Wintour & Watt: Guardian’s shameless Anti-Corbyn duo stoop to new tabloid lows

Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt are alienating The Guardian’s readership and destroying what remains of their reputation for journalism and integrity. Here are some examples: 

Mandelson: it’s too early to force Jeremy Corbyn out.

Private paper by Lord Mandelson says those on right of party should wait for public to decide as Labour ‘cannot be elected with Corbyn’

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/24/mandelson-corbyns-critics-wait-public-negative-view-force-out

It’s strange how this ‘private paper’ just happened to fall on to the desks of Wintour and Watt, who have carried water for New Labour for so long. The opening reader comment spoke for many:

Wow! How clever of Patrick and Nick to lay their hands on such an explosive document by this great peer of the realm, one clearly never intended for public view…

This is just more anti-Corbyn nonsense, but at least this time they have named their source, so we should be grateful for small mercies.

Lord Mandleson’s views were given plenty of space  without any attempt at balance, analysis or critique:

“In choosing Corbyn instead of Ed Miliband, the general public now feel we are just putting two fingers up to them, exchanging one loser for an even worse one. We cannot be elected with Corbyn as leader.

“Nobody will replace him, though, until he demonstrates to the party his unelectability at the polls. In this sense, the public will decide Labour’s future and it would be wrong to try and force this issue from within before the public have moved to a clear verdict.”

Were these views really ever intended to remain private? They sound exactly like the kind of views Mandleson was only too eager to vent during the Labour leadership election, views already given a nice airing in this doom laden article written by erm Nicholas Watt.  They added nothing to what we already knew and merely served to frame Corbyn as divisive and unelectable.

Labour moderates have used the first day of the party’s conference to start a fightback against Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership

That was the opening line of Patrick’s report from the Labour Party Conference yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/27/labour-moderates-warn-corbyn-party-must-be-clear-on-key-policies

Who are these ‘moderates’? They only exist if one daubs Corbyn as ‘hard left’ and his opponents ‘moderates’, like the Sun captioning Tony Benn as “bogey man Benn”. 

Also, where is the fighting? Labour were at Conference – and the air was mostly celebratory, with conference procedures going much as they always do. How were these outraged ‘moderates’ fighting and with whom? Patrick didn’t elaborate.

The wails of Corbyn’s defeated opponents were reported en masse,  Rachel Reeves, Spencer Livermore, Tristram Hunt (described glowingly as a ‘leading moderniser’), Liam Byrne,Andy Burnham, and Lord Mandleson were all quoted as evidence of a growing rebellion within the Labour Party

With breathless excitement Patrick also related that the right wing group ‘Labour First’ had held… a meeting (they hold one every year) that was “in the street due to the large numbers attending”

Patrick didn’t give us an estimate on how many exactly, or a comparison with the meeting halls Corbyn filled to overflowing during his election campaign or indeed a comparison with Corbyn’s arrival at the conference that resembled the popularity of a papal visit.

The article closes with more anguished hand wringing from Livermore about the plight of the neoliberal faction within The Labour Party:

Given our much-diminished position within the party, we can no longer afford to indulge in the narcissism of small differences.

The only evidence that Wintour offers of the ‘fightback’ from Labour’s ‘moderates’ was the scheduled annual occurrence of one fringe meeting, quotes lifted from a panel chatting on BBC Radio 4 and a link back to a previous report.. by Patrick Wintour.

It’s the bog standard Wintour format – find some embittered Blair / Brown disciples whose careers are now fucked, label them as ‘ moderates’, report their sulky mumblings verbatim and frame the whole thing as a sensational new blow to Corbyn’s leadership. Wintour has written dozens of articles in this way .

One is left with the distinct impression that Patrick went to the Labour Party Conference to report on a right wing rebellion against Jeremy Corbyn and when he couldn’t find one he mashed together a few quotes from the usual suspects and made something up anyway. 

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Jeremy Corbyn suffers blow as Trident vote rejected at conference.

New leader of Labour embarrassed as key poll is dismissed and senior figures describe conference debut as chaotic and confusing

Jeremy Corbyn has suffered a major blow to his authority after a bid by the Labour leadership to press for a vote on the renewal of the Trident nuclear programme was overwhelmingly rejected at the party’s conference

Now lets turn our attention to Nicholas Watt since the two form a double act. That was the headline he filed:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/27/corbyn-trident-vote-rejected-labour-party-conference

Jeremy was elected on a platform that promised an end to policy being decided by diktat and the party machine   – so its hard to see how the result of one policy motion is a ‘major blow’ – more a democratic choice of the kind he is committed to encouraging. The vote result was “a severe embarrassment” thundered Watt for reasons he declined to outline.

Nicholas couldn’t find anyone prepared to own the headline quote so he had to attribute it to an anonymous frontbencher.

A familiar pattern unfolds as Corbyn’s opponents within the Parliamentary Labour Party are given plenty of space to air their views:

 John Woodcock, who backed Liz Kendall in the leadership contest was glad that:

This is a welcome sign that many rank-and-file Labour supporters want to keep us focused on the immediate concerns of the public rather than re-running old battles that risk splitting Labour apart.”

Which neatly implies that right-wing narratives are still favoured by the rank and file of the Labour Party despite a landslide victory for their most left wing candidate in living memory. Nicholas was quick to talk this angle up:

The decision to spurn a debate on Trident, which came hours after Corbyn had told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show he would like the issue to be debated, shows that the new leader’s room for manoeuvre will be severely limited.

Really? Is this journalism? If no evidence can be found for a notion then it can be asserted without any evidence? Just as nakedly as that? 

The lack of affection for Corbyn within the PLP is well known but his mandate to change how policy is formed is overwhelming – in truth Corbyn has the backing to create his own room for manoeuvre.

Lets return to Patrick who was back at the coal face at midnight, this time the target was John McDonnell.

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/28/john-mcdonnell-new-economics-labour-conference

The usual pattern emerged quickly with  a smear straight from the mouth of one of Patrick’s friends at camp Blair:

 predecessor Chris Leslie told him to tone down his negative rhetoric to business and spell out what he planned to do to make Labour an anti-austerity party.

What ‘negative rhetoric’ to business? No evidence is offered for it beyond the assertions of Chris Leslie who might be expected to be a little testy towards the man who took his job.

His deposed predecessor is given plenty of space to smear McDonnell as anti-business and by implication unelectable.

Leslie said there was confusion over whether McDonnell would vote for or against Osborne’s upcoming proposed surplus law on 14 October. He told the BBC1’s Sunday Politics: “John McDonnell called it barmy last week, but apparently he’s indicating he’s going to vote for it on the 14 October. What we need to now know is quite how those figures add up. I’m sure he’s going to go over the detail of that in his speech tomorrow.”

When asked whether McDonnell would make a good chancellor of the exchequer, he replied: “I think that’s for the public to decide. I think the election is now four and a half years away, let’s see if they can convince the general public to get elected.”

He added: “I would make a plea to John McDonnell and the rest of the new frontbench Treasury team: there are certain things we have to do in order to persuade the public that we can be elected again. I think we have got to tone down some of the aggressive rhetoric, for example about sequestering assets without compensation, I don’t think threats of capital controls and boycotting business events, even at Labour party conferences, are the right way to go.”

Note the synchronised collusion of the corporate media – the BBC hosts Chris Leslie so Patrick gallops to report on it. At least in this article John McDonnell actually gets a quote.  

Still, its odd how Chris Leslie’s thoughts are so important to the media now. He is just a backbencher and the zeitgeist is hardly with his right wing faction – but for Patrick it’s clear that the deposed and discredited New Labour project still holds authority on policy and must be given plenty of space to attack Labour’s actual front bench.

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This is not journalism of any kind – it is banal political pamphleteering

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The impression is left of a deeply cosy and collusive relationship between two journalists and a political faction within The Labour Party. A poor showing from senior journalists at the flagship of liberal journalism in the UK.

Guardian readers are entitled to expect a far higher standard of journalism and professional integrity than they are getting from Watt and Wintour. 

Guardian readers are having their intelligence insulted on a daily basis. Do Patrick and Nicholas imagine we are taken in by quotes from ‘private reports’ and anonymous frontbenchers? 

The Guardian needs to sort out its coverage of politics as a matter of urgency…

… before it becomes a total laughing stock amongst its own readership.