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

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

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"

That's the opposite of an apology!

They are positively crowing about it.

that's not an apology.

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

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????

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

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

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?

Oh sorry I didn't get your tone there.

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

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.

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??

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.

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

Where have they announced that lemonmuffin?

They haven't announced that afaik.

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

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

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.

Vile product of welfare uk.

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.

misquoted again.

Fecking app.

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.