Ghost of a flea

The reasons for Shannon’s abduction have not yet emerged, but again the Guardian managed to distract the reader’s attention from less than optimal family arrangements. Instead, it ran an upbeat story on the housing project where the Matthews family lived; that way, the obvious could be ignored rather than denied. The Sun, a tabloid newspaper whose readership is virtually entirely working-class, had described the project as “like Beirut—only worse.” But the Guardian, whose readership is largely middle-class and employed in the public sector, drew attention to the improvements that had taken place in the project, thanks to the local council’s having spent $8 million on it over the last three years—supplying traffic bollards shaped like penguins, for example.
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The implication is clear: with more public spending of this kind everywhere in the country, administered by Guardian readers and their peers, everything will be all right. It won’t matter in the slightest if children either have no fathers, or different fathers every few years.

Yusuf Haladh, a member of Dewsbury's large Asian community, lives with his family near to the flat in which Shannon was found.

"We were obviously really glad that the little girl was found safe and well, but to see people up there drinking and jumping around, and hearing about all the different dads... it was embarrassing - embarrassing for Dewsbury. It's not about one group of people being superior to another in behaviour - obviously, most of the white population just lead normal family lives - but you wouldn't get that behaviour in the Asian community."