Common Era: A Marxist Plot, Apparently

If you're bored, fancy a laugh, and don't mind giving MailOnline a hit, I humbly suggest you read this article by James Delingpole from today, entitled "How the BBC fell for a Marxist Plot to destroy civilization from within". This isn't some kind of joke, or an exaggeration, that's the actual title of the article.If you don't want to give the Mail hits, go here (thank you @LudditeWebDev) and don't tell them I sent you.
It's about the decision made by them to swap to using "Common Era" instead of "Anno Domini" and to use "Before Common Era" instead of "Before Christ" on the BBC website, with it citing that it intends to keep in with modern practice.*

And if you think that's bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Indeed there are some real 'gems' in this thing.
Starting with, um, the start "When you mention to a Muslim or Hindu that the year is 2011, do you ever feel a twinge of guilt about your closet religious chauvinism?"He asks, rhetorically and ridiculously since the whole argument is about the suffix, not saying that they year is 2011 (which it is in both CE and AD). And why on Earth would anyone need to go round asking what year it is? It's a crap example really.
He then asks similarly ridiculous and rhetorical questions about the opening sequence of One Million Years BC and what you would if you were to catch your child reading 2000AD.
 
Skipping ahead a few paragraphs (in which he claims that only members of the Left-Wing academe have ever heard of CE (which is annoying, since I knew of it long before I was lefty, and I know that at least one of my older (not left-wing) relatives on my mum's side occasionally uses it (either my grandad or my great-uncle) since the the two terms are basically the same thing, not to mention that I keep thinking it's "Amino Domini") and generally moans about the weasellyness of the reason allegedly given*) we get this lovely thing: "And so yet another small part of our tradition, language and culture takes a step closer to extinction. We didn't ask for it; we didn't want it; yet still it's happening because a tiny minority of politically correct busybodies have wormed their way into institutions such as the BBC and taken control. 
Their goal is to create a world where Left-wing thinking – on 'fairness', on race, on sexual equality, on the role of government – becomes the norm. So far, they are doing brilliantly.
This capture of the language for political ends was exactly what George Orwell warned us of more than 60 years ago in his book 1984. In the appendix he described how Big Brother devised its language Newspeak to make it impossible for people to think in the 'wrong' way."
 
Where do I start? Well, first of all the implication that 'fairness' and sexual equality being the norm is bad, as is left-wing thought on race (i.e. going off his lovely little A-Z of political correctness, not being a racist) My personal favourite bit, however, has to be the invocation of 1984 to describe something a right-winger (who is writing for The Mail of all things) doesn't like. Really, it should be a corollary to Godwin's law: "As a writing by a right-winger grows longer, the probability that someone will be compared to The Party nears 1". let's call it Smith's law or something.

Of course, it could be argued that this whole thing is censorship, shaping the language to make us unable to articulate concepts which people don't like. Such as the first year of Our Lord being the 5th year of Our Lord. Okay, the whole AD vs CE thing is petty. The two terms are all but interchangeable. People don't think of "Anno Domini" as being inherently Christian (well, I don't at least), we just think of it as "AD" as opposed to "BC". We essentially use it as "CE" but without actually calling it that. Thus trying to make changing between two perfectly interchangeable terms to what is held up to be the high point of authoritarian language changing just makes Delingpole look like a ninnyhammer. Not least because he bemoans left-wing thought almost in the same breath - doesn't he realise that Orwell was a socialist?

A couple of skipped paragraphs later, and Delingpole elaborates on what he means by the capture of language for political ends, citing a series of alleged redefinitions:
"So it was, for example, that a traditionally free market cap¬italist word such as 'investment' was suddenly being hijacked to mean 'government spending'. 'Diversity' no longer meant 'plentiful variety' but 'an excuse to nurture grievance at tax¬payers' expense'. 'Discrimin¬ation', formerly used to mean 'discernment', now meant 'yet another excuse to nurture grievance at taxpayers' expense'." (NB: The weird dashes are actually in the article, not sure if it's a glitch, or actually meant to be there)
So, one word had a slight shift in usage so it could also be used to refer to public sector spending and two words happen to apply to people now as well, something not actually precluded in their definitions. Got it.

Also, elitism has got its more pejorative definition because, all to often, it is only society's "elite" (read: rich) who can afford the best schools, the best opportunities.People call the Free Schools scheme elitist because it is seen as being predominantly utilised by the middle class. In fact, "elitism" tends to refer to the social elites valuing themselves and being valued as better than others, or being granted better opportunities due to class-based discrimination. 

In fact, dictionary.reference.com defines elitism as: "1. Practice or belief in rule by an elite 2. Consciousness of or pride in belonging to a select or favoured group" Two of the definitions of elite (probably the ones used, going off word choice ("an elite" rather than "the elite") are: "...2.  persons of the highest class <example> 3. a group of persons excersising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group" With a 5th adjectival definition: "representing the most choice or select"  The term "elitist" itself is defined in the adjectival form as either "1. (of a person or a class of persons) considered superior by others or by themselves, as in intellect, talent, power, wealth or position in society" or "2. Catering to or associated with an elite class, its ideologies, or its institutions" and in the noun form as either "3. a person having, thought to have, or professing superior intellect or talent, power, wealth or membership in the upper echelons in society" or "4. a person who believes in the superiority of an elite class"

So, going off the second definition of "elitist" anything the Tories do is elitist. It's not really a redefinition of the word. Also, only by a stretch of a couple of all the definitions here can Delingpole's definition (the best) not be a redefinition and claiming of a word for his own political ends.What's wrong with using the words "the best" to connote the best of something anyway?

Mr. Delingpole does some weird rhetorical "does it matter" thing, in which the words "isn't it only fair that we should be a bit more considerate to the sensitivities of other races, religions and creeds?" actually and astonishingly appear. Followed by him calling such an undertaking "cultural suicide" and thus abusing the English language to his own political ends. Tut tut.

And this is where it suddenly shoots past Illuminati conspiracy theories on the WTFometer:  

"Most of us may not realise this but the ideological Left certainly does, for it has long been part of its grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within. The plan's prime instigator was the influential German Marxist thinker ('the father of the New Left') Herbert Marcuse. A Jewish academic who fled Germany for the US in the Thirties, he became the darling of the Sixties and Seventies 'radical chic' set.
He deliberately set out to dismantle every last pillar of society – tradition, hierarchy, order – and key to victory, he argued, would be a Leftist takeover of the language, including 'the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care etc'. 
In other words, those of us who believe in smaller government or other 'Right-wing' heresies should be for ever silenced." 

It kind of speaks for itself, but there are a couple of things that I want to pick out: First off, "leftist grand plan to destroy Western civilisation from within" (emphasis mine)? So, all civilisation is Western civilisation? And "plan to destroy Western Civilisation from within"? What is this, the Cold War?! (admittedly, said war was in recent history and in Marcuse's time, so it could be, but it seems a bit of a stretch for 2011, plus I'll probably end up re-reading this after studying it for GCSE History and end up feeling like a knobhead, ah well). Anyway, what has Herbert Marcuse's race got to do with it? I digress, but was it really necessary information?

Anyhoo, Delingpole claims that he wanted to dismantle society and take over the language by... "the withdrawal of toleration of speech and assembly from groups and movements which promote aggressive policies, armament, chauvinism, discrimination on the grounds of race and religion, or which oppose the extension of public services, social security, medical care etc'". Delingpole correctly points out that the last part applies to right-wing thought (although the stuff the first bit is opposed to is better translated to "not being a dickhead"), and I'm not saying I think Marcuse was right (unless 'removal of tolerance' refers to counter assemblies and speeches the whole thing is very authoritarian and ungood and moral high ground giving), but, at the same time, I'm not sure how this tallies in with the "OMG, this will lead to Newspeak!" rhetoric of the rest of the piece. Nor am I sure how this will dismantle society and/or lead to total chaos. Really, if we're heading straight for the world of 1984 it's clear that there is some vestige of order there. This not even taking into account the fact that he's bemoaning disapproval of people who are opposed to free healthcare. We only need to point to the USA for why Marcuse might have been half-right there.

Of course, that Macuse's teachings formed the basis for "every revolutionary group, from the Black Panthers to the Baader-Meinhof gang". Which is probably true if we only count groups which follow Marcuse's teachings, and even then the groups mentioned had a wider influence than just one man, and I have yet to see evidence of some connection with the BBC, which is what Delingpole is supposedly writing about. Really, revolutionary state television? How does that work?!

The whole thing is wrapped up by the old "baa baa rainbow sheep" thing being brought up (and the lack of response to such things today being complained about, since it's not like that was one particularly egregious example or something) and this:
"This complacency is fatal. Great civilisations do not die from the sudden arrival of the barbarians at the gates. They succumb much more slowly than that, from the death-by-a-thousand-cuts permitted from within by those who have forgotten why their traditions and cultural values are worth defending." 
Which is a deep warning, but slightly over the top. And possibly inaccurate; in my opinion, the problem isn't people who decide that their traditions and cultural values aren't worth defending who are the downfalls of civilisations (if so, explain all the changes in society in the past century); it's the people who start to think of the thousands of cuts as worth keeping open since doing so is the done thing, even when it makes no sense. The people who've been charging for a cliff for years, but won't stop because they won't see the evidence arrayed of their impending doom. Which is also a bit over the top for this context, but there you go.

To conclude, if there really is a left-wing dictatorship in the vein of 1984 (or the many actual ones there's been (e.g. China, the USSR)) on the way (which there isn't), or even the principles Marcuse espoused being enshrined in law, I would be dead set against it. But there isn't, and to suggest that there is based off the BBC switching to CE* is somewhat ludicrous.Well, I say "somewhat", I mean "so very incredibly"...

 *On some Q and A I can't find. I might have been accidentally putting "Amino Domini" into the search box when I was trying to find it though. This being one reason why I don't mind the alleged switch to the easier to spell "common era", despite the actual reason they gave being a really crap one. It's also worth considering that Christ being born circa 5BC according to most estimates is a far better reason ("Before Christ" fundamentally makes no sense). All this said, commenters on FailOnline appear to also be unable to track down the Q and A, making this a bit fishy.

See also: The Angry Mob: Mail on Sunday becomes the Daily Star
Tabloid Watch: AD and BC not 'jettisoned' by BBC

EDITS: Fixed the formatting, added an extra sentence which just occurred to me and added this as an explanation of the edits.

Recession? What's one of them?

Today when I was round my (maternal) grandparents, I found myself perusing a copy of The Daily Mail, like I usually end up doing since always reading stuff you agree with is probably a bit polarising and ungood. Anyway, whilst skimming it and being immensely thankful that Littlejohn wasn't in today's edition, I stumbled upon this little brainfart (not direct link, credit to @uponnothing) from Liz Jones, in which she implies that the recession can't exist because she personally hasn't been affected positively by it.

If I was forced to pick the most blindingly ridiculous paragraphs, it would have to be these two anti-gems in something considerably worse than "the rough":
"I brought a brand new land Rover Defender the other day for use on my farm. I went to pick it up. 'Are you throwing in a tank of diesel?' I asked, not unreasonably. 'Oh no,' said the salesman. 'We can't do that as we'd have to do it for everybody'
I thought the motor industry had been the worst affected by the recession?"

Weird grammar aside (speech is meant to have a separate line to indicate a new speaker, and why the hell is that question mark there?), I really don't think Liz Jones knows what a recession is. Or why the motor industry is struggling. Really, she likes to moan, she surely must have noticed the price of a little something going up.

Oil prices? Ring a bell? If so, you're doing better than she is. Honestly, does anyone really think that a struggling industry is going to shell out any more than it absolutely needs to? Oh, right, Liz Jones, apparently (if you can afford a brand new Land Rover Defender, you can probably afford a tank of diesel, whilst the dealership might be comparatively less lucky).

Other "gems" from her amazing brainfart include her bemoaning her treatment at some fancy bar (pro tip: vote with your wallet you ninnyhammer, if you don't like it, leave, don't stay just because it charges a lot) and her overreacting over someone apparently not knowing where something is kept (and maybe being a bit bemused at her trying patronising sign language of the sort we Brits stereotypically use when abroad), and the three anecdotal examples meaning that nobody cares about customer service and/or gives 'journalists' special treatment, so the recession can't be happening. All wrapped up by her pondering whether it's just her who gets treated so horribly by everyone as typified by 3 examples which are clearly so comprehensive /sarcasm.

The fact that unemployment is rising, the economy is shrinking (or growing so little that it might as well be, and even said growth is mucked up by stuff like a fricking wedding) and we're presently being cut to death by the Tories mean precisely nought (okay, the last one is expecting a bit much from the Mail, but come on).

I'd ask why the Mail pays her so much but, uh, yeah. People talk about her. Like I've just wasted quite a bit of my time doing. Oops.

Patriarchal Double Standards Waste Water!

According to a survey by Thames Water, one in three women leave the shower running whilst shaving their legs, thus wasting 50 BILLION litres of water. To the shock of perhaps quite a  few people, but to the surprise of no one, the Daily Mail and Telegraph jumped on this for a chance of light women hating.

Of course, neither of those stories questioned why the hell women have to have their legs in the first place.This is also not a surprise nor a shock, but it is worth remembering that women only feel the need to shave their legs because society tells us to. If we didn't "need" to shave, all that water wouldn't be wasted. Seeing as men don't "need" to shave their legs, why the hell should we have to? After all, the water saved could apparently keep London going for 25 days.

 Of course, as is, if any famous woman goes out without shaving their legs, guess who jumps down their throats? The Daily Mail. Hypocrites (I couldn't actually find any examples from the Telegraph though, all fairness to them).


Conclusion: If you want to save water, let's get ready to smash the patriarchy. And stop leaving the tap running whilst you're at it. That stuff wastes 120bn litres of water a year.

I don't think Gove 'gets' GCSEs

The Coalition's Education secretary, Michael Gove, has recently given an interview to the Times in which he bashes GCSEs for being too easy and a bit crap (my words, not his). Due to the pay-wall I haven't read the interview in the Times, but the Guardian has got some of the stuff he said on their site.

He's said some, erm, interesting things, unfortunately they're almost all wrong and boil down to “things were better in my day” conservatism, but I'm going to focus more on the 'wrong' bit since I don't know what things were like back in Gove's day. I happen to be studying GCSEs (I'm in Year 10 in the state education system) at this moment, so I think I'm qualified to say if they're actually hard or not. Let's see what he said (in italics, my commentary will be underneath every sentence or so in crimson)

(NB: I've omitted t start of the article since it isn't the part I'm focusing on. I'm also relying on a probably biased source since, y'know, pay-wall.)

“"It has become easier to get an A at A-level or GCSE than it used to be, and that's a problem”

A. More people achieving something is not indicative that it's getting any easier to do it, chances are there are other factors behind the rise in As. As far as I know, the percentage of possible marks gained is how grade boundaries are determined (although I will concede that some questions may have their values reduced according to the percentage of people which could answer the question (I'm not certain how this would work but I am hoping it will happen with the astonishingly badly worded AQA GCSE Humanities exams I took earlier this year ("Describe 2 agents of Primary socialisation" Primary really? (the family counts as a single agency of socialisation as far as I know))), so I'm going to guess that your argument is that exams are getting easier.

Which is weird because I don't think they are, for my year group, at least, think they've actually gotten harder (but this may be due to the “things were worse in my day” effect). Incidentally, if anyone reading this can tell me what AQA meant by any of the 12 mark questions in the exams mentioned earlier I'd be very grateful.
[EDIT: Never mind, I did really well in it. God only knows how, turns out I'm really good at coming up with clever-sounding stuff (and they probably ignored the second bit of the answer of the primary source question since it made no sense). Way to undermine my own point...]

“… If you are doing art or geography, you've got to have a work of art or a field trip. But if you're doing mathematics or English or French then the logical thing is to have a proper rigorous exam at the end of year 11”

The ellipses at the start of this bit does indicate that the Graun missed out a bit, which could have helped people reading it know what he meant by this, but I'm not certain Gove knows what we actually study in GCSE (WJEC) Geography (I'm not certain we can go on a field trip to, say, an urban area in an LEDC, or even an MEDC since we live near one making it pretty pointless,likewise with rural areas, and here's the small matter of getting funding for these field trips, since they're trying to make 'savings' (cuts)). Also, going off what context the Guardian has given for this quote, we should be marked... based off a field trip? Seriously? WJEC Geography is examined in the very way the Tories advocate (actually, I think there's an 8 hour controlled assessment, but that's probably one of the ones which is a weird hybrid between exams and coursework (1^st part probably coursework, 2nd part exams) in a classroom since 8 hours is too long for a standard exam).

Also, I don't think that a single rigorous exam at the end of year 11 is the fully logical conclusion for assessing maths, English or French, especially not for French. I suppose there is a logic behind the maths one, but it should probably be split in two as to allow assessments of mental mathematic capability (calculators aren't that ubiquitous, and I imagine it'd be a pain to have to get your calculator out for everything (plus, I kind of find mental maths fun) and more comprehensive assessment of techniques... I sounded like a Tory there, didn't I? Moving on, there is the small matter of English and French being languages which are both spoken and written in practical applications. A single exam simply wouldn't be a suitable medium for assessing both these things. This not even getting into comprehension and (in English more so than French since it's the lingua franca of this country) analysis.

Also, exams are stressful enough as is, and it's human nature to goof off and procrastinate until something important is staring you in the face (I think, this is armchair psychology at best though), guess what modular exams do! Seriously, those things are bloody stressful...Also, I could've sworn Tories were against 'teaching to the test' (I read the Daily Mail for 2 years, I know this stuff), how does this tie in with that at all?

The Guardian then reports that “Gove said there had been previous attempts to make science relevant, by linking it to contemporary concerns such as climate change or food scares. But he said: "What [students] need is a rooting in the basic scientific principles, Newton's laws of thermodynamics and Boyle's law."”

First things first, Newton most certainly did not come up with the laws of thermodynamics. Secondly, linking stuff to contemporary issues? I'm not an expert, but it provides a practical case study which shows the application of... basic scientific principles (kind of).

Actually, I don't think I'm qualified to comment on this, since I've only got up to year 10 science to go off, and I don't know what the Year 11 syllabus involves (beyond the stuff for Biology Unit 3, but I think that, for Gove, biology doesn't really count as a science (to be fair, it is a pretty boring one IMO, physics is more interesting since it's mathematically based)), but I know that f=ma (Newton's 2nd law of motion) and p=Vk is on there (there's a few other equations I don't recognise on the walls of one of my science classrooms, and I'd be willing to bet that us not learning them is what he is complaining about)

This said “Cold stuff does not make hot stuff hotter”(which is what the 2^nd law of thermodynamics boils down to) is pretty much common sense, and Newton's 3^rd law is also a common saying (“for each and every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action”).

“His daughter did not understand the way history was taught, Gove said, because it was not chronological: "My daughter does toys through the ages, then she does the Vikings, then the Greeks; and she gets confused."”

I don't think basing the education system (which I think this interview may well have generally been about, not just GCSEs and A-levels being too easy <glares at The Guardian>) off any one person is a good idea, and I'm not certain that history not being taught chronologically is the problem, but I suppose it's unfair to assume that Gove's wrong about his daughter's needs. I can't see how it's confusing as long as the time transitions are explained properly though (but this could just be me). I think in this case, it comes down to what time periods are suitable. E.G. The details of the Roman era aren't suitable for kids really (Gove, as a Tory, should probably be able to get behind this aspect of it).

He added: "We are now seeing with the new exams regulator how we can make GCSEs tougher. Exam boards need to sharpen up their act. We are also saying in GCSEs that you need to award marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We need to have stretching exams which compare with the world's most rigorous."

A. We're already marked on spelling, punctuation and grammar! (“Quality of written communication”) Heck, that's what the marks for French consist of! This being despite it making GCSEs biased against people with dyslexia. 

B. Why do we? The improvement in GCSE results could be due to any number of factors other than the stuff about “dumbing down”, like better teaching. Also, we're talking about general exams for 14-16 year olds for the most part. Having exam's which “compare with the world's most rigorous” (at God knows what level) probably isn't suitable for this purpose (especially since they are mostly compulsory). It's a general exam. Due to the nature of it almost everyone should be passing.

Having a 69.1% pass rate (A*-C, which is all employers care about anyway, and what passes for a pass in the BBC reportage, I actually couldn't get any information for A*-G) isn't too high. Especially considering that this is just for GCSEs (I think, trying to find information on this stuff makes my head hurt) and probably skewed towards the people who get high numbers of passes (and probably take more exams). I'm not even going to try to tell you what the rate for the 5 A*-C GCSE or equivalent baseline is - really, information on this is impossible to get, the best I've got is 35% from The Daily Mail of all places, and they're reporting that Gove's complaining because it's too... low, um yeah, not sure how that works, but going off this 5 A*-C rate is a bit crap. If anything, it kind of totally renders Gove's point irrelevant. It does raise the question of why it's so bad, but that's a whole other blog post.  EDIT: Tried to track down the article, turns out I misread it. Considering this has over 350 views, that's slightly worrying. As an aside, yeah, this shit's impossible to track down. I was right!.

Like the omitted start of the article, most of the remainder of what Gove has to say involves his stance on the academies thing and the like (which is probably a whole other other blog post), but The Guardian leaves us with this:

“The education secretary also thinks that, in A-levels, state schools are suffering at the expense of private schools, which are opting for a more traditional-style exam, the Pre-U.

He said: "If private schools are having an elite qualification and state schools are being left with a qualification that can't match it, that is of profound concern to me, so we do need to do something to strengthen confidence in A-levels."

And I have to say I have a little suggestion for him (and the rest of the Government, going off his use of the plural 1^st person): STOP UNDERMINING THEM!!!! Really, you can't say you're surprised that employers and universities have no confidence in them when you spend the rest of the time going on about how they're useless. It. Doesn't. Work. That. Way.

The article quoted throughout this can be found here on The Guardian's site and was written by Jonathan Paige. 

EDIT: Have fixed the font, credit goes to @IdioticInuit for pointing this out. Also added tags. 

EDIT: Updated to boast about my marks in the Humanities exam I mentioned and to try to rework a paragraph since I apparently borked the grammar on it, or I accidentally used the selecty-draggy-texty thing when making said edit and borked it up that way. I'm not sure. 
EDIT: Finally capitalised "Times" in its second instance, and realised an epic mistake I made. Which no one picked up on, but still...

I'm so confiscating my grandparents' Daily Mail...

 EDIT (02/11/2012): In hindsight, I don't feel like I should have posted this. Gonna leave this up though since I only Orwell stuff if I have really good reasons to - ultimately pretending it never happened seems at the very least odd to my moral compass. Also, none of the links in this work anymore since itsyotsy got shut down and I really cannot be bothered to track them down again.

You know the stereotype of old people being conservatives of both the big 'C' and small 'c' types? Well I think my paternal grandparents may well conform to that (I think my dad is also a Tory). Well, my grandmother certainly does, at least, going off a conversation I had with her yesterday. In a bullet point list, here are a few views she expressed. Whilst reading this I ask you to bear in mind that she's actually British Chinese (I think her father was a second-generation Chinese immigrant) :

• 'Enoch Powell was right when he said he didn't want all of those coming in here' I'm paraphrasing slightly, but the first part is what my grandmother said word for word.
• Schools should bring back Christian assemblies as they teach people morals (I didn't even realise she was a practising Christian).
• We'll soon be majority non-white-British.
• The Muslims will be taking over with their Diwali and what have-you (yes, Muslims, I actually face-palmed at this, I feel quite bad as this was my Grandma I was talking to, I did point out the mistake).
• Christians are oppressed and can't express their beliefs (like that electrician who was transferred to another depot for having a cross in his van), whereas Muslims can (related to the one above, I can't actually remember what she cited, or even if she did).
• Children of immigrants don't count as British
• Immigrants have taken all of our jobs
• They've also taken all of our university places
• Basically immigrants are bad and are ruining this country
• We shouldn't bail-out <insert other country here> as there's no money left (note: I agree with her, kind of, but more due to me thinking that the imposing of economic shock therapy measures on 'bailed-out' countries is wrong,)

There was also the general implicit feeling that this was Labour's fault (my grandfather at least has never voted Labour, excluding in 2005 (I'm inferring this based off a reference to Gordon Brown)).

By way of reference, here's a sampling of what comes up on a search for 'immigration 2011' on the site- all links go direct to the website to istyosty, for best effects read the comments*:

• Boom in immigration helped cause the economic crisis, says Cameron (Jan-2011)
• White children in Birmingham 'a minority' this year due to immigration (Jan-2011)
• Tony Blair changes tune over immigration saying it produced a 'challenge' (March-2011)
•  UK will NOT hit its target to cut immigration in 2011 due to Irish influx, coalition warned (Dec-2010)
• Immigration is too high, say four in five Britons (Jan-2011)
• Migrant cover-up: Reports kept secret by Labour show mass-immigration cut wages, raised tensions, and that too many stayed too long. (March-2011)
• Immigration DID hurt wages and Labour 'under-estimated significantly' the influx, admits Milliband (Feb-2011)
• Schoolgirl, 15, dies from TB after Government warns immigration has caused disease to soar (Jan-2011) 

Not found on the site is their egregious coverage of David Cameron's speech on the subject.

 And the results for 'Muslims 2011':

• Number of British Muslims will double to 5.5m in 20 years (Jan-2011)
• 'Muslim Eton' at centre of Channel 4 hate-preaching allegations is forced to shut over far-right safety fears (Jan-2011)
• 4 men slashed teacher's face and left him with fractured skull for 'teaching other religions to Muslim girls' ( Feb-2011)
• How 100,000 Britons have chosen to become Muslim... and average convert is a 27-year-old white woman (Jan-2011)
• Extremist cleric to lead White House protest calling for Muslims to 'rise up and establish Islamic state in America' (Feb-2011)
• 'We need to be a lot less tolerant towards Islamic Extremists': Cameron calls for immigrants to respect British core values (Feb-2011)
• Mlitant Muslim warns Royal Wedding terror attack is 'highly likely' (April-2011)
• While Muslim sexual predators have been jailed, it is white Britain's hypocritical values that are to blame (Jan-2011, by Melanie Phillips)
• Shame of Britain's Muslim schools: secret filming shows pupils being beaten and told Hindus 'drink cow's p***' (Feb-2011)

Gee, I wonder where my grandma got her views from. And you know what the terrifying thing is? MailOnline is the second largest English language news website in the world. It had 39.6 million readers in March, and chances are not all of them were there to mock it. It is the largest news site in Britain. Regarding the dead-tree copies, according to the Wikipedia, the Daily Mail has a circulation of 2.1million. And this is the sort of stuff they're reading (okay, this and a ton of shallow show business stuff), yeah, likewise, some people take Melanie Phillips seriously. Hell, I think that I used to take Melanie Phillips seriously in my Daily-Mail reading days (I dismissed Littlejohn as being less funny than Clarkson though, and my maternal grandma put me off Jan Moir). Although, in the Mail's defence, they did dedicate 1/3rd of a page to this story concerning 'Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs' standing up for the electrician I mentioned earlier (I did read out the headline to my Grandma...), it's no wonder the far-right are so popular (even if the Mail does pretend to not support them), when we have a media (I've picked on the Mail as I have the most experience with it) which makes it sound like we're under attack from 'Muslamic rape gangs'.

*In order to make sure the results were recent, I put '2011' in. I can't remember the name of the Daily Mail proxy, and I'm only quoting the headlines here - the actual story may show them to be misleading (which probably helps my point here). All headlines come from the articles themselves (there are two headlines visible sometimes) as I'm assuming these were the ones they were printed under. The 'other headline' as it were is visible in the URL the header of the page. I used Google to find them by doing a 'this site only' search, since I couldn't find MailOnline's search function. The results received using this may be different and more positive (or negative, the Mail could just about conceivably be worse than this).,

EDIT: Have istyosty-ified the links.