Nowadays

Perfect.

I heard one of these smug left-wing ‘comedians’ on a Radio Four programme on books. While he hadn’t got much to say, he did say “Know what I mean?”
At that moment I understood the future of communication: everyone would sit round saying “Know what I mean?” because as on radio, you simply do not have to explain yourself or have clarity.
Know what I mean?

Of course this was aired before our age of migrant rape gangs and the uncovering of events in Rotherham.
David, noticing things like this is extremely unhelpful. Any leftist, especially a feminist, will tell you that those girls were asking for it.

Multiculturalism, of course, doesn’t really include American culture.
If by “American Culture,” you mean anything that goes on between the Appalachian Mountains and the Sierra Nevada.

“Of course this was aired before our age of migrant rape gangs and the uncovering of events in Rotherham.”
Joan Smith is on the case!
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trials-must-not-cause-victims-extra-pain-time-after-time-their-characters-and-integrity-are-ripped-a6900676.html
“I wouldn’t normally make a song and dance about the way a defendant has been treated during a criminal trial. But the contrast between the special measures put in place for Hussain and the ordeal his victims were subjected to in court is almost unbearable to contemplate.
…
Time after time, victims have had their characters and integrity ripped apart by defence barristers who will stop at nothing to get an acquittal. “They’re just doing their job,” we’re told. Meanwhile, judges are reluctant to intervene in case they’re accused of obstructing justice.
Frankly, I’m sick of these high-minded excuses. And I’m ashamed of a criminal justice system that appears to believe that justice can be achieved only by further humiliating deeply traumatised women.”
She offers no other suggestions, mind you. She can’t surely be suggesting that women are automatically believed and no defence allowed in count.
Can she?

@ JuliaM
I don’t remember Joan Smith and the ‘Independent’ picking up the cudgels when the Rotherham story started to emerge. In fact, it was a journalist employed by that nasty man Murdoch who uncovered the sickening tale of how a gang of sexual predators was able to violate vulnerable teenage girls with impunity, and about how the council and police turned a blind eye.
The ‘Independent’ – a paper set up with the guiding intention of not acting out of fear or favour, and of following hard news stories wherever they emerged – had other things to report on. But I expect that if the Rotherham rapists hadn’t mainly been of a certain ethnicity and a certain religion, their journalists may have been on the case sooner.

“I don’t remember Joan Smith and the ‘Independent’ picking up the cudgels when the Rotherham story started to emerge. In fact, it was a journalist employed by that nasty man Murdoch who uncovered the sickening tale…”
How much of a delay was there between when Murdoch’s “evil minions” started to report the Rotherham scandal and when the BBC, Times and other organs did so?

For readers from further afield, the Ladybird series of books was a childhood institution for generations of Brits, widely used in primary schools to teach children to read. It had a fairly distinctive tone, as parodied above.

David, I just posted a list of useful Ladybird Guide links for the naïve out there.
Is it stuck in your filter of doom?

Here in Australia, ABC News Radio’s broadcast partners are BBC World, Deutsche Weller and NPR. Unsurprisingly, they all fit the ABC’s left-leaning monoculture, and, very much like the rest of the breadth and scope of our national broadcaster’s output, rarely – if ever – will you hear alternate voices heard. Hence, on any given panel discussion, be it on ABC radio or television, you almost invariably get three or four left-leaning commentators all agreeing with each other. It doesn’t make for a stimulating or challenging experience.
They should merge the ABC and SBS and then sell it off. I like the way that National Public Radio is publicly funded (through voluntary donations as opposed to compulsory funding via one’s tax dollar), and I think that this is the business model that the ABC should follow. That way, not only would they be forced to run a tighter ship and actually be efficient for once, but the 50% of the population that enjoy having their views affirmed could pay for it, and the 50% who are ill-served or not served at all by their national broadcaster could happily opt out.

Nowadays left-wing people are middle-class people. Working class people are a big disappointment to left-wing people.
Martin Durkin’s excellent Thatcher documentary touches on the shift in Labour Party membership, from one that was chiefly working-class to one that’s overwhelmingly driven by middle-class people employed in the public sector (and whose feelings towards the proles are, shall we say, somewhat mixed).
And for another example of leftist disdain for the working class and the use of misleading code words to express that disdain – in this case, “Middle England” – see here:

Note how those who don’t share Mr Hundal’s “hardline” enthusiasm for environmentalist vandals are waved away contemptuously as “Middle England.” But a dislike of Plane Stupid’s disruptive methods and freewheeling approach to facts isn’t confined to uptight ladies of the shires. The Sun – hardly a paper of choice for the bejewelled bourgeoisie – referred to Plane Stupid as “upper crusties,” with readers describing the group as “morons,” “wasters” and “pampered useless objects” who deserved “six months in jail” and “a bloody good thrashing.” The group’s spokeswoman, Lily Kember, was singled out for attention as a “snotty little cow.” So at what point exactly does the Sun’s working-class readership become “Middle England”? Is it perhaps the point at which they start to disagree with Mr Hundal and his fellow Guardianistas? Is that when the working class becomes the enemy of the left?

Of course if your relationship with someone is premised on a desire to fix them and liberate them from their own preferences, their “false consciousness,” to make them less like they are, then that doesn’t sound very affectionate.

It’s like ‘Daily Mail reader’ = anyone who disagrees with us.
Well, it does lead to some interesting demographic contortions. And it seems to me that readers of, say, the Sun would have more in common with readers of the Daily Mail than with readers of the Guardian, and certainly its columnists.

So at what point exactly does the Sun’s working-class readership become “Middle England”? Is it perhaps the point at which they start to disagree with Mr Hundal and his fellow Guardianistas? Is that when the working class becomes the enemy of the left?
The working class has BETRAYED the left! Down with working class apostates!

“Nowadays left-wing people are middle-class people. Working class people are a big disappointment to left-wing people.”
Its why the left loves mass immigration. If they couldn’t take the working class vote for granted, simply import a new demographic that obediently votes 99 times for Labour from a three bed semi…

Hatred: The New Virtue. Not for Stereotyped Xians any more!

It would appear that Ms. Holding believes that “class” is determined by one’s DNA and can never be escaped, regardless of what one does with one’s life. Reminds me of North Korean Songbun. Which is the Leftist lie writ large: The elites never wish to have their ranks enlarged by the wrong people, don’t you know.

I particularly hate working class people who’ve made it rich that are right-wing
Yeah, really! How dare they. The uppity bastards. Don’t they know their place!?

OT, but surely to be appreciated by our host and his readers: A call to arms (or other body parts, as required)!
I take up Butler’s lesbian phallus to de-idealise and thus challenge this privileging of the penis operating within this strain of queer – as only phallic sexual economies can, it seems, deliver the very annihilation we (all) seek.

Now that it has been announced that The Independent will cease publication in print form, I was rereading Nick Garland’s (the cartoonist) account of the founding of the paper. It was three journalists from The Daily Telegraph (Andreas Whittam Smith, Matthew Symonds and Stephen Glover) who took the brave decision to launch it. They proposed to ignore the lobby system (the corrupting arrangement whereby selected journalists received privileged briefings, and had a wonderful slogan: “The Independent. It is. Are you?” It was sad to see the paper become a clone of the Guardian, and its circulation fall from 400,000 to 40,000. It was the Independent that carried the marvellous warning from a “climate scientist” that children won’t know what snow is.

I take up Butler’s lesbian phallus
Is that a religious rite similar to taking up the serpent? 🙂

OT, but surely to be appreciated by our host and his readers: A call to arms (or other body parts, as required)!
Thanks for that, a good piece. I especially liked this bit:
“If you read to the end of the paper (ah, the things I do for Power Line readers!), you find this among the suggested remedies:
This suggests that there is an opportunity for STEM courses to reduce the perception of courses as difficult and unfriendly through language use in the syllabi, and also as a guide for how to use less competitive teaching methods and grading profiles that could improve the experience of female students. [Emphasis added.]
In other words, dumb it down and practice grade inflation for the girls in the class, who are no different from boys, don’t you ever forget.”

I’s all about the experience, Jonathan. If the bridge doesn’t collapse, so much the better.