Little Englanders

Excuse me why my blood boils for a minute.

The Daily Mail is (as I’ve discussed before) the newspaper that panders to the “little englander” mentality in the UK. It’s read by people who are intensely xenophobic. These people are extremely distressed by the possibility that the UK could at some point replace sterling with the Euro. The idea of having monetary notes without the Queen on them gives them nightmares.

So today the Daily Mail is running a “referendum“. Actually it’s just an opinion poll, but they’ve been talking it up. The question they are asking is “A new EU constitution is being negotiated and MPs will decide whether the UK accepts it. Do you think the final decision should be put to a referendum of the British people?” So it’s a referendum on whether or not we want a referendum!

Of course the answer that the Mail wants (and the answer that it will almost certainly get, given its readership) is “Yes”. But you only have to read what passes for “discussion” on the message board to see why this is a bad idea. The vast majority of the people posting there are incapable of having a logical discussion on the matter.

It’s also interesting to note that the URLs for this stuff are all on the Femail web site. The Daily Mail doesn’t actually put any of its content on the web as it assumes that its readers aren’t computer literate enough to find it. The only exception is the bits that are aimed specifically at women. Make of that what you will.