Who’d have thought that the Daily Star would end up being more truthful than the Guardian? Well, this is 2022 – anything is possible. And the notorious tabloid just put the allegedly left-wing broadsheet to shame over Tory MP Rachel MacLean’s response to the so-called ‘cost of living crisis’.
Rachel MacLean: shithouse extraordinaire
As the Big Issue reported, the Tory minister faced a backlash after saying poor people need to work more hours or get better paid jobs. This was in response to what the political and media class are calling the ‘cost of living crisis’. At The Canary, we prefer to call it an ongoing class war.
Government minister MacLean said during an interview with Sky News that:
Over the long term we need to have a plan to grow the economy and make sure that people are able to protect themselves better – whether that is by taking on more hours or moving to a better paid job and these are long term actions but that’s what we’re focused on as a government.
Never mind the fact that one in eight workers are in poverty, or that poverty itself is the fault of the system and the government, not the individual. Of course, we wouldn’t expect a Tory MP to admit that. Thankfully, Sky News‘s Kay Burley pulled her up on it:
Rachel Maclean: People can protect themselves better from the cost of living crisis "by taking on more hours or moving to a better job"#KayBurley: Some people are working 3 jobs, they're working every hour they can… but they're still having to go to food banks#BBCBreakfast pic.twitter.com/CP5dslPHK9
— Haggis_UK 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 (@Haggis_UK) May 16, 2022
Maybe we’d also expect the Guardian to call it out forcefully? Sadly not.
Daily Star doing the Guardian‘s job for it
The Guardian failed to even report on MacLean’s comments. It was left to columnists Dr Frances Ryan and Marina Hyde to mention the story. Considering the wilful obtuseness of MacLean, the Guardian surely should have at least reported on it. People need to know that MacLean’s is the kind of mindset that pervades the government and the Tory Party, believing that poor people are irresponsible and poverty is their own fault. But no. There was nothing on the front page on 17 May nor any reporting:
Tuesdays #TheGuardian #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/d0B5Mrdbxe
— #TomorrowsPapersToday From TSC News (@channel_tsc) May 16, 2022
Thankfully, one media outlet did report on MacLean’s comments with some brutal honesty. It was the Daily Star. The tabloid ran with the headline:
DON’T BE SO POOR
The Daily Star continued in this sarcastic tone:
Minister: Either get a better job or work harder in the crappy one you have
daily star doing the guardian's job for it i see🤷♂️#tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/9aM91CBH8w
— Steve Topple (@MrTopple) May 16, 2022
The point being, of course, that MacLean either has no idea about how the rest of us live, or she does, and is gaslighting millions of people. The Daily Star also highlighted MacLean’s hypocrisy, given that she bags £218k in expenses.
When a notorious tabloid calls out the class war while the Guardian turns the other cheek, the state of the UK media landscape really is a peculiar one.
Featured image via The Canary, Wikimedia and David Woolfall – Wikimedia, reduced in size under licence CC BY 3.0
