Sendraks wrote:And yet you keep trotting this nonsense out. If it isn't for the purposes of persuasion, it really can only be about convincing yourself. Theists do much the same. It ain't healthy behaviour.

Labour source just ruled out Corbyn taking part in any TV debates that don't feature Theresa May.

Faced with an open goal, Corbyn decides against even attempting to score . Unbelievable, if true.

Sendraks wrote:This election is shaping up to be the most nakedly obvious hatchet job by the media on an opposition leader in my lifetime.

The sad thing is that people are buying into it, some because they want to, some because they are afraid and others because they don't have a clue.

One has to wonder why the media feels compelled to try and grossly misrepresent Cobyn this way. What is it they are afraid of?

Of course if they didn't have Corbyn to focus on, they'd be doing even more to savage the leader of the Lib Dems. And the media isn't exactly slouching misrepresenting him either.

nunnington wrote:One thing that strikes me is that both Corbyn and May are great ditherers. Corbyn is widely panned for this, but May attracts much milder criticism. She will not hold an election, but on the other hand, she will. National Insurance is going up, but hang on, it's not. We are in for a hard Brexit, but hang on, we want 'regulatory alignment'.

You could call her Mrs U-turn. Of course, most of the media want to vaporize Corbyn, and exalt May, so she tends to get off scot-free. I predict here and now that her many contradictions will catch up with her eventually, probably over Brexit. She repeats 'strong and stable' many times, but she is weak and unstable. So it goes.

nunnington wrote:Still, Corbyn is baaad.

nunnington wrote:You could also argue that the Tories have been utterly shambolic for the past 7 years. We have had austerity on steroids, which has probably choked the economy, plunged millions into poverty, damaged many services, and has not paid off the deficit. We have had Cameron's gamble on the EU referendum, which has taken us down the toilet. Now we have May-be, May-be not, who contradicts herself almost in the same sentence.

Still, Corbyn is baaad.

chairman bill wrote:

nunnington wrote:Still, Corbyn is baaad.

Except among 18-40 year olds, where he's the clear favourite.

Now that's a demographic that has tended to be less likely to vote, and despite being pro-EU membership, their not voting gave us Brexit. That hasn't gone unnoticed, and they do seem to now be registering in record numbers, presumably to vote. With May being vaunted by the media as a shoe-in, there may be some complacency in certain Tory-supporting circles. That could prove interesting.

mrjonno wrote:Well if the media have destroyed Corbyn maybe if there is a next time Labour will choose someone more media friendly.
That would be the only logical step, but hey stick to principles and believe having truth justice and the British way will win out in the end, you just might be in for a long wait but lets face it most the middle class people don't really give a toss. They may hate the Tories but they don't fear them as lets face it a Tory government doesn't have that much affect on them

or four days straight, Labour has led the political news. On Sunday it was Jeremy Corbyn with a set-piece interview on the Andrew Marr show, an exchange whose focus on nuclear weapons was still leading bulletins on Monday. On Tuesday, it was the turn of Keir Starmer as he set out Labour’s position on Brexit. Today it’s been the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, promising a pay rise for NHS staff.
In a normal election campaign, such dominance of the news cycle would represent a major triumph. The two sides usually scrap for attention, and for one side to have gained so much more airtime than the other would look like a serious win. But there’s a difference this time. The Tories are not fighting Labour for the spotlight.
Live General election 2017: Corbyn will not take part in TV election debates without May, Labour says - Politics live
Live coverage of all the day’s campaign action with the last PMQs before the election and a renewed row over TV debates
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On the contrary, they have, quite deliberately, chosen to vacate the stage: they are organising few events and making next to no policy statements of their own. Instead they want the voters to take a long, hard look at Labour. They’ve decided the best advert for a strengthened Tory government is extended exposure to the prospect of a Labour one.
That’s because the premise of this campaign – indeed the premise of this entire election, called three years ahead of schedule – is the Tory calculation that voters see today’s Labour party as wholly unfit for office. The Conservatives are happy to let Labour have the floor, even to set out policies that polls show are fairly popular. They know that once those ideas are associated with Labour, they will be rejected – because voters made up their minds about the party, and especially its leader, long ago.
It’s this basic strategic judgment that explains many of the tactical decisions Theresa May and her team are making. Take the prime minister’s ducking of TV debates. She knows that that risks branding her as either cowardly – hence the reappearance of that old campaign standby, the man in a chicken suit – or fundamentally undemocratic, a leader who refuses to be held to account.
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And yet May has clearly decided to risk that judgment rather than agree to a debate from which she stands only to lose, either through a misstep on the night or by granting Corbyn the appearance of parity, allowing him to stand alongside her as a would-be prime minister. She is so far in front she has no reason to do it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ?CMP=fb_gu

minininja wrote:Nah, I don't think it's a tactical decision. I think May's just week and a poor campaigner. Let's face it, in her whole career she's never had to campaign. She's sat the whole time in a safe seat and became PM by default. Whenever she does make an appearance she can do nothing but repeat sound-bites and rely on the media to promote her. That might still work on anyone who still relies on traditional print media for their info, but for anyone on social media the repetitions and contradictions are easily highlighted. It's not surprising that polling of under 40s puts Labour in the lead.

minininja wrote:Nah, I don't think it's a tactical decision. I think May's just week and a poor campaigner. Let's face it, in her whole career she's never had to campaign.

GrahamH wrote:May won't be running the campaign. They have a team for that and they did a kick-ass job last time. A bit sloppy on the expenses they got just about everything else spot-on and turned a neck-and-neck race into a majority. [...]

That just leaves the media in charge, which is a piss poor situation to be in. Spin and pandering to the media is a large part of the sickness in British politics