Twaddle

David Aaronovitch has an article today where he denounces Guardian journos for dropping Brown like a hot potato as soon as the going got tough. Fair point really, though he oought to be criticising them more for their wilfully blind hero-worship of the summer than for their disappointment now. Jackie Ashley responds, saying basically that comment journos twist in the wind anyway, and that's it's silly to expect anything different. Full marks for self-awareness I guess.

But she also says that the Guardian is a very broad church: we are divided, right-of-centre libertarians (Simon Jenkins), greens (George Monbiot), Blairites (Martin Kettle), Brownites (me), Labourite but less enthusiastic Brownites (Polly Toynbee and Jonathan Freedland), etc...This is a good thing. Ideological purity should be saved for sects. A newspaper should be a conversation, even a daily argument. I have absolutely no idea what the true core view of this one is, except that it is clearly left of centre and vaguely progressive. If you want "the line", buy Socialist Worker or the Spectator.

The idea that The Spectator is an ideologically homogenous paper is absurd. There is far more diversity in its contributors than in the Guardian. The comparison with the Socialist Worker is ridiculous. About the only thing that the Speccie has really coalesced on is its support for Boris Johnson - and a brief perusal of the Guardian shows equal devotion to Livingstone. I suppose it's the same old question - does Ashley not read the Spectator, and is therefore basing her argument on ignorance, or does she read it, and base her argument on disingenuity? Ignorant or mendacious - another Guardian conundrum.