Do I have what it takes to be a Guardian Reader? I have always been desperately keen to say: “yes I am, I’m deeply socialist”.
And yet these people can be so nihilistic and destructive. Newspapers of the left are as full of useless political cant as those of the right.
Here is a selection of today’s articles:
Police have ruined my life.
May 1968: the revolution retains its magnetic allure.
Grammar schools are indefensible.
The Windrush scandal was about racism.
The rise of middle-aged renters exposes empty Tory promises.
Queen Elizabeth sorry to bother you with this problem we commoners have.
The privileged look the other way.
So there you go; let me paraphrase:
We must encourage violent revolution.
We must encourage crime by having no police force.
We must cut good education so that the masses are all equal in their ignorance.
All ills of society are due to right wing racism
The Tories are shysters
Royalty are scum.
The posh are scoundrels.
You may be forgiven for thinking you are reading headlines in Pravda in 1922.
Look, I acknowledge my privileged background and posh accent. I admit I won a random lottery at birth and ended up at a public school, then Oxford and a City law firm.
But I hate the fact that most of the world live in poverty, violence and hunger. But violent revolution has not helped much has it?
Does the Guardian have no memory of Soviet Russian atrocities? Does the Guardian imagine we would fare better under Mao Tse Tung? Has it forgotten that Mao put to death every “Guardian Reader” (aka “intellectual”) it could find?
Do these fools actually believe the partisan nonsense they are peddling? Are they so keen on bashing the well off they could not give a damn about the very people they are claiming to care for?
There have been and are some heros who have fought valiantly for the poor, the abused and the hungry. But they have tended to do so in a constructive fashion by providing them with the education and sustenance they need. Robert Owen the 19th Century mill owner is a good example. Dear old Mother T in Calcutta. JC in 1st Century Roman Palestine did his best before he met his rude and untimely end.
Ignorant, partisan polemic does no one any good.
So no, I will pay no attention to much of the Guardian. Yes, I am a centrist, leaning left. But no I am not a supporter of polarised and foolish polemic whether that comes from the Left or the Right.
I am certainly a Guardian Reader. But a very selective one.
Weltanschauung 
I am a little unclear on what basis revolution can be said to have “magnetic allure”. Especially violent revolution. I agree our model of capitalism is shitty and that we live in a world dominated by unpleasant politicians and greedy, crooked plutocrats. I am all for Utopia. I am all for “revolution” if it is slow and measured and not rushed and bloody. In the sense of fundamental changes to our society and its goals. The sort of change we need, while radical, must be introduced peacefully and over time through education and a prolonged “minds and hearts” campaign. A Guardian Reader above all should understand that. It is the Guardian Reader who ends up in the gulags and the extermination camps sooner or later. Why campaign for your own slaughter?
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/11/queen-elizabeth-president-erdogan-turkey-uk-visit#comment-115701153
I think your article is funny and amusing and dictatorship is disgusting and an insult to human dignity. Unfortunately it is rife everywhere. I guess the point you are trying to make (and quite rightly) is that neither the British monarch nor the British government should entertain monsters. Let us not forget we in the West as well as our foolish compatriots across the other side of the Atlantic make untold billions by supporting tyrants, monsters and dictatorships of all sorts. Until they displease us of course. And then we send in the bully boys and murder countless thousands of innocents to dethrone the very dictators we helped to gain power in the first place.
And by the way I hate the whole Royal Wedding nonsense too. Nothing against the girl but I don’t really see why I should help pay for it.
But I think the trouble is the poor old girl and her family do not have much choice in the matter, do they? Whichever horrible politician is in power when he or she says jump, the old girl has to. Mostly. Or they will scrap another royal yacht or palace or cut off the private plane or train.
I’m not in favour of waste or inherited power but cut the old dear some slack. People seem to love her. Perhaps she is just a harmless tourist attraction.Or perhaps she even generates some tourist revenue for us?
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