Comment is free - 2 comments

The handful of B4L bloggers who don't loyally buy The Guardian (I'm guessing...) may not yet know, but a new "collective comment blog" has been launched by the editor of that journal, which collects together new comments and analysis from the dead tree version's contributors, rather than the team who work on the existing blog pages.

So, you can read articles from respected writers of the calibre of Jonathan Freedland, George Galloway, Polly Toynbee, Gary Younge, and many others, on a nicely laid-out site, and you can even leave comments.

Question: would anyone be interested in B4L syndicating these stories alongside other blog posts? They could show up with the familiar blue background that denotes non-partisan news, or potentially another colour altogether: a world of possibilities.

We could, for example, monitor the most recent articles across the board, or just a selection of, say, 3 or 4 of your favourite writers - except Galloway.

Let me know what your preferences are and I shall make it so.

Update: Hmm, not much enthusiasm so far. Perhaps articles like this, attracting comments like this, don't help:

Zionists, like Nazis in the past will be brought to their knees. Zionist sympathisers are nothing more then devil worshipers (sic), they like to suck your blood dry.

You mean they like to suck the liquid content out of one's blood, leaving behind just the corpuscles: red and white blood cells, and platelets?

Update 2: Stephen Pollard reports that some comments of this ilk, which The Guardian have already adjudged to be "offensive", are still on the site, despite assurances that they would be taken down.

Freedom of speech and all that... on the other hand, if there is a policy it should be adhered to, and I must say the amount of bigotry and spite I've seen this week is quite remarkable. But what do you expect when you invite people like Galloway to be a regular commentator, with his hostile views and poisonous band of ant-Zionist (cough! cough!) groupies?

Update 3: Can't believe what I'm reading:

As for the "sane" nuclear powers in the region, let us take the case of Israel. One may lose count of how many wars Israel has provoked or initiated since its creation in 1948. Leaving aside the so-called war of independence and even the expansionist drive of 1967, Israel has been nothing but a constant threat to its neighbours.

[...]

It is true of course that Ahmadinejad frequently uses a most undiplomatic and politically incorrect language, especially his absurd denial of the Holocaust...

[...]

I am personally opposed to nuclear weapons and all forms of WMD but I would perfectly understand why any zealous Arab or Muslim ruler in the region might do exactly what the Iranians have been doing...

And from the comments:

The Israeli's themselves are guilty of Holocaust Denial in that they are segregating and persecuting a people they seem to regard as sub-human, just as Hitler did to Jews and others. A classic case of the abused becoming the abuser!
To criticise Israel is not anti-semetic...

I wouldn't say I was particularly sensitive to this kind of thing, but this is despicable. Either I've gone mad this week, or The Guardian has!