Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Dw Fizzles, you will never be as incoherent as me.

I’d agree with that, onimo. Which is what the recurring conversation on this thread is about, the inherent danger in what should be progressive allies acting as mouthpieces for regressive values under the banner of feminism.

I can’t tell you how reductive and blindingly sexist it is to be reduced, as a woman, to my fucking organs, which is what my upbringing was like in Ireland, and yet you see supposedly smart and educated women falling for this and pushing this message every day. Can’t stand it!

I was talking to a friend the other day in Poland about the anti-abortion movement there and he felt (and I agreed) that British people were largely ignorant of the grassroots efforts to extend access to women in countries across Europe where it’s either illegal or limited. I am aware of and donate to the various charities and non-profits, for example, that fund travel for women in Poland, Malta etc and the reason those organisations are necessary, but there seems to be real ignorance about this wrt British feminists (you’ll see more articles about the GRA in a week than about the protests in Poland).

Obviously there are people interested and active, but considering the situation in NI and considering that it’s still technically a crime here, I’m surprised how little thought it gets. But this is me talking about one of the most formative political issues of my life.

I suppose this is a very rambling way of phrasing it, so let me try and then end: after abortion was legalised in Ireland, there now exists a slightly unusual situation where the laws that are in Ireland are more liberal than those here in Britain, where it continues to be a criminal offence (albeit one that is de facto legal though it is not prosecuted!)

In Great Britain abortion continues to be regulated under criminal law, but is legally available through the Abortion Act 1967, which permits abortions if there is:

risk to the life of the pregnant woman;
a necessity for abortion to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman;
risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family (up to a term limit of 24 weeks of gestation); or
substantial risk that if the child were born, it would "suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped".

The one where @jk_rowling gives right wing grifters, homophobes & transphobes permission for gript 'media' to republish her transphobia. pic.twitter.com/E3UutQClDr

— Daithi K. (@tvcritics) June 16, 2020

yeah the tentacles of us right wing Christian money into abortion rights in Ireland was definitely *illuminating* for those who lived through it and it's v interesting to see much of those patterns repeating in how anti trans narratives are currently disseminated here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2fj-Xtnjj8

tw: anti-choice content

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/23/guardian-obituary-peter-sutcliffe

You can set your watch by this stuff.

Here we … here we …. here we fuckin go!!!! pic.twitter.com/eJgFmYMiXk

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) November 25, 2020

some wag suggested she looks a bit like Evil Paddington

In case anyone is wondering where today’s If strip is it’s here https://t.co/YlWYnPOmLu

— Steve Bell (@BellBelltoons) November 24, 2020

lol they've bumped Bell's cartoon in the paper edition today. I think some people have had enough of the Starmer/Corbz s+m dungeon.

too on the nose from stefrebooted this time

lol, Moore's complaining about her 'bullying' in The Telegraph today as well.

that Moore piece is actually unreadable in places

I have been denounced, alongside bigger and better people such as JK Rowling

that Moore piece is actually unreadable in places

I’m pretty sure she used to live near us as well as you’d see her on her way to the corner shop, so her bit about local schools, which based on the evidence was...untrue... is a bit strange but I don’t feel like getting into it.

The Guardian frequently contains articles stating that some people are offended by Steve Bell and solemnly adding that they, too, are offended, and gravely concerned about what a a bad person he is.

I don't love everything Bell has ever done, but this, too, is one way that the Guardian is worse than it used to be.

xp let’s just say she probably was only talking to one type of parent on the school run because other types of parents were invisible to her...

Apparently UnHerd pays a quid a word but maybe not for a 7000-word rant? Still, that’s a lot of money to spit a dummy out.

Steve Bell needs to go away and have a long hard think about his inability to draw all his characters noses like cocks! Tbf I thought the Starmzy s+m dungeon series was neither good nor funny, but offensive ? lol you'd have to be a Sunday School prig to be offended. I was laughing when one person commented he might just be a randy old bastard that needs some sexual release like a rabidly horny pig on a farm!

I wonder if a thin-skinned knight of the realm has had a word with the Graun, it wouldn't surprise me.

Great also how she got a dig in at the Open Society funding the Guardian

i've got a woman on my twitter calling out the response to this as misogyny, that seems a very spurious call to say the least.

Predictable.

I think @suzanne_moore is the most underestimated social-political writer in the UK

— Anthony Barnett (@AnthonyBarnett) November 25, 2020

we'd all hope that our friends would stick by us if we were getting pilloried on twitter, but so much of her behaviour and bigoted writing has been beyond the pale - why pretend otherwise?

Argh, I know him a little and this will massively disappoint everyone I know who is involved with oD.

I have liked a lot of his writing over the years, if not always agreeing with it, but he definitely has a decent rep to protect

Wagon-circling is to be expected but Moore has been a rambling embarrassment for years.

It's all fair and well to stick by your pals but friends don't let friends become bitter transphobes

Suzanne Moore really did say “Paki Lover” with all her chai tea chest. But cool, she’s the victim in all this and liberal media doesn’t have racism problem against Brown and Black people and they’re fully represented in our media.

— The Trashies (@TheTrashiesUK) November 25, 2020

what's really tickling me right now is that fox-clubbing lunatic in the windmill becoming a leading voice against the likes of transphobes like Moore. Going by his current trajectory, Joylon will be a full-tankie by January!

Windmill Jolyon says (!):

Moreover, it appears as though Comment is Free was blocked from carrying a piece in support of the Good Law Project litigation. This is not a comment on its younger staff, but I would say the editorial line of the Guardian is more transphobic than that of the Mail.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) November 25, 2020

The Guardian has recently refused content in support of trans women from a group of leading feminist cis women. It advances the agenda of (the polls show) a small minority of privileged cis women against one of the most vulnerable groups in society. I am so ashamed of it.

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) November 25, 2020

oh for god’s sake pic.twitter.com/KGMv5vHCzn

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) November 25, 2020

tiny violin gif x1000

Slow day for Moore as she only appears on the front page of one national newspaper, The Daily Mail, talking about being silenced, this morning.

As I hate this rag (and this is a sorta nothing gesture as there are plenty of transphobes and racists left on their books) I really like how much she is really sticking the boot in, and using every single right-wing outlet to do it.

I assume they'll just take it on the chin but it'd be interesting to see some kind of response from The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/25/got-to-make-cuts-somewhere-maltby-gives-sunak-benefit-of-the-doubt

Boris Johnson started talking about levelling up back in the summer. But the phrase hasn’t filtered up to Maltby just yet and the voters of tomorrow do not appear to be growing up with a sense of north-south injustice. Does London get too much government money? Sixteen-year-old Jemma Frost, walking home from sixth form college, wasn’t sure: “The south has bigger cities than the north, doesn’t it, so they will need more.”
She too thought Johnson had done a good job: “He’s tried his best.” There is no stigma against the Conservatives among her generation, she suggested. The miners’ strike was 20 years before they were born: “It’s only older people who are still angry about it.”

Round the corner at Kell’s Kitchen it was another slow afternoon. The corner cafe is takeaway only during the second lockdown and many of their enormous sandwiches – the special contains three rashers of bacon, four sausages, three eggs, beans and mushrooms – are difficult to eat on the hoof.

The owner, Tracey Taylor – Kell is her daughter – is just about making ends meet, but times are tough. Normally she delivers to local salons, but they’re all shut. Half the workers on the nearby industrial estate are furloughed, so they don’t need feeding. “Business is rubbish,” she sighed, behind a Perspex screen and a mask.

Yet like many people in this former Labour stronghold, Taylor didn’t blame Johnson for her predicament. “I think he’s done quite well. I feel quite sorry for him, he’s had it tough,” she said. Would Labour have done a better job? “Probably not.”

Bilge-tier journalism

really crying tears for all these "working class" tory-voting business owners who are having such a hard time of it.

are they actually real people or are they just fictional characters from all the John Harris safaris that he abandoned for being too on the nose?

It's just, she evidences 1 6th form student, after the sentence "But the phrase hasn’t filtered up to Maltby just yet and the voters of tomorrow do not appear to be growing up with a sense of north-south injustice", and 1 cafe-owner who she has clearly ascertained in advance is a Tory voter.

Fuckin journalism, how does it work?

Of Sunak’s announcements on Wednesday, it was the cut to the foreign aid budget which Iqbal thought would go down best locally. “I’ve lived in this country for about 30 years and as somebody coloured, you are still classed as a foreigner,” he mused, suggesting he had never quite been accepted locally, despite also running a curry house around the corner for years. “It might be good for the average British folk if the government is giving more to people here than abroad.”

-_-

People are misinformed and ignorant about politics? There are no lessons for a journalist to learn here!

"curry house" is annoyingly patronising from a Guardian journalist. call it a restaurant. like "builders' tea"

They don't actually have restaurants north of Stratford-on-Avon though, don't be silly.

ogmor come back to ilx we are talking about the north!

Pidd is the very worst - even her name sounds like it should be onomatopoeia for a particularly desultory and condescending journalistic squib.

is this not the lady who used her small business owning landlord pal as a labour-turned-tory source

we just have gravel pits where we feight to the death for mouldy cobs of bread up here

Would really need a worst Guardian writer poll. Too many to choose from.

is this not the lady who used her small business owning landlord pal as a labour-turned-tory source

― reggae kraftwerk (||||||||), Thursday, 26 November 2020 10:14 (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Twentymans. yeah. She obviously noticed all the criticism and decided the best thing to do was double down on her approach.

Am I wrong in thinking the implied message behind all these pieces is "Keith, pssst, this is what you need to do?"

turning a big dial taht says "Racism" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right

— wint (@dril) March 15, 2017