Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

The only thing this lot are serious about is wild swimming

tbfttfloto

tbfttpe, the completely flat wire on that dicknose pic suggests he's never worn it over his nose

isn't it a single use mask?

Man outside own front door hasn’t affixed single-use mask yet, pls alert the media.

i think we need a full forensic analysis on this

Today i will be ignoring Gaby Hinsliff and focusing my ire on the article about synthetic diamonds being "anatomically identical to a stone that has taken billions of years to grow underground".

It's true, same internal organs and everything

This lump of coal here - same stuff, trust

When you really think about it everything is just ⚛

Getcha Higgs Bosons, only 50p a paahnd

The only thing this lot are serious about is wild swimming
― xyzzzz__, Friday, October 30, 2020 8:32 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

sadlol

Watching Hadley and Gaby trying to tweet precisely just now and all I'm getting is an understanding of why the brutality of gulags might have been a good thing after all.

Kolyma would be too good for these fuckers, send 'em to Barnsley!

they'd only be writing smug pieces about the exotic landscapes and superb wild swimming in Siberia.

Past tense says it all

Antisemitism in the Labour party was real and it must never be allowed to return
Margaret Hodge

I briefly channel surfed past Times Radio yesterday for about 30 seconds. It was brillo pad sucking up to Hodge followed by Chris fucking Williamson!

I haven't got to the end of the EHRC report but I'm pretty sure it doesn't conclude by saying "there were problems with antisemitism but it's all gone now, great job lads, bye!"

to be fair to the labour party, they've done an incredible job of rooting out antisemitism and there will never be another example of it from mps, staffers or members xxp

otherwise, in the unlikely event that there was an outbreak of perceived anti-jewish sentiment, sir kieth would surely need to resign amid widespread and justified criticism

Keith has already shown how he will be going forwards on anti-Semitism. Like if of one of his fave right-wing cabinet ministers praises a statue of a pro-Hitler MP who was an embarrassment to the Tory party of the 40's, then to quote him "I'm not going to talk about that".

meanwhile Rosie Duffield still is a thing

lol quiddities and agonies

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/31/we-left-the-uk-for-portland-expecting-a-liberal-dream-that-wasnt-the-reality

america is pish, who knew

can't believe I got lied to about the US healthcare system by Kate Andrews!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/30/1953-britain-guyana

this is really good actually, about the rarely mentioned British imperial coup d’etat in Guyana in the 50's and its legacy

Without reading that I'm guessing the legacy is awesome

I was reading a book about the Raj recently that concluded the Indian indentured labourers shipped over to British Guiana might not have been technically been slaves, but... They were allowed to return home after 5 years of hard labour, but of course there was a very unhelpful bureaucracy there to insure that barely 0.0000% actually ever did return to India.

that scene where Brenda signed off on an armed invasion to destroy a democratically elected govt and imprison all it's cabinet, as depicted in The Crown is one of the highlights of Season 1!

Of course.

Not an unbiased point, but I don’t understand the ban on outdoor swimming. Minimal risk of transmission - significant benefits to physical and mental health. The same goes for botanical gardens. pic.twitter.com/Lyo9BDXPfe

— Paul Lewis (@PaulLewis) November 1, 2020

lol Full Graun

If any of these lads want to go for a swim at Bolton Strid I won't grass them up

the shopping trolleys in Barmston Drain make for a good slalom course

Needed two people for this one but it's still another piss poor hatchet job

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/nov/01/jewish-labour-supporters-this-antisemitism-thing-just-doesnt-seem-to-be-going-away

Risible. It would almost be worth him being thrown out of the party to see how thoroughly he would annihilate any official Labour candidate in Islington North.

I follow politics pretty closely and was familiar with his schtick: I was never a fan, but as long as he was an unimportant backbencher I didn’t waste energy on him and voted on national lines.

About 10 years ago I noticed that his faction was becoming more toxic and by the time he was leading the leadership race in 2015, I was warning my friends to take care.

The five years since he won have been painful. I wanted an effective opposition to the government, who could win power, and knew that he wouldn’t provide that.

these all seem to be complaints about socialism rather than antisemitism but idk

and in fact there's not one word in that whole piece offering examples of Corbyn's antisemitism

This is what happens when you seek out and interview bitter Islington Liberal Democrats still smarting that they've never recovered from being in coalition with Tories and never will.

If only they cared so much about effective opposition that they voted against The Welfare Bill rather than pouring their energy into factional ratfuckery. I'll be so glad the next time this party get's an absolute pasting in an election. I'll be just as cock-a-hoop as Jess was that night in December.

There’s a pretty consistent implication in a lot of the pieces like this that his local supporters are too poor and ignorant to pay attention to ‘real politics’ and are just taken in by his visibility and helpfulness with constituency matters, with all the racial and class implications that come with that.

"an effective opposition to the government, who can win power" is the number 1 indicator of being a soft Tory fuckwit

I don't think I'm ready to comment on this more fully because I'm seeing arguments from all directions that are making me angry but I think a lot of people are conflating the issue of whether this is being weaponised with whether it's being exaggerated, and it's important to separate the two.

There is also the flipside to the weaponisation argument which is whether a blind eye is being turned to similarly awful situations involving other minority groups but the ongoing shitshow that is British politics and British political parties is in no state to address that in the way that actually matters (ie for the victims).

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/nov/06/child-labour-doesnt-have-to-be-exploitation-it-gave-me-life-skills

This is doing the rounds this morning.

The author works for an organisation promoting crop diversification (ie. growing tobacco) in Malawi - one that receives funding from front organisations for the tobacco industry. British American Tobacco is currently being sued over the use of child labour in Malawi in a case that could potentially set a precedent for the whole industry if successful. Probably just a coincidence though.

I get the feeling most of the "positive impact solutions" stanned for by Palladium will greatly benefit child-labourers in 3rd world countries and if it works out good for evil global corporations as well then that is just an incidental benefit!

Is international concern on child rights relevant to Africa?

bit on the nose this

this kind of openly bought advertorial (which is what it is) has never been as uncommon in broadsheetland-at-large as it should be

(esp the sundays inc. the observer back to the 70s at least ffs, and ditto US versions of same)

but i don't recall it in the guardian all that often (if at all) (hence the sudden appalled fuss abt it today)?

bear in mind i don't read the guardian hardly at all -- cf my correct but embarassingly written post at the top of this thread 19 years ago! -- so i may simply have missed many earlier examples (and as i say the observer used to be infested with it and i haven't read that since the 80s when they totally fvcked me over re a regular position as music-writer lol)

All of their global development stuff is sponsored by Bill Gates’ foundation iirc.

lol i now have in my head the ghost of some super-ancient observer beef pro or con RIO TINTO ZINC which i can't access the detail of online (or indeed in my head)

shorter beef: RIO TINTO ZINC is always bad not good

You'll be blaming Tiny Rowland next for you not getting that job.

At the Eden Project there's an exhibit about how mining is good not bad for the environment, helpfully installed through support from Rio Tinto

tiny knew a lethal threat when he saw one (me writing 400 wds abt the bhundu boys)