I have read The Guardian without fail every Saturday since 2007. It has been very dominant in this position since then, but a big part of the Great British Newspaper Experiment was to look at other newspapers to see if my choice in 2007 was really the right one for me. The Times seemed pretty well placed after Phase 1, but recent comments by James Murdoch made it clear that I have major philosophical disagreements with a man who ultimately has great influence over The Times, which places it out of the running for now. So the only real competition at this point comes from a newspaper traditionally linked to The Times but which has now drifted away. Today I shall be comparing The Guardian to The Independent.
I shall start with The Guardian as it is the current benchmark to beat. On the frontpage today, we see "Showdown looms with Iran over secret nuclear plant" and "US, UK and France threaten tough new sanctions but Ahmadinejad is defiant". This is all about a secret uranium enrichment plant in Qom. It has 3,000 centrifuges, which is too much for a simple pilot (that would be in the hundreds), but too few to fuel a nuclear power plant (which would require more like 50,000). However, it turns out 3,000 is enough - if the uranium is further enriched later - to create a sufficient amount of weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear warhead every 12 months. Iran has pretty much admitted the current state of affairs in a pre-emptively filed report, but insists the facility is for peaceful purposes and say that they didn't need to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency about the facility as it's not in use yet and they only need to inform the IAEA six months before they start enriching uranium. The United Nations Security Council seems to be unimpressed by their explanation.
Notably, Iran have already broken a promise to inform the IAEA any time they were so much as planning a new facility, and now it turns out they've built one without telling anyone! Even Russia seems resigned to the fact that sanctions are sometimes "inevitable", and all China will say is that if the other members of the UN Security Council decide on sanctions they will not stand in the way. Iran really needs to stop pulling shit like this, tough sanctions seem inevitable at this point and the path they are going down can only ultimately lead to a costly and devastating war that Iran stands no hope of winning.
Inside I immediately read a story about how royal civil list finances cannot be reduced. Parliament can only vote to raise the amount of money they (usually in line with estimated inflation) or leave it alone, and they only get to vote once every ten years. As it turns out, they got a year-on-year increase of 7.5% for the 90s and 3.5% for the 2000s, both figures vastly overestimating the actual rate of inflation and leaving the royal household with considerable surpluses. This was a implemented as a agreement between Buckingham Palace and the Treasure urged on, obviously, by the Conservatives. It is clearly a load of bullshit, and an agreement that needs to be broken. I don't want to abolish the monarchy, but it seems ridiculous to try and estimate inflation and deflation over ten year periods, and is clearly biased towards the palace. Yearly arrangements, with parliament having the power to raise or lower the money the palace gets seems fair to me.
There's also more talk of what Gordon Brown should be doing with regards to the Labour Party conference. I've already placed my bets on the next government being a Conservative majority lead by David Cameron. Whether it will be a 1997-style wipeout or if Cameron will have to make do with a slender majority I can't say, but I'm convinced Labour can't hold on now. Still, there is considerable talk of Brown pulling this back, and the next election being the best chance in decades of a hung parliament (didn't we hear the same talk in 1992?), neither of which I take seriously (the former because of Brown's continuing lack of charisma or good judgement, and the latter because our first-past-the-post system makes it extremely difficult). I'm beginning to think the journalists in the papers I've been reading are only talking about this to fill up space, they don't take the prospect of a continued Labour majority or a coalition government any more seriously than I do. If this is so, then I have just joined them.
Next, the case of a judge upholding a law saying employers may force retirement of employees of 65 or older reminded me why I only know the phrase "judicial activism" due to my involvement in US politics and their unique system of government. Still, the judge did comment that while the law did not violate EU regulations and it was "legitimate and proportionate" for the government to enact it, he did not think 65 was the right age and thought that the law could not remain viable for long after the strong arguments presented against it. An interesting story, though I doubt much legislating will happen on this subject until after the next election.
There's also a small story about José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (current President of the Government of Spain) and his somewhat eccentric request that photos of his underage daughters (Laura, born in 1993 and Alba, born in 1995) not be released, even with their faces pixellated. Then he got a family photo with the Obamas, but forgot that such photos are automatically uploaded to the state department's Flickr page unless specifically requested otherwise. So it went up, then came down, then the Spanish media were persuaded not to publish the photo. But I am completely independent, so I got the picture anyway from Reddit and I'm mirroring it here. It's called the Streisand efect, and it guarantees that the bigger the fuss you make, the more people will mirror it and the more people will talk about it.
The comments pages today hold some good stuff. One piece talks about the fruitlessness of the 'special relationship' the UK has with the US, which is something I've known about for years. We help them in their wars, we practically ignore our European neighbours, and what do we get from the US for our troubles? Not enough to be worth it in my opinion. Also seem is a fictionalized resignation speech by Brown, and I think that his resignation being for the best is the final conclusion I come to as well (perhaps the earlier Telegraph article was telling him to fight, knowing he can only hurt Labour at this point). He's really just dead weight by now, and Labour still has enough time for a leadership contest. Brown needs to admit this is over and leave with some dignity intact. Finally, Germany and their left/right coalition government. Angela Merkel wants a proper right-wing coalition, some in Germany want a grand left-wing coalition, but most seem happy to stick with the left/right coalition with Merkel as chancellor that has worked so well in the past. The Guardian's writer seems to think Germany's checked and balanced proportional representation system would fit Britain well too, if we didn't think in such partisan terms. I do too, but can we break those habits so easily?
Well that's the main paper, but this is the Weekend Edition, so it's time to look at the other parts included with it. First is the Weekend magazine and my favourite parts therein. We start with "Your letters" and "Your pictures" (the latter having been moved from the back page earlier in the year). The letters seem to always have a lot of complaints, though I do at least see some people happy with improvements in the "All ages" portion of the fashion section, so the staff are paying attention (I expect to see at least one overweight model before long based on one letter here). The pictures are always interesting to look at, to see what interpretation people can make of the subject ("Fall" this time, and yes, one of the entries uses it as a synonym for autumn), which I may enter myself someday. Also, I do look at the fashion section itself, mostly to see their opinion on what's going up and going down, from which I derive a perverse pleasure.
With regards to the food section, I follow the standard rule of only reading the restaurants review if the final score is 3/10 or below, and it's 7/10 this week. So moving on, "Ask the experts" is a pretty good section, in the sense that I like all of the subjects covered (kitchen, home, garden) but they used to be scattered around the magazine. Now they're all on a two-page spread, along with the medical questions (also interesting), which was a good editorial decision. This is directly followed by "On the road" (this week, the Daihatsu Copen), which I normally read at least some of.
My review of Weekend may seem a bit thin, this is partly because I decided only to look at what I would normally look at in the sections (since this is to see whether The Independent would make a better fit for me) but mainly because the main attraction (politicians getting to grill interviewers) didn't attract much interest from me. Isn't it usually the other way around for a reason?
Guide is the next section I look at, which seems to make a poor television guide due to simply being too small. The only sections this week that I read were Hard Sell discussing the ever rising amount of blades on shaving razors (the writer may have a point, though I found going from two/three blades to five to be a marked improvement), and the film section saying how Creation is not radical at all but rather a thoughtful film about Darwin's spiritual and domestic turmoil and his fears that his theories may have "killed God". Is there any American distributor brave enough to take it on?
With the other sections not taking my fancy today, let's look at the figures. This weekend edition of The Guardian cost £1.90 now (up from £1.70 last time) and is still mostly berliner in nature. It consists of 48 pages for the main paper + 22 pages for the Review section + 8 pages for the Family section + 12 pages for the Money section + 16 pages for the Travel section + 14 pages for the Work section + 16 pages for the Sport section + 92 magazine-sized pages for the Weekend magazine + 16 magazine-sized pages for part 4 of The Full English (a series of articles about attractions in England) + 100 half magazine-sized pages for the Guide. So similar to last time, but a bit more expensive.
Now for The Independent. This starts with the same story The Guardian did, with a headline of "Nuclear Showdown" along with "Obama accuses Iran of concealing secret uranium plant" (as opposed to concealing an open uranium plant, or displaying a secret uranium plant?) and "‘America should apologise to us’ demands Iranian President" (which is certainly a bold thing to do). Aside from an extra illustration of how the enrichment process works and an opinion piece, this was pretty similar to The Guardian's take on things. The opinion piece came to the rather obvious conclusion that this situation will be a balancing act between making sure Iran get punished for non-compliance with their former promises, but also making sure that the Iranian public does not become galvanized against foreign interference.
The first interesting part of The Independent that I hadn't already read about in The Guardian is Mary Wakefield talking about the Church of England's dire 'Back to Church Sunday', and the cheap stunts designed to try and distract everyone from how boring the church actually is and how little theological agreement there is within it. I'm an atheist personally, which means I end up judging the various religious factions by aesthetic concerns and how much good and harm they do to society. The Church of England does little good or harm either way it seems (due to lack of influence) though probably more harm overall, and is aesthetically very bland and boring. If it went away, I wouldn't miss it. I doubt most of the population would either.
Next is the complexities of Germany's election and the possible coalitions that could form from it. I've read some about this in The Guardian, more at FiveThirtyEight, and yet more here. As I write this, the results should now be in, though I have been deliberately ignoring my usual news sources as I write these articles, so I do not know the results yet. I'm not sure which of the numerous results would be the 'best' outcome, though I do know this system seems much fairer than the current British system. Whether it would actually work for us is the actual question.
Continuing on foreign affairs, Ireland. My grandma just came back from a holiday to Ireland and quite liked it. But it seems the old Celtic Tiger is having some serious problems right now. Massive property speculation, greater even than in the UK or US, drove an economic bubble which then burst, plunging Ireland into a very severe recession. Now they're facing the Lisbon treaty again after a 'No' vote last time, they seem poised to vote 'Yes' this time. The brutal recession seems to have made them think that they need the rest of Europe more than ever, and straining relations by rejecting the treaty a second time can only hurt them. Myself, here in England, I just want the whole business with the treaty over and done with. Withdrawing from the EU isn't really an option, and fighting the treaty can only delay it rather than stop it, and at the expense of straining relations with the rest of Europe. Just ratify it and move on to fights we stand a chance of winning.
After all that, we finally move on to actual Editorials page, and a proper discussion of the forced retirement age of 65. This reveals that the forced retirements age is set to rise anyway, but only very slowly. David Cameron has hinted he will accelerate it, but is unlikely to get support from me thanks to his bone-headed Euroscepticism. There is also more talk of the Labour Party conference, which I can barely be bothered to keep going with now. But there is talk of how Labour was right and the Tories were wrong about how to handle the recession (not new, but worth mentioning) and a note that Labour's 'Big Tent' policy was never going to work, as it drew people with opposing opinions to vote for the same party, meaning someone was going to be disappointed with each and every policy decision. The Republicans appear to have suffered a similar fate, and I think it's because such 'Big Tent' strategies can never be stable. But, of course, how can anyone else form a majority government in such a case? I think this brings us back to Germany, the strengths of proportional representation, and the folly of overly-partisan thinking. I sometimes think no one else is paying any attention to such issues though.
As for the letters, I was drawn to those covering the increasing regulations around working with children, which appear to have now crossed the line into insanity. This does appear to be part of a larger "Think of the children!" strategy, where the aim is generally heavy-handed moralizing, which has never actually been proven to protect children in any meaningful way. This is probably the most despicable of all tactics, which persists primarily because it's very easy to smear all opponents to it with "You're placing our future generations in danger!". What really puts them in danger of course is crying wolf constantly, eventually leading to a situation where everyone is like me, jaded and unable to take any new policy predicated on 'protecting children' seriously after so much bullshit.
To finish up this section, I do like how they make a proper section of their Errors & Omissions (The Guardian certainly have the ability to be a self-depreciating, but their equivalent of this is dry and uninteresting) and a defence of BBC4 and its arts coverage against those who would cut it, which I have to agree with since I've enjoyed watching BBC4 in the past myself (I've not done so that much recently, but I think I may start again now I have the ability to record programs again).
Next is my foray into The Independent Magazine, which I've never read before. The title does avoid confusion (as it turns out both The Guardian and the Daily Mail call their weekend magazine simply 'Weekend') but is dreadfully bland. Still, the content is what matters, so let's see how it does..
"First person" seems pretty similar to The Guardian's "Experience" in that it has someone telling about an extraordinary experience they had, though The Independent did better today with a story of someone who traversed the Northwest passage in a 17-foot open sailing boat with his best friend to raise money for charity. They raise over £10,000 and are still friends. Further on, "Pet of the Week" looked interesting, and "Motoring" looked and felt like the long lost twin of The Guardian's "On the road", but it overall felt like an inferior clone of Weekend. Disappointing.
The Information seems like a cross between The Guardian's Guide and the Daily Mail's Weekend, with the aims of the former and the form factor of the latter. It's a nice compromise, though I've never been enough of a social butterfly to make any real use of the Guide. This week starts with more lights and lamps than you could possibly know what to do with (50, to be exact) and ends with some gaming reviews (looks like Cursed Mountain really isn't any good), with a decent TV guide in-between. Sadly, it still doesn't seem to quite match up to the Mail's attempt at the same (slightly messy formatting being its Achilles heel, the Mail seems clearer to me), rendering it pointless as the Mail will remain here regardless.
The only other sections are Sport and Traveller, which I skipped as neither looked interesting to me. The Independent Saturday Edition was cheaper than The Guardian Weekend Edition at £1.60 but also seemed to have less content. Most of it is tabloid sized. The main paper was 64 pages + 24 pages for the Sport section + 24 pages for the Traveller section + 48 magazine-sized pages for The Information section + 64 magazine-sized pages for The Independent Magazine.
All in all, I think The Independent has not succeeded here. There are too many sections in The Guardian that I would miss, and the slightly lower price tag The Independent sports is not enough to make up. I may buy it in the week sometimes, but The Guardian's dominance of the weekend remains.
Previous: Phase 2/Day 5 (The Sentinel)Next: Phase 2/Day 7 (The Sunday Times)
