One of the things that irritates me about the “conservative” newspapers (The Daily Mail, the Express, etc) is their constant trivialisation of the political agenda in favour of mock-outrage. Take, for example, the front cover of the Daily Express today, which features the headline “Now marriage is a dirty word: It is banned at register offices”.
Political correctness gone mad, you might think. Except of course that it’s nothing of the sort. In fact, it’s simply a bit of cost saving. Since the Civil Partnerships Act, register offices now deal with both civil partnerships and marriages, and rather than have two sets of leaflets printed out (at great cost to the taxpayer) they’re tending to consolidate by using the word “ceremony” to describe both.
I always thought that conservative newspapers were in favour of saving taxpayers money, but it seems that getting a “shocking” (and untruthful) headline is more important.
This seems like a small point, but in fact it demonstrates just how shoddy the opposition to Labour in the newspapers actually is. While the government is eroding traditional civil liberties – latest scheme, compulsory eviction of “troublemakers” even if they own their homes – it seems crazy that newspapers simply make up nonsense like this to create outrage.
This government is the most authoritarian in modern British history, and is putting us well on the path to a geniune police state – and yet all the loudest oppositional voices can come up with is to complain that “marriage is a banned word”.
