You may remember that, on last Friday, the Daily Mail published the following story:
The article was about Joan Wakely who was born in Vancouver to an English mother and a Canadian father. Joan was brought to Britain when she was six months old and has lived here ever since.
As the Mail’s article says:
A grandmother who has lived in Britain since she was six months old is facing deportation in a bizarre passport dispute.
Joan Wakely, 65, has been branded an illegal immigrant, even though she and her husband have brought up three children and two grandchildren in the UK, and she has paid taxes all her working life.
She is facing a battle to stay in the country and could be deported in February after officials stopped her at passport control and found no record of her being a British citizen.
This story was also covered by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Star.
Yesterday, the Telegraph published a somewhat similar story:
The Telegraph’s article is about Michael Morgan who was born in Jamaica to Jamaican parents. Michael was brought to Britain by his father when he was eight years old and has lived here ever since.
As the Telegraph says:
Michael Morgan, 51, a father-of-two who is married to Pippa Hinchley, an actress who played Elaine Fenwick in Coronation Street, was born in Jamaica but came to the UK with his father in 1967 aged eight but never applied to become a British citizen.
Instead, he was given indefinite leave to remain and a stamp was put in his Jamaican passport. However, when Mr Morgan, who runs a property business, applied to update his documents, it arrived without the crucial stamp.
Mr Morgan and his wife Pippa, who is in her 30s, live in Thames Ditton, Surrey. When they contacted the Home Office to request a replacement stamp they were told the only proof that he had been given indefinite leave to remain was on the passport he had just replaced.
No record of his status was kept by the Government, so the couple were told that he had to leave the UK within months
Now, let me first say that the two stories are not identical: Mr Morgan hasn’t been in the UK as long as Mrs Wakely; Mr Morgan’s parents were both Jamaican, whereas Mrs Wakely had an English mother; Mr Morgan was eight when he was brought to the UK, Mrs Wakely was six months old.
However, the essential components of the story are the same: two people who have lived in this country for many years and paid their taxes are being threatened with deportation to countries they haven’t lived in for the vast proportion of their lives. Both are also married to British citizens.
I’m going to make a rather pessimistic prediction about which I hope (but don’t think) I’m wrong: the Daily Mail and the Daily Star will not cover this story.
A clue as to why this might be the case can be found by looking at the photos of the two people involved.
First, this is a photograph of Mrs Wakely with her British husband:
And this is a photograph of Mr Morgan with his British wife:
Yes, Mrs Wakely is white and Mr Morgan is black.
Again, I concede that these aren’t the only differences between the two but I really do not think that Mr Morgan, who was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK, has any less right to be in this country than Mrs Wakely. And this is the essential point about both stories.
I desperately hope that I’m wrong about this prediction but I do not hold out much hope. The Mail is well-known for writing more favourably about people with lighter-coloured skin than people of darker-coloured skin.
As Nick Davies points out in his excellent book, Flat Earth News:
I spoke to a man who had worked for the Daily Mail for some years as a senior news reporter. He said: ‘They phoned me one early morning and told me to drive about three hundred miles to cover a murder. It was a woman and her two children who’d been killed. I got an hour and a half into the journey, and the news desk called me on my mobile and said, “Come back.” I said, “Why’s that?” They said, “They’re black.”‘
I live with a tabloid journalist. He tells me how they have to asses the people before they follow up a story. If they're not white and British, the story isn't generally followed up. If you're a woman then you also have to be considered attractive too.
He once told me about a story he covered of a young disabled boy. They dropped it because they thought he looked "too disabled" in the photos.
Its disgraceful stuff, but I suppose they know their market.