What's up with the Guardian?

[stereotypical]

for the further simple reason that the left-wing as was has been bludgeoned to death

Sadly true, I was chatting to a geezer who was heavily involved in Anti Fascist movement in the 70's and 80's (he was into squaddism and all that) and he was telling me how as far as he is concerned there is no left in this country any more. His tone was defeatist and he was going on about how the grassroots organisation needed to defeat fascism just simply isnt here anymore.

We dont do ourselves any favours do we, with our infighting and ideological biccering (Marxists and Anarchists alike).

The BNP is miles ahead of us

 

[tbaldwin]

The idea that the Guardian has gone downhill is quite amusing bollocks. The Guardian like all papers to an extent reflects what it advertisers wants.
For years they were happy to treat Turkey and Indonesia as tourist destinations,whilst trying to maintain a ethical stance on International issues.
You wont find too much in the Guardian critical of how the Public and Voluntary sector wastes money,due to the fact they are its biggest advertisers.

The fact that someone finds Polly toynbee straying from their narrow dogamtic line and then goes on to decide the Guardian has gone downhill,says a lot more about them than it says about the Guardian.

Love and Hate
tbaldwin.

 

[Azrael]

Classical liberalism of the kind you're talking about (and which you can still find every week in the Economist) went into decline from the late nineteenth century precisely because it was elitist and anti-democratic.

And if you look at the Grauniad's coverage of the last German election, I think you'd see that they are moving back to that old-style free market liberalism.

The only intelligent daily paper left is the Financial Times.

In respecting the individual, both economically and socially, it was a damn sight more democratic than the centrist top-down social-planning that replaced it. The elitism was a hallmark of the time, whatever political credo we're discussing; again, it's hard to think of anything more elitist than the fabian-style managed economy.

As it goes I'm not a supporter of the 19th century brand of liberalism any more than I am socialism, but the basic tenets of liberalism can sit side-by-side with progressive social policy and a certain type of welfare state, as the Edwardian Asquith government was showing before the Great War went and bollocksed everything up.

The Guardian's economics seem very much in the Blairite mould of vast state-run services propped up with private cash, and as I said, their attitude to individualism and civil liberties is weak and intellectually barren. I'd agree the Economist is much closer to the spirit of old-style liberalism (they still running that annual "legalise drugs now" piece? ) but they're always struck me as more right-wing libertarian.