This election is seeing the largest vote swings in British political history. But that truth has been hidden by the largest media distortion in British political history.
Let me prove these claims. Certain constituencies have featured again and again in media coverage of the election, to reinforce the dominant media narrative, corresponding precisely to the government’s preferred election strategy, that working class Labour voters are deserting the party because of Brexit.
But if you look at the YouGov constituency model, conducted on a scale 100 times greater than most national opinion polls, and comparatively accurate in 2017, the bigger story is much more breathtaking.
Dudley is a case in point. As I posted a few days ago, Dudley North has been continually featured in vox pops as typical of a Labour seat being potentially lost because of Brexit. According to BBC vox pops, a large majority of the population of Dudley is deserting the Labour Party over either Brexit or allegations of anti-semitism by its ex-MP, Ian Austin.
Yet the YouGov constituency poll shows a swing from Labour to Tory in Dudley of 4.9%. Substantial, but not massive, in a seat where Labour only had a majority of 22 anyway. 41% of the population of Dudley still plans to vote Labour, which makes the balance of the BBC’s vox pops remarkably unrepresentative.
DUDLEY NORTH
Now compare that with this:
WOKINGHAM
Unlike Dudley, Wokingham has not featured in any of the BBC’s vox pops. In safe Tory Berkshire, close to Johnson’s own Uxbridge constituency, John Redwood the MP for a generation, surely there is nothing to draw the BBC to Wokingham?
Except YouGov shows a swing from Tory to LibDem in Wokingham of 20.35%. Let me say that again, 20.35% swing from Tory to Lib Dem. That is one of the biggest swings in general election history (excluding freak circumstances like brand new parties). To give a comparison, Blair’s 1997 landslide, the benchmark for modern seismic general election movement, was achieved on a Tory to Labour swing of 9.7%. What is happening today in Wokingham is on a scale with the massive swing to the SNP in Scotland in 2015 following the devolution referendum.
The Lib Dems need another 2.5% swing to take what is now a marginal seat. They may well achieve it by polling day.
Yet how many vox pops have you seen from Wokingham? What is happening there is perfectly plain. Brexit, the expulsion of moderate Conservative MPs and the hard right Tory stance on immigration and social services has caused a revulsion among liberal Tories from Johnson. In the UK as a whole, the swing against the Tories by liberal former Tory voters is every bit as large as the swing to the Tories in Brexit seats – hence the Tories are on almost exactly the same percentage overall as in 2017. For every racist dullard voting for Johnson’s dog whistle racism, there is an urbane Tory in Wokingham or similar towns refusing to vote for him for the same reason. Yet our televisions and radios have for a month been crammed with literally hundreds of selected representatives of the former group and virtually nil of the latter group.
This is not an accident nor is it unimportant. The media – and the BBC have been most guilty of all – know very well what they are doing. It is deliberate reinforcement of the government’s campaign message. Featuring stream upon stream of working class voters saying they will vote Tory normalises the idea and plays to the popular desire to join the winning team.
Just imagine for one moment that every time the broadcast media had shown a man in a high vis saying he was deserting Labour to “get Brexit done”, they had balanced it with a doctor’s wife from Cheam saying she was deserting the Tories over NHS funding. It would have challenged the entire government narrative. But the media have not done this. They have instead chosen to tell only the pro-government side of this story of electoral swings. This is probably the worst period of concerted state and billionaire controlled media propaganda in the modern history of the “democratic West”.
Ask yourself this simple question. The Tory vote has not increased since 2017. Have you heard that simple fact stated on the broadcast media and is it the impression the broadcast media have been giving?
Let us look at another pair of constituencies. Massively reported Grimsby. Here the swing measured by YouGov from Labour to Conservative is only 3.6%, yet I defy anyone to say they have not seen or heard media reports of how the Brexit supporting people of Grimsby are deserting Labour in droves, with people vox-popped to say precisely that.
GREATER GRIMSBY
PUTNEY
Putney has the same swing as Grimsby, with Labour expected by YouGov to take the seat from the Tories on a swing of 3.5%. Yet has Putney been swarming with TV cameras? Have you had enough of hearing Putney accents on the TV explaining why they are switching from Tory to Labour? Again, the counter-narrative is totally ignored.
The exception to the rule has been Esher and Walton, where there has been some brief media mention of the anti-Tory surge purely because it makes Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, a possible loser. But again I have not seen one single vox pop from there with voters explaining why they are deserting the Tories. And again the swing is absolutely massive, with YouGov measuring a 19.6% swing from Tory to Lib Dem in voting intention and only another 1% swing needed to get rid of Raab. This is much higher than any of the fabled swings against Labour in Northern England.
Compare that to Rother Valley, where the BBC had an extended vox pop feature showing only voters switching from Labour to Tory. While YouGov do predict a substantial swing from Labour to Tory in Rother Valley, of 6.3%, it is on nowhere near the scale of under-reported swings from the Tories elsewhere. And how much of that swing has been produced by the BBC reporting telling people there is a swing and vastly over-representing local anti-Labour voices? 36% of the Rother Valley voters still intend to vote Labour, but the BBC could not locate any.
Remember this. The Tory vote has not increased. It is the same level as 2017. But the media has vastly over-represented, in vox pops and in debate and panel audiences, those switching from Labour to Tory.
More importantly, the YouGov constituency poll of over 100,000 interviews was conducted from 3 to 10 December. The momentum was already against the Tories, and the large majority of its responses were from before the Boris Johnson phone snatching interview and NHS child on the floor scandal, which I suspect has put off more prospective Tory voters. So it was a snapshot of voting intent mostly several days ago, not today, let alone tomorrow when we vote. Remember also the evidence of 2017 is that after a time the highly controlled, slogan-led campaign wears on voters. People who were quite impressed the first time they saw Boris Johnson say “Get Brexit Done” are less impressed when they have seen him say that and nothing else for four weeks. They are inclined to conclude he is an empty slogan parrot, as they did with Theresa May and “strong and stable.”
The final reason to believe that the Tory lead will narrow from the YouGov constituency model poll is that they themselves reported this. Their poll was taken over seven days; at that start of that period it was showing an 11 point lead to the Tories, by the last day it was showing an eight point lead. I see every reason to expect that momentum to continue. Finally, remember that YouGove are an extremely Tory friendly pollster.
Most importantly it shows the number of ultra-marginal constituencies to be substantially more than the predicted Tory overall majority, and all of them susceptible to tactical voting. Scotland and Wales are particularly important. Ultra marginals in Scotland and Wales alone can wipe out the projected majority if the go the right way. There are no Tory/Labour marginals in Scotland, only Tory/SNP marginals and I strongly urge everybody in Scotland who wants to stop Johnson to vote SNP.
I will post some thoughts on key seats in England and Wales in which to vote tactically later. But I already feel confident Johnson will not get his majority.
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If Craig is not talking bollocks there are pots of money to be made for those believers :www.sportingindex.com/spread-betting/politics/british/group_b.6b9db4dc-d1df-4c9d-b9ab-c9a136a91f1e/uk-general-election-seats-markets
Useful link. The only people who called the EU referendum correctly were bookmakers.
Interesting thought. Especially since ‘bookmakers’ don’t call results. They set their odds and payouts to attempt to draw money from both sides. At best, looking at bookmakers can only tell someone what the bookies have found is needed to draw money from both sides. Which means, that if the media is telling everyone that its a Tory victory, I’d expect the bookies odds to match that public (manipulated) perception. But that doesn’t tell anyone anything about how people are really going to vote.
I don’t suppose Cummings and his cronies have forgotten to do something about the betting odds – it’s a major problem if it’s not giving good news for the Tories.
I made £5,000 odd off sporting index on the 2015 or 2017 election (I forget which). I posted my virtual betting slip on this blog to prove it.
Remember the bookies still made money by keeping that of all the mugs who “bought” Tory seats on the spreads. The wisdom of the bookies lies in making money, not in “predicting” the result. That is a fundamental misunderstanding.
The odds only reflect the weight of money being bet, and as Craig says predict nothing. The bookie simply makes money by keeping the difference between the “bid” and “offer” price.
Those that think Craig is correct can put their money where their mouth is, because the betting market is currently predicting a Tory overall majority of about 40 seats.
You might get additional pleasure in that you might be taking money ff Tory “mugs”
I hope you’re right Craig but I fear the worst. Tomorrow we shall see.
A different variant of Craig’s argument
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/11/the-view-from-stevenage-i-feel-i-have-to-vote-to-get-johnson-out
It sounds as though everyone in the media is piling in to this theme at the last minute. They’re just catching on today.
“Interstellar alien lizards”
That’s antisemitic.
I don’t follow you. Please make some sense of that or I will delete it. Is it a joke?
It was a joke, clearly not a very good one! Please delete it 🙂
sorry I was speaking to Hatuey!
It’s David Icke’s theory. Since it upsets, I’d prefer you deleted it.
For even clearer proof that YouGov are fiddling their figures to help the Tories, look at the age weightings. Click here for two tables that say it all. Some of what “centrist_phone” has been posting has been highly questionable, but YouGov’s fanciful weightings for age show exactly what game they are playing. They are fraudsters.
Here’s the proof
Parliament’s estimated turnout figures for 2017:
18-24…..64.7%
25-34…..62.8%
35-44…..65.6%
45-54…..68.6%
55-64…..72.3%
65+ …..75.0%
Now look at the weightings used by YouGov in the MRP they released last night:
YouGov weightings
18-25…..52%
25-30…..52%
30-35…..57%
35-40…..63%
40-45…..66%
45-50…..70%
50-55…..74%
55-60…..79%
60-65…..83%
65-70…..85%
70-75…..85%
75-80…..85%
80-85…..87%
85+…..90%
I have checked both sets of figures. The second lot are in the YouGov document published here, which you can check is genuine because it is the document that they link to from their page here. (You need to click where it refers to “the academic examination of the results written by Professor Lauderdale”.)
As for Parliament’s own estimates, they are published on the Parliament website here.
Pollster lying to help the Tories is now proven.
The question is “why?” Some may think that question has an obvious answer, namely “To encourage people to follow the supposed crowd and vote Tory, of course”. Well yes, sure, that will be one intended effect – the “Eight out of 10 owners say their cats prefer it” method of persuasion.
But another aim, probably more important, is to help legitimise the result. If Labour win somewhere between 31% and 36% the MSM can say the pollsters’ average was bang on, or it was out by a small percentage, and they can publish graphs showing performance in polls and then the end result, as if we were talking about the measurement of the same quantity as it varies over time. (For those who may not have thought about this before, no we are not talking about that.) Stupid young reporters can say things such as “the results are within the margin of error”. Meanwhile the real Labour percentage could have been 42% or 44% and the only reason the returning officers reported Tory wins in 50 or 100 seats where the real winners were Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the SNP was massive postal-ballot cheating.
But how to do prove massive postal ballot cheating ?
How do you even check for postal ballot cheating ? Is there a method ?
I don’t think there is .
I did a postal vote in this GE
All I had to do was apply for a postal vote online and then complete an application form
No ID requested
Of course I needed an address for the postal vote to be sent
I am the householder so the council already had my details but if I were not the householder they would only have needed the householders confirmation that I was residing at their address and the postal vote would be sent.
Clearly very easy to fiddle
Get a relative or a friend or a landlord or an owner or tenant of an address to confirm you live at the address and the council will send a postal vote to that address for you
Your relative or friend or landlord or the owner can forge your signature on the postal vote and post it back for you job done
Having worked for government for decades I know there is no way they can detect that a signature is forged
Nobody checks that signatures are by the applicant themselves there is no reliable way of doing so
They will just check that there is a signature in the box and that it does not look like a name other than what it’s meant to be for example Mickey Mouse
When gov depts get you to sign stuff the purpose is so that if they ever prove by means other than a signature that you have lied
about something eg earnings for tax etc etc they show you the signature accompanied by the declaration as proof that you knew what you were doing but if you ever denied the signature they have the evidence anyway
So easy
Thats small beer stuff ?
The big scheme with postal voting is amongst the Asian communities who might follow the political mores of their ancestral lands. The rewards are likely to be more profitable than a few bods forging signatures, and its also likely that Labour have been most successful in this field of endeavour, hence the now incessant claims of Labour being anti-Semitic. Clearly things have moved on since CM lodged a complaint regarding Jack Straw handing out free curry meals. 🙂
Postal voting really needs to revert to the time when you needed a good reason to get one. Introduced under the guise of democratic access, its become a viable way of harvesting votes in numbers that can have real effect.
Well I was told by a senior officer in a local authority that the postal votes were checked against the application signature and that often young people lost their vote because they are still experimenting with their signatures.
Yes the council do check the signature against the applicants but all they are doing is checking that I terry callachan have signed terry callachan or tcallachan and not Mickey Mouse or something daft.
Many signatures are a squiggle
Illegible
You can’t compare them
This article lays out how it was done in the Scottish referendum:
http://www.thescottishstandard.scot/scottish-politics/the-postal-ballot-at-the-scottish-independence-referendum-fraud
What with Kuenssberg’s latest outpourings, it would appear that the same approach could be in full swing again. Who will be conducting exit polls today? Can these figures be massaged to fit the expected result?
Thank you that is amazing
this is very useful info that shows why the poll data from yougov is so skewed.. how much do the tories pay yougov for that??
Interesting numbers …. since I saw a piece the other day that seemed to show 39 as being a cut-off age, and that below that age there are a lot of very angry people who don’t want to leave the EU. So, the Cummings/YouGov Poll under-weights everyone below that age.
Before England becomes the 51st state (without Scotland, of course), see on this video what British people are learning these days about the US healthcare system.
PoliticsJOE on Twitter (Dec 3, 2019):
“Ambulance call out? $2,500. Childbirth? $30,000.
“Our NHS is not for sale, @realDonaldTrump”
British people guess how much US healthcare costs
https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1201826927520161792
[20.5 million views video]
@jmg – I don’t use Twitter. Glad to hear that video has had so many views. Do you know whether Twitterers have been spreading the news about Boris Johnson’s past statements on the NHS? He is on record
* calling for people to have to pay for sick children to be taken to hospital by ambulance, and
* mocking most NHS users as undeserving.
N_ wrote:
> Do you know whether Twitterers have been spreading the news about Boris Johnson’s past statements on the NHS?
Yes, for example:
Mirror Politics:
“Boris Johnson called for NHS patients to pay to see a GP or call an ambulance”
https://twitter.com/MirrorPolitics/status/1201920807284424704
Business Insider:
“Boris Johnson said patients should have to pay to use the NHS so they will ‘value’ it more”
https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/1201892736892317698
N_ wrote:
> I don’t use Twitter. Glad to hear that video has had so many views.
You can see it as well here (the YouTube version, with about half a million views):
True cost of US healthcare shocks the British public | JOE.co.uk
https://www.joe.co.uk/news/true-cost-of-us-healthcare-shocks-the-british-public-241231
And a great video rant (over 600,000 views):
A Decade of The Tories — Jonathan Pie — Dec 6, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjUWX6S8iYU
No mention of the greens.While a major breakthrough is vanishingly unlikely, I have a hunch there will be a swing to green by the many people who are in despair with the other parties.Not enough to upset the applecart but a decent showing overall (enough to stifle some mainstream aspirants I think I would bet on a doubling overall of the green vote) and maybe one or two more constituency wins. A harbinger of things to come.
There is only one choice tomorrow for anybody despairing of inaction on the environment. Labour has pledged to enact a radical green industrial revolution.
https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/a-green-industrial-revolution/
Anybody voting for the Green party in a Labour-Tory marginal is indicating a strong desire for further Tory inaction on the climate emergency and for permanent austerity and war.
Is it dėjà-vu time again?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13OPs4c91U4ggD1XrHWGAig8YOoXbehVSEpGwaJJ(Wtpc/pub
@Rob – That link wasn’t working for me.
Nor me.
Try again, I was on my tablet there,
http://www.thescottishstandard.scot/scottish-politics/the-postal-ballot-at-the-scottish-independence-referendum-fraud
If that does not work, Google for “argyll postal vote 2014”. There are further links in the comments once you find tha article.
Yes that one works Rob
I remember reading that very Page in 2015- From your Link –
” The Electoral Commission Report in late December gave us some further information. However all the information we gained since the Referendum did not resolve our concerns; on the contrary it confirmed them. We are now convinced that the Postal Ballot (PB) at the Scottish Referendum was compromised by a UK Government agency, and consequently that the ballot result is not democratically valid.
” Our second big surprise of the night was when we heard the turnout. The PB turnout had been a staggering 96.4% which had pushed the overall turnout up to 88.2%
So we came away from the count with 4 questions on our minds:
(1) Why had there been such a difference between the postal voters and those who voted at the polling stations?
(2) Why had the Postal vote had such a massive turnout 96.4%?
(3) If the No campaign had been so motivated in Argyll why had we seen no sign of that during the campaign?
(4) Could the postal vote have been ‘tampered with’ in some way?… “
Why would any political candidate go into an election if they thought it would be fixed through postal ballots? People are saying this all over the internet and so Corbyn/Labour must be aware of it. It would be more likely IMO that the truth is that Corbyn/Labour would have to be in on the act as well if they were just going to let the Conservatives steal the vote. Not to mention ”damn it, there goes the chance of Scottish independence as well. If it weren’t for all that cheating we might have won. Still not to worry, let’s try again in another 5 years”. Pull the other one, it plays jingle bells! As much as some people like to portray Corbyn as feckless, I doubt he or Labour would really let it slide…unless….
The system as it stands does not allow for checks and balances that would expose postal ballot cheating.
You have to look for it and investigate before you can find it.
Just like tax evasion
Why would any candidate stand if they knew they could win without doing anything to persuade voters?
Whoosh?
The only way to guarantee no ballots are added in the name of these who haven’t returned their genuine postal vote is to have independent and transparent monitoring and audit trail of the whole postal vote process.
We haven’t got that.
The second way to determine if there may be some discrepancies in the postal votes is to count them seperately from the ballot station votes before adding their numbers to that total
That would give an indication of the total percent returned compared to average rate;
AND MORE IMPORTANT
What the percentages are for the different candidates.
If that showed the signs of being statistically anomalous … an investigation and audit can be undertaken immediately.
Just a short documentation of Laura Kuensberg’s bias:
Sarah Willement contacts the Yorkshire Evening Post (YEP) to highlight her predicament when she had to place her son on coats on the floor whilst awaiting to be seen in A&E for suspected pneumonia. The YEP reported this with the now famous photo at 11:52 on 8th December.
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/it-was-chaos-shocking-photo-shows-leeds-four-year-old-suspected-pneumonia-forced-sleep-floor-lgi-due-lack-beds-1334909
The YEP editor then describes how an immediate attempt to discredit this story happened on the social media with fake accounts issuing false information to discredit the report:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/paper-story-jack-williment-barr-online-lies-yorkshire-post
Joe Pike from the Mirror interviewing Boris and tried to show him the picture of the boy. Boris Kohnson tries to avoid this and divert and pockets the reporters phone.
https://twitter.com/joepike/status/1204018593656180736
Laura’s comment on this very embarrassing event for Boris is rather mild to say the least
“That was definitely a much trickier event for Johnson than Tories would have expected – Qs about the 4 year old boy on front of the Mirror + how he reacted to being shown the photograph”
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204039631991431169
Two tweets later Laura posts this after Matt Hancock was dispatched to deal with this fiasco:
“Not entirely clear what happened, but Tories suggesting Labour campaigners offered to pay cabs for activists to go and heckle Hancock – fair to say today not panning out as anyone had expected in what has been a relatively flat campaign”
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204078942736572416
This was a total fabrication as it transpires later and as you can see from answers to this tweet.
The supposed punch to Hancock’s adviser was no such thing
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204091610843226112
Laura’s reaction to #FRIDGEGATE was a bit muted and meagre on facts
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204686093783896064
and this is what happened
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-boris-johnson-hides-fridge-21070803.amp?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar&__twitter_impression=true
She is appalling. Her bias for Johnson and the Tories is plain to see.
Read the thread below this one of hers.
Enough musing – suffice to say is an incredibly tight contest in LOTS of places – in 48 hours we might be waiting in freezing Downing St for Johnson to return with 1st decent majority for a generation, or about to enter frenzy of hung parly talks which could see Corbyn into power
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204684260776525829?s=20
Tories – ‘decent majority’
Labour – ‘frenzy’.. ‘which could see Corbyn into power’.
Shock horror for you then Laura. You will get your marching orders with a bit of luck if there’s any justice. Your twisted mouth as you snarl out your venom suits you very well.
Mary sorry, did not see your posting of the same tweet. The Beeb really is laying it out there without shame at this point. Comfortable in the knowledge it will be fully supported in labelling all its critics conspiracy theorists
“Your twisted mouth as you snarl out your venom suits you very well.”
Excellent characterisation Mary.
Did You Manage to get your Voting situation sorted Mary ?
Yes thanks Brian. I request a postal vote as access to the polling station is hilly and I still have breathing difficulties.
I went down to the council offices yesterday as the form, promised for delivery by November 27th, had not arrived. I picked up the form (ready and waiting so there was intention to post it to me) at the reception desk in the overheated building after a wait whilst the poor man in front of me paid over £75 for a parking permit! I voted there and then and put the envelope into one of those battered metal ballot boxes.
PS The form has never arrived! If I was paranoid I would be thinking that was the plan as I have never ever in my life voted Tory. All 11 Surrey MPs were Tory and most were ministers – Hunt, Raab, Gove Hammond. Milton, Beresford, Grayling!,Blunt, Kwarteng, Gyimah, Lord. As is the political control of Surrey County Council.
Today Surrey Fire Service employees have announced that they are taking industrial action.
https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2019/12/10/surrey-firefighters-vote-overwhelmingly-industrial-action-over-christmas
Seven fire stations have been closed by the council. Numbers of firemen and women have been cut. The river rescue service previously the responsibility of the fire service has been outsourced to a private outfit. All of this to the background of the recent Grenfell tragedy.
I am with the FBU 100%. They are the bravest of men and women.
Great Stuff Mary
.. Every Vote Against the Sociopathic Tories Helps..Well done Sorting that out.
Cheers Brian.
There was a typo in mine. Ref the form should have read –
…SO THERE WAS NO INTENTION TO POST IT TO ME…
How many others?
The impartial line the BBC’s political editor is signing off with on the eve of the election . . .
“Enough musing – suffice to say is an incredibly tight contest in LOTS of places – in 48 hours we might be waiting in freezing Downing St for Johnson to return with 1st decent majority for a generation, or about to enter frenzy of hung parly talks which could see Corbyn into power”
https://mobile.twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1204684260776525829
And it seems that LauraKoftheCIA has got Katya Adler chained up in a basement somewhere full of ‘toys’ since she tweeted about the Tory Brexit ‘deal’ yesterday.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler
Not a single tweet for over 48 hours except a re-tweet saying she will be appearing along with LK!
Let her out Laura!
Not too much later, I hope, for an update on tactical voting in English seats. Keep up the good work, Craig Murray. Thanks.
I noticed a lot more vox-pops today on BBC R4 in favour of Labour, and lots more large photos of Corbyn looking prime-ministerial on the Graun. Last-minute recognition of reality, or a Tory attempt to make things look tighter than they are, in order to get their people out to vote? The cock-up theory of history would say the first, but I don’t know.
The Guardian has certainly turned pro-Corbyn more recently on the main. There are certain writers who are still anti-Corbyn but not all.
As for the BBC they do have some good reporters too but the worst showing clear bias are Laura Kuensberg and Nick Robinson.
Face saving turncoatery.
Laura Kuenssberg has declared that postal votes are looking “grim for Labour”.
The next home secretary Diane Abbott should send the police to Kuenssberg’s house and office on Friday with a search warrant.
Electoral Commission: “It may be an offence to communicate any information obtained at postal vote opening sessions, including about votes cast, before a poll has closed. Anyone with information to suggest this has happened should report it immediately to the police.”
What Kuennsberg said: “on both sides people are telling me that the postal votes that are in are looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the country.” (emphasis added)
“That are in” are the key words here. That means the information must have come from the receiving centres, and that’s illegal. It can’t have come from people who say they have voted postally, or who are thought to have posted votally.
They, Kuenssberg’s legal representatives would have advised her, since the postal vote is probably well over by now. If true, and I suspect it will be, it is to be expected that it is largely Tories, with their reasons to be out of the country who will be most taking advantage of the postal vote facility.
More that the postal vote represents the more elderly part of the population, rather than the expatriates. I’m not sure that the “retired in Spain” are that numerous.
The postal vote is certainly pro-Tory, as the Tories are discovering with pleasure, but it doesn’t represent in any way what’s going to be said tomorrow. The young don’t think in advance, they go and vote, or don’t as the case may be.
I agree Laguerre. It would be tough if those voting at the polling stations voted the same way and I doubt they will. There might be a big surprise. But of course nobody knows. What I do know, and I have seen a few election campaigns over the years, is that I have never seen the enthusiastic and focused campaigning being led by Momentum. Yes, there could be a big surprise.
Far be it from me to sloganize but “Vote Labour” or at least “Vote Tactically”.
The postal votes are not separate to the poll. They are part of it. They are not ‘over’ until the poll has closed. Revealing anything about them does appear to be arguably a criminal offence.
It IS an OFFENCE.
She should be immediately suspended and removed from her work until the matter is attended to by the BBC Human Resources department.
I hope you are right with your closing statement and that the electorate do the sensible thing and vote for Jeremy Corbyn. This too is optimistic and recently off the press at OffGuardian.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/11/10-reasons-to-be-cheerful-on-election-eve/
Apologies if it has already been posted I have yet to read the comments.
Davey is a supporter of Zionist Israel.
https://ldfi.org.uk/
Davey received a knighthood in January 2015 from the Clegg/Cameron coalition. Clegg has taken a £1m job with Facebook. Also taking in multiple £tens of thousands for speeches, Blair style.. ‘Clegg announced on Friday he is “delighted” to be quitting Britain to move to Facebook’s California HQ.’ (The Sun!). Good riddance.
Cameron as we know has acquired his fifth house. Following in Blair’s footsteps in property acquisition?
https://www.surreycomet.co.uk/news/14175921.new-years-honours-former-mp-ed-davey-royal-college-of-physicians-fellow-and-surbiton-policy-director-make-the-list/
In other Facebook news, Duncan Campbell has helped release nearly 7000 pages of confidential documents about the company, see: https://www.duncancampbell.org/facebookleaks
Does anyone still use Facebook?
If you accept that we’re all born as a ‘blank slate’, then many of us grow up to care for other people, and to put their needs – if not first, then at least to accord them as much importance as we do to our own.
Others grow up to be selfish, greedy sociopaths. Tories, in other words.
I have long ago given up hope that ‘democracy’ can help to stem the flow of the noxious poison that seems to characterize our world. Four decades of neoliberal savagery, and the people who caused it, are still apparently likely to win tomorrow. The next Labour leader might not be a Corbyn. He might be a Blair. And so maybe the next election, it’ll be Labour’s turn, but there’ll be about as much socialism in that brand of Labour as there was in ‘New Labour’ from 1997 onwards.
It beggars belief that with the state Britain is in now, there are still millions who are prepared to give the architects of our social and economic decline, another bite at the cherry so that they can finish their work, and plough us a bit further into the abyss.
Democracy is no longer the answer, for it cannot be trusted to serve the majority of the people, even some of the time.
I see no other option but violence.
Corbyn for PM – get Assange out of Belmarsh.
Percentage of the electorate who voted in the 2017 election =
69.3%
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/uk-general-elections/results-and-turnout-2017-uk-general-election
Good points. The performance of the BBC in the last few days over the tory scandals, their hiding from scrutiny and their desperate avoidance of any debate over their policies, is pitiful and deeply damaging to the weak democracy we already have. Kuenssburg hasn’t offered a shred of self-awareness or humility in her cynical stovepiping of stories straight from Cummings and Bannon into news bulletin headlines. A Yorkshire Evening Post reporter has shown her and her ilk up by the simple expedient of checking his sources before reporting.
As for their lapdog obedience in promoting tory party ‘stories’ as news, they spent all day breathlessly reporting both Ian Austin’s garbage and the John Ashworth sting, despite both being minor stories at most, while neglecting to tell us that former tory party heavyweights are telling voters to vote for others and what a dangerous path Johnson is pursuing. But they aren’t interested in news which doesn’t come straight from CCHQ. This morning an asinine interview with Gove, where he said absolutely nothing of importance or anything newsworthy, was promoted to the lead in the hourly news bulletins.
They have been abysmal, and have colluded and collaborated in the tory drive to neuter them and most of the media over which they have no control. How low they have sunk.
Always worth remembering that we do not have a secret ballot in the U.K. When you go to vote tomorrow notice that the person with the electoral register writes your number on the back of your ballot paper. This is unnecessary as your name is crossed off on the register. Once the count is finished all ballot papers are collected and sent to the Home Office who then pass them to MI5 to note in their files who voted for “subversive” parties -this always used to be the CP, Trotskyist parties of various names. Now it almost certainly includes Greens, Sinn Fein and probably the SNP and PC.
Yes, I noticed that.
As my various encounters with MI5 proved that they are riddled with unprincipled, coercive, OCD, manipulative liars, as well as those who spread false rumours about public figures, I have always seen MI5 as the antithesis of providing us with security.
If they actually did provide security, rather than collect blackmail material, why are Oxford and Cambridge riddled with MI5 stooges (I studied at one and worked at the other, so have first hand experience of both)? Do we send our most dangerous subversives to the best universities or is MI5 simply full of perverted fetishists desperate to know what 18-22 year olds get up to when drunk?
I watched for it, here in St Leonards, E Sussex, and they didn’t do it to anyone.
Absolutely spot on. I don’t know about the final prediction but the skewed concentration on swings from Labour to Tory in northern towns has been marked. Anecdotal evidence has been telling me that there are many old-style Tories who are not voting for the new Conservatives but we have seen almost nothing of this. This morning, on the Today programme, there was an extended feature from Nick Robinson visiting a town where he was asking people what they thought of Corbyn. If they said they did, which was clearly not the agenda, he followed up by asking them if they knew people who didn’t. If they said they didn’t, he simply moved on with no enquiry as to whether they knew people who did. This pattern has been repeated ad nauseam. I think this election raises very serious questions about how impartiality is to be judged and the use of vox pops in general.
She’s the story now AGAIN.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/11/bbc-denies-political-editors-postal-vote-comments-broke-law
Why has the BBC suspended her, on full pay, like any other business would until the matter is resolved?
Same report also says Waltham Forest have suddenly discovered they hadn’t sent out some postal votes. Covering IDS’s Chingford seat, which he will not survive in? I seem to recall the private company that runs postal voting for the electoral commission have offices there…
So so desperate!
Correction- Why has the beeb NOT suspended her.
Maybe she doesn’t actually work for the BBC? ☺
Once again, within the space of two days, at the most critical time before a ballot, she colludes with the tories in funnelling their propaganda into the mainstream. And at the same time, breaking election rules, if they have seen them. Just as likely, of course, is that they haven’t, or they don’t say what they want, and they are attempting to sway opinion through false stories. Either way, she is shameless. This is journalism 101, avoiding being used by propagandists, checking your sources, and knowing the law. Not to mention the supposed ethos of your employer as regards impartiality. She then went on to a very soft interview with Johnson, not tackling him on the many issues raised about his behaviour in the last few days. What a patsy.
The youtube video ”A DECADE OF THE TORIES,” by Jonathan Pie.
I have never seen such an onslaught of political propaganda during a GE coming from the corporate media. What is worse than the smearing of political opposition and constant innuendo is the frequent and blatant covering up of the shambolic and abysmal Johnson, who’s behaviour in public alone should exclude him from any office of responsibility.
Traitors who sell out their country to US interests are usually :-
1. Called Boris
2. Have blond hair
3. Appear at state functions drunk
Johnson is not the UK’s Trump, he the UK’s Yeltsin.
Have the two Borises ever been seen in the same room together?
Craig Murrays analysis is not credible, the Yougov MRP poll shows a 9% lead not 8% that Craig suggests (see Yougov link below). 9% is still a significant lead that will produce a Tory majority. The Tories have significantly increased their % since June when Theresa May stood down. Since the end of November Tory support has flatlined at 42/43%, which is enough to win a majority given the collapse in Labour support since April, that Labour has partly reversed due to the collapse in Lib-dem support.since November. The increase in Labour support is not significant given that 2 days before an election it has not returned to the level in April.
As you can see from the links below, the 10th Dec Yougov MRP poll of 105,612 has only closed by 2% since the last Yougov MRP of the 27 Nov, this is not “The Largest Vote Swings in British General Election History”, as Craig puts it. Particularly as the Tories have maintained 43%, with Labour going from 32% from the Yougov MRP of 27th November to 34% on the Yougov MRP of the 10th of December. Labour closing 2% on the Tories on the back of a collapse in Lib Dem support (with diminishing returns) over two weeks from the yougov MRP of the 27th of November to the 10th of December does not suggest Labour will close the 9% gap with the Tories in the two days to the General election, particularly as support for the Tories has not fallen. Craigs point of the 10th of December yougov MRP poll taking place between the 4th and the 10th of Dec is irrelevant as the previous 27 Nov Yougov MRP poll was conducted over a similar time period. I have linked to the most recent Yougov MRP of the 10th of December and to the previous one of the 27th of November for comparison. Scotland is not pivotal being only 8% of the population, with 84% of the UK population being in England (Wales also voted leave), that in the main outside London voted leave. As Remain was concentrated in Scotland, London and NI, this benefits Leave more than the referendum results suggest as the vast majority of constituencies voted leave. It does not benefit labour to increase the majority in Labour London seats that voted remain. The Yougov MRP 10th of December link allows you to search by constituency for the predicted result in that constituency. It is irrelevant if the conservative vote is the same as the 2017 election (at 42%), because the problem is Labours percentage isn’t, as Labour share was 40% in 2017, when the manifesto pledged to respect the referendum, and is now at 34%, I fail to see how Labour is even going to make up 6% in 2 days to reach the position when it lost the 2017 election.
Why labour will lose to a Tory majority is the failure to deal with and deselect the Blairites, who would rather attack Corbyn than the Tories, as attacks from your own side are far more damaging to Labours credibility than attacks from the opposition (remember Kinnock attacking the left, managing to lose two elections). The statement by the shadow Health Secretary for example, was less than helpful. Corbyn should of purged the Blairites the way Boris has with remain supporting conservative MPs.
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/12/11/jeremy-corbyn-faces-russiagate-smear-campaign-before-uk-vote/
Jeremy Corbyn faces Russiagate smear campaign before UK vote (Aaron Mate and Max Blumenthal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyKLuyRBCYQ
The other problem is Labour cannot win on a pro remain agenda, as the majority of Labour target seats voted leave, particularly with the ridiculous policy of negotiating a new unknown trade deal that most of the cabinet will campaign against. Remember Labour leave supporters do not need to vote Tory to guarantee a Tory government, they just need to stay at home, particularly since the collapse in the Brexit party not standing against the Tories. I think this is more likely than Labour leavers voting Tory. The Blairites weaponised Remain to ensure Labour lost the election so Blairite MPs could remove Corby afterwards as the Blairites would rather a Tory victory than win under Corbyn (as the statements of Aleister Campbell and Tony Blair have proved), and the labour membership were stupid enough to fall for it, and have guaranteed another 5 years of Tory government.
EU referendum: The result in maps and charts
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028
All the latest general election voting intention opinion polls
https://www.markpack.org.uk/155623/voting-intention-opinion-poll-scorecard/
General election poll tracker: How do the parties compare?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49798197
UK general election poll tracker
https://www.ft.com/content/263615ca-d873-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17
Yougov MRP Dec 10 2019
https://yougov.co.uk/uk-general-election-2019/
Yougov MRP November 27, 2019
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/11/27/yougov-mrp-conservatives-359-labour-211-snp-43-ld-
Results 2017 election
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2017/results
Stats are great. Statistically, you are more likely to die from Tory policy than terrorism.
Reg,
It. Is. OVER.
Start packing and looking for countries that don’t have extradition treaties with us.
A whole lot of ‘watergates’ are coming not to forget Leveson 2.
Dungroanin
I would leave if I could afford it, and no Watergates are coming out after the election as those in power write the rules and decide how and if they are enforced. Leverson 2 is going to be a whitewash (like the Grenfeld enquiry blaming the firefighters who are, to my knowledge the only people to lose their job over this) that will justify increasing government censorship. Those pursuing the phone hacking complaint foolishly completely missed the central point, that the problem was that government and the press were in a currupt relationship so is not going to be solved by increased government oversight and censorship.
After that new opinion poll the odds did change quite a bit. On Sporting bet the overall Tory majority went down about 10 from about 43 to 33.
Geoffrey
It is true that the odds on a Tory majority have lengthened over the last couple of days from about 80% to between 69-73%, but the conservative increase in support since June (when they were giving a nadir of 20% chance of a Tory majority) when Theresa May left is much larger. The bottom link will plot this by bookie over different time periods in decimal odds, where a lower number means less of a return and a higher probability as it the multiple giving the payout (sorry if I am pointing out the blindingly obvious).
It also gives the odds of no overall majority as between 30 and 34%.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/overall-majority
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-uk-general-election/overall-majority/bet-history/conservative-majority
The Fkn BBC –
” “If Boris Johnson gets the Majority he SO DESERVES”!
https://twitter.com/johnjh67/status/1204770212014370818?s=04&
No masking it anymore.
just crackers. Makes me sick.
Is this election turning into a historic text book example of the corruption of democracy. Time will tell but it’s certainly beginning to look that way to me.
The evidence stacking up against the BBC is now mountainous and increases almost every time La Kuenssberg opens her mouth on air.
Here’s one of her lies:
https://evolvepolitics.com/bbcs-laura-kuenssberg-exposed-spreading-lies-about-labour-activist-punching-tory-advisor/
Here’s another:
https://mobile.twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1196397707268632576
Here’s a comment on her one-sided AS obsession:
https://twitter.com/JozefPFurReal/status/1199347828956360704
Here she is reviewing one of the TV election debates, exactly as Bozo would want her to, as a Brexit v Remain argument, as if nothing else mattered and with no one with anything else of interest, value or significance to offer or say:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50609454?ns_linkname=news_central&ns_source=twitter&ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_politics
And so on and on it goes.
I saw one comment on Guardian Live today claiming that she had tweeted that the results of the postal vote were looking dire for Labour, but that commenting on votes cast before the polls close is illegal so the tweet was deleted. I don’t know if that was true but shortly after the Groan deleted that comment.
Of course, it’s not just Kuenssberg, it’s across the whole BBC.
From the beginning of the election BBC coverage has ran on the assumption that Labour can’t possibly win and that the best they can hope for is a hung parliament. The possibility that Labour could form the next government has hardly been mentioned and when it is it’s not treated seriously.
There has to be an official response to this. It’s entirely possible (though I’m not placed to judge that) that laws have been broken. I will certainly be putting in an extensive complaint to Ofcom.
I would personally like to see Kuenssberg, and everyone above her who has sanctioned her blatant, relentless and anti-democratic breaking of Ofcom’s broadcasting code, prosecuted.
But that would just be a start.
It has been clear for a very long time that the BBC has been captured by Conservative Party interests. I can recall Michael Gove, in the run-up to 2010 election, threatening Kirsty Wark on Newsnight saying “be careful what you’re saying, we’re watching you, you know” with his characteristic broad grin.
The BBC is in need of, and we as country need, profound reform to turn it into a publicly, democratically accountable, public service broadcaster fit for the twenty first century.
Not the Conservative/Establishment/State broadcaster it has become.
Jeremy Corbyn began to lay out some ideas of how that reform could happen in his Alternative Mactaggart Lecture. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s here (watch from 12:00):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEYy7EATHhQ
Jon Stone in the Independent reviews Boris Johnson’s novel “Seventy-Two Virgins”. He concentrates on Johnson’s use of racial stereotypes and slurs and his promotion of the usual far right-wing view that fear of being called “racist” allows non-white bad guys to get away with anti-social actions including terrorist murder.
Johnson really lays it on thick. Three extracts from Stone’s piece:
“In one instance the French ambassador’s partner, described as a ‘Palestinian Arab’ is nearly banned from the event where the terror attack takes place because of racial-profiling, but is ultimately allowed to attend after someone stands up for her – she later turns out to be a terrorist after all.”
“In another episode, an MP lets a group of terrorists through a locked door because he does not want to be seen as racist.”
“On another occasion, a military sniper hesitates and misses his chance to shoot the terrorists because he is momentarily worried he might be racist.”
Do we get the message here?
Any genuinely anti-racist person who votes Tory (or abstains) tomorrow needs their head tested!
I’ve been reading this book since it was mentioned in a comment on this blog. What Jon Stone writes is valid comment. I tried to take a more objective view separating my political views from my literary analysis. I am not arguing with Jon Stone but in fairness to Johnson he almost gets away with it by making the thought processes and words those of his characters. His main character, Roger Barton, the MP obviously based on Johnson never as far as I can see makes these racist comments himself. Though he honestly portrays his alter ego as a flawed and bumbling character. He also makes, through the pen or thoughts of a Daily Mirror journalist a very accurate depiction of the horrors of the war on Iraq and the torture in Abu Ghraib but this is most likely meant as something the bulk of MSM media and those who worship at its temple would think far-fetched.
There are places where you would be stoic not to smile, or even laugh. It is not a novel I would go out and buy though. I am up to Chapter 50 of 65 and would not know how it ended, or at least who survived, had I not sneaked a peep at the last page. Johnson probably thought he could get away with letting characters do his dirty racist and sexist work for him. Anti-heroes in novels are often given unacceptable character traits – take Fagin for example. Johnson knows there are books like Lolita which did not make Nabokov a paedophile.
From what I have read it is well-plotted. Johnson is undoubtedly a plotter. I just wish to God he stuck to plotting novels instead of the downfall of the NHS.
https://www.facebook.com/john.gossip/posts/10159037369527646