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.

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.

Paedophiles and crabs, MPs and "gipsies", all the bloody same!

Three cheers for Fergus Shanahan, who says the things that others won't:

MPs, gipsies... they're made for each other

SO our MPs demand second homes? Fine. Stick them in a caravan on an illegal gipsy site.

The gipsies and our crooked MPs should get along just fine together.

Both think they are above the law. Both think rules are for other people. Both dodge paying their taxes.

Both treat honest hard-working taxpayers with sneering contempt.

Why bother making just one sweeping generalisation when you can instead make two? And hey, just to make sure you don't potentially breach the Race Relations Act by making remarks about gypsies as a whole, as they're a protected group, simply call them "gipsies" instead! Tabloid comment at its finest.