The Guardian and the negative Left
Posted on October 10, 2010The Guardian is on fine form today showing the schizophrenic and overwhelmingly negative worldview of the Left.
Only a couple of months ago they were sneering at the idea of consulting the plebs public about the best ways to cut spending. At best, they suggested, such sites were full of silly ideas (without mentioning that these were weak Mark-Thomas-esque jokes submitted by their own pro-spending readers, desperate to sabotage the idea). At worst, it just brings out the racist BNP clone who as all good Islington Lefties know lurks below the flat cap of most ordinary folk.
Crowdsourcing ideas for spending cuts was and is a good idea – particularly because it opened the Treasury’s door to creative thinking and helped to identify cuts that would hurt ordinary people least. Having enthusiastically slagged public participation off, the Guardian has now embraced crowdsourcing itself - to gather complaints that the cuts are poorly targeted and hurting ordinary people.
Perhaps if they had encouraged people to take part in the spending challenge and contributed to the generation of ideas, rather than sneering at it, then the spending cuts on the way could be better targeted away from the front line.
Sadly, this is typical of the elitist Left. The people are handy if you can whip them in behind your own negative complaints, but allow them to make positive and constructive suggestions? Don’t be ridiculous – they might come up with something you don’t like.
Tags: #leedscuts, Crowdsourcing, Guardian, Hypocrisy, Lefties, Media, opinion, Politics, Spending Challenge
Categories: Opinion, Politics, Public spending, Westminster
When the left tries to replace reasoned debate with hysterical screaming, it always makes me wonder just how shallow the left-wing talent pool in this country is becoming. Even some of my Labour friends are very worried about how crap some of the “top talent” in their own Party and the lefty media in general has become.
Michael Gove credited Charles Clarke with a brilliant, fact-based critique of the Coalition at the Guardian’s Tory Conference fringe event and I agree. But the quality of reasoned debate in The Guardian itself is poor.
20.10.2010 14:24
I don’t know if you’ve read the comment section after Seamus Milne’s article in the Guardian today, but it shows why the modern left is a scary place, inhabited by some very pathologically violent people. I saw people advocating guillotines for the rich, beating up Bullingdon boys, wanting class warfare, massive protests, punch-ups with ‘the right wing bastards” etc. And yet the BBC and the Guardian continue to behave as if it is the right wing who believe in violence, war and murder.
Basically, to be acceptable to the Guardian crowd, you have to hate people because they believe in right wing politics, want to murder people because they are rich, declare class warfare because there are richer people than yourself, and be a generally despicable, heartless and brainless bastard
21.10.2010 12:56
I don’t think it’s even positive vs negative, just us vs them. Spontaneous rallies are the lifeblood of the popular state… provided they’re organised well in advance in favour of the right policies.
22.10.2010 12:33