Another one in the Eye
I’m afraid I feel the need to have another “go” at Private Eye, mainly because they never publish my letters. Apparently, if you provide structured, reasoned complaints about their editorial bias, these are deemed unworthy of publication, no matter how cogent your argument.
Still, this is what blogs are for, is it not?
In the HP Sauce column, the unnamed author attacks the hypocrisy of born-again Marxist radical, Vince Cable for attacking the markets when he is just about to “private-eyes” (ho! ho!) the Royal Mail.
There is the inevitable economically-illiterate vacuous attack on “spivs and gamblers”, including the hilarious observation that “private equity firms rely too much on debt and tax breaks” without addressing the underlying causes of why they should be doing this.
It may well be that one should not read a satirical magazine for the intellectual rigour, but at the end, there is once again an astonishing failure to grasp the root cause of the problem:
PS: The main factor behind the need for privatisation is said to be the pension deficit, which has tripled to £8bn since 2008: blame the collapse of the markets, on to which the Royal Mail will soon be thrown – minus of course the pension deficit which taxpayers will pick up.
The author of this piece ignores several key issues, even as he, she or it alludes to them:
- Why did the heavily-regulated markets collapse?
- Why is there a pension deficit in a state monopoly?
- Who makes the decision that taxpayers need to pick up the pension deficit?
- Why is it less risky for “gamblers and spivs” to rely on debt, rather than their own money?
- Who allocates the tax breaks that “gamblers and spivs” rely on?
It never ceases to amaze me that a magazine so full of the folly of the state and the incompetent, arrogant, foolish people who run it so consistently fails to attack the ideas and assumptions that underpin it.
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1
October 4, 2010 at 08:30 -
I no longer have a subscription.
When in the UK, increasingly infrequently, I buy a copy but a lot of the stuff is available on the Net if you look for it.
Their campaigning days are gone and Ian Hyslop seems much happier being a TV comedian’s straight man.
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2
October 4, 2010 at 09:14 -
Has Private Eye been around too long now to be considered radical? Have they become complacent, part of the Establishment now?
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4
October 4, 2010 at 09:46 -
You could just as well take issue with the way that the Eye has been banging on about PFI for the last 20-odd years because the principle is pretty much the same.
Government has a seemingly insatiable desire to get involved in things that it is incabable of understanding, far less doing. It then relies on private sector entities to carry out the implementation, inevitably at huge cost.
Tales of incompetence and greed are grist to the Eye’s mill.
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5
October 6, 2010 at 00:41 -
The Eye is often guilty of deception, spin, childishness, and sheer insanity. Just like the mainstream press which it so despises. And yet, I love it. Its many biases are idiosyncratic, with no discernable element of popularity-seeking. There is a strong integrity to its raving. And sometimes, it is right. Good crossword, too.
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