Our Hero, the hard man, being ‘well’ hard.

Admittedly the media in general are having a hard time. The Grauniad’s traditional source of income, all those lovely public sector job adverts, is grinding to a halt. Regional newspapers are in hot competition with local council propaganda puffs as the liner of choice for the budgerigar cage. The Times et al have decided to shed an estimated 90% of their readership and retreat behind a pay wall to share special secrets – shush, don’t tell your Mummy – with their special friends, and the Hell with any notion of informing the general public.

Those media outside of the pay wall are becoming ever more of a niche market. Sky, which I don’t really count as being ‘behind a pay wall’ since even benefits assume a token amount towards the cost, is becoming Chav TV.

They know where their market is, and it is with those individuals who dwell on sink estates and watch day time TV. Hence the wall to wall coverage of anything involving paedophiles, shot guns, or armed robberies. They probably dream of the day when a genuine proven ‘paedo’ – ie, one who can be named publicly and not hide behind coy euphemisms, preferably of immigrant status, holds up the wages van for Buckingham Palace, and is now holed up in the Tower of London with Madeleine McCann held as hostage. Short of Shergar being proven to be Fergie’s secret lover, it is difficult to know where they can go after the coverage of the Raoul Moat affair over the last few days.

Sky have abandoned any notion of balanced reporting, not that they were ever obliged to do so, but they used to cast a nod in the direction of the tax payers who were footing the bill for their other customers. No more. Now we have an interview with Raoul Moat’s brother, during which Raoul’s suicide was described as a ‘public execution’ – one can only assume he meant by the police, since there did not seem to be anyone else present who could reasonably be accused of having ‘executed’ him – without hint of challenge from the interviewer.

The notion that Raoul was a spineless wimp who committed suicide because he couldn’t face another spell in prison with his fellow steroid munchers was never explored.

The same interviewer calmly accepted Angus Moat’s declaration that all Raoul’s troubles stemmed from his Mother who was ‘obviously’ mentally ill for having said he would be better off dead – if Raoul’s Mother was mentally ill and responsible for turning Raoul into a psychotic nutter, did the interviewer not think to ask how come she had simultaneously turned brother Angus into a Tax Inspector, for God’s sake?

The answer is that this would not fit the narrative preferred by Sky customers, who were lapping up the sly innuendos.

Chris Brown, an innocent man murdered in cold blood, was described as ‘blasted as he ran away’……that must have gone down well with the tattooed knuckle brigade – ‘yeah, spineless git, that’ll teach him to mess with our Raoul’s bint while he’s inside’.

Angus also described Raoul as a ‘gentle giant’ who loved animals and children’ – so much so that he kicked seven shades of shite out of one of his own kids – that is why he was in prison, but this was never mentioned, we were left to assume that prison was the only way the authoritarian state could temporarily bring the hard man hero to heel, naturally for nothing he was responsible for.

Raoul himself predicted his suicidal end when he said that he blasted Samantha with a specially chosen bullet that would only leave her scarred for life so that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board would be forced to provide for her ‘and Chantelle’ after he had gone. Another factor that Sky have glossed over.

As a commentator on my site has wisely pointed out, Samantha Stobbart is a party to those deaths and maimings with her tale to Raoul of ‘my new boyfriend’s a copper’ as surely as the ‘let him have it, Chris’ of Derek Bentley all those years ago. We have heard no criticism of her, of course, she is/was a hard man’s moll, and as such a protected species where ChavTV is concerned.

ChavPress, in the form of The Daily Mirror is no better, pandering to their clients prejudices with the obscene suggestion that Raoul didn’t actually commit suicide, it was a ‘reflex action’ caused by the reprehensible use of the Police Taser – even though said Taser didn’t actually pierce his clothing. The family are so convinced that the police ‘executed’ Raoul, that they are now demanding a second post mortem because the first showed no sign of the Taser having so much as marked his gentle giant exterior. A more realistic explanation is that having heard the sound of the Taser being fired – Raoul, the hard man of Newcastle, having offered emotive good-byes to his ‘nearest and dearest’ in the previous few minutes, and the police convinced that he was about to commit suicide – realised that he was within a hair’s breath of being returned to the safety and security of a three meals a day and plenty of time to contemplate, maximum security jail, and that would never do. Last chance to evade the consequence of his actions.

The Sun is obsessed with the stupidity of the police, having ‘discovered’ the entrance to a storm drain within yards of where Raoul was cornered, and not having been correctly informed by the police that such things existed. Judging by the fact that the police remained resolute in their belief that he was still in Rothbury, and having captured him within minutes of him appearing yards from said culvert, did it not occur to the Sun that the police knew their reader’s ‘hero’ was crawling along those drains all the time, and had merely waited by each exit for the moment when they knew Raoul ‘nobody loves me’ Moat would emerge like a common rat, to see what he could find to calm his rumbling stomach.

Now we are told that the entire affair has been referred to the IPCC, in terms that imply that the police may be found at fault, no one is mentioning that any death in custody – and surrounded by police officers, he was in custody – is referred to the IPCC, this referral is held out as a possible time when the ‘filth’ may get their arse whipped for daring to harm a hair on little Raoul head.

Meanwhile, we have heard no mention of PC Rathband, the unfortunate traffic cop on duty directing all those media satellite vans to an advantageous vantage point, when the hard man and his henchmen decided to show the ‘filth’ who is boss, and blast him in the face at point blank range.  He is reportedly blinded for life, for doing no more than ensuring chavTV arrived at the bun feast in time to entertain their viewers.

I await the Moat funeral with some trepidation, for if there is any question of a minute’s silence in parliament, as there was for Derek Bird’s victims – and as there very much hasn’t been for any of the 314 fine young men killed in Afghanistan; if there is any suggestion of any official presence at that funeral, Chief Inspector, Junior Minister, or even the cleaner at the Home Office, as there very much hasn’t been in Wotton Basset for any of those fine young men, I, for one, will burst a blood vessel.

Every last one of them is worth 314 Raoul Moats.

Doted on his kids with a clenched fist he did, so he did……..