Bolitics The New Condem Government

[drat01]

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10373105/Ministers-urged-to-forget-about-saving-failing-cities-and-towns-such-as-Hull-Hartlepool-and-Burnley.html

 

Re the Tory supporters and "influencers" in certain parts of the Media especially. They really are now becoming quite brazen about disclosing their true intentions. Complete and utter arseholes but certainly does make you wonder how many of the Gvmt share the views but do not have the balls to state it out in public

 

I'll have to read that article. I have great respect for the Economist. An extremely intelligent, thought provoking newspaper, you wouldn't like it. 

 

Nice insult again Mr Powers, had a bad night?

 

Re the Economist, I certainly do not agree with a lot of what they spew out as political policy and thought. How a newspaper can be classed as intelligent I will leave to you. But as with all things if you are interested in items it's always good to see what the "alternatives"  are thinking, it certainly does help a great deal in showing up flaws in their argument I find.

 

Anyway Mr Powers have a nice English Cuppa and chill, it's the weekend

[snowychap]

Interesting that you immediately go on to the offensive yourself with some insult about "left winged" etc.

Oh God! Don't tell me that left wing is an offensive term now!!! Do I have to start referring to it as 'the LW words'?

Terms are very rarely 'offensive' in and of themselves. The intent behind their use and the context in which they are used makes them so (or not).

There would be no real problem with using the terms 'left wing' and 'right wing' if they carried with them just a relatively accurate appraisal of where a particular idea/opinion (or the holder of that opinion) may sit on the political spectrum (even allowing for the redundancy of the left/right thing as repeatedly spoken about on VT - ref political compass) but, largely, they are terms used pejoratively to decry others' opinions (something which most if not all of us in this thread have been guilty of at one time or another).

Maybe it's an adverse consequence of the concentration of political opinion in the centre ground or maybe we can't cope with the nuances of political opinion.

[Kingfisher]

Well, I think we can all agree the daily mail is a shit right wing, homophobic, xenophobic, lying, Tory rag with past links to Nazism. And it is generally read and loved my mindless, scared, sad and pathetic little selfish morons who think Christmas has been banned and political correctness has gone mad.

What is there to debate?

Just how left wing is this forum?

You really think these gross, insulting generalisations are okay? You really think you are pursuing tolerance and progressiveness by smearing millions of people?

Now I'm going to assume your post is deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek but I'll be honest with you, I have respect for anyone who tries to influence the opinions of ignorant people through intelligent debate, through facts, statistics and thorough analysis. This new internet generation who don't have the time, patience or intelligence for this and jump straight to insults really aren't helping matters at all.

And no, I don't buy the Daily Mail and never have.

Interesting article I stumbled across in the Guardian today by Paul Dacre: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/12/left-daily-mail-paul-dacre

He sums up the hysterics of you hardline left-wingers pretty well. This campaign of the last few weeks is all because of the headline of the Ralph Milliband article. Now I read the article and even if you disagree with all or most of it, it was sourced pretty well. The headline was pretty objectionable but the hysterical response has been pretty unprecedented.

I think my description of the mail was spot on - gross, insulting, intolerant and smearing millions? Well, like many of their articles then. Except the difference between us is that I'm bashing a newspaper that makes millions doing that very thing to the poor and the vulnerable, so leave it off with the faux Mailesque hysterics!

I read the article you linked too, and non of the conclusions in it can be attributed to me, I'm not obsessed with the Mail, and neither was I obsessed with the Milliband story. But I stand by my description of it and its readers. You want evidence, I'd say go on their website and read their editorials, amongst the odd good bit there is piles and piles of inaccurate drivel aimed at promoting an ideological political narrative, ok standard fare for rags of all sides, but it's the sheer tone and odiousness of it that stands them out.

[KennyPowers]

It's really not complicated. Protection of the free press has long been a socially progressive (or liberal) ideal. To sacrifice this principle on the altar of 'I don't like the Daily Mail' is hypocritical in my view.  

 

In terms of party politics, the social progressives should be the ones opposing this new charter, indeed any charter, not endorsing it. 

[KennyPowers]

 

 

Well, I think we can all agree the daily mail is a shit right wing, homophobic, xenophobic, lying, Tory rag with past links to Nazism. And it is generally read and loved my mindless, scared, sad and pathetic little selfish morons who think Christmas has been banned and political correctness has gone mad.

What is there to debate?

Just how left wing is this forum?

You really think these gross, insulting generalisations are okay? You really think you are pursuing tolerance and progressiveness by smearing millions of people?

Now I'm going to assume your post is deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek but I'll be honest with you, I have respect for anyone who tries to influence the opinions of ignorant people through intelligent debate, through facts, statistics and thorough analysis. This new internet generation who don't have the time, patience or intelligence for this and jump straight to insults really aren't helping matters at all.

And no, I don't buy the Daily Mail and never have.

Interesting article I stumbled across in the Guardian today by Paul Dacre: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/12/left-daily-mail-paul-dacre

He sums up the hysterics of you hardline left-wingers pretty well. This campaign of the last few weeks is all because of the headline of the Ralph Milliband article. Now I read the article and even if you disagree with all or most of it, it was sourced pretty well. The headline was pretty objectionable but the hysterical response has been pretty unprecedented.

 

I think my description of the mail was spot on - gross, insulting, intolerant and smearing millions? Well, like many of their articles then. Except the difference between us is that I'm bashing a newspaper that makes millions doing that very thing to the poor and the vulnerable, so leave it off with the faux Mailesque hysterics!

I read the article you linked too, and non of the conclusions in it can be attributed to me, I'm not obsessed with the Mail, and neither was I obsessed with the Milliband story. But I stand by my description of it and its readers. You want evidence, I'd say go on their website and read their editorials, amongst the odd good bit there is piles and piles of inaccurate drivel aimed at promoting an ideological political narrative, ok standard fare for rags of all sides, but it's the sheer tone and odiousness of it that stands them out.

 

 

I wonder whether you can even comprehend the hypocrisy of attacking people for holding prejudices whilst so blatantly exposing your own prejudices. 

 

The sad thing with news consumption is that people hate to be intellectually challenged, that's why they tend to consume news that they know beforehand conforms to their views, it makes them feel good to be right. We would all be better off if more people read a newspaper like the Economist that is intellectually challenging. 

 

To write the passage below is not intelligent comment, it's simply intolerant and abusive. I wonder how many parents and grandparents of the people on this forum read the Mail and so what if they're a bit more traditional and conservative, it doesn't make them bad people and they are not responsible for the editorial decisions of the Mail. I dislike getting embroiled in political discussions and the only thing that's drawn me in here is your intolerance, not just that but your unshakeable belief that you are being intolerant in the name of tolerance. You aren't. If you want to influence the views of ignorant people do it the admirable way, through painstaking intelligent debate, not through abuse. That's how to improve society, this kind of abuse is just divisive. 

 

"generally read and loved my mindless, scared, sad and pathetic little selfish morons who think Christmas has been banned and political correctness has gone mad."

[privateer]

 

 

Oh, Kenny, you deserve this for the ownage you've been handing out.

[snowychap]

Now I read the article and even if you disagree with all or most of it, it was sourced pretty well.

That would appear to be damning with faint praise.

[snowychap]

Various stuff...

I wonder whether you can even comprehend the hypocrisy of attacking people for holding prejudices whilst so blatantly exposing your own prejudices.

Now I'm going to assume your post is deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek...

[KennyPowers]

 

Now I read the article and even if you disagree with all or most of it, it was sourced pretty well.

That would appear to be damning with faint praise.

 

 

The point was it wan't entirely supposition and it's rare to find a columnist in a national newspaper that writes something that isn't entirely supposition. 

[KennyPowers]

 

 

Various stuff...

I wonder whether you can even comprehend the hypocrisy of attacking people for holding prejudices whilst so blatantly exposing your own prejudices.

 

Now I'm going to assume your post is deliberately provocative and slightly tongue-in-cheek...

 

 

Are you serious? I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my first post.

 

Then he comes back with and hence the second post: "I think my description of the mail was spot on."

[Kingfisher]

I'm writing in the style of the Mail, I'm only criticising the people who buy it and enjoy it when it's not about them - they're fair game.

[snowychap]

The point was it wan't entirely supposition and it's rare to find a columnist in a national newspaper that writes something that isn't entirely supposition.

Sounds like it reinforces my comment.

I'm not actually sure whether using 'pretty well sourced' quotes to support a particular, slanted viewpoint* is that much better than something being 'entirely supposition'. Indeed some might see it as more calculating, dangerous and subtly mendacious than pure supposition.

*The reason I call it such is that I can't for the life of me believe that the Mail's thinking went along the following lines:

Ooh, I wonder what this Ralph Miliband that Ed keeps referring to in his speech was like. Bloody oath, he was a bleeding Marxist and there's all this stuff in books about him which unequivocally say x, y and z. We'd better expose it to the world.

Edit: And I missed putting in the fairly obvious point (supported by Dacre's comments) that the real purpose of the piece was to provoke the kind of reaction that the Mail's editor could use to back up his position on press regulation.

Edited October 12, 2013 by snowychap

[snowychap]

Are you serious?

Yes. Your opening gambit was Just how left wing is this forum?.

I struggle to read that in any way other than being critically prejudiced (reinforced by the last para in that post where you speak about the hysterics of you hardline left-wingers).

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not criticizing you for having a prejudice - we all do (and we're not always consistent in those prejudices).

[bickster]

It's really not complicated. Protection of the free press has long been a socially progressive (or liberal) ideal. To sacrifice this principle on the altar of 'I don't like the Daily Mail' is hypocritical in my view.  

 

In terms of party politics, the social progressives should be the ones opposing this new charter, indeed any charter, not endorsing it.

Nothing in the Royal Charter proposal affects a free press, they are free to print whatever they want. If they get it wrong however, it will be easier for those affected to get redress, not only that but redress judged by a body not run by the very people who have a vested interest in the outcome as it presently is. You can't be the accused, the judge and the jury all at the same time.

The press' objection to Leveson is full of red herrings put out there by… the press. Currently the only redress people have against the press is the PCC, run by the press and the law of the land which is prohibitively expensive for the average person to even contemplate. That is what this Royal Charter is about, nothing to do with censorship or "controlling" what the press print, which seems to be the general idea that its objectors keep putting about.

The press will still be free but if they stuff up, now those affected will hopefully get correct redress and not some small print tucked away on page 35 next to an advert for canine flea removal

[StefanAVFC]

Well, I think we can all agree the daily mail is a shit right wing, homophobic, xenophobic, lying, Tory rag with past links to Nazism. And it is generally read and loved my mindless, scared, sad and pathetic little selfish morons who think Christmas has been banned and political correctness has gone mad.

What is there to debate?

 

The Jack Wilshere thread is an absolutely perfect example of this at the moment. You couldn't write it!

[KennyPowers]

 

Are you serious?

Yes. Your opening gambit was Just how left wing is this forum?.

I struggle to read that in any way other than being critically prejudiced (reinforced by the last para in that post where you speak about the hysterics of you hardline left-wingers).

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not criticizing you for having a prejudice - we all do (and we're not always consistent in those prejudices).

 

 

Well I agree, how can someone live in this world without developing prejudices. 

 

My initial comment was really geared towards how could people have not only failed to challenge Kingfisher's abusive post but liked it. Just because you tolerate abuse of people you don't like? Just because it's so widespread on the internet doesn't mean it should be tolerated. I hate tribalism, I hate tasking sides without serious thought, I hate it in politics and I hate it in life, it is akin to bullying and encouraging bullies is not a good thing. I don't want to go out of my way to point it out and challenge it but on this occasion I had to. 

[KennyPowers]

I'm writing in the style of the Mail, I'm only criticising the people who buy it and enjoy it when it's not about them - they're fair game.

 

There we have it, the oracle has spoken. People are fair game for abuse for buying the 'wrong' newspaper. What a vision for a tolerant society you have. 

[bickster]

I'm writing in the style of the Mail, I'm only criticising the people who buy it and enjoy it when it's not about them - they're fair game.

 

There we have it, the oracle has spoken. People are fair game for abuse for buying the 'wrong' newspaper. What a vision for a tolerant society you have.

Anyone who reads the Mail and agrees with its stance on most issues would fit the definition of intolerant. Intolerant is its raison d'être.

[blandy]

 

Just how left wing is this forum?

 

You really think these gross, insulting generalisations are okay? You really think you are pursuing tolerance and progressiveness by smearing ....?

 

Interesting article I stumbled across in the Guardian today by Paul Dacre: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/12/left-daily-mail-paul-dacre

 

He sums up the hysterics of you hardline left-wingers pretty well. This campaign of the last few weeks is all because of the headline of the Ralph Milliband article. Now I read the article and even if you disagree with all or most of it, it was sourced pretty well. The headline was pretty objectionable but the hysterical response has been pretty unprecedented. 

 

 

 

My initial comment was really geared towards how could people have not only failed to challenge Kingfisher's abusive post but liked it. Just because you tolerate abuse of people you don't like? Just because it's so widespread ...doesn't mean it should be tolerated. I hate tribalism, I hate tasking sides without serious thought, I hate it in politics and I hate it in life, it is akin to bullying and encouraging bullies is not a good thing. I don't want to go out of my way to point it out and challenge it but on this occasion I had to. 

 

Isn't there something of an inconsistency between those two posts?

On the one had a paper writes something abusive and objectionable, to be read by millions of it's readers.

When all kinds of people (from across the spectrum) not just"left wingers" criticise it, it's summed up by you as "hysterical", and on the other hand someone writes something on the internet that is rude about Daily Mail readers and you "just had to challenge it".

 

It doesn't, by the way, seem to me wrong that either you pointed out the objectionable nature of the comment on Mail readers, or that all kinds of people pointed out the objectionable nature of the Mail's comments on Milliband.

 

As to why do people on the left obsess about the Daily Heil (and they do) - it's because they, perhaps, see in it "values" (I use the term loosely) that are alien to them and their ideals. The main one of the Mail is (by their own admission) fear. That paper plays on fearfulness, giving its readers a daily dose of something new to be worried about.  Be it immigrants, cancer, single mothers, muslims, gays, marxists, crime, benefit scroungers, Unions, a return to the 70s and dead being unburied....

When a paper sets out to make money by pandering to fear and insecurity, in the process spreading the seeds of division and discrimination and by often picking on the defenceless, many people dislike it. Some intensely, and some of them become obsessed by that stream of bile.

 

It's more of a mystery to me why the Daily Mail obsesses about the BBC....

[StefanAVFC]

That's a quite awful attempt to spell indictment. I sincerely doubt you've read the article by the way. 

 

 

Your point is invalidated when your opening gambit is a petty piece of spell-correct point scoring.