Published: September 4th 2009 - at 5:45 pm

Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid


by Sunny Hundal    

Another day, another uninformed rant by the Daily Mail’s Richard Littlejohn.

He says today:

Beyoncé belief
Reader Nick Paterson-Morgan drew my attention to the following announcement in The Times:

My first reaction was that this must be a wind-up, probably placed for a bet by someone at the swine flu hotline with nothing better to do. We rang The Times advertising department and they assured us it was genuine.

There’s no mention of a Mr Pong, or any father’s name for that matter. If true, which I still doubt, somewhere out there in Shropshire is a single mother called Kate Pong with quins, variously named after an American pop singer, a model and the U.S. President.

You couldn’t make it up.

Actually you could make it up. MacGuffin at TabloidWatch points out that Littlejohn’s team, typically, didn’t bother checking their facts properly. Kate Pong is a labrador.

He says ‘we’ rang the Times, which suggests he couldn’t even do that himself either. And notice how he even includes a snide remark about single mothers. In a story about a dog.

And there’s plenty of other rubbish research in the article too. See TabloidWatch.


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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Story Filed Under: News


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Reader comments


1. Carl Packman

Fantastic isn’t it

2. Left Outside

Hmmm, it seems to me the man lacks a reality check. When something sounds stupid, it probably is stupid (although it’s obvious he needed a reality check anyway)

644,000 births a year in the uk…

Odds of a quintuplet birth?

Well according to Wikipedia the chance of N-tuplets = 1:80^N-1

So for naturally conceived 5-nuplets that’s 1:40,960,000

So something that happens every 60 years in the UK, something relatively newsworthy, can’t even get researched properly.

If you want to ignore the maths, you could go to the Daily Mail website, which has a story on the unlikelihood of a quintuplet birth:

“Live births of such a large number of babies are extremely rare – the odds of having naturally-conceived quintuplets are 65 million to one – and the risks to the mother are high.”

Maybe he needs researchers who, like me, 1) assume he’s a moron and 2) assume he’s a moron and 3) can use google and 4) read the paper her fucking works at.

Sorry if this has already been covered at tabloid watch. But this took me 3 minutes…

3. monkeyfish

“Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid”

In further news…

Pope caught looking Catholic…Bears caught shitting in woods

4. chris

Richard Littlejohn reputedly “earns” over £700,000 a year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Littlejohn#Journalism

5. Sunny H

Apparently the Daily Mail is a really professional newspaper.

6. Jamie Sport

I know dictators, serial killers, war criminals & terrorists are bad and that, but I still think Littlejohn is the worst person in the world.

7. Paul Sagar

Technically he’s not said anything untrue though.

Kate Pong is presumably a single mother…unless dogs get married in Shropshire. They do do weird things there I suppose…

8. Clarice

What exactly does he say about single mothers that is snide, please? Or is that part made up too?

9. steveb

8
The Daily Mail has a reputation for critisizing single-mothers, and in particular, Littlejohn. He doesn’t need to manifestly write negative comments. but readers will know exacly what he means. It’s called ‘reading between the lines’

10. Alisdair Cameron

Kate is a funny name for your dog, mind. That said, my dung beetle’s called Littlejohn…

11. Miss Suffragette

Any blog that takes the piss of Littlejohn has a thumbs up from me! :)

Oh and looove the pictures and photos. They are hilarious!

12. ejh

Kate is a funny name for your dog, mind.

Dogs have names. Cats have titles.

13. Joel

Heeey, I remember seeing this…! It makes me wonder just how incredibly lazy he is in his research.

14. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

Richard Littlejohn is a cunt.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Tweets that mention Liberal Conspiracy » Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid -- Topsy.com

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  2. James Tilburn

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

  3. Chris Paul

    RT @johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv <- wrong anyway

  4. Jenny Bann

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

  5. Andy Fulterer

    Lol RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

  6. Tom McLaughlin

    Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv (via @johannhari101)

  7. Lucy Palmer

    Never dull to see a proverbial DUH. RT@johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  8. Kevin Arscott

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  9. Vicky McCann

    RT @libcon Liberal Conspiracy » Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid http://bit.ly/192RiA

    [Original tweet]

  10. Adrian

    RT @johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  11. James Tilburn

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  12. Chris Paul

    RT @johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv <- wrong anyway

    [Original tweet]

  13. Jenny Bann

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  14. Andy Fulterer

    Lol RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  15. Tom McLaughlin

    Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv (via @johannhari101)

    [Original tweet]

  16. Lucy Palmer

    Never dull to see a proverbial DUH. RT@johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  17. Kevin Arscott

    RT @johannhari101: Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  18. Vicky McCann

    RT @libcon Liberal Conspiracy » Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid http://bit.ly/192RiA

    [Original tweet]

  19. Adrian

    RT @johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn is staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv

    [Original tweet]

  20. Quietzapple

    RT @johannhari101 Yet more proof that Richard Littlejohn staggeringly thick: http://tinyurl.com/lqzdzv <-Labradors make monkey of Littlejohn

    [Original tweet]

  21. Lee Gill

    RT @libcon: Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid http://bit.ly/9ZEY5M – you couldn't make it up!





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