Monday 3 May 2010

Paper Tigers

The argument is raging as to whether the "abandonment" of Labour by the Guardian will create a vacuum which will be filled by the BNP or by Islamists and Islamist-backed sectarian Leftists.

We could argue all night about where the BNP vote did or did not come from. The Respect vote certainly did used to be Labour, although the SWP section of Tower Hamlets Respect has now been warmly welcomed by Cameron, as have many Islamists - not Muslims, Islamists specifically - around the country. George Galloway himself is a pro-life Catholic, a mild Eurosceptic (less so than he used to be, alas), and a strong opponent of Scottish separatism, who was never even a member of the Tribune Group, still less a member of the Campaign Group. But all of this is beside the present point.

I only ask: in Stoke, Dagenham, Barking, Bethnal Green, Bow, Limehouse or Poplar, how many people read the Guardian, and how many of those rely on it to tell them how to vote? Galloway's election last time answers that question where the areas falling in that former constituency are concerned. The Guardian's core readership had already gone Lib Dem, so the Guardian followed suit. That is how it works. How many people who currently buy the Mail or the Telegraph would carry on doing so if it turned Labour or Lib Dem? Well, there you are, then.

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