Newspapers

Reading several different newspapers while away in Cornwall for an autumn holiday was almost a revelation.

I sampled The Times again  which I have eschewed for years as a consequence of its Murdoch connection though he did as I recall, receive the papal Order of St Gregory the Great.

Surprisingly at least to me, The Times has  much improved since my last in depth reading of it. There seems little obvious political slant;  pro Brexit items are featured although I'd guess that The Times favoured a "remain" vote. The killings and wars in the Middle  sadly feature at length - the sadness arises of course not from the newspaper's reporting but from man's inhumanity to man which is surely a grievous sin against the human race as well as any divine creator.

Irritatingly its lengthy sport section failed at least on the days I bought the paper,to feature AFC Wimbledon's amazing climb  over MK Dons up  the ranks of Division one. However the paper well reported  Andy Murray's continuing tennis success.

Today I took the Observer rather than the Sunday Times but begin to wonder if that was a mistake. The Observer headline concentrates on the potential disaster  for the UK at least insofar as the question of whether banks will quit the City as a consequence of the Brexit vote.

I am not sure whether the current concentration of banks in the City is actually good for us all in any event. Perhaps too many talented people are attracted into banking  for their careers whereas with so many banks leaving the UK, more students and young people might be tempted to opt for  other perhaps better, careers even adding  to the country's common good, though that will take time.

Nearly all of the news on the Observer's inner pages seems coloured by the paper's politically left leaning views. Thus there are many column inches geared to the very long delayed decision of the May government to admit child refugees from Calais but instead of a "better late than never" approach, the Observer reports seem still to moan at the government, which in my view illustrates that political views of that paper influence the reporting over much.

In fact the UK having opted out of the EU Schengen  border arrangements well before the current tragedies in the Middle East, one would have thought that there would be newspaper criticism of the EU countries within Schengen for allowing so many refugees to pour North into Calais from the Southern  Mediterranean and perhaps  for failing to provide properly for all of them enroute. Indeed the failure by the EU including  the UK, to meet and agree a common policy and  funding for this ongoing tragedy is in my view an appalling indictment of the EU yet silence on that in the Observer at least.

The Daily Mail is apparently hugely popular but its reporting seems as too obviously right wing as the  Observer is  left wing, added to which the Mail has much "tabloid" style news which is to me at least, quite unattractive. On the other hand its sports pages did have a paragraph on AFC Wimbledon's  recent successes in Division 1 and its financial pages have some interesting reports on small companies which provide food for investment thoughts.

The Telegraph is still in broadsheet form which makes for unwieldy reading especially on the  crowded train back from Penzance to London Paddington. Its right wing  bias is as unattractive to me as the left wing bias of  the Guardian/Observer though like the Observer there is at least much in depth reporting and commentary.

Overall it is sad that the Independent newspaper has ceased to publish print versions but in my humble opinion, The Times currently has it as providing the least biased fullest reporting - though that may simply reflect my own political bias.