Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

it was recently pointed out to me that the scotland editor libby brooks is casually slipping hate speech into her articles now:

https://www.dumptheguardian.com/law/2021/feb/22/ill-set-no-limits-on-which-women-to-protect-from-hate-says-helena-kennedy

"The Scottish government’s own hate crime bill has attracted a huge amount of controversy and, while it was always the intention to examine this standalone option, the timing is far from ideal. As it stands, a bill is passing through Holyrood that criminalises the stirring up of hatred against men who dress as women but not the stirring up of hatred against women, while the decision of protections for women won’t be made until Kennedy’s working group reports back in 12 months’ time."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/22/jess-phillips-mp-motherhood-made-me-feel-like-i-mattered-i-wish-that-wasnt-the-case

Worse than it used to be.

I feel pleased. pic.twitter.com/GUy3vHPUw0

— Lucie Toblerone (@msloobylou) February 24, 2021

is that a fucking question?

I didn't realise they had it in for people with disabilities too!

we established this during the corbyn era- all austerity deaths are just water under the bridge now. much like the invasion of Iraq. these are not lives that serious grown ups can afford to care about

thank u based boris

How it started / How it's going pic.twitter.com/nrGwhhBYxh

— Stats for Lefties (@LeftieStats) February 24, 2021

fuck wrong thread

is it though

makes u think

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/06/convenience-has-a-human-cost-so-i-am-quitting-amazon-prime?

"For years, I’ve read stories about conditions at Amazon and thought: “That’s terrible.” But I’ve never felt terrible enough to change my behaviour and cancel my account. I’ve always found ways to justify using the service. It’s so damn convenient, after all. And I’m clearly not the only one who bypasses my principles in the name of convenience. Jeff Bezos could boast about how he likes drowning kittens in his spare time and, I’m pretty sure, people would continue to use Amazon."

lol that columnist and that blank look in her profile pic

it's just the monkey columnist face tbh

she’s quitting Prime. presumably she’s keeping her non-Prime account.

Marina Hyde, actually, writes:

People are far more performative online in accordance with their consciousness of being watched. My colleague Jonathan Freedland made me laugh recently when he noted how Twitter had turned everyone into the archbishop of Canterbury, somehow feeling that every major news story requires them to issue an official statement.

know your place, proles.

know your place, proles.

maybe there’s a new category in our world: “information proles”.

terrible that people that don't come from landed gentry backgrounds or have the connections to get a job at the Graun .. that these filthy nobodies can publish their own thoughts online without their approval!

I like how Marina's *hilarious* weekly writings in the Graun are like a stream of unrestrained consciousness and are not playing to the gallery at all.

If I had shagged Piers Morgan I’d probably wind my aristocratic neck in from time to time on the subject of others’ foibles tbh

I genuinely wonder what expertise Freedland imagines he has, other than in maintaining a public platform for thirty years.

Anxiety about populism / lack of faith in experts is all over the press but what kind of standing does he imagine 'journalist parents - PPE degree - opinions4U' gives him to dribble out a column five days a week on whatever happens to be in the headlines.

Born to rule.

Freedland has his regular radio 4 gig as well The Long View. Shockingly it's an absolute stinker of a program and he consistently stays on brand and usually seems to be feigning some kind of examination into events of the past and making a comparison with current events, but if you've read him and know his schtick it might be time flip to another station because you know where it is going.

I agree with these comments, but also find it remarkable, and awful in a way, to learn that Hyde *actually reads Freedland's work*, and *laughs at it*, when he writes unfunny things.

Maybe I would imagine that they all know that each other are bad, and would never *actually bother reading* each other - leaving that for mere Guardian buyers? (A bit like the rank cynicism of the family in the novel WHAT A CARVE UP! (1994)?)

if they don't believe in each other who will

I don't find it hard to believe these people who all go to the same dinner parties genuinely do find each other funny and insightful, after all they never listen to anyone outside the bubble anyway

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/16/experience-ive-had-the-same-supper-for-10-years

i'm not quite this bad wrt routine but i'm definitely feeling this guy. the bit about birdsong made me sad tho.

Ooft, wow. That's both immensely life-affirming and immensely sad somehow. What a great wee piece of writing.

Reading the Mabinogion eating ma big onion

I need to know how he eats the onion

I'm guessing he chews it into a bolus which goes down his oesophagus into his stomach

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2021/apr/22/burnt-out-is-the-exhausting-cult-of-productivity-finally-over?

Nobody who is "unskilled" interviewed here ofc

I usually pick a single, brilliant sentence when I tweet masterpieces like this from @rafaelbehr. But there are simply too many to choose from. Every line stings like a bee! https://t.co/2TUCvS8V77

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) April 28, 2021

One to go alongside Calzino's list of Marina Hyde eulogies.

big 'from our vauxhall office' whiff off this one: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/30/is-russias-covid-vaccine-anything-more-than-a-political-weapon-sputnik-v

Should send a link to this thread as a 'birthday message' to The Guardian

send Marina Hyde back in time to the early 19th century to put those dastardly Salford yeomanry in their place with her rapier wit.

Pretty compelling evidence that it has never been good:

- Argued for martial law during the Irish famine
- Supported the confederacy
- Editorialised for white supremacy and "unfaltering confidence in our right to rule over the native population by virtue of inherent superiority"
- criticised suffragist direct action
- dismissed Palestinian rights in the founding of Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-what-we-got-wrong-the-guardians-worst-errors-of-judgment-over-200-years

haha i cant be the only person that opened that and crtl+f-ed "iraq"

2 save u time: "no results found"

🤔🤔🤔

i've talked to more than one person who has defended the guardian as not totally irredeemable by citing its strong stance against the war, it's amazing what people remember and how

ctrl+f Starmer "no results found"

The Obs was full tankie while the Graun was neutral/opposed iirc.

this needs to be ten times as long. no mention for example of publishing explicit defences of islamophobia (by name!) at a time of unprecedented state violence against muslims. or the trans eliminationism they've been pushing relentlessly lately which has literally killed people. minor shit like yvette cooper and owen smith and dave miliband is merely embarrasing in comparison. this riskless water under the bridge shit will still be taken for bravery by those who want to believe

how about publishing known sex pests like michael white and nick cohen (tip of the iceberg) while posturing as some kind of feminist publication (in order to attack muslims, black women, sex workers, trans people...) - maybe we'll get a mea culpa for that in 50 years

Don’t forget Hadley Freeman defending Woody Allen on at least two occasions

i read the TERF’s woody allen article so you don’t have to: it’s execrable stuff pic.twitter.com/B1ka1ZJtJE

— wanton dialectic-haver (@sharcoal) May 29, 2020

forgot about that there's so much awful to keep track of. burn it all down

Observer:

It is difficult for a leader of the opposition to be heard so soon after the election of a new prime minister to whom voters delivered a resounding majority and who is broadly considered to be performing well. The expectation that Labour could transform its fortunes just 18 months after its historic 2019 defeat, its worst showing in almost 100 years, was always unrealistic.

Note: "broadly considered to be performing well".