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If you give voters a chance to share their opinion, they might demand politicians listen to them.
It's worse than the argument against a 2nd Brexit ref - at least then you could argue that "I can't vote for my (fantasy) deal". This would be another Yes/No question - and if this statement is correct they'd have nothing to worry about.
It's a two horse race! Only Lib Dems can win here :/
Yet Conservatives are still leading the polls. Laura K and Boris must have fucked each other at one point in their lives.
It's odd how Brexiteers are happy to ignore their own government telling them Brexit is going to be shite for the economy, but are adamant that Corbyn's policies will actively harm them.
"It won't happen to me/he's going to nationalise the bloody tree in OUR garden!"
"It won't happen to me/he's going to nationalise the bloody tree in OUR garden!"
Appreciate there's a fair bit of doom and gloom on the BXP news and polling. However, Momentum appear to have created a very ambitious and well organised social media and canvassing campaign. Anyone can sign up here: https://volunteer.peoplesmomentum.com/ and volunteer to text, call, translate, edit video etc etc.
I am currently looking at their Google docs - volunteers are being assigned to opposition candidates, in all target seats, with the job of reviewing their Twitter history of a specific year (different volunteers take different years), to search for anything untoward they may have posted, which will then presumably be used by local canvassers / given to the press. Its both impressive and chilling, and I'm frankly well on board. Expect to see more stories like the above anyway.
There seems to be a fair amount of Labour support here on Era, so why not get stuck in?
I am currently looking at their Google docs - volunteers are being assigned to opposition candidates, in all target seats, with the job of reviewing their Twitter history of a specific year (different volunteers take different years), to search for anything untoward they may have posted, which will then presumably be used by local canvassers / given to the press. Its both impressive and chilling, and I'm frankly well on board. Expect to see more stories like the above anyway.
There seems to be a fair amount of Labour support here on Era, so why not get stuck in?
If I lived south of the border, I'd definitely consider getting involved with Momentum.
I don't think there's any geographic limitation? Unless the implication is you're supporting the SNP, in which case fair enough!
Although you could still help spoil things for the Tories in England or Wales :)
To pick up on this: if you live in the UK and you're able to, get out there and campaign. I don't really care who for, Labour, Lib Dem, Greens, SNP, whoever.
Don't just sit there complaining about how shit this all is, get out and fight.
I'm determines that if this goes to shit I'm at least going to be able to say that I did everything I could. Please, make sure you can say the same.
Maybe I'm wrong but I swear in the 2017 elections the BBC did the same thing with bars being the wrong size.
Maybe someone else remembers because I'm not sure
Maybe someone else remembers because I'm not sure
im very pro-labour and know our biggest asset is the power of ordinary people, not just rolling over for millionaire donors and press barons
but kinda feel uncomfortable trying to root through people's social media to destroy them. we have a positive vision and great policies to convince people with if given a fair shake outside of the press coverage with its open bias and obsession with irrelevant spats, don't need to get in the gutter.
but kinda feel uncomfortable trying to root through people's social media to destroy them. we have a positive vision and great policies to convince people with if given a fair shake outside of the press coverage with its open bias and obsession with irrelevant spats, don't need to get in the gutter.
They are trying to destroy the lives of the ordinary people.
Meeting them in the gutter over that fact is acceptable.
well people clearly feel differently about this heh
just think in 2017 we had them on the run without it being full of scandals, just running a clear, strong positive campaign on the issues and letting everyone else destroy themselves trying to handle it
Sorry to be mean, but the decision that caused the Tory campaign to implode had absolutely nothing to do with Labour. They arrogantly put a policy regarding older people's social care in their manifesto that hurt their main voting base - labour didn't even *have* a policy in this area (no-one wants to face the truth about older people's social care). It was the Tories shooting the selves int he face that was one of the biggest issues in the campaign, which was probably the worse run campaign in living memory.
And they still won, and Theresa May still got the second highest number of votes ever cast in a general election - more than Blair ever did.
I might have made it sound a touch more nefarious than it is - I think they're basically looking for contradictory positions and failures by incumbents to respond to constituents, that sort of thing. I imagine if they turn up racist/sexist/whateverist public statements in the process they won't pass them over, but I would say that is in the public interest?
Y'all need to stop oversimplifying the last election. That certainly hurt the Tories, but lets not pretend it was the only reason they lost their majority.
Same goes to the opposite side saying it was solely because of Corbyn that Labour gained so many seats last time.
That thread is something - this surely doesn't reflect well on YouGov's credibility? I would have told the client (and we can have a solid guess at who they are) that this needs reworded.
yes it's a shame but i think that's because of factors quite unrelated to the reluctance to use dirty methods (poor position pre-election, anxieties over corbyn's leadership, collapse of LD in south, scottish independence dynamic)
i don't think that's actually supportable in the data, the tory vote barely declined in the course of the actual campaign. may became less popular because of the dementia tax, which she ditched, and the manifesto, but plenty of people vote for unpopular leaders (cf 2019 general election).
what actually happened is may ran a very risky FPTP strategy by targeting safe labour seats while abandoning a chunk of the cameron coalition of voters, that to succeed depended on labour polling in the high twenties like under foot which would hand them a huge landslide, but was extremely vulnerable if labour did well. then labour surged. and they started panicking and a lot of media noise was made by them panicking.
the tories did win but the swing to labour was very strong after a miserable 2015 election and provided the groundwork for another victory (albeit now squandered). people have over-corrected and forgotten how strong may's message to deliver brexit was and the strength of her more socially conservative positioning, which has blown up in our face this election.
I was going to say this earlier as a separate point - I'd love for the Lib Dem's/Labour to just run positive campaigns.
The problem with overtly negative campaigns is that those who are already entrenched just don't give a fuck.
I'm of the belief that you can tell someone how much worse they'd be off, but it'd have lesser impact of telling them how much better they'd be off.
Just my two cents though - I respond better to it anyway.
Edit: and it's nothing like this "we go high" meme shite, just I don't think 5 weeks of telling people "everything is awful" so vote for us and it won't be awful works as well.
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i'm kinda surprised lib dems aren't using the horror of tactical voting to push for merits of STV to transform the country
or marijuana legalisation to create a more liberal society
there's loads of great lib dem policies, especially on civil liberties, that seem to be ignored
don't mean this as an attack on the Lib Dem's, labour seem to spend most of their time ignoring their new policies on maternity care or workers ownership to repeat the line about boris selling the nhs to trump twelve times every day.
i do think corbynism in 2015 explicitly ran on a message of trying to inspire new voters who were put off from politics and while corbynism on paper is a long way from actually existing corbynism in 2019, it does seems a shame to confirm their suspicions
there's probably a reason why i am not a highly paid political consultant however.
It's been this way for years, only these days they don't even care to hide it.
Have zero problem with Momentum weaponising Twitter against the ghouls standing for the Conservative party, or the worse end of the Lib Dems. The others are doing it too, and as we saw in the case of Aman Thakar, the establishment machine will happily grind left wing people into dust for political points even if you have to twist comments beyond recognition of meaning and context.
Is it nice? No. Is it fair? Ehhhhh... Is it necessary? Abso-fucking-lutely, yes it is.
Unfortunately even if a candidate is dropped you're probably getting someone equally shitty as a replacement, but are just better at hiding it. Still, it's a nice bit of scandal to batter your opponents with blunt force.
Is it nice? No. Is it fair? Ehhhhh... Is it necessary? Abso-fucking-lutely, yes it is.
Unfortunately even if a candidate is dropped you're probably getting someone equally shitty as a replacement, but are just better at hiding it. Still, it's a nice bit of scandal to batter your opponents with blunt force.
I think FPTP has a lot to answer for on this. When the electoral system means you have to vote for the least worst option that can win your seat, it makes sense for candidates and parties to highlight who the worst candidate is.
In May I stood out in the cold til 10pm supporting my local Green candidate for our council election. Yesterday I had to email my local Green party leader explaining why I won't support him at the GE - because he can't win and anyone voting for him increases the chance of a Tory win. It fucking sucks.
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