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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

It's rarely "center-left", more clearly left-wing.

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 ;) )

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Terms like “left” and “centre” lose all meaning internationally.

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.

I am not talking "internationally". Within the UK and European context, The Guardian is left-wing and has many very left-wing columnists. Do read the public comments on articles, and you'll see this is the readership, too (at least the "vocal" ones, perhaps).

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]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian

I live in the UK and this is simply not true. The Guardian is left-wing, for sure, in the sense that it is left of center. But it is not generally regarded as "very left-wing", nor are many of its columnists.

Public comments on newspaper sites are a very poor judge of the newspaper's political position. Sometimes, even Daily Mail comment threads skew left!

I am not sure what is your disagreement, then? It is left-wing, you agree.

They do have very left-wing columnists, too, quite a few of them, most famous being Owen Jones.

Nobody said "very" left-wing. Nobody seems to disagree that it is left-wing.

From the GP:

> 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.

Ah, missed that. Sorry.

Is this what it has come to? Trying to twist every single word as much as possible against their author in the least honest way possible?

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.

The author of what I quoted seems to have reacted to it differently than you are doing. Or perhaps even very differently ...

Yes, clearly I would not have survived the Red Guards.

Could you please name one of these "very left-wing columnists" ? Or maybe two, since you claim it has "many" of them?

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.

> that the democrats are on the right leaning side of “centre right”

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?

Healthcare, welfare, labor rights, public services, hawkish foreign policy.

Public healthcare, tuition-free higher education, gun regulation, unions, social security, taxation, business regulation, criminal penalties.

On some/many social issues (minorities, abortion, drug policy) Democrats are relatively liberal even by European standards.

Interestingly until very recently even the republicans are way to the left of European countries on immigration.

All of these parties are equivalent to the dems. They're rightwing, not center.

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.

I can't comment on the others but "La Republique en Marche" in France (Macron's party) is not rightwing. It goes from centre right to the centre left. From a British perspective it pretty much covers the right of Labour, the Lib Dems, and the left of the Tories.

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).

From a french perspective, it is definitely rightwing.

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 is quite surreal... especially after I've just described the French perspective.

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".

> From a British 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.

Certainly on culture war issues they are far left.

> Edit: It's saddening that this apparently cannot be said or discussed.

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.

propaganda, noun: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.

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.

There's a difference between a journalist and an information or an article.

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.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

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.

They appear so often here because they tend to be good articles.

> It's rarely "center-left", more clearly left-wing.

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...

By European and UK standards, it's a centre-left liberal (as in classical liberalism) paper. In Europe, liberalism is firmly centrist. The Guardian was firmly far to the right of Labour under Corbyn, for example, when Labour was mildly social-democratic, and somewhat more aligned with Labour now when Labour is at its most right wing since Blair - arguably more so. Often to the great frustration of the UK left, where The Guardian is a haven of last resort due to the lack of any major left-wing UK newspapers.

> Labour under Corbyn, for example, when Labour was mildly social-democratic

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.

> 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...

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.

Yes back to the socialist roots, indeed.

> 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 proposal was to (re)nationalize some infrastructure sectors like energy grid, water, rail and mail. Nationalizing these is a very popular policy. There was also proposals for multiple stakeholder boards in these companies, including some worker representation. Worker representation in company boards, including large private companies, is mandatory in e.g. Germany. Calling this as establishing effectively soviets is quite a take.

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.

He argued for some national control of some infrastructure, going nowhere as far as the most successful social democratic parties in Europe, and even not as far as some conservative parties.

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.

Their manifesto promises were to the right of the main social democratic parties in Europe, and even to the right of conservatives in places like Norway. Their personal preferences might well be further left, but their manifestos were not remotely radical by European standards.

I'm happy that turning 50 this month I'm still lumped in with "younger people", but I find this rather comical.

Someone is annoyed their school fees went up. Maybe try harder and get a raise?

Disagree. The Guardian has employed identity politics that are very in line with current left-wing politics, but quite at odds with classical liberalism.

Classical liberalism (Bentham, Mill etc.) is (in today's terms) a center-right philosophy.

One of the key critiques of The Guardian from the UK left is that they are seen as enabling or allowing quite regressive views on some social issues. It's the area where the left is perhaps most negative to them, with it not being unusual to criticise them for allowing e.g. transphobic views, so it's an odd thing to say. They are very much not in line with UK left-wing politics.

I don't think you can be classically liberal and also not be in favour of free speech.

Which aspects of free speech is it you consider The Guardian to oppose and classical liberal thinkers to support?

I would say one area of vulnerability would be the request that mis/disinformation (broadly defined as stuff they disagree with) be suppressed.

Where have they argued for suppression of "disinformation" "broadly defined as stuff they disagree with" should "be suppressed"?

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.

The classical liberals support regulating speech on the basis of the harm principle. The quibbling comes down to what you count as "harm".

This is (deliberate) moving of the Overton window. The Guardian was e.g. heavily against Jeremy Corbyn and was actively involved in purging the left wing of Labour. Left-wing/far-left in UK is something like the Morning Star.

Don't assume bad faith when someone expresses their opinion (see rules). When even Wikipedia describes The Guardian's readership as "generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion" (as I quoted in another comment) there is nothing wrong, disingenuous, or inaccurate in saying that The Guardian is left-wing.

When the person starts out by describing a mainstream paper as left-wing propaganda, I think its fair to be sceptical about the degree of good faith, no?

I think it is your reply that is not in good faith at this point because either you haven't read my comments or you have chosen to ignore them.

Anyway it is getting excessively tiring not to be able to discuss or say anything so have a nice day.

You're right, I should have talked about the Overton window more generally. But public usage of terminology is part of moving/spreading the window. It's quite apparent in the US discourse when very moderate politicians like US mainstream democrats are characterized as "radical left-wing extremists". Granted, there's a lot of hyperbolical "fascists" and "nazis" thrown around from the other side.

I find mainstream left of UK to be quite clearly center left. The current Labour government policy could be characterized even as center right.

Yes, they are generally over the centre line. They are, however, still firmly centre-left, in that The Guardian has opposed every major push towards even mild social democracy. Most of the UK left would find The Guardian's editorial line well to their right.

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