More Fairy Tales

If proof were ever needed that Richard Littlejohn is the most overpaid, lazy and moronic journalist in the world, then his latest column - as usual thrown together with all the thought and rationale of a Bacardi-drenched reveller choosing an outfit to vomit over - provides us with further evidence.

In another boring attack on political-correctness-gone-mad he regurgitates the old favourite of Christmas being taken away from this once Great nation.

• a Nativity play in Nottinghamshire cancelled because it clashes with the Muslim festival of Eid.

See how they just keep repeating the lies and it becomes fact. Now, either Littlejohn knows that this story is crap or he knows his readers are so blinkered that they will believe everything he writes.

As I wrote on 4th December (the day after the Mail's story which still stands uncorrected with 58 comments criticising the school or the country) the story is a blatant untruth.

Even the Christian Institute pulled the item shortly after I emailed them; even the Express managed to note that there was a panto postponed rather than any Christian celebration. Last time I looked there was no mention of Cinderella in The Bible so unless Les Dennis has just been made Archbishop of Liverpool, it's a non-issue.

Littlejohn inserts some other examples to pad out his poor effort:

• Oh, and a pensioner was punched to the ground in Tunbridge Wells for playing carols too loud.

According to the report in the Telegraph, the chap was a long-standing collector for charity and said,'"Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.' That seems to be an isolated incident to me, Dick. Despicable, cowardly, unprovoked and an affront to the majority of right-thinking members of society - and Mr MacDonald's attacker is no better.

• A woman in Gateshead was ordered by a housing worker to take down fairy lights because they could offend non-Christians.

Yet another story merely plucked from his own paper. I wonder if the journalists involved in the original stories who earn less than the Florida Sunshine Boy are happy at their work being cut and pasted so freely.

Of course, the facts are a little less interesting than he makes out. The original by 'Daily Mail Reporter' (further salt in the wound as they don't even get a name-check)

• A woman has spoken of how she was told to remove her Christmas lights by a housing association worker - in case they offended her non-Christian neighbours.

  Dorothy Glenn decorates her home in South Shields with hundreds of festive lights every year, including a giant tree and a 4ft Santa Claus.

............which she puts up in the first week of November...........but hey ho.

• But she was left stunned this year when a South Tyneside Homes worker called at her house to inform her that the decorations she was displaying might be offending her neighbours.

Sounds like a complete jerk. So the official was carrying out official policy then?

• The association last night apologised to Mrs Glenn and insisted that removing Christmas lights was not part of their policy.

But there must have been complaints right? What does Mrs Glenn say?

• My neighbours are Bengali and Chinese and I know that they love the lights - the children will always point them out when they walk past.'

Furthermore,

• (she) said she had a close relationship with her neighbours and enjoyed living in a community with people from different backgrounds.

A local councillor joins in,

• Independent councillor Ahmed Khan, who represents Mrs Glenn's ward, condemned the over-zealous employee's actions.

And that should have been that. Mr Khan says that this type of over-reaction sets back race relations 20 years. He might have added that by highlighting what amounts to the unauthorised actions of one employee in this manner in the national press in a newspaper that openly touts for such fables, the situation is exacerbated. There are 178 comments on the story, ranging from vitriolic attacks on PC madness to bigoted defences of Christianity.

This is how the Mail works. It knows its audience. It knows that not everyone who buys this garbage will share such extreme and entrenched views, but it understands that propaganda can be effective if given through a drip feed approach.

And of course the BNP's Youth wing is still asking members to telephone primary schools it has named to 'ask why the school discriminates against indigenous British people. ' It still has details of Greenwood School in Nottinghamshire despite the school expressing concern about the BNP contacting it.

Schools have enough to contend with without this sort of harassment. We know the Daily Mail is the paper of choice for the BNP. It links to its stories as a matter of course. Vigilante man Albert Hurwood of Navigor also does so.

I hope that schools affected by such blatant, repeated lies will consider complaining to the Press Complaints Commission notwithstanding its toothless status.