The Daily Mirror: A waste of paper and ink

Whilst trapped inside of a soft-play centre during a rainy time I was forced (i.e. boredom drove me to) to read all of the newspapers on offer. It included my staple diet of the Evening News and EDP, plus also a few titles I hadn't read in a long, long time.

I was deeply shocked by the Daily Mirror; aside from being badly written and utterly misguided, it seems to have totally missed the point. Luckily the whole newspaper took me less than 2 minutes to "read". The political stories were laughable; I didn't think anybody or anything could still support this government like the Mirror does. I was told about "desperate Cameron" who was "trying to con people into thinking he could be trusted with the NHS"; this wasn't in the opinions page or the letters page, this was the news stories!! The Paul Routledge column actually made me double-take it was so out-of-touch; we need more proper socialists writing this stuff because, God knows, with this government in power we need a laugh. The headlines make The Sun look rational and the choice of celebrity gossip was, frankly, second class indeed.

The whole content and structure of the paper lacked anything approaching clarity. It was devoid of a single interesting article. I understand that I am part of the Telegraph faithful, but I cannot stand the Daily Mail and have more and more been taken with the Indy (which, although it contains little to no news, always has something worth reading), and so the Mirror probably isn't designed with me in mind. But even so, is this really the best they can do?

Daily Telegraph: Clarke facing "concerted Tory push"

The Daily Telegraph today reports that Charles Clarke is coming under increasing political pressure and faces the reality of losing his Norwich South seat next time becuase of a "concerted Tory push". We are certainly getting a lot of traction in the campaign and the media are really noticing how many shadow ministerial we are getting, the volume of leaflets going out and the professional nature of the campaign.

It says:
Other Labour big hitters who face a concerted Tory push are Charles Clarke, the former Home Secretary, whose 3,000 majority in Norwich South looks shaky after Chloe Smith won the neighbouring seat in last month’s by-election to become the youngest Tory MP for 30 years.

Interestingly the LibDems are at war - both locally and the blogosphere - about the decision to target Norwich South with the utter lack of support for their candidate is symptomatic of this. Most independent commentators are now saying they could be the wooden spoon winners coming fourth in Norwich South.

Don't do it, Boris, don't do it

Perception, especially in politics, is as important as reality. The way people feel and what they see really counts.

So the news that Mayor of London Boris Johnson is to carry on writing his Telegraph column worries me. I've said I think he should stand down as MP for Henley ASAP (especially given the disasterous LibDem candidate selection decision) and let another fight the by-election. I don't think he should write newspaper columns regularly either.

It doesn't matter if he has the spare time to do it on a Sunday or otherwise. It's the message it sends.

He wants to say, "I'm a full time Mayor, I am working all day to make the City better for you." This move doesn't say that. Come on, Boris, speaking as someone who has read your column year after year, it's time to hang up the pen and get on with enacting your excellent manifesto.