DM's response to the criticism is up in their top headline

[GrowSomeCress]

(apologies if it's already been posted)

not quite an apology is it!

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

[NiceTabard]

can you cnp i don#t want to click the bastards

[GrowSomeCress]

Sorry, should have done that!

"This week the Mail was slated for making the perfectly reasonable point that arson killer Mick Philpott was a product of the benefits system. Today it is George Osborne's turn. Now tell us what YOU think. But, beware, the Left WILL try to hijack the result"

[Eskino]

That's the opposite of an apology!

They are positively crowing about it.

[MandragoraWurzelstock]

that's not an apology.

[GrowSomeCress]

It was the last sentence that did it for me - could they get any more smug and paranoid at the same time?

[NiceTabard]

that's not an apology. Have they said it is an apology? Why do you think it is an apology? It isn't.

they actually said they were "slated"??? What are they, 12????

[GrowSomeCress]

... I know it's not an apology. It was a sarcastic joke.

[GrowSomeCress]

Just to clarify, when I said "not quite an apology is it!" I was making a joke... because it's obviously the complete opposite.

[MandragoraWurzelstock]

Yes sorry OP. I think I saw the word 'response' and thought, Oh they will be clarifying/apologising.

Why did you think they would be apologising? Or didn't you?

[NiceTabard]

Oh sorry I didn't get your tone there.

[Feenie]

They have a poll to ask if they were right, but warn that the left will hijack it.

[GrowSomeCress]

Mandragora I didn't think they would apologise but I didn't really think they would bother to respond at all - and I definitely didn't think the response would be, as someone else said, quite so crowing.

[Bramshott]

So setting aside their claim that it was being on benefits which caused MP to become an arsonist, are they still arguing that it was just him they were calling a "vile product" and that the six children just happened to be in the photo they used??

[dotnet]

Bramshott I agree with you. I saw a Mick Philpott thread yesterday and couldn't quite understand what everybody was getting so aerated about. It was only when I went down to the supermarket and saw a DM on display 'in the flesh' that the penny dropped.

Yes, it was shocking - it DID look as if the dead children were being described as 'vile products of the benefits culture'.

Awful - and a really terrible mistake - if it was a mistake.

I bet it wasn't.

[lemonmuffin]

It was a mistake. They meant the father, not the children.

[NiceTabard]

Where have they announced that lemonmuffin?

[lemonmuffin]

They haven't announced that afaik.

It just seems fairly obvious to me that they meant the father rather than those young children.

[NiceTabard]

Oh right. So you don't actually know then.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

They put "vile product of benefit scum" or something over a picture of children. If it had been a picture of Philpott they might have a leg to stand on.

[Feenie]

Vile product of welfare uk.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

Thanks Feenie. So everyone who just sees the front page sees "vile product of benefits culture" as the headline against six smiling children. Like I say, if it had been a photo of Philpott sticking up two fingers, no confusion.

[HorryIsUpduffed]

misquoted again.

Fecking app.

[Bramshott]

Sorry, but if you're a national newspaper with a circulation of 2 million daily, you just don't make that kind of offensive 'mistake' on your front page.