A propaganda machine? It's an openly center-left newspaper.
Anyway, the very clear ideological orientation, even openly so, is what makes it a "propaganda magazine" of sort (like all ideologically orientated newspapers). I find it very similar to the Daily Mail on the other side of the spectrum, actually. I think the readership is more educated on average so it is more "intellectual" but overall it is the same type of highly orientated take on things.
Interesting that articles from The Guardian appear so often here ;)
Edit: It's saddening that this apparently cannot be said or discussed. Or is it a superiority complex because I compared it to the Daily Mail? (Oh dear, what have I done ;) )
It’s clear to everyone in the ripe that the democrats are on the right leaning side of “centre right”, but half of America thinks they are “far left”. A party that can’t even implement a national health service.
Sure overall it is not as left-wing as, say, Le Monde Diplomatique in France (someone mentioned it in another comment) but still.
Overall, Wikipedia is quite accurate: "The paper's readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion, and the term "Guardian reader" is used to imply a stereotype of a person with modern progressive, left-wing or "politically correct" views." [1]
Public comments on newspaper sites are a very poor judge of the newspaper's political position. Sometimes, even Daily Mail comment threads skew left!
They do have very left-wing columnists, too, quite a few of them, most famous being Owen Jones.
> The Guardian is left-wing and has many very left-wing columnists.
Sure there's some subtle distinction between the paper itself being one thing but still having "many very left-wing columnists", but not a lot.
I stand with what you quoted. This was a honest and rather matter-of-fact statement... But I obviously deserver to be shot for it by the "progressists" it has somehow managed to offend.
Owen Jones is perhaps as close as they come to "very left-wing", and while he is a bona fide socialist, he's certainly not a revolutionary.
This is repeated frequently, but, no, just no.
Name one position by the Democrats that is to the right of typical center to center-right parties such as CDU/CSU, La République En Marche, PP, CDA, ÖVP.
Immigration, abortion, environmental regulations?
On some/many social issues (minorities, abortion, drug policy) Democrats are relatively liberal even by European standards.
There's been a trend recently to call them center-right to make the distinction with far right parties which were anecdotal 50 years ago, but make no mistake, when a party is called center-right, it's a rightwing party, not a center party that could align either with the left or the right depending on the topic.
Macron himself is very centrist to centre left. He started in government in Hollande's cabinet, which was a Socialist Party (= Labour) government. Many top figures in Macron's party now are former Socialist Party.
The rightwing party in France now is effectively the RN (although it is still referred to as "far-right" for historical and tactical reasons).
You would have trouble finding which major policy they made that aligns with the left, while many of their policies effectively dismantled workers’ rights.
Also the former socialists were from the PS’ right wing, which was (in a classic sense) liberal economically as well as on societal issues. That wing was happy supporting rightwing laissez-faire policies. That was the reason Hollande’s PS destroyed itself.
This reminds me of Maoist China where just suggesting a milder approach was enough to get you labeled "rightwinger"! Similarly, the views of the French far-left are not the "French perspective".
> especially after I've just described the French perspective.
Make up your mind.
> Similarly, the views of the French far-left are not the "French perspective".
No one in France is seriously challenging the idea that Macron is rightwing. He's been pursuing the classic rightwing agenda, and has years of political alliance with the other rightwing parties in France.
But then again, considering your talking point is that RN is the only rightwing party, I'm not sure we're having a honest discussion here.
Anyway it is getting excessively tiring not to be able to discuss or say anything so have a nice day.
I find mainstream left of UK to be quite clearly center left. The current Labour government policy could be characterized even as center right.
The sad part is that you can't make the distinction between a paper being opinionated and it being propaganda. Plenty of newspapers have historically had a very strong bias but also a strong commitment to journalism ethics and standards.
Well if it is "opiniated" and has a "very strong bias" I call it propaganda. Again, they are not the only ones and I am not singling them out.
I used a blunt term that seems to ruffle some feathers but it is better to be aware than to take everything we read at face value.
Any journalist or newspaper carries a bias when looking at information. Their ethics and process is what allows them to still publish information that is verified, relevant and to treat topics which they would personally not want to hear about.
If a journalist with a strong bias doesn't check their information and write only what they would like to hear, that's propaganda. But that's not a necessary outcome of having a bias.
None of what you mention contradicts your previous statement, and mine, that they are "opiniated" and "very biased" or that it isn't propaganda according to the dictionary definition I quoted...
Perhaps the issue is that people associate propaganda with false information (which is what you imply). That is not the case.
Corbyn and McDonnell were hardcore socialists and Marxists so if that's what you call "mildly social-democratic" then The Guardian might be Conservative...
It seems that younger people have no references and understanding of political concepts. Corbyn had full-on socialist policies in the Labour manifesto of the time but simply because he used terms like "coop" they seem to have been missed by some...
Blair was centre-left. He didn't try to destroy private schools so that still makes Starmer's government more on the left.
Social democratic and labour parties are, at least were openly socialist at least until the 1990s. UK Labour party is part of the Party of European Socialists and an observing member of Socialist International. Most social democratic parties were "Bernsteinian" with the explicit goal of democratic transition into socialism. Coops have been promoted by both left and right.
At least with a bit longer reference span democratic socialism is not radical or far-left in the European context.
> Coops have been promoted by both left and right.
The "coop" in Corbyn's Labour manifesto were effectively "soviets" as the proposal was to nationalise companies and hand control to the workers by turning them into "coops". This was not "mildly social-democratic"...
The separate "right to own" proposal was an option for workers to buy the company in case of it being sold or dissolved. Similar laws exist in e.g. Italy and in some US states. There was also a proposal for public financing for worker coops, which is also in place in many countries.
E.g in Norway, the conservatives, about 4 parties to the right of the Norwegian Labour Party, not that many years ago argued a blocking minority stake of over 1/3 of the largest bank was a strategic goal for the state.
I that light, the Corbyn labour manifestos were only mildly left wing.
State ownership of some key infrastructure is popular even by a majority conservative voters.
I'm happy that turning 50 this month I'm still lumped in with "younger people", but I find this rather comical.
That further is actually published as the view of the paper as opposed to opinion pieces, that often are "stuff they disagree with" yet still are happy to publish.
The closest I've come to seeing an official statement arguing for some degree of regulation have been mild and vague. Even one stating that the cost of fake campaign videos is real, and pointing out genuine concern over implications to democracy, only called for "paying attention" and "developing suitable responses".
My impression is that The Guardian is about as firm as a wet blanket when it comes to taking a stance against movements leveraging misinformation.
To give you some perspective: I'm a leftist, the guardian represents the polar opposite of very fundamental beliefs all leftists share, they actively undermine and oppose what we believe in. Just because you disagree with both liberal and left-wing views doesn't make them the same. Leftists aren't allied with liberals, we despise them, sometimes we hate them even more than conservatives.
Just a few examples: [1] They were smearing Corbyn constantly as antisemitic (which we leftists view as a smear-campaign by liberals to purge the labor party of it's left-wing, which they successfully did btw.), [2] they did partner with the gates foundation on global development (leftists view the foundation as neoliberal and their development of the global south as part of neocolonialism, we think those are all bad things btw.) and finally [3] they push Israeli/Zionist framing of the genocide in Gaza.
[1] https://mondoweiss.net/2020/08/how-the-guardian-betrayed-not...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-office/guardian-launch...
[3] https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/03/17/guardian-israel...