From regressive tax to shrinking the state, the Times outflanks George Osborne on the right
Two examples in today’s Times belie the common impression of it being among the more balanced UK papers.
The first, on page 2, warns that ‘high earners face big hit’ if chancellor Osborne merges income tax and national insurance.
It quotes an investment firm saying those earning more than £47,500 (£21,000 more than the national average) would pay an extra £230 in tax every year.
However, the story notes that
“…those earning less than this amount would benefit. Someone earning £20,000 a year would be more than £500 better off.“
Thus the Times has chosen to criticise a government proposal from the perspective of it being too progressive (in tax terms).
The second example is the paper’s editorial column, headlined ‘A Streamlined State’. It argues George Osborne is too timid about cuts to government departments and calls for an explicit and ideological commitment to slim the size of the state:
“Mr Osborne calls his protected spending choices a matter of political priorities. That is bloodless language. It would be good to know that these cuts reflected a broader political philosophy as well, with the goal of a more efficient, more responsive state that consumes less of the nation’s income.
To achieve this the chancellor will ultimately have to target waste inside his ringfences, not just outside. He would find plenty of fat to cut.”
More efficient government would be welcome, but in business-speak (a language in which the Times is fluent) ‘efficiency’ is code for cuts to resources and sacking staff.
The Times is urging government cuts to departments even the slash-happy chancellor has ‘ring-fenced’, and wants public justifications of this in the name of a ‘streamlined’ (more business-speak) state.
In both these pieces, the supposedly balanced Times – formerly the newspaper of record – puts itself to the right of the Conservative government.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
Read more:
French ferry workers lose their jobs… but the Times revels in French property market
The Times’s Melanie Phillips says calling gender pay gap a ‘scandal’ is sexist
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12 Responses to “Murdoch’s ‘balanced’ Times is more right-wing than the Tories”
paulstaines
Of all the dumb things MediaWatch does this is really dumb. You are basically complaining that a newspaper has a viewpoint. Incidentally “The Thunderer” was thundering long before Murdoch bought it.
We over at http://MediaGuido.com mock The Guardian for being fruity and sometimes bat-shit crazy in our subjective view, we don’t question the right of a privately own paper in a free society to propound a radical viewpoint.
How dull the press would be if they all pretended to be objective and balanced.
[Declaration of interest, I occasionally write for The Times.]
stevep
How better society would be if they were.
Matthew Blott
The Times has always been a centre-right newspaper but the complaint is it seems to have dropped the ‘centre’ part and is now just a partisan rightwing rag. One other feature – like the Telegraph – there is now little distinction between news and comment.
FFXIII-2
hey its that guy! the guy off the internet! you know, that guy!
‘Declaration of interest, I occasionally write for The Times’
gotta get paid dude, gotta get that money. Oink oink.
Cole
It’s both a crappy paper and full of distorted right wing rubbish. Once upon a time it contained proper factual journalism that it kept separate from opinion. No more, as you’d expect with a Murdoch rag.