(not satire – it’s the Daily Mail!)
The Mail and the Express yesterday had articles about an official list of the top ten benefits fraudsters in the country which they say was published by the government.
Just one little problem with it.
The list doesn’t seem to exist.
There doesn’t seem to be any official list of top ten benefits fraudsters published by the government.
There are no links in either the Mail or the Express articles to any government website where the official list is published. No list on the DWP website and no mention of it on the official DWP press office Twitter feed either.
The Mail specifically wrote that Iain Duncan Smith had decided to publish the list – but there is no mention of it on his website or anywhere else.
In fact the only sources for any official list are – the Mail and the Express articles themselves.
OK – so the Mail and the Express lied about the government publishing a list and have made up their own list of top ten benefit fraudsters and tried to pass it off as official civil service information.
But there’s another problem. According to the articles, the top benefit fraudster in the UK was someone called Sly Malik – who the Mail and the Express say fraudulently got over a million pounds in benefits.
However, a quick check of the court case against Mr Malik reveals the Mail’s top fraudster had in fact defrauded the system of £38,952 – a hefty sum it’s true – but much much less than the million the Mail and the Express claim he had defrauded.
I suppose a front page exclusive showing the top ten benefits fraudsters in the country stole little more than 100,000 quid between them wouldn’t be so headline catching, would it?
Of course, now that the government seems to have outsourced civil service policy announcements to tabloid newspapers, the truth will be the first casualty.
So nothing new there then.
.
Related articles by Tom Pride:
Mail hack threatens to sue me for asking how she traced Twitter users’ personal information
Fears Rise of Zombie Apocalypse after Deal on Press Regulation
Innocent victims caught in the conflict between the mainstream press and social media
The Sun, The Telegraph and The Mail – we’re above UK laws so we’ll ignore them
Just 4 billionaire tax exiles – friends of Cameron – will benefit from weak press regulation
Remember this? Murdoch hack drove Denholm Elliot’s daughter to suicide
How Murdoch hack Isabel Oakeshott cold-bloodedly sold out her friend for money
Met Office takes apart Daily Mail climate-change denier and Cameron friend James Delingpole
Daily Mail uses an actress for another story to demonise the working class
Oops! The Daily Mail accidentally supports a fascist party. Again.
Daily Mail ‘fixer’ David Rose defends paedophilia accused and attacks child abuse victims. Again.
The Sun, The Mail et al – sorry, did we say 120,000 problem families? We meant 16.
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If the list appears somewhere on an official government website – please be sure to let me know.
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Reblogged this on paul8ar.
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The Mail & Express obviously believe this and taking their cue from their idol IDS belief is enough!!
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Ian Duncan I made up my own university qualifications smith is a verminous nasty piece of work.
Words fail me as to how downright divisive evil and just plain nasty these bunch of unelected thieves are.
The attack on the poor vulnerable unemployed disabled and mentally ill seems relentless, of course it has to be while this omnishambles of a Conalition divide up what is left of the NHS and various public services
and hand it over to their click in the private sector for directorships and greedy share holders.
Duncan Smith has been sucking on the teet of the public purse for years, the man, and I use that term lightly wouldn’t know a job if it came and bulldozed his free Tudor 2 million pound house down.
He claimed public money for a job his wife had that didn’t exist, a man who is lower than vermin and so is his party of interbed thieves.
A
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Reblogged this on kickingthecat and commented:
The fraud rate for the 200-2010 batch of MPs was over 50%. That is, 50% had to pay back expenses. This was simply argued as misclaimed, not fraudulently claimed…
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the top ten reasons why paul dacre needs his head kicked in.
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Reblogged this on Vox Political and commented:
Tom Pride catches the Mail and the Express with their pants down, telling lies on behalf of the government. The people concerned could justifiably sue those papers for slander, on the grounds that they AREN’T on a government ‘top ten benefit fraudster’ list, and that they DIDN’T defraud the taxpayer out of anything like as much money as those tabloids (let’s not call them newspapers) are suggesting.
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This government are a troupe of cunts.
They say they have lists of the top ten benefit cheats, lists of people dodging tax on penny ante plumbing homers, lists of people who are ‘terrorists’ for demonstrating against ATOS ..
.. but they don’t keep lists of deaths and suicides due to ATOS mismanagement. They don’t list the pertinent points when it comes to comprehensive risk assessments on welfare or NHS reform and they don’t keep lists of how many fucking lies it takes Ian Dunked In Shite to tell before he gets the fucking sack.
Funny that, eh?
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yet claiming £39 for breakfast whilst killing disabled people is perfectly fine but i bet the dacre mail would not print that, why should cosseted millionaire’s get any fucking benefits at all, second home allowances and subsidised bars, the list should be who is the biggest government scroungers, whats the top ten expense accounts of those scoungers??
Andy
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We ain’t seen anything yet, I use to be married to a psychopath/narcissist and his evilness knows no bounds, the same as IDS. Even if IDS is sacked he will then have to seek revenge on all the disabled and disadvantaged people and he will find a way.
In his mind he has done nothing wrong, in his sick mind it won’t be his own fault he got the sack it will be the fault of the disabled and disadvantaged who got him sacked! And he will need to feed his narcissism by getting revenge, in an evil way! It’s all they know, they are bred (Eton educated) to have no empathy for anyone
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the way this country’s going we will be on par with Egypt
at least they managed to get rid of there Mohamed Morsi who they elected in good faith as president. one very big problem thou was that prior to his win he stood before the people much like David Cameron and spoke a load of old bull
Had it not been for the downfall of the old president Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak in which the Egyptian had suffered years of abuse morsi might of got away with it but thank god the people of Egypt relised they had made a bad error and were now going to get rid of morsi on the grounds he lied to them at the election and over his first year in office nothing had changed it was just like mubarek was president in other words the country was still in deep sxxx
Cameron has been lucky with only the one riot to his name over the past 3 years but my gut feeling is that it wont be the last and my deep concern is that should he remain in power this country will end up like Egypt and become a police state
i am not criticising the Egyptian police at all as i believe it was the right call to remove morsi from power owing to deception in that he got elected on false promises and with democracy being new to the country it was paramount that the world could see in action a new elected leader who got into power on being a man of integrity
this as we now know morsi was not a man of integrity and like his bad predecessor Mubarak the only options was for the police to take away his power or to wait the 5 years for the next election
Personally i think they were right to take away morsi’s presidency as it was deceptive’ others will think they should have waited the 5 years because that is the way democratic countries work after all Cameron has got way with being deceptive IE spoke a lot of bull and has gone on to hurt many people since the last election and still remains in power
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There’s always the possibility that the list does exist, but has only been given to the Express and the Mail, and not posted publicly anywhere.
Which is if anything an even worse situation than the papers just making up the list.
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Why do we never ever ever get any truth from MSM?
See the rubbish about the McCanns
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I believe these people were on the tv programme saints and scroungers,so the photos would have come from the BBC,and we all know the BBC are not liars and make things up.lol.
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Reblogged this on Oprichnik Rising and commented:
A new low even for the Daily MAil?
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Phuzz – yes that possibility crossed my mind too. Which as you say – is probably even worse.
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A bit of research might have helped… seeing as DWP did release such a list. Journalists check their facts before writing stories. All it would have taken was a phone call. Instead, people are now riled up.
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Journalist – erm – no they haven’t released a list. Not yet anyway. The official DWP twitter account just has a link – bizarrely – to the Mail article.
Here’s an up-to-date list of government official announcements and press releases – still nothing there either:
https://www.gov.uk/government/announcements
If they do eventually publish an official list, I suppose releasing it days after the story broke in the tabloids would be alright by you?
And how dare you call me a journalist. I would never lower myself to such a dishonourable profession. I’m a retired officer of Lord Cromwell’s New Model Army.
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Reblogged this on Sociology + Social Policy = Sociopolocy and commented:
Socialisation at work – courtesy of the Fail & the Express.
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journalist check there facts before writing do they bollocks what planet do you live on.
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The fuck they do you scummy Daily Mail journalist.
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so the dwp are now linking to the daily mail shows a rather corrupt relationship between them.
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Reblogged this on SyesWorldView.
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Why can’t our police put an end to our George, bungle and their rainbow coalition’s power in this country.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2369513/Its-reckless-impose-cuts-feckless.html#ixzz2ZWsf9Xmu. In this article “To take home £41,000, you’d have to earn £64,000 before tax.” That figure is wrong, it should be £56,000, so much for fact checking.
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i think the dwps relationship with the dailey mail needs serious investigation.
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we just had the disgraceful summer riots in 2011with no one neither in Egypt or the EU saying we are deeply disturbed by what’s happening in the uk and yet our government are always the first to say to other countries how deeply disturbed we are with what’s going on. We need to look at our own disturbing circumstances we find ourselves in the uk with things like the welfare reform and housing bedroom tax in which people die and so many other areas of our life which is wrong before other countries will take us seriously
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What we really need it a list of “Top Government Snouts in the Trough” list on the front page of every national newspaper and headlining every news programe, but that’s not going to happen is it?
Couldn’t we create one and issue a press release?
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oh im sure that would be an easy list to make
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“However, a quick check of the court case against Mr Malik reveals the Mail’s top fraudster had in fact defrauded the system of £38,952 – a hefty sum it’s true – but much much less than the million the Mail and the Express claim he had defrauded.”
Be kind to the Mail and Express Tom, after all they were only £961.048 out!
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Reblogged this on and commented:
The Mail and the Express caught out by Tom Pride for lying on behalf of government by producing a not-so official ‘top ten benefit fraudsters’ list, complete with highly inflated figures. Read on…
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Reblogged this on The Alternative Ulsterman and commented:
OH, I REALLY LOVE MYTHBUSTING!…
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Although I find selective breeding, racism etc abhorrent IDS does provide a very strong case basis for eugenics (in my opinion). I’ve trodden in wet shit that has more substance than this man appears (to me) to have.
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