The Manchester Guardian, Then and Now

I recall something that Anthony Burgess once wrote about The Guardian:

"At the time of my birth, Manchester was a great city, Cottonopolis, the mother of liberalism and the cradle of the entire industrial system. It had the greatest newspaper in the world, meaning the only independent one. The Manchester Guardian debased itself when it grew ashamed of its city of origin: a superb liberal organ was turned into an irritable rag dedicated...to the wrong kind of radicalism." Anthony Burgess (born 1917), Little Wilson and Big God, 1987.

I certainly don't agree with Burgess about it being an "irritable rag", but I do have in front of me the Centenary Number of The Manchester Guardian, 1821-1921. One of my grandfathers, James Richardson Potts was employed by the newspaper for over 35 years, from the age of 14 in 1886 (he was born in 1872) until his untimely death in January 1922.

My father was also employed by The Manchester Guardian for seven years, from around 1927 until 1934.

The front cover quotes from the Prospectus announcing the first number of The Manchester Guardian on the 5th of May 1821:

"...It will zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty, in the most comprehensive sense of those terms; it will warmly advocate the cause of Reform; it will endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy; and support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, whatever measures may, according to the matured and unbiased judgement of its Conductors, tend to promote the moral advantage, or the political welfare, of the Community..."


Sketch by Karel Čapek (1924)

How many newspapers can claim to live up to, or even to aspire to, such ideals nowadays?

I've no idea if it's true that The Guardian is losing £100,000 a day. I hope not. But would it make a difference if they started charging for news on the website? I doubt it.

My grandfather would have sorted them out!

An update on The Guardian and Wikileaks (from Vanity Fair)

Opinion piece by Melanie Phillips, "The Left is eating itself in a trans culture war"", www.melaniephillips.com, March 13, 2020:

"In response to the furore over Suzanne Moore, there have been references to The Guardian being a "great liberal newspaper". This is about four decades out of date. It stopped being a liberal paper when liberalism became corrupted by ideologies which permit no opposition and are therefore inimical to truth, freedom and reason".

Shades of Anthony Burgess?

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