The Guardian: loathsome and loathful

A J Scott

Right on, Rod. The Guardian, as usual, leads the Hypocrites Parade.

Fergus Pickering

The Guardian used tohave a Northern editor. Nice chap called Martin Wainwright. Went to a Public School natch. Had a mad stalinist sister called Hilary who presumably went to a girlie public school. Is he still about.

Baron

amazing you bother to even mention the rag

Paulme

I loath the Guardian as much as any right thinking person but I think the piece is quite funny.

Carl

At a neighbour's drinks a couple of years ago was a complete twat, reinforced by the fact that his latest book (now no doubt remaindered), was on prominent display and had been brought in by said twat. As you would expect, he is a regular contributor to the Guardian.

Ruth Ferez

Here here!

Mrs Mugabe

Nice to see you back in the saddle, Rod - unencumbered by egg shells and whatever, o'er which you traversed during the promise of Indie.

DZ

Tremendous stuff, Rod. A real Lenny Bruce tirade. Lyrical, with just the right pace. Knee in the groin approach to an ailing victim about to be cut off in the prime of it's Appointments pages. But wait, when the Indie job didn't come off (sorry about that, incidentally) wasn't there some sort of job open to you in "Green Issues" at the Grauniad? Is this a Lenny style goodbye kiss to the "loathsome newspaper"?

John Whyte

I cannot agree more Rod. I have friends who treat every right-on, faux-egalitarian flatus released by Rusbridger's craques as manna from heaven (in an atheistic way, of course). I was about to eviscerate myself recently to escape the choking miasma of smugness emanating from Monbiot's articles about a citizen's arrest for Tony Blair. They do have a few decent writers, and I used to like the Observer's film reviews but how can anyone take a newspaper seriously when it describes the USA's humanitarian effort in Haiti as being an occupation? I nearly spat out my cornflakes when I read that!

David Ossitt

Rod Liddle.

“By God, The Guardian is a loathsome newspaper; a local north London morning daily for Stalinist metro libtards, perpetually arrogant, snobbish, self-righteous, humourless, dull, relentlessly middle class, cowardly and cheap.”

Welcome home Rod; all is forgiven, let us bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

Tim J

perpetually arrogant - TICK
self-righteous - TICK
cowardly and cheap - TICK
a bit of a 'tard - TICK

Know thyself, Rod Liddle

Tendryakov

Can anyone explain the difference between north and south London. I frequently see it suggested that there is some kind of "cultural" difference, but as a provincial, I am in the dark.

Moxon

Rod on the Guardian. My, you can do it like no one else!

Lee Jakeman

The only time that middle class socialists comes to their senses is when they're standing in front of a firing squad, looking down the barrel of a rifle.

It's amazing, then, how quickly they change their "world view".

Ray

Hopefully one of the first acts of a Cameron government will be to save the taxpayers a huge wad of their hard-earned dosh by advertising ALL public sector jobs and appointments on the government's own websites.

That should give Rusbridger and his acolytes in the advertising department something to ponder.

Ed West

"a local north London morning daily for Stalinist metro libtards, perpetually arrogant, snobbish, self-righteous, humourless, dull, relentlessly middle class, cowardly and cheap."

for God's sake don't muck around, say what you really think

paulg

The thing with the guardian is that they think they are cleverer than everyone else. Unfortunately for them they are invariably on the wrong side of every argument. How clever do you have to be to be stupid?
I enjoyed their recent debate about ethics as it appeared none of them understood what it was about; Gordon Brown mixed up ethics with morals, not understanding the subtle difference between the two.
Next time maybe?

Raskolnikov

Ah Rod, you forgot to mention their resident Jew-hater: Seamus 'Hezbollah' Milne. The Guardian is the house journal for the purblind, prejudiced and self-righteous. A plague on their risible house. I quite like Nicholas Lezzard. Is he still there?

Ellie

Tendryakov, North London has by far the biggest concentration of a uniquely monied political and cultural elite than exists anywhere else in the country.

That's why it's almost become a byword in itself. Private Eye even runs a cartoon called It's Grim Up North London.

South London has a mix of classes, some in greater concentrations than others, but North London is not its polar opposite - that would be a false analogy.

This cultural divide isn't just about class or any other normal measure of demographics and geography. A greater part of it is to do with a state of mind.

Of course, not everybody there thinks that way, but even those who don't kow tow to the warped, weird - and, yes, loathsome - cultural current they're surrounded by can feel its presence.

Adam F

In defense of the Guardian, its HCI (human computer interface) is the best of any of the on-line newspapers. Although it has to be admitted that the content is often so self-righteously contented that however useable the interface is you want to stop reading. Quite when it got like this I don't know, it is possible that it is I who has changed, but I don't remember it being quite this bad when I started reading it back in the day (sometime around 1997). I don't know if it is possible for a newspaper to go mad but I sometimes think that the Guardian in general and CIF in particular have reached a point where, for example, their hostility to Israel has reach a point where calling it irrational would be the kindest thing one could say about it.

On the bright side the "Clare in the Community" cartoon is funny and self mocking.

John Austin

Tendryakov,
Middle class north Londoners tend to be arrivistes from elsewhere, and are represented by ridiculous people who pretend it's edgy and cool to live in places like Hackney, (because they can't afford Islington) instead of recognising it for the dismal, crime-ridden hell-hole it is. We Sarf Londoners tend to be born and bred there, and have proper jobs that have nothing to do with the media or websites. I generalise, but it tends to be true.

Kev Cooper

Actually, I thought the review you ridiculed was bloody funny. Still, I've noticed that you are a man of firm (and few) opinions and when you have them, you damn well keep them, whatever evidence there may be to the contrary. As for the loathsome Prescotts, no insult will come close to the reality. What a pair. As an aside, will you please get rid of that thumbnail of you as a teenager in a cap sleeve t-shirt cica 1970? It's about 30 years old, judging by the thumbnails in the Times

Dirty Euro

Rod Liddle This is self indulgent drivel.
Keep your petty minded arguments to yourself. I do not care if you have issues with some people at the Guardian what does that have to do with us?
All the papers in London metropolitan elitist guff. Just like you. What part of the North is Millwall?
Since when was Millwall not in London?
Oh an walking with you knucklesa on the floor does not make you a northern.

wardytron

Obviously it's good that people see the Guardian for what it is, but I think the correct response is to write it off, ignore it, not buy it, rather than getting het up about its contents.

Doing the latter runs the risk of looking like those prize plums on Twitter who post links to Daily Mail articles that they've deliberately gone looking for in order to make themselves angry, and then having got angry, angrily denounced in angry terms on Twitter, to other prize plums who then re-tweet the angry denunciation about something they didn't bloody well have to read in the first place.

Dispossessed Snapper

@ Rod: "before marching off to consume a Yakult in a Crouch End cafeteria"

Steady on. I live in Crouch End and have yet to find yakult on sale in the cafeterias. You can get it in the supermarket, though. Does that count?

BTW, I always thought the grim bit was Islington. Far more yummy mummies per square yard than Crouch End.

Alexandrovich

Tendryakov: put another way, the people in South London are black and the people in North London like to think they are.

Austin Barry

North London is London -everything that the world knows as London is there.

South London is a cricket ground, a prison and a war museum. You can get there from North London quite easily by descending the evolutionary ladder.

Dixon

Lee Jakeman
March 3rd, 2010 9:30pm
" The only time that middle class socialists comes to their senses is when they're standing in front of a firing squad, looking down the barrel of a rifle.

It's amazing, then, how quickly they change their "world view"."

Are you speaking from experience?

But seriously, this is at the crux of my outlook: there are those who put the supposed rights of abstract "others" before the practical considerations of their "own" and do so with the conviction that this makes them morally superior. Thats the liberal, left that papers like the Gaurdian and Independent addresses. They believe themselves morally superior to those of us who regard the well being of ourselves and out "own" as justifying anything done to those abstract "others". But the real difference between such "morally sophisticated" people and us is that they simply lack self-knowledge. They have no conception of what they would really do if "push came to shove". Whilst the rest of us who have an ounce of self-scrutiny will accept at the "get go" that we are not heroes, and if it comes down to it, will betray, ill-treat maim or kill anyone that it genuinely serves the interest of our selves and our community to so do.

This is a fundamental division running right through all Western liberal societies, largely reflecting the existence of a social cadre ( eg, your North Londonites) which has more wealth at its disposal, time on its hands and heads full of arrant nonsense over which to strike a pose, than has ever previously been known in the entire history of the human race. They are, in a way, a kind of "moral" cist, swollen to an immense scale of inflated rhighteousness and agitative pus that it threatens, when it eventually bursts, to obliterate the rest of the society which it is parasitic upon and whose energies and erstwhile vitality it has already sapped to the point of annhilation.

Pete

Rod, I reckon you could subtitle this to yet another parody of the Hitler scene in "Downfall"

WoderickWiddle

Isn't it time for Rod Liddle to take on the job for which history so clearly destined him? Surely his editorship of Der Sturmer would be a match made in heaven. All you need is a few quid and a Nazi fairy godmother, and I am sure Liddle has both.

Pete H

Its great for wrapping Fish and Chips though Rod!

Come on Rod, be fair, "some" of the writers/editors have agreed with Anthony Watts to stop using abusive term in their AGW headlines and articles. Little steps indeed.

Lee Jakeman

Dixon:

Absolutely spot on. Could not have put it better myself.

And no - I wasn't speaking from experience - just self-knowledge!

Spanish Waiter

Hmmm, well I thought the Crace piece was very funny, and well merited. My father is from Hull and very much old Labour: he becomes wonderfully splenetic at the very thought of both Prescotts. Not, I think, an exhibit to force a conviction.

Personally, I rather like the Guardian. There's much to dislike, true. Rusbridger seems amazingly unattractive; Toynbee's columns are not so much wrongheaded (that's fine, I want to read columns I disagree with) as written on autopilot; its foreign affairs reporting is not good enough; and so on. But as Rod says, it has some superb writers. I think it has the best sports and arts coverage of any newspaper; it certainly has the best books section (on a Saturday); and it has by a country mile the best cryptic crosswords.

EyeSee

You just copied your tick list from the requirements form to join New Labour.

toby forward

South London is the Horniman Museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Blackheath (and its rugby club) Greenwich, The Royal Observatory, Goldsmiths' College of Art, the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern, Southwark Cathedral, Deptford Market........

Simon Denis

Well, quite. I well recall a particularly snobbish, callow, left-moving chum of mine testily complaining that Billington presumed to make jokes in his theatre reviews. Jokes! In a theatre review! Worse than a fart in a sermon! I concluded then that the Grauniad and its readers were the very worst sort of prig. A very few attempts, in the name of open mindedness, to read it have confirmed this view. The sneering treatment afforded to Charles Moore in an interview some year ago, in which every comment and every interjection from the interviewer constituted some species of sneer, was a case in point. Guardian readers constitute most that is wrong with this country.

Gerry Hassan

What should we do about Rod Liddle? Clearly in his explosive, counter-productive weapon of mass destruction language, this man demeans and belittles every opinion he has.

The Guardian is 'loathsome and loathful' - words which well fit the dreaded Liddle. Good point made by someone that all the papers and media are metropolitan fixed including Millwall loving Rod!

And when will the Specie with its championing of decency and good behaviour, sack a man who in 'The Guardian' used the 'c***' word three times in defence of his disgraceful remarks about Auschwitz.

GaryO

Guardian's love feast with islam and Hamas is only matched by its pathological dislike of the Jewish state and its inhabitants. Just take a peek at their Cif section.

Rod this preposterous rag is loosing money hands over fist. Its demise is neigh.

GaryO

nigh even

Nimble

All this talk of pro-biotics ! The catholic church has banned the use of them, apparently its dangerous to dabble with the Yakult !

davidke

Advice to my daughter: see what the Guardian says about it, then go the opposite way. Works every time. The Guardian has been wrong on every major international and domestic issue for the last 20 years. And so up their own backsides.

rod liddle

Mugabe, Mr Ossitt and others; cut me some slack here. Two days after being offered the Independent job I wrote the blog about black crime statistics in London. You can and probably should accuse me of many things, but never intelligent strategic planning, surely. Show me some egg shells and I will grab hold of my old doc martens. I think it's an example of perpetual adolescence.

It's the faux-leftishness of the paper I object to, and its veneration of middle class mores.

North London - sorry, an ad hominem attack, sure. But as it happens, Euro, I don't consider south London as being quite the same.

Pete

Great writing!

Let's hope the next Government puts all publicsector jobs Online (in their own website). That should get rid of this smug odious paper once and for all.

michael

The faux left... GB has been educating them in faux universities (rebranded colleges),giving them faux qualifications in faux subjects(eg media studies)and then giving them faux jobs with faux self importance in a faux superstate.

This political engineering of a faux middle class with faux loyalties might just win him a general election.

Fauxing wonderful

Kevinc

Though I quite like reading Polly "Poll" Toynbee and Lord Monbiot. They are among the great comic writers of the last 50 years.

Mr Gren

Tendryakov..
There are differences between South and North Londoners, mainly brought about by the transport links.
North London has the Tube network, whilst South London only has a Tube network if you live in the South-West.
London (the city of) exists on the North-East side, which means those on the South-East side have to get there by train (remember - no tube).
North London trains come into Moorgate, Bank and Liverpool St station, whilst South London trains come into Cannon Street!

The arrival of Docklands would have made a big difference to the South, if you could get to it. But only if you can walk or bus it there. Otherwise you have to get a train to Lewisham, then the DLR; no other option.

Because of this, over time, north Londoners have become richer - and tend to read the Guardian.

Marbury

In what way is Sam Wollaston a good writer, please?

Rachael

I can't see what's wrong with sterotyping North London (I live there, so even if we were using the dimwit logic of The Guardian, Marcus Brigstocke et al, I can make that point, OK, yah, right?).

That old Lefty Bertolt Brecht never had any problem with stereotypes - people don't take them for real but recognise the shorthand they imply.

Does that really have to make stereotypes a thought crime, every time?

Those who know North London know what people mean when people say North London-types, Notting Hill-types.

That North London is used as a term of contempt does not enter it into a competition with South London - or anywhere else.

It’s where many a North Londoner is at that’s the problem, not where they are from.

Austin Barry

Toby

Like most North Londoners I don't deem anything in close proximity to the south bank of the Thames as really in South London - it's more North London overspill. So Tate Modern, Greenwich, Southwark and the Globe are really in North London.

Bregazzi

"They have no conception of what they would really do if "push came to shove". Whilst the rest of us who have an ounce of self-scrutiny will accept at the "get go" that we are not heroes, and if it comes down to it, will betray, ill-treat maim or kill anyone that it genuinely serves the interest of our selves and our community to so do."

Spot on, Dixon. My main problem with the Left is that they see the world not how it is, not how things really work, but how they think it should work.

God help us if there is another war any time soon - Guardian readers will be inviting our enemies in for tea in the hope that they'll like us and not bother attacking. Oh wait, that is already happening now.

Desperate Dan

The Guardian, and all who sail in her, are running scared . In their nightmare vision a Tory government will rob them of their major source of income - government advertising for pointless non- jobs. They've formed an unholy alliance with the gutter journalists of the BBC to protect their lifeblood of taxpayers' cash. Like the government, the Guardian's fight for survival is all-consuming. Sane and rational behaviour has ceased Their death throes are truly glorious to behold.

Derek Pasquill

The only people probably still reading the Guardian are the lobotomied left and right-on Muslims with chips on their shoulders, egged on by the former for obscure reasons.

To paraphrase Steve Bell, I wouldn't wipe my dog's arse with it.

hiro

North London is London -everything that the world knows as London is there.

South London is a cricket ground, a prison and a war museum. You can get there from North London quite easily by descending the evolutionary ladder."

Here you go folks, evidence of the smug wankiness of those who prefer North London to South London. Give me Walworth over poncy Clerkenwell any day of the week.

Fearless Frank

Does the grauniad still employ that Steve Bell character, the most unfunny smudger ever to be called a cartoonist?
I used to like Crouch end when I lived there 40 years ago - it was a forgotten suburban village no-one had heard of, caught in warp in the space-time of North London.

lmda

Pretty much the same could be said of the BBC. But of course I don't have to pay for the Guardian whenever I want to read another newspaper.

Wilhelm

Rod screeeeams

'' the Guardian is loathsome and loathful''

When did the penny drop son ?
We've known that for decades.

London Calling

Looks like Rod's put his angry eyes on again...

Dear Mr Potato Head,

All newspapers are run by twats
and employ broom cupboard gems...and Your Point is?

:)

Dr Michael Salt

A perfect summary of that loathsome, humourless, bigoted rag.

Robert Taggart

Roddy Roddy Roddy...
calm down ! The Guardian be optional... the Guardian/BBC be not... that should 'set you off' and the rest of us 'poll tax' licence fee payers more !

Michael Sweeney

The Guardian is the journalistic equivalent of Caliban - malicious, cowardly and false. These are the people who believe everything about Cuba is great, but are likely to take their own toilet paper.

Mrs M

London Calling: All newspapers are run by twats and employ broom cupboard gems...

This puts me in mind of a line from the brilliant 80s series Hot Metal (a spoof on the newspaper industry)"Tits sell newspapers. Fortunately for us they also buy them."

gareth

nice one Rod

rod liddle

Michael - terrific stuff. I might nick that...............

NR

"a Boden catalogue boot stamping on a human face for five minutes."

Majestic.

D. Price

The worst thingis the guardian are the de facto government. They set the agenda that even Cameron is following.

p. miller

wow rod you're really hurting aren't you from the indie rejection? lol, couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. I'm sure you'll get a proper job soon.

Noa "sod the Grunter, the Big issue is better" Zrk

Rod.
When Dirty Euro criticises you, you know that you've got something right.

As Northern nowadays as a budgerigar's chaff.

I've said it before but its still true,the Grunter's best qualities are that it is soft, yet strong and absorbent.

Sistas 4 Truf

Nimble

"All this talk of pro-biotics ! The catholic church has banned the use of them, apparently its dangerous to dabble with the Yakult !"

Brilliant! Post more often mien Liebschen.

toby forward

Austin Barry, using your standards of reality, you are not a dick. However, in the real world......

Gordonstuin Brown. PMT

When "Thought of the Day" finally receives its final injection from a Dignitas inspired Board of BBC governors my profound hope is that you will provide the first of many "Bitch of the Day" replacements.
That would be the perfect antidote to road rage or a Twickenham Tube punch up.

David Ossitt

Rod,

I am sorry; I thought that I was being supportive

Wayne Gillespie

The noble art of sodomy is not dead. Hurrah!

Noa "I'll always loathe the crap sports reports in the Grunter" Zrk

It's the faux-leftishness of the paper I object to, and its veneration of middle class mores.

Faux? Faux?? For the sake of the lord high almighty Rod. How can you, a Northerner, use a poncy word like that, still visit the Den, and expect to walk afterwards? Drop the 'a' though and you might just get away with it.
As to middle class mores- the Grunters understanding of what is "middle class" is the same as Harriet Harman. That is, the ultimate, underlying fear of the really wealthy and privileged, who despise and hate the aspirations of those who actually threaten them, unlike the 'proletariat', who wont.

Dirty Euro

Noa Wiping the Guardian up after yo have been looking on the internet pictures I presume.

Screwtape

Catfight, catfight!

One lefty metropolitan hack trying to scratch out the eyes of another bunch of lefty metropolitan hacks.

Miaow, Miaow!

Dirty Euro

Rod Liddle : You use such terms as "Faux left", "ad hominem". Class traitor.

Noa Zrk

Well Dirty, you didn't like the article but you seem to linger round sniffing the posts and discharging like an old Labrador! A self denying top shelver are you?

David Bouvier

Austin - you seem to be confusing North London (Islington, Stoke Newington, Camden) with "North of the River" which includes Mayfair, Chelsea, Westminster, Holborn... etc etc.

On the other hand "South London" is more or the same the Transpontine.

Guardianista

Am I the only one to see the deep sense of abject failure in Rodder's posting. The ex-archetypal Guardian reading BBC liberal ousted from that organisation because of his injudicious comments on a rural pressure group, many of whose members would typically identify with the reactionary tripe associated with this publication - ooh the irony. Rod has been having a several year tantrum because he can no longer play with the big boys and is therefore compelled to scrape a living by indulging the fantasy world of the lunatic fringe. So here we are confronted with the pitiful spectacle of a highly educated (apparently) ex-liberal getting down with his knuckle dragging mates at the Den, exhibiting his supposed working class credentials and appealing to simplistic and retarded notions of race, class and national identity by scape-goating the marginalised and voiceless in our society, a classic establishment ploy throughout the ages. How brave of you! And doesn’t this go down well with the waspish contributors to your blog some of whom would not be out of place on the BNP equivalent. In fact your previously and repeated analyses of skin colour (oops sorry, culture) and crime might be deemed too risqué for Griffin et al. No doubt your embrace and perpetuation of the myth of association of crime and colour will doubtlessly be trumpted in white Aryan websites throughout the ‘civilised’ world, a prospect which would give no concern whatsoever. But nevermind, you really have stuck it to the PC liberals, haven’t you?
'While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in.'

Ado Annie

Jeesus Rod...I received a Boden catalogue in the post the other day (seems I've been targeted as having the correct marketing profile) and one of my offspring actually worked for the Guardian a few years back. (Although I recall an invite they had to a drinks party in Camden that was "so full of posh people it was terrifying".
I thought I was safe out in the sticks.
Where does that leave me?

radgie gadgie

When I was a wee bairn we didnt meeet Guardian readers - the only papers allowed in the village was the Daily Mirror and People's Friend), so when I did come across one and he was the sort who cheered when he heard of the deaths of policemen and servicemen ones impression of them isnt good. years go by and I've not seen much to persuade me otherwise tat he was rather representative of the breed.

radgie gadgie

Talking of loathsome, brothers-in-arms C4 News managed to have a piece yesterday on the visit of Geert Wilders without mentioning his current trial....then they let mandy on the telly fulminate about Lord Cashcroft without mentioning his own unorthodox financial past.

See part 3 @
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/

EyeSee

As I don't read it, has anyone seen if the Guardian is as animated about the complete non-story of Lord Ashcroft? QT last night led with it and Dimbers allowed the anti's to have free rein -though Carol Vorderman did point out that Mandelson is hardly a Lord to throw stones.

I can imagine this paper becoming furious about his tax arrangements, which are possibly not as extreme as theirs. For tax avoidance you can't beat them, or the owners of the Revenue's offices. Oh well.

Miv Tucker

That's rather rich, coming from a man who was once on the payroll of the BBC - the Guardian's broadcasting arm - as the editor of Today, the very Guardian newspaper of the air.

Dixon

Guardianista....apt choice of name for someone who apparently has never acquired the concept "paragraph".

Maggie

Guardianista- Less foaming at the mouth please.

Bunny Blenkinsop

Mr Liddle, perhaps you would be so kind as to remind us for which newspaper you were writing when the Beeb saw fit to fire you? I seem to recall you "chose" its readers over the main day job.

Guardianista

Dixon...apt choice of name for someone who apparently has acquired the ethos most frequently associated with those south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I bet your reading material has lots and lots of pictures so you don't tire of all those words.

Maggie, isn't it Rod and his fellow travelling overtly racist blog friends who are foaming at the mouth? Or haven't you noticed.

John Leake

I wonder every so often why I stopped reading my beloved Speccie. Thank you for reminding me, Rod. Shrill ranting. It I wanted to buy the Sun, I'd buy it.

Kevinc

Guardianista - it seems from your last post that you have finally discovered the "paragraph" concept which only goes to show I suppose, though what exactly I couldn't say. All you need to do now is brush up on your syntax and punctuation and you'll be able to apply for your first real job!

But I agree with Ed West, I wish Rod would stop all this mealy-mouthed beating about the bush and tell it like it is!!

radgie gadgie

And Lo! It came to pass and it was Written and the Lord sayeth

Verily, whomesoever a Guardianista speaketh and partaketh of Bread with let them not pass Four Hundred Words
ere they speak of the Racist.

And the Lord made it so and the Earth and all the fishes of the sea and fowl of the air rejoiced And the Racists didst abide in the low realms of the Serpent.

Roman

So it doesn't look good for you to be editor of The Guardian either then Rodney?

David Ossitt

Rod.

Your blog; is now attracting some, who it appears are real nasty pieces of work, if you check out CoffeeHousers’ Wall you will find, that also is attracting some very creepy types.

I wonder where they are all coming from?

hiro

But don't fear
If you hear
A foreigner, in your ear
It's alright Rod,
He's only blacked up...

Gordon Walker

"Hopefully one of the first acts of a Cameron government will be to save the taxpayers a huge wad of their hard-earned dosh by advertising ALL public sector jobs and appointments on the government's own websites."

A necessary, if insufficient, step towards saving the UK economy would be to sack everyone who's government job was advertised in the Guardian over the last 13 years.
But I don't count on Dave to do it.

Rod Liddle

Everything you write in this article is utter toss, and how you ever become a writer for any newspaper or magazine I have no idea. Firstly, I suspect nobody who buys the Guardian is a "Stalinist", that form of ideology is outdated and is an argument used by the right from 30 years ago. Most people who buy the Guardian vote for Labour/Conservative and Lib Dem. Secondly, 'cowardly and cheap, middle class' from north London. What a massive over generalization. There is a world outside of London (sorry north London) where people buy the Guardian, and are neither of these things, especially middle class.. These over sweeping comments are really just an example of a poor writer, and are not critical or correct. Poor.

0207 intelligent life form

Tendryakov :

North London has Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Charlton Athletic and Chelsea.

South London only has Fulham and West Ham.
Oh ! And Millwall.

Simon

Why not go into politics and come to Broxtowe and replace the complete twat of an mp, nick palmer, who is just a parasite on the public purse. We need someone with a mind of their own instead of a brown toyt boy.

Edward McLaughlin

There does seem to be quite a flutter of excitement round here these recent days. So many new friends.

As if there had been a decision made somewhere, that too much was being talked about and we were in need of correction.

Might one detect a smidgen of panic?

Dixon

"Kevinc
March 5th, 2010 4:31pm
Guardianista - it seems from your last post that you have finally discovered the "paragraph" concept which only goes to show I suppose, though what exactly I couldn't say. All you need to do now is brush up on your syntax and punctuation and you'll be able to apply for your first real job!"

Oh, Kev, so you read its last comment... I havent.

Beerchipsbingo

Bregazzi

"God help us if there is another war any time soon - Guardian readers will be inviting our enemies in for tea"

Not just tea, full citizenship. Oh, and a house. Oh, and free healthcare. Oh, and legal aid.

Especially legal aid.

JSC

Rod, the problem is you have no integrity to speak of. As soon as the Independent role became a prospect you immediately started painting yourself as some sort of misunderstood liberal with a 'mischievous' streak. You claim here that you wrote the London crime statistics piece after you were offered the job, but the change in tone was so sudden it's difficult to believe that was the case. Your 5Live interview also came across as a rather hasty and desperate attempt to re-brand yourself. Now that you won't be getting the job, you're back here spouting the usual banal vitriol we've become accustomed to. Welcome back.

rod liddle

That Rod Liddle above isn't this Rod Liddle, as I hope you could tell from the syntax.

Which isn't to say he, or she, isn't Rod Liddle, and an equally valid Rod Liddle to this one.

And David - yes, mate. It's lovelt to have them, don't you think?

Dixon

"0207 intelligent life form
March 5th, 2010 6:39pm
Tendryakov :

North London has Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Charlton Athletic and Chelsea.

South London only has Fulham and West Ham.
Oh ! And Millwall."

If it gives a monkeys about "football" ( ie, soccer ) then it really aint that intelligent.

Paul Palmer

I like it!!!!

Wod 'Sparkles' Widdell

I'm Wod "Spartacus" Widdle and I claim the prize!
Whats the prize?
The fox!
What the fox that?
The fox-y left behind me!
And what the fox that then?
I don;t know, its a north circular argument!

Stuart Smith

Up the Arse!!! It's the only team for anyone who cares about football. The rest, shut it.

wyf

The Spectator.
rest case

jon livesey

The worst thing the Guardian ever did to themselves was to publish articles from their vault dating back to the forties and fifties.

They were just as leftist back then, maybe even more so, but they knew how to make a point with elegance and humour.

The way that Guardian writers used to write simply makes it that much more obvious that the current generation are self-righteous, smug and boring.

But this is not surprising. If you rail against the "establishment" for long enough, you become a national institution, and its downhill from there. It's a bit like John Osborne's later years. He began as a breath of fresh air, and ended up in sordid middle class confusion.

Corinne Hutchins

Why was this moronic article by Jeremy Clarkson credited to Rod Liddle?

g1lgam3sh

My comment seems to have gone. Was it something I said Rod, can't see why as it was supportive. hey ho.

A.N. Employer

There's a tried-and-tested candidate selection process, in that you ask interviewees to wait in reception for five minutes or so prior to meeting them, and ask them to sit where the only available newspaper is "the guardian" (sic)

Anyone who picks it up and starts reading can then be instantly struck from the shortlist. Anyone who would rather sit and do nothing than look at it should be given a fair interview. And anyone who mentions in their interview how disgusted they are that it's the only newspaper your company takes, should be employed forthwith.

A. MacAulay

Yes, but can anyone see it as being the voice of HM Opposition? Is it positioning itself for a post-Blairy-Browny world? Is there any way to break through it's, self-satisfaction guaranteed moralicism? Other than a change of government?

Rich de Lacy

After all these comments I couldn't resist having a butcher's at the Guardian site and, sure enough, it's as hideous as ever.
What the hell is Zoe Williams doing there? I remember her at the Evening Standard, she has a brain.
Couldn't we plan a daring, commando-style rescue mission?
God knows what she's going through, the poor mite.

phil

Amazing what a strange effect that loathsome newspaper can exert on one -I actually have found reason to agree with carl and ossitt-its never happened before and hopefully never will again .I would also say that as the Manchester Guardian it was in the past a great and much admired journal .The current impostors have a lot to answer for,like writing truthfully for instance .

Dave-o

I shouldn't worry about 'The Guardian' as they are losing readers at a rate last seen by the Gary Glitter fan club after a trip by their hero to PC World.

My favourite quote on 'The Guardians' current plight comes from Kelvin MacKenzie who when at a drinks party quipped whilst in the company of some odious reporter from said periodical " I have got more hairs on my arse than you have readers"

I suspect a large part of their sales comes from all the luvvies at the BBC who must be the only ones consuming their particular brand of drivel as I know most people would rather plonk a copy of Razzle down on the counter than a copy of 'The Guardian', less shame.

Steve Patriarca

Ever since The Manchester Guardian sacked Muggeridge in the thirties it and its successor has been a newspaper which tends to reject the notion of investigative journalism. It is impossible to conceive of The Guardian exposing the MPs expenses scandals for example (such exposure would have been inadequately partisan). Muggeridge simply sought to report the Holodomor -what we now know was the genocide against Ukraine conducted by a Stalinist Soviet Union. The Guardian sacked him for criticising Stalin. And Stalinism has always held an attraction for those in The Guardian Tradition. The very notion of 'Guardians' (ie Stalinist Thought Police) ought to alert us to this. It certainly is not the guardian of truth. Investigative journlaists sometimes reach conclusions they do not expect. I know from personal experience that one Guardian journalist at least sets out with his conclusions and is simply not interested in facts which may not fit them -

Nele Schindler

I despise the Guardian and all who write for it. That includes Marina Hyde with her 'Lost in Showbiz' drivel, and a lack of self-worth so monumental that she hovers like a kestrel over every slightly negative comment beneath her vacuous 'column', slinging humourless idiocies at those who don't like her.

What never fails to astonish me is the veritable freak show of Moonbats, Bidishas and Julie Bindels parading their single-grievance mental instability in ways that render every comment to the contrary 'sexist', 'racist' or 'warmist'. Stalinism is an entirely fitting description.

Derek

Wow, this is like some sort of halfway house for the confused. The idea of an ex-senior BBC editor lambasting other London journalists for being metropolitan fops would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

If I didn't know better, Rod, I'd think you almost sound bitter.

Robert M

For people who claim to despise the Guardian so much, you lot seems to spend a lot of time reading it. Anyone would think you were a bit obsessed.

Billy Blofeld

The Guardian is a nest of 6th Form common room unwarranted smugness.

Marina Hyde, however, is superb. She really should stop hanging out with the 6th Formers and broad her horizons.

Kneale Grainger

But only by reading The Guardian have I determined NOT to vote for its party of choice at the next election. Unintended consequences and all that.

Peppermint Patty

Laura Barton a good writer? Are you joking? It's like reading someone's homework.

Hyde, Petridis excellent though.

David Short

Wonderful stuff! Let me add Jonathan Glancey to your list of worthwhile writers, who don't get the attention of the hypocrites like Toynbee.

phil

Robert M
March 8th, 2010 5:50pm -Do you know any other way of learning to despise it other than reading it -know your enemies sir -I think I know mine .

Andy Gill

The Guardian's on-line forum Comment Is Free is particularly loathsome.

It's vicious anti-Israel articles attract anti-semites like rotten meat attracts flies.

It's become a sort of Stormfront lite, where the left can indulge in the bigotry they say they find so appalling in others.

DJH

Didn't you used to write a column for the Guardian? Were you fired?

john holland

Youre so right, Rod.
Now, The Daily Mail; that's a newspaper. Intelligent, rational, thoughtful. Never, ever, hypocritical or fuelled by a vague or hateful strain of dead-eyed paranoia, the very epitomy, in fact, of journalistic integrity.
Oh yes. And that's before one takes into account their profoundly knowledgeable science reporting.

denverthen

Great article about a hopeless organ.

I went to school with Petridis, btw - even went to some of the same lessons. Very bright bloke. Funny, too.

rod liddle

DJH and others; yes I did write for the Guardian (in G2) and no, I wasn't fired. I left for The Times. Obsessed? Maybe; I've been brought up with the Guardian for 49 years and still, until last week, had it on order every day. Which is why I mention that my epiphany came late.

rhory fraser

North London is Tottenham, Barnet, Brent, Edmonton, Potters Bar.

Islington, Hampstead et al are de facto Central London, just like the South Bank is de facto Central London.

The Guardian is a loathsome attitude of mind rather than a geographical location. Public sector, doo doo gooding, painful, self righteous, inverted snob.... I need a bath

Andre Leonard

Too gentle, Rod, with this University Union rag!

Andre Leonard

Now,please Rod, a similar evisceration of the BBC, the Grauniad's audible and visual companions

Wigstontiger

Thank you, Rod.

Crace's "Digested Read" of Pauline Prescott's autobiography is indeed crude and offensive but it is not typical of Guardian journalism as a whole.

Martin Wainwright

Goodness what an exciting thread. Thus is just to say that I am still about & still the G's Northern Editor. So is my sis and her magazine Red Pepper which goes well with the Spec for those who like a mix. If I am allowed a plug btw, please buy and read my recent book True North (also review it in the S, Rod, if you are reading this. That would be great).

Caroline

Too true. Thank you for confirming what i have always thought - Guardian readers are a bunch of twats.