Michael Buerk: BBC staff read Guardian "like their bible"

[longfingernails]

Yet more confirmation of what we all know.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1372559/Left-wing-shallow-oh-politically-correct--verdict-BBC-Michael-Buerk.html

And I vote as I do because I am, in essence, a libertarian, I strongly believe in people & their ability to do good for themselves, if given the chance.

I firmly believe in a small state. Help where it's needed, low taxes & don't even get me started on the concept of the state being the 'natural' providers of education (though I do believe it should be funded through taxes & avaiable for all).

Claig - I read the Telegraph - am a subscriber - I find it much more pertinent when it comes to the real world.......

Ah, now I know where you got that erroneous, scurrilous impression of the Daily Mail from.

'The majority of my friends are left-wing (mind you they are the bourgeoisie that proclaim from their ivory towers).'

Are some of them from the ivory towers at Millbank?

spiderslegs. There have been occasions when real scandals broke about the Labour party and surprisingly enough the only paper that ran with the story was the Daily Mail. The Daily Telegraph was silent on the matter. You won't find Labourites making jokes about the Daily Telegraph because they think it is insignificant, they don't fear its influence. There is a reason that Labourites hate the Daily Mail. As Lieutenant Pike used to say about the Daily Mail, "they don't like it up 'em".

claig - "'The Daily Mail is not a sensible newpaper, it is hysterical shite that uses scaremongering to push politicaly ill-educated folks into paroysms of fear. About everthing.'

Where did you get this idea from?"

From picking up the paper and reading the words that are written inside it.

HTH.

I would expect that type of view from a heathen. But one can always change and see the light.

Claig they make jokes about the Mail because it, is, laughable. No serious person would read it. In all honesty, I have never read a Mail reader.

They daren't make jokes about Telegraph colomists because they know they are more erudite & have more bile....

Heathen - thankyou.

And Claig my opinions of The Mail are my own. I read the Telegraph FFS. And the Spectator.

*met a Mail reader.

• & columist

Sorry - see my AIBU - just opened the second bottle

"I read the Telegraph FFS. And the Spectator."

Well if you are satisfied with only half the picture, that is your choice. I want the whole picture, I seek the truth, I read the Daily Mail. As John F. Kennedy famously said "Ich bin Daily Mailiner".

"Most of them shouldn't read any newspaper at all" oh please be quiet.

The BBC news rooms and libraries have access to a database of almost every national and local paper, and many international ones as well as having hard copies of the dailies. What staff prefer to read in their own time is up to them.

spiderslegs- relative poverty is all around you, clearly. It doesn't mean how much richer one rich person is from another; it means the gap between the poorest and richest sections of the population, a gap which has been increasing massively since the 1980s. Surely even Tory politicians actually know that? (although they would of course deny it, but they're good at that sort of thing, all politicians are). That is why they are obsessed with moving on/starving out the poor and making services 'competitive', i.e. stopping them from serving the poor- by charging big fees for them, for example.

I would however agree with you on the idiocy of 'growth' as a measure of political success.

I think Claig is definitely a joke poster- that remark about the 'sensible'' Daily Fail was priceless...

I don't care about relative poverty at all. Inequality is no problem at all - we are all unequal. Equality of opportunity is all that matters.

I can assure you that I would never joke about the Daily Mail. The only people who make jokes about that illustrious newspaper are socialists who "don't like it up 'em"

@claig

yep I can assure you I wouldn't like the Daily Fail up me. At all.

spiders

The highest post war unemployment levels have all been under Tory governments, Thatchers was the highest 3.8 to 4.5 million dependent on which count method you use. The Blair/Brown governments reduced it and now the Tories are increasing it. The current Tory governmet has the all time record for under 25 unemployment at over one million (they must be very proud).

With regard to poverty the Blair/Brown government reduced it, not quick enough and not far enough I will admit. It surged under Thatcher and is again with the current governments policies.

Pensioner poverty increased under Thatcher (the removal of the link to wages didnt help), remember all the hypothermia deaths, Labour mostly removed pensioner poverty with pension credits and to be fair the Tories have not aimed their spite at the pensioners YET although I note the pensions link to CPI not RPI which will dilute pensions value.

The scource, the institute of Fiscal Studies and various publications.

'I don't care about relative poverty at all. Inequality is no problem at all - we are all unequal. Equality of opportunity is all that matters.'

But how can there be equality of opportunity if there is no equality of education?

Relative poverty and inequality do matter. As a society and nation, we have a duty to raise the standard of living, quality of life and education of all our people. It is not right that people live in damp-ridden homes and suffer ill health due to their environment. We have a duty to look after all our people, just as we have a duty to police all neighbourhoods and protect all people from crime. We don't want to go back to the times of the nobles and the serfs, to Marie Antoinette's "let them eat cake" and "let them read the Guardian".

Jeysus claig, I too would hate it 'up' me esp' from Paul Dacre.....

Although my husband may give it 'up me'.

All day.

Any day.

But All, just because the gap is wider, is that a bad thing? We're all better off than we were in the 70s.

I would say the difference between now & then is the quality of education. State ecucation is now, for the main part, lamentable, we had grammars in the 70s. Now poor children are left marooned in the state system with no way out & this & the last government try to achieve balance with idiotic 'access' schemes' rather than addressing the point.......

claig There should of course be equality of education.

That is why we need Free Schools, Academies, as well as Technical schools for the less academic.

Well said Claig, nice to see a "sinner" repent I am glad you have left the "Darkside"