Everything about multicultural plots - in one easy to follow post!

I've pulled everything about the Multicultural plot story into one post without jokes about Melanie Phillips and adding the extra stuff I've found out by looking into it.

It's over at MailWatch (I shouldn't have neglected the place for so long).  Get on over and have a look, if you're interested and that.

There's no 'read more' link because there's no more to read.  Get out!

Red herrings and multicultural plots

One newspaper technique for fooling people is the red herring.  Here's how it works.  Someone offers a list of things that have happened or reasons for something happening and the papers choose the most outrageous or ridiculous and focus on it as if it's the only one.

Luckily for me, who wanted to write more about this, there has been a great example of a more subtle than usual red herring causing a massive brouhaha in the press in the last week or so.

Dirty foreigners - come over here, purge foreign words from our language

Stock Mail scary foreigners photo. Look in their evil eyes. See how they betray their plot to make documents more clear and easily understandable. The bastards!
With one made up tabloid outrage beginning to run out of steam, it's almost comforting to see the Mail moving back to the usual sort of nonsense scaremongering we're used to with a nice, familiar bit of Political Correctness Gone Mad made up cobblers. Hurrah for the Mailshirts!

Fury over children being taught together and learning about one another

In one respect, our mid-market tabloids are as reliable as the finest Swiss watches. If anyone anywhere suggests anything about Muslims that doesn't involve screaming hatred and fear, the tabloids will inject it.

The NUT has suggested that single faith schools undermine community relations, given that they separate children into different groups and keep them apart. A solution the Union has offered involves stopping the spread of faith schools and having children taught about religions by representatives from those religions.

A quote from the NUT General Secretary about the subject (from this Press Association article):

"I believe that there will be real benefits to all our communities and youngsters if we could find space for pupils who are Roman Catholics, Anglican, Methodist, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim to have more religious instruction in schools.

"You could have imams coming in, you could have the local rabbi coming in and the local Roman Catholic priest. If there were opportunities where they all talked together to the youngsters, what a fantastic example that would be."

You can probably guess the Express headline. Ready?

'FURY OVER PLAN TO TEACH KORAN IN SCHOOLS'. Marvellous!

The website also has a special 'Have Your Say' question: 'Should Imams teach our children?' It's actually quite a balanced and thoughtful open question that offers both sides of what could be a contentious issue for Express readers. Ha! Gotcha! Course it's not! Here's how it looks on the main 'Have Your Say' page:

Hmmm...I wonder what answer the paper wants us to give.

The fine and front page apology to the McCanns has obviously worked in getting the paper to change its ways and start reporting things properly.

The Mail, which is supposed to be more measured and serious than its thick mid-market rival goes with the headline 'Fury over plan to let imams teach the Koran in state schools'. To be fair, the article is slighty more balanced than the Express's, but it involves a worrying statistic:

The call comes as new research today shows the numbers attending mosques in England and Wales will outstrip Roman Catholic churchgoers by 2020.

Christian Research expects Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass to fall to 679,000 but Muslims at Friday prayer to increase to 683,000. The figures also suggest the number of Muslims at mosques will overtake Church of England members at Sunday services.

Which is bizarre, since according to the Mail, Britain is a Catholic country because of immigrants. In December the paper went with the article 'Tony Blair converts to Catholicism - as immigration means Britain is now a Catholic country'. Don't these new researchers read the Mail? Or is it that the paper cherrypicks information to scare its readers with that suggests that there will soon be more of THEM than there are of US? (Insert this week's baddies into the 'THEM' section as appropriate).

What the Mail and Express coverage of the NUT paper 'In Good Faith' (not available online yet) shows is how far the tabloids have come in being able to demonise particular 'out groups'. A few years ago, they managed to turn the term 'asylum seeker' into an insult. They've now managed to do the same with 'Muslim' and 'Imam'. An Imam is not now the man who leads Muslim prayer - the obvious choice for someone to teach children about Islam - an Imam is someone who tries to brainwash kids into becoming terrorists, someone who is best illustrated by a picture of Abu Hamza lit from the bottom, like a horror film monster.

The Mail appears to have done the same with 'multiculturalism'. Multiculturalism is, to the Mail, a doctrine that forces people to live separately in ghettoes and never interact with one another, ever. The NUT's proposal, which is about stopping people from alienating themselves from one another by mixing in schools and being taught about each others' religions, is greeted by this nonsense from an idiot Tory MP:

"In case the NUT hasn't heard, multi-culturalism is generally regarded as a failure and even central government is abandoning it."

Eh? I wish I knew exactly what this numpty means by multiculturalism, but I suspect it means 'anything at all to do with other cultures and religions that I don't like'. So, in this case, it's putting everyone together and teaching them equally about one another. In another case, it could mean making everybody separate and not have to learn anything about one another.

It's got to the point of being a tired cliche now - but imagine how these articles would look if the same NUT paper were published and the papers decided to go with outraged headlines about Rabbis being able to teach the Talmud, with scary pictures of them lit from the bottom to maximise their scariness potential. It would be a little distasteful, wouldn't it?

*UPDATE* Both Express stories have been taken down from the website. More on that in 'Fury over paper printing nonsense front page headlines'.

Can I be a martyr too please?

Moving away from the Express for a bit, which is a relief, it's over to the Mail for some typical Daily Mail fodder about how poor Christians are terribly persecuted in this country where Christianity is the national religion, its representatives get unelected positions in the second house, the head of state is also the head of a Chritian sect, where the Prime Minister has to be a certain kind of Christian and the national anthem is an extended Christian prayer.

The article is 'Porter sacked by hospital after he asks for 'multi-faith' prayer room crucifix be made visible'. Great image, that headline. You can just see the timid porter in his uniform, wringing a cap in his hands and looking at his shoes as he mumbles, 'mmblmm can we er mblmblm cross?' toward a forbidding looking woman behind a desk the size of a small car.
'What? Speak up man!' booms the woman.
'Umm...it's just...d'you think we can show the uh cross in th-'
'Whaaaaat? Uncover the cross? You're sacked, you insensitive little man. Don't you realise this is a multicultural society? Get out of my sight!'

The Mail are great at this sort of thing - that is reducing whatever someone the paper has sympathy for is supposed to have done to the most innocent, unassuming sounding thing possible when the reality is likely to be a bit different.

We see it every time some pretend martyr pops up whingeing that they're not allowed special treatment. It usually happens when they're not allowed to wear jewellery but Muslims are allowed to wear scarves. Except scarves aren't jewellery.

We've seen this before, with Nadia Ewedia, the BA employee who insisted on not only being allowed to wear a cross, but to wear a visible one. The papers were all over her, her sad put upon face became splashed across front pages and she even boasted support from a number of MPs. Guess what? Turns out she wasn't quite so innocent and hard done by, and BA had bent over backwards trying to accommodate her insufferable, god-bothering demands.

This story looks as though it's about a similar situation, as it later reveals:

Mr Protano, a Roman Catholic who has worked two years at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, Pendlebury, entered the room when three Muslims were using it - two patients and a doctor.

An argument broke out after he asked them to remove a cloth covering the crucifix and statue and to turn a picture of the Virgin Mary face up.

And:

Police quizzed him for four hours last month, on suspicion of religiously aggravated assault, but he was released without charge.

And a little later, in amongst a bit of testimony from a friend, we get:

They are saying he should not have gone into the prayer room and it is alleged he used racist language, which he totally refutes.

So instead of being sacked after he asked for the cross to be uncovered, it appears he was sacked after interrupting people who were using the room, and some sort of assault and the use of racist language has been alleged. Perhaps the headline should be changed. And I doubt he 'refutes' the claim, I suspect he just 'denies' it.

Later still in the article comes this:

The friend said Mr Protano went into the prayer room about six times a day to check that the statue and crucifix were not left covered because he felt could be upsetting for visiting Christian parents to find them covered up.

Six times a day? Are we to conclude that this sort of behaviour is normal?

One final bit of support for the guy comes in the second last paragraph, with:

The case has angered many hospital staff, who think he has been treated unfairly.

Many hospital staff. As the Express has demonstrated in the past so well, sometimes 'many' actually means 'none'.

There are currently four comments on the article, all supportive of the porter. This is my favourite:

I can see civil war breaking out in this country before too long. The politically correct extremists are creating the fertile grounds for this to happen. I don't hear the church making much of a fuss, because they too are scared or part of the extremists agenda for a total breakdown in society and war on our streets. Its not muslims (apart from the extremist muslims) that are to blame for this, and it's not the catholics, it's the poltically correct extremists that are creating the problems for us all.

- Bob, merseyside

Perhaps, Bob, nobody's making a fuss because the bloke sounds like a nutter who just might possibly have assaulted someone while throwing about racist language. It's now Political Correctness Gone Mad to suggest this sort of thing is unnacceptable.

And what does this article imply without saying? It comes out and says that the porter was sacked just for asking to uncover the cross, but by mentioning that he entered the chapel and glossing over the alleged racially aggravated assault, what is the article implying about Muslims? It implies that he walked into a room, asked the three Muslims, one of them a doctor, to uncover the cross, 'an argument broke out' and then the Muslims pretended he'd assaulted someone and threw around racist language.

In short, it paints the Muslims as crazed fanatics who start arguments and lie about racially motivated assaults that result in someone's sacking when that person merely asks them to do something. And it does that without actually stating they did. This is where the Mail is much better than the Express, in allowing its readers to draw their own conclusions from the heavily slanted evidence it gives them.

If only the DCLG hadn't dropped a bollock

Sometimes, when you're the sort of sad sack who likes to mock how the tabloids spin and distort Government figures and documents (along with other documents they don't like), the Government doesn't do itself any flipping favours.

It looked like there was a doozy in today's Mail with the headline 'Councils ordered to carry out charm offensive for migrants and travellers' to add to my last posting, but the DCLG had to go and shoot itself in the foot and lose a toe.

If you hadn't guessed, the report is about the myth busting information packs I mentioned in 'At last they admit: the tabloids have damaged Britain' - sort of. And it's a real pity the DCLG makes a blunder, as the article was shping up to be a fantastic example of how the tabloids make use of a rhetorical crowbar to make the facts fit their agenda - so I'll look at that first, and then the blunder.

Ruth Kelly is ordering councils to take part in a huge charm offensive on behalf of migrants and travellers.

The Communities Secretary wants town halls to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money 'combating misinformation'.

Says the article in the opening, almost certainly talking about the myth busting packs mentioned in the report 'Our shared future', but maybe not. This is left ambiguous for a reason, and that reason is that the fact sheets the article go on about are from way back in April, and not connected to the report at all. So, bear in mind that the report was a set of recommendations, which may or may not be taken up by Ministers. The 'ordered' bit - just a tad fanciful.

The next bit is great, it's why it really is such a shame that the DCLG dropped a bollock. It says:

Her officials have produced sheets of pro-migrant information. But critics warned that Miss Kelly was asking councils to promote 'selective propaganda'.

The messages councils must give out include the statement that: "Romany Gipsies [sic. Remember, this is the paper's preferred spelling so it can avoid accusations of siscriminating against Gypsies] have very strict customs about hygiene and cleanliness, developed over many years to cope with living on the roads."

See that? Any positive massage about 'migrants' = selective propaganda. As opposed to the considered, balanced message put forward by the Mail. Stop laughing. It fantastically uses that point to segue into talking about how Romany Gypsies have rules about cleanliness, leaving us no doubts about what the Mail thinks about that. And check out the use of the word 'must'. The information 'must' say this. Except the actual pages on the DCLG website say this:

The information in these pages contains a number of facts which can be used by local authority frontline staff to discredit many popular myths as well as being provided to councillors and candidates when impartial information is required. [Emphasis mine].

See, 'can' doesn't mean 'must'. That's why they're, you know, different words. And on:

Councils are also told to claim that the Health Service would 'literally collapse' without migrant nurses, doctors and cleaners.

Umm...because it would. Next:

Supposedly impartial civil servants are instructed to plant favourable stories in local newspapers, and even take part in election campaigns where immigrationis a big issue.

Not quite. Here's what the DCLG site actually says:

The code of recommended practice, which regulates local authority publicity, does not prevent councils, while exercising proper caution, from providing accurate and impartial information during an election campaign, without making reference to a particular political campaign.

And:

The Code of Conduct on Local Government Publicity also makes it acceptable for councils to respond to events during an election period, as long as their responses are factual and not party political. In practice, this means councils can, and should, refute any untrue or misleading information circulating in the area that could lead to racial hatred or damage relations between people from different racial groups.

The site doesn't talk about favourable stories, but using facts to counter misinformation. Presumably , the Mail would prefer Councils to let stuff like BNP claims about Africans being given thousands of pounds to move into an area go unchallenged. Along with the garbage it churns out itself, obviously. Next:

Officials are told to seek 'quick wins' by planting stories in local newspapers and on TV. The website says: "Promote human interest stories in the media locally, for example how migrants volunteer and contribute to society in various roles."

Since the site is peppered with references about facts, and given that there's a 'for example' before the bit about migrants volunteering, it's clear that this is only being suggested to councils to say if it's true. Next:

Time must also be spent preparing councillors to take part in the charm offensive. The DCLG says: "Ensure members have good accurate information and advice so they can speak with confidence on controversial issues."

What would the Mail prefer? Clueless councillors who have no idea whether the negative stuff they hear about migrants is true or not? I think we should be told.

Next:

But critics said many of the claims are themselves open to challenge.

One states: "Priority for social housing is based solely on housing need." But the Government's own integration commission last week said social housing should no longer be provided for particular groups.

This is being a bit loose with the facts. 'Our shared future' talks about restricting funding for single groups provided by charities and housing associations and so on. Not the direct allocation of Local Authority housing. Here's what it says:

All agencies, including Local Authorities and affordable housing providers, should operate inclusive allocations and lettings policies. Unless there is a clear business and equalities case, single group funding should not be promoted (see Annex D). In exceptional cases, where such funding is awarded, the provider should demonstrate clearly how its policies will promote community cohesion and integration.

But then!

Another claim is that: "The belief that Britain has a particularly high rate of immigration is false. About 5 per cent of the UK population was born abroad."

But data produced by the Office for National Statistics for MPs said 5,699,000 people living in Britain today were born overseas - 10 per cent of the population.

And it was all going so well! The 2001 census puts the level at 1 in 12, or just over 8%.

And then:

The fact sheets also state: "There is no discernible statistical evidence that migrants from accession countries contribute to a rise in claims for benefits."

Yet Government figures show there have been at least 92,000 successful benefit claims made by Eastern Europeans. The bill is likely to be £100million.

This is the Mail being a little bit dishonest with what the DCLG is saying, but only because the DCLG have given the paper the opportunity by not wording things very well. Since the section of the site this is taken from is talking about the myths surrounding employment, and follows points about how Eastern Europeans come here to work rather than claim benefit, it is pretty clear that the Department is talking about unemployment benefit. Here's the full quote, along with the point that comes directly before it:

• Data shows that migrants come to the UK to work, not to claim benefits. 99 per cent of applications for National Insurance numbers made by new migrants from May 2004 - Sept 05 were for employment purposes.

• There is no discernible statistical evidence that migrants from accession countries contribute to a rise in claims for benefits. In the same period only 4 per cent were allowed to claim Income support and Job Seekers Allowance benefits

• Migrants are only able to claim income related benefits once they have worked legally in the UK for a full year.

This last point is followed by some rent-a-quotes from the Tax-Payers Alliance and MigrationWatch, and that's it.

This article still shows what the Mail does. You can so easily imagine the hack (James Slack - natch) seeing the bit about myth busting packs and buggering off at top speed to find them. I should have guessed the Mail wouldn't ignore the existence of the myth busting packs, but move to trash them as early as it could. Anyway, that what he found was a couple of months old and not exactly what the report was talking about didn't matter. In it goes as if it's new, getting jumbled up and made to look like it's a set of new diktats rather than old guidelines that predate 'Our shared future'. Add lashings of snide implications about minority groups (Gypsies are just dirty you know) and some great suggestions that anything not rabidly anti-immigration must be dodgy propaganda and away you go. Never mind the site actually emphasises over and again the importance of combating myths with facts. But then, one of those facts turned out not to be true.

Poor show, DCLG, poor show.

At last they admit: the tabloids have damaged Britain

So, now I've had a better look at 'Our shared future', plus the Mail and the Express's coverage of it. Both papers misrepresent the report quite a bit, with the Express, as ever, giving the most exaggerated and distorted version of the report. The Daily Mail's version is now 'Culture briefing packs will teach immigrants how to queue', with the previous headline 'Billions spent on immigrants is driving communities apart' relegated to a subheading, and the Express's version is 'RACIAL TENSION IS BUBBLING - ADMIT MINISTERS AT LAST', which fits nicely with the front page splash 'At last they admit: Immigration has damaged Britain'.

No 'they' don't

Obsolete has a great fisk of the Express's version already, so much of what I could say would be unnecessarily reproducing it, badly. Have a look. But it is worth repeating that both the Express headlines are utter, utter nonsense, and bear absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to what the report actually says. Far from saying that immigration has damaged Britain, the report actually says:

Although as a nation we can see the benefits of immigration, some people are concerned about its impacts in their local area – we need to address this [emphasis mine]

and:

The majority of the evidence available points to migrants being a critical part of the UK’s current economic success.

Does it look like the report is saying immigration has damaged Britain? Does it really?

It also says:

There is no doubt that migrants have changed Britain, and that most people think this is a good thing – another MORI Poll from August 2005 found that 62% of people thought multiculturalism made Britain a better place to live, for example. And 58% of people surveyed in our January 2007 MORI poll agreed that immigrants make Britain more open to new ideas and cultures.

What the report does mention is people's perception of immigration, which is something the Express is keen to mention, saying:

It showed that nearly two thirds of people now believe too many immigrants have been allowed into the UK.

This is incredibly disingenuous. Because while the report does say that, it has explained the context of the situation with the quotes above, and it immediately follows up by pointing out that many of these people have a distorted and exaggerated idea of how many immigrants there are, and to explain why many people believe this although it is wrong.

Here's an extended quote from the report, so you can see exactly what it says in its proper context:

68% of people agreed with the statement in our MORI poll that there were too many migrants in Britain – and 47% of the Asian, and 45% of the Black respondents felt that there was too much immigration into Britain.

Our hypothesis is that this might be because people are confused about the difference between UK born minorities, settled migrants from the past, current legal migrants, asylum seekers and illegal immigrants; with a tendency among some to see a person from any of these groups in the most negative way possible. And alongside this tendency is one that sees migrants alone as being responsible for larger problems or trends – with house price increases being blamed on economic migrants, for example, when they are just one factor within a booming economy.

So, while it does point out that most people think there are too many immigrants in the UK, it does so in the context of pointing out that those people are wrong and goes on to explain why these people might have the wrong idea. It most definitely does not blame immigration for damaging Britain.

More on the Express in a bit, but for now, let's have a look at the Mail's coverage. The Mail's original article (that I looked at in 'The Daily Mail is actually driving communities apart', which is back up now I've made a couple of little changes) has been completely replaced with 'Culture briefing packs will teach immigrants how to queue'. When I first noticed the change, all that had happened was that a few sentences had been bolted on the beginning and the rest of the article had been left pretty much untouched, but now it's completely gone from the site. You can see it here on infowars.net (I'm not endorsing infowars.net, incidentally - they could be a right bunch of numpties, for all I know).

Anyway, the new version focuses solely on the proposal for information packs to be given to new immigrants, and there's also this, 'Teenagers could be told to bond with immigrants'. It's curious that the paper would shift away from trumpeting the report in the same way the Express does, for 'admitting' a bunch of stuff it doesn't actually say, to this.

Funnily enough, it still includes some misinformation about what the report says, but it has gone from implying the report has answered all its prayers to pretty much trashing it. Maybe that's because the paper noticed that it didn't in fact say half the stuff it pretended it did and was actually quite positive about immigration. And for the Mail, 'positive about immigration' means 'must be crap'.

Now, onto the important thing the paper misrepresents, because it ties in with the Express. The Mail says this:

Senior Labour politicians such as Margaret Hodge and Jon Cruddas have spoken of fears among whites that newly-arrived immigrants are preferred for council homes.

The commission warns that a poll shows more than half the population share such fears. Its report, Our Shared Future, said: "This finding highlights that people are very sensitive about perceived freeloading by other groups, and about others getting a better deal than them when it comes to certain public services. The groups most often named spontaneously were asylum seekers, refugees or immigrants."

Here, the Mail is quite obviously deliberately avoiding the report's explanation of why people believe this. The Express does this too, and Obsolete did give this quote a good kicking already, but I want to get a couple of digs in myself:

Last night the report was being seen as vindication at last of the warnings repeatedly raised against relaxing border controls by the Daily Express and other campaigners.

Critics of Labour’s decision to relax immigration controls were vilified and decried as “racist” by ministers. But after record numbers of newcomers have swelled the population and put crippling pressure on public services and housing, ministers are now in retreat.

As I pointed out in 'The Daily Mail is actually driving communities apart', the report does not say that resources are unfairly allocated. It says that people think they are, and it's conclusion as to why is incredibly important:

But as our interim statement highlighted, this seems to be a stronger national than local perception (where locally only 25% feel that some groups get unfair priority) [...] it seems that there is a national/local perceptions gap about unfair access to public services.

MORI suggest that people’s national picture may come from the national media. Local views on the other hand may be based on personal experience or anecdotes told by friends, family or neighbours.

In other words, when people can observe what is actually happening themselves, they're less likely to believe that things are unfairly allocated - but when they can only get their information from the press, they're more likely to think things are unfair.

The way both papers have dealt with covering this report is an excellent example of exactly why this might be. The report says people have a different impression of how things are allocated when they can't see from themselves to when they have to rely on the press, and both papers ignore their own culpability, with one just deciding to scream about how things are unfairly allocated instead. Great.

There is one more thing I want to look at. Both papers are quite taken with the idea of new arrivals being given information packs. They would be, since they emphasise how immigrants spit in the streets, don't know how to queue and are generally a nuisance, but there is another set of information packs the report recommends sending out that don't get a mention.

Firstly, the report says this:

But they [national media] will always sell papers on the basis of what they know people want to hear – and that might mean stories about increased immigration, conflict or unfairness, or stories that are aimed to shock or enrage.

Before going on to recommend targeting local media to spread positive coverage of immigration to local areas, and going on to recommend:

Local Authorities should develop myth busting strategies aimed specifically at established communities. This might include myth busting packs which would contain accurate and impartial information about recent changes to the community and the benefits of migration. It might include face to face dialogue with communities most at risk of believing the myth.

So, in summary - the report says that many people have a skewed view of the effects of immigration, suggesting that this probably comes from the national media. It criticises the coverage of the national media. It then goes on to recommend giving local people myth busting packs to dispel any myths they may have heard - some of which would have come from the national media.

Just looking at the coverage of these to papers shows why that might be necessary. In covering a report and pretending that the things it says about attitudes to immigration - which it clearly states are wrong - and pretending these things actually apply to immigration itself, the papers have illustrated the report's point perfectly.

The Mail's coverage is the most curious though - and the most revealing about that tabloid's agenda. The Express's is easy. It doesn't like 'ethnics', and will take every given opportunity to attack ethnic minorities and immigrants. Any report, however positive, will just be lied about and twisted. The Mail's approach started off the same, but as I said in 'The Daily Mail is actually driving communities apart', it's important for the paper to depict anything that is ever done about immigration as being rubbish and a shambles, so its original coverage gets thrown out to fit the report into that overarching myth instead.

Perhaps the hacks at the Mail were savvy enough to realise that giving positive coverage to the report would also by implication give positive coverage to the bits where it trashes the paper's own agenda. Still, it shows the paper to be run by a bunch of petty, petulant children. What it does very effectively expose is how much the paper spins, changing its entire attitude overnight.

The Daily Mail is actually driving communities apart

Sometimes, it's the little things that make all the difference. One of the most frustrating things about the Express's recent racist outburst about the number of ethnic minority babies born in Sheffield being a crisis was that most of the article was pretty much okay. Even so, the paper managed to take a report that said that things were fine in Sheffield and set out measures for keeping things that way, and turned it into a report that warned of simmering tensions about to boil over into rioting.

The Mail does something similar today in 'Billions spent on helping immigrants is actually driving communities apart' with the Commission on Integration and Cohesion report 'Our shared future' (which it wrongly refers to as being called 'Our Nation's Future).

*UPDATE* Since typing this up, I decided to check the article to make sure it still gave the Commission report the wrong title. Stupidly, I refreshed my screen without taking a screen dump or saving the html file - and the entire article's changed. It now has the headline 'Culture briefing packs will teach immigrants how to queue'. I'll have a look at this version in a second post, but it's useful to leave my first post up to show how the article has been further sexed up.

The report is pretty comprehensive and incredibly nuanced. Over and over again, it warns about making blanket judgements and makes sure to emphasise that things will work differently in different areas, with statements like:

That this work takes different forms in different local areas is in our view entirely right, and this report aims to set that out more clearly. Successive governments have sought to respond to the challenges outlined above at a national level, and it is right that they should have done so – indeed, we make recommendations in our report about how Government can respond in the future by creating national policy and shaping, as best it can, the tone and characteristics of national debate in this area.

But as the data in our report sets out, it has also become evident that communities in some parts of the country are more cohesive than others – with people in areas such as Stockport and Cambridge apparently positive about cohesion, but others in places along the M62 corridor and around the Wash feeling less optimistic. And these variations often seem to be the result of local characteristics, initiatives or political leadership – relying on a clear local vision (in Chesterfield, for example) or activities to address challenges head on.

The trouble is, that doesn't fit the Mail's overarching theme of reporting everything that's ever done that's even remotely connected to race or immigration is a total shambles. So instead of reporting the shades of grey this report mentions, and the important caveats it provides, the paper just pretends they're not there to crowbar the report into their world view.

The headline for instance is, as ever, complete rubbish. The report is about more than just helping immigrants, doesn't say that billions is spent helping them, and doesn't say that the money is necessarily driving communities apart. What it does say is that some approaches to helping all kinds of different groups are better than others, and that those should be favoured. It also very strongly emphasises that cohesion is broadly fine across the country, and is only a problem in a few areas, saying quite clearly:

79% of people agreed or strongly agreed that people of different backgrounds got on well in their local areas (very close to the Citizenship Survey figure of 80%)

Cohesion rates in areas ranged from 38% to 90% – but in only ten out of 387 areas was it under 60% [emphasis in the original]

So the whole idea of driving communities apart is a bit fanciful. As is the opening sentence, which says:

Councils were today found to be wasting billions of pounds on community policies that unwittingly fuel ethnic tensions.

The report doesn't say that at all. It never once uses the term 'ethnic tension'. It says that some programmes are better than others and should be favoured, but it doesn't call the money spent on any as a waste, nor does it imply that. Let's say a Council decides to fund an Irish Centre that gets pretty well used and does good work for the Irish people in the area, but it fuels the idea that the Irish are getting unfair preferential treatment. That doesn't mean the money was wasted, because the Centre's good work for the people who use it still counts for something. And why is the paper focusing solely on immigrants and ethnic tensions, when the report it's about actually talks about much more?

It carries the fanciful theme through to the next sentence:

A ground-breaking report said that thousands of drop- in centres for individual ethnic minority communities were simply keeping people apart.

It doesn't really say that. We're closer to what the report does say, but it doesn't make a blanket statement like that. It does draw attention to the fact that funding single groups can have a negative effect, but it does so with all sorts of caveats about how some will be okay.

The rest of the article follows the same template, saying things that are sort of accurate, but devoid of any of the nuance that is present in the report. There are one or two little inaccuracies, but nothing amazingly major of the sort we might expect from say, the Express covering something produced by Muslims. Or Sheffield City Council.

The thing is though, by the time the reader reaches this far, if they ever do, they've already been given a number of false impressions that will cloud the way they see the rest of the article, and these carry on throughout. These are:

• That the report is specifically about immigration and ethnicity
• That it is a 'damning report'
• That it makes blanket judgements about things being a waste of money
• That it specifies how much is spent
• That it implies that any is wasted
• That it states that things are driving people apart, or that anything has 'backfired'

It really is not a damning report at all. Anybody reading this without looking at the report itself, which will be most people since the paper gives the wrong bloody title, will have the idea that this report slams multicultural policy in the same way this newspaper does, but it really isn't. Sure, after having looked at it properly, there are things in it I might have issues with, but it really idoesn't much resemble the Mail's version of it. But that doesn't fit the Mail's prejudices, so it must be distorted.

There is something the report does say that the Mail ignores. The report says this:

Our MORI poll found that more than half of people (56%) feel that some groups in Britain get unfair priority when it comes to public services like housing, health services and schools. Fewer than one in seven (16%) actively disagreed with the statement.

[...]

But as our interim statement highlighted, this seems to be a stronger national than local perception (where locally only 25% feel that some groups get unfair priority).

[...]

MORI suggest that people’s national picture may come from the national media. Local views on the other hand may be based on personal experience or anecdotes told by friends, family or neighbours.

So, people tend to think that some groups are unfairly given priority over others, but just not where they live. This is probably because they get their view of what is going on nationally from sources like the Mail rather than direct experience. Now look at the Mail's headline for this article. I wonder why the paper never covered this bit.

There's also a big section about countering any myths that might get spread about the Councils' work, and how to work with the media. In it is this:

The national media often takes its responsibility for setting the tone of narratives around diversity and integration seriously. The Daily Mail was an important champion of Neville and Doreen Lawrence during and after the inquiry into their son’s death. And more recently, the Mirror and others have set out positive messages in the context of possible far right gains in local elections.

So far so good. Yay for the Mail for doing something good ten years ago. But then:

But they will always sell papers on the basis of what they know people want to hear – and that might mean stories about increased immigration, conflict or unfairness, or stories that are aimed to shock or enrage.

And the report goes on to detail how to target the local media to counter this.

It's no wonder the Mail ignores the whole myth busting section, and the necessity of handing out myth-busting packs, given the paper's role in the spreading of those myths.

Including in this article.

Eat your greens - or MULTICULTURALISM will get you

Another day, another couple of scare stories about multiculturalism in the Mail and Express. These are covered in 'Multiculturalism 'drives young Muslims to shun British values'' in the Mail and 'Surge in Muslim youth who want Islamic rule' in the Express. As we'd expect from the paper that tries to out-Mail the Mail, the Express one is the less measured, including at least one outright lie. It might even be worth a complaint to the PCC on accuracy grounds.

Both stories are based around the findings of the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. Who'da thunk it, eh? Right wing think-tank examines Muslim fundamentalism and comes to the conclusion that multiculturalism is to blame. It's the shock conclusion nobody could ever have seen coming.

The Policy Exchange's study is, surprise surprise, deeply flawed. The main reason is that Policy Exchange do not define multiculturalism, and seem to be suggesting that multiculturalism is Tony Blair addressing Muslims as a monolithic block of people. Which it isn't. The report says:

We should allow people to express their identity freely and in a climate of genuine tolerance.

That's pretty much a definition of multiculturalism right there. It's actually a lack of a proper multicultural policy the think-tank are bemoaning. Not the existence of one.

There are more reasons why the report is flawed in its conclusion about multiculturalism being to blame. It says:

One way to tackle this [Islamism] is to bring to an end the institutional attacks on national identity – the counterproductive cancellation of Christmas festivities, the neurotic bans on displays of national symbols, and the sometimes crude anti-Western bias of history lessons – which can create feelings of defensiveness and resentment.

What do we know about the banning of Christmas festivities and displays of national symbols? That's right - they're exaggerated or made up in the first place and perpetuated by the right-wing press, even after they're exposed as fake. Winterval, anyone?

The study states that:

We asked them to give their opinion about the actions of authorities in two different scenarios. 75% believe it was wrong for a local council to have banned an advertisement for a Christmas carol service in 2003 for fear it would cause tensions.

But as we know from the brilliant article about banning Christmas in the Guardian from Oliver Burkeman:

Of course, to dismantle the myth of a full-scale War on Christmas, it isn't necessary to prove that no low-level council functionary has ever once misguidedly tried to avoid offence by eliminating references to religion. That's what seems to have happened [...] in High Wycombe, where a member of the library staff refused to display an A4 poster for a carol service in 2003 because of a rule excluding religious or political posters from a noticeboard. (The High Wycombe Carol Service Poster Incident is now regularly wheeled out as an example of how diabolically militant the anti-Christmas forces have become.)

The poster was never banned for fear of causing tensions, but because there's a rule about not displaying religious posters at all, and the staff member was probably being a bit over zealous.

The second scenario is:

64% believed it was wrong for a council to have banned all images of pigs from its offices (on calendars, toys, etc) in 2005, for the reason that they might offend Muslims’ feelings.

This is another distortion of the facts. In 2005, the benefits department of Dudley Council banned images of pigs from its offices (and only that department of the council's offices) after a complaint from a Muslim employee. The ban was lifted very shortly after for being too extreme. The Council didn't order the ban. The Council ordered for it to be lifted.

So it's not actually multiculturalism that's to blame, but a dodgy strawman version of multiculturalism where the actions of overzealous individuals that are later overturned by their superiors are taken for the actions of the superiors themselves, and their being overturned is ignored. Who creates and perpetuates the lame strawman? The right-wing press, and this think-tank itself.

So, onto the press coverage. As we'd expect, there's the familiar implication that sharia law means the same thing to all Muslims, as if they're some kind of monolithic block who interpret the Qur'an in the exact same way. The study actually critiscises the attitude that all Muslims are the same and should be treated as if they all share the same views.

The Express article probably warrants most scrutiny. The second sentence includes an outright lie. It says:

Three-quarters of Muslims aged 16-24 believe women should be forced to wear veils or headscarves [...]

The study does not say that at all. It says:

74% of 16-24 year olds would prefer Muslim women to choose to wear the veil, compared to only 28% of 55+ year olds.

Spot the difference. 'Would prefer someone to choose' is not the same as 'should be forced'. Before I met my girlfriend, I would have preferred the women I fancied to choose to sleep with me. I didn't want them to be forced to. That's the difference between an ordinary bloke and a rapist. Plus, the study specifies 'Muslim women' and the Express does not. I think a complaint to the PCC is definitely in order.

Next:

The survey also found more than one in eight young adult believers “admires” Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

No it doesn't. The study says:

7% “admire organisations like Al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight the West’. 13% of 16-24 year olds agreed with this statement compared to 3% of 55+ year olds.

The actual question is a leading question. It defines organisations like Al-Qaeda as ones that fight the West. It's impossible to answer this question by saying you support organisations that fight the West without making it look like you support Al-Qaeda too. Even so, the study definitely does not say what the Express says it does. There is no question that asks 'do you support Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups?'

It's odd that the Express would feel the need to exaggerate the negatives, given the shockingly high number who advocate the death penalty for apostasy. Isn't that scary enough? Not for Express readers, who are unlikely to be Muslim in the first place. That's also why the paper drops the reference to 'Muslim women' in the second sentence. The potential threat to its own non-Muslim readers must be maximised.

The rest of the report is not as bad, but includes some quotes that are a little misleading, like:

Today, David Cameron will admit that “uncontrolled immigration” has undermined social harmony in Britain.

“You can’t have proper integration if people are coming into Britain at a faster rate than we can cope with,” he will say in a speech in Birmingham.

Which creates the false connection between Islam and immigration. A large number of Muslims were born in Britain.

The Mail's coverage is less brazen. It at least admits that most younger Muslims are likely to have been born in Britain. It does include a lovely opening sentence/paragraph though:

The doctrine of multi-culturalism has alienated an entire generation of young Muslims and made them increasingly radical, a report has found.

The doctrine of multiculturalism. It's a fantastic phrase that isn't once used in the Policy Exchange study. What is this doctrine, and where can we read it? Nowhere. It's another Daily Mail bogeyman.

The rest of the article just repeats stuff from the flawed study. It makes a lot of the number who'd prefer to send their children to an Islamic school as if this is a Bad, Bad Thing - although it defends the practice if sending children to church schools - and even advocates the teaching of Christianity by non-denominational schools. Like the Express article, it makes much of the admiration of organisations like Al-Qaeda, although it doesn't exaggerate it nearly as much. What both articles neglect to mention is the study's own conclusion that:

What is clear is that this 7% do not constitute a coherent political movement with shared ideas or experiences. More likely is that they are expressing a vague sense of disillusionment with the West.

Or that:

When the same question was asked of the general population, 3% said they “admired organisations like Al-Qaeda that are prepared to fight against the West”.

But for me, the most chilling quote from the Mail is this one:

A series of Labour ministers have broken recently with the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities.

The paper seems to be defining multiculturalism as not forcing people to integrate. It thinks multiculturalism is a bad thing, so what is the implication here? That different communities should be forced to integrate. Not encouraged. Not given reason to. Forced.

Nice, eh?

*UPDATE* Just noticed where the PCC will let off the Express over the paper's lie about Muslims wanting women to be forced to wear the veil. Much later on, the article says:

Of Muslims in the 16-24 age group, the poll found 37 per cent wanted Islamic sharia law in the UK, 31 per cent wanted heretics put to death and 74 per cent wanted Muslim women to wear the full-face niqab veil or the hijab headscarf.

So, the PCC will probably claim that it's okay for the paper to lie early on because it includes the real figure later on. The thing is, the only reason I know that this is the real figure and the earlier claim is false is that I read the report. Most Express readers will have no idea that this is not a separate claim.

Also, notice that great lie, '31 per cent wanted heretics put to death'. This statistic is worrying enough without lying about it. The report does not include the word heretic, but uses the very specific phrase 'if a Muslim converts to another religion they should be punished by death.' Again, this is bad enough, and really shocking. It's not something I'm going to defend. Still, 'heretic' does not mean the same as 'convert'. It could mean people who were never Muslim in the first place. Hence the Express's use of the word instead of the correct one. All the better to frighten its readers with.

Nice again, eh?