The Media Column: 'The Government must not bow to the Daily Mail's xenophobia'

The campaign by the Daily Mail against the National Lottery Community Fund, and in particular that body's grants to minority groups, goes on. Readers of this column will recall that, five weeks ago, I drew their attention to the racist hate mail and phone calls that were being received by the fund following the Mail's highly tendentious coverage.

The campaign by the Daily Mail against the National Lottery Community Fund, and in particular that body's grants to minority groups, goes on. Readers of this column will recall that, five weeks ago, I drew their attention to the racist hate mail and phone calls that were being received by the fund following the Mail's highly tendentious coverage.

Last week it got much worse. On Wednesday the injured Falklands veteran, Simon Weston, made a speech at the Conservative Party conference, essentially rehashing Mail articles on the subject, and accusing the Community Fund of giving money to "anti-British organisations" and refusing it to charities working for ex-servicemen and -women. He got a standing ovation (of course), and Thursday's front cover of the Mail (naturally), which read "War Hero Weston Blasts Lottery".

On Friday, just under the masthead, the Mail invited its readers to turn inside and learn "How your lottery money goes to Rwandan potters, Yorkshire male prostitutes and Irish travellers – but is denied to British war heroes". Inside, Jo Butler, home affairs correspondent, had a piece entitled (lest anyone should fail to get the point) "Refugees Get £68m Lottery Cash, Veterans Get Just £1m". Ms Butler could have pointed out – by way of information – that the remit of the Community Fund is to "help meet the needs of those at greatest disadvantage in society and to improve the quality of life in the community". War veterans are a relatively popular cause and their charities are consequently better funded than most. Of course, she did no such thing. Nor, when mentioning that "more than 3,000 lottery players have written to Lady Brittan" (the fund's chairman), did Butler touch on the claim that some calls to the fund were abusive and racist.

Down the page was the now characteristic list of villains. In a piece headed "Disdainful and distant, the quangocrats who decide", Steve Doughty, the social affairs correspondent, had put together a series of potted biogs of fund committee members, written so as to make them sound as elitist and weird as possible – if not a bit crooked. Take this example of the technique: "Richard Martineau: Suffolk farmer, former Whitbread executive and educationalist. Caught up in A-level rigging scandal as a director of Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board." This, incidentally, given the context, is almost certainly actionable, since the clear inference is that Martineau is a bit dodgy.

Lady Brittan herself was once again described as a former "chairman of the Runnymede Trust, which asserted that the term 'British' is racist". I pointed out a few weeks ago that this assertion is a deliberate misrepresentation that has now become a lie (the Mail never carries a direct quote from the infamous report concerned). So here's a question for Mr Doughty. Do you know this and just repeat the lie anyway (not once, but three times last Friday)? Do you not know it, and just not bother to check your facts? Or perhaps your editor just slips it into your copy when you are not looking?

On Saturday, it was reported that the Metropolitan Police racial and violent crimes task force was investigating threats made to fund members, almost certainly as a result of the Mail campaign. A needle was taped into one letter sent to Lady Brittan; others claimed to come from members of the BNP and Combat 18. No Mail spokesman appeared on radio or television to be interviewed.

The revelation that one of the fund-granted organisations, the Community Empowerment Group, had helped the Epsom death-threat schoolboys with their appeal against exclusion, has added fuel to the flames. Mail journalists are, of course, uninterested in the idea that in a just society, even unpopular people deserve representation.

Yesterday, at the Mail, they were celebrating an expected victory over the fund, and anticipating that, following a meeting between fund and ministers this week, the Government would take action effectively to prevent further unpopular payments. Those of us who believe in tolerance must hope that they are wrong. If the Government does allow itself to be swayed by the Mail's campaign of intimidation and xenophobia, then it can be sure that there will be many more such campaigns to come.

david.aaronovitch@btinternet.com