Those of a leftist disposition are almost uniformly completely bereft of any self awareness of their true position in the political spectrum.  Remarks one of the contributors to Insight Guides latest edition of its travel guide entitled England,

“Although free from state control and financially independent of political parties, many nationals do have pronounced political leanings.  Of the quality dailies The Times and The Daily Telegraph are on the right, The Guardian and The Independent in the middle.  On Sunday The Observer leans slightly left of centre, while the Independent on Sunday stands in the middle and The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph are on the right.

 

The Financial Times is renowned for the clearest, most unbiased headlines in its general news pages plus exhaustive financial coverage.”

I am sure that The Times will be irked to learn that it is “of the right” given its pretence of being a newspaper of record and having openly supported the Labour Party in the General Elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005.   As everyone else seems to be aware, The Guardian is the newspaper of choice of the centre-left and left because… it is of the centre-left, as is The Independent, which tried unsuccessfully to usurp The Guardian as the Left’s newspaper of choice.  As for The Financial Times well, until the 2010 General Election it had been a steadfast cheerleader for the Labour Party (and steadily lost market share amongst its core business readership as a result) since well before the 1997 election.

Those engaged in journalism, publishing and The Arts generally are largely of a “progressive”, centre-left and left persuasion. Surrounded almost exclusively by like-minded individuals, they suffer a red-shift in perception as to their true position in the political Universe.

“On election night, as the exit polls indicated that the Prime Minister [Gordon Brown] was no more popular or trusted than Michael Foot had been in 1983, his favourite emissaries rushed to the microphones to “interpret” the results. My jaw dropped as I heard Jack Dromey (aka Mr Harperson) claim: “The real losers tonight are the Conservatives.” This was life mimicking art: Orwell's allegory had become the how-to-cope manual for New Labour's response unit……Foremost among these comedians was Mr [Alastair] Campbell, who, having battled gamely to overcome alcoholism, appears to have succumbed to an even more powerful intoxicant: the fumes from his own exhaust. Others, such as Peter Hain and Ed Balls, are, one suspects, inhaling similar hallucinatory gases.”

Jeff Randall

As the Liberal Democrats have been beaten comprehensibly by the Conservatives in the Guildford parliamentary constituency contest, perhaps in future we shall be spared the “It’s so close here!” claims and their “Winning here!” posters.

The Liberal Democrats successfully mobilised and maximised their student support at Surrey University. They squeezed further the Labour vote, from Karen Landles’ 5,054 in 2005 to Tim Shand’s current 2,812. At this election, unlike that of 2005, the Liberal Democrats did not have to contend with a potential loss of votes to the Green Party candidate (John Pletts secured 811 votes in 2005.)  Notwithstanding all of this, the Conservatives’ candidate Anne Milton increased her majority from 347 in 2005 to 7,782 in May 2010.  The Liberal Democrats can no longer claim that a tactical vote in their favour by Labour supporters will help to defeat the Conservative candidate.   This was an emphatic, decisive victory for Anne Milton.

General Election Results: Guildford