On Saturday I went to the annual conference of the Bruges Group – an organization that has moved from a critical attitude to the European Union to an understanding that the United Kingdom should get out of the of the E.U.
One of the speakers was Mr Booker of the Sunday Telegraph a man who has specialized in detailing the exact harm done to business after business (normally small business enterprises) by EU inspired regulations after the Single European Act of 1986 allowed E.U. directives to be applied to most areas of British life. Small damage at first (just a few people’s lives destroyed) but over the last two decades more and more enterprises (and the people who go with them) destroyed. Although, of course, much of the damage of the EU (such as the CAP and the CFP) go back to when we joined back in 1973.
I will not go into the mistakes of some British politicians (such as Mrs Thatcher) who were tricked by the EU people and their British supporters, or the actions of other British politicians (such as Sir Edward Heath or Lord Howe) who deliberately acted for this hostile power against their own country. Other than to say that I do not accept the Benedict Arnold defence – i.e. that brave service in war means that a man should still be considered a patriot if he later changes his coat.
I am more concerned with a minor matter here. As I heard Mr Booker’s speech I thought “it is a long time since I bought the Sunday Telegraph – I will buy it tomorrow”.
And so I did buy it – and was reminded why I do not buy it any more.
Sure enough there was Mr Booker – a half page of his writing. And Niall Ferguson had written a good article on Milton Friedman and the threat of inflation in the West (when I had last read the Sunday Telegraph Niall Ferguson’s writings had not been very good). But there was so much useless stuff.
An ‘Alan B’Stard’ piece of ‘humour’ claiming that the philosophy of “free market capitalism” was the basis of ‘New Labour’, And that this free market capitalism meant “every man for himself” and that no problems could be ameliorated (if I wanted stuff like this I would turn on the BBC).
There was also a article by Matthew d’Ancona about Mr Blair in which Mr d’Ancona wrote about “the Cameron phenomenon” and how the Labour party might “lose votes on the left to Mr Cameron”. I can not trust myself to type anything polite about this sort of stuff from Mr d’Ancona so I will leave it there.
There was also an article by Albert Gore, former Vice President of the United States (yes you guessed it, C02 emissions are leading to terrible things but not a word about atomic power – well at least he did not say he was against it).
There was also a lot of stuff that was not so much bad as just ordinary – stuff that could be got from any news service, with no particular “conservative” style to it (and a conservative style is what people who might buy the Sunday Telegraph are going to be looking for).
Then of course there are the supplements. Supplements can be justified in a Sunday newspaper (they can not be in a daily newspaper which is one of the reasons I do not buy the Daily Telegraph – I can not mess about with a newspaper that is too big to comfortably hold and has bits in that fall out when one unfolds the paper). Indeed at least one of the supplements was of use to me – the magazine which contained some information on television and radio for the week and some decent film reviews (the lady who does some of the Sunday Telegraph film reviews must be one of the few film reviewers who does not have a political axe to grind).
But then it fell out on the floor in front of me – a supplement entirely made up of articles from the New York Times. It was like suddenly coming upon a big turd.
True there were no articles supporting Stalin (as there were in the 1930’s), but there was the stuff one might accept. The tiny tax rate reductions of President Bush (which have brought in extra revenue and thus helped finance “no child left behind” and his other absurd ideas) denounced as “reckless” stuff that were undermining the economy. And lots of other stuff that I could not stand reading – so, in the end, I gave up and got rid of most of the supplement unread.
I fully understand that one is not supposed to read every supplement, but the knowledge that my money had subsidized the New York Times (a newspaper that stands for so many things that I hate) helped me make up my mind.
I will not buy the Sunday Telegraph again.
And just what problem do you have with Benedict Arnold? He may have made significant contributions to the cause of American independence but he did finally rediscover his patriotism and did his best to repair the hurt he had done to his Monarch.
He was, unquestionably, a great British patriot.
Anticipating a few withdrwawal symptoms, I stopped buying the Daily Telegraph some months ago. Its relentlessly Leftward drift since the Barclay brothers bought the rag, had made the separation inevitable.
I needn’t have worried. I didn’t miss it at all.
I had already stopped buying the Sunday version when Sarah Sands tried to turn it into a women’s magazine, but, damnit, I need a weekly guide to radio and TV, so what is one to do? Not buy the Radio Times that’s for sure!
So, reluctantly, I’ve recently started buying the Sunday Telegraph again. Patience Wheatcroft, brought in to replace Sands, has just about managed to stablise the ship but, as ever, Mr Marks is right. Take Booker out of the paper and what one is left with isn’t worth the price. Indeed, much of it is heading in the same statist/Leftist direction as the daily edition.
Rather as the UK now no longer has a Conservative Party, it seems it no longer has a Conservative (nor even conservative) newspaper.
What a mess!
True enough, G. I remember with some amusement an edition of the Telegraph one Monday morning advertising, on the front page above the headline, Mark Steyn’s regular Tuesday column; the next day Mark Steyn’s regular Tuesday column was nowhere to be seen, his absence unremarked, and he hasn’t been back since. Unsurprisingly, he disappeared from the Speccie around the same time, not that I have bothered with that particular organ since Boris resigned the editorship, having roughly the same opinion of Matt d’Ancona as Paul appears to.
Still, I hold out a little hope for the Telegraph: whatever you think of them as writers, no paper that has in the last year or so brought back Simon Heffer and Janet Daley (having “rationalised” her a few years ago when the BBs took over) can entirely be accused of leftward drift.
All British newspapers are rubbish and have been for decades. My objection to the Telegraph is mainly that it insists on writing about upper class sporting pursuits (cars, rugby, debutantes) to the exclusion of everything else. And it’s then stuffed full of adverts for stairlifts and gardening gadgets. It’s deeply depressing. It also tends to reviews crimes, especially sex crimes, in salacious titillating detail. Yuck.
The Independent is pathetic lefty magazine, that deserves to go out of business after it started doing sensationalist lists, rather than news headlines, on its front page.
The Guardian is a dull establishment mouthpiece, although its sad obsession with media culture is still preferable to the Telegraph’s obsession with posh hobbies. And at least it has the Bad Science column.
The times is just a random collection of low quality writing about nothing very interesting.
I stopped reading the Spectator a decade ago, after it published the 78th identical article saying why the EU was bad, and after Dr Dalrymple’s gloating over his perceived collapse of the UK reached unseemly levels. And because I hate to associate myself with anyone who could possibly find Taki’s column in anyway worthwhile, for any reason.
The last interesting bit of political writing I read was in Spiked.
J, you’re not editor of the Sun are you?
Richard Branson perhaps?
GCooper,
If you want a TV guide then buy one of the ones which have no politics at all. You know the ones, full of soaps and celebrities and true life stories. If all you want is something to tell you what is on when the the other fluff presumably doesn’t matter. In fact you don’t even need to buy a paper/magazine at all. Every channel has a website, or there’s digital telly which has program guides built in.
To buy a newspaper just so you can complain about it seems a bit silly to me.
I like the Matt cartoons, though. They are in the online Telegraph, so no need to pay good money.
You all don’t know how lucky you are to have the Sunday Telegraph. I moved back to Arizona after 10 years in Ireland and the UK and I’d give anything to be able to pick up a copy. Our local paper in Phoenix is the most moronic, insipid pile of crap you could possibly imagine. Even the letters to the editor are cringeworthy. You truly don’t know how lucky you are. Hell, I’d settle for the Guardian or the Independant, or the Sunday Times over the shit I’m left with here. I’ve spent plenty of time defending Americans from the “dumb yank” stereotype, but I’d be hard pressed to explain the quality of my local newspaper. Maybe this place really is populated by halfwits.
end of rant…..
I agree with about 80 pct of J’s analysis. Quibbles: I don’t think that motoring is a “posh” pursuit, either regarding cars or watching F1. I tend to think of that as more of a upper-working class, middle class thing as much as anything else. Nigel Mansel, Jim Clark or Jensen Button are hardly Bertie Woosters. Admittedly James Hunt was a high-rolling toff who came to an early death after too much boozing and coke, and some motor racers are posh, but that is hardly a sin. If the Torygraph were full of pictures showing upper class women in evening dresses, I might even read it more.
No, the problem with the Telegraph is more fundamental: it should have a liberal-conservative voice, it should be the voice that supports tradition, national independence, individual liberty and a healthily irreverent attitude towards the state, bureaucracy and all its works. Its best writers have tended to be conservatives with a streak of mischief, like Auberon Waugh, Colin Welch, Michael Wharton, and so forth.
I agree about Dalrymple. Even though I agree with some of his views, he is a bore, and seems to wallow in hatred for the modern world. A bit offputting after reading the same thing 10 times.
mandrill writes:
“In fact you don’t even need to buy a paper/magazine at all. Every channel has a website, or there’s digital telly which has program guides built in.”
Which is an absurdly slow and inefficient way of glancing through the week’s broadcasting and seeing what’s coming. And an even worse way of reminding yourself what’s on, later in the week.
“To buy a newspaper just so you can complain about it seems a bit silly to me.”
But to buy it again in the hope it might have improved isn’t.
GCooper points out a problem. It is best to have a television and radio guide on paper (rather than in electronic form).
Sadly (as has been pointed out above) a straight guide (with no “celeb” stuff) does not exist in this country.
On newspapers – well the Daily Mail no longer has Simon Heffer, but it does have some other good writers. However, the savage antiAmericanism of the newspaper (not just there to please old style British America haters, but also to please Muslims who the Mail group has been targeting as potential readers for some years) is too much for me. Also there is a lot of silly stuff (mystical rubbish about crop circles and the like) in the Daily Mail.
As for the American press:
I believe that the problem goes back to the rise of Progressive movement “scientific journalism” in the early 1900’s (although the roots of this go back to the 19th century).
This “objective” journalism is not just leftist in content, it is also boring (very boring) in style. As for the much boasted of “fact checking” of the American press, well it does not seem to prevent very large numbers of basic errors of fact (in short American journalism tends to be leftist, boring and lazy).
Not all American newspapers are in the “School of Journalism” mode and there may be some recovery of the American press in the future (quite a few wealthy people are talking about going into the newspaper market in the United States), but the only sensible use for most American newspapers at the moment would seem to be as emergency toilet paper.
I stopped getting the Sunday Telegraph a long time ago when I tired of getting on Sunday pretty much what I had got on Saturday with all the sections.
I then stopped getting the Telegraph on a daily basis a few years ago as it appeared to drift into centre-ish metropolitan bias with too much coverage for the yuppy parents and such like. I now only get it delivered on Saturdays. In the old days I would devote quite some time to reading it but I am happy to say it only requires twenty odd minutes of my time now.
Mr Cooper, I respect your views but believe me buy a cheap TV guide. I do not think the Telegraph covers all the freeview digital channels. Also buying the cheap ones always gives me a kick because they are so much cheaper than the Beeb’s Radio Times which I would hate to buy.
+1 for Spiked online. Why can’t the Telegraph aspire to or even make a vague gesture in the direction of the fine journalism found there? And please can they drop endless admiring coverage of boyish explorers with double-barrelled names. It all seems about as interesting as my annual walking holiday, but I don’t expect blanket coverage in the press.
Many years ago when I stopped buying the New York Times Sunday edition the only thing I missed was the TV guide. recently I’ve found that I can find most of the TV info I need for free (TANSTAAFL) on line.
I gave up on the London Spectator a long time ago, I only started to get in over here because of Paul Johnson’s column, have they got rid of him yet ?
While almost all US papers are pretty bad, I have to put in a plug for the Wall Street Journal, its got a standard lefty slant in the news side, but the editorial pages are sort of OK and the whole paper is geared towards adults. Full discolsure I occasionally write things for them.
I occasionally read the Telegraph online here in Brooklyn. Though with the advent of 18DoughtyStreet on web TV I find my time is better spend watching them. Maybe I am just getting lazy in my old age. As for buying the rag when I get back to blighty, no chance, I have been warned.
I agree that all major British newspapers are awful. I used to like the Guardian, but it has become the mouthpiece of the Labour government, and on it’s website there are so many execreble comment pieces by writers who clearly know nothing about the subject they’ve just posted a long article about. There’s no way I can tolerate any news international garbage and i agree with above posters that the telegraph and indeed the evening standard(london) dwell too much on upper class issues like who’s buying what mansion in chelsea and who turned up to what party etc. The indpendent is, and i find it strange to agree with t blair but for once I do, a “viewspaper”. One of the few soundbites of his I’ve ever liked!
So that just leaves the FT. Which is a good paper, but a little too much financial news for my liking and if only they would expand the normal news section, and move all the business stuff into a seperate section I could just glance at. Economist magazine also quite good, but expensive for what it is.
I happened to see the Sunday Telegraph today. And Mr Nial Ferguson (the Scottish conservative who sold out and got a high paid job at Harvard – perhaps he just accepted the leftist sterotype of the “conservative” as a man who puts his own financial interests above everything else) was at it again.
Today he was not supporting Islamic terrorists in Somalia or saying we should submit to (sorry engage in “diplomacy” only) with the Iranian regime (no matter how many British and American people they kill in Iraq, Afghanistan or on the streets of Western cities).
No today he was defending the European Union.
Denoucing the “30%” (I doubt it is that low) of the population who believe it has harmed Britain.
He produced no arguments to show that these wicked “nationalists” were wrong, but I do not expect arguments from this man.
As for the Economist and the Financial Times:
I dislike these publications. They talk about freedom a lot – but tend to support a bigger government (more “public services”, “gun control” and so on) in the end. Which is only to be expected from the mouth pieces of credit bubble financial institutions.