Thank you. I have deleted my erroneous posts and apologized. They are still visible in some replies but I have no control over that. I suspect one of my pals may have made the same identification error.
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[Politics] General Election 2024 - 4th July
- Thread starter Bozza
- Start date
Machiavelli
Well-known member
You'll need radical reform of the media for that. Not going to happen. The tabloids set the news agenda in this country. It was ever thus. Fortunately their readership is waning but, unfortunately, their influence hasn't declined as precipitously and some of that slack is now being picked up by the loss-making, billionaire-funded GB News.
- Apr 5, 2014
- 25,410
Please tell me that's fake. Not least that they may have sent it to a person with disabilities who couldn't work.
Machiavelli
Well-known member
I might also add that @Titanic has had the good grace to admit that he's struggling to find of any achievement/s by the government over the last 14 years.
I am... but it's hard to vote for the current shower - even though our local MP is not one of the worst. I might just draw a sad face on my ballot paper.
Indeed.
- Jul 10, 2003
- 27,346
Make sure you go over the edges of the box or some t*** will claim it's a vote for them
nicko31
Well-known member
Are you suggesting a Vote for Nige is not really a serious vote?
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Voting is a deadly serious business. You only have to look at what politicians are capable of.
nwgull
Well-known member
They've seen it work effectively in recent years. FIrstly in the Brexit referendum campaign and subsequently by Trump and Johnson.
Vast majority of the times I've seen her pop up, it's been because she's spouting off some ludicrous already-debunked conspiracy theory as if it was fact. She strikes me as one of those entirely-too-gullible individuals who is incapable of thinking for herself.
Papa Lazarou
Living in a De Zerbi wonderland
Like the massive increase in food banks, the measured increase in raw sewage outflow is definitely something for the Tories to be proud of.
- Oct 17, 2008
- 12,908
surprised they didn’t put that in the letter.
British food banks - best in the world!
While I have always hated the 'right wing media' cabal that pilloried Labour during the Thatcher years....and deplored some of the stunts (such as the notorious 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' sting.......(and this is the first time I have properly admitted it to myself.......)....
;......Labour deserved it. Foot was a useless leader. It was absurd to have policy dictated by middle-aged Northern or Cockney union leaders, all white men with bushy sideburns. Always shouting and threatening. The Militant slogan 'No Compromise with the Electorate' was symptomatic of the massive delusion of the march of the left. Labour took the support of the working class for granted and paid the price. Meanwhile Thatcher was able to get a lot of necessary things done (union reform for one) while pursuing other agendas that Labour were to weak and disliked to moderate. For example, the selling off of the family silver, as MacMillan (still alive at the start) called it. Labour had to restructure in order to be able to respond and that took 20 years.
So, of course elements of the media (especially the new media) will gun for labour, but GBNews will need to reinvent itself to become more than a nobbers' and missfits' echo chamber. If Labour behaves itself, and doesn't sellotape 'kick me' signs on its arse, then there is no reason to not hope for more than one term and some relative stability.
I am not quite sure how to deal with the general phenomenon of fake news, and manipulative bile, but we have laws about incitement, racism, homophobia and society is heading in the right direction. In the 1970 everyone was a casual racist. Today there is still a large amount of it but it is not casual any more, and is concentrated in a much smaller pool of the electorate. Consider that despite all the noise around this election, there is no 'clamour' (as there would have been in the 70s and 80s) about it 'not being right' that we have a 'foreign' prime minister. That pleases me.
Aside from the avoidable (and now impossible to repeat) Corbyn anomaly (with Militant resurfacing as Momentum), Labour have been phenotypically 'decent' since Smith was leader. I have some optimism that Starmer-Labour will not deserve immediate opprobrium, and will not be pilloried by mainstream media over tax semantics. A media campaign that drags us quickly back into tory arms before the Tories have cleansed their stables and restructured themselves with decent people with an honest and principled right wing phenotype, would be supporting chaos. Only Russian bot media wants UK chaos. I am hopeful the Tories will smell the coffee and sort themselves out, and not rush off to inject their eyeballs with more alt-right political steroids and cocaine.
BBassic
I changed this.
- Jul 28, 2011
- 12,844
Serious question - when did anyone on this thread last read a tabloid newspaper?
20 years ago i’d say
Yes there is always a possibility outrageous lies will work in the future. But the Brexit referendum was a special case. There was nothing to compare being in the EU with. Once Labour have been in power for a year, people will still remember what the last 14 years were like. If things are better then they won't be as easily persuaded to back the Tories as they were Brexit.
In any case, once labour are in power, whose outrageous lies will have the most traction with The People? Tory or Reform? If the Tories continue to use blatant lies to attack labour they will be indistinguishable from Reform, thereby splitting the anti-Labour vote in the GE in 5 years (as is the case now). This is part of the reason why I expect the Tories to back away from shit-housery and lies and become grown up again. Perhaps I have too much faith in sensible Tories?
Start a poll!
For me it was 1982. The Daily Mirror. (Admittedly I haven't read a broadsheet since around 2002, either).
(The Evening Standard, a freesheet, doesn't count).