Journalism is meant to be hard to get into...yet Jan Moir exists. This is something of an enigma

You may not have noticed, but I write a blog when I have time. I'm one of millions of people across the globe who use 'blogging' as a means of self-expression. I also do it under the (possibly mistaken) impression that people care what I write about. My blogging takes many forms, mainly items you'd expect to find in a newspaper's editorial and opinion section. I also review student plays I've seen. Again. it's because I believe people care about what I think. I could be wrong, but then there's probably no way of knowing, because the percentage of the population that reads what I write can probably be written out to twenty decimal places. I don't get paid for what I write, though I would quite like to write for a newspaper or magazine one day. Maybe. If I'm good enough. A nice man called Ian I met at the Independent once told me it would be a good way to let newspapers see what my writing was like.
The second point I should raise in this deeply self-expressive, self-reflective piece is that what I write is often unsubstantiated. It's opinion I gauge from other newspapers, Reuters that sort of thing. Must try harder. I could probably make outrageous claims, snug in the knowledge that no-one's going to notice.

So, I could say that Stephen Gately died as a result of excess fluid build-up on the lungs because he was swilling port whilst watching panda porn. I don't know if Stephen Gately liked port, or if he had a hankering for panda porn. Actually, I didn't know Stephen Gately. Aside from its alliterative value, my claim is based solely on my own conjecture and flies in the face of what a coroner and his own family have publicly stated was the cause of his death. Natural causes.

In making my outraaageous claims about Stephen's love of port and panda porn, I have now placed myself in the same league as the Queen of Tact, Jan Moir. The only difference is that she gets paid to write utter bollocks. I don't and this an imbalance I feel should be addressed immediately.

Her article has already proved to be polemic. The Internet backlash against it has been remarkable. A Facebook group has been set up asking that she retract her comments and Charlie Brooker has published his own counter-comment. Stephen Fry has Twittered about it and his army of Twitter followers are nodding their heads in agreement.

Much like the death of Michael Jackson, Gately's death has become part of public discourse in a way that is morbid and disturbing. Despite the attempts to treat his death with the privacy and professionalism that should be accorded the aftermath of any such tragic death, self-righteous shrews such as Jan Moir and her tabloid/gossip column peers have waded in with their own opinions. Much was made of Jackson's death, the life he led in the weeks leading up to it. It was somewhat gratifying when, a short while ago, an autopsy revealed he DID have the skin pigmentation condition he kept trying to tell people he suffered from.

They were ultimately proved wrong. This is why Jan Moir should not have to retract her claims.

I could name several other Daily Mail columnists whom I dislike. Melanie Philips, Richard Littlejohn, Amanda Platell. They can always be counted upon for their, at worst hateful, at best snide opinions. But this is the Daily Mail we're talking about. Look in the history books and you'll discover it's been spouting the same crap for most of its existence. Even when Britain had an Empire, you can bet it wasn't good enough, that too many Indians were mouthing off, that Germany's empire was better. It supported Oswald Moseley's party for a brief stint in the Thirties. It bemoans the falling education standards in this country, yet has some of the worst grammar and syntax in its editorials. It hates Tony Blair for being born, loves Margaret Thatcher to the point where you think it might just slip her a date-rape drug and book into a seedy B&B with her. It never claims to say immigrants should go home, but indirectly blames them for local councils cancelling Christmas lights. It things tax cuts are the answer to all of Britain's economic woes. Sometimes, it seems think there is a PC, homosexual consensus running the country.

In most cases, if you read around a bit more, you can find a lot of areas where it's wrong, rendering its opinions as just that - opinions. Fairly stupid opinions at that. Stephen Gately's death is a private matter and the Daily Mail should consider editorial standards when it harps on about the Andrew Sachs affair for nearly six months and then goes on to allow a different, albeit equally underhand personal attack on a young man when his family and loved ones are in the middle of grieving at his passing.

Moir's response would potentially be to say that's its political correctness gone mad. This is a tired refrain for the Daily Mail and other tabloid newspapers. There is a line between political correctness and tact. It is a line that tabloid columnists cross too often.