I say 'visited'; I'm not sure that's the most appropriate verb to describe my edging cautiously towards The Mail's frothing maw while squinting to avoid being blinded by some projectile bile. It's cliché to point it out, but The Mail is a whole different kind of awful. Rumours suggest that Dave Benson Phillips would actually harvest the gunge used in Get Your Own Back by wringing a copy of The Mail out into a bath before detoxifying the resultant slime via a complex and expensive purification process. Of course, Phillips resented the purification: he famously despised the pushy parents and embarrassing uncles who appeared on the programme and wanted them to burn with the full force of The Mail's ultra-potent mucus; but the BBC wouldn't have it.
Anyway, the reason I ventured into the web's most popular cesspit of semi-pornographic hate™ was to see how Jeremy Corbyn has been treated by the kind of journalists who like the most important word of any given headline to be written in capitals. It turns out, not that kindly. Apparently his first few days as party leader have been riddled with 'gaffes', 'blunders' and 'mis-steps' - all of which sound like segment titles in a David Seaman compilation DVD.
However, Jeremy Corbyn isn't like most politicians. He's less moulded, less polished, and is bursting with cheeky, idiosyncratic quirks like knitted jumpers and principles. So although he'll inevitably face these kinds of attacks from the right wing press, what their impact will be isn't so clear. Some have suggested being rough around the edges will allow jibes to be more easily deflected, and will essentially give him 'The Farage Factor' (also a talent-show format I'm developing, detailed below); others argue his lack of polish will make him more vulnerable to 'gaffes' such as losing his temper or picking the ball up outside the penalty area, upon which the press will capitalise.
[The Farage Factor: Every week Nigel Farage has to audition to a panel of judges who are judging him on whether or not he is Nigel Farage. The programme is edited such that it sometimes looks like Nigel Farage is going to be rubbish at being Nigel Farage (e.g. he is wearing a Natalie Bennett mask in the pre-audition interview), but then he is actually really good at it (he takes off the mask during the audition to reveal he is Nigel Farage), and sometimes so it looks like he could be really good at being Nigel Farage (e.g. he has brought his birth-certificate along to the audition) but then he turns out to be rubbish at it (he accidentally shows the judges Natalie Bennett's birth certificate). The series is 14 weeks long and concludes on Pancake day to give Farage a shot at the coveted 'Pancake Day Number 1'.]
I fall more into the first category. Personally I think it's much easier for someone whose personality is the product of a group brainstorm to slip up than it is for someone like Jeremy Corbyn. When David Cameron says 'of course I'd rather you supported West Ham' and looks about as comfortable as someone who's made a misjudged ISIS ad-lib during the emotional climax of their best-man's speech, it's easy to ridicule, because it exposes something contrived. Corbyn's personality isn't contrived, and what are framed as his 'mis-steps' tend to be consciously controversial decisions. The press will still use these against him, but we'll know he meant them, and controversy is already pretty compatible with how he presents himself.
That said, reading The Mail made me realise something: to the right wing press it doesn't really matter what Jeremy Corbyn's like, or what he does. Every aspect of him and his first few days as Labour Leader have been presented in a negative light, whether it's a neutral statement, a choice of clothes, or tipping the ball over the cross-bar. The Mail can frame literally anything using its own false-narrative, and that's exactly what it chooses to do. To illustrate this, I'd like to include an article The Mail actually wrote about me leaving home earlier this week. I thought the move went pretty smoothly, though it was a shame we couldn't fit my mum in the car. Anyway, this was The Mail's take:
Boy, 21, moves to NEW Wimbledon home but REFUSES to bring his mother
Adrian Gray, 21, ended a turbulent week by moving to a new home in Wimbledon on Sunday. But his mother was left red-faced after being shunned by her son, who refused to take her in the car, citing 'lack of space.'
The Mail can exclusively reveal that Gray's mother has known him since BIRTH and shares HALF of her precious 'genetic material' with him. However, the Oxbridge-educated Gray seemed ungrateful, choosing to place his bike in the back of the car rather than his loving mother, who was seen in TEARS just weeks earlier, at the cinema.
Gray, looking to become a tutor, had spent much of the week organising a 'DBS check', which proves whether or not he is a CRIMINAL. It is unclear why Gray felt the need to check this, though sources have suggested it may be because it is 'the law'. Others are not so sure.
[3 year old photo of my mum rubbing her face so it looks like she might be crying. Caption: Jeremy Corbyn is a cunt.]
Once at the house, Gray and his father, 54, proceeded to move possessions from the car and into the house, in what can only be described as a reverse-BURGLARY. One source claimed that 'Every four to five seconds Gray appeared to shut his eyes briefly, before instantly re-opening them, suggesting he cannot bear the sight of his own father for more than a few seconds'.
Gray refused to comment on the accusations after being approached for one in his sleep.
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