The Guardian endorses the Lib Dems

Colin

Lovely!

I can just picture literally dozens of right on, middle class, metropolitan wannabee's (ie the entire readership of the grauniad), agonising over whether or not they should obey the muppets who wrote that ridiculous headline.

Given this low circulation rag's strike rate, in terms of political predictions, I expect a conservative majority of between 25 and 43.

ps

Have horse fly and his cronies agreed to give back that fraudulent donation yet?

pps - in Scotland, a clegg is a horsefly. Usually found buzzing around piles of hosesh*t...

Snowman

and Cleggy hoped he could push Labour into the third place

Tanuki

They would, wouldn't they?

[I look forward to some serious spinnahe from Polly Toynbee and her sad acolytes to justify this]

davidk

File under 'progressive' plot to avoid the Tory overall majority.

That could be a very significant move.

merlinthepig

Rats. Ship. Sinking.

Charlie T

I thought Mark Thompson was a Daily Star reader?
This news about the Guardian being their chosen newsletter is a real shocker.I`m shaken and depressed to hear they read the dying gutterpress.

Chuck Unsworth

And The Times has come out in favour of the Conservatives.

paulg

Well Cameron has been very very nice to them, lets hope they do the decent thing and change their minds by tomorrow morning: an endorsment for the conservatives is what we would all expect.

Anna

A significant moment? The Guardian dead-tree edition has a very small readership of liberal lovies & do-gooders. Include in that young people who mean awfully well but haven't yet tasted reality. I was one of them once, back on the Ark!

I read it online mostly for the laughs, certainly not for any insightful comment (rare honourable exceptions, of course). CiF is very unbalanced in terms of judging the allegiance of people who contribute since comments that disagree with the Guardian's world view are mostly deleted.

I really don't think that a newspaper that encouraged its readers to bombard Ohio with exhortations to vote for John Kerry, which spectacularly backfired, is going to influence significant votes.

Cynic

So even Polly's nosepeg couldn't do the trick for Labour.

In2minds

As always with the Guardian (follow your link) the article is equal to the comments below it, equally illuminating. Not everyone is happy and they have started fighting with several days to go before the ballot. So, did the Guardian do this deliberately?

David Lindsay

It did this last time. And the time before that, i.e., pre-Iraq. But no one noticed.

Alfred T Mahan

If memory serves, Patrick Wintour was in Chris Paul-Huhne's form at Westminster...

Mark Cannon

If (or rather when) the Tories win, the government will cease to advertise its jobs in any newspaper (which means the Guardian). And I would expect the BBC to follow. So goodbye Guardian.

Dirty Euro

What a disgrace they should have backed both left wing parties. They do not really care most people at the guardian earn big wages. Subliminally they want the left wing vote split so the tories get in and cut their riches taxes.

Tory Ninja

So Labour now only has the support of some third rate tabloid..... That's great to hear. And even though the Guardian has a relatively small circulation, it's still a pretty substantial kick in the teeth for Labour. I'll still assume that Polly Toynbee will probably say something along the lines of'Labour can still win if they come up with something bold' or some similar 'progressive' drivel. Ughk.

Ron Todd

I have always considered the Guardian and the BBC to be more anti- Tory that activly pro Labour or Liberal.

stephen

I thought the Guardian was supposed to be a serious intelectual newspaper. How can it have got taken in by the Clegg style of TV presentation more akin to X Factor or with some of his one liners Neighbours!
There are serious holes in the Lib Dem manifesto also apart from Clegg and Saint Vince what do we know about the rest of their potential front bench. Getting digging Guardian and do you job properly!

Beer Moth

"I suspect that newspaper endorsements interest journalists and politicians a heck of a lot more than they do voters."

Conversely James, there is very much which interests voters, which journalists leave unattended.

Liz Brown

unsurprising - Polly (Tuscany) Toynbee was an original supporter of the SDP and stood as a candidate............

Cuffleyburgers

Well enjoy while it lasts - without the subsidy of public sector jobs adverts this loathsome "news"paper with go down the tubes fairly smartly, most amusing and all part of what promises to be some quite enjoyable post election score settling and back biting.

My dear friends dirty eyro, richard of pork and fatbloke on a moped - don't like it up 'em???? hahahahahahahahahahaha

seb

Can I recommend Matthew Parris's article in The Times on the bogus 'issue' of change?

On behalf of what it presumes to be Progressive Britain, The Guardian is promoting Clegg's Head in the Sand platform. We've lived beyond our means, we're bankrupt, but if we go Greek and pout and scream and tip the potty contents over Nurse's shoes and rant on about the voting system and bankers, it will be easier to pretend that we can carry on living far beyond our means.

Toynbee, to her credit, recently predicted that we are due another mega-crisis in a decade or so due to the unwillingness of politicians to regulate the casino economy that is the 'financial sector' in anything remotely resembling a sane manner. Sadly, she and her mates have only one real political policy left: an heroic ˇNo Pasarán! attempt to stem the feared Tory tide. Progressive Britain may wake up one morning to find it its credit cards have at last been cancelled and that it can't even buy groceries. Somehow, that really wouldn't matter in ToynbeeWorld. Better a bust Progressive Britain than a solvent one led by the Tory Party.

Frank P

A obvious slight-of-hand and a somewhat desperate one. They will do anything in a last-ditch ploy to keep the Left-handed grip on power. Their own jobs at the Guardian and those of most of their readership depend upon it, not to mention the existential threat to the paper itself.

Luckily, Gordon not only Duffied his own party in Rochdale - he probably did for the heirs of Jeremy Thorpe, too. Flaky as Cameron is, he's the only rational choice and it's up to the real Tories within the party to make sure that he veers to the Right, once he takes over the helm, to get us out of the Sargasso Sea of socialism; the Ship of State has been dead in the water for far too long.

The Man

Is anyone else enjoying the richly comic spectacle of droves of outraged and despairing Guardianistas screaming about betrayal and treachery and swearing never to buy the or read the paper again? Quite forgetting that the paper endorsed the Lib Dems in 2005 as well. Classic!

oldtimer

The Guardian`s support for that Europhile federast, the illegal asylum seeker hugging Clegg is sure to swing things up north.

denis cooper

The Guardian article states the "one great reason of principle" driving its support for Liberal Democrats -

"the election presents the British people with a huge opportunity: the reform of the electoral system itself."

I agree with that, and I've even been briefly tempted to vote for them myself for that sole reason - but then I always recall what they're really like and I realise that in practice I could never bring myself to put a cross against the name of their candidate.

Not that it will make any difference how I vote here, in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, under the present electoral system ...

Anyway I've sent the editor a letter, as follows:

"Sir

I too believe that the moment for electoral reform has come (editorial, today), but simultaneously with, and in fact through, the long overdue democratic reform of the House of Lords.

If the objective is "a parliament that is a true mirror of this pluralist nation", then it should be remembered that there are two Houses of Parliament, not one; so it is better to adopt a holistic approach and consider how to improve the two chambers in conjunction, rather than seeking to reform each in isolation.

While the present First Past The Post system for the House of Commons has important practical advantages, it suffers from the inherent defect that its "winner takes all" character leads to the under-representation of political minorities in Parliament.

Certainly that defect could be removed by changing the system of election to the Commons, but equally its effects could be corrected by electing the members of a new Second Chamber in such a way that political minorities were always over-represented within their ranks.

The simplest, most reliable and best way to achieve that compensatory over-representation in the Second Chamber would be to supplement the present First Past The Post for the Commons with Second Past The Post for the Second Chamber - a reform which while radical in its concept and consequences would necessitate no changes at all to current electoral practice beyond the returning officer adding words such as these to his usual declaration of the result:

"... and I also declare that X has been duly elected as the Second Member of Parliament for this constituency"

X being the candidate who had won the second highest number of votes.

The disproportionality in the Commons would then be countered by an opposite disproportionality in the Second Chamber, and the result would indeed be the "balanced" Parliament sought by the Liberal Democrats.

Yours etc."

NickW

The Guardian and the BBC are one and the same organisation.

They shouldn't be, but they are. The Party they both represent is the Anti Conservative Party.

Sacre Bleu

So Clegg equals the LibDems.To be fair, he has kept his poodle Cable alongside him, safer there I suppose than letting him loose but 'Get LD' and you get Teather, Goldsworthy, Campbell,Hughes, Huhne, Opik, Kramer,Featherstone and I suppose there are others. God help us all.

JohnAnt

"If the Guardian had a vote...it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats...The vote would be cast with some important reservations and frustrations."

I wonder if the Gurniad's Editor realises that this self-contradiction makes him look like a complete plonker?

Or maybe in alternative G-Land enthusiasm gets no better than 'reserved and frustrated'?

Actually, that might well be true.

One looks forward to seeing all those ballot papers covered by paragraphs of reservations and frustrations. Result.

echo34

It's the timing of these endorsements that gets me. Credit where its due, the Sun came out for the tories a couple of months ago.

Obviously the Times is supporting Chelsea for the FA Cup and Guradian is with Pompey.

Noa Zrk

Denis Cooper. Well said sir.

Andrew Newell

Nick Clegg is far more open than Cameron The Tory spin is so far fetched if people get sucked in by his spin then they will find out the real truth come the George Osborne Budget which will be held weeks after they gain power. The Tory policies are as clear as the Volcanic ash from Iceland. Ken Clarke do not and would not answer any questions on a live show debate other than steer onto another subject of political waffle. It will same old Tory cut to the bone lose of jobs by the tens of thousands and as a result the economy will suffer very badly. Tories also are like little playtime children will not be willing unlike the other two main parties by working together in a hung Parliament which is nothing short of arrogance and pompous behaviour. Vote for Cameron at your peril !!!!!!!