Rappers Delight? A mixed message fiasco, actually...

Nice work, The Evening Standard.

Sensitively uniting the equally pressing issues of black gun crime and the fledgling acting careers of ex-pop-posse posers is never easy.

But when you've bagged the perfect interview with a subject who encapsulates both these imperative strands in a topical and — naturally — entertaining way, just go with the flow and you'll be in establishment-sanctioned applause territory in no time.

"A rap star who was jailed for gun crime today joined Tony Blair's call for the black communities to take a lead against teenage gun and knife violence," led the piece.

"Ashley Walters, who achieved fame as Asher D in the south London gang-style garage music group So Solid Crew, said black parents and leaders must take 'ownership' of the social problems behind the recent wave of gang violence and killings."

So far, so solid. Reformed spitter Ash certainly pulls no punches in his damning indictment of the streets that in no way made him the economically viable prospect he is today: "The culture is too materialistic. Black people feel like they have to prove to others that they are doing well. That causes resentment and we have to look at the kind of role models we are creating."

Tough love has never sounded so sexy.

"Now the young star, who made his first TV appearance on Grange Hill, will appear in the new BBC One Hustle series and in Sugarhouse Lane, an independent British film in which he plays a crack addict."

It's almost poetry. Remorseful stage-school kid and Brit Award winner who was caught doctoring a BB gun with the aid of his elder brother's AirFix Deluxe Spitfire kit ("With fully rotating wings") now puts all that behind him and even offers soundbites-for-cash on his unstoppable rise back to the top of Heat's "A good week for..." column.

The Evening Standard know a good egg when they see one. Walters not only has a heart of gold; he's not only teetering on the brink of B-list ubiquity: he's even landing parts in big films! And the right films!

"Critically acclaimed for his performance in Bullet Boy, the Hackney-set story of a young offender trying to go straight after jail, Walters has also appeared alongside American rapper 50 Cent in his autobiographical movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin'."

See what they mean? Yeah?

And, er... oh.

Just read that last one again: "Walters has also appeared alongside American rapper 50 Cent in his autobiographical movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin'."

Come again? Get Rich or Die Tryin' with 50 Cent?

I think it's safe to say we've discovered the limit of Ashley Walters' political and social beneficence right there. And, by extension, the limit of The Evening Standard's capacity for reporting that carries even one iota of savvy.

It would be crushingly dispiriting, were it not a given that reading anything that has come from the mouth of somebody who used to be in So Solid Crew is already the moral equivalent of plunging your head into an over-used, uncleared sanitary bin.