Express yourself

"Prisoners to get luxury Xmas" screamed the front page headline in The Express. The lead story (!) ran along the lines that rapists, murderers and paedophiles are to "tuck into 3 slap-up meals a day" over Christmas "at taxpayers' expense."

Take the "slap up" out of this story (and the definition of this was notable for its absence) and what you have is an account of people in prison getting 3 meals a day. At taxpayers' expense? Well, who thinks that anyone other than the Government pays for people's imprisonment? But the image cleverly created is of relaxed offenders lounging in their comfortable accommodation, choosing gourmet dishes from a lavish menu.

I've spent a lot of time on the wings of prisons, and The Express' version of events bears little relation to what I have observed. And I don't think any serving prisoners would recognise the description, either.

The lowbrow Express, and its slightly more upmarket viscious middle-England chum The Daily Mail, make a journalistic virtue out of this sort of recycled rubbish.

The pointed innenudo is that hard-working respectable folk are always missing out while jail birds / immigrants / benefit claimants (etc) live a life of Reilly.

The politics of misplaced envy and blame, with no attempt to get behind the simplistic and stereotypical rhetoric.