The paper's bad cop-good cop routine cannot mask its drive for collective punishment
The Daily Mail’s coverage of the ‘killer nurse’ story this week saw it run the headline: ‘NHS STILL HIRING FILIPINO NURSES’.
The case of Victorino Chua, a nurse from the Philippines who murdered patients in his care, apparently means a whole country is overflowing with potential psychopaths and killers.
Now, I know this sounds a bit iffy. ‘Still hiring Filipino nurses’? Why shouldn’t they? Are we to assume Chua is representative of all nurses from the Philippines? As someone said on Twitter, how would we like it if all British doctors were seen as potential Harold Shipmans?
But don’t worry, there’s nothing racist about this. Oh no.
Next to the story (May 21st), the Mail ran a column by NHS psychotherapist Max Pemberton headed: ‘It’s NOT racist to worry about foreign nurses’.
The noisy headline, with it’s capital ‘NOT’ to sway any doubters, is a classic example of the bad cop-good cop trick the paper has used for years.
The bad cop says something naughty – about Pakistani men, say, or eastern Europeans, or Roma, (take that, Politically Correct brigade!) – and the good cop chirps in to say that of course we don’t mean to generalise, and it’s perfectly fine for you to read this and accept its assumptions without fear of being a bad person.
In this way the paper drags the terms of acceptable conversation into a dark alley – further and further to the Right – while claiming to stand for truth and common sense.
This is particularly depressing when the Mail appears to have played a key role in bringing Chua to justice, visiting Manila to collect evidence of his criminal past and lack of qualifications, and passing this on to Greater Manchester Police.
It’s a shame the paper’s use of this story for racial scaremongering about foreign nurses casts a shade over its motives for doing so.
***
In the same paper on the same day, the Mail’s editorial column accused a Belfast Judge, who ruled a Christian owner of a bakery had discriminated against a gay customer, of…
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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11 Responses to “Daily Mail’s racial scaremongering on ‘Filipino killer nurse’ undermines its work exposing him”
Torybushhug
‘Now, I know this sounds a bit iffy. ‘Still hiring Filipino nurses’? Why shouldn’t they? Are we to assume Chua is representative of all nurses from the Philippines?’
Trust the left to bring out the race card, how quaint.
It’s actually about the relative ease with which one can assemble crooked qualifications and documentation in certain nations. Corruption is rife in some societies, but I know this will have you squirming in discomfort.
It’s the same in mortgages, lenders maintain a ‘risk’ register for certain nations such as Nigeria, which of course wont go down well in naïve lefty circles where ‘we’re all the same under the skin’.
Look at the FCA’s register of those mortgage brokers and financial advisers struck off. Around 50% are from a couple of ethnic minorities. Ouch, I thought we we’re all one happy clappy MC society, boo hoo.
Gerschwin
Five minutes in Manila and I’ll produce a nursing degree, medical degree, any accreditation you can dream of. It ain’t hard if you’ve got the money, meanwhile in Left Foot Forward land they’re still obsessing about the Daily Mail – it must be a very odd existence getting up every morning and panicking over the day’s DM headline.
Torybushhug
And another thing…..
Is it ethical for us entitled greedy Brits to be complicit in taking valuable medical staff from the developing world? The Philippines has much need of nurses, especially in view of the natural disasters that befall the nation.
How wonderful that us hugely entitled Brits get to ensnare nurses from some of the poorest places on the planet.
damon
Yes it’s a bit racist I suppose, but hardly surprising that you get these kinds of concerns. The papers have been going on about it for years. Here’s a story from the Telegraph from a couple of years ago.
”Number of foreign nurses coming to UK doubled in three years as NHS poaches workers from abroad”
ohmy
Leaving aside from the childish stereotypes and non-sequitur accusations, it seems that you are falling to a bt of cognitive dissonance in accusing the left of bringing up the race card, seeing as it was the Daily Mail that brought up nationality in the first place