Very Top Five... Newspaper Comments (Day 5 of 5) Telegraph

The Telegraph, sometimes called the Torygraph by stock wags, published an opinion piece yesterday on the ongoing story about British Airway’s blocked attempt to have a big strike over Christmas.

Telegraph editor Jeff Randall wrote the article, and lost no time in jumping up and down on the “feather-bedded workers” and giving them a jolly good verbal booting. He then moved on to blame the Labour government. The readership concurred with this assessment. As one reader commented; Jeff Randall “tells it how his Tory fish in a barrel readers like it to be told.”


Now, that metaphor is rather poorly conceived and the semantics of the sentence are somewhat clunky and don’t read well at all, but give the man a banana for trying.

Anyway, here’s the article and here's what the Tory fish in a barrel readers had to say:

1. John Barkham
on December 17, 2009 at 10:47 PM

“Good article but the title is wrong. The country is being driven apart by a fifth column of Scottish socialists. Only by dividing the English against themselves can they stay in power. Their allegiance is only to their own socialist ideolog. The heroism of the armed forces is seen by them as a threat. Stalin used frequent purges to remove the more able officers. Brown is sending them into battle without adequate support. Unlike his legions of State dependendents of course, they generally don't vote Labour.”

Damn those Scottish socialists! I recall that yesterday a commenter brought up the same point, so it must be true! The evil Scots (with an allegiance “to their own socialist ideolog”) are out to get us by dividing the English, sending the best army officers to their deaths, and bolstering his legions of State (with a capital S) dependendents. Just like Stalin. Tsk tsk.

Also, “dependents” is a word that is easy to start spelling and hard to stop, obviously. Like bananana. Unfortunately, not only that but the word he meant was “dependants” (British English). What a fish.

4. ALAN BUTLER
on December 18, 2009 at 08:36 AM

“Well said Jeff. Except the community charge(poll tax) riots were orchestrated by leftwing activists who are now in charge. As we all know these same marxists have destroyed the country while the opposition has become bluelabour no wonder the country feels abandoned and fractured.Meanwhile, we are upto our armpits in snow while marxist Brown bleats on about global warming and wishes to print another few billions to give to his pal marxist Mugabe and others in Africa, what an absolute charlatan.”

Blah blah leftwing activists and Marxists blah abandoned country blah Brown blah Mugabe yawn snore. I’m bored with your boring boretalk, you boring moron.

3. rankin
on December 18, 2009 at 06:55 AM

“???”

Finally, someone with enough self-realisation to say “Hey, actually, I don’t understand this situation fully. The emotion I feel weighing most heavily on my soul is not anger, or sadness, or frustration at the unions; it is simple confusion, and a desire to know more. I shall express this using three question marks; the first to represent my need to know more, the second because I pressed on the question mark key for too long and the third because I truly wish people to understand the candour behind my supplicated plea for knowledge."

2. Spencer
on December 17, 2009 at 11:52 PM

“Jeff You should concentrate on the machinations of the Unions. Since Labour are doomed, are their cohorts planning one last act of destruction. Like Samson they wish to bring the temple down. Comment.”

This comment makes me want to snap Spencer’s crayon; The matter of fact tone, the short sentences, the use of the word “should” as an instruction, the use of big words like “machinations” and “cohorts” to show how thesaurical Spencer thinks he is, combined with the failure to use a question mark in the correct place and the vague attempt at religious allusion.

Then he says “comment,” in a one word sentence as if he has just rained mana of wisdom and we can but scrabble in the dirt around trying to catch it; knowing we will never be intelligent enough to attain full understanding of the mighty knowledge of Spencer the Great, all we can do is interpret his great work.

Nobody did comment.

You tool.

1. Steve Jacks
on December 18, 2009 at 06:11 AM

“Britain - the only democracy in the world where the ruling elites HATE the population.

Call me an old romantic, but I'd round up every Labour politician, every Blue Labour politician and all the Lib Dems, everyone on a Quango, every liberal-left senior civil servant, everyone at the BBC, all employees from the Guardian and anyone who has ever got a job from the Guardian job pages, all the tits in local government, then add in every unelected appointee in the House of Lords and the Mad Mullah of Canterbury - round them all up, and then shoot the lot of them.

If they're told it's a necessity to cut down on the nations carbon footprint a few of those annoying chumps might even load the gun.”

Call you an "old romantic"? Romantic in what sense? The Tsarist sense?

I particularly liked the inclusion of people who’ve got a job through the Guardian’s job pages. He could have just said “Everyone who reads the Guardian” and seemed nearly as ridiculously insane but he chose to be more specific. That takes chutzpah.

And everyone at the BBC? Do you work on a children’s programme, knitting adorable puppets? You god damn Marxist, get in the death van.

Also, when you say “all the tits in local government” do you mean “everyone in local government, as they are all tits” or “all those in local government who are tits”? If the latter, who chooses who’s a tit? Oh, you, I suppose.

(The third interpretative option is a literal one, but that’s probably not what he meant.)