Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

not sure what the reaction is supposed to be to this except "good, off you fuck then"

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/may/02/i-am-moving-tycoon-bassim-haidar-non-dom-tax-status-super-rich-exodus

I hope someone organizes a mob to chuck rotting fruit and vegetables at him as he boards the plane to leave the UK (hopefully never to return).

the case they are making for him being a net benefit to the UK seems to be

* he's a landlord
* he was going to list his company on the FTSE

oh no sir please don't leave us and take all the money that you don't pay any tax on with you, whatever will we do without you

good that the Guardian's "Wealth Correspondent" is asking all the tough questions to our feckless playboy billionaire overlords

https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/07/billy-connolly-big-banana-feet-review-proto-punk-star-comic-at-his-70s-peak

At the Dublin show, a heckler shouts “IRA!” and Connolly replies acidly: “I’d love to hear you say that at Ibrox [Rangers’ stadium in Glasgow] …!” It’s amazing, from this modern perspective, to experience again how sectarianism was a violent and normalised fact of life in the 70s.

Talk about living in a London media bubble!

that is actually insane, even for the guardian.

In Belfast, Connolly prudently drops any material about the Troubles, perhaps because he simply and understandably doesn’t want to take the risk.

Or it could possibly be because he didn't have any, except maybe the song about when he was in the Terries.

When he arrives at Belfast airport, Connolly chats amiably to soldiers from 15th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, which he was once with as a Terrritorial Army reserve, and we hear his melancholy song about this on stage, Weekend Soldier‚ easily the best part of his show.

Oh look, that one.

Yeah because there's no way that would be interpreted as taking sides.

or his long, well documented history of sycophantic royal brownnosing

LOL like any comedian from Glasgow was going to have "material" about the Troubles. You'd may as well paint a target on your forehead.

Ok, can't get past the name

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/20/family-events-why-i-quit-step-children-accept-me

I'm a total a-hole and quite shockingly my stepchildren don't like me, nor want to know me and I don't care - seems to be the gist of it

"Lucretia Grindle Lutyens" lol

she literally had no choice but to be an evil stepmother with that name

“It is extremely difficult to take on board the reality that the people we love deeply have pasts in which we play no role.”

is it though???

Very bizarre.

Guardian op ed writers do tend to have issues with understanding the existence of human consciousnesses other than their own, it must be something in their water supply

It seems odd that the article doesn't mention that her husband died in January.

xp lol just came here to post that.

So odd, what does she want to achieve by writing this piece.

xpost At 97!

So if she was 38 when they married, he would have been... 71!

His kids would likely have been around her own age.

Gee, I wonder why it didn't work out?

Look the heart wants what the heart wants. And that guy's 71 year old heart wanted 38 year old Lucretia van Grundlesnuff

Hopefully there's a Grundlesnuff out there for everybody

You can’t complain about the results! 97!

Oh great a long-form piece about effective altruism. This won’t be mainly be an exercise in normalizing reactionary framing will it? Surely it will touch on some actual issues like say, the climate crisis? No? Oh ok.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins

Also teh Grauniad:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children

You don’t say

Are Guardian readers worse than they used to be?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/03/society-is-unequal-but-this-is-regressive-parents-on-private-school-fee-vat-plans-labour

The wailing is delicious tbh

I think SEND places might be exempt but also ‘I’m left wing but…’ 🤮

“My two children both have autism and ADHD, but the state sector denied their needs,”

true, but in my experience when there is no SEND school/college in the council district that meets a student's needs then they can't turn you down for EHCP funding for the nearest school or college that does. If SEND is exempt, then this person is muddying the issue here + needs to STFU immediately!

They probably spoke up without being across the policy detail or just having a bourgeois whinge, big surprise.

I noticed before that their Scottish football correspondent really isn't very good. He is getting money for old rope, like this on John McGinn:

John McGinn has risen from humble beginnings in Clydebank to captain Aston Villa in the Premier League and become the darling of the Tartan Army. It perhaps helps McGinn that he has no playing connection with either half of the Old Firm, hence this tribal footballing nation can adore him without condition. He is a working-class boy, made good.

Is John McGinn really the darling of the Tartan Army? If he is it's news to me. Also I'm not sure how many of the Scotland Euro Squad aren't working class boys but I'm guessing not many? I do know that none of the rest of the squad's "humble beginnings" include being the grandson of the Chairman of Celtic (what was that about Old Firm connections?) and President of the Scottish Football Association.

https://i.postimg.cc/2Ss4QG9F/Screenshot-20240608-085226-Chrome.jpg

One spark of radicalism has come from the shadow health minister, Wes Streeting. He has dared to advocate an alliance of the NHS with the booming private health sector. But to reform the NHS root and branch must go beyond party politics, and might conceivably embrace elements of insurance and payment, particularly in the area of wellness and prevention. But to work this requires a drastic restructuring under a cross-party consensus. Is Labour up to this?

The private health sector, booming into your bank balance soon. "Wellness and prevention" = it's your fault so pay up, losers.

tbf this sort of thing is pretty much why they employ Simon Jenkins

He’s so utterly deranged. I started reading him in the runup to the Iraq war, on which he was very good, so I formed an inaccurate picture of him as a sensible person

This is top tier shitposting tbf, gotta salute

Simon Jenkins is a floating voter?

No, that's an accidental spoonerism by the subeditor

lmao

:)))

Thread delivers.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/11/royal-academy-summer-exhibition-2024-review-london

"Pampered pets, polite portraits and enough wan landscapes to fill a field – this show mirrors the numbed, aimless condition of Britain after 14 years of Tory misrule"

art in keith's Britain will be amazing! Can't wait

this would be the same jonathan jones who managed to file numerous anti-corbyn articles in the mid-2010s despite being an arts correspondent would it

the RA summer show is always garbage and always has been a showcase for posh mediocrities with a hobby.

I know, but I love the implication it was good before 2010.

thought the bump would be about this

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/11/europe-right-immigration-britain-nigel-farage-rishi-sunak

Not so much a useful idiot as a plain old useless idiot.

On the left is The Guardian refusing to use any pronouns for Lia Thomas. On the right is The Times that genders her correctly throughout. pic.twitter.com/sevbtC8Ma0

— Lee Hurley (@HLeeHurley) June 13, 2024