Readers’ Letters: Goodbye, Guardian
In the first post of a new section, we publish the letter of an (ex-)Guardian reader, detailing the reasons he bid goodbye to his former paper of choice. As yet the Guardian has not printed this letter, nor replied to the writer. If you have had similar experiences, or have written any letters that you have sent, or wish to send, to the Guardian – feel free to submit them to us at [email protected].
Dear Guardian
First off, I want to thank you for being the main source of my news for the past 20 plus years. Now 31, I have been an avid reader of the newspaper since I was a wee boy. Admittedly I no longer buy a copy everyday (along with the observer) as I rarely have the time to sit down and read the entire thing, but I still do on average three times a week and the Guardian website is the first website I go to on my laptop and I Phone.
Thank you for breaking the best stories, having the best commentators and generally having an angle I could trust, over this time.
However, the Guardian’s political coverage has sharply deteriorated since the election of Jeremy Corbyn and I will no longer be buying the newspaper or visiting the website. Admittedly it will be very difficult to not visit the website because it’s so ingrained in my behaviour. I’ve been trying the past few weeks to avoid it but keep on finding myself back there! But after this email, I hereby declare that I will never buy a Guardian newspaper or browse the website again.
In recent weeks I’ve read the Guardian’s coverage of Corbyn with disbelief. The drip feed of anti-Corbyn bias has got ridiculous. Remember the story of John McDonnell’s Little Red Book joke? Well that was an ironic joke about Osbourne’s public investment strategy, reliant as it is on the Chinese state, an authoritarian dictatorship. The Guardian’s interpretation? That McDonnell was referencing Mao as one of his heros, backed up with a ridiculous quote from Chuka Umuna to that effect. I’d expect such a tactic from the Daily Mail.
Or take the recent coverage of the Oldham by-election. During the build-up, the Guardian’s frame was that Labour was struggling because of Corbyn. The election was dubbed as a test of Corbyn’s Labour Party. There was recognition that Labour would probably win, but a low victory was predicted (“Labour works around Jeremy Corbyn in Greater Manchester”).
During the build-up, I expected something was amiss. I can say that as a Labour party activist in a northern city (Leicester) Corbyn has made campaigning far easier because we have a positive platform and a clear difference with the Tories. Surely this is something to tap into?
Fast forward to news of Labour’s emphatic victory, where Labour extended its lead by 7.5% to 62.3%, the Guardian’s view is that victory has very little to do with Corbyn and everything to do with Jim McMahon, the local guy who won despite the leadership.
Now, I wouldn’t want to take anything away from McMahon, who is clearly a fantastic local politician. But an extension of Labour’s lead is astounding given everything that has gone on, the turmoil in Labour following the Syria vote and relentless hostility in the national media. Something about Corbyn’s leadership is proving popular at the ballot box, despite the Guardian’s best efforts to set him up for a fall.
Indeed, over these past few months, I have come to understand the nature of the Guardian: it’s certainly not a modern incarnation of the “Poor Man’s Guardian”. That paper, originating in 1831, was part of the radical press which burgeoned following the advent of the printing press. It provided for the news and intellectual needs of working people, having as its motto “knowledge is power”.
Today’s Guardian is “guardian” in a more Orwellian sense: a paper that polices leftwing discourse, that sets limits on what is acceptable for leftwing politics, and what is acceptable is basically Blair without Iraq. Rafael Behr, Polly Toynbee, Jonathan Freedland: all are echoing this anti-Corbyn, essentially Blairite line.
It’s therefore with a sorry heart that I say goodbye. Like those who turned to the radical press in the 19th century, I shall turn to online news sources and social media where established filters do not apply. It is annoying though, as I do enjoy a good broadsheet and a cuppa.
Yours,
Tom Mills
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I see that the Graun’s resident cheerleader for fascism, Timmy Garbage-Trash, has churned out another paean of praise for his heroine Angela Merkel today:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/10/merkel-europe-germany-migrants-integration
This is, I believe, the fourth unprompted pro-Merkel rallying call in the Graun, and the third to be authored by Garbage-Trash (the fourth was by Bliar apologist Zoe Williams).
I have left the following response on The Guardian web page:-
What an utterly stupid article. Sotto voce: terrorism, indeed? So is it not the case that a number of those engaged in murdering 130 people in Paris were not illegal migrants?
Why does the writer assume we should bale out Merkel for her stupidity? She was silly enough to operate a fully open door policy without carrying out proper checks of most of the illegal migrants – and we are expected to pick up these unchecked individuals simply to help her with the very social problems she herself has created? As it is, I believe the Germans are belatedly beginning to apply a policy of forced deportations of non-Syrian individuals after having loudly proclaimed everyone from anywhere was welcome – and after having duped large numbers of German people into supporting such an utterly stupid policy. The after-effects of this stupidity will be with all Europe for a very long time to come.
I too feel incredibly disappointed and disillusioned at the transparently partisan and agenda-driven stance adopted by the Guardian since the election of Jeremy Corbyn. Neither the Blairite faction of the labour party nor many journalists at the Guardian genuinely believe in Democracy (not for the masses), frankly they fear for their privilege. I guess that politicians had rather hope that by the 21st century, the electorate would have lost interest in and forgotten about the utopian notion of informed participatory democracy that Corbyn has inconveniently reminded us all about.
Out of interest, these two under publicized refutation of vicious smear campaigns printed in inner pages of the guardian:
“How MPs twisted my words on Paris attacks” – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/08/how-mps-twisted-my-words-on-paris-attacks?CMP=share_btn_fb
See also “Stella Creasy crushes story about protest outside her house:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/dec/04/stella-creasy-crushes-story-about-protest-outside-her-house?CMP=share_btn_fb
They’re truly awful on Scotland. They just don’t get it at all. Brooks and Carrell are a joke. McKenna is sidelined and has to go to other outlets.
(I’ve some respect for Jack, even if I disagree with him. At least he knows what he’s talking about).
One day it dawned upon me that on the Guardian web site I skipped the articles and went straight to the comments, while on a web site such as Russia Today I read the articles and skipped the comments. From there to skipping the Guardian web entirely was only a small step.
A “socialist” veneer keeps the paper alive, scratch that vaneer and reveal the paper for what it is- a midde-of-the-road rag.
Another trustworthy (non-mainstream) source of information: http://www.strategic-culture.org/
Totally agree. Apart from anything else, finding Guardian increasingly boring recently. Today, being Scottish, purchased a copy of the National instead. Thinking of giving up English papers altogether.
Recently sent a letter to The Guardian:
The logical conclusion from Jonathan Freedland’s ‘From Fifa to guns, let’s stop accepting the unacceptable’ (Saturday 5th December) is that we should all support Jeremy Corbyn to the hilt. A pity then that his ‘With each misstep, Jeremy Corbyn is handing Britain to the Tories’ (Friday 27th November) is so negative and disparaging. Every other route leads to the paralysis he so deplores.
Didn’t expect to get it published, just wanted to make a point.
Totaly agree with yore agreement.
I heartily endorse this man’s sentiments. I was horrified to read an anti-Corbyn article published the other week in the Guardian, and have not read the paper since. It’s more than disappointing; it’s disturbing, indicative of some tectonic mutual agreement between all the country’s media. I used to be annoyed that there was a policy of where the papers were displayed in supermarkets; the Guardian and Observer are ALWAYS tucked away so that you have to search for them. Now, I am afraid they will not even be searched for by loyal readers – our loyalty has been put to the ultimate test.
Reblogged this on nearlydead and commented:
My Graun subscription is cancelled too.
My uncle a guardian reading farmer campaigned for peace.Living in Ireland I have followed the guardian for international news for the last 40 years.This week I have been waiting for an article on Isis funding,and who is benefitting from Isis oil sales and I get a stale article on the caliphate plans for nationhood.I am so sad
Sadly I have to agree. I have come to the conclusion that the Guardian editorial and key writers are now part of a left “light” and anti Corbyn mood is over the top. Can we have a return to more open approach please or I will he voting with my feet. It’s hard to say this after 40 years as a reader!
I learnt to read the Manchester Guardian on my mother’s knee over 60 years ago. It has all been downhill since we lost the Manchester bit…
Ahh, The Guardian. Long gone I think. Didn’t it support military intervention in Iraq? And yes, mancunianbirder, the biased coverage of Ukraine does it no favours either. Does a free press actually exist any more? At least the Soviets knew Pravda was anything but the ‘Truth’.
The Guardian opposed intervention in Iraq in 2003, unlike The Observer.
Agree totally about The Guardian but I’if I remember correctly, at the last general Election, The Independent recommended readers to vote for another Tory/Lib Dem coalition so they’re not an option either.
What a ridiculous letter. I read The Guardian regularly and welcome writers that challenge my world view. I get the feeling that Corbyn and his supporters want to shut down any debate on core issues and are over-sensitive to any criticism.
The only ridiculous thing around here is your comment. If you like having your world view massaged by war mongers like Old Nick Cohen and Time Ghastly-Arse that’s . But the rest of us are sick of it. That’s why we’re here.
It’s pretty clear by the way you’ve shoehorned Corbyn into the comment that you belong to a political trolling organisation but it won’t wash here.
If you want to post concern trolling like that there are plenty of corporate news sources for you to post on.
As we say around here
Guardian is that way ——————————->
Are they challenging though.
The letter challenges exactly that premise !
Actually I’m a lifelong Labour voter and onetime member. If Corbyn and cronies are giving someone like me misgivings, then Labour is heading for years in the political wilderness as an ever-decreasing debating society.
Are they challenging though.
The letter challenges exactly that premise !
I would never soil my mitts with this excuse for a newspaper
Left wing my arse.
Coverage of Scottish referendum was an absolute disgrace and anti Corbyn stance just as bad. Has joined up as establishment slave.
Bye
.
Have to agree with Tom. The balance has gone, very sad of a paper I’ve trusted for years…
A “socialist” veneer keeps the paper alive, scratch that vaneer and reveal the paper for what it is- a midde-of-the-road rag.
Was never a socialist paper, that’s just your delusion.
No always quite anti socialism, I don’t think it’s ever backed labour has it? It certainly didn’t in 97
well, there was always Polly Toynbee’s ‘Hold your nose & vote for Labour’, but I don’t know if that actually counts…
😉
This sums up my sentiments to a large extent.
A year ago I was moved to write an angry protest in answer to an editorial telling us “It’s alright to talk about immigration now” meaning it’s alright to be racist towards immigrants now because they are white rather than black. I did not receive any acknowledgement and the letter was not published.
What i have found most unsettling however, is the tone “lifestyle” articles in the Weekend magazine. Clothes costing many hundreds of pounds sometimes thousands. Cars reviewed that are far beyond the reach of ordinary people. Consumer goods that likewise are exorbitantly expensive. Who do they think their readership consists of? Certainly not the traditional left leaning or liberal intelligentsia that it once embraced.
Like other comments I am now more likely to read the Independent or i
In my fifties now, I’d read the Guardian since I was a teenager. However the turning point for me was the disgraceful way it covered the illness M.E. and treated its sufferers, under Sarah Boseley’s health editorship. By the early 21st century I realised that if the paper could be so damn unreliable, ideologically unsound and prejudicial towards a group of disabled people, something was rotten at the core. Since then Its anti-Corbyn bias has become merely another example in a long line of cynical journalistic ontological gerrymandering which renders the paper unreliable as a news source, like so many others.
Here’s a letter I wrote to the Guardian in June. Give them their due, they published it, but not the last sentence about the baby giraffe. Sad the way it has gone.
As a Mancunian proud of the city’s history and achievements I was saddened today to discover not only that I have had an unwanted and unelected mayor imposed upon me at the behest of a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, but also that the (once Manchester) Guardian did not even see fit to report the fact, never mind comment on such a stitch up by politicians of all parties. Still, at least there was a nice photo and report on the birth of a baby giraffe(Page 14, 30 May)
Colin Burke
I completely agree and have also stooped reading it.
Try commenting anything criticising Israel, even obliquely, and your comment is deleted.
For more information under the ‘about this website’ is a interesting post by reinertorheit dated August 9, 2015.
Can you provide a hyperlink to the post you mention?
Well put Tom – exactly – old-new-labour – best left behind.
Agree 100% with the letter. Guardian – big mistake 🙁
Wow! My thoughts exactly. Well said.
Agreed. Turning point for me was coming out in support of the Lib Dems in 2010. That and the increasing numbers of banal lifestyle articles (how to eat a tuna sandwich nearly gave me apoplexy) and numerous clickbait pieces. But the anti-Corbyn spin is beyond a joke. I have turned to The Independent which I am finding much more rewarding, despite the typos.
I echo a great deal of what has been said and find myself disappointed with the reporting on politics and worlds affairs in the Guardian. I also intend to cancel my readership after many years.
I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian for almost fifty years, beginning when I first started work in Leicester, where I was born. You’re right, Tom. But you’re wrong about Leicester. Leicester may be north of London, but it’s actually in the Midlands; East Midlands to be precise. I don’t know who should feel more insulted, the people of Leicester or the people of Yorkshire and beyond.
Well he’s got it right on most of what he wrote. I know that papers must appeal to the majority of their readership but the problem is, the readership is changing. New politics require new media. Now that dose not mean sycophantic agreements with whoever you think is the flavor of the month, but informative news, with both sides of the argument weighed and explained. Tell you what, get in first and beat the rest to the punch… Oh and crosswords a little easier for me please
I’m selfishly relieved to find that there are others who’ve found this becoming more and more of a problem over the past few months. I too am attempting to find a good alternative source for my news and commentary, and am appalled at what The Guardian has become.
Yep. Only been a Guardian subscriber for half a decade myself, but enough is enough, and my subscription has now been cancelled. Enjoy speaking to whoever on earth it is who’s still listening, Guardian… just hope they’re still willing to pay good money for it.
Yeah bollocks you’re right Tom, I’ve been feeling it myself for a long time but kinda like you I’m a Manc and I’m comfortable with the Graun…but they haven’t been right since they obviously got leant on in that basement with the smashed hard drives.
The anti Russian propaganda was a disgrace and you’re quite right, the Corbyn smears have finished me off as well..the guys a man of peace ffs?!? Its like sitting by and watching Gandhi get beaten up.
Never again will I buy the paper or visit their site. No need to anyway these days with all of the brilliant indy media around…..
I’m considering cancelling my guardian subscription, but am not sure what I could replace it with – could you (or anyone else) recommend me a list of indy news sites that I could have a look at (on the understanding that I need to make my own judgements about what I find trustworthy)? Thanks.
Oh what nonsense. I have been reading the Guardian for 40 years. I often dislike coverage in the Guardian – especially during the Scottish referendum (I was part of the no campaign) when I thought that the ‘movement’ for yes was poorly understood. I welcome critical and well informed comment and I think there has been a lot of space given to Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas. However, to expect a hushed and respectful silence on Jeremy’s weaknesses is not reasonable. This has never been extended to any Labour leader. If you start thinking that the media are out to get your man, maybe you are losing perspective, or maybe your man might just have a few weaknesses/ made a few mistakes.
My concern over The Guardian is that – like the Co-op Bank – their new owners have perverted their operating policies, particularly where their biased commitment to the fascist zionist cause is concerned. Of course they attack Corbyn, as he seeks a genuine peace in Palestine, which – naturally – is opposed by the ultra zionist-inclined Guardian.
Ultra-Zionist? I know many Jewish people who deride the Guardian as anti-Semitic in its general coverage, especially of Israel-Palestine issues. But I share your concerns, and have done ever since its advice in the last but one election was to vote Lib Dem.
Harold: Time changes everything – and newspapers are not exempt from that general rule either.
If you want to know where the power lies, follow the money.
Who are nowadays funding The Guardian?
Those who pay the piper……….
Clichés can be true too.
Quite right.
Troll
When you are censured and banned for telling the truth what’s the point of carrying on with it.. It can’t change from what it is…. A globalist mouthpiece
This expresses my feelings exactly. Sad to say.
Feel exactly the same, seriously disappointed with the anti Corbyn agenda that has been so evident in the last few months. 20 years of loyalty, gone. I’ve noticed that they are pushing for subscriptions through ads, seen a lot recently featuring Toynbee. They must be shedding subscribers in droves.
I think you get the pusher they think will appeal most to you based on your reading history. I can’t abide Polly, so I get George Monbiot in all my banner ads.
Despite agreeing wholeheartedly with Tom, I’m still considering paying as I’ve been a recipient of free online journalism from the Gruan for years now and it’s time I lobbed them some cash for the work they’ve done for me. Plus, how can we hope to keep the paper out of the clutches of the oligarchs if we won’t pay for it ourselves?
That said. The coverage of Corbyn is largely (although not unremittingly) farcical, and I no longer read articles about him.
You say ‘how can we hope to keep the paper out of the clutches of the oligarchs if we won’t pay for it ourselves?’
You are too late. As in the case of the Co-op Bank, The Guardian turned to US financial interests for assistance.
With their vulture funding came their neo-liberal/neo-conservative New American Century or starkly capitalist values.
That is why they changed the Editor of The Guardian and the senior managers at the Co-op Bank.
Co-op Bank is now cancelling banking arrangements for all customers linked to pro-Palestinian and pro-Cuba causes.
The Guardian now only allows pro-zionist and pro-capitalist values to be espoused by most of their journalists.
My advice: save your money and commit it to proper causes linked to achieving a much better world for us all.
My sentiments exactly Tom. The guardian has joined the mail. The sun and other papers of that ilk.
I have cancelled my subscription and will rely on social media and cherry pick items that interest me!
Really good piece. I have been reading the Guardian for 36 years, and the last few months have been questioning why I continue. There is an agenda and the Guardian is no better than the rest as far as I am concerned
Sad to say I agree with Tom. I’ve been reading the Guardian for nearly 40 years, but its continued negative coverage of Jeremy Corbyn has astonished me. I’ve noticed the Independent seems more balanced; I might try getting it, or just move away from mainstream media altogether.
Just move away, Mild Side. There’s nothing worth the bother in any of the lamestream outlets – particularly including the Beeb.
I am also one of the many Guardian/Observer readers who have stopped buying the papers and reading the websites. One does not mind, and indeed welcomes, critical evaluations of Corbyn’s leadership, actions, etc, but these need to be objective and fair. The Guardiand’s coverage, and the Observer’s, have been neither. I have written to the papers twice in the last month to complain about their bias, which is more than I have ever done!
Reblogged this on The Greater Fool and commented:
Tom certainly echos my sentiments. If we’re to have a free press it seems we need to create our own.
I took the vow never to buy the newspaper again since seeing the treatment of Jeremy Corybn, which just highlighted a change to pro-neo-liberal reporting. Its been so disappointing to see the fall of independent journalism in Britain, I shall try and look at their website less, but I shall certainly never buy the newspaper again. I think there are a few folk feeling this way.
Anything to do with having a new Editor?
The new editor is staunchly pro-zionist, which perfectly suits the credentials of the new owners.
Many of the regular columnists are also staunchly and traditionally pro-zionist too.
As a result, the coverage of Palestinian matters is always biased and bigoted towards the zionists.
Bizarrely, the on-line Daily Mail can sometimes be more progressive than The Guardian.
It was the Mail that went after the racist Lawrence murderers, was it not?
We live in interesting times……..
Erm, do you ever check any facts at all?
http://ukmediawatch.org/2015/03/22/the-guardian-appoints-anti-israel-propagandist-katharine-viner-as-new-editor-in-chief/
That’s interesting because the only comments I’ve posted which have been deleted have been to do with Israel/Palestine. Nothing even mildly anti-Semitic or offensive. One was a comment under a report on rising levels of anti-Semitism in the UK – I said it would be interesting to know whether this was genuine anti-Semitism or opposition to Israel’s foreign policy. Deleted. Another comment to go was under an article on some world leader or other visiting Israel. I said it was a pity he didn’t also spend some time in the West Bank or Gaza. Deleted. Certainly suggests a degree of bias on the part of at least one moderator. It was that which decided me not to bother with the Guardian on matters international, although they are still quite good on national (Australian) politics.
Erm, womanology1 posts link to pro-Israel site.
Reblogged this on Rich Duffy.
Well, having just been expelled by the Guardian (after 42 years) for upsetting their rad-fem moderators for the last time, I reflect on changes over the years, from a left of centre liberal paper (with some ace correspondents) to what is now an authoritarian and censorous rag.
However, they fail to realise that there are many alternative news sources available now – they will fade as the feminazis and right wing “labourites” block out all dissention
Any possibility your comments might be taken seriously vanished when you used that ludicrous ‘feminazi’.
never used that term – it is an assessment post hoc.
It was probably asking questions like
“Why is a 16yo female considered a fully competent adult under certain circumstances, but a woman under 21 not considered one under others – such as when she’s made a complete fool of herself?”
“why do certain women complain about not getting into certain cushy male-dominated fields, while ignoring the almost absence of women from the “hard” jobs (e.g. anything working outside)?”
“why are male deaths(suicide or work-related) of little importance?”
“why is the clump of cells in a pregnant woman a ‘baby’ if it’s wanted, and a ‘foetus’ if it’s not?”
I.E. hypocrisy
Reblogged this on discordion {Artist Ian Pritchard} and commented:
I’ve watched the decline of journalism to propaganda over the years and like another commenter below, wondered whether this was a result of “being leaned on” following the raids after the Snowden disclosures. The rampant anti Corbyn stance has been laughable and simultaneously sad. As well as agreeing with this letter 100% I also agree with the observation that the guardian is now used to constrain the Overton’s Window of “Left” debate.
I’ve dropped down to just an occasional Saturday paper but inevitably find myself slinging the paper into the recycling (how VERY Guardianista!).
Spot on, Tom Mills. You echo my thoughts. and I no longer read anything on the Guardian related to international politics.
Reblogged this on wgrovedotnet and commented:
I wrote to the political editorial section complaining about their unreasonable Russophobic attitude. No acknowledgement just another Russophobic article on Russian propaganda (not that it was biased or anything like that (joke), I sent them another email thanking them for their sad response.
I agree whole heartedly with the sentiments expressed in the letter. I just wonder if the writer and his btl supporters were happily reading the Guardian whilst it was doing to the pro-independence side during the Scottish independence campaign exactly what it is now doing to Mr Corbyn. We suffered misinformation, omissions, partial reporting and blatant bias from the one British newspaper where we might expected balanced reporting and comment. Fat chance. Along with the BBC, the Guardian joined the Mail, the Telegraph, the Mirror and all the other appalling rags to promote the lies of the British establishment.
Give it up: you lost.
The idea there was some pan-galactic conspiracy to deny the Scots their true destiny is tin foil hat stuff.
Any longtime reader of The Guardian must surely have noticed the change in tone of the newspaper since the men from GCHQ came calling back in 2003. Sure, they won the Pulitzer Prize for their Snowden reporting but it seems now that the “Deep State” is extracting its pound of flesh.
Their blatantly Russophobic reporting on the Ukraine, and more recently on the Middle East, is a disgrace – as is their partnerships with well-known U.S. propaganda organs like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
I will never again contribute a single penny to their revenue streams no matter how often they nag on the website.
I have distrusted The Guardian for a number of years, ever since I realised their strong tacit support for zionism and revisionist zionist fascism. These days, there is not one main circulation so-called “news”-paper that I would wipe my backside with. They are all rubbish, as far as I am concerned. We are all living in an age when we have to weight up whatever evidence we can find ourselves and come to an independent autonomous judgment by ourselves.
Well you’ll be pleased to know that “old” Nick Cohen is slandering the left in Britain again – he just can’t understand why people are so shitty with the Blairite bombers
The Nick Cohen article is breath-taking:
“a death threat made against Neil Coyle” – anonymously on Twitter.
“[Jess]Phillips received rape threats from the far right after she mocked the idea that Britain needed an international men’s day”.
‘”Paula Sherriff…. made an appeal for unity between communities after a local teenager left to murder for Isis. Detectives intervened because a local racist left a message on her Facebook page that read: “Dead girl walking. Hope you get raped.”‘
Somehow, to Cohen, all this is Corbyn’s fault.
It doesn’t stop there. Because Corbyn has shared a platform with members of Hamas, and other members of Hamas take their opposition to Israel as far as anti-Semitism, this means – according to Cohen – that Corbyn is guilty – by association – of “Holocaust denial” and “blood libel”.
Below the article it says:
“Comments will be opened later this morning”
Well, in just over an hour it’ll be tomorrow morning, maybe that’s what they mean.
Oops, just refreshed the Cohen article page. At some point it opened to comments, got over 2000 and was closed again.
He is a foul disgusting war monger. He has actually physically turned into a troll now so large is his hatred for Palastine, just like that other foul war mongerer Milton Friedman.
But what he is more than anything is a courtesan.
You’re insulting courtesans. At least courtesans have class.
I got this wrong – I was actually looking at the bottom of a different Graun article. The Cohen piece opened to comments sometime today – the 6th – has over 3000 comments – the top voted ones opposed to Cohen, and is stil open.
Israel had over 5,000 men trained by the British Army in 1936, fully equipped with weapons while the Palestinians had nothing. The Stern and Levy gangs along with the soldiers the British had trained went round Palestinian villagers at night (while the British were still there) and dragged children from their homes, shot them in the head and warned the Palestinians to move on by morning. This continues to this very day, but in a much sneakier approach. Hamas adopted those same tactics against Israel’s illegal occupation and they are labelled terrorists. What does that make the Israelis?
I am sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but you can see why zionists ended up being winners.
They used their contacts with the British administration to obtain free weapons and free training, while the Palestinians did nothing of the sort.
I believe there has to be a single Palestinian state, in which equal rights are enjoyed by all, regardless of religious belief or otherwise.
The Palestinians have to think and act a whole lot smarter than they have managed to date.
Jabotinsky’s Mule Corps gave him tremendous kudos with the British during World War One.
In both world wars, by contrast, the Palestinians made no effort to fight alongside the British.
If they had, they would have emerged on the winning side of history.
It is a very uphill task the Palestinians face when the British media is uniformly zionist supporting.
I include in that – of course – The Guardian, which has always been zionist-inclined.
The Palestinians (to this day) are not a cohesive people and would not have been very much use in any war the British were involved in. The many tribes that originally made up the destitute farming and city communities of Palestine were nothing more than rag tag “workers”. The British, by the way, were not there to lend the people a helping hand, rather they were helping themselves to the riches available in the newly opened ME as a riposte to French colonialism in the 20’s esp. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Trans Jordan as it was known then. The Palestinians were no fighters when the British started considering Palestine as a home for the Israelis in 1922 when they did an aerial survey of the various bedhouin nomadic tribes. Why should a nation of disparate clans, who did not like each other ever join an occupation army to help it fight their enemy, an enemy the tribes people didn’t even know existed. I am a pro zionist – in that I have always believed the Jews should have a safe haven where they could flourish in peace. I am also anti-Israel extremism. This may seem like an oxymoron statement but it isn’t. The vast majority of poor Jews and there were millions, understood Israel to be a safe haven, the rich, powerful gangs and millionaires simply had other ideas. Over time, the extremism has taken root along with the strange aberration of the Talmudic interpretations.
Rabbi Weiss: “Zionism is only around 100 years old it is the transformation from religion to nationalism, to materialism created by non religious Jews who hated the religion. The reason why they use the name Israel, the star of David, hijacking, stealing the identity of Judaism and the Jewish people is in order to get legitimacy for their existence that people should say “oh it’s God given to them” and that they should put fear and intimidate people from speaking up against their actions because they will call them anti Semitic, it couldn’t be any further from the truth.”
He’s not wrong, but I’m not sure he is entirely right either.
Totally agree. However, BBC is probably? No definitely much much worse. Just as change in The Guardian accelerated after the basement event, The BBC changed completely after the “sexed up” episode.
The result is that twenty odd years ago UK had some of the best media in the world but today it is the worst in the world.
If you wre in Australia John I’m sure you’d find the dailies were all fit only for that function.
Nice letter, Tom – but they don’t want readers like you, or me anyhow. They are after the Daily Mail and Daily Express readership these days. The DT’s old-buffer warmonger Con Coughlin fades into mediocrity when compared to a neofascist loony like Timmy Garbage-Trash.
I think you’ve over-estimated the danger posed by Polly Parrot, though? That discredited old lush (“We musht rally round Ed, rally round, rally round! Hic!”) is just a worthless dypso Aunt Sally. Her vino-sodden ravings are more laughable than dangerous. They’ll push her under a car soon – just like they did with Alan Rubbisher.