{"id":3238,"date":"2015-10-12T08:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3238"},"modified":"2015-10-13T15:49:11","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T15:49:11","slug":"hold-the-front-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=3238","title":{"rendered":"Hold the front page"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Lemon<\/a>

Lemon drizzle cake\/bbc.co.uk<\/p><\/div>\n

Now I may not be a Great British Bake Off<\/em> viewer, and I know that puts me in a minority of round about one in comparison with the rest of the British public, but I do think we should give credit where it\u2019s due. So just why did the Daily Mai<\/em>l think that a picture of the latest winner, Nadiya Hussain, shouldn\u2019t grace their front pages, having accorded that honour to the winners of the prize for the last three years? Just why did they choose to relegate her to page 7?<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s final of the baking show attracted an average audience of 12.3 million viewers on the Wednesday transmission between 8pm and 9pm, and a five-minute peak of 13.3 million. This was more than the number who watched the BBC coverage of the World Cup final. This year\u2019s final drew an average of 13.4 million and a five-minute peak of 14.5 million on Wednesday, beating last year\u2019s audience and the final of Britain\u2019s Got Talent <\/i>as the biggest show of 2015 to date. So we can\u2019t say it wasn\u2019t on people\u2019s radar.<\/p>\n

Now as we all know, the vast majority readers of the Daily Mail<\/i> are all progressive, liberal, egalitarian types, so the one thing we can absolutely sure of is that there wasn\u2019t a hint of racism influencing this significant editorial decision. There was obviously no way that a British citizen who chooses to cover her head should be discriminated against. After all, Her Majesty is never seen out in public without her head covered, and the Daily Mail<\/i> just loves having her on the front page.<\/p>\n

So there must be some other viable reasons, and here are my suggestions:<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Mail<\/i> found Hussain\u2019s acceptance speech too emotional. Let us remind ourselves of what she actually said: \u201cI\u2019m never gonna put boundaries on myself ever again. I\u2019m never gonna say I can\u2019t do it. I\u2019m never gonna say \u2018maybe\u2019. I\u2019m never gonna say, \u2018I don\u2019t think I can.\u2019 I can and I will.\u201d <\/em>This reduced Mary Berry to tears, and apparently also a significant number of those watching.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps the Mail<\/i> thought that a picture of Hussain on the front page would have the population crying into its cornflakes, and starting their day on an unhappy note.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the show was broadcast on the wrong channel for the Mail<\/i> to stomach; after all, we have recently seen significant numbers of articles in the paper indicating its dislike of the BBC and disgust at Auntie\u2019s profligacy, left wing bias and faking key facts in some of its documentaries.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps I\u2019m being far too nice to the Mail<\/i>; after all, Hussain was being hailed as an \u2018icon of modern Britain\u2019, and it would appear that for at least two of their journalists this was a step too far. Let us not forget that Quentin Letts expressed disgust at how the contestants had been selected, writing: \u201cWere these new contestants \u2026 representative of the humdrum, plain-as-white-flour<\/em>, (my italics) Middle-English bumblers whom I bet comprised the majority of the thousands of applicants who tried to get on to the show? Or were they chosen because they fitted some Twitter-influenced metropolitan wishlist…?” And just in case we had missed the point, Amanda Platell weighed in with her sympathies for Flora Shedden, who didn\u2019t make it to the final three contestants, suggesting that “Perhaps if she\u2019d made a chocolate mosque, she\u2019d have stood a better chance”.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Hussain\u2019s winning cake was a classic lemon drizzle, perfectly iced and decorated. How very British. She has my congratulations. I might even start watching\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her Majesty is never seen out in public without her head covered<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,55,56],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3238"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}