The sheer, breathtaking hypocrisy of the Guardian

[RoyalCorgi]

The Guardian's chief sportswriter, Jonathan Liew, is supporting a boycott of the Afghan cricket team: "We are warned not to punish the richly gifted men’s team for the sins of their government, as if the dignity and humanity of 20 million Afghan women were simply acceptable collateral damage against the wider backdrop of Rashid Khan’s availability for the next T20 World Cup."

Just in case you were wondering, yes, this is the same man who thinks having men play in women's sport is just great, and that women who don't like it are all evil right-wingers and, in his own words, "giving some of society’s most marginalised groups a chance to express their talent doesn’t harm anyone. Because trans women are women. And sport, I’m afraid, is only sport."

They really are trolling us now.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/jan/07/afghanistan-women-cricket-icc-taliban

@theilltemperedqueenofspacetime
The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. The centre cannot hold.
This is true of so much of the public sphere at the moment - large parts of academia, politics, the arts.

It doesn't help that some special interest groups wield undue influence, just because they're loud and dedicated.

ETA, and they're also often intimidating and aggressive, which puts moderates off commenting.

The Guardian has spent 16 years advocating for Caster Semenya to be viewed as a female.

Over 200 articles variously attacking the women athletes who questioned his inclusion, and the sporting bodies who required lowering his testosterone.

But as far back as 2009 they knew he was male. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/20/what-sex-is-caster-semenya

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/sep/11/caster-semenya-runner-intersex

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/caster-semenya

Jonathan Freedland hits back, without naming names...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/20/attack-uk-us-europe-netanyahu-jews-violence-antisemitism

I am thinking of the progressives who suggest attacks on Jews are not, in fact, antisemitism, but merely opposition to Israel. So that, say, a brick through a window of a London shop associated with Jews, blood-red graffiti painted on its walls, is something other than a threat to Jews and Jewish life. That it’s really about international capitalism or tangential associations with a country thousands of miles away.

The Guardian is a sick shadow of what was once a great newspaper.