ANGRY MOB

Liz Jones earns a huge salary, far more than what even the Daily Mail classes as a 'Middle-England' income. She earned six-figure salaries as a Magazine editor and as far as she is according to the Daily Mail 'one of Fleet Street's highest paid columnists' (remember, Richard Littlejohn is on close to £1 million a year), yet all we hear from her recently is that she is massively in debt and in a recent column in 'You' Magazine (how apt a title for Jones) she claimed she was close to suicide.

Liz Jones makes no secret of the fact that she maintains a lifestyle that over 90% of British people could only dream about. She spent £26,000 on a bat sanctuary in her garden, spends £9 on a tube of toothpaste and her chickens have their own homeopathic vet (so really does know how to waste money). In every column she crowbars in references to how she considers any wine under £50 as cheap, how she drives a BMW and has hordes of expensive designer handbags.

Yet in recent months it has been one long tale of woe Liz Jones, debtor and pauper, culminating in a shameful column today: 'To all 4,100 of you who answered my cry from the heart - thank you'. In which she takes money from pensioners, is offered accommodation, is bought a lottery ticket by someone earning £46 a week and is offered money from a disabled woman whose husband is her full-time carer.

Rather than hang her head in shame and face the fact that she is in reality is a very wealthy, but very stupid and vain woman, Liz Jones actually thanks these people for their kindness, without apologising that the poor have been made to feel sorry for a very rich person. She ends her column with an interesting conclusion:

I'm left with the opposite conclusion, I've never bought into the myth that 'Britain is broken' (and who keeps saying this Liz? Surely not the paper that pays you...) but perhaps any society in which the poor feel the need to help-out the wealthy and feckless perhaps is indeed broken. Her closing paragraph reads like some kind of sick joke, considering it is her greed that has caused her to be in this mess in the first place. Liz Jones' utterly self-centred, self-absorbed drivel has just knocked my faith in humanity a little.

The Daily Mail has always had a strange vision of what constitutes a middle class wage and the recent election of David Cameron - with a lot of help from Nick Clegg - has brought this into sharper focus than ever. According to the Daily Mail it is 'Middle England' that will 'bear brunt of new coalition's drive to slash Britain's deficit'. Of course, the Daily Mail claims it is much more than even this: it is of course, aimed at 'families' as if single people or those without children never pay their way in the world.

The headline figure the Daily Mail uses is '£1200 tax shock for Middle England', which if you scroll down to the inevitable table means that 'Middle England' to the Daily Mail is family with two children and a single earner earning £50,000 per year. Yet consulting what is actually the 'average' wage in the UK you get a figure of just £26,020. Whilst the 'median' gross annual earnings is even less at £20,801 - this is the salary point at which half of the country earns more than you and half less.

Put this into perspective: the Daily Mail table for 'Middle England' starts at £35,000. This salary would in reality put you comfortably into the top 25% of earners. The poor, taxed souls earning a salary of £50,000 per year are comfortably in the top 10% of salaried earners - just £8,917 more each year and they would creep into the top 5%.

So the real story here is that top 25% highest earners in the UK will pay more tax. Something that seems logical. Perhaps what the Mail should focus on is that the person earning £60,000 in their table appears to be paying a smaller increase in tax than the person earning £50,000. Whatever the real angle the Daily Mail should really try and get to grips with what a middle salary actually is and why in any fair society those that can actually afford to pay more tax, should.

The Daily Mail's coverage of the election has been a disgraceful, dishonest, scaremongering mess. But then what else could you expect from a newspaper that constantly makes stuff up. Take this story for example: 'Hospital worker who saved 60 fish from drained ornamental pond 'faces prosecution and £1,000 fine'*:

A hospital worker who rescued 60 fish from their ornamental pond when it was being drained has claimed he is facing prosecution and a £1,000 fine.

Clive Roberts saved the fish in an act of mercy by scooping them into a bucket to move them to his own garden pond.

The 58-year-old said officials at the Environment Agency told him he needed to go through red tape to get a formal licence to move the goldfish...

"I've been told I could be prosecuted - it seems a bit unfair when all I was trying to do was help"...

The Environment Agency say it is illegal to remove fish from their habitat without permission. Officials say the law is designed to prevent the spread of lethal fish diseases.

A quick read of the comments confirms that this is indeed another crazy case of 'elf 'n' safety gone mad' and the evil intervention of the 'PC brigade'. The comments section also confirms that terrible habit of Daily Mail readers not being able to make it to the end of any article they have ever 'read', because if they did they'd read this:

An Environment Agency spokesman said: 'Mr Roberts has not been arrested or charged with any offence and will not be interviewed under caution.

'Moving fish short distances between garden ponds is not an offence, as it does not present a significant risk to the environment. The Environment Agency does not investigate such incidents.

'In situations where fish need to be moved at short notice we can offer help and advice, and would be happy to advise the hospital on the best way to maintain a healthy stock of fish.'

Still, it brings their attempt to be a serious political commentator into sharp focus, given that even basic news journalism is so far beyond their grubby grasp.

Once again it is interesting to look at the url for the story which is 'Wales hospital worker', surely it should be 'Welsh hospital worker'...