You still post articles from the Guardian in an attempt to prove a. the Guardian is a maintaining high standards and is a friend of the people.
The way you word that is unreasonably harsh (IMO) on some of the BETTER critical articles in the G about claimant-related policy. And actually somewhat dubiously worded come to think of it!
But it's not unreasonably harsh on the overall output of all its articles relating to the welfare state.
Wouldn't defend any Guardian articles that are specifically anti-union or that favour/defend cuts. I've criticised such things in it myself, and in this very thread too on occasion ...
My point is articles in the Guardian defending cuts are more evident in this recession 2008 onwards compared to the Major recession in the early 1990s or the first term cuts from Thatcher.
On Assange/Milne what is your point?
Not a valid comparison. Even the Mail contains the odd good article I accept, it's well resourced editorially compared to most other newspapers so it'd be surprising if it didn't.
What does well resourced editorially mean? It has well paid editors?
But to imply (as you were?) that the Mail's dominant aganda is scarcely distinguishable from the Guardian's is debatable to say the very least. Is the Guardian's dominant agenda to demonise claimants and foreigners? Is the Guardian out and out Tory? It's not nearly as left as I'd like and never has been, but it's not into hate-sensationalism.
It has been heavily into 'hate sensationalism' in the past - any brief glance at its editorials during the miners' strike, Wapping or the P&O strike shows this - the weakened labour response has reduced the need for this kind of hate.
Instead we get this kind of editorial 'hate' at the height of the Paulsgrove protests in 2000:
"One of the lessons learned fast by the plotters in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is that a mob, once aroused, will not easily be stood down: it cannot be switched on and off. The organisers of the protests in the Portsmouth estate of Paulsgrove will know by now if that rule still holds. Yesterday they asked the crowds to suspend their anti-paedophile protests, which had grown increasingly violent, and talk instead with the local council. "Have a night off, stay at home, see to your children, clean your house," said the protesters' spokesman, Barry Pettinger. But he added that it was not wholly up to him: "We do not control the people."
What Mr Pettinger seemed to be recognising was the same fact which had caused such alarm beyond Paulsgrove: that this was a mob out of control. The smashing of windows, the burning of cars, the hurling of petrol bombs, even at police - coupled with the sight of young children chanting "hang 'em" - had sent a chill through all those aware of the frailty of public order. Labour MP Robin Corbett has even suggested prosecution of the News of the World, whose "naming and shaming" of paedophiles has been blamed for igniting Paulsgrove.
The fact that the demonstrators sat down for talks yesterday is welcome. Perhaps they will be persuaded by the police evidence that they have repeatedly hounded the innocent, torching the homes and wrecking the lives of people who have nothing to do with child abuse. Perhaps, too, they will accept that their actions have actually increased the risk to their children, by driving paedophiles underground where they cannot be monitored. Maybe they will even realise that paedophilia is not a single enemy: that there are some abusers whose behaviour, though indecent and vile, does not represent a homicidal threat to children.
But there are grounds for pessimism. For what this stand-off has exposed is the chasm that divides the 3,000 or so estates (the government's figure) like Paulsgrove from the more affluent, sheltered parts of Britain where calmer discussion prevails. The liberal arguments familiar in newspapers, TV studios, parliamentary tea rooms and bishops' studies cut no ice among the boarded-up stores and sub-standard housing of Paulsgrove. For them, the distinction between a convicted and suspected paedophile is academic: "Either way, we just want them out of here," said one of the protesters' leaders on Wednesday. What might be the evidence against someone convicted of no crime? "Word of mouth," she said. What might count elsewhere as
the basic principles of a civilised society are a foreign language in Paulsgrove.
This, then, is the real meaning of social exclusion. Thousands of estates have been allowed to become
dustbins for the rest of society, out of sight and, until a
moment like this one, out of mind. (sihhi - Out of mind to who? How can they be out of mind for people who live on them, have neighbours and friends who live on them etc.)
Now they are getting together, bonding as a community - if not in quite the way the prime minister and all his communitarian rhetoric envisaged. There are dangers here, and not just from those who abuse children."
On the dishonesty thing. I accept I'm hardly popular on this thread for defending aspects of the Guardian at times, but Maggot's right -- this is a thread designed to make out, on the basis of highly selective anti-Guardian spin from most contributors here, spin that the paper is 100% shite and nothing but, and always has been. It's not declining in most peoples' opinion on this thread, it's always been complete rubbish, which is hardly an honest assessment of a paper that contains its fair share of shite (which I've never defended) but also has a pretty reasonable share of good investigation and exposes and information and coverage of important issues.
'Selective anti-Guardian spin' that it is '100% shite and nothing but, and always has been' - pure fantasy.
I'm old enough to still retain the habit of buying a printed paper most days -- I'm banned from non work related net access in my job and need something to read at lunchtime, on the bus, in the pub. As much for sports news as other news tbh. IMO out of a pretty poor mainstream bunch the Guardian's better (or less bad) than most, I go no further.
I don't care what paper(s) you read, I object to your misrepresenting posters here and the wider claim that the Guardian is not going down the pan but maintaining intellectual honesty, high investigative standards and ample opportunity for the subjects of events to speak for themselves.
Let's do this more objectively less spin you say the new entries on the Guardian's comment and editorial C+P straight:
In praise of … Ken Stott
20 Jan 2013: Editorial: In the West End at the moment you can see Stott playing Uncle Vanya as it should be done
Animals: are they good for supper or good companions?
20 Jan 2013: Libby Brooks: We humans make distinctions in our closeness to different animals, but we continue to exhibit great cruelty
International development: big questions, small answers
20 Jan 2013: Editorial: In place of the searching global conversation we need, we have an anaesthetised debate
EU reform: Cameron and Miliband have a duty to act as statesmen
20 Jan 2013: David Owen: Treaty amendment should not wait until 2015 – and Labour should co-operate, in the spirit of one-nation politics
American politics: Obama 2.0
20 Jan 2013: Editorial: Obama's most dedicated supporters may hanker for a crisply radical agenda for change, but don't bank on it
A big lump of horse ran into your burger? Don't wave it around or everyone'll want one
20 Jan 2013: Charlie Brooker: Cheap food disgusts us, but many of the posh alternatives are just as likely to put you off your dinner
Martin Rowson on David Cameron's Europe speech – cartoon
20 Jan 2013: Cartoon The prime minister is due to deliver his long-awaited speech on UK relations with the EU this week, after it was postponed because of the Algerian hostage crisis
The readers' editor on… Philip Davies MP and setting fairness above dispute
20 Jan 2013: Chris Elliott: Open door: On reflection, an unqualified correction in a footnote to our story would have been the best way to respond to Davies's complaint
Obama's second inaugural address: don't believe the conciliatory language
20 Jan 2013: Michael Cohen: Inaugural speeches are always mushy, but make no mistake: the economy, gun control and immigration are going to be divisive
What ties Cameron's EU policy to his stirring words on Algeria? Impatience
20 Jan 2013: Gaby Hinsliff: Pick a fight in Brussels, send in a taskforce, shake it all up – on foreign policy David Cameron's like a bull in a china shop
What links Putin and US Republicans? Their rivals look like elitists
20 Jan 2013: Vadim Nikitin: Russia's president can paint his critics as out-of-touch wannabe foreigners. Wine-quaffing liberals must refocus on equality
Why we lean to the political right in Israel
20 Jan 2013: Yoaz Hendel: Most Israelis have had to conclude there is a serious flaw with the idea of 'land for peace' – reality has pushed them to the right
Scottish independence is fast becoming the only option
20 Jan 2013: Kevin McKenna: Even to a unionist like me, an Alex Salmond-led government is preferable to one that rewards greed and corruption
This is what used to be the Guardian's Comment & Analysis section now called Comment is Free - so much of it is pretty weak pap - do you accept that this objective sample - no messing proves the point?
