Will anyone be the Guardian's angel?
Many thanks for your generous remarks about my column, but I’m sorry to tell you that the faults you sometimes find with it are entirely my doing.
The intervention of a Guardian executive can’t be blamed when it’s written as three or four short items rather than one long one. That comes because I’m not sure that I have 1,250 words to say on a subject and don’t want to overstretch my limited knowledge. I don’t think Guardian executives are any keener on this than you are.
Best wishes,
Ian Jack
Ian Jack, The Guardian, London, UK
Who guards the guardians of the Guardian? No one. Another mistake by the Guardian is to self-regulate its content, a peculiar decision for a newspaper that regularly argues that business needs strong, independent oversight.
The so-called “reader’s editor” of the Guardian is always on the side of the author; and the Scott Trust rarely rules against Guardian journalist. Indeed, in a recent verdict it argued that, although a piece got its facts wrong, it did not need correction.
Richard Tol, East Sussex, UK | @richardtol
Bravo on a fine bit of writing. Rusbridger had many important scoops but as he presided over expanding online and overseas he sacrificed the one part of the business that paid the bills: the newspaper.
The Guardian is a fine paper but I buy The Times these days because the fall off in day-to-day quality made it clear to me that Rusbridger hasn’t been interested in the paper for at least a decade.
One last point. As The Guardian (and many other titles are discovering), it is almost impossible to run a strong, diverse, news operation that can break stories when you give away the content for free.
Information does not want to be free. The Linked Economy does not pay the bills. If your content is good enough, consumers will pay for it.
Peter Flanagan, London, UK
Socialiswho?
I was struck by the very random definition of ‘socialism’ in the article. Few of these ‘revolutionaries’ got as far as establishing a socialist system. They merely selected a Marxist label as an indication that they wished to supplant an existing system which was not necessarily capitalist. Their desired outcomes were not ‘socialist’ in any real terms. It is casuistical to equate the desire of educated metropolitan intellectuals for a more just society with the opportunistic use of brutality under a ‘Marxist’ banner.
Jackie Cornwall, Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, Spain
In this article a particularly pernicious way of cherry-picking the evidence and fallacious reasoning leads to the condemnation of any form of socialism whatsoever. In the first place, all the data that Tupy uses comes from an ultraconservative source. In that source many of the same states that had famines also had famines before becoming socialist. Tupy should look at other examples who called themselves socialists, like Cuba or democratic Socialists Sweden. If you also include countries like Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, their socialist policies earned a high reduction of poverty, of infant death and overall social welfare. The most blatant distortion Tupy does is in the end of his article in in the comparison between Zimbabwe and Ethiopia. In fact, what was a triumph for Ethiopia is nothing more than catching up with Zimbabwe. Besides, It is not at all clear that further increases in calorie consumption are beneficial or whether they are a sign of obesity.
Juan Valle Lisboa, Montevideo, Uruguay | @biolento
The most common criticism I see of Socialism is that it doesn’t work because every time people have tried to implement it the results were negative. However, socialism is utopian. So why can’t we learn from the mistakes of the past while pursuing the distant utopian dreams of the future? Historically, socialists and Marxists have taken and wielded unlimited power backed by the military. Given that the United States already has separation of powers to make it much more difficult for a single branch to seize total control, why don’t we use that to limit the people controlling the socialist programs?
We can identify that social healthcare and social education are good for the public but we can also apply term limits so that the people holding the purse strings limited the total power that leaders can accumulate and the actions they can take. We also need to encourage and drive more people to participate in the systems that we have. We can clean up the waste from current programs and direct focus to key social issues like encouraging and subsidizing small businesses as they succeed. These are socialist ideas. These also seem to be the ideas that most people hold. Why should we not do what everyone seems to want just because the name associated with these actions has a bad reputation? Why should we not even try just because people failed at it in the past. Let’s learn from the mistakes and find a new way to make the world better for everyone. That is what drives civilization forward.
Barak Smith, Nashville, USA
The twilight of the gods
Iain Martin’s article on The final act of the Cameron/Osborne era – 21st March 2016 raised a great many points that deserve greater attention. One such point was the force in which the Prime Minister has thrown himself behind the efforts of the Remain campaign, to the anger of Leave-aligned backbenchers, and his own frustration with those in the Conservative benches who have backed Brexit. As someone whose political sympathies lie closer to Cameron than Liam Fox, it does highlight a continuing weakness of Cameron’s in that he often neglects currying favour with those sceptical of him, and instead prefers the safety of his bunker.
It might be that both Stewart Rose and Alan Johnson have failed to either rally the nation or attract media attention, making Cameron feel as if he must involve himself more, but the way he has gone about this has alienated many. Some around him feel that to adopt a quiet tone would be surrender, but how many of those same people said the same about holding an EU Referendum five years ago? David Cameron has to work with the situation before him, with the Conservative Party he has, not the one he wants. Cameron may soon have a choice before him.
Is he prepared to accept Prime Minister Boris as the cost of a Remain victory?
Ben Sayle, Wallington, UK
In response to Meet Stephen Crabb, the next Tory leader – 17th March 2016
No no no. We don’t want another Cameron clone.
Please someone with grey hair & decades of experience in politics , small state, low regulation devotee and unafraid of speaking his mind against the pack and who has worked for a long time in the private sector and champions Britain as an independent country, trading with the world.
What a refreshing change that would be.
Monima O'Connor, Cardigan, Wales
Bacchus nonsense
It is such a shame that so much energy is being put into belief based approaches to wine making, and evidently even tasting. If the same amount of energy was put into evidence based systems we could move the industry forward, instead of backwards.
Stephen Reiss, PhD, CWE , Aspen, Colorado, US
Children remain a rotten responsibility
In response to The sugar tax tightens Britian’s social straightjacket – 21st March 2016
If the sugar tax was only about adults then it would be fair to see the debate in these terms. But children cannot give informed consent to a sugar-rich diet. It would still be possible to argue that children are fundamentally the responsibility of their parents and that the state should not intervene in this way to protect children from parentally-sanctioned obesity. Where do we draw the line on children’s welfare?
Alan Hawkes, Saffron Walden, UK
