this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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This being a weekly columnist in The Guardian, a newspaper whose journalists are almost all upper middle class people who went to very expensive private schools (curiously callled "Public Schools" in the UK because theoretically anybody can send their children to one, if they can afford it) as are the editors and the board - so they're almost all from roughly the top 11% of the UK population wealthwise - I expect that her real problem with these present day overlords is that they're neither posh nor English.
If they had the kind of "proper" manners, soft discourse, cultivated look of detachment and posh dress sense that are taught at the "right" schools, they would be alright.
You don't see this kind of critique there against posh English super-rich (especially not "old money"), even though they're just as sociopath as Elon and Zuckerberg.
This is pure fiction. It sounds like an american projecting an accurate understanding of the NYT onto the guardian without having read it.
Since I'm an European, lived as an immigrant in the UK for over a decade and was a regular reader of The Guardian for most of that time and even for some time afterwards, your ad hominem missed the target by a huge distance.
Your post says a lot more about you given that you've jumped to such a conclusion about me from what you read and chose an ad hominem as "counter-argument" than it says about me.
The Guardian definitely hates the Tories though so this doesn't hold up.
They criticise posh politicians, what they seldom, if at all, criticise are their puppet-masters.
And don't get me started on the shameless subservience they show to the Royals, who last I checked were the richest family in the country.
If it's English old wealth The Guardian are pretty much silent about it.
My friend youre not far off but not speak so confidently if you don't know Britian. The richest family isn't the monarchy, they aren't top three. And the royalty as much as I personally hate them, is still the monarchy, so they aren't bashed too much on mainstream media. That's more tabloid kinds of news
I've lived in Britain for over a decade, so maybe your own confident judgment of my lack of familiarity with the place is a little off, unless you think a decade there, speaking the language, following the local press, meeting people at all social levels in various contexts and even being a member of one of the political parties there, is not enough to "know Britain".
I just don't keep up with Most Rich List of the country, not even when I lived there much less now that I don't so don't really know the exact order at the top right now. Further the wealth of the Royals is subject to much controversy since how much it is depends on things like whether the Crown Estates are considered part of it or not, since the income on those goes to the Treasury but it then gives them part of that money (so they get almost £100 million per year).
Last I checked (when the Queen was still alive) the Royal Family where personally filthy rich AND had exclusive use of very expensive properties owned by the State AND even got a couple of millions every year as a stippend.
Compared with, for example the Dutch Royal Familiy (a country were I also lived for almost as long as Britain), it was like night and day.
Also if you need more examples of how Wealth in Britain is linked to the Monarchy, look up just how wealthy the Duke Of Westminster is (mainly due to how much of London he owns). You can also go down the list of hereditary peers in the House of Lords and check their wealth.
I mean, one needs to very purposefully and very strongly be closing their eyes to not see how a large part of the wealth in Britain is in one way or another in the hands of people linked to the Monarchy (again, a situation which is a veritable night and day contrast with The Netherlands and their Monarchy).
I don't like where you're going with this, but I agree with the core issue of 'paper media' being kinda pretentious and self-indulgent. They're in their own reality bubble, and the contrast with (for example) how humble some of the best journalists on YouTube or newer upstartes are is quite stark.
Well, I try to make it clear I'm not defending Musk or Zuckerberg.
I just generally think judging people on their style or lack or it is the simpletion young-teen take on people and that it's on their actions (which in the case of these two are pretty damning) that people should be judged on.
The Guardian, being a product of the Society it is in and the quite narrow slice of that Society it tends to represent (possibly because they're very much a bubble were people from a narrow range of origins in that Society almost invariably select their peers to come work with them), ends up doing the whole judging on image and words and putting it above judging on action often, probably because the upper classes in England are very much all about presentation first and foremost (the English Gentleman stereotype is all about presentation and not at all about taking others in consideration when chosing what one does or doesn't do) to a level that in most other Societies would be seen as fake and hypocrite.
Its kinda rich hearing the English of all ppl complaining about burning the world down. Probably pissed their copyright on it expired