The Blog You Love, They Hate
Julia Hobsbawm's Editorial Intelligence held a soiree at the RSA on Wednesday about the "Power of the Commentariat". They had surveyed a hundred or so of the pundit class and invited them to the event to discuss their findings. The great and the good of the chatterati voted Polly Toynbee the most influential columnist and (outside Big Media) Guido the most influential blogger in Britain. Some of the great and the good didn't like that one little bit. What insight did these editorial titans take from that? Simon Jenkins, Suzanne Moore, Charles Clarke and Polly obsessed about the uncouth comments from the co-conspirators and CiFers. They are the people. The people you don't meet at Hampstead dinner parties or in the village deli of your Italian villa. The people who are sick and tired of the metropolitan elite can now tell you so at the bottom of your own article. Polly clearly hates the indignity of being told she is wrong by the CiF mob where her colleagues can see it and laugh along. They really don't like it up 'em do they?
Polly basically said Guido can't be good because he doesn't like politicians. Simon Jenkins reckoned Guido, Dale and ConservativeHome were too SW1-focused. Charles Clarke said we were self obssessed (nobody laughed). Suzanne Moore said Guido is a wanker in his bedroom. Daniel Finkelstein was the only one of the Commentariat to defend bloggers.
Lets deal with these in order:
Polly basically said Guido can't be good because he doesn't like politicians. Simon Jenkins reckoned Guido, Dale and ConservativeHome were too SW1-focused. Charles Clarke said we were self obssessed (nobody laughed). Suzanne Moore said Guido is a wanker in his bedroom. Daniel Finkelstein was the only one of the Commentariat to defend bloggers.
Lets deal with these in order:
- Guido is cynical about politicians and their motives - as are most people outside the Commentariat - so what? Is that the wrong approach? Not in Guido's judgement, forinstance apart from Matthew Parris, who of the Commentariat said Gordon Brown would be a total disaster and found out as such rapidly? From right to left he was applauded and lauded by the entire herd of metropolitan chatterers.
- Guido does despise most politicians, unlike Polly, who showed her good judgement in boosting Gordon Brown so fervently. Now by her own admission, though even recently so full of admiration, she realises he is not up to the job.
- Guido, Dale and Tim Montgomerie are political bloggers, so it would be odd if we did not in fact write about Westminster where they do, errrm, politics.
- Charles Clarke's comment is very odd because he is so full of amour propre as to be risible.
- The humourless feminazi Suzanne Moore has said it before and she is still wrong. Guido has an office...
60 comments:
The commentariat have the same problem with papers like The Sun - the dear old Bun doesn't form opinion because it sells lots of copies; it sells lots of copies because it's careful to reflect public opinion. Similarly blogs that are cynical about politicians aren't driving public attitudes, they're echoing them.
Toynbee's attitude smacks of self-delusion - clearly she things blogs chnage public opinion because she herself is a fearless challenger of the right-wing hegemony in the press and selflessly sets the agenda. Rather, she reflects the tired metropolitan groupthink of the Guardian reading classes.
Guido is God, and Iain Dale is the Archangel Gabriel. Long may you prosper.
I would have thought not liking politicians was a step to beatification rather than evidence that you are not good.
Is this event behind Julia's erstwhile business partner (Sarah Brown as she is now) getting a sympathy puff from Andrew Gimson?
Sarah described marrying Gordon as 'a project'. Quite possibly he wouldn't be there if he had stayed single, so my sympathy is somewhat limited.
As regards the MSM; they can't survive the power of the web or Guido.
Who is Suzanne Moore. Is it the bimbo with big hair whose page I always skip in The Mail on Sunday.
Polly Toynbee is definitely the most influential columnist: and given the state of the Govt it is clear WHO she influences.
She really is a thickhead, is Polly. She slags off Tory Councils now and again and says it shows how bad a Tory Govt would be: yet she never slags off Labour-controlled Lambeth - where her coven is based - despite the fact that it is tripling social care charges, cut library grants, has closed housing offices and put up rent and tax.
And Polly stays schtum.
She is a shrill for the Labour Party and she is thick as two short planks. That is the end of the matter.
Is Father Frogspawn still with us?
Toynbee - influential?!
She's always moaning because Labour don't follow her suggestions to shift further to the left and change us into New Sweden.
Only one thing to say then Guido: please keep up the excellent work.
And whilst I do often wish to add an expletive, so far I have resisted temptation, so far....
you only have to look at who considers themselves to form part of a very special elite to know why we proles laugh at them !!
isn't it fun to have a go back at the pompous gits.
Toynbee never fails to make me laugh.
She wrote a piece for CiF last week. She was so roundly ridiculed for it that she had the mods shut it down after a few hours. Like the politicians she so inexplicably lauds, the worst thing for her isn't being proved wrong, that happens all the time, it is being laughed at.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/polly_toynbee/2008/05/the_fight_of_labours_life.html
No wonder she was whining about the comments on CiF, we just don't defer to her superior analysis, how dare we!
Hoggart's highly amusing in the Guardian - I promise i'll stop buying if he goes, good crossword too. For years have skipped over Bumblebee but have been rather amused as of late with her plaintive, conceited entreaties for Labour to understand how if only the followed her advice then all would be fine. What a tool.
CiF must be doing wonders for the Guardian's site traffic. I still never bother reading Toynbee's articles, but nowadays log in religiously to have a good old hoot at the comments slagging her off.
I said this on Ian dale and I'll say it here. Guido and Dale are the only 2 I've heard of. Is this just a list for anoraks?
Challanging authority and offering no respect for the supposed superior beings. That is the offence that has them all wanting to re-open the Tower.
Do keep it up.
Section D Notice said...
"And whilst I do often wish to add an expletive, so far I have resisted temptation, so far...."
Go on...treat yourself to an expletive. Once you have the first cunt, fuck, twat, piss and bollocks posted it gets easier. I will show you how.
That fucking useless cunt, Pollyfilla Toynbee in, please somebody, fucking anybody. She is a first class twat and is just taking the piss with the bollocks she gets printed in The Guardian.
I feel fucking better already!
WTF? .. I've heard many an uncouth comment from residents of Hampstead. Polly should get out more.
Co-conspiritors are perfectly capable of doing couth, it just seems so inapropriate when commenting on the antics of these deluded arseholes - polly should get a real job and try running a business with employees for a while , then see if she's so keen on nulab.
what a strange list - i see they have omitted the superb (and foul mouthed) Devil's Kitchen...
they certainly dont like it up 'em indeed Guido.
"obsessed about the uncouth comments from the co-conspirators"
Guido, they are themselves nothing but a bunch of bounders, cads, rotters, and general BAD EGGS. (Hope this diatribe meets to new standards required of the blogging prominente that infest this site.)
The fact that they voted for the Wicked Witch of the Left says it all.
"Most influential columnist"? What, in getting peoples backs up?
She is a nasty, bigoted, subjective, self-blind, has-been hack whose 1968 "values" have no place in a modern democracy. Full of pompous self-importance and hot air. She is trapped in an irrelevant time-warp of 1980's Tory-hating class war, the sort of puerile cant that is behind the ridiculous "Toffs" accusation of recent days.
Self-serving irrelevant waster.
I notice you do not deny you are a wanker, Guido.
However, Polly and Suzanne can go fuck themselves.
ASBOs all round then.
Simon Jenkins is normally a good commentator...go easy on him!
"wanker in his own bedroom" eh?
A wholey unwarranted personal sleight.
In my honest opinion, SM looks like a boxer in a restoration wig chewing a wasp.
Polly Toynbee the most influential Columnist!
Most ignorant old slapper would have been a more appropriate and probably more accurate.
That top ten is beautiful. Perfectly illustrates why the dead tree press, particularly the liberal dead tree press, is for the hoof: Comment is Free more powerful than Guido and Iain Dale? Seriously. The Guardian blogs are just the place they park all the high-cost columists they can't fire thanks to their no redundancies agreement with the NUJ. It's an electronic newspaper, not a blog.
During the mayorals it wasn't the piece Polly posted eight hours ago that people were clicking on again and again was it? No, it was the real blogs.
These people refuse to accept things are changing, and the consequence is inevitable....
Can you imagine anything worse? Especially as its hot!
Glad she reads this blog though, fuck off you wrinkly old slapper, i've read more fucking sense from thick shit thieves!
I don't know why you bother with any form of rebuttal of these asinine opinions. Just tell them to fuck off. I mean does anyone take these people's views seriously?
Talking of influential people/ TV programmes:
Today's Daily Politics was a bit of a left-wing love-in. Evidently they still cannot believe that Labour lost at the elections - "it's all the fault of x, y, z" (and not Brown of course).
Then to cap it all they introduce that old noodle Gummer. What a silly-billy he proved to be.
Does anybody know when Jenny is going?
I find it interesting how 'co-conspirators' are full of righteous indignation about the peepul getting it up the 'elite', yet so full of snobbish contempt for anyone who doesnt conform to the repressed, Tory, suburban, middle-everything herd to which they clearly belong
@deeply touched,1:50. You are Germain Greer and I claim my £5.
"She famously laid into the feminist Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore after she repeated false allegations that Greer had a hysterectomy: "So much lipstick must rot the brain," thundered Greer, describing Moore's appearance as, "hair bird's-nested all over the place and three fat layers of cleavage"."
Interview of Greer by Alex Kasriel April 28 2005. There was something about fuck-me heels at the time, so being called a wanker by Moore could be seen as a challenge or an invitation rather than an insult.
Polly sweetheart, don't waste your time on the sans culottes ranting here. If you want to tap into the Zeitgeist, Mr Eugenides is your only man. He is a big fan of yours and often has observations to offer about your judgement.
Scroll down, for example, to his piece posted at 10.10 p.m. on 6 May.
Ciao, as we say in Tuscany!
Or "mwah mwah", as we say at the Gordian!
What is this obsession with Jenny? Is this the reason Guido is wanking too much in his bedroom, sorry I mean office? Get over her, please, its not like she has a massive pair of tits is it FFS! Now Poly Toynbee, there is a MILF if ever I saw one. Droopy tits, sagging arse, the works! Suck you in and spit you out in a minute.
I doubt if Peter Hain thinks you a wanker.A bastard,perhaps,but not a wanker.
Polly ia a commentator? your shitting me I thought she was the gruniads clown.I mean her opinions are all fucked up and her use of facts is questionable at best.
How did she get that villa? did she win it?,she certainly ain't worth it,did she shag her way to it? not with that face.
Anonytit said...
"I find it interesting how 'co-conspirators' are full of righteous indignation about the peepul getting it up the 'elite', yet so full of snobbish contempt for anyone who doesnt conform to the repressed, Tory, suburban, middle-everything herd to which they clearly belong"
Thank you. Feel free to fuck off now!
My description of the Commons- it consists of 640 odd shysters, charlatans,scumbags and scallywags, many of whom are scoundrels, if I have flattered any of them I do apologise.
The wholesale denial of blogger influence by the UK msm echoes of a similar msm position on the other side of the pond a few years ago. Funny how now over there the bloggers are taken very seriously by both the politicians and the msm.
Guido and the others need to keep chipping away and we will see fruitful dividends sooner rather than later.
Now, I propose that the next scalp be Yasmin "Bollywood Fuckwit" Brown.
Guido, ball is firmly in your court.
If Guido needs a wank, best he does it in the bedroom.
If only Gordon would stop doing on public transport, even when other passengers are around.
All my fucking life I have had smug lefty fuckwits telling me shite then running away from the argument or shifting their positions. The git faced smuggy sophistry as they spouted total bollocks has hacked me off for years and the conspiracy of snobbery among the mejia from the beeb to the Mirror did nothing for my blood pressure. Throwing things at the telly is no good it doesn't hurt them. Then along came blogging and CiF and all the rest of it, and fuck me you can tell them to their faces to fuck off and fuck their fucking circular self serving argurmets right up their fucking arses.
Power to the fucking people! More please now.
So fuckwits like fucking Toynbee can be told to fuck off and why. And like Gordon they fucking hate being fucking WRONG. Hear me you smug shits - YOU ARE FUCKING WRONG!
I couldn't listen to it all, it was so fucking boring. What a bunch of self opinionated twats. I love blogs so fuck the lot of em!
I was throwing out some old magazines the other day and came across an article about La Toynbee shagging someone else's husband. I hope you're a sufficiently crude blogger to let such a comment be published.
That Littlejohn youtube video is getting like the picture of Andrew Neil and the asian girl they always print in Private Eye. Are you going to link to it every day?
fact checking and the axiom that nothing said ever goes away on the Internet is fucking them good-ha!
Guido I'm sure you're a lovely chap but I don't "love" you or this blog. And you may say you're some sort of outsider. But to be honest you're just another part of the spectrum of opinion. You're as much a part of the political scene as Polly.
I was at a conference with a top Guardian bod - one thing he said explained 'toynbee' completely.
He said that the guardians primary concern when evaluating people to generate content was that they were saying 'interesting' things.
I took this to mean that the content that was evaluated, but instead they evaluate the size of the response generated.
If PT (and other guardianistas) are to continue to keep themselves in the style to which they feel entitled; then the primary objective of their writing is to generate noisy responses -- what better way to do this than write complete bollox?
Yup – and Toyly Pondu writes crap blah-de-blah
But one day, - if she’s a good gel, - the day will come that she’s dreamed of and worked for, for SO LONG.
She’ll have to wear her burqa, and shut the fuck up.
Polly is a fembot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb6iRM40afk
4:07 PM
Bang on, lola. Any form of intercourse with twats like Dolly Groinfree, just makes my head sore.
Slime Promotions bring you:
NUDE JELLO WRESTLING!!
Folly Braunbee vs Suzi Sumo Moore
Who'll give me odds?
Methinks Folly will lick her good.
Excuse me all you Polly bashers and presumably tory supporters but, just before one jetted off to one's Med retreat for a few months, one seems to remember tory advisers were urging Dave to embrace her views on social issues - or did something happen in the meantime that one' staff haven't advised one about? Heads will roll!
B B C
The blog I love, they hate. How the fuck can anybody hate Nick Robbo's blog? How did you know I loved it anyway, are you mystic meg in disguise?
Polly toynbee has stated that he(bliar) and Gordon Brown have led "the best government of my lifetime".(wikipedia) hahahahahaha stupid bint.
"The great and the good of the chatterati voted Polly Toynbee the most influential columnist"
Who reads Polly Toynbee any more, except for "The great and the good of the chatterati ?
Bunch of self absorbed tossers.
I used to read her stuff having moved on from The Daily Express while still at school; then I grew up.
Another reason this lot hate blogs is that they get paid a LOT for writing their whatever-hundred words for their columns. We don't. Writing ill-informed and biased nonsense takes skill, dahling!
And they really don't want to be put out of their very comfy jobs. Hell, if I was earning their wages I'd try to keep the status quo to. But it's changing regardless.
So how does Suzanne Moore know what you get up to in the bedroom, Guido? Something you're not telling us?
This was left on the tube from ZaNULab Headquarters by a disgruntled employee who has not been paid for three months.
Instructions to the Crewe and Nantwich Labour Party for the Prime Minister's visit on Wednesday 14th May 2008.
1. despite short notice the Prime Minister will wish to visit a school (preferably primary), hospital A&E and a Community Centre in an outlying area.
1. Due to budget cuts the party can only afford one busload of 40 endorsers. The visit must be timed such that the bus can arrive at each place at least one hour before the PM so that they can be placed appropriately.
2. Local people must NOT be present apart from necessary staff that have proven party loyalty (i.e. owe us their promotion and who we have something on).
3. Endorsers will represent a cross section of the public, will smile and rush forward to shake a smiling PM's hand when he enters each location. Please instruct all members of the real public to stay away.
4. At all times ensure that no barracking, name calling or the shouting of slogans such as 'fuck off bean back to jockland you creep'
5. Please ensure you have local tractor production figures at hand for the PM to use during brief structured interviews with the press.
6. Finally, thank you all in anticipation for your loyalty and support in these difficult times.
"Simon Jenkins, Suzanne Moore, Charles Clarke and Polly obsessed about the uncouth comments from the co-conspirators and CiFers. They are the people. The people you don't meet at Hampstead dinner parties or in the village deli of your Italian villa."
Awww, come off it Guido, "we the people"?
Most of the people who comment here or on any other politics blog are total nerds, deeply obsessed with politics to an unhealthy degree, and most likely well educated and well paid. We ARE the elite.
Mr and Mrs Grockle from Anytown, West Midlands, don't sit down to read your blog and comment furiously in between trips to Iceland and Homebase.
I sympathise, but you make it sounds like the libertarian right is some sort of grassroots movement welling up from the people, whereas in fact it's a carefully nuanced intellectual position articulated by a small group of rich elites, like yourself.
Sometimes I think Suzanne Moore is the other cheek of that arse Russell Brand
Polly should stay away from blogs as they have a uncanny knack of attracting real people who earn a crust she keeps quiet too as she remembers her daughter "Amy Jenkins" was on the BBC payroll for a long time and BBC 2 even made a dreadful documentary about posh Amy.No sign of a documentary on Guido as yet
most influential blogger?
definitely Guido.
polly is a schizophrenic weirdo and nick robinson is gordon brown's favourite rimmer.
these two zanulab propagandist cunts are satanist motherfuckers.
the road to hell is paved with good intentions - laid by spastics like nick and polly.
The Global Elite want the Net Controlled, censored.
http://www.planetquo.com
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