The British press today appears to provide evidence to back up Mario’s theory that the film of Leading Seaman Tunney in a headdress would enrage the British public:
The Mirror’s headline “Outrage” reflects the widespread mood of anger.
The paper says she was paraded like a trophy and forced to lie during her interview.
The Guardian describes the broadcast as a propaganda video.
For the Sun, Leading Seaman Turney was humiliated in a sick stunt.
It has the headline: “Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Ahmadinejad?”
In the words of the Times’ headline, she was “a mother on parade in Iran’s propaganda war”.
The Daily Telegraph says she appeared to be speaking under duress.
And the Independent asks in its headline: “Can we believe the words of Faye Turney?”
The stance of the Foreign Office is condemned by the Daily Mail. It says the servicewoman was forced to wear a hijab and made to praise her kidnappers.
“And the thundering response from our mighty Foreign Office?” it asks. “This is unacceptable, they squeaked.”
EU Referendum’s investigations, on the other hand, point the finger of blame towards the military themselves, rather than the Foreign Office.
In a not unrelated matter, our friend Joe Loconte has an excellent column on the misanthropes who are seeing the two-hundredth anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade as an opportunity to condemn Britain in its entirety. He points out that even in Britain’s darkest hour in 1941, cynics and fifth columnists were playing the same game. The difference, however, is that back then people had been taught their nation’s history and could recognize the mischaracterization. That has gone, thanks to disastrous education policy over the past thirty years, and what we have to rely on are the instincts of the British people. The press headlines today suggest those instincts remain sound.