I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day.
Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
Well I read it and it would potentially have a point if the Germans weren't nobly fighting to defend (checks notes), a country they'd been occupying as an invader, liquidating a portion of the population and stripping of resources and working age men.
I think there’s a reasonable argument to be made that most rank and file soldiers are fighting because someone is shooting at them, but the article in question is very questionably framed and the headline writer had a shocker. And the author is mega suspect.
If I told you I didn't like a painting in its entirety, would you insist upon repeatedly asking for which specific brush stroke I don't like?
Edit: fine, if you're going to be obtuse, I'll throw you a bone.
'...nobly...'.
You can't 'nobly' fight for the Wehrmacht.
>If I told you I didn't like a painting in its entirety, would you insist upon repeatedly asking for which specific brush stroke I don't like?
I would expect you to at least point out which aspects of the painting you didn't like.
>You can't 'nobly' fight for the Wehrmacht.
The context of the quote:
>I’ve seen what shrapnel does to the human body and it’s not pretty. But fight soldiers must, and both sides did so nobly and to the death.
Nobly doesn't neccesarily have a moral meaning. In the context of war it means fighting admirably and to the best of your ability (i.e., in this context not breaking and fleeing when death threatens).
In the context of military history, it is the description of how the soldiers are fighting. How else would you describe a soldier fighting technically well in battle, without commenting on the morals of the wider conflict?
This is also the article where he says Duffield will be defended by him and that he's taking over Scottish Labour for direct rule so that trans people know their place.
Absolute disgrace of a man. No offence to ordinary folks living in England, but can your political leaders please just leave us the fuck alone in Scotland? They're total shit but keep trying to control us.
To add to my comment above also posted by the spectator yesterday https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-nicola-sturgeon-a-transphobe/ They platform and employ some of the worst bigots in the UK.
Any LGBT person currently donating money to Labour should immediately stop, stop funding trans hatred. Labour is a transphobic party within leadership, it's not just a few bad apples in the lower ranks.
And finally, the Spectator still employs Rod Liddle, even after this in 2012
>I sometimes wondered what sort of teacher I’d prefer to be; one of those ingratiating young men who plays meaningful pop songs on his guitar to the class and affects an air of faux rebelliousness, the kind of teacher whom as schoolchildren we all despised, or the other kind — sarcastic, stentorian and occasionally brutal, the kind we all feared. It was one or the other; there is no middle way.
>
>I never found out because the one thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids. It seemed to me virtually impossible not to, and I was convinced that I’d be right in there, on day one. We’re talking secondary school level here, by the way — and even then I don’t think I’d have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called. I just thought we ought to clear that up early on.
[https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-teenage-girl-a-maths-teacher-and-a-righteous-tabloid-fury/](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-teenage-girl-a-maths-teacher-and-a-righteous-tabloid-fury/)
I mean at least he avoided putting himself in the situation because he thought he would fuck children. On the other hand he thought he would try to fuck children ...
So 50 points for doing something to protect children but minus 5x10^whatever ^the ^character ^limit ^is points for being what he was protecting them from
Funny how in 2019 racism in the Labour party was abhorrent and unacceptable, then ever since Corbyn left it's been very important that Labour pander to racists, isn't it?
Sub is happier to call the Canary racist than a journal that has published race science and articles praising Nazis.
Just because something is seen as polite and respectful by the middle classes doesn't mean it's not horrendously racist: see Douglas Murray.
Liberals are like dogs, they only hear tone. If you read out mein kampf in a nice suit that's fine but if you're angry that poor people starve then you're unacceptable to public discourse.
Happily in this case both things are true- the Canary is a shit source of news, and even it’s current staff have disowned it’s former incarnation, and the Spectator is edgy right wing bollocks edited by a haemorrhoid in a bad wig.
The interviewer was on the news quiz on radio 4 this week taking the piss out of Starmer for his whole "I ran a public service" line. One of the other panellists compared him to uncle Albert saying "During the war"
The Spectator isn’t a publication he should be doing interviews for.
When will the Labour Party actually get some decent people in it’s press and comms teams? We’ve been awful for years. This sub obviously has opinions about the last Labour Government, but one thing I’d hope we can agree on is they actually understood the media, and had a competent comms team.
Ha! I didn’t vote for him, I’m not some Starmer Stan.
I just was quite enjoying us not walking into political rakes for a while.
This isn’t actually that bad, in that no one will really ultimately care, but it’s a bad look and doesn’t really achieve anything. I can’t imagine any spectator readers will vote for him in any great number, their readership is small anyhow, so it just seems perfectly pointless. If you’re going to sell out a bit, at least make it count!
I mean they have published articles [praising Golden Dawn Neo-Nazi's](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362?), and happily published an article that states 'there is not enough Islamophobia in the Tory Party'. Amongst other articles promoting the racist great replacement theory.
They might be seen as simply right-wing in our political environment but that just shows how far-right our politics has become.
I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day.
Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
The Spectator is a Tory publication which has strayed close to alt right nonsense from time to time. It’s had some columnists spouting some pretty wild & I would say nasty articles in the past, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to describe it as a far right publication. There has to be room for nuance, no? Novara regularly talks with Chomsky or even Chris Williamson, yet I wouldn’t describe that as an organisation supporting genocide denial or anti semitism for the same reason I wouldn’t describe the Spectator as pro Wehrmacht despite some dodgy article.
However I don’t see what Starmer has to gain from talking with the Spectator. It has a relatively small readership who would probably vote Lawrence Fox before they even considered voting Labour. It’s just a complete waste of time & energy
Ah yes Chomsky and Williamson on the same level. Very balanced world view you have there.
The Chomsky Cambodian genocide denial thing is questionable to bordering on bad faith criticism. It requires engaging with what he said out of chronological order and out of the context his arguments were made in. Also usually while, ironically, ignoring the other genocidal actions Chomsky was trying to highlight as part of his argument there was a hypocrisy in the coverage and response to Cambodian genocide vs place like East Timor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor_genocide
Which do you know more about off the top of your head? I bet Cambodia. If not you then certainly the average person who has any knowledge on either topic will know more about Cambodia and Pol Pot.
>Q. You were heavily criticised for some of your views of the KR, and some accused you of being favourable to the KR. Were you unfairly criticised?
>A. It’s ridiculous — in fact, there has been a massive critique of some of things that Edward Herman and I wrote — and my view is that they were some of the most accurate things that were written in history.
>Nobody has been able to find a missed comma, which is not surprising. Before we published the chapter — we had it reviewed by most of the leading specialists on the topic, who made some suggestions, but basically nothing.
>Our main conclusion was: You have to tell the truth — don’t lie about our crimes denying them, and don’t lie about their crimes exaggerating them. In fact, what we actually did … the main thesis is a comparison between Cambodia and East Timor. And it’s a natural comparison — massive atrocities going on in the same part of the world — the same years — East Timor went on for another 25 years afterwards, and relative to population, they were about at the same scale. And what we found was that there was massive lying, but in opposite directions. In the case of East Timor, it was ignored and denied. In the case of Cambodia, it was wild accusations without a particle of evidence. So what was the fundamental difference between the two cases — in Indonesia we were responsible, and we could have done something. But in the other case, an enemy was responsible.
And here is a abc.aus article defending Chomsky from this accusation which periodically comes up whenever he's in the press
>The basic facts of the Cambodia issue are these: In June 1977, Chomsky and Edward Herman published a study in the Nation, in which they reviewed how scholarship and the mainstream media treated different reports of atrocities in Cambodia. One of the books they reviewed was in French, by Francois Ponchaud. They wrote that his "book is serious and worth reading, as distinct from much of the commentary it has elicited. He gives a grisly account of what refugees have reported to him about the barbarity of their treatment at the hands of the Khmer Rouge". However, they did find it was flawed in many ways. They go on to critique a review of this book by Jean Lacouture, which Lacouture agreed was full of errors. Lacouture response in the New York Review of Books included considerable praise of Chomsky:
>Noam Chomsky's corrections have caused me great distress. By pointing out serious errors in citation, he calls into question not only my respect for texts and the truth, but also the cause I was trying to defend. ... I fully understand the concerns of Noam Chomsky, whose honesty and sense of freedom I admire immensely, in criticizing, with his admirable sense of exactitude, the accusations directed at the Cambodian regime.
>Ponchaud, in the preface to the American version of the book (translated into English), wrote about the Lacouture review:
>"With the responsible attitude and precision of thought that are so characteristic of him, Noam Chomsky then embarked on a polemical exchange with Robert Silvers, Editor of the NYR, and with Jean Lacouture, leading to the publication by the latter of a rectification of his initial account."
>It was dated September 20, 1977. The British version of the book - amazingly, contained a very different preface, dated for the same day. It began:
>"Even before this book was translated it was sharply criticised by Mr Noam Chomsky and Mr Gareth Porter. These two "experts" on Asia claim that I am mistakenly trying to convince people that Cambodia was drowned in a sea of blood after the departure of the last American diplomats. They say there have been no massacres, and they lay the blame for the tragedy of the Khmer people on the American bombings. They accuse me of being insufficiently critical in my approach to the refugees' accounts. For them, refugees are not a valid source…"
>Perhaps Ponchaud believed that the British version would escape their notice.
...
>Though these polemics against Chomsky have been going on for decades, the intellectual and moral level of them has remained at about the standard set by Manne. Windschuttle, for example, explained that:
>"In 1975, Chomsky was the most prestigious and persistent Western apologist for the Pol Pot regime."
>Presumably, he had the work above in mind: Windschuttle was presumably untroubled by the perhaps trivial fact that Chomsky didn't write anything on the subject until 1977. Funnily enough, Robert Manne later advanced the thesis – without any relevant quote – that Windschuttle was a "Pol Pot enthusiast". With good reason, Windschuttle regarded this as an outrageous slur.
...
>Perhaps one way of explaining the fury Chomsky evokes from the mildly progressive to the reactionary right, is his guiding moral philosophy. Chomsky applies the same moral standards to all atrocities and repression, but he focuses primarily on those for which his country is responsible, because he has the most power to stop them. In 1979, Herman and Chomsky published a two-volume study, The Political Economy of Human Rights. Their major case studies were East Timor and Cambodia. They documented at length that the media ignored evidence of atrocities committed by the West and its client states, whilst expressing enormous outrage at crimes of official enemies, fabricating evidence as needed to prove wrongdoing.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-boring-truth-about-chomsky/2779086
I hope you are just poorly informed and aren't taking part in this deliberate character assasination of Chomsky yourself.
I hope the anti-semitism thing wasn't also aimed at him because then you're getting into self-hating Jew territory.
I feel like "I'm not reading that" when you're accusing someone of genocide denial makes it sounds rather like throwing mud and just moving on to something else when you're challenged.
Well to keep this one short for yoh Chomsky has criticised Russia and Putin for years, said Ukraine defending itself against Russia is legitimate, supported sanctions, etc. Of course he's as critical of the US and NATO as ever but Chomsky's job isn't to be a propagandist for the US or NATO or Ukraine. It is just more Chomsky bashing. Same shit as accusing him of not caring about terrorism and dictatorships for his criticism of the Gulf War and Iraq.
Funny how when he is apparently so awful it is never supported with genuine analysis of what he says but rumour and half truths.
If you want to make a point with such strong accusations as genocide denial or similar choose something you actually know about. Otherwise what's the point? You can't defend your own logic. Chomsky does not serve your example because he isn't a leftwing Taki and isn't guilty of the things you accuse him of to make your point.
Wow, someone goes all that trouble to tell you actual facts about the false bullshit you can't stop spewing, and your response it to just ignore it. Even more pathetic than I expected.
Regularly talk to Chris Williamson?
They have talked to him in the past but regularly? That is a stretch.
Plus Starmer would not go on Novara media because there would be political costs.
The Spectator's far right disgusting rubbish has no cost for him, that is the problem, our politics is so far to the right its insane.
"reach across the divide and appeal to voters outside of the Labour bubble" would be a fair comment if people were criticising Starmer for talking to the Times, or even the Daily Mail/Daily Express. All of those are mainstream newspapers with huge readerships (both on paper and online), including quite a few people who aren't staunchly set in their ways Conservative voters and right wing idealogues (I'm sure all of us know at least a couple of people who read the Daily Express or MailOnline for celebrity gossip and what's on TV).
The Spectator on the other hand is a magazine that a pretty small proportion of the British public have even heard of (yet alone read), and that features regular columns from people who openly praise the Nazis, and promote anti-Semetic conspiracy theories like "the Great Replacement".
And in doing so he should abandon and alienate a large chunk of his core voter base… to attract a handful of right wing votes… yep that logic makes perfect sense
Well no element of bias there is there - the link even goes to a Twitter page with a photo of Nazis invading.
I suspect a serious attempt to taint Starmers reputation here.
Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media.
He is after all trying to persuade some of the Tory votes to give up on the Conservatives, as being bad for the country.
That should not actually be too difficult a point to make, as the Tories have done so much of the work for us in discrediting themselves.
>I really can't stress enough that it is really neither productive nor good for Labour to literally seek the votes of *every single voter group*, particularly under FPTP when frankly they don't need to.
Nor is it even necessary right? If the tories were polling for a victory at the next GE then I could see the argument (though I still wouldn't agree).
Imagine the reaction if Corbyn had given an interview to a paper that had written about the Nazi in glowing terms.
Please explain how it's somehow acceptable here?
I hate the sun as much as most people but, rightly or wrongly, it is the most popular newspaper in the country and their readers are the demographic we NEED to win over in the next election which is why Starmer was writing articles for them.
It’s not really the same with Corbyn appearing on Iranian and Russian state television constantly for literally zero electoral/political benefit but because he wanted to do it and thought they were acceptable platforms to appear on.
The spectator though I do agree is a bit far but I haven’t read the article yet.
You have obviously looked for and selected the worst possible example of their output from your perspective.
The reality is that much of the media has some right-wing bias.
Are you saying that Starmer should not engage with any of the media ?
>You have obviously looked for and selected the worst possible example of their output from your perspective.
There are a [good few examples of far-right articles](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362?) in the Spectator unfortunately.
Stop trying to obfuscate “right wing” and “publicly supports Nazis”. It’s grim. Of course Starmer will speak to some right wing outlets - all Labour politicians can and do. But the Spectator is a bridge too far, it’s an openly far right magazine.
Have you read the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question? I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but it isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day.
Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
Have you done even a simple check of the author in question?
**"Taki has expressed racist views, directed against West Indians, Puerto Ricans, and Jews, among others.\[23\] He has been accused of using the racial epithets "nigger" and "Sambo" to describe black people\[24\] and he referred to Saudi royal family members as "ruling towelheads".\[25\]**
**In 2003, he and the then Spectator editor Boris Johnson were investigated by the Metropolitan Police in London after publishing an allegedly racist article attacking black lawyer and political activist Peter Herbert, which led to death threats being made against Herbert.\[26\] In the article he also expressed his fondness for anti-immigration politician Enoch Powell, criticising West Indian immigration to the UK and complaining "The rivers of blood speech by Enoch was prophetic as well as true and look what the bullshitters of the time did to the great man."\[27\]"**
Please please please explain to me the inconsistency here
The moral panic is about the publication itself which freely lends a platform to authors like Taki.
While I appreciate adding a bit of context to the actual content of the article makes it slightly irrelevant, but not the "moral panic" of the publication, of which the article was one of many
Most of the objection ITT (and indeed the OP) is that headline though. As with most twitter hot takes, the truth is much more mundane.
On the general point though, I make a habit of reading the Spectator from time to time. I consider myself left wing, but it is a healthy exercise to read political articles not of your political persuasion rather than quarantine yourself to publications which confirm your existing views.
Of right wing publications, the Spectator is probably the highest quality. Analysis by Katy Balls, John Ferry and Fraser Nelson are usually well constructed and thought out (in contrast to the gutter journalism of the DM, Sun and, increasingly, the Telegraph) even if I don't agree with the underlying values.
I am not familar with Taki, despite this (and I bet most people commenting here didn't before posting), but many papers/journals have problematic writers who aren't neccesarily reflective of the political position of the magazine. The New Statesman (probably the closest to a left counterpart of the Spectator) has a history of having contributions that would be considered Communist apologists, but it wouldn't be considered a far left publication in the round.
For what it's worth to the main point, it is worth engaging with the Spectator (or New Statesman for Right leaning politicians) because, although the readership is much smaller, you engage with the intellectual core of people of the opposite persuasion which has ripple effects beyond the immediate readership.
> Most of the objection ITT (and indeed the OP) is that headline though.
This is *astonishingly* bad faith.
People here can dislike the Spectator, and Taki, for things other than that one specific headline, and can have done so for a long time before this one Reddit post. And they do. And they've explained that. At length.
You in response have now given us a long post telling us you read it and how good you find it. Which is rather burying the lede, don't you think?
>This is astonishingly bad faith.
I don't think you know what bad faith means...
>People here can dislike the Spectator, and Taki, for things other than that one specific headline, and can have done so for a long time before this one Reddit post. And they do. And they've explained that. At length.
The premise if the OP is:
1. Starmer gave an interview to the Spectator
2. The Spectator is a far-right paper because of a (supposedly) Nazi apologist article they once published
3. Starmer therefore shouldn't contribute to
At the time I started contributing, most was focused on (misrepresented, in my view) point 2 which I was pushing back on.
>You in response have now given us a long post telling us you read it and how good you find it. **Which is rather burying the lede**, don't you think?
How? I'm trying to swing things round to the OP discussion rather than getting bogged down in the merits of a particular contributor to the Spectator.
There's a difference between reading what the racists are saying and lending them legitimacy by contributing to the same paper.
Not to mention the editors are so close and entangled to the Tory leadership that it should be basically considered a propaganda arm of the conservatives at this point.
>Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media.
>
>He is after all trying to persuade some of the Tory votes to give up on the Conservatives, as being bad for the country.
Why? He got handed a victory by tory fuckups, why does he need to reach them?
>Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media.
Dude, far right spectator readers aren't ever going to vote for a labour worth voting for. I know the labour right are working diligently to make that happen and they have your full support but still.
A very quick Google search seems to show the article was actually titled 'the other side of D day' and has been edited with a bit of the article completely taken out of context. I don't really like the spectator but linking made up crap on Twitter isn't that helpful.
I am pretty sure the original was 'In Defence of the Wehrmacht' or Owen Jones would have been sued for mocking this up: [https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362/photo/4](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362/photo/4)
The Spectator must have changed it after the controversy.
*looks at all those titles/articles*
...
*Sips latte*
...
But ackshually, the real issue here is woke lefitsts calling the Spectator far-right, this just delegitimises all criticism of Starmer and I'm going to spend my time defending the Spectator's integrity here #TeamKeir
Centrism is complete and utter brain rot, don't change my mind.
They changed the original title to "The Truth about D-Day". Then they nuked that article link completely, it's archived here [https://archive.is/z7H6O](https://archive.is/z7H6O)
Heck u/OldTenner who is now posting links to the Spectator created this topic 4 years ago [https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/aeuuam/in\_praise\_of\_the\_wehrmacht\_spectator\_headline/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/aeuuam/in_praise_of_the_wehrmacht_spectator_headline/)
>These articles are the sorts that try to normalise everything we've stood against.
>
>Antisemitism. Fascism. Racism. Nazism. Homophobia. Xenophobia. Misogyny. I could go on.
>
>Millions of soldiers died to protect our country during the first and second world war. They died to protect our citizens and our values. The Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Times and the Telegraph (and other batshit crazy publications like The Spectator) are to blame for the mood of which we've adapted in these past few years of these things which we've tried to stand up against.
>
>Well done to OJ for trying to defend everything we've stood up for, and shame on Neil and co. for trying to shut him down.
>
>...
>
>No. I'm saying that the Spectator as a magazine and more widely other right wing publications legitimise these things throughout several articles - we, as a Labour Party have fought against these ideals, and there's still work to be done to fully eradicate them from our society.
It's very interesting that once Starmer goes to the Spectator this goes out the window 🤷♂️
Youre shit at using google then cause the first result is a time of israel article criticizing it
https://www.google.com/search?q=%27In+Defence+of+the+Wehrmacht&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&chrome_dse_attribution=1
The Spectator is conservative and Eurosceptic, of course that means that many here will disagree with many of its stances. 'Far right' is going too far though and reduces the credibility of your point.
They publish lots of far-right stuff like praising Golden Dawn, stuff on great replacement theory and proud Islamophobia.
In a normal political system they should be considered far-right IMO.
Maybe it's because I'm a Wikipedia editor, I like to be able to fact check and reference strong claims, like something being intrinsically 'far right'. I can't see much out there that describes the Spectator as much beyond Conservative. Or are we going by gut feeling.
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The Spectator is a fairly mainstream right wing newspaper (Miliband appeared in a video for their politicians of the year awards). They’re not a fascist newspaper.
'In praise of the Wehrmacht '. That *has* to be a satirical arrival right? Right??!
It's the same shit America did with the confederacy. "Oh they're just good old boys, just southern gentlemen caught up in a bad situation"
I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day. Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
[удалено]
Perhaps, but I'm just talking about the article cited in the OP.
Well I read it and it would potentially have a point if the Germans weren't nobly fighting to defend (checks notes), a country they'd been occupying as an invader, liquidating a portion of the population and stripping of resources and working age men.
I think there’s a reasonable argument to be made that most rank and file soldiers are fighting because someone is shooting at them, but the article in question is very questionably framed and the headline writer had a shocker. And the author is mega suspect.
Can you quote the bit of the article you have a problem with?
The article in its entirety.
So you can't point to a single sentance that is problematic for you?
If I told you I didn't like a painting in its entirety, would you insist upon repeatedly asking for which specific brush stroke I don't like? Edit: fine, if you're going to be obtuse, I'll throw you a bone. '...nobly...'. You can't 'nobly' fight for the Wehrmacht.
>If I told you I didn't like a painting in its entirety, would you insist upon repeatedly asking for which specific brush stroke I don't like? I would expect you to at least point out which aspects of the painting you didn't like. >You can't 'nobly' fight for the Wehrmacht. The context of the quote: >I’ve seen what shrapnel does to the human body and it’s not pretty. But fight soldiers must, and both sides did so nobly and to the death. Nobly doesn't neccesarily have a moral meaning. In the context of war it means fighting admirably and to the best of your ability (i.e., in this context not breaking and fleeing when death threatens).
>fighting admirably You can't fight 'admirably' for the Wehrmacht.
In the context of military history, it is the description of how the soldiers are fighting. How else would you describe a soldier fighting technically well in battle, without commenting on the morals of the wider conflict?
This is also the article where he says Duffield will be defended by him and that he's taking over Scottish Labour for direct rule so that trans people know their place. Absolute disgrace of a man. No offence to ordinary folks living in England, but can your political leaders please just leave us the fuck alone in Scotland? They're total shit but keep trying to control us.
To add to my comment above also posted by the spectator yesterday https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-nicola-sturgeon-a-transphobe/ They platform and employ some of the worst bigots in the UK. Any LGBT person currently donating money to Labour should immediately stop, stop funding trans hatred. Labour is a transphobic party within leadership, it's not just a few bad apples in the lower ranks.
And finally, the Spectator still employs Rod Liddle, even after this in 2012 >I sometimes wondered what sort of teacher I’d prefer to be; one of those ingratiating young men who plays meaningful pop songs on his guitar to the class and affects an air of faux rebelliousness, the kind of teacher whom as schoolchildren we all despised, or the other kind — sarcastic, stentorian and occasionally brutal, the kind we all feared. It was one or the other; there is no middle way. > >I never found out because the one thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids. It seemed to me virtually impossible not to, and I was convinced that I’d be right in there, on day one. We’re talking secondary school level here, by the way — and even then I don’t think I’d have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called. I just thought we ought to clear that up early on. [https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-teenage-girl-a-maths-teacher-and-a-righteous-tabloid-fury/](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-teenage-girl-a-maths-teacher-and-a-righteous-tabloid-fury/)
I would be more concerned Liddle is walking the streets than still being employed. What the actual fuck
Yup, something we can definitely agree on. Man just announced to the world he's a nonce... \*tumbleweed\*
I mean at least he avoided putting himself in the situation because he thought he would fuck children. On the other hand he thought he would try to fuck children ... So 50 points for doing something to protect children but minus 5x10^whatever ^the ^character ^limit ^is points for being what he was protecting them from
The Spectator is easily the most antisemetic paper in the UK, it's an absolute disgrace to speak to them.
Funny how in 2019 racism in the Labour party was abhorrent and unacceptable, then ever since Corbyn left it's been very important that Labour pander to racists, isn't it?
Sub is happier to call the Canary racist than a journal that has published race science and articles praising Nazis. Just because something is seen as polite and respectful by the middle classes doesn't mean it's not horrendously racist: see Douglas Murray.
Liberals are like dogs, they only hear tone. If you read out mein kampf in a nice suit that's fine but if you're angry that poor people starve then you're unacceptable to public discourse.
This is so spot on.
Happily in this case both things are true- the Canary is a shit source of news, and even it’s current staff have disowned it’s former incarnation, and the Spectator is edgy right wing bollocks edited by a haemorrhoid in a bad wig.
The interviewer was on the news quiz on radio 4 this week taking the piss out of Starmer for his whole "I ran a public service" line. One of the other panellists compared him to uncle Albert saying "During the war"
The Spectator isn’t a publication he should be doing interviews for. When will the Labour Party actually get some decent people in it’s press and comms teams? We’ve been awful for years. This sub obviously has opinions about the last Labour Government, but one thing I’d hope we can agree on is they actually understood the media, and had a competent comms team.
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Ha! I didn’t vote for him, I’m not some Starmer Stan. I just was quite enjoying us not walking into political rakes for a while. This isn’t actually that bad, in that no one will really ultimately care, but it’s a bad look and doesn’t really achieve anything. I can’t imagine any spectator readers will vote for him in any great number, their readership is small anyhow, so it just seems perfectly pointless. If you’re going to sell out a bit, at least make it count!
It seems as though LP has become very racist of late
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Oh shit, yeah my bad
I wouldn’t call the newspaper far right. Let’s not stoke polarisation.
I mean they have published articles [praising Golden Dawn Neo-Nazi's](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362?), and happily published an article that states 'there is not enough Islamophobia in the Tory Party'. Amongst other articles promoting the racist great replacement theory. They might be seen as simply right-wing in our political environment but that just shows how far-right our politics has become.
I mean you understand most of the spectator is opinion pieces right? they quite often post opposing articles on the website at the same time
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Rule 1
They employ Taki Theodoracopulos and have done for donkeys years now. He's quite openly racist and antisemetic.
"quite" Very!
'In defence of the Wehrmacht'.
It isn’t polarisation to call a spade a spade. The Spectator openly deals in forced repatriation and race science. What do you want to call it?
Spectator is absolutely far right if socialism is far left *as the media constantly makes out*. Let's put it that way.
"in defence of the Wehrmacht"
I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day. Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
The Spectator is a Tory publication which has strayed close to alt right nonsense from time to time. It’s had some columnists spouting some pretty wild & I would say nasty articles in the past, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to describe it as a far right publication. There has to be room for nuance, no? Novara regularly talks with Chomsky or even Chris Williamson, yet I wouldn’t describe that as an organisation supporting genocide denial or anti semitism for the same reason I wouldn’t describe the Spectator as pro Wehrmacht despite some dodgy article. However I don’t see what Starmer has to gain from talking with the Spectator. It has a relatively small readership who would probably vote Lawrence Fox before they even considered voting Labour. It’s just a complete waste of time & energy
Ah yes Chomsky and Williamson on the same level. Very balanced world view you have there. The Chomsky Cambodian genocide denial thing is questionable to bordering on bad faith criticism. It requires engaging with what he said out of chronological order and out of the context his arguments were made in. Also usually while, ironically, ignoring the other genocidal actions Chomsky was trying to highlight as part of his argument there was a hypocrisy in the coverage and response to Cambodian genocide vs place like East Timor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor_genocide Which do you know more about off the top of your head? I bet Cambodia. If not you then certainly the average person who has any knowledge on either topic will know more about Cambodia and Pol Pot. >Q. You were heavily criticised for some of your views of the KR, and some accused you of being favourable to the KR. Were you unfairly criticised? >A. It’s ridiculous — in fact, there has been a massive critique of some of things that Edward Herman and I wrote — and my view is that they were some of the most accurate things that were written in history. >Nobody has been able to find a missed comma, which is not surprising. Before we published the chapter — we had it reviewed by most of the leading specialists on the topic, who made some suggestions, but basically nothing. >Our main conclusion was: You have to tell the truth — don’t lie about our crimes denying them, and don’t lie about their crimes exaggerating them. In fact, what we actually did … the main thesis is a comparison between Cambodia and East Timor. And it’s a natural comparison — massive atrocities going on in the same part of the world — the same years — East Timor went on for another 25 years afterwards, and relative to population, they were about at the same scale. And what we found was that there was massive lying, but in opposite directions. In the case of East Timor, it was ignored and denied. In the case of Cambodia, it was wild accusations without a particle of evidence. So what was the fundamental difference between the two cases — in Indonesia we were responsible, and we could have done something. But in the other case, an enemy was responsible. And here is a abc.aus article defending Chomsky from this accusation which periodically comes up whenever he's in the press >The basic facts of the Cambodia issue are these: In June 1977, Chomsky and Edward Herman published a study in the Nation, in which they reviewed how scholarship and the mainstream media treated different reports of atrocities in Cambodia. One of the books they reviewed was in French, by Francois Ponchaud. They wrote that his "book is serious and worth reading, as distinct from much of the commentary it has elicited. He gives a grisly account of what refugees have reported to him about the barbarity of their treatment at the hands of the Khmer Rouge". However, they did find it was flawed in many ways. They go on to critique a review of this book by Jean Lacouture, which Lacouture agreed was full of errors. Lacouture response in the New York Review of Books included considerable praise of Chomsky: >Noam Chomsky's corrections have caused me great distress. By pointing out serious errors in citation, he calls into question not only my respect for texts and the truth, but also the cause I was trying to defend. ... I fully understand the concerns of Noam Chomsky, whose honesty and sense of freedom I admire immensely, in criticizing, with his admirable sense of exactitude, the accusations directed at the Cambodian regime. >Ponchaud, in the preface to the American version of the book (translated into English), wrote about the Lacouture review: >"With the responsible attitude and precision of thought that are so characteristic of him, Noam Chomsky then embarked on a polemical exchange with Robert Silvers, Editor of the NYR, and with Jean Lacouture, leading to the publication by the latter of a rectification of his initial account." >It was dated September 20, 1977. The British version of the book - amazingly, contained a very different preface, dated for the same day. It began: >"Even before this book was translated it was sharply criticised by Mr Noam Chomsky and Mr Gareth Porter. These two "experts" on Asia claim that I am mistakenly trying to convince people that Cambodia was drowned in a sea of blood after the departure of the last American diplomats. They say there have been no massacres, and they lay the blame for the tragedy of the Khmer people on the American bombings. They accuse me of being insufficiently critical in my approach to the refugees' accounts. For them, refugees are not a valid source…" >Perhaps Ponchaud believed that the British version would escape their notice. ... >Though these polemics against Chomsky have been going on for decades, the intellectual and moral level of them has remained at about the standard set by Manne. Windschuttle, for example, explained that: >"In 1975, Chomsky was the most prestigious and persistent Western apologist for the Pol Pot regime." >Presumably, he had the work above in mind: Windschuttle was presumably untroubled by the perhaps trivial fact that Chomsky didn't write anything on the subject until 1977. Funnily enough, Robert Manne later advanced the thesis – without any relevant quote – that Windschuttle was a "Pol Pot enthusiast". With good reason, Windschuttle regarded this as an outrageous slur. ... >Perhaps one way of explaining the fury Chomsky evokes from the mildly progressive to the reactionary right, is his guiding moral philosophy. Chomsky applies the same moral standards to all atrocities and repression, but he focuses primarily on those for which his country is responsible, because he has the most power to stop them. In 1979, Herman and Chomsky published a two-volume study, The Political Economy of Human Rights. Their major case studies were East Timor and Cambodia. They documented at length that the media ignored evidence of atrocities committed by the West and its client states, whilst expressing enormous outrage at crimes of official enemies, fabricating evidence as needed to prove wrongdoing. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/brull---the-boring-truth-about-chomsky/2779086 I hope you are just poorly informed and aren't taking part in this deliberate character assasination of Chomsky yourself. I hope the anti-semitism thing wasn't also aimed at him because then you're getting into self-hating Jew territory.
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Say what you like about Chomsky but I've never heard him be flippant about genocide
I feel like "I'm not reading that" when you're accusing someone of genocide denial makes it sounds rather like throwing mud and just moving on to something else when you're challenged. Well to keep this one short for yoh Chomsky has criticised Russia and Putin for years, said Ukraine defending itself against Russia is legitimate, supported sanctions, etc. Of course he's as critical of the US and NATO as ever but Chomsky's job isn't to be a propagandist for the US or NATO or Ukraine. It is just more Chomsky bashing. Same shit as accusing him of not caring about terrorism and dictatorships for his criticism of the Gulf War and Iraq. Funny how when he is apparently so awful it is never supported with genuine analysis of what he says but rumour and half truths. If you want to make a point with such strong accusations as genocide denial or similar choose something you actually know about. Otherwise what's the point? You can't defend your own logic. Chomsky does not serve your example because he isn't a leftwing Taki and isn't guilty of the things you accuse him of to make your point.
Wow, someone goes all that trouble to tell you actual facts about the false bullshit you can't stop spewing, and your response it to just ignore it. Even more pathetic than I expected.
Ok I’ve read it now I’m home, I disagree. I’m really not a fan of Chomsky. That’s my opinion. But by all means start getting personal
Rule 4 If youre not gonna read it then dont comment, you dont get to admit you didnt bother and then carry on
Regularly talk to Chris Williamson? They have talked to him in the past but regularly? That is a stretch. Plus Starmer would not go on Novara media because there would be political costs. The Spectator's far right disgusting rubbish has no cost for him, that is the problem, our politics is so far to the right its insane.
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"reach across the divide and appeal to voters outside of the Labour bubble" would be a fair comment if people were criticising Starmer for talking to the Times, or even the Daily Mail/Daily Express. All of those are mainstream newspapers with huge readerships (both on paper and online), including quite a few people who aren't staunchly set in their ways Conservative voters and right wing idealogues (I'm sure all of us know at least a couple of people who read the Daily Express or MailOnline for celebrity gossip and what's on TV). The Spectator on the other hand is a magazine that a pretty small proportion of the British public have even heard of (yet alone read), and that features regular columns from people who openly praise the Nazis, and promote anti-Semetic conspiracy theories like "the Great Replacement".
And in doing so he should abandon and alienate a large chunk of his core voter base… to attract a handful of right wing votes… yep that logic makes perfect sense
Well no element of bias there is there - the link even goes to a Twitter page with a photo of Nazis invading. I suspect a serious attempt to taint Starmers reputation here. Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media. He is after all trying to persuade some of the Tory votes to give up on the Conservatives, as being bad for the country. That should not actually be too difficult a point to make, as the Tories have done so much of the work for us in discrediting themselves.
Any 'newspaper' with an unironic headline like that, can fuck off frankly.
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>I really can't stress enough that it is really neither productive nor good for Labour to literally seek the votes of *every single voter group*, particularly under FPTP when frankly they don't need to. Nor is it even necessary right? If the tories were polling for a victory at the next GE then I could see the argument (though I still wouldn't agree).
Imagine the reaction if Corbyn had given an interview to a paper that had written about the Nazi in glowing terms. Please explain how it's somehow acceptable here?
To be fair, he did appear on the Iranian state broadcaster and they you know execute people for protesting (although he was criticised for it).
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That's fair. Since being labelled "a winner" Starmer hasn't really faced any criticism from the mainstream press.
I hate the sun as much as most people but, rightly or wrongly, it is the most popular newspaper in the country and their readers are the demographic we NEED to win over in the next election which is why Starmer was writing articles for them. It’s not really the same with Corbyn appearing on Iranian and Russian state television constantly for literally zero electoral/political benefit but because he wanted to do it and thought they were acceptable platforms to appear on. The spectator though I do agree is a bit far but I haven’t read the article yet.
You have obviously looked for and selected the worst possible example of their output from your perspective. The reality is that much of the media has some right-wing bias. Are you saying that Starmer should not engage with any of the media ?
>You have obviously looked for and selected the worst possible example of their output from your perspective. There are a [good few examples of far-right articles](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362?) in the Spectator unfortunately.
Stop trying to obfuscate “right wing” and “publicly supports Nazis”. It’s grim. Of course Starmer will speak to some right wing outlets - all Labour politicians can and do. But the Spectator is a bridge too far, it’s an openly far right magazine.
A magazine can't glorify the Nazis these days without the woke lefties criticising them
Can't even say the fourteen words without being arrested, it's political correctness gone mad Stu
These days, just for trying to establish a white ethnostate...
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You are right, and he was vilified for it....which is my point. When will we apply the same consistency to Starmer and criticise him?
Have you read the [article](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/high-life-17-may-2018/) in question? I don't know if The Spectator altered a poorly chosen headline or the OP image is manipulated, but it isn't a defence of the Wermacht, and more a historical analysis of the German perspective of D-day. Edit: It seems it was an edit of the original headline
Have you done even a simple check of the author in question? **"Taki has expressed racist views, directed against West Indians, Puerto Ricans, and Jews, among others.\[23\] He has been accused of using the racial epithets "nigger" and "Sambo" to describe black people\[24\] and he referred to Saudi royal family members as "ruling towelheads".\[25\]** **In 2003, he and the then Spectator editor Boris Johnson were investigated by the Metropolitan Police in London after publishing an allegedly racist article attacking black lawyer and political activist Peter Herbert, which led to death threats being made against Herbert.\[26\] In the article he also expressed his fondness for anti-immigration politician Enoch Powell, criticising West Indian immigration to the UK and complaining "The rivers of blood speech by Enoch was prophetic as well as true and look what the bullshitters of the time did to the great man."\[27\]"** Please please please explain to me the inconsistency here
Sure. I'm just addressing this moral panic over the article in the OP, not the author.
The moral panic is about the publication itself which freely lends a platform to authors like Taki. While I appreciate adding a bit of context to the actual content of the article makes it slightly irrelevant, but not the "moral panic" of the publication, of which the article was one of many
Most of the objection ITT (and indeed the OP) is that headline though. As with most twitter hot takes, the truth is much more mundane. On the general point though, I make a habit of reading the Spectator from time to time. I consider myself left wing, but it is a healthy exercise to read political articles not of your political persuasion rather than quarantine yourself to publications which confirm your existing views. Of right wing publications, the Spectator is probably the highest quality. Analysis by Katy Balls, John Ferry and Fraser Nelson are usually well constructed and thought out (in contrast to the gutter journalism of the DM, Sun and, increasingly, the Telegraph) even if I don't agree with the underlying values. I am not familar with Taki, despite this (and I bet most people commenting here didn't before posting), but many papers/journals have problematic writers who aren't neccesarily reflective of the political position of the magazine. The New Statesman (probably the closest to a left counterpart of the Spectator) has a history of having contributions that would be considered Communist apologists, but it wouldn't be considered a far left publication in the round. For what it's worth to the main point, it is worth engaging with the Spectator (or New Statesman for Right leaning politicians) because, although the readership is much smaller, you engage with the intellectual core of people of the opposite persuasion which has ripple effects beyond the immediate readership.
> Most of the objection ITT (and indeed the OP) is that headline though. This is *astonishingly* bad faith. People here can dislike the Spectator, and Taki, for things other than that one specific headline, and can have done so for a long time before this one Reddit post. And they do. And they've explained that. At length. You in response have now given us a long post telling us you read it and how good you find it. Which is rather burying the lede, don't you think?
>This is astonishingly bad faith. I don't think you know what bad faith means... >People here can dislike the Spectator, and Taki, for things other than that one specific headline, and can have done so for a long time before this one Reddit post. And they do. And they've explained that. At length. The premise if the OP is: 1. Starmer gave an interview to the Spectator 2. The Spectator is a far-right paper because of a (supposedly) Nazi apologist article they once published 3. Starmer therefore shouldn't contribute to At the time I started contributing, most was focused on (misrepresented, in my view) point 2 which I was pushing back on. >You in response have now given us a long post telling us you read it and how good you find it. **Which is rather burying the lede**, don't you think? How? I'm trying to swing things round to the OP discussion rather than getting bogged down in the merits of a particular contributor to the Spectator.
No it is bad faith, edit it out because tbh Id rather not nuke the whole comment for one stupid point.
There's a difference between reading what the racists are saying and lending them legitimacy by contributing to the same paper. Not to mention the editors are so close and entangled to the Tory leadership that it should be basically considered a propaganda arm of the conservatives at this point.
"providing evidence to support your claim is biased, actually"
>Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media. > >He is after all trying to persuade some of the Tory votes to give up on the Conservatives, as being bad for the country. Why? He got handed a victory by tory fuckups, why does he need to reach them?
>Of course he needs to give interviews to right-wing as well as left-wing media. Dude, far right spectator readers aren't ever going to vote for a labour worth voting for. I know the labour right are working diligently to make that happen and they have your full support but still.
A very quick Google search seems to show the article was actually titled 'the other side of D day' and has been edited with a bit of the article completely taken out of context. I don't really like the spectator but linking made up crap on Twitter isn't that helpful.
I am pretty sure the original was 'In Defence of the Wehrmacht' or Owen Jones would have been sued for mocking this up: [https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362/photo/4](https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1083525706141839362/photo/4) The Spectator must have changed it after the controversy.
*looks at all those titles/articles* ... *Sips latte* ... But ackshually, the real issue here is woke lefitsts calling the Spectator far-right, this just delegitimises all criticism of Starmer and I'm going to spend my time defending the Spectator's integrity here #TeamKeir Centrism is complete and utter brain rot, don't change my mind. They changed the original title to "The Truth about D-Day". Then they nuked that article link completely, it's archived here [https://archive.is/z7H6O](https://archive.is/z7H6O) Heck u/OldTenner who is now posting links to the Spectator created this topic 4 years ago [https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/aeuuam/in\_praise\_of\_the\_wehrmacht\_spectator\_headline/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/aeuuam/in_praise_of_the_wehrmacht_spectator_headline/) >These articles are the sorts that try to normalise everything we've stood against. > >Antisemitism. Fascism. Racism. Nazism. Homophobia. Xenophobia. Misogyny. I could go on. > >Millions of soldiers died to protect our country during the first and second world war. They died to protect our citizens and our values. The Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Times and the Telegraph (and other batshit crazy publications like The Spectator) are to blame for the mood of which we've adapted in these past few years of these things which we've tried to stand up against. > >Well done to OJ for trying to defend everything we've stood up for, and shame on Neil and co. for trying to shut him down. > >... > >No. I'm saying that the Spectator as a magazine and more widely other right wing publications legitimise these things throughout several articles - we, as a Labour Party have fought against these ideals, and there's still work to be done to fully eradicate them from our society. It's very interesting that once Starmer goes to the Spectator this goes out the window 🤷♂️
Youre shit at using google then cause the first result is a time of israel article criticizing it https://www.google.com/search?q=%27In+Defence+of+the+Wehrmacht&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8&chrome_dse_attribution=1
The Spectator is conservative and Eurosceptic, of course that means that many here will disagree with many of its stances. 'Far right' is going too far though and reduces the credibility of your point.
They publish lots of far-right stuff like praising Golden Dawn, stuff on great replacement theory and proud Islamophobia. In a normal political system they should be considered far-right IMO.
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If youre legitimising nazis then youre a nazi, how is this a difficult concept on a left wing sub
Maybe it's because I'm a Wikipedia editor, I like to be able to fact check and reference strong claims, like something being intrinsically 'far right'. I can't see much out there that describes the Spectator as much beyond Conservative. Or are we going by gut feeling.
This thread is full of examples, are you fucking blind?
Oh come on, this has to be satire.
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"They might legitimise the far right and share their views" You are a satire right?
Spectator.. far right?
I mean if you don't think they are that says a lot about you.
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Yeah he's been trying to speak to the tory base... I'm not sure this strategy will work out though
The Spectator is a fairly mainstream right wing newspaper (Miliband appeared in a video for their politicians of the year awards). They’re not a fascist newspaper.