By Nathan SparkesToday, Friday November 17th, saw frontpage inaccuracies in several newspapers.

The Sun led with “It’s PC Gone Mad: Fury as police force warns staff that using the word ‘policeman’ could be breaking the law."

Further on in The Sun’s coverage, they eventually reveal that the basis of this allegation is a guide issued by Staffordshire police. There is indeed an “inclusive language” guide accessible online, from Staffordshire police, which the coverage appears to refer to.

In capital, emboldened letters, it stresses that [this document] “IS A GUIDE”.

It advises staff to use gender neutral language where they can but puts in place no specific rules and certainly does not suggest that using the word “policeman” is illegal.

Controversial as The Sun may find it, many police officers are indeed women. It does not seem too much to ask for policing staff to avoid referring to them as policemen.

The guide is written as a source of advice and to support police officers to engage with the communities they serve effectively and sensitively. It is sympathetic to the fact that it can be hard to get language right, but encourages policing staff to make an effort to do so.

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Meanwhile, The Daily Express published on their frontpage a piece accusing protestors of dishonouring the war dead.

The piece goes on to remark,“Parliament took it upon themselves last night to take up precious time debating and voting on a call for an immediate ceasefire in Palestine.It was noted by many that there was no debate and vote on a call for the immediate release of any hostages.”

Actually, there was.

The very same amendment which called for a ceasefire in Palestine also called for:“the urgent release of all hostages”The House voted against the amendment.

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Finally, The Daily Mail screamed,[caption id="attachment_79893" align="alignleft" width="223"]

Print version of the article[/caption]“Unelected House of Lords plot to block the Rwanda law that could end scenes of migrants risking their lives in flimsy boats to reach the UK”.

This “House of Lords plot” sounds like quite the detailed and co-ordinated affair.

But reading the article, the allegation of a “plot” seems to stand on the comments of just four Peers.

One of those, far from revealing a "plot", merely seems to speculate,'I have absolutely no doubt the House of Lords would put up pretty strong cross-party opposition to the bill that has been mooted.'The Government cannot force it through under the Parliament Act because it's not that kind of bill – to be able to be forced through it has to be a manifesto bill. There are enough members of the House of Lords willing to object to this to mean the Government would be most unlikely to get it through.'

He is a cross-bencher and so, unlike a frontbench representative of a political party group, cannot rally a contingent of the House behind him in the same way.

A second Peer said,'I cannot see what they can do with emergency legislation that would not be a two fingers to our Supreme Court and take us out of our international obligations at a time when Putin and others have put these international conventions under threat.'

Two more Peers were also quoted, adding their concerns about the Government’s proposed legislation, and a Labour source indicated the party would likely oppose it.

And so it appears that the Daily Mail’s “House of Lords plot” is in fact four backbench peers, in a House of over 700, expressing some relatively mild scepticism of the Government’s plans; and the speculation of a Labour "source".

Of course, the whole article presumes that the options for responding to the migrant crisis are to (a) encourage people to make dangerous journeys across the sea or (b) send them across the world to an African country, and that it is beyond the wit of legislators to come up with anything else. And that Parliamentarians doing their job of scrutinising legislation are “plotting”.

But even if one sees the world as the Daily Mail does, and accepts those presumptions, it is hard to understand how even they can consider four isolated Peers to represent a “plot” of any kind.