New readers start here. Point One: The Guardian has been wrestling with its attitude to Gordon Brown. Has he really been good for the poor, is he right to take a tough line over teachers' pay, is he any good as a leader?
Point Two: One of the sharpest commentators in the Times, David Aaronovitch, once of this parish, has had a serious go at his former colleagues today for, in essence, being a crowd of treacherous monkeys. The Guardianistas, he says, once boosted Brown because they were cross about Blair. Now he faces tough choices, instead of trying to explain them, we turn tail and leave him to sink.
Point Three: Does Aaronovitch have a point?
Well, part of the trouble is that "the Guardian" isn't a single file of believers marching in step as David seems to believe. There are editorials, of course, just as in every paper. But we are divided, right-of-centre libertarians (Simon Jenkins), greens (George Monbiot), Blairites (Martin Kettle), Brownites (me), Labourite but less enthusiastic Brownites (Polly Toynbee and Jonathan Freedland), etc. They will all probably fizz at these shorthand descriptions, but, well, there you go.
This is a good thing. Ideological purity should be saved for sects. A newspaper should be a conversation, even a daily argument. I have absolutely no idea what the true core view of this one is, except that it is clearly left of centre and vaguely progressive. If you want "the line", buy Socialist Worker or the Spectator. You can be absolutely certain that come the next general election, the Guardian's stance will not be dictated by the editor, still less any foreign proprietor (it helps that there isn't one) but will be the result of vigorous debate within the paper.
All that said, there's a fair question about whether a basically pro-Labour organisation should be more supportive of a Labour prime minister under assault from all sides.
Well, I called myself a Brownite, by which I really mean quite traditionally Labour in instinct, less keen on market-mimicking reforms than Blairites, pro-progressive tax, and so on. But the minute I stifle my own beliefs on, for instance, the iniquity of the 42-day detention proposal, or going ahead with the European treaty sans referendum, in the interests of helping Brown, then it seems to me I'm reducing myself to a mouthpiece and somehow selling out.
We're commentators - not MPs, not spin-doctors, not players - and there's a basic duty to tell it as we see it. I'm friendly to much of what Brown believes but I hope I'm a critical friend. Aaronovitch himself mentions Stalin and Marx in his attack, so I hope it's not a low blow to say that if I lack a bit of old time Communist-Party-cadre-discipline, it's a fault I will stoically try to live with.
Would I like a bit more rallying-round for Gordon? Yes, because as I have said repeatedly, the anti-Brown mood has become hysterical and disproportionate. But if that comes at the price of colleagues self-censoring, then it's too high a price. I can almost hear them starting to yell at me already ...