Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

xp

it was the quick crossword and kakuru puzzle on the back page of G2 that had me still occasionally buying the print edition, but this was before they became transphobia central and the MI5 house paper.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/12/state-of-terror-by-hillary-rodham-clinton-and-louise-penny-review-politics-and-patriotism

Fawning review of Hillary Clinton's new airport thriller about "President Dumb" pulling out of the Iran deal.

Why do pols do this shit? Her husband has a couple out, too. Imagine Bernie or Corbyn putting out a ghostwritten thriller abt a leftist candidate getting fucked over by the right wing of their party, the clowning would never end.

i know its so undignified

https://i0.wp.com/www.booklovers.co.uk/Images/BookScans/162311.jpg

the Bennite Labour MP Brian Sedgemore wrote a couple of political thrillers back in the day, can't think of any other leftish politicians who have done this unless you count Chris Mullin who is probably better known as a writer than an MP

i stood behind him in a shop once, he was very tall

and now he's dead

coincidence?

'don't be tall in front of me!'

You've got to go back a bit...

https://www.bookword.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/639-EW-covers-768x935.jpg

Quite enjoyed the hammering Rachel Cooke received from BTL commentators for this 'peak Guardian':

Worried about waste and having too much ‘stuff’? Get rid of the fitted kitchen

what kitchens? "I often put a joint in our coal hole" - WHAT?!

The rarest of all things, a good Observer opinion piece.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/fortress-europe-violent-pushbacks-exploit-people-pursue-policy

has (old-school RCP and spiked! alum) kenan malik managed to circle back to being more or less ok?

I wouldn’t necessarily go that far but a lot of his pieces on migration are decent.

I think he wrote something pretty stupid and malicious very recently about trans people or free speech or something can't remember, all these people are the disingenuous monkey to me

Won't somebody think about the 5-star hoteliers?? Had to double-check that this wasn't in fact in the Times or Telegraph.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/22/cheap-food-drink-accommodation-hotelier-life-without-eu-workers

The au pair agency article in that series is also “peak Guardian” in tone:

For families who employ au pairs, one of the benefits is having a (hopefully) fun person around to give their children an insight into another country and language. Another is having someone to help with childcare without having to pay the larger salary of a nanny.

that grand hotel overlooking Fistral beach is a beautiful building but you could probably rent out a decent little bungalow 5 mins up the road for a much cheaper and better holiday imo. Well that's what I did a few times.

Also much less likely to be transformed into a mouse by Angelica Houston and her covention of witches.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/23/my-pandemic-puppy-is-ruining-my-hot-vax-summer

lmao that is another peak guardian pile of piffle

'here's something you busy bees should find relatable!'

I know that many people, like me, already think that Marina Hyde is a bad reactionary.

But even so, I am surprised at the level plumbed by this particular, latest, column. Astonishingly poor in quality, in insight, in ethical and political values.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/26/britain-mp-vote-nick-fletcher-doctor-who-jon-trickett

Shameful.

Boris Johnson's CBI speech was nowhere near as depressingly bad and awful as Starmer's was. Even the director general of the CBI thinks Starmer is full of shit.

but yeah Hyde is fucking awful (again)

"the alternative is facing up to the bald reality that people actually preferred THIS GUY to his guy"

why not just say the UK electorate are mostly fucking awful and have been awful for decades, and in a FPTP system with the Graun demonising the LOTO on a daily basis it wasn't that hard for them to revert to type.

.. and awful to succeed again

I don't expect an arsehole like Hyde to go into the People's Vote stitch-up that completely fucked Corbyn in 2019. But let's not try to pass oneself off as a very smart and droll arch-cynic who knows what is going on, which is allegedly her brand.

It's not like Trickett wrote a think-piece about it either, just a one sentence tweet that was more about highlighting the hollowed out husk of the NHS that is now on the brink of being hollowed out even more by big US healthcare companies.

The Beatles were like aliens from the future in 1969 - and they are still as radical today
Jonathan Freedland

vicarious memories from a complete dickhead who was born in '67

To be fair, "Octopus's Garden" might have sounded radical to a 2 year old.

it sounded nice! we would be warm / below the storm / in our little hideaway / beneath the waves!!

i was a bit older than two tho

horribly ancient uglies who only existed on scratchy old ex-jukebox 45's is my memory of them and unfortunately I'm not that much younger than him. Anyway they weren't radical and they were fucking shite!

that army fetishizing wankfest was bad enough, but at least he kept it short.

Freedland doing his paper round and rushing home for the six-five special years before he was conceived is going to be the new pretending you lived through rationing and blackouts this week.

why do i get the feeling that if you played him a hundred other records that genuinely sound like aliens from the future, he'd only moan that they don't have proper songs like the beatles

That's well said, NickB. Most people don't actually like "aliens from the future".

It's not like Trickett wrote a think-piece about it either, just a one sentence tweet that was more about highlighting the hollowed out husk of the NHS that is now on the brink of being hollowed out even more by big US healthcare companies.

― calzino, Friday, November 26, 2021

Important point here: Trickett, in his ONE-LINE TWEET, did NOT go on about BJ creating a 'dead cat' effect.

And yet Hyde has written 3 paragraphs about how she doesn't like people using the phrase 'dead cat'.

I don't like it either, actually. But Trickett didn't do it. Hyde did. In an attack on someone who was defending the NHS.

She is morally disgusting.

"the world of Bedford vans, Charles Hawtrey and the Daily Sketch"

instead of making appallingly written clickbait for boomers, listen to Karyobin you odious bullshit merchant!

Baroness Hyde, no matter how liberal-left leaning she pretends to be for the sake of her hilarious ragging on the tories column, often can't help betraying how much of a tory wanker she is to the core.

*peeps into thread, retreats back into little hideaway beneath the waves*

https://www.diy-pest-control.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Rentokil_Carpet_Moth_Beetle_Multibuy.jpg

no one there to tell us/What to do !!

I know that for The Observer, Brexit is the primal scene of the nation’s disgrace, but this is actively disgusting. pic.twitter.com/lwTVC6w7DN

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) November 27, 2021

FBPE psychosis in cartoon form is just as fucking demented as Ben Garrison

I hope someone will be amused by the GUARDIAN VIEW Editorial on KS's reshuffle and promotion of Yvette Cooper:

The new team contains strong and high-profile performers who have the talent and experience to discomfort their Tory opposite numbers. The appointment of Yvette Cooper as shadow home secretary follows an impressive performance as the longstanding chair of the home affairs select committee. Ms Cooper’s clashes with Priti Patel are likely to be Westminster box office. Her track record on immigration policy makes her an experienced pair of hands, in a debate that Labour must handle with care.

I thought everyone, including aggro-liberals, thought that her 'track record on immigration policy' was an embarrassment?

I think they mean ‘discomfit’.

You get some bizarre projection going on with Cooper, who is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. FBPE's often seemed to believe she was a remainer without any evidence suggesting she was. Lots of respectable libs don't judge her cold careerist decision to be nastier/more racist than May and literally having the blood of disabled people on her hands. As for being good "box office" and a big beast, well Corbyn ran rings around her in 2015 and made her look like what she is - a cardboard cut out, a cold dead automaton with nothing inside her.

good summary

Absolutely love this absurd Guardian political opposites series, how are these people politically different lmao pic.twitter.com/YtesAkFdkx

— Agree to disagree 🍊 🍊 🍊 (@StefGotBooted) December 3, 2021

they really seem to have given up on the "political opposites" concept of this!