The Guardian does not go out of its way to present itself as a racist paper.
But it has to make decisions about who it employs and the coverage it provides.
There may be some degrees of unconscious bias going on.
But how unconscious really is it?
Alan Rusbridger edited the Guardian for many years and has been heard saying that his graduate hiring policy was primarily Oxbridge.
I’m all for reading the brightest and the best.
But does that mean that nobody outside Oxbridge should get a look in?
It’s Ramadan at the moment.
I know this because though I’m not Muslim and unlikely to devote my life to reading the Abrahamic scriptures, I found myself twice last week wolfing down the naughty but nice seasonal sweets sold at the Kurdish grocer round the corner from me.
A lockdown luxury.
I look forward to Ramadan for this – though I am naughty as I do not fast!
Either way, I have Muslim friends. Injustice meted out against anyone is bad.
I am grateful to the otherwise corrupt Guardian for covering some of these issues, though it is far lighter than I would prefer.
Sadly there is so much other under reported injustice that, in this environment, any coverage at all is a blessing.
Abuse of Trust
The way the conservative government collaborates with press barons and abuses the apparatus of government is a huge problem.
Today Priti Patel will be exonerated of all bullying despite plenty of damning evidence appearing in the press.
This is because the inquiry was led by the Cabinet Secretary – Mark Sedwill.
Yes, politics is a dirty game, but Sedwill in particular appears to be more Machiavellian than most.
Like Michael Gove, he will produce contradictory arguments depending on the occasion and the outcome he prefers.
As Groucho Marx famously said, “If you don’t like my principles, I have others”
And then we have Trevor Phillips. Like Priti Patel he is using his ethnicity to hate on ethnics. And he loves it. But what choice did he have? He cut his teeth as racial equality campaigner and now that that sort of thing is no longer in fashion he has no choice but to go the other way.
Ex-Prospect Editor David Goodhart is also at Policy Exchange and has also made the journey from posh lefty to radical racist. Goodhart is descended from one of the Jewish founders of Lehman Brothers. The racism they would have had to contend with is not something Goodhart appears to take into consideration when dishing it out himself. I remember seeing him on Channel Four News during a debate on the Windrush Scandal. He said the entire episode was not the Government’s fault. Very similar approach to the one taken by Mark Sedwill when exonerating Priti Patel, who is currently running this country’s deportation policy and is under no scrutiny whatsoever.
Ms Patel will be appearing in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee an hour from now.
This is still chaired by Blairite Yvette Cooper. One of the three other Labour MPs on the committee is very new, the ‘BME’ Janet Daby, and the other two, Shadow Africa Minister Stephen Doughty & Shadow Immigration Minister Holly Lynch supported Owen Smith over Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 coup.
I can’t say too much about Stuart McDonald of the SNP who is also on the committee.
In short, it’s all a bit of a racial and political whitewash.
So there really is no scrutiny of Priti Patel or the most right wing government in living memory when it comes to bullying, racism, immigration, police violence.
I hate to be the bringer of bad news, but I feel it is important to concretely quantify how deep the shit is that we are in.
Feeling it is one thing, talking about it meaningfully quite another.
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