Polly Toynbee was on the Sky News PMQs programme at lunchtime as a pundit. Towards the end of the programme they have a slot where Miranda Richardson explains how the blogs are reacting to PMQs. Today she quoted Guido, me, ConHome, Dizzy and Coffee House. Clearly no left of centre blogs have got their act together to offer a view in time to get reported on the PMQs programme.
Polly dismissed us all as partisan right wing bloggers who are paid to pump out the Tory line. Excuse me? The only bloggers I know who get paid are mainstream journalists, Alex Hilton from LabourHome, Mark Pack from LibDem Voice and Tim Montgomerie.
Polly almost seemed to imply that we all get paid by the Tory Party, LOL. Guido, Dizzy and I - unlike Polly - are totally independent and our blogs are not funded by anyone. Isn't it a pity that Polly can't say the same?
UPDATE: Dizzy gives a characteristic response HERE.
46 comments:
Sue her and use the money for a one-way ticket to send the Scots in Westminster back to Scotland, with Paddington bear style labels, to make sure they are delivered to the Scottish Parliament. They should keep their crap up there.
It is not as if facts have ever played a part in Polly's sideswipes at the Conservatives, is it? It would be lovely to be paid handsomely to spend all day pumping out propaganda just like Polly is. Only I could not bring myself to publish the kind of distorted tosh she dredges up from the depths of her fevered imagination.
She irritated me from the outset to be honest, when it instantly became clear that her role was one of "Labour Shill" rather than genuine pundit.
I suppose it balanced things out though. IDS was there with an obvious Tory bias, and she was there with an obvious Labour one.
Ah, Polly's been taking lessons from the tobacco control lobby who simply try to shut down dissent by accusing people of being 'in the pay of Big Tobacco'.
We warned you.
Jay
How's Lord Ashcroft these days Iain?
I'm fine Charles.Thanks for asking.
Poor Polly.. i love Gordon, I hate Gordon, I love Gordon again as my villa has gone up in value as the £ loses value. Soon it will be 1:1 and I can buy another villa in VilleFranche. and be just like an ordinary chav holidaying abroad
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Polly Toynbee?
What are they for?
Obviously time to rerun Polly being bitch slapped by Richard Littlejohn
http://www.youtube.com
/watch?v=CSLUtfubOis
Enjoy
That'd be "Brown-is- wonderful, oh hang on, no-he isn't, oh, what's my fact-free-opinion-this-week" Toynbee, would it?
Don't worry.She is only where she is through inherited wealth and name and other aspects of the hereditary principle she affects so much to despise.
How's Lord Ashcroft these days Iain? asks Charles....about the same as Lord Sainsbury...or Lord Drayson...or anyone else who Lords it by buying into Labour...one would imagine?
We are all partisans now. I notice the BNP are doing their politics from the same building as Boris Johnson.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5193723.ece
Anonymous @12:03AM
Is there some kind of English message in the post that only Englanders can understand?
Relevance to post is ???
Charles how's Sainsbury doing?
The "Tory Party" line? I can't comment on the other blogs, but Guido's more a Libertarian than a Conservative. Depending on the current interpretation of Conservatism there may be a greater or lesser degree of overlap between the two, nothing more. He routinely criticises Cameron, though he hates him a lot less than Brown.
Anyway, why do you bother with this, Iain? The motion "This house believes that Polly is a fruitcake" was passed by a large show of hands ages ago.
(WV=crympook. Were it a word, it would be my favourite one)
Oh yes indeed, the £800,000,000 that goes on public sector appointment advertising finances the Guardian( Well , that and Auto Trader). Without that bung the Paper would sink .The Conservative plan to get rid of it is a quietly deadly attack on the whole puffed up world of progressive scribbling.
You could hardly be more partisan than Polly Toynbee although she is pro Brown and anti Brown with each passing week .It is still the single most staggering example of bias that she was where she was BBC social affairs editor (1988–1995) and thus paid for by us (under threat of imprisonment) to create an enduring myth about the Conservative Party which has poisoned its prospects. Why not have Simon heffer in situ to even the score ?
. I think she showed her true colours when despite the widespread lefty anger with Blair in 2005 she begged the left to support him anyway. There is quite obviously nothing the Labour Party can do which will cause her to criticize it at an election and her book’Better or Worse’ is a shameful and tawdry exercise in mendacious propagandizing on behalf of the Labour Party. Read it and puke .
At no time, I can recall , has she ever had a good word to say about anything the Conservative party have done and while other leftists have moved right (Coen , Marr , Hitchens etc.) she resolutely clings to the fairy tale that this country can and should be like Sweden. This puts her far far on the left wing of the Labour Party.I see no reason not to wheel her out for a bit of colour , like Tony Benn , but she is a tedious old variety turn with nothing to add to the future of this country.
Demented blinkered biased and partisan, you can't expect a balanced view from poor Polly.
The only way she will change her increasingly rabid views is if something happens which directly affects her and gives her some connection (I'd say insight but that is asking too much) to the real world that the rest of us have to live in, such as if she disturbed some feral scrotes from the Labour underclass trying to redistribute some of her wealth to poorer echelons of society, and they beat her to a pulp.
Then you might get a column written with a different perspective. After all, I'm told a reactionary is merely an idealist whose pocket has been picked.
The Penguin
So you are totally independent - so next time you are fed a line or rumour by CCHQ or senior Tory politicians you will acknowledge your source? I think you meant "financially independent".
Anonymous 9.38. I have never hid my politics from anyone. However, I get just as many stories or tipoffs from non Conservatives.
Charles, 12.32. I am sure Lord Ashcroft is fine and will be grateful for your enquiry. Just for the record, he is an investor in Total Politics and has nothing to do with this blog. I have never received a penny from him apart from when I hosted an advert for his book, when he paid the same rate for the advert as anyone else.
Do we know whether being in opposition breathes life into the blogosphere, or does it just work for right of centre commentators? What's the situation in the States? One presumes that if it's down to being in opposition then the left should be doing better there (well, over recent years anyway) than the right.
Polly's pathetic, and why does anyone take her seriously?
I'd hardly call Alex Hilton a 'journalist'. At best, he's an egotistical blogger.
I have never hid my politics from anyone
What not even to get laid when you were at University ? I have( hehe )
Polly might be well educated but unfortunately she was deprived of common sense at a very early age!
Just remind me now.
Is Poly pro or anti Brown at the moment ?
Oi get awl coffused.
(WV=crympook. Were it a word, it would be my favourite one),
The art of dissembling Pollys Posts.
Polly is well named - she is a parrot.
Typical Polly really. She throws a comment, will claim it was taken out of context.
Then blame Tories for taking it out of context and spin the whole issue.
As for the paid part I have yet to met a single blogger of any political stripe who is getting a cushy wage out of blogging.
99.99999% of them even if I disagree with every word can at least construct an argument unlike Polly.
Of course she is partisan. So are you. Is it OK in your case, but not in hers?
Not at all, but I resent the implication that I am a paid lackey of the Tory Party. I am not. She, however, is a paid lackey of The Guardian.
I suppose we are all paid to leave our comments as well !! Just like Labour's trolls.
Labour are so empty now, they cannot do anything but lie.
Left wing = authoritarian lier
Right wing = freedom, justice and common sense!!
No Iain you're just a lackey of the Tory party - they don't even have to pay you to print their views as your own without any attribution. It's not just Soviet communists who need their "useful idiots"
Prick. I guess the Tory Party would agree with my line on legalising prostitution, would they? Or they liked my slagging off of Andrew Lansley's extra health spending plans. I could go on, but what's the point. Idiots like you are too blinkered to see what's in front of you.
I wanted to make the following points.
1. In the time i have been following your blog, which admittedly isn't very long, there have always been a range of comments allowed from right across the political spectrum, as well as some plain daft ones. I never got the impression that you were only looking for debate that slavishly mirrored your own views. Similarly, I don't see that people who respond to Comment Is Free pieces have to always and incontrovertibly have a Guardian-type approach to life, or that readers of Times Online who comment have to share any perceived bias of that media outlet.
2. In my own situation, I have to also be aware of the possibility of my IP address being logged and subsequently used to issue threats and/ or abusive language. I have even had to deal with sustained virus and hack type attacks on my computer. Given that your blog is a one-man-band, it is easier to feel confident that this will be monitored and that a degree of protection will be in place which might not exist in a general, free for all type blog which is monitored by a range of individuals.
3. If I haven't been clear to date then I apologise, but I am certainly not wishing to make any political point by posting on Iain's blog. I have simply found this a humane and accessible forum, which has been very welcome when meaningful discussion has been closed down elsewhere. I do not doubt that other blogs with authors of other political affiliations would have been able to as well.
and the revelations regarding Labours SouthEast Organiser Malcolm Powers which are appearing on a number of Blogs are no doubt part of a Tory funded plot to destablize Labour in advance of nextsprins poll..?
To add to Iain's comment at 12.32: ...and The Guardian is a paid lackey of the Labour party. It is owned by Labour party members, who take profits, principally from Autotrader, which they also own, and use them to subsidise journos like Polly. By using cross-subsidy in this way they get to contribute to the Labour party but without having to declare it, whilst hiding behind a screen of 'independence'.
It makes me laugh that Labour want to belive Tory bloggers need paying to to tell the truth about Britain & this disastrous government.
I'd actually pay Iain to let me come here & rant if need be!
Labour! I blog because I HATE you & what you have done to this country, you couldn't pay me to stop!
And if blogging is upsetting that vile Polly woman then how happy am I? :o)
For those who may be interested "pook" is slang for a female naughty part in the Indonesian language. You can make what you will of "crym".
Female naughty bits aren't naughty. They're nice.
"Not at all, but I resent the implication that I am a paid lackey of the Tory Party."
You're getting very self-important theses days....
modesty modesty modesty...
is that the Tory way >> me me me?
;)
There is a place for Polly in this world - she is entitled to her views - relax.
Canvas, you used to be one of the more interesting commenters on this site. Sadly you have now become predictable and at times just plain boring.
If Polly impugns my integrity, expect me to react. I have defended her on this site before, and of course she is entitled to her views. What she is not entitled to do is allege I am being paid by the Tory Party when she knows it is not true.
"you have now become predictable and at times just plain boring."
perhaps it is a reflection? You really can't take criticism well - and you sometimes lack a sense of humour.
Lighten up and start some interesting dialogue instead of just repeating your party lines...
If I couldn't take criticism, I'd hardly write a blog, would I? The fact that you highlight the one bit of my comment which criticises you seems to indicate a bit of pot calling the kettle black, wouldn't you say?
And cut the crap about party lines. Did you not read the Prostitution post? Among hundreds of others. You know full well that I criticise the Tories when I think they get it wrong.
And on the sense of humour point. I'd happily have a poll as to who blog readers think has a better sense of humour - me or you!
I very happily take criticism and respond to it positively if that's how it is expressed. But when someone alleges something which is bordering on libel, don't expect me to react well.
Iain, the thing is you get so HYSTERICAL and you over-react. You become irrational and you lash out in a mean spirited way.
Try using charm - it will take you where you want to go. Much better than nasty spiteful nah nah nahs.
;)
I actually enjoy your blog - even if I sometimes think you live in a parallel universe.
What I would like to see happen is for you to actually LISTEN to other points of view - and take it on board. Then disagree.
It often appears that you do not listen... or you react before you think things through...
PS> I also like a bit a friction - it makes life a little more exciting.
;)
If Polly knows who is paying bloggers, then could she please let me know?
Surely one of the most important reasons why right-wing blogging is so strong in comparison to the left is that the left are lulled in to complacency by the stranglehold they have on the BBC. Why bother finding your voice when BBC do it for you and at the expense of right-wing TV tax payers? Right-wing blogging is partially driven by the inability and disillusionment with BBC bias (arguably THE media because of its dominant position).
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