“If there were a conflict of interests which side would the civil service really be on?”
Jim Hacker
” The winning side, Prime Minister”
Bernard Woolley
So The Guardian has had a Road To Damascus moment and abruptly changed horses in the Great British Political sweepstakes.
As a final insult to the intelligence of its once loyal readership – the supposed flagship of the left liberal media has come out in support of Jeremy Corbyn as a potential prime minister.
We are invited to forget about the years of relentless and nakedly obvious propaganda that The Guardian has hurled against Corbyn since the moment his candidature for Labour leader was announced – distortions, spin and bluster that have churned endlessly on at full and shrill volume…
… until about 48 hours ago, when I noticed a distinct shift in the ‘coverage’ afforded to Corbyn’s Labour Party.
Oddly enough, that’s just about the time when two opinion polls from YouGov firstly predicted a hung parliament and then placed Labour just three points behind the Tories. A member of their team noted this development in a Live Blog by simply spluttering “crikey” – crikey indeed!
The senior editorial team at The Guardian have deliberately sought to ridicule and undermine Corbyn by using every dirty trick in the playbook of propaganda – their enthusiasm for Corbyn bashing has been unbounded.
- They have smeared him personally and professionally
- Handed oceans of uncritical column inches to his opponents within Labour
- Collaborated directly with the Blairite faction to time attacks designed to unseat Corbyn
- Manufactured and hyped up claims of anti-Semitism
- Printed fantastical lies about his supporters being bullies and misogynists
- Printed puff pieces in support of Corbyn’s leadership opponents like Yvette Cooper
- Shamefully smeared the youthful enthusiasm of Momentum as ‘hard left’ and anti-Semitic
- Given headline space to Tony Blair and all of his cronies to insult Corbyn
- Instructed their pack of execrable pundits to loftily rubbish and guffaw at him
- Merrily acted as an echo chamber for all of the attack lines of the right wing press
And now we are supposed to believe what? That all this (and much more) was all spoken in jest? That we are all good mates really?
This abrupt change of heart isn’t about principle. It’s simply a reflection of the hollow cynicism of The Guardian and its lack of any moral centre.
One can imagine how marvellously cosy it was at the offices of The Guardian and The Observer during the Blair years: seen to be on the right side of history, with a revolving door into the corridors of power and on first name terms with New Labour apparatchiks including the grand poo-bah himself. Entrenched within the establishment, they were determined to defend their place in the Westminster bubble and fight for a return of the good ole Blair years.
Jeremy Corbyn must have been a horrible cold shower for hacks at The Gruan. Here was a man who didn’t seek the favour of the mainstream press, who (shock horror!) didn’t have any mates in the lobbying business and who operated outside of the neoliberal consensus for which they were important gatekeepers. What on earth was to be done with a man who didn’t come crawling to their court looking to kiss the pinky ring? The solution was simple: destroy him and replace him with a proper establishment career politico. Trouble is, it hasn’t worked.
Turns out the public wanted a figure that was independent of the Westminster bubble, a man who had actual principles that went beyond the dictates of spin and careerist self interest – fancy that!
The more Corbyn’s popularity has grown, the more The Guardian has descended into a tailspin of desperate and self-destructive propaganda against the man. In so doing they have alienated swathes of a once loyal readership and trashed their own reputation for fair and progressive reporting.
Now at the 11th hour The Guardian has suddenly woken up to the uncomfortable reality that Corbyn isn’t going away and that the Blair years really aren’t coming back, so they have changed their tune.
Are the hordes of people who have disowned The Guardian in disgust going to accept their explanation of the short con so they can be set for the long? Not a chance!
Kath Viner and crew needn’t think we have forgotten where The Guardian has stood and with whom over the last few years. At a critical juncture in history they have stood shoulder to shoulder with power and wealth to try and prevent us from having any meaningful choice at this or any election.
That we have an actual alternative to the toxic mediocrity of Theresa May is no thanks to The Guardian and owes everything to the courageous persistence of Corbyn and his supporters in standing up to the fury of an establishment which wants ordinary people wholly excluded from politics.
The Guardian can shove its pretence of support for Corbyn up its collective anal channel.
I look forward to seeing how much money the Guardian Media Group has lost this year as a prelude to its richly deserved and long overdue death.
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I have already given up on the Guardian as both opposed to any left-wing politics and also being pro-Zionist with Nick Cohen and the odious Jonathon Freedland being such dishonest and nasty excuses for journalism. The ongoing development of Social Media and the presence of much more honest and effective left-wing journalism is far for informative and invigorating and marks the beginning of the end for Mainstream Media in written form and political influence.
Agree with you 100%, Martyn.
I was going to share this excellent article on Facebook but it is dominated by the pic of Blair his ‘don’t take Labour over the edge’ which makes it look like an anti-Corbyn post.
And no matter I quick I am, the captcha times out. Will persevere.
The Guardian’s about-face comes too late for me. I cancelled my daily delivery of The Guardian and Observer a month ago after 28 yes. The one I feel sorry for is my newsagent, who’s lost a valuable customer but sadly the only other serious left-of-centre paper no longer has a printed edition.
Corbyn is 8-12% behind in most polls. That’s much worse than Milliband in 2015.
Corbyn is awful. It’s just that he’s so bad, and so unelectable, that only losing by 5% is considered a good result
Hate to burst your bubble but this mornings polls put him 1% behind.
This ‘unelectable’ schlock is all his critics have left – if May is so electable one wonders how she has managed to blown a lead of between 17-20% in a few weeks despite huge financial backing, a biased BBC and the overwhelming hostility of the corporate media.