UK Politics: Spaffed up the wall while chuntering from a sedentary position

[Varysblackfyre321]

13 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

In your opinion it didn't do JC any favours. Didn't he win handily among independents? 

The claim wasn't that he was scared to have debates, it was 'has refused to take part in a second leaders debate'. There may be a valid reason, but bottling it looks most likely to me. 

Yeah. From an objective standpoint I don’t see how Corbyn could be said to have gained nothing from the debate given that. 

On 11/21/2019 at 12:20 PM, Werthead said:

The Conservatives going full Russian in their misinformation campaign during the election. This stinks of rank desperation.

Using an image of Corbyn being arrested for protesting against apartheid to try to smear him for racism is quite a look and yes, her position would now appear to be untenable.

Sigh, don’t you understand this image of him being arrested for protesting Apartheid does show Corbyn’s racism. In fact racism against the most maligned race in history—racist white people, who want to subjugate other races. They’re so oppressed. 

I’m kidding.  

On 11/17/2019 at 2:33 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

To some extent it doesn't matter if there are East-European ghettos, or Islamic no-go zones in Britain where Shariah law is in effect and not British law. A lot (apparently) of people believe these things are true, and this is influencing their thinking and voting choices and their social discourse. A fear might be based in fantasy, but the fear is still real.

To some extent I don’t think it really matters to a lot of these people if these things are true. But they at least help give cover to more blatant xenophobia or racism.  Just crying “they’re a lot of them” just sounds and looks childish at best—blatant bigotry at worse. The real major issue is the fact, the amount of immigrants exists in total. It doesn’t matter if by all reason one should expect the vast majority of the immigrants  to assimilate. It doesn’t matter the vast majority of them won’t/cannot substantively  interfere with the typical British person’s ability to enjoy any of the stuff he or she has enjoyed their whole life, or take pride in being British. They’re still here and that’s bad and you shouldn’t say these fears are xenophobic or racist because that would make people feel bad person and pressed to vote for xenophobes and racists who’d radically alter their society’s culture in ways that would probably disgust people who aren’t bigoted and probably in more significant ways than any of the immigrant groups being complained about.

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Hmm he oddly seems to be on tv tonight in another debate. What a bottler.

In a different format. Not 1 on 1 with his main opponent. He can hide amongst a bigger crowd. 

[Ser Hedge]

The "We'll revoke if we win a majority, and read the small print about our consistent support for a people's vote in the event that we don't win outright" strategy turned out to be too cute by half for the QT audience. Add in Jo's inexperience and inability to turn the conversation around to highlight her message, and of course the LibDem's record in the coalition and the result was really not pretty.

But you have to wonder how the audience gets picked. How did they find so many remainers who hate the Lib Dems?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

53 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

But you have to wonder how the audience gets picked. How did they find so many remainers who hate the Lib Dems? 

Anybody that went to the University, is now in their thirties and got burned heavily by their tuition fee pledge and who isn't a proper c..onservative. I imagine you might find 2-3 people that way.

 

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

In a different format. Not 1 on 1 with his main opponent. He can hide amongst a bigger crowd. 

You are acting like it's totally out of character for the poster in question to make a poor argument in obvious bad faith and cover up the weakness of his position with some sort of bravado.

[polishgenius]

59 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

But you have to wonder how the audience gets picked. How did they find so many remainers who hate the Lib Dems?

 

I wouldn't have thought it would be hard. Pretty much everyone I know in person is a remainer but I don't think anyone is even considering voting Lib Dem, and those I've come across tangenialy online who are are doing so out of percieved necessity, not because they like them.

[Ser Hedge]

8 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Anybody that went to the University, is now in their thirties and got burned heavily by their tuition fee pledge and who isn't a proper c..onservative. I imagine you might find 2-3 people that way.

 

8 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

I wouldn't have thought it would be hard. Pretty much everyone I know in person is a remainer but I don't think anyone is even considering voting Lib Dem, and those I've come across tangenialy online who are are doing so out of percieved necessity, not because they like them.

 

Yep for sure. There were audience members explicitly bitter about tuition fees, about austerity, about other coalition-era policies like fracking, then you had Leavers obviously and finally Remainers unhappy about the Revoke plan! They preferred a People's vote which the Lib Dems have championed all along before letting JC own it now.

I think we touched on the Revoke in the forums before, I myself had got it wrong that the 'auto-Revoke' was only if they got a majority. It now looks like the Lib Dem messaging really has got people confused. Well, I guess they were never going to get much of the Remain vote in places like Sheffield anyway, but it didn't feel like Swinson was making her case well enough to the wider TV audience. Being elected Leader months before a GE really hasn't helped either.

[Which Tyler]

11 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

In a different format. Not 1 on 1 with his main opponent. He can hide amongst a bigger crowd. 

I must admit, I'm getting a little confused as to which debate is which, but isn't the C4 ok me he's running away from, the "Policies other than Brexit" one? So not just nowhere to hide, but also one where he'd not be allowed his favourite catchphrase, hosted by a broadcaster that he likes to snub in his attempt to control the "free" press (since official C4 policy is to call out untruthful things as being untruthful)

[Heartofice]

51 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

(since official C4 policy is to call out untruthful things as being untruthful)

A bit like  Cathy ‘what you’re saying is..’ Newman and John ‘ F**k the tories !’ Snow? Those paragons of impartiality?

[SeanF]

It doesn't seem the debates or Labour's manifesto have moved the dial.  The first two polls out tonight have 12% and 19% Conservative leads.

[Chaircat Meow]

If the lead is 10%ish Labour may still be able to claw it back and get a hung Parliament (John Curtice has estimated a lead of 6% could mean no overall majority for the Tories). If it is 19% the country is doomed. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

10 hours ago, Heartofice said:

A bit like  Cathy ‘what you’re saying is..’ Newman and John ‘ F**k the tories !’ Snow? Those paragons of impartiality?

This seems rather big step back from your initial complaint. You don’t seem to dispute the debate format Johnson chose to participate is one that is far more favorable to him given topics allowed to be broached, and him being able to allow his opponent to hash it out themselves. Now you’re just attacking  the integrity of C4. 

I must point out there was no actual video of John snow actually chanting “fuck the tories”  but even if he did utter the phrase, repeatedly; so what? Just having/displaying to have a negative opinion of a political party while not being on the job, is not a broach of Journalistic ethics. It simply means this man—like literally nearly everyone else has his own personal political opinions. If you could demonstrate how his political’s biases affected his ability to function in his job that is one thing. Seeing it as a transgression that him expressing a political opinion while not on the job is another.

[Chaircat Meow]

There have not been many Scotland specific polls. The news from this one by Panelbase is that the SNP wipeout of the Scottish Tories is not happening; they are standing their ground very ably. 

Scottish Westminster voting intention:

SNP: 40% (+1)

CON: 28% (+7)

LAB: 20% (+1)

LDEM: 11% (-2)

BREX: <1% (-5)

via @PanelbaseMD, 22 Nov Chgs. w/ 11 Oct

A UNS seat projection based on the polls for The Times projects the Tories would only lose one seat. Only one poll, of course, but for Remainers suggests no help is coming from Scotland at all. Coupled with everything else the outlook is bleak. 

edit: not unhappy about this btw, Scottish Tories didn't deserve to be destroyed because of The Great Charlatan. 

[Chaircat Meow]

John Curtice in The Times:

"SNP sources say there has been significant levels of doorstep feedback showing people who tend to vote nationalist will vote Tory this time due to their support for Brexit.

The poll suggests that Boris Johnson’s party will lose one seat (with Stirling going SNP), taking its tally down to 12. However, Curtice adds that there are four other seats where the Tories could lose if the swing against them locally is more than the 2% recorded in this poll."

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

There have not been many Scotland specific polls. The news from this one by Panelbase is that the SNP wipeout of the Scottish Tories is not happening; they are standing their ground very ably. 

Scottish Westminster voting intention:

SNP: 40% (+1)

CON: 28% (+7)

LAB: 20% (+1)

LDEM: 11% (-2)

BREX: <1% (-5)

via @PanelbaseMD, 22 Nov Chgs. w/ 11 Oct

A UNS seat projection based on the polls for The Times projects the Tories would only lose one seat. Only one poll, of course, but for Remainers suggests no help is coming from Scotland at all. Coupled with everything else the outlook is bleak. 

edit: not unhappy about this btw, Scottish Tories didn't deserve to be destroyed because of The Great Charlatan. 

Scottish Tories get the voters who favour both the Union and Brexit.  That 28% score is pretty solid.

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Chaircat Meow said:

edit: not unhappy about this btw, Scottish Tories didn't deserve to be destroyed because of The Great Charlatan. 

You may be under the impression that the Scottish Tory party is still the party of Ruth Davidson. Listen to any of the Scottish Tory MPs, or the interim party leader Jackson Carlaw, speak about Brexit for a few minutes. It should disabuse you of the notion that there remains much significant difference with or unease about Boris Johnson in that party.

[Werthead]

16 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

If it is 19% the country is doomed. 

The 19% figure comes from a poll where the sample base is 2,000, which is quite low for a poll of this kind.

Still, the polls were just starting to move more favourably in Labour's direction at this point last time, so that does suggest a small Tory majority is now a likelier outcome.

[Werthead]

During the 2017 election, the BBC stopped its relentless attacks on Corbyn and actually gave Labour policies a fair hearing, which seems to have contributed to the Labour bounce.

Clearly the BBC have decided not to make that mistake again, editing Question Time responses to make Johnson look less buffoonish and refusing to release stories linking Tory MPs to Russian donors despite them being backed up by strong evidence (and that's the pro-Conservative The Times reporting that).

Quote

 

BBC whistleblower: bosses suppressing Russia stories
Tim Shipman, Political Editor | The Sunday Times
November 23 2019

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/…/bbc-whistleblower-bosses-suppr…

John Sweeney claims a Newsnight investigation into the connections between John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, pictured, and Dmytro Firtash, a pro-Kremlin oligarch, had been shelved

BBC bosses have been accused of pulling the plug on politically sensitive reports into the close links between leading politicians and Russia.

John Sweeney, a BBC investigative reporter, has turned whistleblower and filed a complaint against the corporation with Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog. He alleges investigations into Labour’s Lord Mandelson, the former Tory cabinet minister John Whittingdale, the Brexit funder Arron Banks, the oligarch Roman Abramovich and the far-right activist Tommy Robinson were all dropped.

He claims that other potential reports into “the pro-Russian sympathies of Labour spin doctor Seumas Milne” were never even commissioned by BBC editors and raises more concerns about Boris Johnson’s links with Russian oligarchs.

In 2014 Milne, who is Labour’s director of strategy and communications, attended a conference in Sochi where he met Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

In a hard-hitting letter to Sharon White, Ofcom’s chief executive, Sweeney says he worked on a Newsnight investigation of Mandelson in 2017 that led to the former cabinet minister changing his Lords register to show a shareholding in a Russian firm worth about £400,000. The investigation was never broadcast.

Sweeney accuses James Harding, the former BBC head of news, of making a “direct intervention” to stop the broadcast. It detailed how in 2013 Mandelson joined the board of Sistema, a Russian company that Sweeney’s reporting showed had historic connections to organised crime. The programme questioned whether Mandelson, in his role on the company’s audit and risk committee, should have examined a billion-pound deal made before he joined the company.

Sweeney’s sources, including a former MI6 officer, suggested the deal might have been a bribe for the then Russian president Dimitri Medvedev.

Mandelson denied any wrongdoing and emphasised that the deal had been done before he arrived at the company. He severed links with Sistema in 2016.

In his letter to Ofcom, Sweeney also claims a Newsnight investigation into the connections between John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary, and Dmytro Firtash, the pro-Kremlin oligarch, had been shelved. Whittingdale made five trips as a backbencher to Ukraine. These were funded by the British Ukrainian Society, which was set up by Firtash. In 2016 Whittingdale’s former lover Stephanie Hudson, a topless model, said he had discussed Firtash with her.

Whittingdale’s spokesman said in a statement: “John has never received any money or any other financial benefits from Dmytro Firtash or his associates.”

Sweeney also refers to investigations that he did not work on, including a Panorama programme on Abramovich and a BBC News investigation of Banks.

He left the BBC last year after 17 years amid controversy over his unbroadcast film on Robinson. One of Robinson’s aides secretly made a rival “documentary” and embarrassed him by showing footage of the reporter drinking on “expenses”. He says he paid for all the drinks himself. He insists the programme should have been broadcast anyway.

Sweeney writes: “BBC management, led by director-general Tony Hall, has become so risk-averse in the face of threats from the far-right and the Russian state and its proxies that due impartiality is being undermined and investigative journalism is being endangered.”

The BBC said: “From our interview with Prince Andrew to our recent investigation into anti-semitism in the Labour Party, it is difficult to argue that the BBC does not produce hard-hitting public interest journalism. Investigative journalism can take years. The fact that something has not yet been broadcast does not mean an investigation has finished.”

Sweeney responded: “High standards should rule out favouritism for friends in high places. I hope Ofcom will address these issues, as BBC management clearly wants to hide them in its overfull skeleton cupboard in New Broadcasting House.”

 

 

[Chaircat Meow]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

The 19% figure comes from a poll where the sample base is 2,000, which is quite low for a poll of this kind.

Still, the polls were just starting to move more favourably in Labour's direction at this point last time, so that does suggest a small Tory majority is now a likelier outcome.

Really, I thought 2,000 was about the normal sample size.

Survation has just come out. I've seen grimmer. 

Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 41% (-1)

LAB: 30% (+2)

LDM: 15% (+1)

BXP: 5% (=)

GRN: 3% (=) Via @Survation, 20-23 Nov.

Changes w/ 13-16 Nov.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Seems to be a lot of stuff on social media about the BBC editing Boris Johnson to make him look better , turning derisive laughter into applause.

[Liffguard]

I did my first ever round of canvassing this weekend. Wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a surprisingly positive experience.