Owen Jones made me do it

And so farewell to The Guardian and The Observer newspapers, titles I have been buying and reading for about 40 years. The only truly independent national newspaper in the land, owned not by a right wing billionaire but by a trust, I was paying £55 for the full printed and digital edition package and was happy and indeed proud to do so. I love many of the writers, especially the brilliant John Crace, Marina Hyde, John Harris and Jonathan Freedland, to name but four. But for every Crace, there’s a hard left Andy Beckett, an Aditya Chakrabortty and, worst of all, the insufferably smug hard left political activist Owen Jones. And his toxic piece today, once again attacking the mainstream Labour Party in general but its leader Keir Starmer in particular, calling on someone – his choice would be John McDonnell – to try to remove him as leader was the final straw for me.

Jones is, of course, allowed to write what he wants and the Guardian has a perfect right to publish it, but I do not have to pay to read it so, as of now, I am no longer a Guardian subscriber.

I was tempted to send one of those angry “I am cancelling my subscription” letters for publication, but then I remembered, from my own failure over 40 years to get a single letter published, I was not sufficiently hard left nor middle class enough for the letters editor.  Instead, I’ve fired off a a polite email to the subscription department saying I’m very sorry – and I genuinely am very sorry – to cancel, but that slimy little toad Owen Jones made me.

I truly value the Guardian’s brave, independent journalism and I really wanted to carry on supporting it financially, but I am not allowing my money to help employ the likes of Jones who, I consider, do as much as the Tories to undermine the Labour Party and whose actions helped to give us Jeremy Corbyn and, in 2019, Labour’s worst election defeat since 1935.

My apologies to Guardian and Observer staff. It’s nothing personal. When I’ve calmed down, I might just join the 21st century and take out a digital only subscription, but then again, if Jones keeps appearing,  maybe not. I’m a bit sad and I’m a bit pissed off, but there’s no going back. No more newspapers for me. As only old people buys newspapers, I might actually feel young for a while.