I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm merely saying that people would actually do well to read things written by good journalists, rather than pumping out soundbites and tropes like "mainstream media" or "liberal globalist etc etc" without having actually read any of the things. It's a very new-way thing to do, and it's fantastically Trumpian - saying something that sounds catchy, without having actually looked at whether it has any basis in reality. That being said, I don't really think the press is particularly right-wing (there are right leaning outlets like the Telegraph and Spectator, just as there are left leaning outlets like The Guardian and The Mirror - all of which can be compelling as well as a bit silly on occasion). The Times is somewhere in the middle, perhaps with a slight bias to the right, but I always find its commentators (even when I disagree) make well thought out and reasoned points. Hence why it's my paper of choice. I'm not sure I'd give too much weight to the issues you raise being attributable to the press (though fair enough you're only saying 'partially'. I think more blame sits with social media). In terms of QT - yes, Farage has been on far too many times for someone with his history of political failure, but the BBC need eyes on the programme to justify it, and he's a "populist". People watch when he's on. So much of the press now is constrained by a fight for survival, so they often will have to take that route, sadly. And I'm not sure you could seriously accuse the BBC of a right wing bias?
But this illustrates my horseshoe theory point. He has had support from the far left and the far right and I think it sums up the meeting of two ends of the lunacy spectrum perfectly. Corbyn was critical of crimes against humanity but refused to condemn Assad for chemical weapon use, even when the UN confirmed it. Daly was similar. This article summarises it quite neatly: https://www.thenationalnews.com/opi...right-to-the-far-left-1.621909?outputType=amp But it’s the same with Russia. The likes of Corbyn give interviews directly to Russia tv and refuse to be critical and also gave an interview to a Beirut channel saying he believes the west needs to stop arming Ukraine. At the same time, the likes of Trump would likely be appeasing in their policy towards Russia. https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/02/jeremy-corbyn-urges-west-to-stop-arming-ukraine Antisemitism is another very obvious example. Far right holocaust denial meets far left holocaust denial. They’re both the same. There’s a reason the Nazi party was the national socialist party. I think people are much more willing to deride the far right as being extreme than the far left, but both are equally poisonous and two faces of the same coin. Edit: analysis of MEPs who were most pro Russia (there is clear intersectionality with Assad, here) https://www.politico.eu/article/revealed-russias-best-friends-eu-parliament/
Assuming they do count as press where do you put the Mail, Express and Sun if not heavy to the right?
Doing a bit of googling I came across this making the point that Keir Starmer will get an easier ride from the media than Neil Kinnock did in 1992 when the UK’s top-selling newspaper claimed on its front page: “It was The Sun what won it.” From https://pressgazette.co.uk/media-audience-and-business-data/media_metrics/uk-media-bias-2024/ "John Major’s Conservative Party achieved an unlikely and narrow 21-seat majority helped by an election day front page from The Sun intended to panic voters away from voting Labour after 13 years of Tory rule. It said: “If Kinnock wins today will the last person in Britain please turn out the lights?” "Conservative peer Lord McAlpine said at the time that editors Sir David English (of the Daily Mail), Sir Nicholas Lloyd (of the Daily Express) and Kelvin MacKenzie of The Sun were the “heroes of this campaign” for their strong support of the Conservatives and comprehensive attacks on Labour." "Going into the next general election Labour leader Keir Starmer will still have to contend with a largely right-wing printed press, but one that is far less influential today than it was in 1992."
Couldn’t get it to work on this? https://www.thetimes.com/comment/co...rals-are-to-blame-for-rise-of-right-wrjjktmpk
I`m not sure Truss is a lunatic - just incredibly stupid and grossly incompetent. How the Tory party came to the conclusion that she was suitable to be their leader beggars belief.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/a...ndard-close-daily-newspaper-launch-new-weekly The London Evening Standard backed Boris Johnson for mayor of London, running a front-page endorsement of the Tory politician under the editorship of Sarah Sands. Johnson later arranged a peerage for Evgeny Lebedev. The outlet did endorse Sadiq Khan in the latest mayoral election.
You aren't wrong. Extremism of any viewpoint will always tend to be distasteful. I would point out that the National Socialist Party was never a socialist party. It was a right wing fascist organisation: https://fullfact.org/online/nazis-socialists/ I do think we need to stop bringing in Corbyn as justification for left = bad. He never condemns anyone at all as those are his beliefs - but he is also meaningless now except as a stick to beat Labour with. Also, while it may be true that some on the extreme left (who like you say have swivelled around to align with the far right) have supported Assad, the evidence is that far more on the extreme right have aligned that way. https://www.politico.eu/article/i-hope-ukraine-will-lose-meps-russian-propaganda-channel/ Your list of MEPs who have voted pro-Russia is really interesting to me. I tried to follow up on the ones on the left and the ones on the right, and the greatest defence of the left I can see is the justifications given. The left-leaners almost unilaterally stated for each vote they wanted to avoid escalation - which is spineless and I disagree with them - whereas the right figures tended to say Russia should be given what it deserves and we are all falling for Western narratives. I know which of those two evils I prefer.
Grant Shapps: “You don’t want to have somebody receive a supermajority. And in this case, of course, the concern would be that if Keir Starmer were to go into No 10… and that power was in some way unchecked, it would be very bad news for people in this country”. Is he talking about the Tory supermajority at the last election? It definitely was damaging! However, we have two houses, media and a judiciary - that is the intended check on power for the government. The opposition can often be powerless to prevent legislation even with narrower majorities for the government.
The view that the far left is as bad, or even the same, as the far right is an old old argument and gets us no nearer finding positive ways forward. Indeed if they are the same then it just makes the political graph circular rather than linear. One dimensional representation of multi layered issues producing cliche headlines and at best shallow policies and no solutions. Maybe if we looked outside of the usual polictical paradigm... easier said than done. In our village, as in most, we have the vunerable amongs us. An elderly couple; she with quite advanced dementia, but a good front, he caring, loving and quite frail. Both have needs unmet by services. The villagers however provide in the spirit of friendship and compassion many kinds of support. I'm sure this story can be told in most communities in Britain today. Friendship and compassion do not appear on most linear or circular political diagrams yet they are the under lying factors that make the good world go round. These, in my view, are the values, to be part of any cirriculum that aims to educate future generations.
Complacent liberals are to blame for rise of right Denouncing as bigots anyone concerned about mass immigration has fuelled this populist surge Melanie PhillipsMonday June 10 2024, 9.00pm, In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won about 32 per cent of the vote, more than double the 15 per cent of President Macron’s coalition. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) won 16 per cent, coming second in the popular vote despite a string of scandals. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy also soared, winning about 28 per cent ahead of centre-left parties. In Spain, Belgium and Austria, populists also gained. And the Greens took a hammering. The shock is because these are all said to be parties of the “right”, “far right” or “hard right”; choose your epithet. And as all right-thinking (ie left-wing or liberal) folk know, the “right” are always wrong. But what is the “right”? While the left is an identifiable thing supporting big government, universalist ideologies and disdain for the nation, the “right” supposedly includes conservatives and free-market liberals; “centrist dads” such as David Cameron and populist disrupters like Nigel Farage; born-again Europhiles like Meloni and risen-from-the-dead neo-Nazis such as the AfD. They are divided over social and economic matters, European enlargement, China, relations between the EU and the US and, most important, Russia and Ukraine. The term “right-wing” is used chiefly as an insult for anyone who stands against the groupthink of received liberal opinion. I myself have skin in this particular game. When I successively opposed progressive education, defended the traditional family, sounded the alarm over multiculturalism and Islamisation and defended Israel against demonisation and delegitimisation, I became in short order “right-wing”, “very right-wing”,“hard-right”, “racist”, “Islamophobic”, and then a “hard-right, racist, Islamophobic Zionist Jew”. It was enough to turn a girl’s head. The attitude was that anyone who defied the liberal consensus on anything wasn’t just wrong but positively evil and beyond the pale. Now, however, millions of Europeans have voted for “hard-right populists”. So are all these millions also beyond the pale? Yes, say the liberals, and the reason is that evil right-wing people have manipulated them because the public are credulous and stupid. Apparently. One is reminded of the line in Bertolt Brecht’s satirical poem about the East German uprising of 1953 that the government should “dissolve the people and elect another”. It never occurs to the liberal establishment that the problem might be them. What the “populists” have in common, and what is bringing them to power, is that they represent a revolt against a homogeneous political establishment that ignores, scorns or punishes eminently reasonable, and indeed necessary, concerns. This establishment has turned immigration and the related issue of Islamisation into a taboo. Anyone who opposes mass, uncontrolled immigration and the rapid growth of a minority of which a significant proportion want to Islamise western society is anathematised as a racist or Islamophobe. Yet it’s reasonable to cherish a culture that you recognise as home, that upholds values you hold dear and that you share with others. It’s reasonable to want this not to be taken away by politicians who have never asked if you wanted your culture and nation to be transformed. It’s reasonable to want your borders to be controlled and the rates of mass and uncontrolled immigration to be scaled back. It’s reasonable to object to being denounced as a bigot or Islamophobe if you want any of these things. The liberal establishment, however, refuses to attend to these concerns and instead terms them unreasonable and “deplorable”. That’s what has fuelled this “populist” surge. Liberal society has created a vacuum in which has arisen an anti-establishment insurgency with a range of political parties. Some of these are quite reasonable; others are a potential menace. The liberal establishment is responsible for them all. This insurgency is, of course, precisely what Farage represents. It is precisely what Brexit was all about. Those who provoked this insurgency possess zero humility and maximum arrogance. They professed shock and disdain over Brexit, over Farage’s return to the political front line and now over the European election results. But this is all their own doing. The EU parliamentary elections won’t themselves change much. The EU is anything but democratic, and the nomenklatura of the European Commission and European Central Bank will continue to call the shots. But what the results illuminate is the fracture between leaders and led. The implications of this go well beyond the EU as an institution. Panicked by Le Pen’s advance, Macron has called a snap electionto call her bluff. Maybe his ploy will work. Equally, maybe France will soon have a “populist” prime minister. Ultimately, this insurgency will threaten to transform other national governments too. The liberal nose-holding classes have only themselves to blame.
Because at the time, the alternative was a man of Indian heritage. After Truss, they had to vote for him. This isn't my paranoia, but IMO fact. I said at the time of the first leadership campaign that no way would the Tory members vote an Indian man in. Even if it was clear the alternative was grossly incompetent. I also think that if Truss had never happened, the Tories would be a lot closer to Labour (though still behind) than they are now.
This is a really weird article. I actually agree with the gist and have long argued (believe it or not) that calling anyone against immigration racist is a terrible mistake. However, it is way too obsessed with point scoring, to the point that it loses all credibility. "While the left is an identifiable thing supporting big government, universalist ideologies and disdain for the nation" - just wow. What an assertion. The left has been fighting over everything for years- making it easy for the Tory party to rule - and now suddenly the left exists in perfect harmony. The left does not necessarily stand for any of these things. It depends on your particular leftist viewpoint. I would accept this interpretation if he didn't then explain how diverse the right is! Both sides are diverse and this opening is designed to shut out leftists and engage with rightists - meaning she can shout into her echo chamber. "Liberal society has created a vacuum in which has arisen an anti-establishment insurgency with a range of political parties. Some of these are quite reasonable; others are a potential menace. The liberal establishment is responsible for them all." What a gross simplification. Liberal establishments are not responsible for all anti-establishment insurgencies. What about right-wing French policies which have seen reactionary rises from Islamic groups? However, ignoring that fairly enormous oversight... Liberal societies allow discussion and change. A direct consequence of discussion and change - over the last 500 years - has been forms of anti-establishment insurgency. Without it, common people wouldn't have the vote. Without it, the church would still burn dissenters. Without it, we would have no support for people with nothing. All kinds of groups grow out of "liberal society" and no groups grow out of illiberal society. Why? Because one allows freedom of expression and one shuts that down. So it is interesting the article says the left has shut down all debate - while being free to debate the left in whatever terms she likes. There is also the matter that this article ignores all the countries which have swung left. Like the whole of Scandinavia. And how can Germany or France "swing" right if they were not previously very left? I totally agree that all issues are always on the table and always open to debate. That is my position as a liberal, westerner. Perhaps the author of this article would like to go write something this critical of the hegemony in a truly right wing nation - like Iran.
You’re forgetting that the Conservative Party membership chose Truss over Sunak, by 81,326 votes to 60,399. Sunak’s heritage was indisputably a major factor in the size of Truss’s majority. When Sunak replaced Truss in October 2022 there simply wasn’t an election at all, as only Sunak received enough nominations by Tory MP’s to stand, so he was returned unopposed.
I think there are some great examples in world politics right now of liberals being lazy and presumptuous. Trudeau in Canada is perhaps the best example.
