domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 21:05:11 GMT
A worrying observation, albeit an unsurprising one, from a respected former BBC journalist. Maitlis is confirming what I suppose we all knew but were reluctant to admit. The BBC's political coverage has been nobbled by the Tory Government. Essentially, it's being censored. Those words need to sink in. Maitlis's closing comment is a zinger. It describes the essence of journalism and the danger that client and passive current affairs reporting poses to our democracy: - “Our job is to make sense of what we are seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, the frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then we are so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.”The question, to borrow Maitlis's vernacular, is how many frogs are there left in journalism now that are prepared to sound the alarms? Watch something else. I recommend GB News. They have all shades of opinion represented, though do not have the massive BBC resources to have teams of reporters everywhere. You’re a card. Two words: Neil Oliver.
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Post by jib on Aug 24, 2022 21:08:17 GMT
"YOU DID THIS." No I did not. I participated in a referendum in 2016. I simply voted to Leave. In fact, I was quite happy with the Norway option as a sensible compromise. The Conservative Government elected in 2015, 2017 and 2019 enacted Brexit. I have never voted Tory, and never will. Yes you did. You have spread lies. You are complicit. What lies have I spread exactly? You're becoming rather tiresome now with your accusations and insults. Write a letter to Boris Johnson about his bus. I wasn't the bus driver by the way.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 21:08:45 GMT
Once upon a time british PMs trailed along behind US presidents. Now best we can manage is Ukrainian. Another way of looking at it is that in this case we led the Americans. What? How many billions have the Americans given Ukraine? With another 3 on the way..
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 21:11:05 GMT
Con pushed Brexit. They claimed the sun shone from its ass. That's rubbish. Cameron resisted a referendum as long as he could despite having given a 'cast-iron' guarantee that there would be one, and then reneging at first. Eventually because of the rise of UKIP and other Leave parties he was forced to hold the referendum, and then campaigned for Remain. Once the referendum had been held, it was of course their duty to enact the will of the people. Cameron again reneged, having promised to see it through whatever the result he then promptly resigned. In what sense does 17,410,742 who voted leave out of an electorate of 46,500,001 registered voters demonstrate " the will of the people " ?
Are the 16,141,241 who voted remain, or the 12,948,018 who did not vote no longer considered to be part of "the people " ?
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alurqa
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Freiburg im Breisgau's flag
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Post by alurqa on Aug 24, 2022 21:14:33 GMT
Which is why we are not paying the BBC licence fee. The enforcers that used to send pay-up letters have now given up with us, and others. When my dad died, his house had been empty for three years. He kept getting demands for a TV licence. Then he got final demands. Then threats that if he didn't buy one he would be taken to court. Then the threat that they would soon be opening an investigation. Then the letter to say they had opened an investigation. Then I sold the house, alas, so I didn't see what rubbish they sent next.
With all these letters they never bothered to send anybody round. It was clear, after three years, that they never would send anyone round. And if they did it would be obvious no one was living there. It was just frightening letters to get someone to pay up. My other half pays our TV licence. I won't pay it, and I told her so. Anyway I don't watch any TV as there is never anything on it worth watching. UKPR2 is far more interesting than the BBC.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:20:05 GMT
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:22:56 GMT
As a lover of wildlife I take exception to talk of “boiling frogs” and criticising Ole Corby for not “not even being prepared to kill a squirrel” - what have they ever done wrong, apart from nicking a few nuts? Humans are definitely the worst species. Squirrels are quite tasty though. A slightly gamier version of rabbit.
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Post by isa on Aug 24, 2022 21:25:21 GMT
Not sure if this Deltapoll has been posted. 12 pt Labour lead: I obviously bow to the likes of jimjam, neilj and your good self, but I reckon that's four on the bounce where we've had LAB at c40-43% and CON @ c28-32%. Unless I'm misreading the runes completely, the LAB lead seems to be hardening at possibly a consistent 8% plus. Grateful for thoughts of the experts.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:25:46 GMT
I'm sure you could make better contributions to the discussions here than occasionally posting insulting remarks. This isn't Twitter. And I'm sure you could make better contributions if you were to refrain from bigotry. But that's not going to happen, is it? Could you point to one of my posts that exhibits bigotry (to a sane person)?
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 21:26:56 GMT
Which is why we are not paying the BBC licence fee. The enforcers that used to send pay-up letters have now given up with us, and others. When my dad died, his house had been empty for three years. He kept getting demands for a TV licence. Then he got final demands. Then threats that if he didn't buy one he would be taken to court. Then the threat that they would soon be opening an investigation. Then the letter to say they had opened an investigation. Then I sold the house, alas, so I didn't see what rubbish they sent next.
With all these letters they never bothered to send anybody round. It was clear, after three years, that they never would send anyone round. And if they did it would be obvious no one was living there. It was just frightening letters to get someone to pay up. My other half pays our TV licence. I won't pay it, and I told her so. Anyway I don't watch any TV as there is never anything on it worth watching. UKPR2 is far more interesting than the BBC. The BBC has committed a monumental act of self harm. The right will always hate it, however much it tries to woo them and those ranks of liberals like me who once upon a time were it’s stalwart defenders have abandoned it or are in the process of abandoning it.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:29:36 GMT
I'm sure at the time we thought of it as the Advanced O Level. It has taken me 50+ years to find out the correct title. Just to throw another into the pot - my strange haul from the pre-university years includes an Additional, which in the late 90s sat in between GCSEs and A-levels and I believe counted for half an AS-level. Not sure whether that's closer to the AO than an AS is? And of course all this complexity is without the divers structures and awards available elsewhere in the UK... One consequence of all this chopping and changing of qualifications is that it makes it very difficult for employers. For instance, it makes very little if any difference how an experienced employee did at the age of 15, but how is someone who took O-levels supposed to know what a CSE means (if that's still one) for someone from school?
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Post by jen on Aug 24, 2022 21:29:45 GMT
Yes you did. You have spread lies. You are complicit. What lies have I spread exactly? You're becoming rather tiresome now with your accusations and insults. Write a letter to Boris Johnson about his bus. I wasn't the bus driver by the way. Have a little read of just about any post you ever made about the EU, Mr. "European Superstate" hahaha! However, I agree this exchange is tiresome, so I'm out of here, and I'll leave you to have a witty and stinging last word...
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Post by EmCat on Aug 24, 2022 21:30:13 GMT
isa Apologies for the gender lapse. It's the name isa that gets my default setting in action. I keep thinking female when I mull over the name. Of course one of the faintly amusing aspects of cyber forums like this is that the anonymity of us all can disguise many personal characteristics, including gender. On the internet, no one knows if you're a dog either
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Post by jen on Aug 24, 2022 21:31:26 GMT
And I'm sure you could make better contributions if you were to refrain from bigotry. But that's not going to happen, is it? Could you point to one of my posts that exhibits bigotry (to a sane person)? Are you being serious? Whatever, I'm out of here...
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:31:27 GMT
Watch something else. I recommend GB News. They have all shades of opinion represented, though do not have the massive BBC resources to have teams of reporters everywhere. You’re a card. Two words: Neil Oliver. Ok, so there's one presenter you don't like. I haven't caught any of his stuff, but they have all sorts of guests on various programs, with all shades of opinion.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:32:59 GMT
Another way of looking at it is that in this case we led the Americans. What? How many billions have the Americans given Ukraine? With another 3 on the way.. Yes, obviously they have greater resources, but the UK led the way with support.
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Post by Old Southendian on Aug 24, 2022 21:35:04 GMT
Not sure if this Deltapoll has been posted. 12 pt Labour lead: I obviously bow to the likes of jimjam , neilj and your good self, but I reckon that's four on the bounce where we've had LAB at c40-43% and CON @ c28-32%. Unless I'm misreading the runes completely, the LAB lead seems to be hardening at possibly a consistent 8% plus. Grateful for thoughts of the experts. Thanks for actually trying to talk about polling. It seems undeniable that Labour are riding medium-high right now. It still appears to me that this is mostly a reflection on the (lack of) government. We are now exactly where many of us expected us to be at the start of the year. The Torys had an increasingly unpopular PM. Faced with the problem that he was probably electoral toast, it wasn't clear they had a better option, so hesitated. They finally decided to twist, not stick, and now we find out if it was the right decision. The signs aren't good so far, but let's see how it develops. Personally, I can't see Truss being able to improve the situation much, but all we can do is sit back and watch. Well, maybe jump up and down and watch, got to keep warm this winter somehow.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:36:33 GMT
That's rubbish. Cameron resisted a referendum as long as he could despite having given a 'cast-iron' guarantee that there would be one, and then reneging at first. Eventually because of the rise of UKIP and other Leave parties he was forced to hold the referendum, and then campaigned for Remain. Once the referendum had been held, it was of course their duty to enact the will of the people. Cameron again reneged, having promised to see it through whatever the result he then promptly resigned. In what sense does 17,410,742 who voted leave out of an electorate of 46,500,001 registered voters demonstrate " the will of the people " ?
Are the 16,141,241 who voted remain, or the 12,948,018 who did not vote no longer considered to be part of "the people " ?
This can't be a serious question. All registered voters were entitled to a vote in the referendum. A majority of those who voted voted for Leave. Presumably the 12 million who didn't vote didn't care either way or didn't understand the question. So a majority of those who had an opinion voted Leave. End of. Maybe in 40 years you can have a go at rejoining the EU if it still exists.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:38:54 GMT
Anyway I don't watch any TV as there is never anything on it worth watching. UKPR2 is far more interesting than the BBC. I agree, but Bob's Burgers is an amusing programme on ITV 2 sometimes. There is more to life than the BBC.
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domjg
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Posts: 5,106
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 21:38:57 GMT
What? How many billions have the Americans given Ukraine? With another 3 on the way.. Yes, obviously they have greater resources, but the UK led the way with support. Define ‘support’. Is it actual practical assistance or somebody shouting ‘Go on mate, you can do it’ and then buggering off..
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Aug 24, 2022 21:40:03 GMT
Not sure if this Deltapoll has been posted. 12 pt Labour lead: I obviously bow to the likes of jimjam , neilj and your good self, but I reckon that's four on the bounce where we've had LAB at c40-43% and CON @ c28-32%. Unless I'm misreading the runes completely, the LAB lead seems to be hardening at possibly a consistent 8% plus. Grateful for thoughts of the experts. The recent pattern seems to have been that Labour led comfortably through the first part of July as Johnson's premiership imploded. Then toward the end of that month and the beginning of August the Labour lead narrowed as the Tories got loads of free publicity from the leadership contest (although they never got ahead) but then as the true character of Truss (and Sunak's shift to the right) became clear the gap has widened back out to where it was at the beginning of July. For this reason I am unconvinced that Truss (assuming it is her) will get the poll 'bounce' that some seem to expect. I feel she has already been rumbled by a lot of voters and they don't like what they see.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:41:58 GMT
I obviously bow to the likes of jimjam , neilj and your good self, but I reckon that's four on the bounce where we've had LAB at c40-43% and CON @ c28-32%. Unless I'm misreading the runes completely, the LAB lead seems to be hardening at possibly a consistent 8% plus. Grateful for thoughts of the experts. I'm no expert, but I agree about the hardening lead. However August is the Silly Season and often gives unusual samples because of holidays etc. See where we are after we (finally!) get a new Tory leader and the party conferences are over.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:47:48 GMT
Yes, obviously they have greater resources, but the UK led the way with support. Define ‘support’. Is it actual practical assistance or somebody shouting ‘Go on mate, you can do it’ and then buggering off.. We've sent them a lot of military ordinance, have trained some of their troops, offered special schemes for refugees etc. I'm surprised you're not aware of these things.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:49:00 GMT
Could you point to one of my posts that exhibits bigotry (to a sane person)? Are you being serious? Whatever, I'm out of here... I'll take that as a 'no' then.
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Post by isa on Aug 24, 2022 21:50:24 GMT
A worrying observation, albeit an unsurprising one, from a respected former BBC journalist. Maitlis is confirming what I suppose we all knew but were reluctant to admit. The BBC's political coverage has been nobbled by the Tory Government. Essentially, it's being censored. Those words need to sink in. Maitlis's closing comment is a zinger. It describes the essence of journalism and the danger that client and passive current affairs reporting poses to our democracy: - “Our job is to make sense of what we are seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, the frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then we are so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.”The question, to borrow Maitlis's vernacular, is how many frogs are there left in journalism now that are prepared to sound the alarms? Needless to say, not a sausage of a mention of this on the 'flagship' 10 pm BBC news bulletin or even, from their billing, on the ostensibly more analytical Newsnight, although it was mentioned on Teletext (which I still find extremely useful). The BBC'S lack of introspection is as depressing as it is unsurprising.
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Post by mercian on Aug 24, 2022 21:51:02 GMT
It look as though I've won the internet! 🤣 Demolished every lefty. They've all b*ggered off! 🤣
[EDIT] Damn! Missed one!
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Post by eor on Aug 24, 2022 21:52:41 GMT
eor Re what we were talking about a while back on polling for US elections in November there was an interesting result from our equivalent of a by-election yesterday in New York 19th district where the Dems held: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/24/democrat-who-campaigned-on-abortion-rights-wins-in-new-york-special-electionBad write ups everywhere trying to understand these results, and it did end up with Dems dropping back a bit from 2020 in a swing district, but the interesting element was that every poll was predicting Rep wins- anywhere from 3% to 10% plus with the most recent polling in the final week showing an 8% lead for the Reps. Ended up in a 3% win for Dems. I suppose we are into lower turnout scenarios for the "special" election perhaps accounting for the difference but perhaps polling not too accurate at district level? shevii Once you get below national level, polling even from good companies can be good, can be lucky, can be unlucky or can be bad. Lucky or unlucky in that, particularly with House races, a late endorsement or revelation probably could cause a significant movement of support (or a very lopsided break amongst what might be quite a large group of undecideds) and the polling data is a bit obsolete by the time the votes are counted. Whereas good and bad come down to the modelling - and it is easy to find situations where different companies make the same poor/outdated/over-corrected assumptions and miss in the same direction by similar amounts. We see this at state level in Presidential primaries - sometimes even when it's months into the campaign and each of the contenders is at least reasonably well-known. So it must be a stack harder again to do it at District level where the combination of characters and positions in a party primary will change from year to year. I haven't seen the detail from either of the NY special elections, beyond the numbers that the Dems did better than expected in both, which is a pattern in the handful of other such elections since the ruling on abortion. I did see a reference just now tho that the turnout in the seat the Dems won was much higher than expected (for a Special election) so those who hope to see a wave of angry Dem voters turning out in November will be boosted by that combination. And it may indeed be key to the polling miss, if Dem turnout was differentially boosted beyond what the polling models assumed. The question *that* would beg is whether the same thing applies to the national polls, that the Dems are going to do better than polling generally suggests because pollsters in general are underestimating turnout. But I think on just a handful of Special elections (and given Biden's approval ratings as a corroborating factor that not much has changed since 2020) it'd be quite wishful to go that far yet. What will be interesting is when companies start to switch (as the November elections get closer) from quoting headline numbers for Registered Voters and move to Likely Voters. Traditionally that makes the numbers move toward the Republicans a bit, but if that effect doesn't arise, or even goes the other way, that would be a strong sign for the Dems indeed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2022 22:06:12 GMT
In what sense does 17,410,742 who voted leave out of an electorate of 46,500,001 registered voters demonstrate " the will of the people " ?
Are the 16,141,241 who voted remain, or the 12,948,018 who did not vote no longer considered to be part of "the people " ?
This can't be a serious question. All registered voters were entitled to a vote in the referendum. A majority of those who voted voted for Leave. Presumably the 12 million who didn't vote didn't care either way or didn't understand the question. So a majority of those who had an opinion voted Leave. End of. Maybe in 40 years you can have a go at rejoining the EU if it still exists. You're massively missing the point.
I'm not disputing that leave won. I am disputing your claim that it demonstrates "the will of the people" when in fact was the expressed will of considerably less than half of the people eligible to vote. You "presume" that the 12 million who didn't vote didn't care, but in reality we have no way of knowing what their thoughts and motivation was. I think the way you quite casually write them off as not counting for anything, along with the 16 million who voted remain says a lot about why the country is now so greatly divided that it is unable to come up with any consensus as to how to face the future, which is a rather sad state to be in considering the not inconsiderate difficulties that lie ahead.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 22:06:34 GMT
A worrying observation, albeit an unsurprising one, from a respected former BBC journalist. Maitlis is confirming what I suppose we all knew but were reluctant to admit. The BBC's political coverage has been nobbled by the Tory Government. Essentially, it's being censored. Those words need to sink in. Maitlis's closing comment is a zinger. It describes the essence of journalism and the danger that client and passive current affairs reporting poses to our democracy: - “Our job is to make sense of what we are seeing and anticipate the next move. It’s the moment, in other words, the frog should be leaping out of the boiling water and phoning all its friends to warn them. But by then we are so far along the path of passivity, we’re cooked.”The question, to borrow Maitlis's vernacular, is how many frogs are there left in journalism now that are prepared to sound the alarms? Needless to say, not a sausage of a mention of this on the 'flagship' 10 pm BBC news bulletin or even, from their billing, on the ostensibly more analytical Newsnight, although it was mentioned on Teletext (which I still find extremely useful). The BBC'S lack of introspection is as depressing as it is unsurprising. In fairness they did have something on it visible on the main page of the news website. It read as somewhat confused to me as though editorially they didn’t know how to handle it.
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Aug 24, 2022 22:09:05 GMT
I obviously bow to the likes of jimjam , neilj and your good self, but I reckon that's four on the bounce where we've had LAB at c40-43% and CON @ c28-32%. Unless I'm misreading the runes completely, the LAB lead seems to be hardening at possibly a consistent 8% plus. Grateful for thoughts of the experts. I'm no expert, but I agree about the hardening lead. However August is the Silly Season and often gives unusual samples because of holidays etc. See where we are after we (finally!) get a new Tory leader and the party conferences are over. August doesn’t feel very silly this year though, does it? Or at least not in a lighthearted way. It feels deadly serious.
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