I can take Mr Desmond's porn but not his racism

What is different today is that what Richard Desmond says in his papers is influencing public policy

It was a clever move of Tessa Jowell, using this good news time to reveal her disaffection over New Labour's acceptance of money from Richard Desmond, the seedy porn baron who gives this nation Mega Boobs and Asian Babes and other yuck and muck. "I don't feel comfortable that the party accepts a donation from somebody who earns part of his income from pornography," she said on Friday. "You either talk equality or act equality."

I wonder how Mr Desmond will react to these words. Will he just see Ms Jowell as a brunette dominatrix or will he get cross because, these days, even men like him demand proper respect for making money by whatever means necessary.

These are the people we are now asked to worship. We know that it was made alarmingly easily for him to take over the Express titles (previously owned by Lord Hollick, a New Labour peer) and that Mr Desmond has enjoyed tea with our Prime Minister, upholder of family life and Christian values.

Apart from the hypocrisy and the obvious facts about the trillion-pound, world-wide porn business, what shocks me is that New Labour can be bought so cheaply. A hundred thousand pounds? Three friends and I could beg and borrow that much in a week. If we handed it over to 10 Downing Street, could we please have tea with the PM and maybe one or two of those appealing jobs as political advisers?

It was time for Labour ladies of conscience to speak up, and they are starting to. Clare Short, for sure, and Margaret Beckett and others too don't like this one bit. For once, having women in the Cabinet is making a real difference to how the Government is perceived. It has been revolting, thus far, to watch some of the antics of their male colleagues, the likes of John Reid, who got in a right twist justifying the inexcusable: "We have acted with complete propriety. We have acted with complete integrity," he said. "If you are asking if we are going to sit in moral judgement on those who wish to contribute to the Labour party, then the answer is no."

You see, even words can be transformed under the power of New Labour. Acting with "integrity" and "propriety" now means whatever is good for our cause, our lust to stay ruling over you forever.

Actually, I am less bothered about the porn mags than many, although any attacks on Richard Desmond are welcome at the moment. We still live in a society where much of the dirtiest stuff is on top shelves, to be bought by those who need such encouragement to find a fulfilled sex life. I made myself look at Asian Babes and it is true that the "babes" themselves look exceedingly full of life, not pushed into any of the poses.

So good luck to the lot of them – those who make the stuff, the women who clearly want to follow this career, the buyers and the owners too, as long as they make sure that there is no intimidation and any of that ugly business which is under the surface in this world.

I am not all that whipped up, either, about the idea of undue influence for personal or business gain that rich donors exert. All this sleaze over so many years has dulled outrage and ideals. So if there was some strange forgetfulness about money or regulatory practices or passports on the part of ministers, that's just life as we live it today.

What is much more dangerous is that Mr Desmond has been given the Express without due care and that he is now using those titles to spread poison against asylum-seekers and economic migrants. For months, its front pages have carried horror stories which exploit and deliberately incite fear, anxiety and hatred of any apparent "foreigners" in our streets.

That means me and others who look like me. I have been abused much of late because people think I am an asylum-seeker from the Middle East or Afghanistan. Taxi drivers have been particularly excitable, amazing really when you think of how much they charge us for the pleasure. "Where do you come from?" they ask, and I try not to answer any more, so they go on, "Pakistan? Iraq? Iran?"

Yes or no leads to a torrent. Last week it was: "You people, you are destroying this country. All mini cabs are driven by asylums. They rape girls in the back you know." And far too many times they quote the Express as their evidence.

The central messages given by these tabloids are these: we have no idea how many illegals are flooding the country but there are millions (how the two could be true I don't know but I guess Express readers don't ask) and all of them are either criminals or beggars or liars or benefits scroungers or money launderers or (and get this) pimps.

They are destroying the land of hope and glory and the porn baron has made it his mission to save us from them. He is doing it both to gain influence and to make money. It is depressingly true that, even today, racist coverage done in a certain crude style sells well. It provides millions of English, Welsh and Scots with an easily digestible explanation for why they feel so down and out in the world. It doesn't feel to them that they are living in the greatest country in the world and so it must be the fault of outsiders who have dragged things down.

Nothing new you may say here. The Mail and others have done this for years. Yes, but what is different is that what Mr Desmond says in his papers is influencing public policy. Margaret Thatcher and some editors were in similar cahoots when they demonised the miners. These days, one comes across one or two of these editors who laugh as they tell how they lied and manufactured stories to make the public turn against miners, the Greater London Council and others.

Mr Desmond has caught the Government at a vulnerable time on asylum and immigration. The whole business is a mess and the nervousness of ministers is palpable. Could it be that the Government is both scared of how far Mr Desmond could go with this manufactured paranoia and also desperately wants a media friend which will help it push through legislation which will finally destroy our claims to humanitarian principles?

I think so. In his circle of dubious friends, Tony Blair now counts John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia who makes Jean-Marie Le Pen look like a toy bear. Mr Howard is a real man, not unnerved if a few asylum-seekers from that peaceful haven, Afghanistan, fall into the seas. He is not having them coming into the country other real white men stole from Aborigines. Something a little tremulous in our PM still prevents him from coming over really scary on this (even when he says he will use gunboats) and he may be turning to Mr Desmond to harden his resolve.

You see, I think MP Fiona Mactaggart is naive when she says that it is legitimate for political parties to take money from donors "so long as there is no evidence of influence over policy". There is not only influence here by Mr Desmond on Mr Blair's new militancy over asylum, but both sides are using each other to make this place hell for anyone – genuine or not – who crosses the Channel to give their lives a chance.

And together, they are strong, strong enough to annihilate all those precious treaties, international obligations, human rights values and finally the human debris which nobody wants anywhere in the world.

y.alibhai-brown@independent.co.uk