I think a lot of the "oh my gosh nationalisation is such an awful idea" / "not in my free society" comments are missing the point. I too believe nationalisation is a bad idea in this case , but given the enormous reaction it would bring, can you imagine how awful the situation appears to be from the authors (any many other non-tech-bubble) peoples perspective to even contemplate such a thing? Let alone write an opini…
You seem to be saying there's a high threshold for extreme opinions to be published in the Guardian, so the fact that someone wrote such an article suggests that there is a genuine problem that needs to be taken seriously. Guardian writers do not live inside a "bubble" and therefore, there is inherent merit to what they write. I wonder how often you actually read the Guardian, which is famous for having wildly extrem…
Disclosure: Guardian reader here. I remember reading the Hadley Freemen [1] article cited here, finding it amusing at the time, so googled it [2] to remind myself what it said. On re-reading, I still find it quite amusing. It includes observations such as “Older people have always found youngsters irritating, self-entitled and arrogant, because young people are irritating, self-entitled and arrogant. That’s part of the joy of being young, and part of the compensation of getting older is you can snuggle on down in your smug eiderdown of condescension about The Youth Today.” The concluding para says “So, in conclusion, don’t feel attacked, young people: older people were always grumpy with the younger generation. And to all the 55- to 64-year-olds out there? Maybe give all that boob Googling a rest, OK? Take a tip from your kids on this”. To me, the article is a plea for tolerance of the young by the old, pointing out the quirks of both generations.
More widely, I’ll agree that The Guardian does have regular columns written by activists such as George Monbiot [3], and its writers may disagree with or explicitly criticise some of The Guardian’s peer rivals, such as the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, etc. But, personally, I can’t accept it as the Breitbart of the Left.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_Freeman
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/aug/21/ask-hadley-o...