lost loved ones, even if they don't yet know whether it was 4-MMC itself that killed them, newspapers which are determined to use any stick to beat the government and other politicians who are equally set on proving their law and order credentials.

The paper's leader has all of this and more besides:

SCHOOL heads are furious at the Government shambles over killer party drug meow meow.

Teachers seize stashes but have to return them because there is no law against the lethal substance.

Nonsense, as we've established above.

Instead of acting, Labour cobble up plans to microchip puppies - in an attempt to divert attention from the Jon Venables scandal.

Yes, that policy was directly cooked up to distract everyone. Do they really expect anyone to believe such utter rot?

Lord Mandelson admits he's never HEARD of meow meow. Shouldn't a senior minister be better informed?

When it has absolutely nothing to do with his own ministerial duties, no, he doesn't necessarily have to be.

America can ban drugs instantly for a year pending investigation.

Why can't we? Labour mumble about a decision by the summer.

Even if 4-MMC was to be banned immediately, does the paper really think that'll either solve anything or decrease the dangers of taking it? Of course it won't, it's just the same old "sending a message" nonsense which has failed now for over half a century.

Tackling meow meow is urgent.

The Government must wake up or have more deaths on its conscience.

More deaths on their conscience? Is the paper really suggesting that the government bears some responsibility for those who die as a result of taking potentially dangerous substances? This is the equivalent of claiming that the government bears responsibility for everyone who dies as a result of alcohol poisoning because that's legal, or through lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. For a newspaper that repeatedly stresses personal responsibility, this is the complete antitheses of that philosophy. By the same yardstick you could claim that the media could have deaths on their conscience through the hype and hysteria which they're spreading about 4-MMC; you can bet that there'll be more inquisitive and inclined to try it this weekend as a result of all the coverage, regardless of the panic associated with it. If the government has a responsibility, then so does the media. The Sun has resolutely failed that test.

Editorials filled with fantastical nonsense.

If this blog was to comment on every time a Sun editorial was layered with untruths, let alone half-truths or obfuscation, there'd be a post every single day. Today though the leader writer really seems to have gone out of his/her way to write fantastical nonsense:

THE Prime Minister's silence over the BA strike had become deafening.

So there was an element of damage limitation when Gordon Brown was finally cornered into speaking out against it yesterday.

Mr Brown called the strike unjustified and deplorable.

The Sun agrees. But the PM tried hard not to upset his Unite union paymasters.

Unite has more than 160 Labour MPs onside. Many would love to see the union smash BA.

The election choice could not be clearer.

Vote Labour for industrial anarchy.

This is of course the response from the Tories to the Ashcroft affair: trying to make everyone forget the fact that their chief paymaster over the last decade lied about his tax status and struck a secret deal which allowed him to remain a non-dom even after informing parliament and the then leader of his party that he would pay UK tax on all his earnings. Instead they're focusing on a trade union whose members freely decide to donate, work and support the Labour party as if this is some sort of comparable scandal. How dare a trade union defend and support its members against the working conditions being imposed on them by British Airways? The election campaign was always going to be dirty, but to suggest that a vote for Labour is a vote for industrial anarchy when both Lord Adonis and Gordon Brown have condemned the strike in the strongest possible terms is to treat the paper's readers as idiots. It's equally moronic as it implies that somehow the Conservatives could stop the strike from happening or prevent "industrial anarchy", neither of which there is any indication that they either could or would.

Next:

IF there was a World Cup for abusing public money, the BBC would win every time.

More than 80 Beeb executives and hangers-on will be luxuriating on OUR money in a sumptuous Cape Town hotel.

They are part of a 295-strong Beeb army milking the Cup for all it is worth.

The arrogance of the BBC is out of control.

Hard-up families scrimp to buy a licence so BBC spongers can sip cocktails by the pool of a £636-a-night palace.

The BBC gets away with this because it toadies to Labour.

It might not find the Tories such a soft touch.

Shock horror! National broadcaster in taking workers to World Cup to ensure that they can cover the matches in as much detail as the licence fee payers demand! The BBC of course should not being bidding for the World Cup at all; they ought to leave the rights to Sky so they can provide their award-winning coverage at half the price but at a premium cost to the subscriber. Naturally, it gets away with it because it toadies to Labour; yet another reason to vote Conservative!

And lastly:

THE Government can't stop insulting the memory of James Bulger.

Ed Balls, the Prime Minister's boot boy, says it is WRONG to call Jon Venables and Robert Thompson evil for murdering James.

They were victims of their upbringing, he whines.

It was Mr Balls who appointed Labour stooge Maggie Atkinson as his Children's Commissioner.

She has outraged Denise Fergus, James's mother, by downplaying the murder of her son as "unpleasant."

Was there ever a Government more out of touch with public opinion?

In fact, as the Sun's report makes clear, Balls said that Venables and Thompson were not "intrinsically evil", which is quite different to just describing them as "not evil". Does the Sun then believe that the two are "evil", and not that they just committed a crime that could be described as "evil"? As for Atkinson's comments, it's a case of disagreeing with someone else's opinion, which Fergus seemed to believe that Atkinson should be sacked for expressing, which rather than insulting the memory of the dead child instead seems to show Fergus up as small-minded and intolerant of any opinion different to her own. This is a leader writer pretending to be outraged by a government minister and commissioner not agreeing with them, hence they simply must be out of touch with public opinion, which is always, but always on the Sun's side.

Responding to deliberate obfuscation with deliberate obfuscation.

It's not often that you see the Murdoch press seriously rattled; it probably last happened when the Sun misjudged the public mood over its increasingly personal attacks on Gordon Brown. In that case the paper backed down and softened its coverage, but it didn't have that option when it came to the release last night of the Culture, Media and Sport committee's report into press standards, privacy and libel, which included the fresh allegations concerning the phone-hacking at the News of the World.

The options it did have were to either ignore it entirely, as it almost completely ignored the story when the allegations were running in the Guardian last year, or to come out fighting despite it not actually concerning the Sun itself in any capacity. It chose to do the latter, a decision which has probably deeply mystified its readers that wonder what on earth the paper is banging on about. It's not even as if the paper is still edited by Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade), a former editor of the NotW, but rather by Dominic Mohan, who has no connections with the Sun's sister paper whatsoever. It therefore makes you think it was a management decision, or indeed, even one that came directly from either Murdoch senior or junior themselves.

The most damning comments made by the parliamentary committee were that those giving evidence for News International had indulged in "deliberate obfuscation" while also suffering from "collective amnesia". What better way then to respond to such a slur than through, um, deliberate obfuscation, which is exactly what the Sun's editorial does?

TODAY is another dark day for Parliament.

MPs on the Labour-dominated Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee have abandoned fairness and independence in pursuit of cheap political advantage.

The committee had an important opportunity to investigate crucial issues such as privacy law, libel tourism and the Madeleine McCann case.

Yet members wasted seven months - nearly half their time - on unfounded claims made by the Labour-supporting Guardian newspaper against News International, publisher of The Sun and the News of the World.

An important opportunity which the committee took, and looked at in great detail. The section on the News of the World phone-hacking takes up only half of the chapter on "press standards"; the rest of the report deals at length with all the subjects the Sun mentions, but maybe it's because the committee comes to conclusions which the Sun doesn't like that it dismisses them in such a way?

Shamefully, the committee colluded with The Guardian, giving it leaks and tip-offs. But not a shred of new evidence was found to support The Guardian's claims.

Is there any evidence whatsoever that the committee colluded with the Guardian in this way? No. Was there however new evidence to support the Guardian's claims? Well, err, let's see what the report says in answer to exactly that allegation:

493. The Guardian articles did contain new information, in particular, concerning the payments to Gordon Taylor and others and the 'for Neville' email. This inquiry has subsequently revealed more facts, including the pay-offs made to Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire and that they tapped the phones of the princes themselves. They also highlighted the fact that a culture undoubtedly did exist in the newsroom of News of the World and other newspapers at the time which at best turned a blind eye to illegal activities such as phone-hacking and blagging and at worst actively condoned it. We condemn this without reservation and believe that it has done substantial damage to the newspaper industry as a whole.

Thwarted, the committee has fallen back in its report on familiar Labour tactics of smear and innuendo.

Yes, tactics which this editorial and which News International as a whole regards as completely abhorrent. They would never smear anyone or rely on innuendo.

Labour MP Tom Watson pathetically used the report to try to link the Conservative Party with the bullying allegations that have shamed Downing St.

Oh, what's that? A smear perhaps? It's also not sour grapes on the Sun's part, having to recently pay a certain Tom Watson damages for libelling him, by err, claiming that he was involved or knew about Damian MacBride's smearing of Tory MPs. And in any case, why shouldn't we be able to compare the allegations made about Gordon Brown's behaviour in Downing Street with the err, proved allegations involving ex-Screws editor and now Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson's bullying of Matt Driscoll?

Parliamentary select committees are important but only work if MPs on them behave with fairness and honour.

Some on this committee have not. Its report is accordingly worthless.

The Sun talking about behaving with fairness and honour? Would someone please pass the sick bag?

(For more on the committee's report, see the post on my own blog.)

Whose side are you on?

BenSix has already had a go at the esteemed Con Coughlin for his response to yesterday's ruling by the Court of Appeal concerning the seven paragraphs, but there's another contender for the prize title of "worst journalist in Britain" in the form of whoever wrote today's Sun leader column:

IN Afghanistan, our troops fight al-Qaeda. Here, the battle against the terrorists is undermined by judges.

Except they're not fighting al-Qaida, they're fighting the Taliban and various other insurgents, but who's being picky?

How, pray tell, is the battle against terrorists being undermined by judges? Yesterday's ruling should in practice affect absolutely nothing, as MI5 and MI6 are meant to have already changed their rules when it comes to handling British detainees held by other authorities. Or have they?

That is the ludicrous position we are in after yesterday's ruling over ex-Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Mohamed claims America's CIA tortured him.

America shared information about Mohamed's interrogation with Britain on terms of strict secrecy.

As a refugee here, he used our courts to force details to be released.

The Sun has belittled Mohamed's account of his torture in the past, as well as said that it didn't want him back, along with other various degrees of heartlessness about his treatment. Unfortunately, considering that the American judge Gladys Kessler backed his account of how he was tortured and rendered (PDF), it now seems to be fact rather than anything approaching fiction. It's true that Mohamed is only a resident here rather than a citizen, but that should have no bearing on his access to the courts, especially when it was our security services that were actively involved in his detention. As for this idea of strict secrecy, or the "control principle", as David Miliband described it, when such information contains details which make clear that even residents of this country are being mistreated and that we are complicit in that mistreatment, it stops being need to know and starts becoming an issue of legality, of our international and indeed national obligations.

The liberal judges who backed him have damaged relations with our greatest ally.

If America now decides we cannot be trusted with security secrets, we will be at greater risk from al-Qaeda.

Yes, the statement from the White House that they were "deeply disappointed" with the ruling is bound to set our relations with "our greatest ally" back years. The Americans don't care a fig about this for the simple reason that they've already willingly released far worse information about what they did at the time; they're just for once prepared to go along with Miliband's attempts to block publication most likely as some obscure favour. Even if the Americans suddenly decided to stop sharing intelligence, which they won't, as we give them just as much as they give us, it's still pooled with other intelligence agencies which would. The idea that this will make us less safe, because we've finally found that our security services are liars and blackguards is absurd. If anything, it's likely to make us safer, not less.

The ruling is also a purely political gesture. Mohamed's claims have already been aired in the US.

A purely political gesture? If the Sun really believes that uncovering the true nature of what our security services have been involving themselves is just a "political gesture", then it's even more jaded and dismissive of any abuses of power than ever before. Mohamed's claims were aired in the US which is exactly why there was no "secrecy" and therefore they could be released, and why the arguments made the paper and the government are so bogus.

Our security services deserve support. The war on terror is not a game of lawn tennis.

Yes, they do, don't they? Because being complicit in torture isn't counter-productive at all, and doesn't undermine our values in the slightest. If only we could truly let rip against these jihadists, then maybe the war on terror really would become a game of lawn tennis. It's the liberals and the mad judges that are holding us back!

Whose side are you on, your Lordships?

You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists.