This article is an excellent summary of why every party is as bad as each other and why us squabbling over whether we're left or right is irrelevant as they're all as bad as each other....
The Party Game is Over. Stand and Fight By John Pilger
"Rise like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number! Shake your chains to earth, like dew Which in sleep had fall'n on you: Ye are many - they are few."
October 05, 2013 "Information Clearing House - These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" may seem unattainable. I don't think so. Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a government spreadsheet.
Born of the "never again" spirit of 1945, social democracy has surrendered to an extreme political cult of money worship. This reached its apogee when £1trn of public money was handed unconditionally to corrupt banks by a Labour government whose leader, Gordon Brown, had previously described "financiers" as the nation's "great example" and his personal "inspiration".
This is not to say parliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracy with a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, every child born.
The old myths of British rectitude, imperial in origin, provided false comfort while the Blair gang built the foundation of the present "coalition". This is led by a former PR man for an asset stripper and by a bagman who will inherit his knighthood and the tax-shielded fortune of his father, the 17th Baronet of Ballintaylor. David Cameron and George Osborne are essentially fossilised spivs who, in colonial times, would have been sent by their daddies to claim foreign terrain and plunder.
Today, they are claiming 21st-century Britain and imposing their vicious, antique ideology, albeit served as economic snake oil. Their designs have nothing to do with a "deficit crisis". A deficit of 10 per cent is not remotely a crisis. When Britain was officially bankrupt at the end of the Second World War, the government built its greatest public institutions, such as the National Health Service and the arts edifices of London's South Bank.
There is no economic rationale for the assault described cravenly by the BBC as a "public spending review". The debt is exclusively the responsibility of those who incurred it, the super-rich and the gamblers. However, that's beside the point. What is happening in Britain is the seizure of an opportunity to destroy the tenuous humanity of the modern state. It is a coup, a "shock doctrine" as applied to Pinochet's Chile and Yeltsin's Russia.
In Britain, there is no need for tanks in the streets. In its managerial indifference to the freedoms it is said to hold dear, bourgeois Britain has allowed parliament to create a surveillance state with 3,000 new criminal offences and laws: more than for the whole of the previous century. Powers of arrest and detention have never been greater. The police have the impunity to kill; and asylum-seekers can be "restrained" to death on commercial flights.
Athol Fugard is right. With Harold Pinter gone, no acclaimed writer or artist dare depart from their well-remunerated vanity. With so much in need of saying, they have nothing to say. Liberalism, the vainest ideology, has hauled up its ladder. The chief opportunist, Nick Clegg, gave no electoral hint of his odious faction's compliance with the dismantling of much of British postwar society. The theft of £83bn in jobs and services matches almost exactly the amount of tax legally avoided by piratical corporations. Without fanfare, the super-rich have been assured they can dodge up to £40bn in tax payments in the secrecy of Swiss banks. The day this was sewn up, Osborne attacked those who "cheat" the welfare system. He omitted the real amount lost, a minuscule £0.5bn, and that £10.5bn in benefit payments was not claimed at all. Labour is his silent partner.
The propaganda arm in the press and broadcasting dutifully presents this as unfortunate but necessary. Mark how the firefighters' action is "covered". On Channel 4 News, following an item that portrayed modest, courageous people as basically reckless, Jon Snow demanded that the leaders of the London Fire Authority and the Fire Brigades Union go straight from the studio and "mediate" now, this minute. "I'll get the taxis!" he declared. Forget the thousands of jobs that are to be eliminated from the fire service and the public danger beyond Bonfire Night; knock their jolly heads together. "Good stuff!" said the presenter.
Ken Loach's 1983 documentary series Questions of Leadership opens with a sequence of earnest young trade unionists on platforms, exhorting the masses. They are then shown older, florid, self-satisfied and finally adorned in the ermine of the House of Lords. Once, at a Durham Miners' Gala, I asked Tony Woodley, now joint general secretary of Unite, "Isn't the problem the clockwork collaboration of the union leadership?" He almost agreed, implying that the rise of bloods like himself would change that. The British Airways cabin crew strike, over which Woodley presides, is said to have made gains. Has it? And why haven't the unions risen against totalitarian laws that place free trade unionism in a vice?
The BA workers, the firefighters, the council workers, the post office workers, the NHS workers, the London Underground staff, the teachers, the lecturers, the students can more than match the French if they are resolute and imaginative, forging, with the wider social justice movement, potentially the greatest popular resistance ever. Look at the web; listen to the public's support at fire stations. There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring. Read Shelley and do it.
Oh and also ME14addick ignoring any politics I think that you should be wary of reading the Mail for health articles as it's been proven time and again to be irresponsible about the way it reports medical reports and findings by misrepresenting statistics to present the more sensational stories and those biased in favour of the corporate interests of their partners/sponsors.
My Mum reads the Daily Mail and argues that the above statement is paranoia but unfortunately it's the cattle like Mail/Express readers who are too fearful of opening their eyes to the truth that are the ones missing the point here - see Flat Earth News by Nick Davies or one of Ben Goldacre's books for undisputed proof of this.
I'm sick of reading that immigrants with 99 kids in a 150 bedroom house are the source of all our problems. (Actually sounds a bit like the royal family lol)
I'm sick of reading that the fact that black lesbian transsexual women aren't in all the highest positions in the country is a disgrace that is a hangover from our evil colonial and anti gay past.
Both promote us getting angry but in different ways.
I wonder how free our press really is nowadays, when ownership is increasingly concentrated in the hands of foreign owners whose personal views are clearly well to the right of the average British citizen.
I am perplexed by the lack of British media reaction to the Edward Snowden revelations. Here we have the evidence that "1984" is already upon us, and the Guardian is the only paper running with it. WTF? There's more coverage in Czech newspapers, but on reflection that may be because they know exactly what a Surveillance State looks like.
This! The UK press has always been concentrated in a few hands and has always filtered both stories and angles for its own ends - from right, centre and even left...And many maintain they can sift that bias while others don't / can't! The beauty of sites like this - with the spectrum of views and links elsewhere - and the internet in general - is that this proprietal monopoly on news is dead...caput...it is no more And now certain elements face commercial meltdown as they are about to face 12-18 months court exposure to just how they get those stories...yes there is about to be case after case on phone hacking, bribery of officials etc.
Many (if not all) printed newspapers are on their last legs...I see more and more commuters reading whatever on their ipads ...perhaps a paper, book or last nights TV? Less and less paper sales + more free papers showing the whole model changing... Let us hope that the news model on the web is pluralistic so anyone who can click is able to source different angles. The real question is who regulates the web and who can build the best model to promote their particular philosophy - we are at the dawn of a new age which, supported by efforts to mass produce netbooks at low low prices means there is a global audience
Excellent post seriously red After watching some of the Leveson inquiry and the way the press treated the Dowler family etc vindicated my decision to stop buying newspapers some years ago. The approaching court cases involving those arrogant press journalist, editors who believed they were above the law, will expose the nasty way they operated.
There's no doubt that all papers have agendas, left and right - mostly right. But the reason people who vilify the Mail so strongly is not just because it's right wing, that's been a clear misunderstanding on this thread. It's because of the spitefulness. The way it demeans certain sections of society. They're very good at what they do, smearing people or groups of people in ways that are not that obvious. They do get successfully sued several times a year for some of their porkies, but it's clearly worth it as they have a massive readership. But nasty writers like Littlejohn and Jan Moir spread muck and hate in a way that no other paper in the country does.
So to confirm does the paper turn people into racist right wingers or is it that racist right wingers read the mail.
The paper generally confirms those people's (I'm not going to use the term "racist right wingers") existing fears.
I don't think it confirms anything. It certainly panders to and heightens its' readers existing fears and has also been found to just downright lie/fabricate stories to do it.
The majority of the media, whether left or right, are as bad as each other, but The Mail wins hands down when it comes to passing moral judgement and casting the first stone on whoever (individual or group) is in their sights.
I do hate this classification of people because of the paper they read. My political views are probably slightly right of centre, I am not a racist, or homophobic etc, but I read the Daily Mail. I think a lot of this classification is in fact snobbery.
You're being horrendously naive. People get snobbish about the Mail 'cos they know they have every right to. You can't get criticise that paper and be proved wrong. It's not technically possible.
I'm sorry but anyone that gets seriously offended by anything Jan Moir writes must be frightened to leave the house
Only on Charlton life can we string a thread like this out for a week
Read any newspapers columnist and they all have their own little agendas, whether it's Littlejohn, John Prescott (who incidentally was vicious about Mrs Thatcher in his column a day after her death) Rod Liddle, Alastair Campbell etc etc etc
Two hundred threads on the most left wing football forum this side of Hull
Looks like the government are about to reject the new regulatory body proposed by the newspapers for themselves...from The Times this afternoon...
Coalition ministers are poised to reject the newspaper industry’s plan for a new regulatory body amid concerns that it would not be independent enough.
It is believed that a committee of Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians will advise the Privy Council to reject the industry’s proposed royal charter, which was written in response to the Leveson inquiry.
Maria Miller, Culture Secretary, will make a statement to the Commons later today but it is clear that the version put forward by the press is not acceptable to the Government.
A government source said: “We don’t want the press marking their own homework.”
A second meeting of a Privy Council sub-committee is expected to be held today to complete its decision and it could make that public in advance of a full Privy Council session tomorrow, which would “nod it through”.
There were hopes however that a new compromise could be reached to bridge the divide between the industry’s charter and an alternative version agreed in March by the three major political parties and the Hacked Off protest campaign.
Reports suggested that ministers could amend the politicians’ charter to make it more acceptable to the press, delaying a final decision on regulation until the end of the month. Whitehall sources insisted that no formal decision has been taken.
David Cameron, appearing before the House of Commons Liaison Committee last month, hinted that the Government would try to seek compromise between the rival versions, which were not “massively” different.
“I hope that everyone will see sense and that we will find a way of having a charter that is in tune with Leveson and that the press can work with, but we are not there at the moment,” the Prime Minister told the committee.
Both charters were put forward in response to Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendation for more powerful and more independent body to oversee the press.
There are crucial differences, however, including whether Parliament should have the right to amend the charter, funding for regulatory investigations, whether former newspaper editors should be allowed to serve on a “recognition body” and the establishment of a low-cost arbitration service for complainants.
Under the legal process, the Privy Council must establish first whether the newspaper industry’s charter meets the requirements of Lord Justice Leveson’s report before it reviews the politicians’ charter.
A sub-committee jointly chaired by Maria Miller, the Conservative Culture Secretary, and Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was appointed to advise the Privy Council.
It was anticipated that the committee would decide on the newspaper industry’s charter this week but Whitehall sources say there is no guarantee that the cross-party charter will be approved if the press version is rejected.
Newspaper industry sources complained that the process was opaque and confusing.
Trevor Kavanagh, a senior journalist on The Sun, said it would be “a great victory for the forces of oppression of a free press” if the politicians reject the press’s charter.
I'm not sure that any regulatory body would be a "victory for the forces of oppression of a free press". I don't see why we wouldn't still have fantastic investigative journalism, which many papers of whatever political ilk, have shown they can deliver. Or are they claiming that they can only deliver these stories by breaking the law?
If true Tim, see my previous post, it shows that most of us on here are kind people and not I'm all right Jack types. I fail to see anything wrong with that at all.
True mate but so much generalising going on. Just because someone reads a certain newspaper it doesnt mean they should be labelled as whatever that newspaper seems to portray.
If the Daily Express had ran it this would be a 10 post thread.
Oh and also ME14addick ignoring any politics I think that you should be wary of reading the Mail for health articles as it's been proven time and again to be irresponsible about the way it reports medical reports and findings by misrepresenting statistics to present the more sensational stories and those biased in favour of the corporate interests of their partners/sponsors.
My Mum reads the Daily Mail and argues that the above statement is paranoia but unfortunately it's the cattle like Mail/Express readers who are too fearful of opening their eyes to the truth that are the ones missing the point here - see Flat Earth News by Nick Davies or one of Ben Goldacre's books for undisputed proof of this.
Very good point. I liked the one about how switching on the light to go for a pee in the middle of the night causes cancer.
Much as I detest the Mail and Dacre, I agree that it's wrong & lazy to label its readers as stupid or bigoted. The right no monopoly on bile, lies and half-truths as can be seen from the Pilger article quoted approvingly above.
getting back to regulation...if the printed media cannot be trusted to "mark their own homework" then who can? Offcom? anyone work in media who can comment on shifting market share of print, web and tv? A lot of noise made about free press but TV couldnt get away with this shite
Whilst not huge in terms of circulation numbers, it is interesting that last year 9 out of the top 10 news magazines showed an increase in circulation - something I find mildly encouraging. I enjoy the Spectators trawl of all the newspapers, selecting the best bits from each.
New and current affairs magazine sales in the first half of 2012 (source ABC)
Name of title : publisher; average sale; percentage change year on year
Private Eye : Pressdram Ltd ; 226,046 ; 9.6%
The Economist (UK) : The Economist Newspaper Ltd ; 210,386 ; 0 %
The Week : Dennis Publishing Limited ; 191,401 ; 4.2%
New Scientist : Reed Business Information Limited ; 88,588 ; -4.4%
Monocle : Winkontent Ltd ; 72,427 ; 9.5%
BBC History Magazine : Immediate Media Company ; 71,403 ; 2.9%
Spectator : Spectator (1828) Ltd ; 63,612 ; 1.2%
MoneyWeek : Moneyweek Ltd ; 49,269 : 4.0%
The Oldie : Oldie Publications Ltd ; 42,314 ; 4.8%
I wonder how free our press really is nowadays, when ownership is increasingly concentrated in the hands of foreign owners whose personal views are clearly well to the right of the average British citizen.
I am perplexed by the lack of British media reaction to the Edward Snowden revelations. Here we have the evidence that "1984" is already upon us, and the Guardian is the only paper running with it. WTF? There's more coverage in Czech newspapers, but on reflection that may be because they know exactly what a Surveillance State looks like.
You are being disingenuous, Prague, and you know it. Snowden is not ignored in the UK, nor abroad. As a Socialist, Karl Marx wanted us all to be educated, informed, enlightened - and to think for ourselves and about other people. It is a desperate fact of Capitalism that the average person in the West gawps at six hours of television every day, hasn't looked at a book since last year's Stephen King, tweets thirty words of inanities to anyone who might be reading, then thinks he knows everything.
There are questioning voices everywhere - people who are sceptical, determined, unbowed and true - here in England, and in the Czech Republic.
There really isn't a great deal of difference between the Conservatives and Labour. They fight for a ground around the centre - Labour a bit to the left and the Conservatives a bit to the right. I don't think you could put a fag paper between Ken Clarke and Peter Mandelson for instance (Possibly Mandelson is a little bit more right wing). Where they do vary is that Labour as a whole tries to put money in the pockets of the less wealthy where the economy allows and the Conservatives the wealthy as it is what everybody should aspire to be. But the way the economy is managed is the same.
Labour isn't socialist - it doesn't believe a system of production and distribution organised to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services are produced directly for use instead of for private profit. It was accused of being socialist for what Milliband said about the utility companies recently - the Mail doesn't like a Market being fixed - they are sacred! But listen to Michael Gove - He differs on how you fix the market but is adamant it is the utility Market that needs fixing. Michael Gove is certainly no socialist so Milliband can't be either for that principle.
The Conservatives are committed to the National Health service. Cameron is passionate about it. That isn't very conservative. Look at America and how strongly the conservatives there feel about Obamacare! Labour embraces the the free market and the deregulation of the banks is much more a right ring policy than left.
The mail represents the far right of the Tory party and doesn't reflect the party itself. labour has it's 'looney lefties' and the tories has it's 'tory gits'. It is a nasty paper for the tory gits as it appeals to prejudices and I don't undertsand how anybody can argue that fact.
I just don't really understand why a left-wing viewpoint means he hates Britain. Especially when their own paper's owners were in with Hitler and Fascists at the time.
Comments
The Party Game is Over. Stand and Fight
By John Pilger
"Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fall'n on you:
Ye are many - they are few."
October 05, 2013 "Information Clearing House - These days, the stirring lines of Percy Shelley's "Mask of Anarchy" may seem unattainable. I don't think so. Shelley was both a Romantic and political truth-teller. His words resonate now because only one political course is left to those who are disenfranchised and whose ruin is announced on a government spreadsheet.
Born of the "never again" spirit of 1945, social democracy has surrendered to an extreme political cult of money worship. This reached its apogee when £1trn of public money was handed unconditionally to corrupt banks by a Labour government whose leader, Gordon Brown, had previously described "financiers" as the nation's "great example" and his personal "inspiration".
This is not to say parliamentary politics is meaningless. It has one meaning now: the replacement of democracy with a business plan for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope, every child born.
The old myths of British rectitude, imperial in origin, provided false comfort while the Blair gang built the foundation of the present "coalition". This is led by a former PR man for an asset stripper and by a bagman who will inherit his knighthood and the tax-shielded fortune of his father, the 17th Baronet of Ballintaylor. David Cameron and George Osborne are essentially fossilised spivs who, in colonial times, would have been sent by their daddies to claim foreign terrain and plunder.
Today, they are claiming 21st-century Britain and imposing their vicious, antique ideology, albeit served as economic snake oil. Their designs have nothing to do with a "deficit crisis". A deficit of 10 per cent is not remotely a crisis. When Britain was officially bankrupt at the end of the Second World War, the government built its greatest public institutions, such as the National Health Service and the arts edifices of London's South Bank.
There is no economic rationale for the assault described cravenly by the BBC as a "public spending review". The debt is exclusively the responsibility of those who incurred it, the super-rich and the gamblers. However, that's beside the point. What is happening in Britain is the seizure of an opportunity to destroy the tenuous humanity of the modern state. It is a coup, a "shock doctrine" as applied to Pinochet's Chile and Yeltsin's Russia.
In Britain, there is no need for tanks in the streets. In its managerial indifference to the freedoms it is said to hold dear, bourgeois Britain has allowed parliament to create a surveillance state with 3,000 new criminal offences and laws: more than for the whole of the previous century. Powers of arrest and detention have never been greater. The police have the impunity to kill; and asylum-seekers can be "restrained" to death on commercial flights.
Athol Fugard is right. With Harold Pinter gone, no acclaimed writer or artist dare depart from their well-remunerated vanity. With so much in need of saying, they have nothing to say. Liberalism, the vainest ideology, has hauled up its ladder. The chief opportunist, Nick Clegg, gave no electoral hint of his odious faction's compliance with the dismantling of much of British postwar society. The theft of £83bn in jobs and services matches almost exactly the amount of tax legally avoided by piratical corporations. Without fanfare, the super-rich have been assured they can dodge up to £40bn in tax payments in the secrecy of Swiss banks. The day this was sewn up, Osborne attacked those who "cheat" the welfare system. He omitted the real amount lost, a minuscule £0.5bn, and that £10.5bn in benefit payments was not claimed at all. Labour is his silent partner.
The propaganda arm in the press and broadcasting dutifully presents this as unfortunate but necessary. Mark how the firefighters' action is "covered". On Channel 4 News, following an item that portrayed modest, courageous people as basically reckless, Jon Snow demanded that the leaders of the London Fire Authority and the Fire Brigades Union go straight from the studio and "mediate" now, this minute. "I'll get the taxis!" he declared. Forget the thousands of jobs that are to be eliminated from the fire service and the public danger beyond Bonfire Night; knock their jolly heads together. "Good stuff!" said the presenter.
Ken Loach's 1983 documentary series Questions of Leadership opens with a sequence of earnest young trade unionists on platforms, exhorting the masses. They are then shown older, florid, self-satisfied and finally adorned in the ermine of the House of Lords. Once, at a Durham Miners' Gala, I asked Tony Woodley, now joint general secretary of Unite, "Isn't the problem the clockwork collaboration of the union leadership?" He almost agreed, implying that the rise of bloods like himself would change that. The British Airways cabin crew strike, over which Woodley presides, is said to have made gains. Has it? And why haven't the unions risen against totalitarian laws that place free trade unionism in a vice?
The BA workers, the firefighters, the council workers, the post office workers, the NHS workers, the London Underground staff, the teachers, the lecturers, the students can more than match the French if they are resolute and imaginative, forging, with the wider social justice movement, potentially the greatest popular resistance ever. Look at the web; listen to the public's support at fire stations. There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring. Read Shelley and do it.
www.johnpilger.com
My Mum reads the Daily Mail and argues that the above statement is paranoia but unfortunately it's the cattle like Mail/Express readers who are too fearful of opening their eyes to the truth that are the ones missing the point here - see Flat Earth News by Nick Davies or one of Ben Goldacre's books for undisputed proof of this.
I'm sick of reading that immigrants with 99 kids in a 150 bedroom house are the source of all our problems. (Actually sounds a bit like the royal family lol)
I'm sick of reading that the fact that black lesbian transsexual women aren't in all the highest positions in the country is a disgrace that is a hangover from our evil colonial and anti gay past.
Both promote us getting angry but in different ways.
I will be quiet now before I go all Galloway.
After watching some of the Leveson inquiry and the way the press treated the Dowler family etc vindicated my decision to stop buying newspapers some years ago.
The approaching court cases involving those arrogant press journalist, editors who believed they were above the law, will expose the nasty way they operated.
The majority of the media, whether left or right, are as bad as each other, but The Mail wins hands down when it comes to passing moral judgement and casting the first stone on whoever (individual or group) is in their sights.
Only on Charlton life can we string a thread like this out for a week
Read any newspapers columnist and they all have their own little agendas, whether it's Littlejohn, John Prescott (who incidentally was vicious about Mrs Thatcher in his column a day after her death) Rod Liddle, Alastair Campbell etc etc etc
Two hundred threads on the most left wing football forum this side of Hull
Coalition ministers are poised to reject the newspaper industry’s plan for a new regulatory body amid concerns that it would not be independent enough.
It is believed that a committee of Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians will advise the Privy Council to reject the industry’s proposed royal charter, which was written in response to the Leveson inquiry.
Maria Miller, Culture Secretary, will make a statement to the Commons later today but it is clear that the version put forward by the press is not acceptable to the Government.
A government source said: “We don’t want the press marking their own homework.”
A second meeting of a Privy Council sub-committee is expected to be held today to complete its decision and it could make that public in advance of a full Privy Council session tomorrow, which would “nod it through”.
There were hopes however that a new compromise could be reached to bridge the divide between the industry’s charter and an alternative version agreed in March by the three major political parties and the Hacked Off protest campaign.
Reports suggested that ministers could amend the politicians’ charter to make it more acceptable to the press, delaying a final decision on regulation until the end of the month. Whitehall sources insisted that no formal decision has been taken.
David Cameron, appearing before the House of Commons Liaison Committee last month, hinted that the Government would try to seek compromise between the rival versions, which were not “massively” different.
“I hope that everyone will see sense and that we will find a way of having a charter that is in tune with Leveson and that the press can work with, but we are not there at the moment,” the Prime Minister told the committee.
Both charters were put forward in response to Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendation for more powerful and more independent body to oversee the press.
There are crucial differences, however, including whether Parliament should have the right to amend the charter, funding for regulatory investigations, whether former newspaper editors should be allowed to serve on a “recognition body” and the establishment of a low-cost arbitration service for complainants.
Under the legal process, the Privy Council must establish first whether the newspaper industry’s charter meets the requirements of Lord Justice Leveson’s report before it reviews the politicians’ charter.
A sub-committee jointly chaired by Maria Miller, the Conservative Culture Secretary, and Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was appointed to advise the Privy Council.
It was anticipated that the committee would decide on the newspaper industry’s charter this week but Whitehall sources say there is no guarantee that the cross-party charter will be approved if the press version is rejected.
Newspaper industry sources complained that the process was opaque and confusing.
Trevor Kavanagh, a senior journalist on The Sun, said it would be “a great victory for the forces of oppression of a free press” if the politicians reject the press’s charter.
I'm not sure that any regulatory body would be a "victory for the forces of oppression of a free press". I don't see why we wouldn't still have fantastic investigative journalism, which many papers of whatever political ilk, have shown they can deliver. Or are they claiming that they can only deliver these stories by breaking the law?
If the Daily Express had ran it this would be a 10 post thread.
A lot of noise made about free press but TV couldnt get away with this shite
The press' idea of a commission that was basically formed of all the papers would've been a complete sham.
New and current affairs magazine sales in the first half of 2012 (source ABC)
Name of title : publisher; average sale; percentage change year on year
Private Eye : Pressdram Ltd ; 226,046 ; 9.6%
The Economist (UK) : The Economist Newspaper Ltd ; 210,386 ; 0 %
The Week : Dennis Publishing Limited ; 191,401 ; 4.2%
New Scientist : Reed Business Information Limited ; 88,588 ; -4.4%
Monocle : Winkontent Ltd ; 72,427 ; 9.5%
BBC History Magazine : Immediate Media Company ; 71,403 ; 2.9%
Spectator : Spectator (1828) Ltd ; 63,612 ; 1.2%
MoneyWeek : Moneyweek Ltd ; 49,269 : 4.0%
The Oldie : Oldie Publications Ltd ; 42,314 ; 4.8%
Prospect : Prospect Publishing Ltd ; 32,115 ; 0.4%
BBC Sky at Night : Immediate Media Company ; 24,736 ; 8.5%
Plus,with Private Eye's jaundiced (?) view of life, where else would you find a letter like this regarding Wayne Rooney?
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=lookalikes&
There are questioning voices everywhere - people who are sceptical, determined, unbowed and true - here in England, and in the Czech Republic.
They're all filtered to their own papers beliefs, all as bad as each other just in differing ways.
Labour isn't socialist - it doesn't believe a system of production and distribution organised to directly satisfy economic demands and human needs, so that goods and services are produced directly for use instead of for private profit. It was accused of being socialist for what Milliband said about the utility companies recently - the Mail doesn't like a Market being fixed - they are sacred! But listen to Michael Gove - He differs on how you fix the market but is adamant it is the utility Market that needs fixing. Michael Gove is certainly no socialist so Milliband can't be either for that principle.
The Conservatives are committed to the National Health service. Cameron is passionate about it. That isn't very conservative. Look at America and how strongly the conservatives there feel about Obamacare! Labour embraces the the free market and the deregulation of the banks is much more a right ring policy than left.
The mail represents the far right of the Tory party and doesn't reflect the party itself. labour has it's 'looney lefties' and the tories has it's 'tory gits'. It is a nasty paper for the tory gits as it appeals to prejudices and I don't undertsand how anybody can argue that fact.
and
http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.co.uk/2013_10_01_archive.html
Scroll down to Monday October 7.