15 Jun 2024 : LAB: 43% / CON: 19% / REF: 16% / LDEM: 11%

[steve]

lululemonmustdobetter
Just the two showing when I looked together with one each for Starmer and Ed Davey

But with the BBC I would have expected at least 36 pictures of the frog faced hate gimp.

[norbold]

Jun 17, 2024 7:19:22 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Morning everyone! So during elections I tend to periodically glance at the BBC website (and others) to see what headlines they have. Currently, top page (which you see when you land on the page) there are 4 pictures of Farage, none of Sunak!

None of Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Giles Watling, Matthew Bensilum or Natasha Osben either.

[hireton]

Jun 16, 2024 17:41:10 GMT leftieliberal said:

Tories removing 15-year limit on voting while living abroad will have little effect.
Fewer than 200,000 Britons living abroad apply to vote in UK election
Fewer than 200,000 of the estimated 3.5 million British people living abroad for more than 15 years have applied to vote in the UK general election despite the change in law in January returning their right to participate in the ballot.

Well this household in Portugal has registered to vote!

It could be that some people have not caught up with the law change while others just aren't interested. There is also a lot of scepticism that postal votes will be received in time to be able to return them before polling day.

It's a curious process. You register to vote overseas online at the gov.uk website which then sends your application to the electoral registration office where you were last registered to vote. We got our approval in a matter of days.

What you are not told is that this process registers you to vote in person although you are overseas. It is only because the Grampian office contacted us when the election was called that we found out that you need to register additionally to vote by post or proxy from overseas. We have registered to vote by post again through the gov.uk website( even though we were already registered to vote by post in the UK) and that only took a couple of days to be approved.

Grampian will send out postal votes on 17 June and 24 June. If our postal votes are in the 17 June batch we should receive them in time to be able to return our votes on time through the excellent Portugal postal service. The 24th will probably mean that the UK overseas postal service won't get them here in time for us to be able to vote.

[steve]

Somewhere there's a middle age divorcee support group missing it's most regular attendees and at least one street corner missing the bloke who shouts at pigeons.

[barbara]

Jun 17, 2024 0:16:34 GMT @fecklessmiser said:

Am up late as our kitchen just flooded. Had to call out the Water Board who were brilliant - but I got very wet, nackered from baling out and am exhausted now.

That's an awful thing to happen. I hope everything dries out satisfactorily. 

[thexterminatingdalek]

Jun 16, 2024 19:31:56 GMT mandolinist said:

Jun 16, 2024 18:18:30 GMT Mark said:

*** ADMIN ***

I have given Danny a week off from UKPR2 in the hope that he has a think about why it is unacceptable to make nazi-apologist posts.

That such posts have no place anywhere, let alone here, is something that really shouldn't need to be said.

Well good, I now feel able to come back for a week.

Danny is the only poster here I've blocked, a long time ago.

Unless it's changed, you too can enjoy the site without him by logging in on a PC or laptop, (it doesn't work on a phone, not sure about tablets but I'd guess not). From memory, you find the person you want to block and look for something like manage, and there's an option to block seeing posts.

I'm sure someone who has done this more recently will be able to fine tune the instructions.

I take the line with my former spouse that if they believe what they say they need help and if they don't they should stop it. It saves me engaging in fruitless debate and argument. I don't understand why those who disagree with Danny engage with him, since it gets nobody anywhere and only encourages him. Plus I get to see some of the rubbish he posts by proxy.

[steve]

thexterminatingdalek

It definitely works on a kindle

[domjg]

Jun 17, 2024 7:53:29 GMT thexterminatingdalek said:

Jun 16, 2024 19:31:56 GMT mandolinist said:

Well good, I now feel able to come back for a week.

Danny is the only poster here I've blocked, a long time ago.

Unless it's changed, you too can enjoy the site without him by logging in on a PC or laptop, (it doesn't work on a phone, not sure about tablets but I'd guess not). From memory, you find the person you want to block and look for something like manage, and there's an option to block seeing posts.

I'm sure someone who has done this more recently will be able to fine tune the instructions.

I take the line with my former spouse that if they believe what they say they need help and if they don't they should stop it. It saves me engaging in fruitless debate and argument. I don't understand why those who disagree with Danny engage with him, since it gets nobody anywhere and only encourages him. Plus I get to see some of the rubbish he posts by proxy.

Blocking Danny a few months ago has greatly improved my experience of the site. He's just looking for attention and I don't want to give it to him by allowing myself to get riled up. I do understand why Alec counters him though, I suspect he believes he has a duty to debunk his nonsense for any casual visitor that might come across it. It must be exhausting for him.

I also blocked trev back in the day not because he was offensive particularly, though he could be quite deliberately provocative, but just because of the quantity and length of his largely nonsense posts that just got in the way of easily following the flow of interaction. 

[reggieside]

According to polling Fargage is leading in Clacton - but with only 32% of the vote - and this is in their strongest seat. I dont think he is nailed on to win it and it does very much indicate that their is a pretty low ceiling on the ReFuk vote - probably around 15% of the overall vote. Depsite HUGE coverage and excitement from the media at the prospect of Fargae floating back up the poltical U-bend the REfk polling is - argaubly - somewhat underwhelming - and may well fall back "cleggmania" style come polling day. Hes hardly a new, fresh exciting figure - and their great populist cause - Brexit - has hardly been a triumph. TBH - ugly dog whistle racis aside - Brexit is the issue where farages feet should be held to fire.

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Jun 17, 2024 7:34:18 GMT norbold said:

Jun 17, 2024 7:19:22 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Morning everyone! So during elections I tend to periodically glance at the BBC website (and others) to see what headlines they have. Currently, top page (which you see when you land on the page) there are 4 pictures of Farage, none of Sunak!

None of Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Giles Watling, Matthew Bensilum or Natasha Osben either.

Hiya norbold, he seems to be getting way more airtime from the BBC than justified. Despite having less than a 10th of the MPs than the LDs at the time of dissolution, and comparatively hardly any local councillors, the BBC seem to be covering him more than Davey. 

Is it just me, but it does look like the Conservatives have given up on the national campaign and must be all focusing on defending their own seats?

[steve]

Oh good the incoming Labour regime is committed to making things a little less brexity For the city of london.

"Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”.

But the rest of us can go fuck ourselves


In the interview, Reeves reiterated a Labour government would never rejoin the single market or customs union, and would not even back a scheme for youth freedom of movement.


I was considering a tactical vote at the election but the fact that my friend is standing as the liberal democrat candidate and statements like Reeves'make it very difficult .

[steve]

For the religious among us.

[domjg]

Jun 17, 2024 8:17:43 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Jun 17, 2024 7:34:18 GMT norbold said:

None of Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Giles Watling, Matthew Bensilum or Natasha Osben either.

Hiya norbold , he seems to be getting way more airtime from the BBC than justified. Despite having less than a 10th of the MPs than the LDs at the time of dissolution, and comparatively hardly any local councillors, the BBC seem to be covering him more than Davey. 

Is it just me, but it does look like the Conservatives have given up on the national campaign and must be all focusing on defending their own seats?

BBC utterly failing in it's remit. I find it very galling that my money is being used to give disproportionate airtime to a nasty exponent of the far right. 

I find it a bit baffling that the BBC are not giving Farage a harder time as he's clearly a threat to their current paymasters (which is largely what their behaviour is all about). 
I suspect however alas that somewhere an editorial decision has been taken not to challenge even far right ideas too hard because a) they want to suck up to the right wing press as much as possible (won't do them any favours in the long term) and b) they suspect/know that the tories after the election will be going down this rabbit hole themselves. 

I'm not sure what BBC news/politics will do come July 5th. Logic would dictate that they'd swivel their editorial line to reflect who now controls the purse strings but I've also got a feeling that this 'anti liberal elite' idea that taken such root there post referendum has got a life of it's own and that too many in the news organisation now instinctively make the false equivalence between further right nativist ideas and 'ordinary people'. 

[mandolinist]

Farage on the Today programme, what a start to the morning. I can't understand why the media in general and the BBC in particular don't push him at all to explain how his policies would work.
Something along the lines of: If you want to fund the promised tax cuts by cutting benefits, which ones would you cut? The State Pension is the most expensive, will you start there? Unemployment benefit is under £100 a week, is that to be cut? Children are living in absolute poverty, would you make cuts there? What about benefits for forces veterans? Other disabled people? Carers allowance? Go on Farage, explain who you would push into penury.
The journalists can thank me later!

[crossbat11]

Jun 16, 2024 20:06:14 GMT @fecklessmiser said:

Jun 16, 2024 19:31:56 GMT mandolinist said:

Well good, I now feel able to come back for a week.

Yeah… it’s hardly very long is it?

I tend to be a little ambivalent when long standing, almost founding member, posters are ushered away from the site. It would be humbug to claim I miss some of them but, then again, it's not for me to select who posts and, where the absence is enforced, it may well be that they are deprived from doing something that is both enjoyable and important for them.

I suppose it depends on how preoccupied they are with posting here. Some may be to almost unhealthy levels but I get the impression that most of us dally here for periodic amusement and distraction and have pretty full lives elsewhere. But what if Danny is different and this was an important part of his life? As some have already said, he posted with extraordinary frequency and at great length. Some of what he contributed had merit but he was increasingly straying into areas that were clearly offensive to many and accordingly was driving some people away. If his short term absence allows those people to feel able to return, then that is clearly a good thing.

Maybe the answer is for Danny to return on probation and he is compelled to post only on certain subjects. If he fails to heed the restrictions then he gets the permanent red card.

I'm by nature a live and let live man and intuitively anti-censorious. Clearly there must be bounds of decency and good taste on here, but, then again, we're not obliged to read other posters contributions. We all have the licence to ignore others completely and many of us do!

One of Danny's curiosities, and strengths ironically, was his consistent refusal to personally abuse other posters and the even-tempered cordiality he always maintained when on the receiving end of sometimes quite vitriolic attacks.

In that rather endearing way, his saving grace and redeeming feature I think, he probably taught us all a lesson or two.

If there was ever a poster who always played the ball and not the man, it was Danny. His problem was his oddball bag of increasingly disturbing fixations.

[mandolinist]

@crofty, I am really sorry you have had a night of flooding, I hope it is now sorted and the clean up isn't too ghastly. Thinking of you.

[domjg]

Jun 17, 2024 8:38:56 GMT mandolinist said:

Farage on the Today programme, what a start to the morning. I can't understand why the media in general and the BBC in particular don't push him at all to explain how his policies would work.
Something along the lines of: If you want to fund the promised tax cuts by cutting benefits, which ones would you cut? The State Pension is the most expensive, will you start there? Unemployment benefit is under £100 a week, is that to be cut? Children are living in absolute poverty, would you make cuts there? What about benefits for forces veterans? Other disabled people? Carers allowance? Go on Farage, explain who you would push into penury.
The journalists can thank me later!

It's no wonder that like me hundreds of thousands have abandoned the Today programme over the last few years. I would suggest the intersection between those listening to Today and those ready to vote reform is so tiny that it will make zero difference to any voting. Nonetheless the behaviour of the BBC in this regard is despicable I agree. 

I suspect that it's often due to little more than that Farage is willing to make himself available at a moments notice, whenever, knowing that the BBC are far less rigorous than they were in the past. Laziness and incompetence on the BBCs part in other words. 

[leftieliberal]

Two pieces of interesting information from Mark Pack.
The first is that Focaldata have a FD_chat tool, which Pack describes as a cross between a poll and a focus group. It uses an AI bot to carry out a series of Q+As with different people, providing greater volume than you get from running a focus group but also more detailed insight than you get with a poll - as the bot personalises follow-up questions based on the previous answers. In this case, 51 people considering tactical voting were asked up to 31 questions.

I think this is an interesting development because one of the concerns I have about MRP is the assumption that people with the same demographics but living in different constituencies will vote along the same lines. This is necessary because even the largest MRP polls only poll up to about 100 people per constituency (some as few as 20). This approach introduces the possibility of discovering why people are voting in a particular way in a particular constituency, and because it is a bot rather than a human in the Q&A it is scalable to a full sample.

The second is the Survation polling in the table. Here they have three entries: a phone poll, their regular online poll, and their MRP poll. The fieldwork dates all overlap and the three polls are as consistent as one can reasonably expect. All three will have Survation's house effects in common, of course, but it's good to see consistency between online and phone polling in particular. 

[steve]

"Farage claims Trump not to blame for his supporters storming US Capitol to try to overturn 2020 election result"


The frog faced hate gimp 's comments on convicted criminal rapist Trump and his central role in organising a coup to undermine democracy are utter cobblers, he's selectively picked a word out of Trumps diatribe to his cult followers on January 6th ignored his request that they" fight like hell" ignored the fact that for four hours he did nothing to stop the attack, th e injuries to police and the threat to murder elected representatives including the vice president. The only reason why trump hasn't already been convicted for His part in the D.C. Insurrection is His legal teams delaying tactics aided and abetted by the corrupt christofacists in the supreme court. His comments on vote harvesting are equally fact free cobblers

[eotw]

Hope this is not true - I would miss Ester McVey :-D

www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/16/students-summer-holidays-voting-uk-general-election-conservative-seats

Headline is "Students going home could put 35 Tory seats at risk in election, analysis says"

[leftieliberal]

Sunak tops tactical voting hit list
Best for Britain are making recommendations in 452 seats recommending with(sic) 370 for Labour, 69 for the Lib Dems, seven for the SNP, three for the Greens and two for Plaid Cymru.
In Clacton they are recommending a vote for Labour to stop Reform UK’s Nigel Farage.

[chrisc]

Jun 17, 2024 7:34:18 GMT norbold said:

Jun 17, 2024 7:19:22 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Morning everyone! So during elections I tend to periodically glance at the BBC website (and others) to see what headlines they have. Currently, top page (which you see when you land on the page) there are 4 pictures of Farage, none of Sunak!

None of Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Giles Watling, Matthew Bensilum or Natasha Osben either.

I’m loving the tweets claiming Javan is rocking the vote Dr Who for clacton look. 

x.com/jovanforclacton/status/1802078276061372591?s=61&t=HdqikpCBJOF0U0GaQB7jZg

[wb61]

Far be it for me to defend the BBC, I believe that there is some justification for interviewing Farage today. Reform launch their "non-manifesto" manifesto today and I believe that a senior member of each party, and in some cases the leader, have been interviewed on launch day. I agree that the questioning of Farage should be more forensic, but I also believe that sunlight is the surest bleach and the more he is exposed to proper interviews (not those torturous debates) the more the cracks will begin to show.

[Deleted]

Jun 17, 2024 6:51:07 GMT alec said:

@fecklessmiser - sorry to hear about your flooding. Is that a plumbing issue, or the recent rainfall?

Thanks. A plastic pipe gave in, water everywhere until I worked out a cunning method to fill buckets in rotation and bfor about two hours empty water down the sink whilst very cold and even wetter.

Didn't know where stop valve was and when engineer (from Saltburn) eventually got to us around 1 am and did so, it was in such a tight confined space and just a narrow gap underneath the sink unit, I’m not sure I could have found it anyway - especially with water gushing onto me as it was when I was looking.

Anyway, pretty much all our own fault for not taking such a basic thing seriously.

(Missed last bit of England match but was very unimpressed with them after first twenty minutes so no great loss. Foden a huge disappointment especially.

[robbiealive]

Another truck load of somewhat verbose anti-BBC comments his morning from several posters.
My previous pleas for a more balanced and context-bound approach to BBC's election and political coverage have fallen on deaf ears.

[robbiealive]

I wrote that before I saw wb61 's comment.

[steve]

#bbclaurak:
Let me remind people what's happened to Council Tax since the Tories have been in charge..
people are paying 51% more in cash terms.. & CT is going up by £10b in the next 5 years

Mark Harper: Tories have lower CT

LK: The overall CT bill is lower in Labour councils

x.com/Haggis_UK/status/1802272198750556585

Blimey!
It's all over for the Tories when even Laura won't let them lie unchallenged any more.

[domjg]

Jun 17, 2024 8:20:27 GMT steve said:

Oh good the incoming Labour regime is committed to making things a little less brexity For the city of london.

"Labour would try to improve elements of the UK’s trade deal with the EU, Rachel Reeves has indicated, saying also that most financial services companies have “not regarded Brexit as being a great opportunity for their businesses”.

But the rest of us can go fuck ourselves


In the interview, Reeves reiterated a Labour government would never rejoin the single market or customs union, and would not even back a scheme for youth freedom of movement.


I was considering a tactical vote at the election but the fact that my friend is standing as the liberal democrat candidate and statements like Reeves'make it very difficult .

"In the interview, Reeves reiterated a Labour government would never rejoin the single market or customs union, and would not even back a scheme for youth freedom of movement" - Perhaps it's just blind faith on my part but I'd say be patient. They're hardly going to get into this during the election campaign as young people are far less reliable voters alas. 

[crossbat11]

Jun 17, 2024 8:38:56 GMT mandolinist said:

Farage on the Today programme, what a start to the morning. I can't understand why the media in general and the BBC in particular don't push him at all to explain how his policies would work.
Something along the lines of: If you want to fund the promised tax cuts by cutting benefits, which ones would you cut? The State Pension is the most expensive, will you start there? Unemployment benefit is under £100 a week, is that to be cut? Children are living in absolute poverty, would you make cuts there? What about benefits for forces veterans? Other disabled people? Carers allowance? Go on Farage, explain who you would push into penury.
The journalists can thank me later!

I wonder whether there is a bit of media nepotism going on here. Farage, in many ways, has been part of our media landscape for some time, hosting radio and TV programmes, some of them on mainstream broadcasting channels. A regular on TV political programmes for years. Never an MP but forever the ubiquitous TV studio guest.

He's a skilful user of the medium too and like Trump, has built and maintained his political and celebrity profile this way. His appearance on I'm a Celebrity Get Me out of Here, with its multi million viewings figures was all part of the Farage circus. He almost won the bloody thing too. Self promotion masterstroke.

Accordingly, and this may be a hare-brained theory, it's possible a lot of people in the media soft pedal the old rogue because he is really one of them.

The media performers union in action. He's not really serious, so why go after him like other politicians.

Cuddly Nigel the entertainer. Don't beat up on him now.

[domjg]

Jun 17, 2024 9:09:19 GMT robbiealive said:

Another truck load of somewhat verbose anti-BBC comments his morning from several posters.
My previous pleas for a more balanced and context-bound approach to BBC's election and political coverage have fallen on deaf ears.

Yes because I'm genuinely outraged by the BBC's behaviour and I don't see why I shouldn't express that. It's our main public service broadcaster and it has a huge responsibility that it is forgoing in my view. I no longer feel that it's some treasured institution to be protected and preserved. I would have walked over hot coals to defend it once upon a time. My anger towards the news organisation anyway, is partly explained because I held it in such high esteem myself once.