Needless to say, Peter Allen could not pass up the opportunity to earn some more money and sensationalise the story a bit more by writing a slightly expanded piece based on yesterday's news. This of course gave him another opportunity to gloat, as well as embroider the fact a bit more. "'Sangatte II' immigrant welcome centre is torched by arsonists"runs the headline, "Police suspect furious Calais residents" it continues, although the police of course did not use those words, they come from Mr Allen's own fevered imagination.
And what does it tell us that is different from yesterday's Telegraph piece? Nothing much, except from a small quote from the local Green Party right at the end of the piece saying that "the arson attack as 'a deliberate act aimed at putting refugees into an even more dangerous position'."
In fact there is less about the attack than yesterday and instead he pads it out* with 7 paragraphs of 'background' (about 60% of the piece) but it does give him a chance to bang-on about 'Sangatte II' again, and it being sited "a few hundred yards from the site of the notorious 'Jungle'"; linking the facilities to "fears of a humanitarian tragedy involving those sleeping rough as temperatures fell below zero", which it has nothing to do with as he knows full well (the BCMO gym is use regularly as a cold weather shelter during the winter and has nothing to do with the new day-centre); and rubbish about the local council not being able to prevent the new facilities, plus the obligatory rent-a-quote Tory drivel from Damien Green.
Par for the course when it comes to Allen's Daily Mail articles really. "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Macbeth Act 5, scene 5)
* Rather than actually publish photographs of the units themselves (as the local French newspapers have done [1, 2]), an activity that might just prove waht a load of old bollox the story actually is, we get 2 photos of poster advertising the film Welcome!
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