Verbal

The 'middle ground' has always been contested between the intellectual/political descendants of John Stuart Mill and John Locke. The former's advocacy of equality of access and opportunity was at the heart of his idea of social justice, and was one of the founding stones of the NHS after the second world war (equal access to good health as a basic human right) and the comprehensive schools (equality of opportunity - supported and implemented by many Tories at the time, including Thatch.)

And start with the Bush-inspired Patriot Act - with one of the most Orwellian pieces of legislation ever to have found its way onto a statute book in the West.

Correct. In the shape of a Robin Hood hat is always best.

Sergei, you poor misguided chap: individualism - the kind that does not impinge on others - has been a guiding principle of liberalism for the last century and a half. We live in an age where individualism is under the severest threat not from some socialist straw man, but from modern capitalism itself in its new dominant form - ie the kind of anti-individualist authoritarianism you find in China, Russia, the Tiger economies etc. Ask Ai Wei Wei whether he feels 'the individual is sovereign' in China.

It is also ********. The funny thing is, you are so useless at defining what it is precisely you stand for that you inadvertently find yourself advocating exactly the ideas advanced by one of your worst enemies, John Stuart Mill, the architect of classical liberalism (and of social democracy). Mill also laid the groundwork for modern feminism. You'd fit right in!

And your response is to post a piece of Tory Party propaganda?! If you dare to step into the 21st century, I think you'll find that authoritarian capitalism is the norm. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/opinion/14iht-edgat.1.6137311.html

Capitalism is nothing of the sort. What you've just described is liberalism (get to know your JS Mill). Welcome to the liberal elite!

Be very afraid if the drummer in the band tells you he's a brilliant guitarist.

True.

I wouldn't dream of stealing your nickname.

No, you're just older. When (if) you have kids, the best advice I can give you is steer far away from arguments like this. In their eyes, it'll just make you sound like your dad.

One swallow doesn't make a summer. A more representative barometer is to be found here. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8627794/High-Street-rocked-by-huge-rise-in-profit-warnings.html

Don't worry - he can't spell in French either.

No, it's not. It's evidence of a paranoid mind.

Okay dune, point out exactly where the reference to Masons pops up in that report.

I bet you regret saying that now.

Laughing stock would be better. Try that.

I think you're slowly getting the hang of this pop music thingy.

Milkshake or McFlurry?

Disagree Nick. The whole cosy-ing up between politicians and the Murdoch press began with the close relationship between Margaret Thatcher and the then Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie. Here's an excruciating taste of the mutual smarm: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107430 This relationship certainly WAS one that was incredibly important to Thatcher, who face electoral annihilation after her first term, but for the Falklands War. The Murdoch press (famously with the Sun and its 'Gotcha' headline) was doing everything to buttress Thatcher's electoral support that it could, and both parties, Thatcher and the Murdoch press, saw themselves as in some kind of mutually dependent relationship. This went even further in 1992, when the truly hopeless John Major faced a (admittedly over-confident) Neil Kinnock and a resurgent Labour Party. Much to everyone's surprise - including Major - the Tories won, and with a working majority (somewhat better than the last election!). The Sun couldn't be more explicit in its belief that its relentless campaigning for Major and against Kinnock was what single-handedly turned the electoral result. The paper trumpeted its owner's electoral interference with the famous headline on 12 april 1992: 'It's The Sun Wot Won It.' From that awful moment in particular, the power of the Murdoch press was not only courted by politicians but actively feared.

McMullen is almost as much a caricature of a tabloid journo as Danny DeVito in LA Confidential. But it's the earlier YouTube interview you posted which I find the most repugnant, with Roger Alton, a senior executive at The Times. Sneering at mumsnet and anyone else who called for an advertising boycott, and accusing them of destroying a newspaper is stupid, reprehensible, and evidence of precisely the kind of siege mentality and superiority complex within New International that caused this mess in the first place.

As the revelations about the criminal conspiracy within NI turn from bad to worse, I see even the Daily Mail has come around to the Saintsweb collectively agreed point of view that, in the midst of this, Cameron is a bellend. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2012719/News-World-shutting-A-disaster-David-Cameron.html He saw it coming, but simply didn't believe in anything else than that News International was the place where those who aspired to the political summit had to supplicate. And before the wrong-trousers-benjiiiii-dune gaggle wind up their ya-boo-sucks stock replies, yes, of course, the Blairites did exactly the same. This time, though, it could, and should, ensure that Cameron's equation of political success with fawning to Murdoch will end with the walls falling down around his ears.

She'll be shopping her boss, then, if this is right... James Murdoch admits making what turned out to be illegal payments? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012419/News-World-phone-hacking-James-Murdoch-needs-answer-says-Cameron.html

How's Avram doing these days?

More depths to be plumbed yet. Rebekah Brooks says there are worse revelations about the criminal conspiracy inside NI still to come. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8617707/News-of-the-World-phone-hacking-live.html 'In a year you will understand why we made this decision.' A year?!