On 14th February 2026, I wrote a blog entitled Sad Sweet Dreamers, which was all about The Guardian’s lurch from liberal, left of centre politics to a more extreme hard left position. Every day, often more than once a day, the paper, at least the on-line version I consume these days, carried out relentless attacks on the Labour Party in general and Prime Minister Keir Starmer in particular. It was not just its line-up of hard left columnists, people like Owen Jones, Andy Beckett and Aditya Chakrabortty who were taking it in turns to tip metaphorical buckets of shit over Labour, it was also more moderate voices like long-term hack Polly Toynbee. It never seemed to stop, at least until the week of the Gorton and Denton by-election.
I wondered if The Guardian had kept quiet that week, perhaps to avoid at least part of the blame should Labour lose this previously safe seat. In the end, it scarcely mattered as Zack Polanski’s resurgent populist Greens sailed to victory, dumping Nigel Farage’s fascists into second place and Labour into a distant third. Since Labour’s defeat, it has been noticeable that the paper has not obsessed with attacking Labour, although by the same token it is hardly full of praise for the governing party. Naively, I suspect, I hope that they have noticed that many subscribers, people who have been reading the paper for 50 years, have simply had enough of paying hacks to attack the party many ordinary Labour members and voters depend on for their news and opinion.
Left of centre voters have very little choice in today’s newspapers. Beyond the tabloid SHOCK! HORROR! of The Mirror, The Guardian is the only national title that does not publicly promote and support Reform UK Ltd and/or the dregs of the Conservative party. None of this is to say the title should be conscripted to publish only lavish praise for the governing party, just that a little balance might now and again be needed. In the weeks and months leading up to 26th February, there was no balance: just a full frontal assault on Labour. Normally, I can just about tolerate the ramblings of the Oxford-educated luvvies that totally dominate the paper’s comment pages but a constant diet of ‘Keir Starmer is a c*nt who kills babies’ – I may have imagined that headline, but that’s what it feels like – made me reconsider whether I wished to continue subscribing at a cost of £180 a year.
When I shared my blog on social media, it became the second most viewed piece in its 14 year history. I am not going to pretend that everyone agreed with me and that they too would be joining me in cancelling their subscriptions, but serious numbers of people shared my view that the Guardian had either lost its way, or made the decision to attack and undermine the Labour government. Put simply, there are quite a few of us who are not prepared to fund those who wish to do Labour down, out of political spite or whatever, and we would be walking away. Despite its moderated views in recent weeks, I have seen nothing to make me change my mind.
I would expect the likes of the Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph and the Times to engage in vicious and often personal attacks on Labour. That’s what happens when so much of our media is owned and controlled by super rich individuals and corporations who are not even based in Britain and in some cases do so to avoid tax. Such patriots. It is a total joke to pretend that we have a so-called ‘free press’. Of course we don’t. These rags print what their owners and proprietors tell them to print and and how they should tell the lumpen proletariat had to think and how to vote. And when The Guardian, the only national newspaper that is not owned by a corporation or a rich individual, takes away the one very small voice that anyone left of centre has in the British press, then do we just accept it or do something about it?
I honestly feel as if all of my £180 goes straight into the pocket of the odious Owen Jones who will then write 1000 words or so on how much he hates the Labour Party and not giving a toss whether they end up being replaced by the far right Reform UK Ltd company owned by the Fagash Fuhrer Nigel Farage.
It’s been good to see a change in The Guardian’s stance, but it’s not enough to persuade me to stay with them. Only the words they seek to print could do that and if all they can write about is how much they hate Labour, I’d no sooner subscribe to it than I would to the Telegraph.
