Hit the Mail where it hurts

  • Post

  • 16 October 2009

  • Posted by Alastair Campbell

  • 9

According to a Facebook friend, the Daily Mail has rewritten the article about Stephen Gately that has caused an outpouring of offence across social networking sites. This will have been a direct response to the fact that the Mail, and the journalist Jan Moir, were suddenly trending on Twitter, with the vast bulk of comments negative about them. Of course the paper causes offence every day. It is vile. But some days, they misjudge their own vileness and get themselves in hotter water than they anticipated. Of course people are angry with Moir, but let everyone understand that every word in the paper is the work of Obergruppenfuhrer Paul Dacre. It is his paper. His writers write what he wants. It is one of the scandals of our time that he manages to invade the privacy of everyone else in public life, while keeping himself under a stone. But what the rewrite shows is that they only really care about money, and they only really respond to commercial pressure. So I am grateful to another FB friend for pointing out that the ads around the article are from L'Oreal, M and S, and BT. Cheryl Cole is the face of L'Oreal, is she not? Her fellow X-Factor judge Louis Walsh was a close associate of Gately was he not? Surely Cheryl can insist L'Oreal withdraw the ad, and refuse to pay up? Likewise do M and S and BT want to be associated with the Mail and this particular Mail muck? Just a thought. Hope they think the same.

9 responses to “Hit the Mail where it hurts”

  1. No remind me, is not the selfsame Paul Dacre the godparent to one of Gordon Brown’s children (he being a very very close friend of GB)? Given your views of Mr Dacre and the Mail (“Vile”),presumably you find Mr Brown to be beyond the pale (or is being bamned by friendship just for Conservatives who leave the EPP…

  2. Take every last penny of today’s advertising revenue from The Mail and give it to Children In Need. I posted my comment on The Mail’s website. If The Mail really wants to take debasement of journalism to an even newer level so beit.

    Rest in Peace Stephen.

  3. The headline appears to have been changed to “A sad, lonely, troubling death…” from the more inflammatory “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gateley’s death” but the text of the article appears to remain the same.

    Interestingly, the copy of the Mail in my office (we have to get all the newspapers, I hasten to add… we don’t get the Mail from choice) has the ‘sad, lonely, troubling’ headline, but the ‘nothing ‘natural” headline stayed on the web until about 2.30pm today.

  4. This is in the same week that a Ugandan politician called for the death sentence for gay sex. Dacre and Moir carry a dreadful burden of responsibility for demonising an entire section of society. I don’t think action belongs to the Ad companies; well I do but there’s more.. action belongs to all of us. We should tell our newsagents that, much as we like them, we will unfortunately be no longer able to shop with them if they stock the Daily Mail. Look what happened to the Scum in Liverpool after Hillsborough – use your personal power to take the Daily Mail off the shelves.

  5. @I hate that newspaper. And I can’t think of anyone or anything else in the world that I would say that about.

  6. Oh get off your high horse, Campbell. You’re such a hypocrite. You have cause far more damage to British society than the Daily Mail has.

    I preferred it when you were just the plain old nasty piece of work, not this ridiculous re-invention.

    People on the Left spend their whole existence being offended. The Mail is their new bogeyman.

    Grow up.

  7. Ooooh they are my pet hates, the Hateful Mail. Have you seen the Anti Daily Mail Coalition group on Facebook? They have mock-ups of their front pages that I am not sure are real or not most of the time. They employ THE most vile people, Littlejohn being a good example. If I started now and went on for 1000 years without eating or sleeping I STILL wouldn’t be able to say enough bad things about them.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

557. Can Burnham Really Deliver Britain’s Biggest Change in Forty Years?

Can Andy Burnham, in a single term or less, fix problems like social care that are generations in the making? Is his new push for vocational education a long-overdue fix for Britain's broken skills sy... Continue

29 July 2026

Alastair Campbell’s diary: The right wing case for climate crisis denial is going up in flames

Europe is burning, food insecurity is growing and Trump and Farage are still shouting about “Net Stupid Zero”... Continue

28 July 2026

199. Is Trump’s Chaos Pushing Iceland Towards the EU? (Prime Minister of Iceland, Kristrún Frostadóttir)

What are the real reasons Iceland has brought forward its vote on restarting accession talks with the EU? What lessons did the Prime Minister learn from watching Brexit unfold while living in the UK, ... Continue

27 July 2026

Britain’s Ticking Time Bomb: The Food Security Crisis

Could the UK be facing empty supermarket shelves by 2030? Are food distribution centres sitting ducks for drone warfare? And how has Britain got to a place where is has just 3 days to 3 weeks worth of... Continue

23 July 2026

556. The US-China AI Arms Race and Badenoch vs. Rory’s Centrism

Is China quietly outsmarting the US in the AI arms race, and is Trump laying the pitch to challenge the results of the US midterms with his repeated, unfounded claims of Chinese election meddling? Why... Continue

23 July 2026

Alastair Campbell’s diary: My night with the homeless showed me that Burnham must end rough sleeping

The new PM must be radical – including on Britain’s place in Europe... Continue

22 July 2026

555. Burnham’s Cabinet Purge and Rough Sleeping Pledge: Will He Succeed?

What does Andy Burnham’s purge of Starmer loyalists from the top of government tell us about how the new British prime minister will govern the UK? Why did Ed Miliband drop his ten-year Energy Secur... Continue

21 July 2026

198. How Trump’s Imperial Presidency Really Works

How does the most chaotic White House in history actually make decisions? How did Netanyahu sell Trump on a regime change war in Iran? Who is the only world leader Trump is truly afraid of?  Alastair... Continue

20 July 2026