Land of Mope and Tory

As we all know the Daily Wail is a shining beacon in a haze of truth and honesty. Where many other publications will at least make a semblance of an attempt at getting to the bottom of a story and report on it in tones which don't immediately bely the underlying political and moral bias (or in the case of the Daily Express get their readers to ask the pertinent questions that need to be answered, such as, "What would Diana think?" or "Should I just kill myself now rather than suffering any more of this twaddle?"), the Wail wears its heart on its sleeve. A white sleeve. A Christian sleeve. Possibly accompanied by an equally white and Christian pillow case with eyeholes cut in it.

Headlines pop. Headlines make you think Britain really is broken; really is about to turn to Islam; really is a third world Nazi state; really is better than any other country; really is worse than any other country. Of course what Britain really is is a fairly benign state. What Douglas Adams would have called 'Mostly Harmless' had it been the Hitchhikers' Guide to the World and Britain had the role of earth being demolished by the Vogamericons for a superhighway. And what Britain is is a country where the media magnifies the polarisation, then complains about it, then gets the magnifying glass out again, then goes apopleptic. Daily Wail, j'accuse!

So what's the point of all of this, and what does the picture above signify? This is my (short, as long as I can be bothered, and as long as my blood pressure stays low enough) Daily Wail series. Every time someone sends me a link to a Wail story (which takes either the form of a rant against freeloading cyclists or some pictures of cute fluffy animals) I wind up wound up after delving into the sidebars link. It can be two stories side by side, one railing against the 'skinny' culture and declaring a celeb to have an eating disorder, the very next taking 'shocking' pictures of another celeb who has 'ballooned' to size 12. But I've sort of immunised myself against celebrity cuture over the years, which leaves me with unimportant stuff like world affairs and the general human condition.

Hear the Wail excels. Those aforementioned shouty headlines that one single line buried in the actual text of the story shows to be nothing more than a sham enticement. Xenophobia, hatred, homophobia, dislike. Jan Moir has the lot, and the rest of the Wail follows suit.

Every day there's is at least one story, and often many many more, that can be exposed so ridiculously easily as fearmongering and hate-making. So I'm going to find one. Every day. In the pages of the Wail. And illustrate it.

Here goes...

Asylum fiasco: Files closed on 61,000 missing cases

Ah yes, the Wail's favourite kind of tale, those mean and untrustworthy asylum seekers. You see, in the Wail world 'asylum seeker' = 'illegal immigrant'. The story itself concerns 450,000 asylum applications discovered in 2006 to have been... sitting on a shelf or something. Bit of an admin cock-up. And they didn't know where those seekers now were.

Sort of.

Since 2006 334,500 have been found and dealt with. The Wail states that, "barely one in ten of these have been removed from the country...", showing an astounding grasp of maths when it says 139,000 ("More than half") have been allowed to stay. 139,000 is 41% of those processed, or 30% of the original total. So 59% of those processed have either been deported or have left of their own accord. Of course we're supposed to be annoyed about 41% of those processed being allowed to stay, regardless of the fact that this likely means their asylum status has been reviewed and accepted. Remember, even after going through due process that allows them to stay in the country 'asylum seeker' = 'illegal immigrant'.

So what is the 61,000 figure in the headline all about? Well it seems that after a case has been open, but not processed, for over 5 years it goes onto an 'archive' file. After 6 months on that if the case still isn't resolved the application is deemed approved. 61,000 is 13.5% of the original massive backlog. Not bad going really. But then the Wail didn't quite get that right either. 18,000 of those on the archive file have actually been closed. 43,000 are still within the 6 month pending limit.

So 4%, 4%, of a 5 year backlog, on top of the normal daily workload, has slipped through. And those 4% are not even necessarily coming here on false pretences. Going by the 'clean up' rate figures above many will have already left, and many will be genuine asylum seekers. We're probably talking about 0.5% of the original being here when they shouldn't, and being allowed to stay through administrative blunder. 2,250 people.

Not as good a number as 61,000 though is it? And they even had to get perecntages wrong within the text (deliberately?) to make that seem unnacceptable...

Urban Heron
Sunning Courier

Met with a cycling lawyer today who specialises in PI claims for cyclists - all with a view to doing some stuff for the planned relaunch of citycycling. Exciting times.