The danger of tabloid mythology

A few days ago the Times (paywalling your asses) carried an interview with Stephen Lennon, aka the EDL’s Tommy Robinson.

As well as revealing Lennon’s conviction and jail sentence for ABH, the article says:

He said that “reluctantly” he uses the threat of a demonstration as “blackmail” to ensure that councils do not pander to Islamic pressure groups to change British traditions. “We are now sending letters to every council saying that if you change the name of Christmas we are coming in our thousands and shutting your town down.”

Now, as most people who’ve ever bothered to look into the issue know, councils do not, have not, and never actually will change the name of Christmas. They might have a longer period covering all the events, religious or not, that fall around that time of year, but the individual festivals are still called by their original names.

You might as well complain they’ve banned Eid*.

Anyone who believes that Christmas has been banned because of politically-correct Muslims is a bit of an idiot in my eyes. And clearly Lennon at least believes it’s a realistic proposition, probably because he believes it’s happened before.

But although it fits in neatly with the EDL’s wider agenda, I’m not sure how much I blame Lennon himself here. He – as does anyone who swallows the Winterval myth – only believes it because he’s been told it. And he’s been told it time and time again by newspapers, either as the subject of a story or as a footnote to some other probably invented PC-gone-mad story.

He’s even been told it by senior politicians, who go unchallenged in respectable broadsheets. Even in the Times interview the reporter apparently didn’t attack the premise that there was a risk of Christmas being renamed – although how much good it would have done is unclear.

Maybe the reporter – Steve Bird, and the interview is otherwise very good – doesn’t know it’s rubbish either. But if he doesn’t, why doesn’t he? Again, it comes back to the newspapers that repeat this particular lie, deliberately or not.

By repeating the nonsense the idea gains more and more credence. People who have no issue with Islam (because it’s always claimed it’s to avoid offending minorities) start to wonder about it, and people who are already predisposed towards theories that Islam is taking over the UK believe it, solidifying their beliefs to the point where they send threatening letters to local councils.

Repeating these stories creates hostility, fear, and anger for no good reason at all. And when at least five links on the first page of Google results for Winterval debunk the myth, there’s no excuse for it.

*Yes, only on those years it falls around Christmas. Smartarse.