On the money Adam and a piece which merits much greater consideration.
As a former Lobby Correspondent myself (80s) I follow politics closely and I never cease to be amazed at the vacuity of most of the coverage.
“Spin” is nothing more than savvy lying. Yet after the TV debates we have the celebratory “Spin Rooms” - effectively inviting party apparatchiks to tell us that we haven’t seen what we have seen.
They’ve stopped it now but the BBC used to interview a senior politician on the Today Programme and then have a political correspondent to “interpret“ what had and hadn’t been said as though the interview had been conducted in a foreign language…
And quite often when some scandal arises - politicians are quizzed on their poor handling of the situation - quite often, in effect, they’re being asked to lie to us better..
Journalists have accepted political lying because ultimately they have no choice, but also it elevates their status as Grand Readers of the Tea Leaves…
Thanks Andrew, great comment. I think "inviting party apparatchiks to tell us that we haven’t seen what we have seen" is absolutely spot on and is why I have avoided attending any of these so far.
I feel as if politicians and most journalists think voters are malleable like clay, as if we don’t have a mind of our own, or we don’t have education enough to think for ourselves. Conservatives were barely able to form a government before Brexit and the lies that supported it gifted them a huge majority so they must have thought, that’s the formula, we’ll just keep lying, we have Johnson, we have journalists with no journalistic integrity on our side, we’ll invite them to a big party and schmooze them from now on. When so many voters went off Brexit too, these journalists wrote a load of bullshit again. The same thing happened again and again since. Now no one’s listening to them. I mean The Telegraph seem to think if they keep upping the ante the magic Brexit formula will kick in. They just sound batshit. Most journalists far from trying to influence us are alienating us. They’ve cut off our voice restricted the access of real journalists and they’ve stopped holding power to account. So now most journalists and politicians are literally only talking to each other. After all that “saviness” where has it got them? It’s made me dig deeper for a real journalist I can trust so I’m better informed than I ever was and it’s destroyed the Conservatives majority. I have to say I really appreciate and respect the journalists who throughout all this have maintained their integrity like you Adam. Byline Times has been a lifeline.
Time after time, on programmes like BBC Question Time, voters say they want more honesty. Yet they vote for liars.
Voters, when asked, say they will pay more tax for better public services. Yet at the ballot box they vote for lower taxes, with the consequential reduction in public services.
The conclusion for many politicians is that telling the truth is a vote loser.
Keir Starmer came to the conclusion that his best chance to win the Labour Leadership was to tell members he would be Corbyn but with competence. Many wanted a radical alternative which could win over voters.
Keir Starmer wanted to win.
Winning required dishonesty.
Corbyn’s Labour could implement nothing because it didn’t win. Starmer wants to win in order to implement nothing. A threadbare manifesto without a significant agenda.
It almost seems as if winning and marginalising progressive ideas is a the objective.
The transition to an advocate of first past the post is priced in. Opposition involves realising that winning means getting 100% of power with a minority of the national vote share. Voters are forced to vote for what they least hate.
The problem with this is when the voters turn then you get wiped out. That is how FPTP works. A minority of voters in key seats determine the election.
With Starmer we will have a leader that promises little and later denies that he even promised it.
There’s a great deal I dislike about Theresa May’s politics but in 2017 she proposed a solution to the social care crisis, which continues unabated. Her election campaign was trashed as a result. The primary opposition was that it would cost homeowners but how on earth do you solve anything as deeply entrenched without paying for it?
Im surprised that we hear so little about JK Galbraith’s Culture of Contentment in which society is governed not by the superrich but by a “comfortable” majority who ferociously guard their “comforts”.
You see this in the VAT on private schools debate. Self-evidently well off people seek to persuade the rest of us that their privileges are good for all of us and will do untold harm to the families involved.
These same people seem perfectly relaxed about UK levels of poverty which involve other people’s kids not even being fed properly..
On the money Adam and a piece which merits much greater consideration.
As a former Lobby Correspondent myself (80s) I follow politics closely and I never cease to be amazed at the vacuity of most of the coverage.
“Spin” is nothing more than savvy lying. Yet after the TV debates we have the celebratory “Spin Rooms” - effectively inviting party apparatchiks to tell us that we haven’t seen what we have seen.
They’ve stopped it now but the BBC used to interview a senior politician on the Today Programme and then have a political correspondent to “interpret“ what had and hadn’t been said as though the interview had been conducted in a foreign language…
And quite often when some scandal arises - politicians are quizzed on their poor handling of the situation - quite often, in effect, they’re being asked to lie to us better..
Journalists have accepted political lying because ultimately they have no choice, but also it elevates their status as Grand Readers of the Tea Leaves…
Thanks Andrew, great comment. I think "inviting party apparatchiks to tell us that we haven’t seen what we have seen" is absolutely spot on and is why I have avoided attending any of these so far.
I feel as if politicians and most journalists think voters are malleable like clay, as if we don’t have a mind of our own, or we don’t have education enough to think for ourselves. Conservatives were barely able to form a government before Brexit and the lies that supported it gifted them a huge majority so they must have thought, that’s the formula, we’ll just keep lying, we have Johnson, we have journalists with no journalistic integrity on our side, we’ll invite them to a big party and schmooze them from now on. When so many voters went off Brexit too, these journalists wrote a load of bullshit again. The same thing happened again and again since. Now no one’s listening to them. I mean The Telegraph seem to think if they keep upping the ante the magic Brexit formula will kick in. They just sound batshit. Most journalists far from trying to influence us are alienating us. They’ve cut off our voice restricted the access of real journalists and they’ve stopped holding power to account. So now most journalists and politicians are literally only talking to each other. After all that “saviness” where has it got them? It’s made me dig deeper for a real journalist I can trust so I’m better informed than I ever was and it’s destroyed the Conservatives majority. I have to say I really appreciate and respect the journalists who throughout all this have maintained their integrity like you Adam. Byline Times has been a lifeline.
The behaviour of voters is instructive.
Time after time, on programmes like BBC Question Time, voters say they want more honesty. Yet they vote for liars.
Voters, when asked, say they will pay more tax for better public services. Yet at the ballot box they vote for lower taxes, with the consequential reduction in public services.
The conclusion for many politicians is that telling the truth is a vote loser.
Keir Starmer came to the conclusion that his best chance to win the Labour Leadership was to tell members he would be Corbyn but with competence. Many wanted a radical alternative which could win over voters.
Keir Starmer wanted to win.
Winning required dishonesty.
Corbyn’s Labour could implement nothing because it didn’t win. Starmer wants to win in order to implement nothing. A threadbare manifesto without a significant agenda.
It almost seems as if winning and marginalising progressive ideas is a the objective.
The transition to an advocate of first past the post is priced in. Opposition involves realising that winning means getting 100% of power with a minority of the national vote share. Voters are forced to vote for what they least hate.
The problem with this is when the voters turn then you get wiped out. That is how FPTP works. A minority of voters in key seats determine the election.
With Starmer we will have a leader that promises little and later denies that he even promised it.
There’s a great deal I dislike about Theresa May’s politics but in 2017 she proposed a solution to the social care crisis, which continues unabated. Her election campaign was trashed as a result. The primary opposition was that it would cost homeowners but how on earth do you solve anything as deeply entrenched without paying for it?
Im surprised that we hear so little about JK Galbraith’s Culture of Contentment in which society is governed not by the superrich but by a “comfortable” majority who ferociously guard their “comforts”.
You see this in the VAT on private schools debate. Self-evidently well off people seek to persuade the rest of us that their privileges are good for all of us and will do untold harm to the families involved.
These same people seem perfectly relaxed about UK levels of poverty which involve other people’s kids not even being fed properly..
The year axis of the bar chart has gone wrong: as a result it's impossible to work out which year is represented by each bar.
Yes true, a bit of a labelling fail from the FT, but you get the overall picture