Guardianista

Regular readers, if indeed there are any, will have deduced by now that this is a Guardian-reading blog. Inevitably there are a fair few things that annoy me about my paper of choice; one of these is those occasional but interminable G2 "special issues" they do which take themselves far too seriously (apart from those devoted to the veterans of the International Brigades in the Spanish civil war and to stories of second generation immigrants to the UK, both of which were superb, but were also a long time ago now).

The most constantly problematic aspect of the Guardian for me as a reader has long been their editorial line on Israel, which is only partly balanced out by the continued presence of Jonathan Freedland on the comment pages. Now, this is not Harry's Place, nor am I about to get into a big rant about either the political situation in the Middle East or the UK media coverage of it, but I was most encouraged today by two things. Firstly, a Leader column with which I broadly agree, about the proposed AUT academic boycott, and secondly the fact that The Observer (which is of course a completely separate paper with a separate editorial staff but which is nonetheless owned by the Guardian Media Group) has employed Ned Temko, recently-departed editor of the Jewish Chronicle, as its chief political correspondent. Obviously that's UK politics not international affairs, but it's still heartening news.

Just for the record: I do not think that The Guardian (or the BBC, for that matter) is remotely anti-semitic, am pro-two state solution and if I lived in Israel I'd be voting Labour there, too.