Paid Members Carbomb Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 (edited) 5 minutes ago, stumobir said: Agreed, the suddenness of a lot of it was definitely an issue, it reinforced the amateur narrative and made them look to be a tad desperate. There was a hint of Partridge around the free broadband for all policy. “Monkey Tennis!” I was thinking about the similarities and differences between Corbyn and Sanders, who also gets his fair share of it from the press. The similarities in their ideology and grassroots base is obvious but what I find interesting is the difference in their approach to a hostile media. Sanders gives as good as he gets and doesn’t pull his punches, Corbyn on the other is placate, placate and placate - completely futile, of course. How often do you hear the parroted line “terrorist sympathiser” but more importantly how often does it go unchallenged? I can’t once remember him addressing this and calling it out to bullshit. If you won’t, at least, defend yourself then you’re all but saying it’s free rein. I have heard him challenge this quite a few times - he always made the case that, in order to make peace, you need to get both sides to the table, and that requires working with people you object to; at least, that was his argument as regards Hamas. He also made the argument that he used the term "friends" because he was trying to use inclusive language to make them feel like they weren't going into this as adversaries, but I personally think that was a step too far on his part. I've no doubt he believes that, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere; the past three years have thrown into stark relief exactly what stepping over that line will cost you. EDIT: For me, his personal policy of "I don't do personal" is very admirable, and I think in any other era that would've been quite effective, but we're living in the era of post-truth, where lies and dirty tricks are rewarded, and the supposed custodians of the truth don't do the job they claim to do. He should've gone on the attack a lot more than he did. Edited December 16, 2019 by Carbomb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members stumobir Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 You’re right, I do remember the Hamas “friends” thing now. Hamas and Hezbollah seemed to be last election, it was the IRA I was seeing and hearing more of this time round. They tried to avoid talking about it in the same vain they avoided talking about Brexit. If it’s all over social media, the news and “on the doorsteps” then deal with it head on. Someone mentioned it earlier in this thread (probably Pat), that the right are very much in control of the narrative, Labour and Corbyn thought they could creat their own conversation but the only people listening were those who were always going to vote Labour anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 Yeah, aside from Brexit, I'd argue that was the biggest thing to lose Labour this election - Corbyn's complete failure to control the narrative, and he has always struggled with that. How many times have we seen PMQs and been pulling our hair out that he's not taking the government to task over their latest gaffe or ghoulish policy, instead choosing to plough on with important, but less urgent headline-grabbing, issues? I'm saying this with the benefit of hindsight - ahead of time, I thought he was doing the right thing in not fighting a Brexit election. But it terms out that a broad, ambitious manifesto wasn't the right choice in what was still, for many people, a single issue election. That he wasn't able to control the narrative on Brexit, on the NHS, on "terrorist sympathiser", on antisemitism or anything else is what leads to a position where people could basically project whatever vision of him they wanted on to him - if they wanted to look to him as an ineffectual doddering old man, they'd find evidence, but if they wanted to see him as a power-hungry control freak Stalinist palling around with terrorists, they'd find support for that too, but what they'd never find was him, or the machinery of the Labour Party, rebuking any of those views in strong enough terms. He was always, admirably, trying to put those issues to bed and use his time to talk about something more genuinely important. But it meant he never managed to shake the stink of any of those headlines or allegations the way he might have done. Ultimately Labour were trying to play clean in an election that could only be won by playing dirty. What's worrying is that for all the spending on social media, all the disinformation campaigns from the Tories and all the memes and videos from Labour, none of it seems to have meant a single fucking thing. Which is another thing I'd have been spectacularly wrong about without hindsight. Any future Labour Party leader will need to contest with media hostility and bias - without the alternative of reaching people through social media, what hope do they have? Or is social media still the answer, but we've not been using it properly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Lion_of_the_Midlands Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 The thing about the social media advertising I saw Pat, was that the Labour message seemed to be aimed at people who already agreed with them, whereas the Tory ads went after Labour voters who voted to Leave, but had never voted Tory before. The Tories were just better switched on in the campaign overall and their social media marketing in particular. As much as the Left laugh at Cummings this is his area and he obliterated them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members garynysmon Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 I know that the whole Brexit debate is, in reality, yesterday's issue now. But the more I think of it, it was a work of genius in how it was portrayed by the leave campaign and how it actually offers hope to swathes of people who've pretty much lost all of theirs. Personally speaking I find the whole concept to be absurd, especially living in a part of the world that has the second busiest ferry port in the UK and daily back and forth sailings to Holyhead. The port is one of the biggest employers we have and yet, the main Brexit stronghold is the town of Holyhead which is wholly reliant on trade with Ireland. I've heard all sorts of wild theories since 2016, saying that it would improve things and actually create jobs, and some wild stabs in the dark that it would bring back duty free. Now, the argument of most normal folk who hold these views usually crumble at the first sign of any scrutiny or questioning, but they'd rather believe it than accept that this is the way things are now and that the "glory years" aren't coming back. The camp that I find most difficult to understand are farmers. Despite the warnings of both major farming unions that Brexit is an unmitigated disaster, most I knew voted to leave in their droves as they don't seem to like filling in all of the forms to receive EU subsidies. I really don't fancy their chances tbh.   Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 13 minutes ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said: The thing about the social media advertising I saw Pat, was that the Labour message seemed to be aimed at people who already agreed with them, whereas the Tory ads went after Labour voters who voted to Leave, but had never voted Tory before. The Tories were just better switched on in the campaign overall and their social media marketing in particular. As much as the Left laugh at Cummings this is his area and he obliterated them. I think you're probably right. Labour put considerably more money into social media, but every ad I saw was very much preaching to the converted, or trying to encourage young people to vote for the first time. There wasn't really anything in there designed to appeal to a broader demographic. Having said that, though, the frustrating thing about social media is that it's a series of silos and echo chambers. So I only ever saw the ads that were targeted towards me in the first place. Maybe there were other Labour ads out there that I'm just not seeing! And that's what makes me wonder about the efficacy of social media advertising - if it's only reaching people that some SEO algorithm decides would be interested in seeing it, are you really reaching the right people for it to have a significant effect? And, actually, is it strictly speaking "advertising" in the traditional sense that's making a difference on social media, or is it the paid accounts posting "personal" stories and takes on news events in favour of their chosen party? I'm thinking specifically of the Tory sock-puppets posting about the hospital bed scandal, but that's just one that got caught out - how much more of that was going on, that would have bypassed all sorts of rules against political advertising? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 One thing that's not been talked about (in all this really good discussion) is how badly the Labour election strategy was called in terms of allocation of resources. The election strategy they went with was to try and win every seat in the country, and allocate resources evenly - which is madness. This meant in key marginals they were being outspent and out-canvassed by the Tories, and even the Lib Dems.  They reversed this policy with about 10 days to go, but it was a bit late. Speaking of the Lib Dems, they actually did a lot better than the results seem to show - their vote was up across the country, and a few thousand votes separated them from winning another 10 seats or so.  So many seats the Tories won now have wafer thin majorities.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEGIT Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 (edited) Sorry if this has been discussed in pages gone by, but I can't be arsed going through all the politics shite to find out. I see the moderately less annoying but still annoying one from Gavin and Stacey called the BBC politics journalist a plop carpet. My question: what the fuck is a plop carpet? A carpet that's be shat on? Edited December 16, 2019 by LEGIT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 Jonathan Pie’s still a thing, he has done a video on the election. https://youtu.be/G0nIhL4v6bY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEGIT Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 1 minute ago, King Pitcos said: Jonathan Pie’s still a thing, he has done a video on the election. https://youtu.be/G0nIhL4v6bY What's that got to do with plop carpets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 6 minutes ago, King Pitcos said: Jonathan Pie’s still a thing, he has done a video on the election. https://youtu.be/G0nIhL4v6bY He's constantly been a thing. He's had a few tours as well of late. People still share his videos on my timeline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 9 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said: He's constantly been a thing. He's had a few tours as well of late. People still share his videos on my timeline Even this one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Hannibal Scorch Posted December 16, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted December 16, 2019 1 minute ago, King Pitcos said: Even this one? Yeah, I saw it yesterday. Thought his last two were pretty decent actually, but I don't often watch him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 @MPDTT you keep mentioning the Labour Manifesto. Can I ask what you disliked about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted December 16, 2019 Share Posted December 16, 2019 3 minutes ago, Joe Blog said: @MPDTT you keep mentioning the Labour Manifesto. Can I ask what you disliked about it? And this one while you're at it. On 12/13/2019 at 4:28 PM, Keith Houchen said: Can you quote the examples you refer to?  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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