A picture tells a thousand lies

The Daily Mail captioned this photo of the Mark Duggan funeral A salute to a ‘soldier’: Mourners lined the streets and raised their palms to say farewell to the father-of-four. Implicit was the allegation that this was a gangster salute, something guaranteed to send surges of fear and loathing through the indignation-hungry hearts of its chav-porn-addicted readers.

The reality turns out to have been somewhat (what the hell) boringly and very much more beautifully the reverse. The mourners were responding to the call by Bishop Kwaku Frimpong-Manson to “stretch our hands towards the casket and thank God for Mark’s life as he begins his heavenly journey.”