I wonder what daily newspaper a left winger is expected to read? At least the Guardian has the sense to employ people like Gary Young and George Monbiot and the late Paul Foot. Even Simon Jenkins was last week arguing to end the military budget. I should like to be told of a more progressive daily alternative.
There’s so much wrong with that comment that I don’t know where to being. Why can’t a “left-winger” read the Times, or the Sun, or any other paper ? Have confidence in your views/opinions for goodness sake. Do you think your political commitment is so weak and shakey that you need a newspaper to reinforce it for you on a daily basis? I’ve been reading the Guardian since I was 10 years old (although obviously not in depth at that age) and the reason I still read it today is simply because of the sheer quantity and range of news it carries. Although I think it’s fair to say that I am very far from being a typical Guardian reader – even Stoner who reads the Guardian everyday (probably for the same reasons as me), and can hardly be described as “left-wing”, is a more typical Guardian reader than me. I certainly don’t buy it to read their leader comments, or the thoughts of Gary Young and George Monbiot and the late Paul Foot. I never read any of the comment pages apart from the letters. And Seumas Milne on a Thursday. But only because Seumas Milne amuses me by echoing everything I think – pretty unusual for a member of the waffling intelligentsia. I certainly don’t, as a general rule, need the Guardian to tell me how I should think. This is the paper I’ll remind you, which urged everyone to vote LibDem last May. Now of course I don’t know whether their call to arms on behalf of the LibDems had an effect on the election result, but if it did have any effect at all, then it will have been to help the Tory Party rule unhindered, despite their lack of necessary electoral support. How terribly “left-wing” of them. I find the gushing enthusiasm and belief which many Guardian readers have for their paper, truly depressing. At least most Sun readers that I know have a healthy, cynical, and realistic view, of their newspaper – they are under no illusion about its limitations, unlike Guardian readers – the irony of which has always amused me btw. Nothing wrong with reading the Guardian of course, just don’t treat it like an indispensable left-wing holy book, it isn’t. Finally, you “should like to be told of a “more progressive daily alternative” you apparently claim. Well the Morning Star which I also read most days, ticks both boxes. Although I am absolutely certain that you are about as interested in reading the Morning Star, as you are in reading ‘a more progressive daily alternative’ – ie, not at all.
