Reasons not to read newspapers

When uber-Blairite David Aaronovitch bid farewell to the Graun's G2 section (I assume Seamus Milne wouldn't let him anywhere near his shrine to the blessed George of the oil vouchers) he signed off with the modest remark:

With writers such as Emma Brockes, Laura Barton, Lucy Mangan and Hadley Freeman, not to mention the comic talent of Tanya Gold, you won't miss me.

Sure enough, the amount of tooth-furring bollocks in G2 has remained steady since he left for the Times. By the far the worst has been the following mini-autobiography from Sue Townsend during her stint doing the prize quiz:

Sue Townsend will never forget the night of "shock and awe" when Baghdad was bombed by British and American planes. She wonders if Tony and Cherie gathered their children together to watch the television as the bombs fell on the children of Baghdad.

For uninformative smugness this is hard to beat. Why remember that rather than, say, mass murder in various parts of Africa? Does she imagine a Prime Minister who's just started a deeply unpopular war would have nothing better to do at the time?

Surely she doesn't feel the little virtuous glow of those so convinced of their rightness that there couldn't possibly be an alternative view?

I have no especial desire to choose between the self-deluding hypocrites on both sides of this overblown debate, but I must say that Sue Townsend's approach is as simplistic as Fox News's; only considerably more annoying.