Am I left wing or right wing? Help me someone.

I wrote this a few weeks ago and seeing as how Mehdi Hasan has declared war on the daily mail, and they in return, on him; I thought this would be as good a time as any to put on my blog.

There is a mind-set that you have to be in one political camp or another. You have to be right or left wing. Most people are neither but in many cases the politicians, policy makers and people who have real influence on society are. Quite often the worst offenders are the political activists both online and in the real world.

If your right wing you have to have a go at ‘liberal democracy and ‘woolly minded liberals’ [Their words, not mine]

If your left wing you have to arrogantly look down your nose at anyone that doesn't believe in a bloated state and public sector.

This mind-set even tries to dictate which newspapers you should read.

If your right wing you have to despise the guardian and dismiss everything that’s in it as PC, Britain hating, claptrap, and that these people can’t get out of bed in the morning because of a lack of a backbone.

Likewise if your left wing you have to sneer constantly at anyone that reads the daily mail. Dismissing them all as nutters, racists and closet Nazis!

Well here’s a question. What if you read both papers online [and many others]several times a week [I wouldn't buy them because I don’t want to help them peddle some of their rubbish, plus I quite often have to Google a DM story to see if its true, recent or even relevant]

So does what I read make me a lefty, pc, woolly liberal, Britain hating, patriotic Nazi, racist, bigot?

Wow what would one of them look like?

For some reason to be a ‘socially conscious nice human being’ you have to attack papers such as the DM as often as possible. If you don’t well obviously you’re a right wing nut-job.

Similarly the Guardian; according to the right wing ‘Is read by lentil eating, humus smelling goat breeders who drive Citroen 2CVs and live in their own hair’.

So ‘my argument is this. How on earth can you get a realistic perspective on life if your information comes from one socio-political base?

No newspaper is totally bad. If you only ever read the daily mail ‘god help you’.

It must be hard to get out of your bed in the morning because of all the Muslim terrorists, African rapists and Romanian muggers hiding behind your bins. That’s assuming you have a bin because of all the unemployed scroungers and refugee’s that may have stolen it!

Likewise’ If you read nothing but the Guardian.  Again ‘god help you’. You must believe that Britain is responsible for all the worlds’ ills and terrorists are just misunderstood freedom fighters and there’s a government conspiracy behind everything.

Sometimes the very reason a newspaper runs a story is to prop up its political bias. But if the story is true it doesn't matter who publishes it. It’s still true.