The Torygraph at its worst.

[fpb]

I don't need to say anything beyond stating a few facts. For days now, the Torygraph has thrown itself body and soul into the defence of the corrupt and possibly criminal banker Bob Diamond, and insisted that the pressure he was under for breaking umpteen laws and being part of a conspiracy that shocked even experienced commentators was nothing more than mob rule and envy for a rich man - not a desire to uphold, at least once, what is supposed to be the law of the land. On the other hand, when a jobsworth from one of the most corrupt councils in the United Kingdom - the Tory one-party state of Westminster - soullessly switches off the electricity as two of the greatest living musicians, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney (a knight of the realm) are playing together for the first time, and suddenly the Torygraph is full of admiration for the law-abiding uprightness of this country. Springsteen and Sir Paul are also rich men, but they committed the sin of making their money by writing some of the best music of their time rather than by conspiring to pervert LIBOR and other crimes. So, of course, the newspaper of the party of law and order can't loathe them too much.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

NOT EVERYBODY ON THE TORYGRAPH.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I would never take you for a Philistine,or for that matter for a lover of money for its own sake. But I'm afraid your employers and colleagues have on average not covered themselves with glory this time.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Also, BoJo spoke against the switchoff.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I notice that the Mail, with its usual ear for the mood of its middle-class readers, took quite another view, And it was right. As for Boris, he should not have made a fool of himself by taking "efficacious" for "officious" - a man who is paid significant amounts of money for writing English should know better - but I will forgive him for his next sentence, which is what anyone with a grain of sense and taste would utter: "If they'd have called me, my answer would have been for them to jam in the name of the Lord!" Personally, I think musicians should start a Boycott Westminster campaign. West Londoners are supposed to be subjected to the abuse and noise of a third Heathrow runway, but when it comes to two of the best musicians there are coming together in the dream duet of dream duets, then the delicate little ears of super-rich Belgravia residents must be sheltered. And don't give me any crap about this country's interests; this country's interests may be served by an increase in flights in an already unworkable airport (although if anyone had had any sense they'd listen to Boris Johnson and build a whole new airport in the Thames estuary), but it is at least as much in remaining the cultural and musical centre of the universe. Where would Britain be without the Beatles and everything that followed them? Poorer, and more violent, and more insular, and more negative than it is. And it is quite enough of all that.