Tag Archives: daily-telegraph

A survey says

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There’s a news item – which seems to appear everywhere from the UK’s Daily Mail and the Telegraph to the Indian Andrha News – which suggests that 54% of British people believe in God, compared to 58% who believe in UFOs*, ghosts and mediums.

Internal Pedant wanted to change that last plural to “media” but that would have been both confusing and blatantly absurd. Surely, even UFOnauts and fundies aren’t stupid enough to place much faith in “the media”.

If only this were true……. Abduction survivors have a mild comedy value. People who consult psychics victimise only themselves. None of them are likely to start pogroms or crusades or jihads or even complain when people are insulting to their beliefs. So what does it matter?

Trying to draw a quick mental Venn diagram of the intersection of sets, I realise that the overlap between believing groups could be almost total. Between 4% and 54% of the respondents must believe in both God and UFOs.

These intersecting set people must have to spend so much of their time and mental energy in believing stuff that they might as well be channelling Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen, who managed to cram in believing six impossible things before breakfast

But, all these news stories say something like “according to a survey”. However, I can’t find one report with any references to who carried out this survey, what the questions were, how many people were interviewed or any of those dull facts that Ben Goldacre keeps reminding us to think about when we see survey reports in the media.

Plus,

“The findings, maybe somewhat unsurprisingly, have been issued to mark the DVD release of The X-Files: I Want to Believe” (from the Daily Mail)

That’s why I can’t find any links to the actual survey. It’s a publicity stunt.

Silly me. That’s what you get for believing in the media…..

* Normally, this means believing that unidentified flying objects are all secret Grey visitors from the planet zarg who will beam up rednecks and probe their orifices. Still, I have to admit to my own inability to identify more than a handful of flying objects. I confused a jay with a pheasant only last week. I can recognise a Cessna and a Spitfire and a Hurricane (from childhood model-building experiments) but otherwise they are all just planes.

Assault is illegal…

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More on the theme of how we trivialise children (sorry) but one of the news items doing the rounds today is how a “Father loses career after slapping unruly daughter” (many headlines are a variation of this, so I will stick with the Telegraph). Basically, the story goes:

A father’s career as a community worker has been brought to a halt after he was given a police caution for slapping his unruly teenage daughter.
Jim McCullough, 44, spent 15 years building up a reputation as a football coach in Benchill, Manchester, and had dreams of branching into sports development.
But his hopes foundered the day he struck his 13-year-old daughter, Jess, for “terrorizing” one of their neighbours.
Jess reported the incident to police and despite later retracting the complaint her father was arrested. He later accepted a caution, not realising how it would blight his career.

Now it does have an element of comedy about it (not least of which is how is voluntary work considered a career?), but there are some issues that strike me as valid. As you can imagine, there are elements of the media that have used this to highlight how crazy our laws are now – I mean if you cant beat your own kids, what can you do? I am sure there are lots of people who think slapping your 13 year old in the face when they do something you don’t approve of is acceptable – but I dont.

Basically, this “pillar of the community” lost control of his own child to the point at which he had to hit her to try and control her. Is this someone suitable to look after the children of others? I wouldn’t let him coach my daughters…

Greg Davis, from the United Estates of Wythenshawe centre, where Mr McCullough did his voluntary work, said: “We have lost an experienced youth worker and men like him are worth their weight in gold. There is clearly a need for better legislation”.

This is odd. What changes to the law is Mr Davis calling for? Should adults be allowed to beat teenagers? Or only one the ones who do voluntary work for the council? Why dont we make legislation allowing people in positions of authority the power to anything they want to children – oh yeah, that’s called the Catholic Church isn’t it…?

Interestingly, despite the doom and gloom of the headlines it is not all that bad:

But his police caution would require him to have an enhanced CRB check, and it would then be left to a potential employer to decide whether he should be taken on.

It hasn’t taken away his career, whatever career he had. It just means if he wants to have access to vulnerable people he needs to undergo a more thorough check.

How is that a bad thing?

Real-politik

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On the BBC’s Andrew Marr show today, Keith Vaz cited a poll that showed that the 42 day detention madness was supported by 65% of the public. This poll was carried out for the Daily Telegraph However, this could hardly be seen as “good news” for the government, as it also showed only 26% support for Labour.

(Temporarily assuming, for the sake of argument, that a Telegraph poll is somehow likely to represent the truth…) surely, the vast majority of these pro-42 day people are planning to vote for the Tories. Are these Tory votes going to change to Labour over 42-day detention?

Obviously not, or they wouldn’t be saying they will vote Tory, at exactly the same time that they are saying that 42-detention is a great idea, would they?

Whereas, the main threat to Labour must surely be the fact that a fair part of its traditional voter base is decidedly unimpressed by the ongoing extension of illiberal measures to every area of life. I suspect that there are many Labour voters who can bring themselves to vote for the Liberal Democrats, if the LibDems make a principled stand on the issues of Liberalism and Democracy (that their party’s name is supposed to represent.) And there are many more Labour voters who will just refuse to vote …..

Throwing away Labour’s core supporters, with genius actions like compulsory ID, 10p extra tax on the poorest – with its fumbled half-recovery – is getting to be a Labour party habit. (*heavy sarcasm* Turning away from the unions as a funding source, in favour of secret business loans, was such a clever idea. It’s not as if businesses demand anything in return. )

Brown is nowhere near as unpleasant as Blair – he hasn’t invaded anywhere yet, for a start. He could make some efforts to get back the traditional voters by stopping going for the Daily Mail constituency. Read my lips: The imaginary army of disgruntled “ex-pat” right-wing nutters are never going to vote for you, fool.

Any Labour MPs that want to rebel against the vote, should remember that, although senior ministers can make their Parliamentary careers seem (temporarily) doomed if they don’t support it their traditional voters are the ones who can put them on the dole. Be selfish on this, MPS. Save yourselves, not Jacqui Smith’s face.

By the way, Andrew Marr made some excellent points in challenging the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. (MI5 don’t particularly want it; the complexity of a threat is not the same as the seriousness of a threat; the 42 day limit seems to have been chosen just because it’s the most they can get away with.)
The BBC even blogged its own show, which seems a mite self-congratulatory.

The Telegraph’s view on Conrad Black

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More from the blog’s new department of sweet irony.

The Daily Telegraph reports of the trial of Black (uncannily similar to the Guardian’s, even down to a timeline) describe his wife, Barbara Amiel as “the virulently right-wing journalist.”

No, really. It’s not a typo, for once. The Daily Telegraph did call indeed someone virulently rightwing. The mind boggles at quite how extreme you would have to be for the Telegraph to use this description.

The paper also reported that the Conservative Party had decided that Lord Black couldn’t count as a Tory in the House of Lords any more. 😀

Sweet ironing

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Conrad Black, former owner of the Daily Telegraph has actually been found guilty of fraud. Well, of 3 fraud counts and one obstruction of justice.

Black, 62, was cleared of racketeering and tax evasion but could face 35 years in jail when sentenced on 30 November.

Well, you can’t win them all…..