Comment was suspended

The comments function on Comment is Free wasn’t working yesterday morning and for a while the world seemed a calm, serene place. Reading the site, without the subsequent reams of vitriolic abuse masquerading as opinion, it felt like some semblance of order had returned to the (virtual) universe, as if a thousand shrieking Banshees had been sealed in an airtight container and dropped into the sea. Unfortunately, they soon managed to get it up and running again, so once more the trolls are running amok.

I’m a long time reader of The Guardian, and still consider it to be the most innovative newspaper on the market, although I must confess I prefer The Times during the week – its size is more practical on a busy train, and its news coverage is excellent. One major advantage of reading The Times is that you won’t be troubled by any opinion pieces by Seamus Milne, whom I find particularly loathsome. Look at those eyes and tell me he isn’t infected with devils. He looks like a cross between a Cornish pixie and a sadistic dentist. Every article the man writes is hair-shirted, self-hating, left-wing bilge that gives the paper a bad name. I would go into more detail but I’m starting to feel irritated just thinking about him, so maybe another time.

But I digress. Yes, I have long been a fan of The Guardian, despite its obvious faults and despite the fact that my own politics seem to grow further apart from much of its editorial stance with every passing year. Comment is Free, on the other hand, is something else entirely. When it was launched in March 2006 I thought it was an interesting move for a newspaper to make – hitherto, the mainstream media had only been touching the blogging phenomenon with a bargepole; that is, when they weren’t commissioning disparaging pieces about it. But here was The Guardian effectively folding its comment section in with a mass blog, replete with the ability for anyone to respond in real-time. And there’s the problem.

Pick any article at random and the chances are that the comments will be packed with hate-filled ramblings, inarticulate rebuttals and bizarrely punctuated missives. You will read: whacko conspiracy theories, people claiming that the author is part of a Zionist conspiracy, people claiming that the author is a hate-filled ‘Islamophobe’, accusations of the author being a blood thirsty, warmongering, neo-conservative Nazi. Perhaps one comment in twenty (and I’m being very generous here) will be worthy of reading. I think Tafka PP summed it up nicely when she described CiF as an “online version of the Middle East Conflict.”

In theory, CiF is an illuminating forum for the intelligent exchange of ideas. In reality, it’s a dumping ground for the disenfranchised and discredited British Left, the very people so deftly taken apart in one of my favourite books from last year, Nick Cohen’s What’s Left?

Comment may indeed be free, but what The Guardian has actually created is an intellectual limbo: an auditorium packed with thousands of people screaming incomprehensibly at each other. Never in the field of public debate has so much heat been created and so little light. Here’s hoping the comments functionality breaks down again soon. Irreparably.

Ciao?

Yet to be confirmed, but it looks like the Italians have booted out (albeit by a very slender margin) that old crook Silvio Berlusconi. And a good thing too. How somebody who has vested interests in 90% of his country’s media could ever have been put in such a position is beyond my understanding. Imagine Rupert Murdoch being made PM in Britain and you’re not even close to an equivalent. Imagine Rupert Murdoch with shady links to organised crime, money laundering and bribing the judiciary and you’re getting there. Imagine Rupert Murdoch wearing a bandana like Silvio and shudder.

One of the many things I like about the British is that this just wouldn’t happen here. George Orwell once said that the reason fascism never took hold in Britain is that the sight of men in black uniforms goose-stepping through the streets of London would simply have caused fits of giggles. We could never take these people seriously as a rule. I’m not saying that Berlusconi is a fascist – although he does have something of an Il Duce complex – but somebody like him could never be supported by the majority of British voters for the same reason. If a power hungry media mogul stood for election in the UK he would be universally despised. We have a healthy dislike and mistrust of wealthy businessmen in this country (with the possible, unfathomable, exception of Richard Branson) and a long tradition of business interests being marginalised or discontinued should they ever enter the political fray. Long may this continue.

Having the likes of Murdoch around is bad enough: funnily enough, I’m not a fan of right wing, Australian-born, American citizens making billions from owning large pieces of our country’s media but not paying a penny in tax. This is objectionable enough. Electing him, or anyone like him, to high political office would be unthinkable.

Satan, thy name is Paul Dacre

Depressing news in the Guardian today. The Daily Mail could be on target to become the UK’s top selling daily newspaper. It’s already the paper of choice for Britain’s terrified, ageing middle class and, according to predicted sales figures, could be on its way to bashing the once-untouchable, super soaraway Sun in the bitter circulation wars. Not that I’ll be shedding any tears for Murdoch’s red top you understand, but I think in the greater scheme of things, his tacky tabloid is nowhere near as malevolent as the Daily Mail: hate and fear spurts from every page of this vile shit rag, feverishly gripped in a permanent state of outrage about, well, everything.

The cunning tactic has been to combine their infamous right-wing, fear mongering journalism with an endless stream of celebrity obsessed piffle. A sort of cross between Mein Kampf and Now magazine. So instead of just reading news items about single mums / benefit cheats / teenage abortion / dwindling church numbers / illegal immigrants and the endless influx of darkies and gypsies, etc., readers are also now “treated” to features on the size of Abi Titmuss’s arse; the colour of Coleen McLoughlin’s socks; Kerry Whatsername’s new tits or how many cheeseburgers Britney Spears ate yesterday.

And if all this weren’t bad enough, the Mail last week dug deep into its big pockets to lure back the “talent” of its prodigal son – Richard Littlejohn. Ah, bless, he’s returning to his spiritual home. The mouthpiece for Middle England bigotry himself. The man who sees no irony in writing endless tirades berating the erosion of British society from the comfort of his home in. . . . Florida. To repeat his hackneyed phrase: “You couldn’t make it up!”. (Except he does, of course. Frequently.)

So there you have it. The Daily Mail: newspaper of our times. The one that captures the zeitgeist. Probably even fancies itself as the paper of record. It’s enough to make you puke.