The Independent Editorial:

“The first of an occasional series – those benefits of a multi-cultural Britain in full. Let me introduce you all to this human filth.

It could be an anomaly, of course. But it isn’t. The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks.”

(Rod Liddle-bit-unsuitable-for-the-left-wing-newspaper-The-Independent)

Thing is though…what kind of paper is the Indie now? And what is Lebedev up to?

Whenever I take time to listen to cries of how we’re becoming obsessed with the internet and we’re not paying much ‘attention’ to the ‘real world’, whenever you do…this sh*t happens!

When a real world is corrupt, warped and so full of BS, is it no wonder people have stopped reading newspapers??

‘There can’t be many people with any affection for the Independent’

Could have left it at that really.

Good post. Thanks for linking to my Next Left post
http://www.nextleft.org/2010/01/free-indy.html

While I give several reasons for being sceptical about the wisdom of a Liddle appointment, perhaps I should clarify that I don’t think the speculation is premature, though I can see how that could be inferred from the tone.

Most media experts seem to think there is a strong probability of Lebedev completing the purchase during the current exclusivity period, though that is difficult to judge from the outside.If that happens, then my sense is that the Guardian report that Lebedev intends to appoint Liddle is well sourced and accurate, and that it would happen unless he were to change his mind.

So I would judge it more likely than not, and the timescale may not be immensely long either, but it will be interesting to see what media columns and websites make of it in the days ahead.

There is a risk for those campaigning agaimst Liddle. That he is controversial is well known. It would be the main point of the appointment: that he could get the paper talked about and noticed. That is not to say that the campaign is a bad idea, compared to doing nothing for those who take that view. But it could be double-edged. I suspect his views on women could be rather more concern (commercially, if I were a Russian billionaire in the UK) than race, if that affected the paper’s brand identity, though women do like and read the Mail in large numbers.

The most difficult question marks abut Liddle may be experience, the accounts from BBC and/or Spectator colleagues about whether he could actually do it, and perhaps the broader sense that the paper would not be taken seriously (unless they didn’t let Liddle be Liddle, which would surely defeat the point of appointing him).

The Sambrook tweet was surely intended for public consumption as a serious challenge, for example.

It is interesting that Guido Fawkes does not seem to think Liddle up to editing a paper. His analysis of a gap in the centre-right ProgCon market is rather a good one: he is therefore promoting Matthew D’Ancona (though, again, those are possibly the instincts of the current editor too).

If the left-liberals want to win a campaign, they may need broader alliances too. The key challenge for Liddle is whether he could edit a paper that was taken seriously.

That’s how I would read it at present anyway.

The Indy’s problem is that, like New Labour, it’s shifted to the right on economic issues, leaving much of its readership behind and competing more directly with the Times and Telegraph. People who want the NHS broken up and tuition fees ratcheted up to create a ‘market’ in education already read those papers, making the Indy – and its more left-liberal stand on social issues, global warming, etc. – irrelevant and superfluous.

It used to be my favourite paper.

6- why has it stopped being so, what changed?

The first paragraph of the original post identifies inconsistencies in the Independent’s history. What is it for, and what will it be for next week?

The founders envisioned a newspaper of the liberal left, less opinionated than the Guardian, less snooty than the Times. Their attempt to cover UK politics whilst standing outside the parliamentary lobby was interesting, and I don’t employ that adjective with a sneer. It was a genuine attempt at honest reporting. That exercise failed, and since then the Independent has become a very opinionated newspaper. It has placed polemics from a commentator called Robert Fisk on the front page, ignoring the fact that the same Robert Fisk would be better employed as a well connected news reporter. The number of people who wish to read a daily Fisk commentary is very limited; the element “news” in the word newspaper is a sufficient clue for purchase motivation.

I don’t think that the survival of the Independent matters much. It was a good idea that never achieved the aspirations of those who contributed. If it continues as is, Tony O’Reilly is wasting his money. If ownership changes and the Independent becomes a Mail alternative, it will fail or function as a vanity publication.

My thanks to the Independent writers who gave me something interesting to read, and best wishes for the future.

Charlieman – agreed. I loved the early Indie. Then it somehow turned into the Guardian with extra liberal bias and had editorial instead of news. Pity.

Liddle’s spell as Today editor wasn’t (as a listener) marked by incompetence or lack of interest. But it was perhaps the high water mark of political correctness on the prog. Every other day we were told that there were too many white men in the (fill in industry or profession here). Did terrible things to my blood pressure.

He seems to have changed since then. Is he a cynical careerist who can see which way the wind’s blowing ? Did he just get bored with PC leftism, with which he’d been surrounded all his working life ? Or was there something about the Boris Johnson Speccie and all that upper class tottie ? Your guess is as good as mine.

Liddle is the last cunt on earth anybody should put in charge of anything.

Laban, I really think Rod Liddle has never had a principle of any kind. You yourself are some kind of right-whinger, which I obviously object to, but at least it’s what you actually think. Whereas Liddle will cravenly say whatever he thinks those around him will want to hear.

I remember the insincerity of him gradually starting to fit in with his Spectator pals. I’ve seen people become right-wing over time (in my view, they were only ever dilettantes fucking around rather than principled leftists) and he doesn’t even have their integrity, he’s just a lying cunt who would talk any old bollocks if it got him the approval he craves from others.

Fucking car crash of a “man” he is. He should live where I do, amongst working-class Asians in Burnley. I’d have him in my house if he wasn’t too scared of a black man, and explain how you do things properly when you’re a man rather than a useless fuckwit who has to attack women to make himself feel big.

He also talks complete shite about atheism because he is a professional cunt.

He was a good editor of the Today programme IMHO.

Bernard, I used to be a leftie too, just like Our Rod. Is it not possible for someone to have a genuine change of mind, or are all former lefties unprincipled by definition ?

“He should live where I do, amongst working-class Asians in Burnley”

But that’s just what middle-class media ‘anti-racists’ don’t do, especially if they’re bringing up children. They move to Wiltshire (Rod Liddle), Dorset (Billy Bragg), Cheshire (Jenni Murray). Even salt-of-the-earth Jah Wobble left Bethnal Green for Cheshire when he became a dad.

“I wouldn’t like to be an old person living in Bethnal Green”

Yeah, because conservatives are renowned for being down with the kids, are they? The day one of these right-wing cunts who talk bollocks about “the white working class” move to one of the all-white council estates in my area is the day I believe that.

The fact is, all middle-class types shun the workers, of whatever race. Do you seriously imagine your pals do otherwise?

Bernard,

You have yet to grasp the fact that people live in council estates for as long as their circumstances determine they are unable to move out (unlessthey are ‘design icons’) and that people can have views about what they see as well as where they live.

Yes, people who are from middle-class origins wouldn’t thrive in central London, obviously, and nor would I or anyone else I can think of apart from drug-addled cunts in the City of London who would be on the dole if it weren’t for bailouts.

I live in a terraced house and it’s true that I can’t afford to move out into rural Lancashire or wherever else I’d presumably live. But I actually quite like living in this community and I don’t know whether I would move if I won the lottery.

I would definitely stop working though. Fuck the dignity of labour!

Lest I wasn’t clear, at 15 I was trying to slag off Laban for his attitudes.