Tories keep attacking Telegraph’s coverage
10:08 am - October 6th 2009
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The Telegraph, long seen as the organ of the Conservative Party, has fallen out of favour with the new Tory guard.
And the latter are loudly making their views known, no doubt to hope the paper will fall in line with the Cameroon project.
Take, for example, Guido Fawkes’ post on the Spectator party (now the favoured organ thanks to unflinching loyalty):
Bizarrely scheduled against the premier party (Guido saw Telegraph hacks at the Speccie party) it shows just how out of touch the Telegraph is with the party it once had a monopoly on reporting.
A familiar face approached as Guido exited, he extended his hand, Guido shook his hand, slurred a “hello”, and smiled. God knows what Fraser thought as his star guest, David Cameron, moved down the blue carpet towards him.
How chummy. Grayling, Dorries and now Cameron must have Paul Staines on speed-dial.
The meme that the Telegraph is “out of touch” with the party is now constantly pushed by the new right.
Most prominently, ConservativeHome has repeatedly attacked it for not being supportive enough. Some headlines:
The Telegraph makes more mischief
The Mail and Telegraph fail their readers (it’s Cameron’s job to change that)
The Telegraph to Cameron: Dare to be unpopular
These attacks on the Telegraph’s criticisms of Cameron has been going on for a while.
In July Guido Fawkes wrote that it lost £200,000 a week and called it “The Daily Labourgraph”. Hilarious.
Tim Montgomerie picked up the baton and asked: Whatever happened to The Telegraph’s coverage of the Conservatives?
The Telegraph was once THE party of Tory coverage but no longer. The only thing it covered from the ConIntelligence conference was a feature on women candidates (and, I am told, only because it would be accompanied by some glamorous photographs). The Telegraph has abandoned its position as the journal for Tory news and at a time when coverage of the Conservative Party hasn’t been so important for a generation.
More recently he revived this theme by polling readers. Surprise surprise:
In particular, Simon Heffer was singled out for his continual criticisms of David Cameron.
Things to note: how the right are playing to each other’s themes in attacking the Telegraph, clearly hoping it will become more supportive of Cameron. Discipline is important you know.
Also note how, despite his continual protestations that he’s not pro-Tory, Paul Staines is playing along.
I wonder how the Telegraph will react.
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Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments
I think it’s the smug sort of presumption that bothers me. It’s as if to say “How dare the Telegraph be less than completely fawning?”. I’m assuming the Telegraph is independent of course. The only way that kind of anger would be justified would be if the Telegraph is receiving funding from the Conservative Party.
Meh. I only wish I had the opportunity to make the same complaint, but there is no left-wing media (The Morning Star excepted).The Tories have no idea how good they’ve got it. Which is, of course, the problem with their entire philosophy.
Yes we all had a coordinating meeting with digital outreach workshop to agree our line.
Or is it perhaps just that for those of us on the right the political reporting team (and editor) are a bit too Labour friendly for the likes of us.
I think Guido is on another planet oozing nonsense out of his fingertips. The Telegraph is to Labour friendly, never read such silliness.
Worst anecdote ever from Guido. Man goes to a party, meets another man, goes to another party. Thrilling stuff.
Worst anecdote ever from Guido. Man goes to a party, meets another man, goes to another party. Thrilling stuff.
Pinteresque.
Guido: “A familiar face approached as Guido exited, he extended his hand, Guido shook his hand, slurred a “hello”, and smiled.”
What a horribly fractured sentence this is.
Anyway, it’s really quite depressing that unquestioning loyalty is a virtue to the Conservative Party… if indeed that’s what this is about. I have my suspicions that it’s all image.
I thought Guido’s “anecdote” was rather sweet. Underneath the venom he’s just a starstruck groupie at heart.
Aye, another libertarian who can’t resist the bright lights of the politics game.
Funny how that works.
You protest a lot don’t you Guido Fawkes? Feeling guilty?
They’ve obviously mistaken the Torygraph for Faux News. The paper is accurately representing the mood of a majority of its readers, who view ‘Nice Dave’ as a vacuous Blairite twit who isn’t nasty enough for the job of gutting the weflare state & NHS.
They’re right about the vacuous twit and wrong about the nasty.
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Liberal Conspiracy
Article:: Tories keep attacking Telegraph’s coverage http://bit.ly/xF6H0
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Liberal Conspiracy » Right-wingers attack FT’s stance on Tories
[…] at 9:12 am I wrote earlier about how various Tories including ConservativeHome and Guido Fawkes had started briefing against and criticising The Daily Telegraph for not slavishly sucking up to the Cameroon […]
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