Off Topic Political Debate

There is some state funding for parties Leo - which is based on the number of MPs a party has. Obviously I have nothing really against sympathisers and party members giving something at election time. However, with a drastically falling membership, the main parties are becoming more and more dependent on 'big spenders' ie. individual sponsors or corporations giving more than 500,000 or so. Although this is transparent (otherwise I could not have come by this information) my feeling is that there should be a more controlled upper limit. Either that, or we should be scaling down our elections a bit from the 'Americanized' TV events that they have become.

 

This is the sort of thing that makes people distrust politicians.

"The consequences of me failing to secure a seat for myself in the Commons would be significant for both myself and the party. It is frankly just not credible for me to continue to lead the party without a Westminster seat...was I supposed to brief UKIP policy from the Westminster Arms? No - if I fail to win South Thanet, it is curtains for me. I will have to step down."

It seems a little bizarre to be honest. Just hours after the election he talked of his relief and how happy he was to have lost in his attempt to become an MP. But now the party has persuaded him to stay.

Seems that some are not impressed. "I know some senior Ukip figures will be furious about this. Makes party seems like Farage's personal fiefdom. Demagogic rather than democratic"

 

At least Polly Toynbee does not try to hide her bias anymore. The old BBC 'Play for Today" series of plays, were nearly always supporting left issues. Listening to some BBC commentators the other night reminded us that 'Ed Balls plays the piano and really was a nice man' was cringing. The red flag runs through the BBC like words through a stick of rock.

John Whittingdale the new Secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport will be probably oversee an inquiry into the present value of the BBC. He already holds strong views on the subject, which is to privatise.

 

Perhaps an inquiry into the political bias of the print media too then?

'The red flag runs through the BBC like words through a stick of rock' More inflammatory comments based on what... one comment from Nick Robinson?

 

Isn't he a Tory anyway - allegedly?

 

Superhorns reflects his right wing stance - everything to the left of him has to be left wing. However for those of us closer to the centre we see the Beeb try to achieve a bit of a balancing act - sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left. What Superhorns does not get is that his equivalent on the left wing see the Beeb as a right wing Establishment rag.

 

Not just politics either Leo - during the 6 nations we all think the coverage is biased against our teams

 

One on bias in the Scottish referendum shown by BBC/ITV:-
https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-robertson/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report

One on bias in the media in the lead up to General Election - this is report 4, but the search function will find you the other three
https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/general-election?s=Media coverage of the 2015 campaign (report 3)&x=0&y=0

One comment from Nick Robinson? The BBC were flooded with complaints over him about his 'behaviour' during IndyRef - in particular his habit of filming interviews with Yes leaders and then editing them to produce something to broadcast which was totally skewed, and in extreme cases, splicing together footage from more than one interview and claiming it to be from just the one. Every single one of those complaints was simply fobbed off by the BBC - hardly surprising given that he is their political editor - and has the ear of Cameron.

 

Nobody could seriously thinks the BBC has any kind of right wing bias, the views the other way are rife. Of course it is difficult to think that 'auntie' could possibly have any bias whatsoever, but wasn't Rolf Harris thought of as an untouchable icon?

 

and Jezza Clarkson.... friend of some tory politician

 

And that famous leftie Jim Davidson.

 

I don't buy the Beeb being red or blue. It's not bad at toeing the neutral line, yes some folk are more left others more right but in general its pretty well balanced. As for the press we all know that its all a bit of a comic left right and centre, I don't believe anything I read just use it as a framework, frankly the Guardian which I used to respect appears to be becoming more and more radicalized and as for the Times and Telegraph they're not far off the same but on the other side. I find it offensive for members on here to refer to Tories as just self interested scum, the party has its fair share of extreme right who have little to no conscience in the same way as the labour party has its extreme left who can't see the need for economic foundations on which to build equality, this is the real reason they lost, the public know from bitter personal experience that you can't live forever on credit. I seem to have come to a zone of tolerance even for the SNP, no lips appeared to be quite sensible in her views, we'll see if she delivers on more powers within the UK and drops independence issues for at least a decade, she certainly will have her hands ful controlling Salmond who will become more and more beligerant as senility begins to take a hold.

 

Oh come on! All media should be dependent on advertisers, so that only stuff that the advertisers deem acceptable should be published. That, after all is a free press. (It is free of the need to worry about what voters think). That way businesses can do what they like without worrying about media interference.

The far right hate not having total control of all media. That is why they claim the BBC is left wing. They know it isn't, though some people who work there may be. The far right want to control all aspects of the media whilst pretending that they don't.

What I particularly like about the BBC is the lack of advertising. I assume that there is still no advertising on it. I don't watch television or listen to radio stations that have advertising. I have no problem with paying for that service through taxation. Unfortunately, in NZ, we subsidise tv through taxation, but there is also advertising. So I don't watch it.

Interestingly, there is an investigative journalist on one of the commercial channels here, who the Prime Minister has said, privately, he wants removed because the journalist is "a left wing ****". The programme is now going to be dropped because the channel is worried that they will lose advertising. This is in spite of the fact that it is the most popular current affairs programme. There is a public campaign to make the channel change it's mind, but I don't think it will have any effect. Without public ownership the voters do not have any indirect say on what happens. They certainly can't control what the businesses which advertise do. The far right believes this is as it should be.

 

And I'm duty bound to point out that the SNP had candidates standing in only 59 constituencies whereas UKIP contested 624. By my quick and rough reckoning, that means the SNP averaged 25420 votes per constituency compared to UKIP's 6410.

Just viewed from another angle.

 

Yes - we understand that if votes are concentrated they get MPs. In days gone by the Liberals used that to focus on select areas and achieve more MPs than if they had targeted all seats equally.

However if the SNP had stood outside Scotland they would obviously have won nothing extra - so it still comes back to less than 1.5 million people in the UK support the SNP. Remember that when they demand their voice be heard because the people of Scotland have spoken. That argument works in Scotland but not in the UK. 4 million UKippers have spoken - thankfully the rest of us have our fingers in our ears - but fair???

 

I'm not so sure about your assertion that the SNP would do poorly if they stood in England. I bet that there are areas of northern England that have far more in common with Scotland than they do with Southern England. Perhaps that should be the next target for the SNP - to break England.

 

I think a lot of people up here were impressed with the SNP and their leader.....

 

Absolutely - and we saw the level of support for the Yorkshire Independence party. If this energy was harnessed in the right way we could be on the verge of something really exciting in British politics

 

Start up the "YIP" Yorkshire Independence Party and I bet they would win Yorkshire hands down.....

 

Actually forget my comment about Yorkshire Independence - it was Yorkshire first which I suspect is a different kind of exciting