If only God the gift hae' ge' us..

ILL DESERVED VICTORY FOR THE EVENING STANDARD

Naked political bias and lack of balance in reporting and commentary by independent media is, of course, unfortunate, if inevitable. Mechanisms to try to prevent this do of course exist (see associated blog post on these pages about TalkSport firing an over-partisan DJ), but they are few and far between, not always applicable or effective.

I do not live in London so I was not exposed to The Evening Standard's shenanigans, but was certainly aware of those by others not mentioned here, such as The Guardian, for instance. It is in fact being noted now that by trashing the ability of the public to make a decision, in a democratic vote, by some who seem to believe they are better placed to know what's 'right', may have actually served in reverse of what was intended. Darn those independent minded voters... how dare they rain on other's agendas. The fools! Or succumb to the wiles of 'blonde Tory buffoon Boris Johnson..' who, apparently, is now '..where he can quaff champagne and caviar and wonder what the hell he has got himself into.' I guess London is just going to have to find out what IS going to happen, but will be guided, I am sure objectively, by many media outlets on the journey.

Will we also, I wonder, along with age be treated to the perceived (by whom, and what measure?) affiliations of all who get mentioned in future. Because, other than being right in this case at least, I don't recall reading before about YouGov as being 'run by Tory Peter Kellner, partnered with the Standard'. Ta for the heads up.

Like many, this has served me well. So, before hitting the keyboards in future, I think I might try a bit of Burnsian looking in the mirror first. Just to make sure I am not being as bad, or worse, than those I see fit to critique.

Gaurdian - Tough at the toff