When you install Ghostery or other content blockers, you get a message when you visit the Guardian home page: asking you to support the newspaper financially. I’ve said before that I won’t do this, in part because they keep giving a platform to Tony Blair. They’ve done it again today, given him an opportunity to spout his Islamophobia:

Of course Blair supports the bombing of Syria, because in his mind it also justifies his personal war in Iraq, which is why he keeps popping up in the Guardian.

In their intrusive ‘please support us’ banners, the Guardian likes to boast of its ‘independent voice’ and ‘quality journalism’. But with all the right wing newspapers supporting the bombing; and all the right wing newspapers producing character assassinations of Jeremy Corbyn, how is the Guardian proving its independence? By cautiously supporting the Syrian bombing campaign and slyly undermining the Corbyn leadership. Actually, it’s not even that subtle: they’re currently anointing old-style Labour party compromiser Hilary Benn, mainly on the grounds that he stood up and justified bombing Syria, getting applause from the fucking Tories or doing so.

As somebody said on the Twitter, if you’re getting applause from the Tories, you know you’ve made it in the Labour party. Hilary Benn probably regrets that his old man renounced the family peerage. The latest Guardian article proclaims him ‘fiercely independent’, which he proved by voting with the majority government the other night.

With the current PLP basically waving through rafts of Nasty Party policies, we turn to the ‘independent’ media to fight our corner. Except, oh, the Guardian is busy wringing its hands and producing ‘best of 2015’ lists, like any blogger can, and the BBC has decided to let itself die.