[gaius]

Well, left and right is pretty meaningless these days. That's why the Graun is owned by a holding company offshore in the Caymans where it pays no tax. Your typical reader of it was a "proper" left-winger once, back when they were a student, but now they are well-off, highly paid jobs in law, the media and the civil service, and they'd like to stay that way thankyouverymuch. When they say they care about cause X, they really mean, bung my PR agency a million quid to raise awareness of this, oh and hire my mates as spin doctors, ifyouwouldn'tmind.

[gjm11]

The Guardian is owned by Guardian Media Group plc, which is a UK public limited company headquartered in London. GMG plc is owned by The Scott Trust Ltd., another UK public limited company. So far as I can tell, it is not true that the Guardian is owned by a holding company offshore in the Caymans, nor that the Guardian is owned by a company that pays no tax. (Except that GMG has made a loss in many recent years and therefore paid no corporation tax. So far as I can tell, these are genuine losses and it seems reasonable not to pay corporation tax if you are not making a profit.)

It does appear that in 2008 the Guardian Media Group bought a magazine company called Emap, and set up a company in the Caymans as part of some (allegedly quite standard) scheme to avoid some of the stamp duty they'd otherwise have paid in the acquisition. Maybe that's dodgy or maybe it's just standard operating procedure (in which case something is dodgy but it might not be in any useful sense GMG's fault), but it's a very different matter from what you claimed.

I am in any case unable to follow your logic at one key point. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the Guardian is owned by a tax-avoiding holding company. What exactly is the connection between that and the statement that "left and right is pretty meaningless these days"?

(Full disclosure: I read newspapers seldom but the Guardian less seldom than others. I do not work in law, the media, or the civil service, I do not have a PR agency or any mates who are spin doctors, and I would hazard a guess that my pay is within a factor of two of yours one way or the other. So far as I know, I have no financial or professional interest in the success of the Guardian or its allied companies.)

[gaius]

Here you go: http://order-order.com/2012/11/26/the-guardians-offshore-sec...

GMG is selling a product. They (the owners, editors, writers) no more believe it than at McDonald's corporate HQ they live on cheeseburgers for every meal.

[dreamfactory]

> GMG is selling a product. They (the owners, editors, writers) no more believe it than at McDonald's corporate HQ they live on cheeseburgers for every meal.

You know The Guardian is unlike other newspapers and runs at a loss.

"Miller admits that he does not foresee the newspaper earning a profit anytime soon. Rusbridger said, “The aim is to have sustainable losses.” Miller defines that as getting “our losses down to the low teens in three to five years.” But at some point, if the Guardian does not begin to make money, the trust’s liquid assets, currently £254 million, would be depleted."

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/09/guardian-ce...

"... owned by The Scott Trust, a charitable foundation existing between 1936 and 2008, which aimed to ensure the paper's editorial independence in perpetuity, maintaining its financial health to ensure it did not become vulnerable to take overs by for-profit media groups. At the beginning of October 2008, the Scott Trusts assets were transferred to a new limited company, The Scott Trust Limited, with the intention being that the original trust would be wound up.[93] Dame Liz Forgan, chair of the Scott Trust, reassured staff that the purposes of the new company remained as under the previous arrangements.

The Guardian has been consistently loss-making.

...

The Guardian's ownership by the Scott Trust is probably a factor in its being the only British national daily to conduct (since 2003) an annual social, ethical and environmental audit in which it examines, under the scrutiny of an independent external auditor, its own behaviour as a company.[95] It is also the only British daily national newspaper to employ an internal ombudsman (called the "readers' editor") to handle complaints and corrections."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian#Ownership

[gaius]

And Nike, Reebok et al are about sports, but they still make clothes for people with 60" waists to laze around in eating pizza. McDonalds sells salads in their restaurants too, but they ain't a healthfood company.

You've been bamboozled by the Graun's PR and branding, which they should be slick at, that's their main demographic.

[dreamfactory]

Last time I checked, they weren't being run at a loss by a charity specifically to avoid commercial conflicts of interest.

Unlike the companies you mention, The Guardian operates more in the social economy sector (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_economy) than the private sector.

[gjm11]

> Here you go:

That page says that the Guardian's owner owns a company in the Cayman Islands. It doesn't say that the Guardian's owner is registered in the Cayman Islands, nor that the Guardian's owner pays no tax.

In other words, that page says exactly what I already said, and does not say what you said.

> They [...] no more believe it than [...]

It's far from clear exactly what "it" means (presumably something like "the opinions printed in the Guardian", but those are far from monolithic) -- but I would be interested to know your evidence that the people writing for the Guardian do not believe what they are writing.

And, also just out of curiosity, are there any left-leaning publications that you think are sincere, or is it your opinion that everyone whose politics you dislike is a hypocrite?

[gaius]

I like to get a balanced view of the news, for left-leaning stuff I like the NY Times and for right-leaning, I like The Times. The Graun is the counterpart to the Daily Mail, both of them are for dingbats.

[randomhunt]

Maybe he's thinking of the Daily Mail? [1]

[1] http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=stree...

[rmc]

Champagne socialist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champagne_socialist