Sharpe's Opinion

The Five Stages of Liberal Conspiracy

Tuesday 12th May, 2009 at 11:26 am

Liberal Conspiracy, it seems, aren’t doing anything to improve their standards since last month. Granted, they take pride in their utterly biased approach to news dissemination (when they’re not writing grand diatribes on ‘ethical blogging’, of course) but they’ve been ‘on maneouvers’ more than usual for the past few days, so I thought it would be fun to document the five stages of Liberal Conspiracy…

1. Look The Other Way!

Friday’s ‘Top Story’ was, it has to be said, slightly different to what everyone else was talking about on Friday…

8th May.png

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2. Find Some Labour MPs Who Aren’t Dodgy!

Hooray! It turns out Alan Johnson and Ed Miliband might actually be okay! Well, that’s all right, then. Labour must be the good guys after all…

9th May.png

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3. Talk About Something Else!

Huh? Top Story? Really?!

10th May.png

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4. BLAME THE TORIES!

For good measure, try and associate the headline with a picture of David Cameron, even though the Telegraph specifically mentioned him as one of the so-called ‘Modest MPs’

11th May.png

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5. KEEP BLAMING THE TORIES!!!

Oh yes, keep bashing those bastards! Maybe my memory isn’t serving me correctly, but I don’t recall a spread of mugshots like this on Cabinet Ministers¹. Funny old thing.

12th May.png

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I wonder what they’ll lead on tomorrow…

Seriously, though. Compare and contrast with ConservativeHome, who were not only restrained in their reporting of Labour sleaze (largely because they had a good idea what was coming), but have immediately called for sanctions – including withdrawing the whip – against Tory MPs who’ve been caught at the trough. You can feel the outrage that the ConservativeHome writers are feeling, dripping through the screen.

They’re far more interested in finding and stopping sleaze within their own party, and expressing their shame at the behaviour of the people they respected, than they are in having a go at the opposition. What’s more, this morning they’re trying to put pressure on David Cameron to sack a load of Tory MPs.

With Liberal Conspiracy all you see is someone asking ‘so, how can we best use this to bash the Tories?’ It just makes me wonder, when exactly are these people going to grow up?

and if the Tories are ‘The Broken Party’ I’d be fascinated to know what Labour are… [↩]

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Comments

“With Liberal Conspiracy all you see is someone asking ‘so, how can we best use this to bash the Tories?’”

This is the site which during the time period you refer to published articles such as: “Gordon Brown’s definitely finished now…”, “Time for Hazel Blears to go”, “Labour plummets; polls says publish all expenses”, and “We should welcome the expenses scandal” (illustrated with a picture of Gordon Brown) ?

How do any of those, or your example of an article about how Labour is failing to tackle inequality, help bash the Tories? Just curious.

donpaskini

May 12, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Are you suggesting you’ve taken an even-handed approach? “Time For Hazel Blears to Go” – that’s quite a lot like the Labour party line on Hazel Blears, funnily enough. “Gordon Brown’s Definitely Finished Now” was just repeating what Polly Toynbee said – highly controversial, I’m sure. “We Should Welcome the Expenses Scandal” is probably the closest you got to a decent line on the whole thing, so congratulations – one article in five days where you actually had something worthwhile to say on expenses.

Don, where are the attacks on ministers? Where are the stories of grassroots outrage? Where’s the calls for sackings? Where’s the acceptance that both parties are just as bad as each other? ConservativeHome has been fantastic reading over the weekend because of exactly that attitude – instead of going after Labour they’re putting pressure on the Tories to clean up. Liberal Conspiracy has barely even tried, and that’s the point I’m making.

Liberal Conspiracy has spent more time questioning the Telegraph’s motives (a line of enquiry that’s been curiously absent from more recent stories) than considering what Labour MPs have been doing. Regardless, it’s what you consider to be the ‘Top Stories’ that shows where your focus is. If you didn’t consider them to be your focus, they wouldn’t be Top Stories. From that, it seems your focus is on Tory bashing, not on doing anything to help clean up politics.

Stu

May 12, 2009 at 2:53 pm

Of course, we should also give an honourable mention to the 9th May piece “Newspapers feeding the anti-politics mood” which described the Telegraph’s coverage of expenses fraud and second home flipping as “hardly a subject of much intrinsic fascination”…

Stu

May 12, 2009 at 4:38 pm

“Don, where are the attacks on ministers? Where are the stories of grassroots outrage? Where’s the calls for sackings? Where’s the acceptance that both parties are just as bad as each other?”

Well, just to take one example, here’s a quote from the article which you seem to think is just like the Labour Party line on Hazel Blears:

“In an earlier thread commenter redpesto suggested we need an Italian style ‘clean hands’ campaign. I agree. And for a start we need heads to roll on all sides of the political spectrum to show that this behaviour cannot be batted away with ease. Starting with Hazel Blears and James Purnell – both of whom should be fully investigated by the HMRC for avoiding Capital Gains Tax. What other recommendations would you suggest for such a campaign?”

Or the previous article, which begins:

“You know what really makes me mad about the MP expenses scandal? It’s not so much the ludicrous claims – for bathplugs, ugly ceilings, scratched sinks etc – as the attitude from many MPs that this was all OK because they weren’t being paid enough in the first place.

I am enraged by this excuse.”

“Regardless, it’s what you consider to be the ‘Top Stories’ that shows where your focus is.”

Really? I (genuinely) think the top stories bit is less important than the articles for showing where the editorial focus is. But in any case, how is highlighting bad news about Labour’s record in government which might otherwise have been buried by the expenses stories an example of ‘Tory-bashing’? (for a number of people on the liberal-left, me included, the news that inequality has been rising since 2005 is absolutely appalling and makes me far angrier with the government than even the worst of the MPs’ expenses).

Glad you like the ConservativeHome coverage, but surely it would be boring if all websites covered news from the same angle?

donpaskini

May 12, 2009 at 5:01 pm

I don’t disagree that the inequality story was important – I linked to it myself – but I’m amazed that you seem to be suggesting that LC has has done more to criticise Labour than the Tories. The ‘mugshots’ post this morning was clearly party-political, where the strongest message given on Labour was ‘look, at least Ed Miliband isn’t at it’.

It’s not that you’re not critical of Labour ever, know you are at times. It’s that LC’s line on the expenses issue has been exceptionally poor, and I was hoping that a blog with so much influence amongst the Labour grassroots wouldn’t have given Brown such an easy ride over this issue. Hazel Blears is hardly the worst and she’s an extremely easy and convenient scapegoat, and going huge on the Tories (‘Broken Party’ indeed) is letting Brown off the hook for his own party’s behaviour and his own utter lack of contrition.

Stu

May 12, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Get out the popcorn, I say. Liberal Conspiracy is descending into complete lunacy. I think it shows how completely morally screwed up the left have become, really – in power without a clue what they’re doing or why it’s not working. :S

Charlotte Gore

May 13, 2009 at 7:52 pm

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Sharpe's Opinion

The Five Stages of Liberal Conspiracy

1. Look The Other Way!

2. Find Some Labour MPs Who Aren’t Dodgy!

3. Talk About Something Else!

4. BLAME THE TORIES!

5. KEEP BLAMING THE TORIES!!!

Comments