‘Read and share anything on our site for free this weekend,’ announces the Sunday Times this morning. ‘For one weekend only no paywall,’ echoes veteran rugby union hack Stephen Jones. An act of generosity by billionaire hatemonger owner Rupert Murdoch or a ploy by which to attract new subscribers if you like what you see? You pays your money – I won’t be – or you takes your chance. I don’t like what I see.
Few people have had a more damaging effect on British life and culture than Murdoch, the so-called Dirty Digger. He helped give us Thatcher, Brexit and of course the endless division through the culture wars his media empire fuels. There was a time when I bought the Sunday Times because, despite the presence of some dreadful individuals, like the racist Taki, there was a fair bit of decent journalism to enjoy. Having partly skimmed and partly read today’s edition, little has changed since I last bought a paper copy.
Filthy rich landowner and professional gobshite Jeremy Clarkson is still there, except that he now has two weekly columns with which to dispense his bile. Clarkson really can write, but then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid like ‘the internet you get from Starlink satellites, which incidentally, also gives you Aids.’ It’s AIDS, by the way, but as long as he gets a cheap laugh from one of his loyal readers, who cares about accuracy? And naturally one of Clarkson’s columns is all about his extensive land-holding – sorry, farming – which came about following his desire to avoid inheritance tax. Before you declare your love of The Great Man, just remember he punches down, not up. Always the easy hits for Jezza.
I wander through the opinion columns, reserved exclusively for the establishment class Murdoch purports to despise, a Tory MP, Laura Trott and the likes of Rod Liddle, Robert Colvile and – did I mention? – Jeremy Clarkson? That in itself may be just fine and dandy for actual Sunday Times readers, but having not having read the paper for decades, it’s exactly the same as it was in the 1980s. An old jacket, a pair of slippers, perhaps, with the added smell of old age.
Seeking some quality writing about yesterday’s Six Nations encounter between Wales and England, I had certainly chosen the wrong paper. Stephen Jones, who must be in his nineties by now, acknowledged England’s superiority – well, they did scrape home by 68 to 14 points – but nonetheless blamed the referee who ‘decided that all penalties should be conceded by Wales‘. Honestly, imagine a Welshman blaming a record defeat solely on the referee. Then there was big old dullard Lawrence ‘Lol’ Dallaglio providing a dreary, monotonal opinion column and, worse still, Stuart Barnes, the hated former Bristol fly-half (he went to Bath, bastard), who still writes as he speaks – with an unhealthy portion of sneering superiority.
The paper is unquestionably an organ of the political right, indeed parts are of the far right, not least a puff piece on thoroughly modern Mosley Nigel Farage and, as previously mentioned, writers hardly known for their liberal views, like Clarkson and Liddle. Assessing a paper’s political stance is regarded by some as being subjective but no one would honestly suggest the editorial pages, nor the slant of the news writing, is anywhere other than on the firm, some might say (I would) the hard right. Quality hard right writing, for sure, but hard right nonetheless.
The culture pages are pretty good. Stephen Graham, Samuel West talking about his late dad Timothy, Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol’s main man if you like that sort of thing – I don’t), Travel travels to numerous places I couldn’t afford to go to and Food recommends recipes I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. Surprising for such a heavyweight title, the Sunday Times is surprisingly lacking in depth and appears, at least to me, as time-filling, forgettable, generic and, frankly, dull. And you know what? That’s what I felt when I read it in the very old days.
One thing I noticed straight away was how dated it all looks. Granted online newspapers are on well on the way to replacing paper editions, as the latter are only purchased by older people these days and will soon be extinct, like VHS and Betamax (one for the teenagers, there) before them and when they finally bite the dust, will even online newspapers survive? My view is that they will, but only for a small audience. In these days of music-streaming, dodgy firesticks and the internet in general, increasingly people don’t want to pay for content. You don’t have to look very hard to find the stuff you want for free.
I did enjoy some of what I read. Some decent interviews and a list of the best music of 2025 so far, but did I learn anything? I already knew that Rupert Murdoch wants me to read his newspapers in order to persuade me to a) make him money and b) encourage me to vote for a right wing political party, seemingly Reform UK Ltd if this edition of the paper is anything to go by. Well, in that case, he can just fuck off. He’s right up there – or is it down there? – with the very worst people in history. Not as bad as Hitler, obviously, but on a par with the likes of Thatcher, Farage, Trump and Musk.
Murdoch has always bemoaned the absence of a meritocratic society, in which people are rewarded for their talent and achievements and not their privileged background and then he produces what is essentially propaganda which he hopes to ensure the real power remains with the establishment he pretends he doesn’t belong to but actually owns.
The Sunday Times sucks, like it always has done. It’s free today, but it still costs far too much. And as with anything Murdoch touches, it hates you and wants to keep you in your place.
The only power we have is to not give Murdoch any money. He is the very worst of us and his legacy of lies and misinformation will last far longer than he will (he’s 95 in a few weeks). Horrible bloke, crap newspaper. What’s to love?
