General elections are like festive fare. Plenty to digest but eventually you crave something different.
Having chewed up the future of Labour, ‘one-nation’ Toryism and getting Brexit done, the columnists are back to taking a more scattergun approach. Perhaps its time to reply the Christmas cards? Order something foreign? See what’s happening with the telly?
InThe Guardian, Polly Toynbee urges us all to defend the BBC. As Labour’s Andy McDonald accused it of bias and the Conservatives threaten to boycott the Today programme, she sticks up for political editor Laura Kuenssberg. Yes, her worst blunder was reporting a fake attack on a Tory advisor, Toynbee says. “Yet errors are inevitable in 24/7 live coverage, and an apology was instant. I regard her as remarkable for fair judgment, distilling events and arguments with subtlety.”
The BBC is one of Britain’s ‘glories’, she argues. “Attacks from both sides don’t mean the BBC gets it right. But they do mean the BBC has too few defenders now it us under serious threat from Government.”
The Financial Times and The Guardian both take a look at the student protests in India over a controversial citizenship law that discriminates against Muslims. in The Guardian, Michael Safi says protests have been fuelled by apparent police brutality, and are not only to do with the law but broader concerns about the policies of Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi. “The images of students and Muslims coming under attack appear to have crystallised a wider feeling of unease about the direction India is taking,” he comments.
Writing in the FT, Amy Kazmin says India’s new citizenship rules pointedly exclude muslims, “the first time India has incorporated religious criteria into its naturalisation or refugee policies”. It sounds worryingly familiar, she says. “Back in 1982, Myanmar adopted a citizenship law recognising eight ethnic groups as “national races”, whose members were entitled to citizenship. But Rohingya — a mostly-Muslim population reviled by Burmese — were excluded.”
There’s a post-Christmas Grinchiness evident in The Daily Telegraph, where Melanie McDonagh rails against ‘quite grand people’ who send chrismas cards feturing themselves and their families. “It’s the egotists card, redolent of their assurance that you’ll find them and their families attractive.” Her rather arbitrary hierarchy of cards – charity cards are good, but not the ones which tell you a donation to a cause is being made in your name – allows Christmassy pictures of pigs or trees. It also encompasses trolling. “I make it a rule to send pictures of baby Jesus to my agnostic friends and snow scenes to my priest friends.”
Back to TV, The Scotsman’s, Aidan Smith insists we should all tune into Mrs Brown’s Boys and defends it against rubbishing from the sophisticated, sneering and snobby. I say defends it, but he doesn’t really – taking swipes at the overhyped Fleabag, he explains: “This Christmas, trendy types can no longer dismiss it as the Brussels sprout of comedy, the pair of socks of comedy, or the Lime Barrel of comedy, that being the sweet always left at the bottom of the tin. In grim times, the show seems to be exactly what’s needed,” he argues: “We want Boris and we want a man with ginormous fake boobs.”
Politics ultimately can’t be ignored, and Tom Harris, writing in The Daily Telegraph attempts to summon the ghost of Christmas past, arguing that Gordon Brown should be taking the blame for Labour’s General Election disaster.
It was Mr Brown, he says, whose errors led to the party’s 2010 defeat, and the subsequent election of Ed Miliband as leader, and therefore Brown was (indirectly) responsible for Labour introducing its electoral college system which resulted in the leadership of ... Jeremy Corbyn.
Brown’s failure to call a snap election when he had the chance left him without sufficient political capital to modernise the party. He actively encouraged the party to reject Tony Blair’s legacy. “He removed three time election winner Blair for the crime of being a block to his own ambition. He encouraged the denigration of his predecessor’s record, even though much of it was also his own record. And he made it far easier for the Left to draw the conclusion that Labour’s defeat in22010 and its failures in office could be remedied by shifting the party and the leadership Left-wards,” Harris argues.
“There are many to blame for what happened last Thursday. It would be historically unfair if Brown’s name were missing from the list of indictments.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel