to be glad that the Guardian is making enormous losses

[longfingernails]

www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-losses-reported-to-have-escalated-by-a-further-10m-to-68-7m-for-the-last-financial-year/

Great stuff. Their chatterati condescension, Islington moral vacuum and politically correct echo chamber has been a malignant blot upon our society for decades.

Let it wither upon the Viner.

and I would of course object to it when heard :)

Most likely.

"But yes, keep attacking me, thanks for the ad homs btw, they really undermine your argument."
Smallfox you can't really complain about being attacked as you've written some very sarcastic and quite unpleasant replies to those who disagree with you.

Never directly attacking though!

There's been plenty of sarcasm and unpleasantness back that I haven't commented on. All the remainers are elitist London middle classes who don't think about the rest of the country stuff.

Small you attack directly all the time! Own your shit please, you have driven loads of posters off these discussions.

If she's said unpleasant shit or direct attacks then report.

As for you have driven loads of posters away - you have evidence of that?

I can't understand your annoyance at someone who is trying to debate with you with evidence and reasoned analysis. Your opinion may differ but that doesn't mean that she's the one doing it wrong.

Never directly attacking though!

Except when calling me a racist for having the audacity to take on board the findings of the Jay Report.

I think the problem is that your averadge person in some forgotten northern town doesn't really care where those drugs and scientific breakthroughs occur, to them it doesn't make a difference if they happen in the uk.

And this highlights the problem of a yes/no vote on a complex question. EU membership has many effects and implications which are poorly understood by almost everybody.

Yes, your northern voter doesn't care about science or drug breakthroughs. If asked about the current science research budgets, they'd probably vote to cut them. (Despite the fact that science research is consistently shown to be one of the best returns for investment for a society: every £1 invested generates around £5 back on average, most of which enters the general pot of money i.e. returns from publicly funded research don't just make the rich richer.)

And it is directly relevant to these northern voters that breakthroughs are made in the UK. Not just in the obvious way, breakthroughs -> revenue -> more public spending, but also in terms of access to drugs and medical procedures. There are big fears that a hard Brexit is going to lead to time delays before we can access new drugs developed in Europe, for example. The European Medicines Agency

www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/about_us/general/general_content_000091.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac0580028a42

is relocating from London and we are unlikely to retain access to it.

"Booting out" world leading doctors from the EU could mean that we could no longer offer certain new treatments in university hospitals due to lack of expertise.

Helena I have reported Small on several occasions and she was deleted for calling another poster a coward. Yet another example of Small using her excellent verbal skills to batter other poster. The word 'never' in a supposedly factual statement making it anything but.

you don't want anyone to oppose your views I'm not saying that doesn't apply to the OP, but that applies equally to those on the political left Believeitornot.

I agree the Guardian are a bit 'up themselves' and I can't stand all the pious posturing they do about things they said nothing about at the time. Thinking specifically about the Muslim rape gangs in Rotherham. Despite their pull out sections dedicated to Women, Society etc..I also agree that they've painted themselves into a corner somewhat.

That said, they offer a view that is representative of a lot of people in this country and worldwide. However much I disagree with their individual journalists position on things. They do come up with some very good articles and insight. I'm not happy they're struggling and I hope they pull it around.

I'm stepping away now hoping that Small and I have some understanding of our positions and going back to the OP I hope the Guardian survives but won't be reading it. For me the key issue is women's rights and its Cologne coverage seemed to me to throw those hard fought for and hard one rights to the wolves in the name of political correctness.

As for you have driven loads of posters away - you have evidence of that

Check out the referendum topic, I can't remember the last time a leaver started a thread to talk about the positives of leaving the EU - just not worth the hassle.

Not wishing to take sides in this row but it seems to me we either have a free marketplace of ideas and opinions or we don't. Just as we need opposing voices in the press/media we need to have our views challenged on MN too. I won't be reading the Guardian either but it represents a view that keeps mine in check and me on my toes. I don't agree with smallfox particularly either - but.....

Check out the referendum topic, I can't remember the last time a leaver started a thread to talk about the positives of leaving the EU - just not worth the hassle.

And that's your evidence that SmallFox has driven loads of posters away?

Riiiight.

Again, people might feel that immigration is too high. But it depends on the person doesn't, people in Boston in Lincolnshire might feel that it is to high where EU migrants make up about 10 % of the population, but in the North East people also voted out on immigration where as a whole EU immigration makes up 2.5% of the entire area. Whose "feelings" do we regard as the most important?

Well the system gives everybody a vote (and is usually very complacent about the 'fact' that some demographics can be relied on not to use theirs very extensively. )

So maybe worry about how the UK feels to every voter?

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the new politics of 'feelings' either. It's long established in social science that perception is worth measuring. Fear of crime, for example, is much pored over and the British Crime Survey is always analysed in tandem with official crime statistics.

Perception and emotional response have always mattered in Politics.

"Perception and emotional response have always mattered in Politics."

True, and in what was supposed to be an informed debate, one side misused information in order to directly appeal to people's already preconceived perceptions and emotions in order to garner more votes. Therefore when one side was telling that they had been right all along, and the other was trying to say that all of their perceptions weren't accurate then there was only one side they would vote for.

For anyone who can't see that the Guardian can be just a wee bit hypocritical, after a number of articles in recent days bemoaning the increasingly aggressive language and violent imagery in political debate, today the moderators are happy to leave up a comment on an article on the economy saying, and please excuse me, "Fuck off Brexshiteers". It is clearly against several of the points in their community guidelines and I have reported it twice but they won't remove it. The moderation on the Guardian is pretty, ahem, heavy handed. There is no way they would let a comment like this against any other group of people stand. I think this speaks volumes as to the attitudes at the Guardian and how far it is prepared to sink.

Sorry, says F you, not F off.

It is clearly against several of the points in their community guidelines and I have reported it twice but they won't remove it.

Alternatively: given that it is August and people from the moderating team may be on holiday, perhaps the moderators haven't got to it yet?

Or did they explicitly reply and say that they couldn't' see anything wrong with it?

Show me a newspaper that isn't hypocritial.

The Mail bangs on and on about the EU, yet Paul Dacre has a Scottish Estate that is heavily subsidised by the EU, Rothmere lives in France, and yet the paper complains about immigrants. The Mail can be positively bouncing off the walls about some sex offender, then on the next page have a leering piece about some 14 year old actress being "all grown up".

The Telegraph, Times etc all have similar weaknesses.

Their moderating is usually pretty tight and I think they put a fair amount of resources into it (unlike the nightmarish freeforall which is the Independent comments) and they often close comments overnight and reopen, I assume, when the moderators are present. I have been reporting since 9 this morning. The comment was up for hours before that. Perhaps I am being hasty and they have just not got round to looking at my reports. I will wait and see☺

Must stop using the wrong faces

To be fair to the Guardian, they do generally pull offensive comments using aggressive language etc. As you say, this takes quite a lot of resources and is in sharp contrast to the Independent (whose comment section is frequently astonishingly offensive).

I'd be surprised if the moderators wouldn't pull such a comment.

There does seem to be less moderation on there today, the phrase "Brexshisteers" seems to given a pass.

Sadly the Guardian moderators have seen fit not to remove the "Fuck you Brexshiteers" comment. I have reported it three times, and they have deleted other comments in the meantime so it looks like a positive decision rather than that they haven't got round to it. They will not enter into any correspondence about moderating so I have no explanation. They did remove a similarly but less offensive comment (as above but without the Fuck you) a few weeks ago, so I think this shows a very unfortunate change in their moderating. Very odd that this should be at the same time as they are feeling the need to publish lots of articles about the level of vitriol in political debate.

There are some very offensive anti-working class comments on the article about the effect of Brexit on vegetable growing in the UK. These type of comments against women or ethnic minorities or disabled people would be deleted in a flash. I'm not going to waste my time reporting after the above. but it's heartbreaking. The Guardian used to be on the side of working class people.

I do actually feel very sad and disappointed about this. As a pp said upthread, it is like an old friend or relative starting to behave badly, it is more upsetting than a random in the street. I know there are problems with all papers, and none are completely consistent and unhypocritical but I do feel the Guardian has gone too far down the road of trying to promote a particular world view, refusing to see or consider anything which does not fit with this view and sinking to using smear tactics, insults and selective (and sometimes dubiously accurate in the case of Corbyn) reporting to promote its point of view. I think it will eventually implode under the weight of its own cognitive dissonance