Express Outrage
Today's front page headline in the Daily Express reads: "Bombers Were ALL Spongeing Asylum Seekers". I don't know what I find more depressing:
-the kettle-whistle glee of the whole enterprise (you get the feeling that the Express couldn't be more thrilled if it discovered the bombers had been trained and tooled up by a sleeper squad of one-legged lesbians),
- the open invitation to readers to invert the sentence and infer that spongeing asylum seekers are ALL bombers.
- the implication that the Express was right all along, and none of this would have happened if we'd just thrown out the pesky asylum seekers in the first place. This completely bypasses the fact that the real damage on 7 July was caused by young men of British identity, who came from respected families and were integrated into school and society, but somewhere in their teens or early twenties drifted into fundamentalist violence. Extremism among first generation British Muslims is a complex problem, and it will be quite a challenge to come up with an adequate solution; I really doubt you're going to find one in the Express.
- The weird emphasis on "spongeing". It may not be an argument you want to hear, but the fact that the bombers were asylum seekers is relevant (if it is accurate- see Dick's comment for an alternate view), and will definitely be used by those pressing for stricter asylum controls. The fact that they received benefits is not relevant: unless they were paid in gelignite, it adds nothing to the story.
- And, while I'm at it, that illiterate and redundant "e" in the word "spongeing". I'm not sure if I agree with Martin Amis that style is morality, but this word and the Daily Mail's coinage "Gipsies" are equally offensive from both perspectives. Did they choose "spongeing" for the aesthetic effect: did a sub-editor set out on purpose to make an ugly word even uglier? Or was the "e" inserted for the sake of clarity? Is the Express worried we might think their headline refers to people who spong?
-the kettle-whistle glee of the whole enterprise (you get the feeling that the Express couldn't be more thrilled if it discovered the bombers had been trained and tooled up by a sleeper squad of one-legged lesbians),
- the open invitation to readers to invert the sentence and infer that spongeing asylum seekers are ALL bombers.
- the implication that the Express was right all along, and none of this would have happened if we'd just thrown out the pesky asylum seekers in the first place. This completely bypasses the fact that the real damage on 7 July was caused by young men of British identity, who came from respected families and were integrated into school and society, but somewhere in their teens or early twenties drifted into fundamentalist violence. Extremism among first generation British Muslims is a complex problem, and it will be quite a challenge to come up with an adequate solution; I really doubt you're going to find one in the Express.
- The weird emphasis on "spongeing". It may not be an argument you want to hear, but the fact that the bombers were asylum seekers is relevant (if it is accurate- see Dick's comment for an alternate view), and will definitely be used by those pressing for stricter asylum controls. The fact that they received benefits is not relevant: unless they were paid in gelignite, it adds nothing to the story.
- And, while I'm at it, that illiterate and redundant "e" in the word "spongeing". I'm not sure if I agree with Martin Amis that style is morality, but this word and the Daily Mail's coinage "Gipsies" are equally offensive from both perspectives. Did they choose "spongeing" for the aesthetic effect: did a sub-editor set out on purpose to make an ugly word even uglier? Or was the "e" inserted for the sake of clarity? Is the Express worried we might think their headline refers to people who spong?
posted by Ben Good at 9:57 pm
4 Comments:
Wasn't it the Express who called them that?
Ah crap, you're right. Just saw the headline in the shop; it looked like the Mail. That's why we don't do politics over here. I'll make the changes when I get home tonight.
I'm with Amis on the sub-editing.
The sponging is relevant in that, as it has emerged since this post, the bombers had assumed multiple identities in order to bilk the system in an effort to a) support themselves while otherwise engaging in time-consuming, but not very economically productive, terrorist plots and b) avoid working and (thereby) contributing economically to the country they so despised. This is relevant, I suppose, to the larger issue re: social integration in the UK, but you're right - it's a sideshow where the bombers themselves are concerned.
Jon, agree with you that if they were defrauding the social welfare system to pay for their bombing operations, that is newsworthy. (Haven't seen this, but this is my fault- I haven't been following the story recently.) But the Express wasn't saying that at the time. All the Express knew was that they were claiming the benefits they were actually entitled to; it really annoyed me that they were making this into an offence commensurate with bombing the tube, when in reality it was possibly the only legal thing the group were doing during their time in the UK.
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