What I Don't Get About British Journalism

I was a journalist for more than ten years and always prided myself on my news sense - ie I could always spot a story when I saw one. Equally, I could spot a non-story a mile off.

I really didn't get Swine Flu as a story, or Mad Cow Disease for that matter. Lots of hype and very few deaths (certainly compared with the real killers - cancer, stroke and heart disease). And I was always very sceptical about the whole Aids story which is still a relatively low cause of death in the UK. Pages and pages and pages are devoted to diseases which turn out to be relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Why? Because journalists decide that they are news-worthy.

Then they tried to get us all worked up about global warming, until we got hit by the coldest winters on record. Then they changed their tune and called it climate change. I don't believe in either. Whatever happens over the next few centuries I can guarantee that we'll be hit by an ice age in the next 250,000 years or so.

And don't get me started on the acres of newsprint given over to minor 'celebrities' that I've never heard of.

I wasn't even that impressed with the whole MP's expenses scandal. Particularly as I know that most journalists profit hugely from so-called expenses that they claim. It was a lot worse when I was in Fleet Street, when Friday afternoon was mainly spent signing receipts for fellow journalists! Sigh, the stories I could tell....

But my main gripe with the country's journalists, and editors, is the way that they seem to be ignoring, or at least downplaying, one of the biggest stories of the last decade or two.

The Labour Government systematically lied about immigration, bringing in millions of foreigners and giving them citizeneship, for no other reason than to serve their own political aims - ie to increase the number of Labour voters. Recent immigrants tend to vote Labour.

Labour knew that it wasn't a policy that the Britsh would favour, so they lied about it and covered it up. They also knew that it would lead to an increase in crime - which duly happened. They probably didn't realise that it would also contribute to the number of terrorists now in our midst, but that just goes to show how stupid the Labour party is.

History has yet to call Tony Blair to account for what he did, and I don't think the British Press is going to do it. The man lied to get us into wars with two countries that I frankly want nothing to do with, and lied to change the face of British society for the worse, and for ever. If he had deliberately set out to ruin my country he couldn't have done a better job.

One of the few papers following the immigration story is the Daily Mail - here's their most recent story...

Labour encouraged mass immigration even though it knew that voters opposed it, Whitehall documents confirmed yesterday.

The Government said the public disagreed with immigration because of 'racism' and ministers were told to try to alter public attitudes.

The thinking on immigration among Labour leaders was set down in 2000 in a document prepared for the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, but the key passages were suppressed before it was published.

The paper was finally disclosed under freedom of information rules yesterday. It showed that ministers were advised that only the ill-educated and those who had never met a migrant were opposed to immigration.

They were also told that large-scale immigration would bring increases in crime, but they concealed these concerns from the public.

Sections of the paper, which underpinned Labour policies that admitted between two and three million immigrants to Britain in less than a decade, have already been made public.

These have showed that Labour aimed to use immigration not only for economic reasons but also to change the social make-up of the country.

Fuller details released yesterday showed that Tony Blair's ministers opened the doors to mass migration in knowledge of public opposition and with the view that those who disagreed with them were racists.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has criticised the Government for not telling the truth about their immigration policies

Labour's accusation that opponents of immigration are racist has been dropped over the last two years as it has become clear that former Labour voters in party heartlands have been turning to the far right British National Party.

Ministers accept there is frustration at the loss of jobs to migrants and pressure on public services.

Yesterday Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'The Government has simply not been telling the truth about its policies on immigration.

'More and more evidence is now emerging to show that they deliberately planned a big jump in immigration for their own political purposes.

'Now they are trying to rewrite history to pretend those decisions never happened. Their conduct over all of this has been a complete disgrace.'

Sir Andrew Green of the Migrationwatch pressure group said: 'This report confirms that ministers deliberately rode roughshod over public opinion in adopting a policy of mass immigration.

'They concealed their real intentions in the hope that they would benefit from the immigrant vote without losing their working class supporters. They are now paying the price.'