The Guardian must not fall

At first blush, it might seem perverse that liberals are trying to close down the Guardian newspaper; but any considered historical review of the psychopathology of liberalism will confirm that such an auto-destructive, even masochistic, move is wholly in character. At the time of writing, the petition to the Independent Press Standards Organisation –  not previously regarded as a body that is in the business of shutting down newspapers – had attracted more than 20,000 signatures.

It would be easy to dismiss that support as the Telegraph readership turning out in force to embarrass a rival, but in these times we cannot ignore the likelihood that the majority of those protesters are bona fide liberals. The message of the petition is brief and to the point: “The Guardian Newspaper was founded by John Edward Taylor from the profits of Cotton Plantation Slavery and therefore should be shut down.”

Since the Guardian’s native city of Manchester similarly profited from slavery, as did Liverpool and Glasgow, is it time to shut down those conurbations too? Probably not yet – give it a little time, say 18 months, for the false consciousness of the public to be sufficiently eroded and the confidence of the authorities adequately subverted. In the meantime, since there does not seem to be a statue of John Edward Taylor anywhere for toppling, since his monument is the Guardian, that must come down.

The ideal solution would be for the Guardian staff collectively to abolish the publication themselves, in a ceremonial act of self-flagellation while symbolically taking a knee. It is not just the Guardian’s founder in 1821 that is to be deplored: in the 1860s the Guardian wrote of Abraham Lincoln that “it was an evil day both for America and the world when he was chosen President of the United States”, sided robustly with the Confederate cause and, as current editor-in-chief Katharine Viner conceded three years ago, “demanded that the Manchester cotton workers who starved in the streets because they refused to touch cotton picked by American slaves should be forced back into work”. 

Now, you might say, that was a long time ago and the Guardian has changed its stance dramatically since then. Sorry, but that indifference to the evidence of offence archaeology makes you an apologist for slavery. That is a slippery slope. Next you will be suggesting that Baden-Powell’s statue should remain in place at Poole because he quickly abandoned his momentary interest in Hitler’s ideas. 

Beyond that, you might even be weak-minded enough to claim that the BBC should not be shut down in view of its first director-general, Sir John Reith’s, diary entries regarding Hitler. “I really admire the way Hitler has cleaned up what looked like an incipient revolt,” wrote Reith approvingly of the Night of the Long Knives. Of the 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia he recorded: “Hitler continues his magnificent efficiency.” From those observations it is easy to see how the BBC’s idiosyncratic geopolitical views originated. 

The Corporation has refused to remove a bust of Reith from its headquarters. Clearly the BBC is ripe for cancelling. Today the BBC is still sanitizing ideologically motivated violence, describing riots as “largely peaceful protests”. For years feeble conservatives have failed to curb the excesses of the woke Corporation: it would be fitting if militant liberals now enforced its closure due to its politically incorrect history.

But all such considerations are the least of it. The principle has been clearly established that no amount of subsequent repentance can gain toleration for any institution with a past unacceptable to totalitarian liberalism. So, what about the big one? Is the ideological trajectory of the condemned Guardian not identical to that of the American Democratic Party? Was it not the case in America’s South in the 19^th century that Democrat voters could not be relied on to turn up to record their suffrage if the election date clashed with a cross-burning or lynching organised by the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan?

Remind us, please, which political party Abraham Lincoln belonged to? And within the lifetimes of many Americans today, where did the local Democrats stand on desegregation in the South in the 1960s? Does that sense of entitlement not resonate in Bill Clinton’s absurd and patronising claim – when Barack Obama was still a local politician in Chicago – to be the first “black” president of America? Does the same arrogant entitlement not echo in Joe Biden’s dismissal of African American voters supporting Trump – “You ain’t black”? Does cultural appropriation come any more extravagant? 

Do not think it is absurd to foresee many of the currently most iconic “progressive” individuals and institutions becoming the targets of an exponentially growing tsunami of insanity.

The woke revolution has already begun the process of devouring its own – a phenomenon that usually signals an advanced stage of cultural displacement.

That is the significance of the petition to close down the Guardian. Of course it will not succeed: what matters is that it is now seen by many as a reasonable demand. Many conservatives might feel a mischievous urge to sign the anti-Guardian petition, but they should resist the inclination. Firstly and obviously because closing down newspapers is not something a free society does; secondly, and self-interestedly, because the more conservative one may be, the more valuable an amenity the Guardian is.

We simply cannot afford, in these depressing times, to silence the last remaining writer since the demise of Alan Coren with the ability, albeit unintentionally, to make readers laugh out loud. Polly Toynbee, caricature progressive, Britain’s universal nanny and custodian of the flame of patrician leftism that believes socialism is too precious to be entrusted to the stewardship of the lower classes, is a national treasure.

Reduce the Slavers’ Daily to an 18th-century-style single sheet, if you will, or censor out all the drivel of lesser imitators until it resembles the Bulawayo Chronicle circa 1965, but do not suppress the hilarious opinions of the great pantomime dame of Remain. The Guardian must not fall.