Has there ever been a more pathetic newspaper than the Sun?

Today's Sun editorial asks a rhetorical question (temporary link, leader in full follows at the end of the post*):

HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA?

If there has, then the Sun couldn't have possibly been as conflicted about them as it has FIFA. This happening upon the iniquities of world football's laughably corrupt governing body suddenly came to the paper the day after England's bid for 2018 World Cup was rejected, the rattle being thrown out of the pram in a fit of petulance not even the stroppiest of teenagers would sink to. FIFA BUNGS RUSSIA THE WORLD CUP it screamed, deciding that it had to have been backhanders and not our dire campaign which resulted in the pitiful 2 votes we picked up.



It was oh so different only a couple of days earlier. First the paper attacked the BBC for daring to broadcast a Panorama special on FIFA's easily bribed insiders, misrepresenting the documentary as not containing any new allegations of wrongdoing when the opposite was the case, the editorial being doubly hypocritical for referring to an investigation by its sister paper, the Sunday Times, which went over highly similar ground as a "legitimate inquiry". The following day it led with a truly pathetic "open letter", all but begging FIFA to ignore the BBC's traitorous outbursts and instead back England's bid. "Your brilliant tournament" it grovelled, tongue wedged firmly up Sepp Blatter's backside, Britain's supposedly most trenchant anti-establishment, irreverent and outspoken scandal sheet reduced to genuflecting before the sleaziest sporting organisation ever to have existed.

As is traditional, the editorial finishes with a flourish:

Who needs FIFA anyway?

Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition.

So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning.

The Sun will doubtless then put no pressure whatsoever on the England team come 2014, nor will it hype up our chances for months beforehand. Who knows, now that the daily paper of record has said it's not worth winning, we might just triumph.

*

HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA?

If the World Cup can only be hosted through bribery and corruption, England are well out of it.

Ex-FA chairman Lord Triesman reveals the favours he says FIFA executive members demanded for backing England's 2018 bid.

One wanted a knighthood. Another, vice president Jack Warner, allegedly sought £2.5million for a schools project - with the cash channelled through his own pockets.

A third asked for lucrative TV rights, while a fourth demanded: What have you got for me?

MPs investigating why England's bid failed also have evidence another two chiefs took bungs for backing Qatar's successful 2022 bid.

Two more FIFA bosses have already been banned, meaning a third of FIFA's top team is implicated. Yet FIFA president Sepp Blatter sees no need to quit.

As sport secretary Jeremy Hunt says, these allegations if proved should prompt a criminal investigation.

Who needs FIFA anyway?

Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition.

So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning.

The Sun still thinks you're stupid.

There's a piece in the Sun today touchingly described as a "sting" on the Yemen-based associate of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula Anwar al-Awlaki. It's a strange sting, not only because there is no evidence whatsoever that Anwar al-Awlaki was involved with it, despite the Sun's claims, but also because it imagines the paper's own readers are stupid enough to confuse the group with Awlaki.

As the Sun's "chief investigative reporter" Simon Hughes explains:

FIRST, we obtained an email address for Awlaki's Yemen-based "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" network hidden in material on an extremist website.

THEN our investigator, posing as a UK-based fanatic named "Q. Khan," sent an email addressed personally to Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki. FINALLY, we received a reply from the terror chief - convinced he was in contact with the leader of a British cell eager to obey his commands.

I too have managed to obtain the email address the Sun used, cunningly hidden as it was on the penultimate page of the latest edition of Inspire magazine, a periodical published by the propaganda wing of AQAP, al-Malahem media. While the magazine does indeed print two articles by Awlaki, along with translations of communiques from other al-Qaida high-ups, the magazine itself claims to be edited by someone called Yahya Ibrahim; others have said the magazine's actual editor is Samir Khan, a former blogger who moved to Yemen a few years back, and who also contributes a comment piece.

Is it then even slightly realistic to imagine that by emailing an address in a jihadi publication you're likely to be straight in touch with someone as senior as al-Awlaki? Hardly. While Awlaki previously managed to maintain a blog, this was shut down shortly after the Fort Hood shootings. More recently, a judge in Yemen has called for him to be captured dead or alive, and Barack Obama has also authorised his targeted killing. As was shown with the death of bin Laden at the weekend, when you're in such a position, having direct contact to the internet or even a phone line is potential suicide. jihadica.com has also been sceptical about the magazine's actual links to AQAP, even though it claims to be produced by their media arm.

It's possible that those the Sun did contact may have asked al-Awlaki as to his response to their "sting", but if they did then they hardly make this clear: they simply signed their message as "your brothers at al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula". Their advice also was hardly specific, apart from how they should conduct their operation, and as they say, they shouldn't really contact them again as it might well result in their plot coming to the attention of the authorities. This isn't to play down the fact that the Sun has at least got in contact with someone connected with the Inspire magazine and that they've suggested what their next step could be in launching an attack: that's still a serious thing. That though isn't a good enough story, or worth clearing the front page for; it had to be al-Awlaki himself, even when it's instantly apparent they almost certainly weren't talking to him.

And just in case you have your doubts, who should pop up at the end of the article than a former acquittance of ours:

Tory MP Patrick Mercer said of our probe: "I have no doubt the Home Office will want to investigate how simple it is to get in touch with Awlaki and his people.

"He is a leading contender to fill the power vacuum left by Osama Bin Laden."

Yes, that would be the same Patrick Mercer who previously contributed to such investigative triumphs in the Sun as the "TERROR TARGET SUGAR" masterpiece, and also told the paper that the Taliban were making "HIV bombs". The ISAF response when asked about these deadly devices was "no reports, no intel, nothing". Sums up the Sun and Mercer's critical faculties fairly well.

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?

Advertisement

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.

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.

Porn at 16? We used to support it, now we don't...

First off, apologies for the relative lack of posts here. It's not because there's been a dearth of material, as the paper's coverage of the election can be crudely categorised as falling into two camps, firstly smearing Labour and the Liberal Democrats while indulging in some truly stomach-churning sycophancy towards David Cameron, but more because the election itself is detaining me more than I thought it would.

Here though is the latest attack on the Liberal Democrats, which is not just only slightly less ancient than the Daily Mail's splash last Thursday, but also somewhat hypocritical:

FURIOUS mums have slammed Liberal Democrat plans to let 16-year-olds watch and star in PORN films.

The controversial policy has faced blistering criticism in the chatrooms of Mumsnet, a popular website for mothers.

Under the Lib Dems, the legal age for viewing or appearing in adult movies will be cut from 18 to 16.

But the policy - overwhelmingly passed at the party's conference in 2004 - has now been savaged on the internet by women who claim it is "essentially legalisation of child porn".

We'll ignore the "FURIOUS MUMS" part and just focus on the policy itself, which is perfectly true, if not really mentioned or discussed since 2004. The BBC's news report from the time puts across the party's justification, which is more than adequate in pointing out the disconnect between the age of consent and the age at which you can watch other people engaging in sex:

Mr Foster made the case for allowing 16-year-olds to view pornography during a censorship and freedom of expression debate.

While he had worried the proposals would encourage pornography into schools, "the reality is sexually explicit material is already readily available to 16 and 17-year-olds on the internet", he said.

"Our current policy on censorship and freedom of expression is not only out-of-date, it's inconsistent and it's confusing," Mr Foster said.

"We still do not allow 16-year-olds to watch sex, despite the fact they can currently have sex, lawfully marry and indeed, a woman may choose to have a baby at 16.

"This certainly seems out of date given that as Liberal Democrats, we would extend to 16-year-olds full political and social rights ...

"The proposals are intellectually sound - 16 and 17-year-olds in this country are living in a twilight zone between childhood and adulthood, having lost their children's rights, yet only gaining adult rights in a piecemeal fashion, some at 16, some at 17, some at 18.

"This motion merely proposes consistency on the suitable age for obtaining adult rights in line with the well-established Liberal Democrat policy on 16 as the common age of majority.

There is no mention of allowing 16-year-olds to "star" in pornography incidentally, but then that's where the Sun's hypocrisy enters into it. After all, if we're going back 6 years here, why don't we go back slightly further and remember the fact that the Sun, along with the likes of the Star and Sport, were more than happy not so long ago to err, allow 16-year-old girls to pose topless on their third pages, as Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker and Debee Ashby to name but three did? Why shouldn't "intelligent, vibrant young women who appear ... out of choice and because they enjoy the job", as former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) described page 3 models, be allowed to do the same today? Or has the Sun changed its mind in these paedophile-plagued times? The law itself certainly has been, as the 2003 Sexual Offences Act regardless of permission now outlaws 16-year-old topless models, and you somehow doubt that it would be a Liberal Democrat priority should they enter into government with either a Commons majority or as part of a coalition to change it.

Still, another Liberal Democrat policy unearthed and exposed as mad, and if the quote floating around from the paper's political editor Tom Newton-Dunn is accurate, hopefully another step towards ensuring that his job is well and truly done.

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.

Spot the deliberate April fool.

As you might have expected, the Sun is outraged by yesterday's decision that Sky must reduce the price at which it sells its sports channels to rival broadcasters:

THE beauty of competition is that YOU decide what to watch on your telly.

Unlike the BBC, no one is forced to pay for Sky TV, part of the company that owns The Sun.

But Labour have decided Sky must hand over its content cheaply to rivals who have never taken Sky's risks to revolutionise TV sport.

Nor made the massive investment that won Sky rights to events like the Premier League and Test cricket.

Sky pays around £1billion a year to UK sports. That will be hit if the firm has to take less for its content.

Labour the party of business? A ragbag of meddling Lefties, more like.

Did you spot the deliberate mistake? No, not that Sky has ever revolutionised anything, but rather the paper's strange decision to blame the Labour party rather than err, Ofcom, the media regulator which actually made the decision. It's doubly strange as the paper's actual report correctly identifies Ofcom as the body behind the ruling.

Undoubtedly this is simply another of the paper's April fools, of which there were a further four, as surely the paper's leader writers wouldn't deliberately blame the government for something that has absolutely nothing to do with them whatsoever. If they had, then the Press Complaints Commission would surely take a dim view of such an egregious lie, coming as it does only days before the election campaign is officially launched. Clearly, the Sun would never try to mislead voters into believing that Labour is threatening their beloved sports on satellite; now that really would be a scandalous, unfounded and certainly libellous allegation.

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.

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.

This man deserved brain damage.

Every single time there's a "controversial" case of someone attacking a burglar or a criminal, almost always when said intruder has been fleeing the scene, as now in the Munir Hussain jailing, or previously and most notoriously when it came to Tony Martin, either the government or the opposition review the law of "reasonable force" or promise they'll change it, only to later quietly drop it or decide not to because the law as it stands is perfectly adequate. Every single time the tabloids and the occasional broadsheet get on their high horses and complain bitterly, often invoking that an "Englishman's home is his castle", and that in said castle said Englishman should be allowed to rip the intruder's head off and spit down the hole and receive a medal for removing from the gene pool such a disgusting piece of human filth. Every single time said tabloid and broadsheet also quietly drop it.

I'm not sure though that any publication has gone so far in the past to say that either the deceased or injured person deserved the treatment they received. The Sun however thinks this is exactly what Walid Salem needed:

It was never better exposed than by the scandalous jailing of Munir Hussain for chasing and battering a burglar who had tied up and terrorised his family at knifepoint.

How many fathers brave enough, strong enough and angry enough would have held back?

Career criminal Walid Salem richly deserved his beating.

The Tories are proposing that only "grossly disproportionate" behaviour towards someone should result in their being prosecuted (as David Cameron suggested as long back as 2005, only for it to be quietly put at least on the back-burner). Isn't chasing a burglar who is fleeing and then adminstering a beating so severe that the person attacked suffers brain damage "grossly disproportionate"? Not according to the Sun. It was however according to a jury, who heard all the mitigating circumstances involving the case and how Salem had threatened to kill Hussain's family, yet still felt that the attack on Salem justified a conviction for grievous bodily harm with intent. This isn't just a case of a liberal namby-pamby politically correct judge deciding that Hussain's crime was serious enough to warrant a relatively light in the circumstances 30 months in prison, of which Hussain will probably only serve a third, but of a jury of members of the public, among them doubtless Sun readers, who felt that it warranted a conviction. True, they didn't decide on the sentence, but 30 months is hardly the harshest sentence which could have been passed. Salem also didn't "walk free" from court, as the Sun has it: he was given a two year suspended sentence for the very reason, as the judge pointed out, that he couldn't adequately plead as a result of his injuries. Otherwise he would received a substantial custodial sentence himself.

As Catherine Bennett asked on Sunday, what sort of society is it that praises vigilantes with cricket bats and iron bars? Ours, of course. The self-same newspaper (and indeed tabloid media as whole) that regards yobs that use violence on the slightest of whims as the scum of the earth turns to the other side when it's a beating that was, in the Sun's terms, deserved. The judge, about the only person who comes out of this with any credit, noted exactly what would happen after his verdict:

"It may be that some members of the public, or media commentators, will assert that Salem deserved what happened to him at the hands of you and the two others involved, and that you should not have been prosecuted and need not be punished."

And then, in lines which no newspaper or commentator has been able to adequately deflect, he explained exactly why they needed to be punished:

"However, if persons were permitted to … inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting justice take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are the hallmarks of a civilised society, would collapse."

Which is it seems what some would clearly like to happen.

Well meaning, not bloody shameful.

For those who were perhaps expecting the Sun to allude to the heavy criticism their stories involving Jacqui Janes have received, not just in other quarters but on their own comment facilities, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed with today's follow-up. The closest their report comes to acknowledging that maybe Gordon Brown's letter wasn't more evidence of his "underlying disregard for the military" is in this sentence:

Mr Brown's apology ended 48 hours of uproar since The Sun first revealed the mistakes in his well-meaning but badly handwritten note.

Funny, the paper didn't think it was well-meaning yesterday or on Monday. Then it was "bloody shameful".

Mrs Janes incidentally has been persuaded, doubtless by the Sun itself, to make clear that her intentions were the very best:

Jacqui also set the record straight on her contact with The Sun and her recording of the PM's phone call, in which she berated him over troop and helicopter shortages.

Mum-of-six Jacqui, 47, said: "I released the tape because I wanted people to know what he really said to me, not what Downing Street put out.

"I also want to make clear that I didn't take a penny in payment for interviews with The Sun."

Jacqui said she contacted The Sun because the paper backs Britain's Forces, adding: "It had nothing to do with politics."

Except the paper turned it into politics, whether Janes wanted them to or not. On any grounds, that's exploitation of a grieving person.

As for an editorial comment, the only thing which it offers today is a typically lachrymose, jingoistic and unfeeling demand that everyone remembers. Gordon Brown will presumably unfairly cop it again once this whole incident slips down the memory hole.

How to lose friends and alienate people.

How do you then follow up one of the most petty, vindictive and downright counter-productive attacks on a politician in recent times? The obvious answer, it seems, is to be both even more cynical and underhand than you've already been: wait for the politician, alerted to your news story, to phone the slighted mother to apologise and then get her to record it so you can reproduce the thing in full on your website.

To be fair when the Sun clearly doesn't deserve it, Mrs Janes' claim that she recorded it on the spur of the moment with a friend's BlackBerry could be true. In any case, whether they were personally involved in the recording of the conversation between Gordon Brown and Mrs Janes or not, they must have realised that this was taking the story to a whole other level. It's one thing after all to complain about what you consider to be an insensitive and insulting letter, or indeed to do the equivalent of a Sharron Storer, confronting a politician on the spur of the moment in front of watching television cameras; it's quite another to effectively ambush someone who is quite clearly mortified at the damage he thinks he has done and then to use it against him as part of a campaign.

The transcript of the conversation between Brown and Janes does not make for easy reading. Janes is convinced that her son's life could have been saved if there were more helicopters available, a view she is fully entitled to, but not one that she can actually prove, or be proved without a full coroner's report, which will probably take years considering the current backlog (indeed, we now know that a helicopter was sent after the explosion which ultimately killed Janes). Brown goes out of his way to not argue with her without agreeing with her, and as before, is clearly desperately wishing he wasn't having the conversation. This isn't because he can't face up to the consequences of what he is asking the army to do for him, which clearly affects him hugely, but almost certainly because he knows there is almost nothing he can say that will placate a grieving mother, nor can he think of it while actually in conversation with her. Time, while a healer, also allows for far greater consideration and with it, eloquence, which the prime minister displayed at today's press conference. If he had said during the phone call what he did today to the media, it might just have satisfied Mrs Janes that little bit more. As it was, Brown was right to disagree when she claimed there were 25 spelling mistakes (there were 4 or 5 at most) and that he had spelt both her name and her son's name wrong (unclear on the family name, while he did get his name right, if scruffily). Probably the most instructive lines of all though come towards the end:

GB: Whatever information you've been given, that is not correct. But I don't want to interact in a political debate about this...

JJ: No that's fine. Nor do I.

Whether Mrs Janes did or not at the time, or still does, as a result of handing the Sun the conversation this has become a political debate. As the Heresiarch correctly points out, this isn't about the letter. This is about the fact she has lost her son, with the letter simply being used as a vehicle for her anguish. It just so happens that her belief that the military are being underfunded and betrayed by the politicians is exactly the same one which the Sun holds, or at least pretends to hold. Grief is the motivator, and while money might well have changed hands between the paper and the Mrs Janes, the real issue here is both the exploitation of Mrs Janes for political and personal gain and the low and dirty methods used. Did the prime minister after all imagine that what he must have thought was a confidential and private phone call would be recorded and reproduced in a newspaper, to be used, as yesterday's Sun editorial put it, as evidence of his "underlying disregard for the military"?

If that was the Sun's intention, then it seems to have backfired spectacularly. Yesterday the consensus, across the political spectrum, seemed to be that this was an unpleasant non-story, with some feeling sympathy for Brown. Today that appears to have turned to overwhelming distaste at the reproduction of the conversation, and with even more defending the prime minister even while disliking the man and his policies. Most dangerously for the Sun itself, its own readers at least on the website also seem to be in the majority taking Brown's side, with some even taking pot shots at Mrs Janes herself. This is especially intriguing, as this is hardly the first time the Sun has used grieving parents to demand political change, without them being attacked in the fashion to which Mrs Janes has been by some. Partially this is because of the view of some that those who choose to join the army know the risks of the "job", but it's also because while Sun readers often favour the draconian policies on crime which the paper espouses, they are far more sceptical on Afghanistan, despite the paper's complete support for the war.

Furthermore, the paper's own journalists seem unsure of the attack on Brown which they've launched. The Graun claims that Tom Newton Dunn, the new political editor, having previously been the paper's defence correspondent, wanted the story to put more emphasis on Brown's eyesight with its impact on his handwriting, despite him supposedly being the man who wrote the original report. Even more significant is that Murdoch himself, while obviously supporting the change of support from Labour to the Conservatives, apparently "regrets" it. If he objects to the highly personal turn the criticism has taken, new editor Dominic Mohan will swiftly know about it. It's also curious that despite the high profile the story has taken, that there was no editorial comment today on the interview.

The biggest indictment of the Sun's story though is not just that it has undermined the claim that Brown has "underlying disregard" for the military, that it has so misread the mood of its own readers that they have came out in sympathy with him, but that it has actually deflected the debate away from government strategy on Afghanistan onto the personal and, ultimately, the newspaper itself. This is, as Labour themselves have argued, been a campaign to damage the prime minister, and an unfair one at that. David Cameron might well be concerned with just what kind of partner he has jumped into bed with.

It's called the Scum for a reason.

On Saturday, the Sun ran a leader attacking Gordon Brown for having the temerity to answer a question about The X Factor given to him during an interview on a Manchester radio station. According to a newspaper which that day led on, err, The X Factor, he should be dedicating his "every waking moment" to the fate of our forces out in Afghanistan. He ought to be, according to the leader writer, be "leading the way". This is without mentioning the completely fatuous argument the paper made by comparing the number of hits on Google when searching for "Gordon Brown and Afghanistan" and "Gordon Brown and Michael Jackson". Not that it'll be doing so again, considering Mr Murdoch is pondering "banning" Google.

Two days later, and the paper attacks Gordon Brown for err, dedicating his "every waking moment" to the fate of our forces out in Afghanistan. Not only did Brown "fail to bow" at the Cenotaph, quite clearly a concious snub to Our Boys, but he also sent a "bloody shameful" letter to Jacqui Janes, mother of Jamie Janes, killed on October the 5th in Afghanistan. Brown's crime was to write it in his almost illegible handwriting, as well as possibly mistaking their surname for James instead of Janes (it isn't clear whether Brown has written James instead of Janes; his n and m look very similar) and to make a number of spelling mistakes. According to Mrs Janes, who has naturally given the Sun an exclusive video interview, she was so angered by the letter she threw it across the room and burst into tears:

"I re-read it later. He said, 'I know words can offer little comfort'. When the words are written in such a hurry the letter is littered with more than 20 mistakes, they offer NO comfort.

"It was an insult to Jamie and all the good men and women who have died out there. How low a priority was my son that he could send me that disgraceful, hastily-scrawled insult of a letter?

"He finished by asking if there was any way he could help.

"One thing he can do is never, ever, send a letter out like that to another dead soldier's family. Type it or get someone to check it. And get the name right."

Of course, once she had finished chucking it across the room, she got on the phone to the Sun. In fact, there's nothing to suggest that the letter was hastily-scrawled: Brown's handwriting is simply that bad. As someone whose handwriting is also close to being illegible unless I write out every letter individually, which makes you look even more like a child, and who also has a surname which is very easily misspelled, which while annoying is hardly the end of the world, it's difficult not to have some sympathy for Brown. Clearly he wants the letter to have the personal touch, something that a word processed expression of condolences wouldn't have, and just what do you say to the parent of someone who's just lost their son in a war you sent him to fight without slipping into the obvious, the clichéd and the torturous? Yes, he should have perhaps been more careful with the spelling and especially with the names, but has it really come to the point where we think that personal letters written with the very best of intentions are acceptable material to attack the prime minister with?

The Sun it seems, having up until very recently having supported the prime minister, even if it didn't blow smoke up his backside like it did his predecessor, has decided to attack Brown over the very trivial things it was alarmed he was involving himself in. Not being able to disagree with him over policy on Afghanistan, on which he only fails to be as gung-ho as they are, they've decided that such perceived slights are "more evidence of Mr Brown's underlying disregard for the military". After all, nothing quite says you disregard the military like not acting like a hunchback in front of the Cenotaph, or err, writing a personal letter to the bereaved. This also ties in with, according to the Sun, his "half-hearted attitude to the war in Afghanistan". This half-hearted attitude involves his increasing the number of troops by 500, and yet another speech last Friday on just why we're in the country. His speech did have a contradiction at its heart, but the reason for this is that Brown is trying to please everyone: he has no intention of getting us out, but knows as public opinion turns against the war and against the corrupt Karzai government, he has to put down some "conditions" for their continued presence, even if they're false ones. If Brown is being half-hearted, then so too is President Obama, still undecided on whether to increase the US troop numbers by 40,000, as requested by the army. Seeing as we rely on the Americans, we're waiting on them as much as everyone else is.

Even by the Sun's complete lack of any standards, this must rank as one of the lowest attacks to be launched on a politician in recent times. Not only is it without any foundation whatsoever, but the newspaper seems to think it's perfectly acceptable to use an individual, in this instance a grieving mother, to attack someone for their own ends, someone as pointed above which up until a month ago they were giving their nominal support to. As Mr Eugenides also suggests, it says more about that person that her first instinct on getting the letter was to phone the Sun to complain about the handwriting than it does about the person who took the time to write it. Clearly, we've now gone beyond the point where Brown will be attacked by the Sun on the virtue of his actual policies, it's now "bucket of shit" time, where anything and everything that he does which they decide is wrong will be pointed out and complained about. Going by the Sun's past record when it comes to smearing Labour politicians, the election campaign coming up could be quite something.

The misleading has begun already.

Splashed across yesterday's Sun front page were those ordinary voters who like the paper had decided that Labour's lost it. Alongside those who would blame the government if it rains was one Ros Altmann, a former adviser to Tony Blair and now a governor at the LSE. The Sun's report of her comments was thus:

I thought we had a chance to make a difference. But Brown wanted people to spend, spend, spend and thought that will generate growth.

That is not the way economics work. We needed radical change. But we got radical complications. We have the world's lowest state pension, but also the most complex. I am hopeful for David Cameron. I don't think he can make a worse mess of pensions. I can see why The Sun supports him.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Tories, but Hugh Muir in the Grauniad Diary has more:

For sure, the economist has strong criticism of the pensions and economics polices pursued by Gordon. But there it ends. "What I said to them in answer to the specific question: 'Do I now support the Tories?' was 'No'," she tells us. "I said I don't know what their policies are so I can't support them. I said I can understand that some people no longer support Labour. There has been a bit of poetic licence here." Such is war.

And as could have been predicted, David Cameron today gives the paper an interview, unveiling 10 pledges, all naturally Sun-pleasing and many also naturally counter-productive or just wrong-headed. Reassessing every person on incapacity benefit? Stupidly wasteful in both time and cost terms. Replacing the Human Rights Act with a piss-poor "British" bill of rights substitute when the Tories almost certainly won't withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights will just delay justice. And as for reforming inheritance tax to "encourage saving", words fail me. One new one, although not included on the 10 pledges itself, is that Cameron will institute a "war cabinet" on Afghanistan should the Tories come to power, something demanded by the Sun only a few weeks back. It doesn't seem to matter that such a cabinet would be pointless when it's the military and not the politicians who are helming the fighting, but then the Sun has always loved symbolism far more than well thought out and implementable strategy.