Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Anyway, interesting, but surely completely coincidental, that The Guardian's running a stream of negative comment pieces and sketches about Priti Patel a few days after she was briefing against MI5.

Galaxy brain: Priti Patel has ordered MI5 to force The Guardian to run a stream of negative comment pieces and sketches about her so as to instill fear amongst the populace.

[l-r] organ grinder, monkey.

Christ, I just saw that Toynbee piece says RLB and Nandy “fell in the trans thorn bushes”, absolutely get fucked forever, Polly

I missed remarking on the really obvious thing in PT's column -- namely that she presented it as bizarre that a majority of Labour members prefer JC to Blair.

You don't need to be as much of an admirer of JC as I am to see why it's daft to find this odd. Many of us like JC because we trust him and share his values on the basis of virtually everything he has ever said and done. Many of us have doubts about TB because he launched destructive, destabilizing illegal wars.

It would be odd if the membership of a party of the left didn't think this way. It's disingenuous at best if PT can't see this.

PT is a strange and not entirely hateful observer imo but yeah of course the Corbyn "bafflement" speaks volumes, as does any defence of Blair tbh

It's disingenuous at best if PT can't see this.

Its not disingenuous, she is simply out of touch. Its the same thing with MSNBC's meltdown/bafflement over the rise of Bernard. Its alien to them because they're cut off and as media people their job is to create realities. Thats why there's almost no reflection, no curiosity, no anything - and why 'cultishness' is the only answer they have

Her position was set however many years ago and her job is just to roll it out every week, regardless of whats happening. Its a form of brainworms more than disingeneousness.

Her dad was shit-hot at predicting the direction of traffic as well, he declared the fad for JRR Tolkien was over just before paperback LOTR was published in the US in the 60's! He did the transition from tankie to grumpy old conservative reactionary - more of the latter obv rubbed off on Polly.

got to hand it to her though - she's very accomplished at being Polly Toynbee, must be a charmed life when you get quite handsomely remunerated for just being yourself!

Lol imagine calling people xenophobic because your idiotic opinion was called out.

I can imagine it.

Feel like I've seen it in the wild.

How many threads must a man scroll through
Until he finds one without Fred

Politics, prog rock or poll
All you've gotta do is scroll
And I'll be there
You've got a Fred

Remove Bookmark from this Threaaaaaaad

I know it's advertorial but the fucking state of this

https://www.theguardian.com/taking-care-of-business/2019/dec/11/set-goals-switch-off-social-and-snack-well-how-to-be-more-productive-at-work?utm_source=pdscl&utm_medium=sfbk&utm_camp

They’re just fucking with us now

Strange as it may seem, Keir Starmer could be the British Bernie Sanders | Patrick Maguire https://t.co/8e70kkiUkq

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 27, 2020

Cultivating new support across class and ethnic divides has put Sanders on the road to the Democratic nomination, and Starmer believes that the same approach can put Labour back on the path to power: keep left, rebuild a diverse coalition of voters, and look beyond the red wall.

no i think a lot of them really are capable of this level of doublethink

Patrick Maguire is a political correspondent at the New Statesman

the vested interests arraigned behind RLB

well yes the left of the party's base and the Unite union are obstacles to be overcome, never mind that Starmer still hasn't revealed whose pocket he is in the shady cunt.

isn't party politics about self-interest groups or is it somehow shady and "populist" if the self-interest groups aren't corporations and billionaires?

This is how these cunts talk when they've got no concept of a Labour Party that can anything else but a reconstructed version of the tories.

They’re just fucking with us now

🐦[Strange as it may seem, Keir Starmer could be the British Bernie Sanders | Patrick Maguire https://t.co/8e70kkiUkq🕸
— The Guardian (@guardian) February 27, 2020🕸]🐦

_Cultivating new support across class and ethnic divides has put Sanders on the road to the Democratic nomination, and Starmer believes that the same approach can put Labour back on the path to power: keep left, rebuild a diverse coalition of voters, and look beyond the red wall._

RLB doesn't have an attack line. She hasn't attacked anyone in this campaign. Rightly or wrongly.

Apparently wrongly.

releasing her list of campaign donors and then her biggest donor big len steaming into the starmer campaign about his lack of disclosure was a minor attack I suppose. If I had been running her campaign Starmer would probably be successfully suing me for libel right now, but I'd have made at least some of that shit stick to him and cause some damage at least. I hate all that unity bs, as if politics isn't about competing factions and their interests.

even though Starmer has put on a show of keeping it polite blah blah unity, his campaign have been playing dirty and smearing right from from the off. Bunch of foul Akehurst/Labour First moles!

Politeness is always a political move

RLB doesn't have an attack line. She hasn't attacked anyone in this campaign. Rightly or wrongly.

sorry, as calz said.

Big Dunty has gushed that Starmer is "the functional opposition coming" because his twitter account has done a short critical thread on the outrage against oh so brave Sir Philip Rutnam and the civil service. What a merciless offensive against the tory government, they must be shaking in their boots in the face of finally ... a functional opposition!

Can't wait till Lisa Nandy comes out and says that Labour haven't been bullying civil servants enough and how bullying is a part of life in towns

— Loki (@Lokinash06) February 29, 2020

oops sorry I'm misusing this thread as a proxy Labour leadership one

or poxy as I should have said!

posting vmic

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/28/press-tom-watson-peerage-labour-lords-rupert-murdoch

Just had a lovely train of thought where this thread is the valid title for a dystopian 70s sci-fi world

Watson’s name features a number of times in this week’s report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA) but he is not, so far as I can tell, directly criticised. The report is more concerned that, though there was ample evidence of sexual abusers linked to Westminster, there was a culture of deference towards politicians and other well-connected people. Others feature rather more centrally than Watson.

Yeah

Other thoughts later, but mostly "satanic abuse"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/pete-buttigieg-president-white-house-gay-lgbtq

I’m sure there is a good article that could be written about Pete Buttigieg running a moderately successful campaign as a gay man, but this is not it.

Guardian really covering itself in glory atm. This piece is so scummy I archived it. Chucking in the Polanski comparison - as though being uninvited from speaking was on the same fucking planet as being a child rapist who never served his sentence. What’s the motive for such a wild and insane comparison, I wonder?*

Hate crimes against trans people are spiralling and let’s not forget New Zealand granted a woman’s asylum application because of this reason. But nah, Suzanne and her mates doing the dirty work of the far right and kicking and screaming about being challenged for their bigoted views are the real victims.

*this is rhetorical, it’s just too libellous to write down in full

Sorry, as protesting a child rapist who never served his sentence.

"Woman’s Place UK clearly isn’t a hate group, and the Labour pledge led to many women using the hashtag #ExpelMe on Twitter"

expel them then, that would be guaranteed to cost Starmer some votes.

fuck Suzanne Moore and her hair that looks like an elephant has shat on her head.

I've no idea who she is or what she sounds like but its hard to imagine that she has a worse speaking voice than than Paperclip Man

she's a bigot and once tried to run as an independent against Diane Abbott and lost her deposit I think.

I imagine Diane Abbott was quaking in her boots when she saw Suzanne Moore's name on the candidate list.

Woman’s Place UK was founded in 2017 to do not much else than moan about trans women and it is totally a hate group. Someone I have known for 30 years is a member and last week, somehow a phone call to offer sympathy re: my dead cousin turned into me telling her repeatedly not to talk to me about WPUK or Janice Turner or puberty blockers or how she isn’t in a hate group (nobody who is not in a hate group needs to go around telling people they are not in a hate group). Babe, you are in a hate group.

Lol. My t-shirt saying "I am not in a hate group" has people asking a lot of questions already answered etc

Good name for a band that, Hate Group.