Never thought I would see the Guardian publish this

I'd agree with you somewhat, he seems to advocate either social liberalism or classical liberalism, which are both right wing, it may not be very far right at all, but right nonetheless.

Nick Cohen attacked many in this book "what's left?", and he believes they are very bad indeed. They included, Amnesty International, Harold Pinter, Noam Chomsky, the Comment pages of the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Robert Fisk, George Galloway, the Socialist Workers Party, Edward Said, the anti-war coalition and Virginia Woolf.

To go into more detail would take more time, but I will if required.

Classical liberalism is right-wing but social liberalism is neither left nor right.



He has criticized the left, but he still says he won't vote for the Tories, and until Corbyn came in he used to vote Labour (he says he won't now, but he won't vote Tory either).

Also, how does criticizing any of those things actually stop you from being left? What does it actually have to do with the true meaning of "left" as a catch-all term for a wide range of political philosophies? If you criticize the left does that automatically mean you're a heathen in your books? This is the problem with the modern left; it allows for no self-reflection or criticism.

The Guardian is not even accepted as a legitimate paper by the large majority. It promotes a far left wing agenda and unless you are left wing, the articles are of no interest to you

Blair was right wing too. He was right of Thatcher for pete's sake.

Social democracy is an ideology which transcends left and right, I say this as a social democrat myself. The conservatives themselves have adopted social democracy, and it could easily be seen in 2010 (less so in 2015) as to the miniscule difference between the Tories and Labour.

I believe that criticism is justified, but in his article "why I've given up on the left" he condemned the entirety of the labour left because some of the labour left were condemning the entirety of the labour right for the actions of a few.

Ok cool, not sure what this has to do with anything though.

Ok. I know he says he has given up on the left, but I think one of the problems is that there is a section of the left that have become very monolithic, and they think anyone who differs in opinion slightly with them cannot be left-wing. Their definition of left has very little do with any actual definition of it, and it's more about agreeing with certain opinions on topics that often have no relation to the left-right spectrum.

I think that is what people like Cohen are against. It was the same with Christopher Hitchens. He vocally rejected the left, and yet he went to his grave calling himself a Marxist.

There are two different kinds of left here. The left who support some kind of leftist political philosophy, and the left who think that being left-wing simply means adoring Owen Jones, defending Islam no matter what, or eating organic kale.

You say that but they endorsed Yvette Cooper in the Labour leadership, the second least left wing candidate

Does not disregard the fact they have a far left wing agenda, and from what I remember there was articles about Labour needing a female leader no matter who in the guardian which can be translated as a left wing motive can it not?

No, no it can't. First of all, you need to define what being left wing is, for instance, would Stalin have read the guardian? Would Stalin have endorsed their policies? How about Mao, or Pol Pot ?

You mix left wing politics with socialism and Marxism, while they tend to attract the same people, they are ideologically not the same, you can enforce a Marxist state system with a far left or fascist approach.

My point is that just because he's a social democrat (which is what he is) it doesn't make him necessarily left wing.

I agree, but any form of left wing belief has to have some form of market intervention, something I've yet to see him advocate.

In all seriousness, like many on the labour right, he's had more of a go at the labour left than the party that sit opposite, and in all fairness, you can see why the labour left are getting a bit pissed.

Ummm, this is Nick Cohen (a right winger) expressing his own opinion....

Does it matter if he is a right-winger by your personal definition? That doesn't diminish the content of what he has written.

You blamed the guardian for one person's own personal opinion. I was merely calling you out for it

The Guardian chooses what it publishes in its Comment is Free section, and it's quite picky given the tone of most of its pieces. I was pointing out that it was surprising the Guardian allowed this article to be commissioned and published given it has arguably engaged in exactly what Cohen is arguing against.

Or it was a controversial piece and they published it because they knew it would attract attention...

The point is, that it wasn't the Guardian's opinion, it was Nick Cohen's. If you have a problem with that opinion, then you should be having a go at Nick Cohen, not the Guardian.

I agree, and as I said in my OP: the Guardian may have published this for balance and probably intends to go back to engaging in what Cohen has argued against. However, I think it's significant that the Guardian has allowed such a piece to be published at all.

We have a free press in this country, and censorship is something that I personally will always fight against. I may not agree with him, or the guardian itself on this issue, or many other issues, but I believe that there's nothing wrong with it being published.

When did I say there was a problem with it being published? I agree with the tone of what he is saying and was making a comment that I found it surprising that the Guardian allowed such a piece to be published given it the tone of the article is basically one big critique of the Guardian.