Off Topic Politics Thread

Not just Brexit. Working class Tory voters.

 

He is a very balanced and intelligent person IMHO.

And he has a great sense of humour .

 

Not wishing to open up the "media influencing politics" debate again and with apologies for not being teccy enough to upload ( or whatever it's called) directly to the thread, the following demonstrates to me how editorially awful the Mail is.

From the current edition of Private Eye's "Number Crunching."

9 Days Mail has front page stories about Keir Starmer's "Beergate" possible lockdown breach.

1 Days Mail has run front page stories about war in Ukraine since responding to Boris Johnson's "partygate" fine with dismissive headline "Don't they know there's a war on?"

 

Media influencing the gullible electorate.

 

Trump is a British slang word for Fart. Johnson is an American slang word for a Penis. These two are a match made in heaven.

 

Another consideration, with regards to the media, is that Starmer has condemned the killing of the Al Jazeera reporter and is “demanding” an independent inquiry into her death.
I think we all know that had it been Jeremy Corbyn making those same comments the media would be awash with antisemitism stories aimed at undermining him.
Waiting to see if any attempt is made to smear Starmer as being anti Semitic.

 

A match made in heaven?? I have it on good authority that even El Diablo has disowned them!!

 

The biggest difference is that those attacks haven't had any sort of real salience to date. Starmer doesn't excite anyone's passions, for better or ill, and it makes him really hard to demonize. The remarkable element of approval polling concerning him as a leader isn't that his approve numbers are really high (they aren't), it's that he's been the leader of a major party for more than two years, and in most polls the plurality opinion of him is "neither approval nor disapprove". The problem with Corbyn was that a lot of people (and not just consistent Conservative supporters) really just didn't like the guy, and so they were predisposed to believe negative articles about him. Starmer seems blandly competent, well-spoken without inviting controversy, and difficult to work up much hatred toward.

In some political climates, that would be seriously suboptimal. That sort of candidate doesn't tend to inspire any great wellspring of support. But this is very much a throw-the-bastards-out climate. Boris is disliked at a level that simply isn't untenable for a major party leader, especially the incumbent. And if he's turfed, the Tories don't have anyone in the wings who are particularly well-liked, either. "Yeah, but the other guy is worse!" worked against Corbyn; it won't work with Starmer. And if that's all the Tories have to work with after many years in power, they're going to lose.

 

Bloody hope so, but I’m not convinced. The political landscape in the U.K. has been turned upside down by Brexit. The Tories are in serious trouble in London and other big cities, on the brink of the sort of wipe out Labour has experienced in Scotland. And the affluent Tory shires are definitely up for grabs in the next election.

But Labour has a lot of work to do to reconnect with it’s former supporters in the old industrial heartlands. Then you have to factor in our first past the post electoral system, which really is no longer fit for purpose. It remains perfectly possible that the Conservatives can win a majority of seats at the next General Election, with well below 40% of the popular vote.

 

The (right wing) press will probably say that Corbyn is a Labour supporter, so that must mean that a vote for Labour (or, at least, a vote not for the Tories) will lead to a Communist state, removal of freedoms, banning beer and Page 3 totty, or anything else that may strike a chord with some voters.

 

Edd tore Boris a new one there.

 

They should play that at the top of every 6.pm. news tonight, but they won't! Can't have the truth being broadcast..

 

Can really see the benefit of the years he spent as Leader of the Opposition here.

He was seen as a lightweight at the time, but we can only imagine how much better condition this country would have been in had he won in 2015.

 

We’d still be in the EU apart from anything else, so we’d still have a seat at the top table and there wouldn’t be a Northern Ireland Protocol.

 

Apparently that isn't from today or even this year

 

I have no information on the story below but I haven’t seen much of Mark Francois recently.

 

I have seen a different name associated with this. MF’s name was trending but it seemed more like people wishing the downfall of one of the chief brexiteers

 

Looks like it was a chief Brexiteer, just not that one.