What's the PM going to announce?

[maxflinn]

 

[stephen bennett]

Even more extraordinary when Dawn Butler stated on PM this afternoon that that the Prine Minister 'rigged the system' by calling for an early election.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief.

May would have been under pressure for three years and the Tory infighting apparent to all. She would have had to then arrange for a no confidence vote in herself the stand a chance of an early election. . Corbin could have least asked for some concessions!

I'm stumped for words. Labour (for it was most of them) appear to think that opposing means doing exactly what the Government wants to do.

Stephen

 

[fay spook]

Drood, I just followed your recommendation and looked at the Mirror.

How about a nice walk to the paper shop, pick up a few papers to look "media aware", stroll into you local cafe, order a full English and a cup of splosh, look around and feel superior to the laptop suffers/scum readers and avoid all the clickbait?

 

[droodzilla]

Drood, I just followed your recommendation and looked at the Mirror. It is awful, just another Daily Mail, full of tittle-tattle celeb crap, advertisments for false teeth, phone videos of people getting run over and killed by drink-drivers or old ladies getting punched by muggers, and football news. It is loaded up with so much adware that I had to click 'back' no less than 14 times to get out of a page. The politics pages are full of photographs of Jeremy Corbyn, whose mug always makes me feel slightly queasy for some reason. Really not good.

I did learn that Kim Karkrashian wore a see-through dress yesterday, and that some guy who predicted Trump's presidency has named the date for the outbreak of WW3, so not completely useless.

It's all relative EV. My point is that there is news in The Mirror, among the celeb goss etc, and it's an essential counterbalance to the sway of The S*n over the red-top readers.

 

[gassor]

Guardian obvs although it can be a bit "right-on" and, in its online form, tends to be clickbait for lefties. Daily Mirror is a solid left-wing paper with a surprising amount of actual news content for a tabloid. It's the paper I grew up with and I attribute my mum and dad's relatively high level of political awareness to them reading it rather than The S*n. Financial Times is excellent if you want in-depth intelligent analysis without too much editorialising mixed in with the news content. Morning Star for all your far-left news needs (never read it myself). The rest are (increasingly far-)right wing shite.

I agree with your reply, thanks. I was trying to get from maxflinn a paper that could be referred to without it being dismissed as part of the right-wing media that is controlled by the Tory party. The Huffington Post seems to me to fit into that category.

 

[eternumviti]

How about a nice walk to the paper shop, pick up a few papers to look "media aware", stroll into you local cafe, order a full English and a cup of splosh, look around and feel superior to the laptop suffers/scum readers and avoid all the clickbait?

Good plan!

 

[gassor]

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief.

May would have been under pressure for three years and the Tory infighting apparent to all. She would have had to then arrange for a no confidence vote in herself the stand a chance of an early election. . Corbin could have least asked for some concessions!

I'm stumped for words. Labour (for it was most of them) appear to think that opposing means doing exactly what the Government wants to do.

Stephen

The vote in favour of an election was somewhere in the region of 500 so Labour's stance would not have changed anything. If Labour did not agree they would have been seen as hypocritical and/or afraid.

 

[jackbarron]

A guy I know who used to be involved with The Clash put up a post on FB yesterday. He had just watched Emily Maitlis interviewing a Labour MP on Newsnight.

"Are Emily Maitlis and Laura Kuenssberg in a competition to see who is the most pro-Tory BBC journalist?" he asked.

The pair shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, but a complaint to the BBC will result in nothing. The corporation just wants our money to ladle out their Tory propaganda.

Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark are excellent, Maitlis is appalling and so is Evan Davis a lot of the time.

Jack

 

[Alex S]

Maybe start a petition stating 'I no longer wish to pay a licence fee for unbalanced news reporting'.

 

[maxflinn]

But why Labour has bent over and given May what she wants is more difficult to understand.

Stephen

I believe Corbyn wants a shot at no 10.

They couldn't really back out anyway without looking pathetic.

 

[jackbarron]

Maybe start a petition stating 'I no longer wish to pay a licence fee for unbalanced news reporting'.

That is not a bad idea.

Jack

 

[gassor]

A guy I know who used to be involved with The Clash put up a post on FB yesterday. He had just watched Emily Maitlis interviewing a Labour MP on Newsnight.

"Are Emily Maitlis and Laura Kuenssberg in a competition to see who is the most pro-Tory journalist on the BBC?" he asked.

These so-called journalists shouldn't be allowed to get away with it, but a complaint to the BBC will result in nothing. They just want out money to ladle out their right-wing shit.

Jack

Being "involved" with the Clash does of course give the guy deep political insight and means he is a serious commentator.

 

[The Far North]

The vote in favour of an election was somewhere in the region of 500 so Labour's stance would not have changed anything. If Labour did not agree they would have been seen as hypocritical and/or afraid.

May needed 2/3rds support to pass the vote, so Labour voting against would just about have done it on their own, while they would have scooshed it with the SNP abstaining. Definitely an own goal from Labour.

 

[maxflinn]

Guardian obvs although it can be a bit "right-on" and, in its online form, tends to be clickbait for lefties. Daily Mirror is a solid left-wing paper with a surprising amount of actual news content for a tabloid. It's the paper I grew up with and I attribute my mum and dad's relatively high level of political awareness to them reading it rather than The S*n. Financial Times is excellent if you want in-depth intelligent analysis without too much editorialising mixed in with the news content. Morning Star for all your far-left news needs (never read it myself). The rest are (increasingly far-)right wing shite.

Bar a few relatively Corbyn-friendly Owen Jones pieces and a couple of others the Guardian has been very anti-corbyn, Drood. After all, Jonathan Freedland writes for them..

See here:

Analysing the balance of our Jeremy Corbyn coverage

Not surprisingly – given this newspaper’s history – the Labour leadership race, and in particular the candidacy of Jeremy Corbyn, has generated powerful feelings among readers, not all in favour of the Guardian’s coverage. “Had enough of your paper,” said the subject line of an email from one reader, who went on to say: “I’ve been a regular reader of the Guardian (Manchester Guardian as was) since 1958. Despite the low point reached in the 60s when you supported the US war in Vietnam for a while, I still continued with it. But your sustained, arrogant, specious and just false reporting of Corbyn’s candidacy is too much. I am not a member or even supporter of the Labour party but your scurrilous coverage has convinced me that your paper no longer lives up to the label. I shall no longer … buy it nor view it online. Goodbye.”

EDIT: I just noticed that the above piece is from 2015. There has been many Guardian hit-pieces on him since then, mostly written by Jonathan Freedland.

 

[gassor]

Maybe start a petition stating 'I no longer wish to pay a licence fee for unbalanced news reporting'.

The BBC asking a few awkward questions of a leader whose party are crumbling in front of our eyes does not make it biassed. If there was real prejudice against Labour how come no Labour party representative is making a big deal out of it? That would really make the headlines.

 

[droodzilla]

I agree with your reply, thanks. I was trying to get from maxflinn a paper that could be referred to without it being dismissed as part of the right-wing media that is controlled by the Tory party. The Huffington Post seems to me to fit into that category.

Ah, OK, didn't see that bit. For what it's worth, I share some of max's concern about the state of mainstream media in the UK but I find most of the stuff he links to garbage (why do all those people on YouTube channels shout so much?).

It's a shame because I really would like to find a good source of news, analysis and fresh ideas that is on the left, and outside the mainstream. As a teenager, I cut my teeth on The New Statesman (and Society) and Marxism Today (which wasn't ever so Marxist by then) but The New Statesman today is a shadow of what it was (it's hard to find anything remotely left-wing in it, and most of the articles simply accept the right-wing way of framing the issues).

Rambling now. Have work to do. Must get on!

 

[jackbarron]

Guardian obvs although it can be a bit "right-on" and, in its online form, tends to be clickbait for lefties. Daily Mirror is a solid left-wing paper with a surprising amount of actual news content for a tabloid. It's the paper I grew up with and I attribute my mum and dad's relatively high level of political awareness to them reading it rather than The S*n. Financial Times is excellent if you want in-depth intelligent analysis without too much editorialising mixed in with the news content. Morning Star for all your far-left news needs (never read it myself). The rest are (increasingly far-)right wing shite.

The Guardian is really patchy and often quite right-wing. I will always look at Paul Mason's articles because he makes sense and is an economics expert. I am not so interested in Owen Jones who has criticized Corbyn for a while.

Their main Guardian columnist is Polly Tonybee. She has slated Corbyn, and socialists in the Labour Party, since before he was elected leader. She really doesn't like him. The BBC and other broadcasters wheel her on as a left wing commentator. The situation is laughable.

Jack

 

[maxflinn]

The BBC asking a few awkward questions of a leader whose party are crumbling in front of our eyes does not make it biassed. If there was real prejudice against Labour how come no Labour party representative is making a big deal out of it? That would really make the headlines.

What you fail to see/accept Gassor is that the drop in support for Corbyn's labour is directly proportional to the severity of the right-wing/Blairite/media slur campaign against him.

On the morning of the Brexit result polls showed that Labour were very close to the Tories. Then it all kicked off with the carefully choreographed live on air resignations and so on...

 

[TPA]

Whenever this question of media bias comes up I honestly wonder where people have been for 50 years.

Surely we have learned by now how to read between the lines?

It seems to me that those who protest so loudly are infuriated that some media does not match their own prejudices.

 

[droodzilla]

Bar a few relatively Corbyn-friendly Owen Jones pieces and a couple of others the Guardian has been very anti-corbyn, Drood. After all, Jonathan Freedland writes for them..

See here:

Analysing the balance of our Jeremy Corbyn coverage



EDIT: I just noticed that the above piece is from 2015. There has been many Guardian hit-pieces on him since then, mostly written by Jonathan Freedland.

Yes, I know The Guardian has been against Corbyn from the start. Same goes for the supposedly left-wing weekly magazine, The New Statesman (a shadow of its former self). Media coverage of politics is quite airless now and it's hard to hear intelligent analysis from a non-mainstream left perspective via the usual channels.

PS: Apologies for referring to most of the stuff you link to as "garbage" in my previous post addressed to gassor. It's nothing personal, more an expression of my own frustration.