The editorial stance of The Guardian newspaper, as well as the opinions of its columnists, is of little relevance to The Great British Public. Certainly not compared to that of the Mail, Sun and the rest of the gutter press, which these days includes The Times and the Telegraph, who despite their declining readership retain a massive influence on our politics. Since around 1975, I have bought The Guardian, for specific reasons: its editorial and the opinions of its hacks were general close to my own. And let’s face it, generally speaking you are not going to buy a newspaper which relentlessly bangs out opinions you don’t share and even loathe, are you? (My late stepfather said he bought the Sunday Express “for the crossword” not because he always voted Conservative, which of course he did.) My political views have barely changed in 50 years. The Guardian has long left me behind.
I have not bought a physical newspaper in many years, preferring these days to access my news via the internet. Because I value good quality journalism, particularly that of a centre-left nature, I have paid an annual three figure subscription. I felt this was exceptionally good value given how much my partner and I devoured its content. But while my political views remain rooted in what I would call Blairism – I was a Blairite long before Tony came along – The Guardian has changed.
I have never forgiven The Guardian for its decision in 2010 to decision to urge its readers to not vote for Labour. The Guardian announced that “if it had a vote it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. But under our discredited electoral system some people may – hopefully for the last time – be forced to vote tactically.” Labour had completed 13 successful years when under Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown the country had got better, as it claimed it would back in 1997. Not only had it repaired public services, especially the NHS, people were better off. Brown had even taken a leading role in the world’s response to the worldwide financial crash of 2008. The Guardian, however, was taken in by the suave bullshit of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, a charlatan who ended up going into government with David Cameron’s austerity-heavy Conservative party and proceeded to wreak havoc with the country, particularly regarding the less well-off and the vulnerable. Fast forward 16 years and The Guardian is in attack mode, not so much against Nigel Farage’s increasingly fascist private company Reform UK Ltd, but against Labour itself.
Every day – and I am not exaggerating, here – I am treated to at last one article by one of the many Oxford educated middle class luvvies in its ranks attacking Labour and its leader Sir Keir Starmer. Now, there is not a single hack who so much as defends Labour, never mind writes positively about it. The attacks are utterly relentless and, in my view, part of a deliberate campaign to remove a democratically elected Prime Minister and his government.
Call me a snowflake, but I am not prepared to pay what is for me a substantial wedge in order to fund a relentless and frequently abusive and vicious anti-Labour campaign. I am very much in favour of a balanced debate because I do not suggest for a moment that Labour has got everything right so far. It hasn’t. But actually, away from the hysterical Guardian offerings, the government has actually done a pretty good job delivering on its election promises, on things like improving the NHS, bringing the railways under public ownership and many other things. If you glance across the pages of the paper, you would never know.
I have considered getting rid of my subscription for some time now and have now reached the point where I can no longer go on paying for something so opposed to the things and people I believe in. Some have suggested that The Guardian, unlike the rest of the press, is coming at Labour from the hard left and there is some truth in that. Hacks like the wretched Owen Jones, Aditya Chakrabortty and Andy Beckett are clearly enjoying their vicious and often personal attacks on Labour in general and Starmer in particular, while even so-called ‘moderate’ columnists like Polly Toynbee have turned against both, with varying degrees of venom. And what the paper doesn’t have is balance. I do not expect a Pravda-type sucking-up article about Labour every day, but I also do not expect the one-way traffic. In terms of conscience alone, I can no longer justify subscribing.
The Guardian boasts frequently that ‘Comment Is Free’ on its online pages, but it isn’t. The moderators of its comment pages do not tolerate alternative views, no matter how polite you are. A couple of years I was suspended from commenting on anything on its website for calling out its chief weasel Owen Jones, not even using the word weasel, which he is, or anything else derogatory. I just disagreed and I, a paid subscriber, was banned from commenting until I accepted that I must not say anything other than praise of The Guardian’s hacks. So much for Comment Is Free. At The Guardian these days, comment is only free if you agree. I’m not having that.
These days, The Guardian with its 60,000 readers (of its hard copy), is no better than the right-wing gutter press in its loathing of that rarity in British politics, a Labour government. Perhaps, there is an element of snobbery from within the paper since, as I pointed out earlier, the vast majority of its writers are Oxford University graduates and indeed some are products of elite private schools, and this Labour government is comprised almost entirely of state school educated pupils, including the Prime Minister himself. I certainly detect snobbery from the sneering hard left middle classes who quite fancy a hard left Labour government but unlike millions of working class people don’t really need one. It’s the old Bennite/Corbyn argument that they need to build ‘a movement’, not actually a government. Sad sweet dreamers, one and all.
When and if I let go of The Guardian I shall miss it. Their sports writers are outstanding, I love Alexis Petridis’s writing about music, John Crace’s political sketches are sublime, I love the travel articles and quite a lot else. But none of that can make up for the politics of the paper, which I predict will lean towards Zack Polanski’s joke Greens, the ultimate Toytown revolutionaries. Voting Green could well allow Farage to sneak into Downing Street – is that what The Guardian really wants? From where I am sitting, it certainly looks like it. And I am not paying for it to happen. I’ll certainly miss it, but then I thought I would miss a hard copy of the paper. I don’t.
I’m one of those people who would always vote Labour, even if a monkey was in charge. Indeed, I did exactly that when Jeremy Corbyn led the party to electoral disaster in 2019. What I won’t do is buy a newspaper that seeks to destroy a Labour government. Carry on attacking Labour but not with my money.
A few years ago, The Guardian suggested “journalism is in free fall.” Who knew they were talking about themselves?
