Given up on the Grauniad

Has the proudly independent Guardian recreated itself in the image of any Murdoch paper circa-2002?

I fear so. Take today's headline:

Revealed: Lib Dems planned before election to abandon tuition fees pledge

It turns out that the Lib Dems considered what would happen if they ended up in coalition talks with the Tories and decided tuition fees wouldn't be a deal-breaker. Judging by what they managed to get out of the Tories, I'd say fair enough.

The Guardian headline of course paints the Lib Dems as conniving sons of bitches who screwed us to get into power. But this compromising is precisely the kind of politics that they, and we Greens, have effectively been campaigning for by supporting PR, and they seem reasonably good at it. Labour were authoritarian, militaristic and incompetent, and their worst policies were quickly overturned. Yet the left which they completely betrayed seems to be running back to them, with the Guardian leading the charge. It used to be the Times that would be the New Labour banner-waver, but the Guardian has made its peace with the pseudo-left simply because they aren't Tory. That they're echoing the Daily Mail in bashing the Lib Dems should give us some pause.

Don't get me wrong, the economic direction of the Coalition is, I think, very dangerous. I would much prefer to be criticising this. Instead I find myself defending the Lib Dems from misguided criticism that threatens to end the prospect of electoral reform for a generation.