Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

terrible that people that don't come from landed gentry backgrounds or have the connections to get a job at the Graun .. that these filthy nobodies can publish their own thoughts online without their approval!

I like how Marina's *hilarious* weekly writings in the Graun are like a stream of unrestrained consciousness and are not playing to the gallery at all.

If I had shagged Piers Morgan I’d probably wind my aristocratic neck in from time to time on the subject of others’ foibles tbh

I genuinely wonder what expertise Freedland imagines he has, other than in maintaining a public platform for thirty years.

Anxiety about populism / lack of faith in experts is all over the press but what kind of standing does he imagine 'journalist parents - PPE degree - opinions4U' gives him to dribble out a column five days a week on whatever happens to be in the headlines.

Born to rule.

Freedland has his regular radio 4 gig as well The Long View. Shockingly it's an absolute stinker of a program and he consistently stays on brand and usually seems to be feigning some kind of examination into events of the past and making a comparison with current events, but if you've read him and know his schtick it might be time flip to another station because you know where it is going.

I agree with these comments, but also find it remarkable, and awful in a way, to learn that Hyde *actually reads Freedland's work*, and *laughs at it*, when he writes unfunny things.

Maybe I would imagine that they all know that each other are bad, and would never *actually bother reading* each other - leaving that for mere Guardian buyers? (A bit like the rank cynicism of the family in the novel WHAT A CARVE UP! (1994)?)

if they don't believe in each other who will

I don't find it hard to believe these people who all go to the same dinner parties genuinely do find each other funny and insightful, after all they never listen to anyone outside the bubble anyway

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/16/experience-ive-had-the-same-supper-for-10-years

i'm not quite this bad wrt routine but i'm definitely feeling this guy. the bit about birdsong made me sad tho.

Ooft, wow. That's both immensely life-affirming and immensely sad somehow. What a great wee piece of writing.

Reading the Mabinogion eating ma big onion

I need to know how he eats the onion

I'm guessing he chews it into a bolus which goes down his oesophagus into his stomach

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2021/apr/22/burnt-out-is-the-exhausting-cult-of-productivity-finally-over?

Nobody who is "unskilled" interviewed here ofc

I usually pick a single, brilliant sentence when I tweet masterpieces like this from @rafaelbehr. But there are simply too many to choose from. Every line stings like a bee! https://t.co/2TUCvS8V77

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) April 28, 2021

One to go alongside Calzino's list of Marina Hyde eulogies.

big 'from our vauxhall office' whiff off this one: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/30/is-russias-covid-vaccine-anything-more-than-a-political-weapon-sputnik-v

Should send a link to this thread as a 'birthday message' to The Guardian

send Marina Hyde back in time to the early 19th century to put those dastardly Salford yeomanry in their place with her rapier wit.

Pretty compelling evidence that it has never been good:

- Argued for martial law during the Irish famine
- Supported the confederacy
- Editorialised for white supremacy and "unfaltering confidence in our right to rule over the native population by virtue of inherent superiority"
- criticised suffragist direct action
- dismissed Palestinian rights in the founding of Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-what-we-got-wrong-the-guardians-worst-errors-of-judgment-over-200-years

haha i cant be the only person that opened that and crtl+f-ed "iraq"

2 save u time: "no results found"

🤔🤔🤔

i've talked to more than one person who has defended the guardian as not totally irredeemable by citing its strong stance against the war, it's amazing what people remember and how

ctrl+f Starmer "no results found"

The Obs was full tankie while the Graun was neutral/opposed iirc.

this needs to be ten times as long. no mention for example of publishing explicit defences of islamophobia (by name!) at a time of unprecedented state violence against muslims. or the trans eliminationism they've been pushing relentlessly lately which has literally killed people. minor shit like yvette cooper and owen smith and dave miliband is merely embarrasing in comparison. this riskless water under the bridge shit will still be taken for bravery by those who want to believe

how about publishing known sex pests like michael white and nick cohen (tip of the iceberg) while posturing as some kind of feminist publication (in order to attack muslims, black women, sex workers, trans people...) - maybe we'll get a mea culpa for that in 50 years

Don’t forget Hadley Freeman defending Woody Allen on at least two occasions

i read the TERF’s woody allen article so you don’t have to: it’s execrable stuff pic.twitter.com/B1ka1ZJtJE

— wanton dialectic-haver (@sharcoal) May 29, 2020

forgot about that there's so much awful to keep track of. burn it all down

Observer:

It is difficult for a leader of the opposition to be heard so soon after the election of a new prime minister to whom voters delivered a resounding majority and who is broadly considered to be performing well. The expectation that Labour could transform its fortunes just 18 months after its historic 2019 defeat, its worst showing in almost 100 years, was always unrealistic.

Note: "broadly considered to be performing well".

they;re v quiet on the old observer today, but that whole editorial is an amazing exercise in putting your fingers in your ears

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/the-observer-view-on-labour-performance-in-the-elections-keir-starmer

There was no position on Brexit that would have avoided losing the party votes.

The Guardian / Observer / John Harris position of attacking JC for Labour failure, till someone else is Labour leader, then blaming long-term trends beyond the leader's control.

Meanwhile:

Internally, in the name of party unity, he has shied away from addressing hard truths with his membership about the need to speak from beyond the activist comfort zone.

These people have not noticed that he has deliberately atttacked and alienated most of his activists, and as a result of his actions there is no-one left to knock on doors, or even send the party a fiver a month.

they have noticed, they just want him to do more!

What activists?

Rawnsley has been well paid to know about these things for over 30 years

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/keir-srarmer-act-urgently-rescue-labour-from-plight

Thus, unlike most of us, does not notice that KS's Labour, rather than 'slowly bouncing back', has performed worse than JC's, nor that socialists have locally outperformed KS's Labour.

i think if you consider that rawnsley etc are not really being paid to do analysis but to craft a narrative you can read these columnists with different expectations

lol at them getting his name wrong in url

They just got it wrong in the wrong way!

This adaptation was sadly so bad that I had to turn off after 20 minutes.

Lucy Mangan gives it 5/5.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/09/the-pursuit-of-love-review-absolutely-glorious

"comments (666)"

lol i read the first para of Lucy Mangan's review and thought 'no, this will be bad'. glad the pinefox has gone there so others don't need to.

Or maybe, just maybe, Lucy Mangan is right and the pinefox is wrong? Heresy on this thread, I realize.

If we're gonna be spoilsports I'll go straight to the part where art is subjective and thus neither the pinefox nor Lucy Mangan can be "right".

Lucy Mangan has never been right about anything in her life

In my experience there are very few exceptions where Graun critics give stuff 5 stars and it is any fucking cop at all. For me maybe some of the Classical music reviews have been spot on occasionally. See also Peter Badshaw, a film critic who is only slightly better than Commode and occasionally gets the gush over Nolan and other such waste.

This opening in today's @MarinaHyde piece about David Cameron has one of the best end-of-paragraph pay-offs I can remember reading. I've not even read the rest of the article yet, I just wanted to share the joy. pic.twitter.com/yZeTqYlVs2

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) May 14, 2021

Cmon man, that’s a pretty good joke from 10 years ago