TV debates between political party leaders are meeja ambushes. The organisers, including the so-called impartial BBC, make the most of the opportunity to rig the audiences and ask questions from the ‘when did you stop beating your wife’ school of interviewing. The aim is to evoke scandalous replies, crowd pleasing and maximum embarrassment for the debaters.
Theresa is not a street-fighter. Maybe 200 years ago (had women participated)she would have acquired such skills for the hustings or remained in the shadows. Bojo is, but he cannot be trusted to behave. So should a PM be pilloried for refusing to take part? Not in my book – horses for courses, I say.
The election result will turn on other issues. The size of the turn-out, especially among the youngest voters; the actions of former UKIP supporters; the strength of feeling about security and defence; the reliability of the leadership. So stick to your guns, MS May – it’s one of your strengths.
Boadicea's Chariot 
By all reliable accounts the “debate” didn’t result in any real change. The lefty mob were enthused by watching Amber Rudd get savaged by 5 other party leaders, even though she more than held her own. The discussion last night was far better. Both party leaders who subjected to very frank questions from an audience that was not willing to let either get away with platitudes, silliness or dishonesty. May held up well under pressure. Corbyn stumbled and waffled. He proved that he isn’t the monster many claim he is, but he couldn’t handle the pressure from an unyielding audience.
Ms May will be returned in all likelihood with an increased majority. It will not be the absolute collapse of Labour that could have been, Corbyn having outperformed all expectations, but it won’t be a true vindication, either. Relying on the youngest voters is never a good policy as they are the most fickle and flaky. Older voters are just scared enough of Home Secretary Abbott and PM Corbyn to turn out in droves.If nothing else, we know what to expect from May and there is far worse.
Yes , the oldies will remember what Corbyn’s ’70s utopia was really like.
I suppose May is the best of a depressingly bad bunch.
I thought May performed pretty well last night and did appear to be attempting to answer the questions she was asked. Corbyn didn’t come across as relaxed with the situation of direct questions and he went into serious ducking and diving mode with the questions about actually using Trident. Still, although I don’t think he’ll get in, he comes across as a nice (if benighted) chap.
I could not see it so only have the press reports.
It does strike one as inordinate that a lead could start at 30% and decrease to under 5%. The conservatives must be doing one hell of a bad job.
Living in a country that does not give handouts all round, where one is expected to fund oneself through most of ilfe’s vicissitudes it appears that all of the UK population expects something for nothing which is a major problem. About time all of it was scrapped and reduce the tax rate all round and let people fend for themselves. Too much dependency on the state in all the social classes. By the time the political parties have blandished the population with ludicrous visions of an utopian future and or threats of draconian bills the whole process of an election has been reduced to a total farce.
None of it is helped by the impression that most of the candidates are in fact escapees from nut houses, whore houses and the like. One has to ask, what are they on?
Theresa May seems to have as much appeal as dining on road kill after a week in the sun!
Nearly as bad a choice as Trump versus Clinton!
May I extend my sympathies?
CO: It started at about 15-17pc and is now about 8-9pc. The so-called “3pc lead” is based on Yougov which estimates that 83pc of 18-24-year-old voters will turn out to vote overwhelmingly for Corbyn. More reliable polls show May with a 10pclead. One does wonder, however, how a country like the USA with a risible social system still can’t manage its finances when countries like Sweden and Denmark with generous cradle-to-grave systems can.
Christina, do calm down, have another cuppa and think of your next harvest. I’m just back from olde Englande and can reassure you that real people are not over-coddled or under-employed. They are keeping calm and carrying on, whatever the tabloids imply. Nobody is going to vote outrageously for a manic head of state or his immoral opponent. It’s green and pleasant as ever.
Janus: The Spectator forecasts a Tory majority of 76.
j, I agree the media hype this crap up for all it is worth. I talk to friends in the for at least two hours a week and it is obvious that life goes on as usual despite the antics of the politicians.
Perhaps that is why the denizens of the UK are such avid gardeners, an antidote to the constant irritation and cacophony of nutters in Westminster.!
Perhaps nowadays it is a prerequisite to be certifiable before one stands for parliament?
Certainly appears so for a job in Washington too!
Quite right, I shall take your advice and shall retreat to the greenhouse and allotment toot sweet!
The Meeja are f*****g awful.
Jazz: That is a masterful understatement. On occasion there are articles that aren’t completely cringe-inducing, but they are fewer and further in-between.
Jazz, yes, they are all desperate for a new way to shock or scare us. I don’t subscribe to any of them so I don’t read the Times but the DT and the Grauniad are as bad as the rest. As I mentioned, the Beeb seems incapable of balanced reporting, always favouring the liberal leftish spin.
I cannot remember a more biased, sustained campaign waged by the media. The self proclaimed metropolitan elite who claim to know what is best for the rest of us and how we ought to think (and are never slow to come forward and tell us so) are outraged that the long suffering silent majority no longer submissively toe the line and are determined that they must be put back in their place without delay. The people must be taught by instinct to love the EU again, hate Trump, accept immigration, embrace gender diversity, despise the Tories, never question the mantra of man-made global warming and always buy The Guardian. The list is long and it will take many, many elections and referendums until the ‘desired’ result is achieved.
I would go so far as to claim that the Labour Party has the Fourth Estate to thank for saving it from oblivion in the forthcoming general election. The current campaign waged on behalf of the Left is similarly intense to that waged during the run-up to the Brexit referendum. Taking a leaf out of their own book, if we wake up on 9th June to find Corbyn as PM, Abbott as Home Secretary and Thornberry running the Foreign Office, I will demand an immediate second election on the grounds that those who voted for a government resembling a Students’ Union cabal circa 1972 were monumentally stupid, ill informed by the shallow bolleaux they shared on their social media accounts and were led like sheep into the polling booths.
OZ
Spot on, OZ!
Oz: Let’s not forget manufactured polls. A number of companies will manipulate questions and population samples to achieve the desired result. Media companies will then take these manufactured results and run breathless headlines with them. Yesterday, for example, a single poll was published by Survation that “showed” that the Tories were only up 1pc on Labour. In the third paragraph it was admitted that they used the same methodology as they did in 2015. Yougov polls have consistently shown a narrow Tory lead, but one has to really look into their methodology to see that they anticipate that at least 80pc of the youngest voters will turn out to vote. Even in the votes with highest turnout — the Brexit Referendum, the 2014 Jockistani Indyref, etc. totals weren’t even remotely near this level. That the majority of polls show the Tories between 8-12 points ahead is completely ignored.
Trump has a point about fake news!
Janus: The lefty-press has a terrible record. One of their favourite tactics is to have hysterical headlines and then concentrate allegations/speculation for the first few paragraphs. Only towards the middle/end do they actually acknowledge the truth, albeit in passing. At other times they run stories based on unsubstantiated allegations inflicting untold damage before quietly printing retractions/corrections.
Oz: Hmmm!! I was a student in 1972 – and at the LSE – always seen as the hot-bed of Commie thinking. I have to say that my stated position as a ‘Temporarily Impoverished Capitalist’ was respected and my views listened to – and discussed without the modern trend of abusive name calling. Unfortunately, I think that since then most Unis have become stagnant pools of left-wing propoganda.
As to the latest election polls, I am clinging to the belief that most Brits know which side is up and will not vote for a party whose putative Home Secretary states that the answer to British-born-terrorists is to talk to the terrorists’ ‘Mums’.
And that they will not vote for a party who thinks that all terrorists are merely ‘freedom fighters’.
And that they will not vote for a party that sanctions the present system whereby the elderly that go into a home have to sell their homes (and retain only 23k pounds) – and those that stay at home can hang on to their property – and then lose it because Corbyn will dramatically reduce the level at which inheritance tax kicks in.
I am hoping that my feeling that most Brits are pragmatists and not driven by ideology is right – and that most will vote for the only party that will release them from the shackles of the EU and allow Britain to do what is right for Britain and her real citizens.
Boa, me too!
And me. I dread waking up on Friday morning and finding out that the loonies are back in charge.
Boadicea: Corbyn defended ISIS sympathisers and supporters saying that it shouldn’t be a crime. He also opposed banning returning ISIS fighters. May is a catastrophic campaigner, Corbyn would be a national disaster.
Christopher. You’re right – May is not a modern-day tub-thumping campaigner. And I think she made some serious mistakes in her manifesto – the return of fox-hunting – for heavens sake!
Jazz – normally there is a block on receiving the BBC programs on-line – but that block is removed for their coverage of UK election results – as indeed it was for the referendum. So I can sit and watch the results as they come in…
I don’t think I want to watch the results this time – like you I dread the thought that the loonies might be given the power to negotiate Brexit, deal with the rise of terrorism, or lay their sticky fingers on the wealth that the real workers actually earn rather than those who merely ‘claim’.
Boadicea: The worse error May made was making the campaign about herself and relying on only two people. The UK has a parliamentary system of government, not an executive system. Of course, the designated PM plays an important role in a party’s fortunes part it shouldn’t be about a single person. That’s a presidential election and as we’ve seen in France, the USA and South Korea, it’s really not ideal. As soon as she made some significant unforced errors, the negative attention hurt even more. Fox hunting is popular in parts of the country, but it is at best a side-issue that can be best dealt with by tweaking existing legislation when Parliament has fewer major priorities. It also hasn’t helped that her campaign motto was “strong and stable leadership” only for her to make more u-turns than an incompetent cabby. Even unpopular legislation can be defended. The only thing saving May is Corbyn and his front bench. I would not be terribly surprised if May was removed as Tory leader, whatever the outcome of the election.
CT, the Tories will regret allowing Theresa to go it alone, warts and all but the electorate will not back Labour however much they’d like to believe in more welfare, more public jobs. Law and order have always swung it for the Cons. As we have discussed the meeja obscure any genuine ‘vox populi’ and the Spectator ain’t it.
Janus: I think the Tories will probably have a 45-50 seat majority. They had the chance to have up to 150-175. In much of Northern England and even Wales there is a lot of foment and many traditional Labour voters were prepared to vote for the Tories. May has either pushed them back to Labour or they have grown so dispirited that they won’t even vote. It’s rare for a party to have this chance.
If Boris had been Tory leader they’d would walk this election. Unfortunately the mediocrities who control the Tory party would die rather than let anyone with real talent run it.
Jazz, he’ll get his chance, I think after the election. Mavericks do survive – witness Don the One.
Hi Jazz.
Utter keech. BJ is a joke and will get no less risible as time passes. I believe that most of my fellow card-carrying Tory members will never, ever, vote for him, even if he ever got through to the last two,
Which he never will, in my opinion
For me, he is far too reminiscent of the Fat Owl of the Remove (aka Billy Bunter) to be taken seriously by my generation and he is utterly out of touch with those treading on our heels.
To be fair, he is still mildly enjoyable, But, still utterly unelectable as PM of our country if we want to keep said country viable.
Just like Corbyn!
Janus: Don the One only managed because too many of his non-nutter rivals remained for far too long. There is usually one nutter candidate who engages the party’s fringe, but once there are one or two sane candidates voters tend to coalesce around them with the stronger of the two winning the day. In 2016 non-nutter candidates split the non-fringe vote for so long that Don the One managed to get in by default. When this reality was finally apparent, it was too late and there was no way that Don the One could be stopped.
JM: What do you make of the prediction that the Tories will take between 8-9 seats in Caledonia? Some say up to 12 are possible.
Hi CausT, I just don’t know.
I have been knocking my pan out for the last 6 weeks in the hope that corners have finally been turned in Caledonia (stern and wild).
But, unless the SNP drop below about 30% or thereby, it seems likely that there will be still be a lot of the tossers infesting the House of Parliament for 5 more years. This is, of course, a worry.
Still, with a day to go, the dream is there. I would be disappointed if we picked up less than 3 seats. I hope that we will get in excess of 10.
Whatever. At the end of the day, I believe that pro-UK parties will have the majority of votes in most (if not all) seats in Scotland.
The Separatist scum are on the slide and they know it.
The one vote winner would have been cancelling the 12 billion wog giveaway!
Look after our own first.
One has the hideous suspicion that May couldn’t fight her way out of a wet paper bag.
And, bring back control orders preparatory to interning crazed ragheads.
I expect she will win—-just, but she certainly doesn’t deserve to.
With the state of them all one really would like a rerun of Guy Fawkes, clear them all out and start again.
If only.
John Mackie: I’ve had direct dealings with Boris and he’s a lot smarter than your average Tory which is perhaps the problem.
You don’t win two London mayoral elections as a Tory against ferocious leftist opposition by being a joke, as you describe him.
Jazz: Sane lifelong Londoners have told me that London was far better off for Johnson being mayor. Apparently something resembling sanity returned, although things look grim under Khan.
JM: One can always be optimistic. I’ve seen a fair bit of Sturgeon-bashing from Scotland, all of it very much on-point. Keep heart, the SNP have declined with each election and this one doesn’t promise to be much better for them. The ogre isn’t dead, but it’s the invincible beast it was 5 years ago.
But it’s *not* the invincible beast.
CO, you are over-influenced by the meeja. Theresa is tougher than Jezza by a country mile. She controls her team, addresses the real issues, takes charge in crises – none of which Jezza does or can do. BoJo is reined in, terrorism is prioritised, the economy is (even now) is strong. Which of these could Jezza manage (for BoJo read Abbott)? Thank goodness there’s only one more meeja day before the election!
Today’s Mail has done a real hatchet job on Corbyn & Co. They should have done it a couple of days ago, but better late than never.
Jazz: In these fickle times, the day-before strategy is very effective. It will take social media and the high street by storm today and tomorrow. Within 3-4 days it will start to dissipate.
Janus: Corbyn is a good campaigner, but a terrible leader. As Labour leader he has been a complete nightmare and his shadow government has been a painful mess. May isn’t a terribly good campaigner, but to be fair, she’s led a relatively solid government despite many challenges.
Christopher: I guess you’re right. The Mail will be expert at this sort of thing.
Jazz: This is a tactic that the leftist media in the USA created. They would wait until a day or two before an election to spring some nasty surprises and catch, usually conservative, candidates flat-footed. Conservative parties are aware of this and have become adroit at managing the fall-out. Conservative and conservative-leaning independent voters have become inured. Left wing parties, despite inventing these tactics, are rather less adept at handling them when they’re at the receiving end. Now all we need is a healthy turnout and hope that the studies that show that roughly 50pc of voters who backed Ukip last time will support the Tories.There are 35 Labour seats, largely in the North and Midlands, that would go to the Tories if this is the case. If the Tories gain the maximum of 12-15 seats in Scotland that some are predicting, we’ll at least be in relatively good shape.
On LBC this morning Nick Ferrari played a tape of Diane Abbot being interviewed. It was awful, I actually felt sorry for her, an acquaintance, an ex criminal barrister also heard it and thinks the poor woman is suffering from early dementia, I have to agree and whilst I enjoy seeing my enemies vanquished there was no satisfaction in this it was like the tormenting of some poor dumb beast.
Trevor Kavanagh (former SUN political editor ) was also interviewed he’s pretty astute having called recent elections and referendums correctly against the trend. Anyway he said that May would win this election despite doing her best to lose it. With that I must agree and she should get shot of Damien Green a typical leftists europhile Tory largely responsible for the ‘Dementia Tax’ cock up. When you’ve got talent like Boris and Gove why not use them, but no she must front up these awful plodders like Rudd and Green.
Although the perceived wisdom round here is that the Tories could ( and did ) get a monkey elected I shall hold my nose and vote for them I don’t want give the bloody LibDems the minutest chance.
Jazz – I’m interested in your comment re Boris. And I think you are absolutely right re his intelligence – he’s always struck me as being a pretty shrewd cookie. The very best educated people don’t like those who are smarter than they are – and will put them down ferociously. Anyone who takes Boris for a fool – is a fool – in my opinion.
Janus – you and I know that the UK is in a better position under the Tories than it would be under Labour. But, I don’t think that the Tories have hammered that fact home sufficiently hard. Commie Corbyn has promised Utopia – and there are an awful lot of idiots prepared to have their cake today and don’t understand that it will have to be paid back with two cakes tomorrow.
Jazz again – thank your lucky stars that the UK does not have Ozzie rules whereby the Daily Mail hatchet job would not have been allowed so near the election. Hold your nose, by all means, and I hope that a sufficiently large number of people like you do the same – at least if May has a sufficiently large majority to really take the UK out of the EU your future votes will be worthwhile – stay in the EU under the sort of terms that any of the other parties will accept and your vote in the future will have no value…
What’s that old saying? “Lie back and think of England” 🙂
Jazz: May has never had a large support base in the Conservative Party. She held prominent positions, but wasn’t terribly well-loved. As with many similar people who suddenly and almost unexpectedly gain positions of power and influence, she relies far too much on her close-knit group of supporters. When things were going well it was easy to ignore this. After all, it isn’t terribly unusual for prime ministers to have a number of close allies. The problem is that May relied almost exclusively on mediocrities. I do, however, understand why she chose not to put Gove into a position of influence. Johnson and Gove had a falling out after they both sought the Prime Ministry after Wavy Davy’s fortuitous exit from 10 Downing Street. Had one or the other kept his powder dry there would almost certainly be a PM Johnson or PM Gove. The bad blood between the two big beasts would have made a coherent cabinet difficult at best. After the dust settles from this election and old wounds are healed, both will be in cabinet. If the Tories do well enough, May will probably be allowed to retain her position but she’ll be kept on a short lead.
Boadicea: You are, of course, correct. In Hunland there is really no point in voting if you’re not an EU fanatic. One can, of course, dislike the EU without fear of legal sanction but it’s made clear that this opinion will never be accepted as entirely legitimate and that one really ought to, at very least, accept it. That, or bugger off to England and join the “island apes” there. Harrumph.
And now, our George has made his pitch for power after the election with all the subtlety you’d expect from the one-layered ex-Chancellor:
http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/evening-standard-comment-why-we-believe-this-country-needs-a-strong-conservative-team-as-the-next-a3558971.html
He is, however, mistaken. Trump did NOT say that a trade deal with the EU was a priority and that the UK was at the back of the queue. That was the abortion that was Obama. Trump told the EU to lump it and put the UK as his first priority. As much as people criticise May for being Trump-friendly, a British PM seeking good relations with the US has no choice but to come to terms with the president.
What a prat! His blatant attempt to get back into the Cabinet will achieve the same as his predictions of Brexit doom.
Moreover, New Zealand is not only in informal discussions with the UK over a comprehensive free trade deal, but has loaned a number of its trade negotiators to the United Kingdom. NZ has some of the best negotiators and they’re there to help the UK negotiate deals and to train Britons to resume responsibility for their own trade negotiations. Australia has made it clear that they want a comprehensive free trade deal with the UK. The Chinese are eager to make a deal and the US has said that a trade deal can be signed by 2020. The Yanks and UK are already in trade talks, the EU be damned. I doubt he is ignorant, so I must assume that he’s a blatant liar — Nick Clegg’s brother from another mother.