Things Are Getting Weirder On Planet Guardian
by Ian R Thorpe
4 January 2010
CREATIVE COMMONS: Attribute, non commercial, no derivs.
KEYWORDS: press,newspaper, news, media, politics, political, labour, blair, politically correct, science, scientists, society, satire
It is about three weeks now since I cancelled my regular order for The Guardian on the grounds that I'm not willing to pay a pound a day to read a New Labour propaganda sheet. The number of people who come to this blog and assume I am a Conservative because I despise Labour is amazing, being a true egalitarian I despise both Labour and Conservative equally.
So great was my disillusion with mainstream media in general there have been hardly any withdrawal symptoms. Thus I felt confident enough over the New Year weekend to look in on Guardian Online.
It was something of a shock to see how much further down the pan things had gone since I left.
The first article to appear expressed the fervent hope that 2010 would see the end of "Bad Science." Now in the Guardian Science and Technology dept. there is a quasi religious attitude to "science" which is deified and presented as omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, invisible and wise. What they actually mean by "science" is traditional and candy floss sciences with the authoritarian agenda of the progressive left. "Bad Science" is anything the Guardian sci - tech team does not like, from climate change scepticism to people who sell pills that cure shyness.
Be on - message though and you are OK. Anyone who writes against those who challenge "the scientific consensus, the challenging of which is surely what science is all about, and who sticks to the authoritarian agenda can get an article published in The Guardian.
The article that confirmed my decision had been right, the article which lectured readers on the dangers of "Bad Science" was written by Hadley Freeman, a pretty, fun looking sort of girl who usually writes on fashion, dispensing advice on what kind of footwear is appropriate with denim or advising us that corduroy is a crime against humanity. So we had a professional fashion victim telling intelligent readers what their attitude to "science" should be? And they complain about The Daily Telegraph's Melanie Phillips and some of her whackier opinions on medical matters.
In Hadley's fashionable little world anybody who does not believe in "science" is a knuckle dragging Neanderthal Young Earth creationist with a single figure IQ because everything "scientists" tell us is factual information borne out by lots of statistics. Perhaps poor Hadley is dating a geeky scientist, does not get out often and is Labouring under the misapprehension that swine flu has already killed millions of people. It seems the science she is talking about is Tinkerbellology, if you believe in it, it will be true.
I wonder would Hadley have the same faith in statistics if the bar charts used to present them, instead of using pink and pale blue were coloured lime green and orange?
But enough on science, it is the politics of The Guardian that really pissed me off and is driving readers to abandon the paper in droves.
The Political Editor, Michael White proved the Labour worship was not a personal vendetta against me when writing after I had already become an ex- Guardian reader that he would nominate Tony Blair as politician of the decade.
"We must not fall into the trap of judging Blair solely on the Iraq fiasco," White told his readers.
Can't disagree with that of course. In judging Blair we should also take into account the Afghanistan fiasco, the Balkan adventures and domestic policy failures in education, health, the economy, transport, the disastrous Private Finance Initiatives, failure to address the looming energy crisis, climate crisis, ageing population crisis and employment crisis.
White was prepared however to believe the Blair spin and swallow whole the statistics that show education has improved as thousands of semi literates with shitloads of A levels are entering the job market and rapidly being identified as unemployable; that healthcare has improved because a policy of sending the terminally ill home to die has resulted in less people dying in hospital; that a fall in industrial activity to almost zero can be presented as a success in fighting climate change, that making many more people poor represents a success in fighting poverty and that Britain's degenerating society somehow is shows we have been successful in adapting to the realities of a new world order.
Put all of this together and it proves beyond any doubt that Guardian writers are living on a different planet to the rest of us.
Our experience of the NHS is of overworked and poorly paid front line staff battling against incompetent managers and a huge burden of government imposed bureaucracy including the dreaded "targets"; in education both parents and experienced teachers (i.e. those in the profession before Labour's targets took hold) are of the opinion dumbing down is exacerbated by a policy of coaching to pass examinations (so the school meets its targets) rather than educating individuals as a preparation for life. In Blair's war on poverty the success is purely statistical. Poverty is measured by comparing a household income to the median income. Push the media income down in real terms and the poverty line is lowered. Thus people are made richer as they become poorer.
These are the realities according to Guardian at the end of the first decade in a new millennium. All in all the people who write The Sunday Sport have a tighter grip on reality.
