Scaremongering in the fine old tradition

I glanced at the headline on today's Daily Express, and then looked at the beginning of the story. (Just the beginning. I don't do the news thing generally, for reasons that have been explained elsewhere.) It appears that someone, a British subject, who has been held and probably tortured at Guantanamo Bay and has now been released, is being flown home in a private jet. It's quite clever the way they managed to imply that he was actually a dangerous terrorist, and only an "alleged" victim of torture and illegal imprisonment. And as if this were not bad enough, the paper goes on, when he gets here he will be costing the taxpayer "up to" £21,600 a year in benefits. That's £1,800 a month, as much as we've ever earned between us at our best.

Now my own acquaintance with the benefit system is far from comprehensive, and of course over a year out of date, but I cannot imagine any circumstances under which anyone could rake in that much in benefits. Possibly if the person was a single mother of about nineteen children and terminally ill, but then that would make the whole terrorist thing look a little implausible. I'd love to know (though not enough to make me buy the paper) how they got that figure.

Private Eye makes much of the fact that the owner of the Daily Express derives much of his colossal income from pornography, and seems to find this morally dubious. Personally, I think pornography, whatever its faults, may at least be a more honest trade to be in than journalism.