Poll : Next Labour Leader.

[wacko]

As the Tory Party moved to the right it was perfectly obvious that Labour could have taken the centre. Instead it looked like it had moved to the left (whether it had in reality or not it was perceived that way).
Starmer has to get it to the centre (by definition that wins elections) before BJ pivots back.

 

[Seanm]

Most of the country neither knows nor cares who Owen Smith is. If pressed, they would probably guess he is one of the less prominent members of Take That. As far as they are concerned, any big question marks over Starmer's political judgement are the same as those over other members of the Labour Party: because he was encouraging them, a few short weeks ago, to put Corbyn in No. 10.

The Labour Party does not exist for the edification and entertainment of Labour Party members. It needs to stop navel gazing and reconnect with the people it is supposed to represent. Good luck doing that without the media.

(And Johnson has done many bad things, but hiding in a fridge to avoid Piers Morgan is entirely explicable.)

Kind regards

- Garry

Whether the wider public know or care about Owen Smith isn’t really the point. The membership need to consider the candidates’ strategic judgment as well as their political position: that’s not navel gazing, it’s the basic justification of mass party politics. It isn’t all about telegenicity, especially these days.

 

[Woodface]

Why bother having a Labour Party if the press decides who wins elections? What a load of utter crap.

Labour has won in the past, it is up them if they want to win again or just stay in opposition.

 

[35451]

Why bother having a Labour Party if the press decides who wins elections? What a load of utter crap.

Labour has won in the past, it is up them if they want to win again or just stay in opposition.

Time have changed since the Sun got behind tony Blair's New Labour brand

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1997/mar/18/past.roygreenslade

...or have they?

My view is that the traditional press have less overall impact these days. Certainly little effect on the younger generations, where SM has displace the classic 'press'.

 

[Seanm]

Why bother having a Labour Party if the press decides who wins elections? What a load of utter crap.

Labour has won in the past, it is up them if they want to win again or just stay in opposition.

If this is aimed at me you’ve gone off half-cocked again. This has nothing at all to do with what I’ve said.

 

[Woodface]

Time have changed since the Sun got behind tony Blair's New Labour brand

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1997/mar/18/past.roygreenslade

...or have they?

My view is that the traditional press have less overall impact these days. Certainly little effect on the younger generations, where SM has displace the classic 'press'.

That is an indisputable fact when you look at massively falling circulations. RW press has fallen from around 18m to 5m circulation in that time, it is a continuing trend. SM does amplify but it is a completely different metric of measurement so it is less clear how impactful it is.

The likes of Proctor & Gamble have massively cut their SM spend as it has been seen as less effective. I contend that Labour will have an easier ride if they have a better leader. The numerous experts on here will disagree but none of them predicted the outcome of the last election

 

[Woodface]

If this is aimed at me you’ve gone off half-cocked again. This has nothing at all to do with what I’ve said.

Sorry, if it was aimed at you specifically I would have replied to you. It is a general observation of the self defeating, self fulfilling nature of the general comments on here.

There isn't even a new leader in place & lines of attack are already being discussed.

Can we not just let it unfold & see what the person's media strategy is?

 

[Dave H.]

Sorry, if it was aimed at you specifically I would have replied to you. It is a general observation of the self defeating, self fulfilling nature of the general comments on here.

There isn't even a new leader in place & lines of attack are already being discussed.

Can we not just let it unfold & see what the person's media strategy is?

If we are to avoid a terminally nauseating round of ‘told you so’ from the bien pensant in due course, no we can’t. Anticipating attack lines is an obvious part of the most rudimentary strategy.

 

[35451]

That is an indisputable fact when you look at massively falling circulations. RW press has fallen from around 18m to 5m circulation in that time, it is a continuing trend. SM does amplify but it is a completely different metric of measurement so it is less clear how impactful it is.

The likes of Proctor & Gamble have massively cut their SM spend as it has been seen as less effective. I contend that Labour will have an easier ride if they have a better leader. The numerous experts on here will disagree but none of them predicted the outcome of the last election

Yup. Yet we still see folk defining significant chunks of the population with derision as 'Mail Readers', or 'Guardian Readers', when in reality their total readerships barely represent the UK population with any significance.

DM daily reader: 3.9m
Guardian reader ship 136k

Obviously this does not take into account web traffic - the Press Gazette Pamco study (2109) (may be flawed, but they are hardly like to have it understated) suggests that only some 25m people in UK read a UK newspaper or it's website every day.

One simple conclusion could be that, if less then 40% in UK read a paper, how can any claim that UK press decides elections, have any real weight?

 

[stephen bennett]

That is an indisputable fact when you look at massively falling circulations. RW press has fallen from around 18m to 5m circulation in that time, it is a continuing trend. SM does amplify but it is a completely different metric of measurement so it is less clear how impactful it is.

A lot of my students only get their news via SM. The Majority of it is from the Mail and Sun online, but they don't always know this.

The papers' influence has just moved online.

The likes of Proctor & Gamble have massively cut their SM spend as it has been seen as less effective. I contend that Labour will have an easier ride if they have a better leader.

The numerous experts on here will disagree but none of them predicted the outcome of the last election

I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I predicted the outcome pretty accurately.

It wasn't hard to do.

It's why I said that the opposition agreeing to Johnson's timetable was 'madness'.

Any Labour leader will be vilified by any infraction that would not make a jot of a difference to Johnson.

If the MSM (including Johnson's own personal mouthpiece, the Telegraph), are so ineffectual, why do you think the above is so?

Stephen

 

[stephen bennett]

...suggests that only some 25m people in UK read a UK newspaper or it's website every day.

That's irrelevant, isn't it?

It's how many articles are shared on SM that counts.

Most people don't read papers either off or online, but a lot more click on links fed from the papers on SM.

Stephen

 

[Woodface]

Yup. Yet we still see folk defining significant chunks of the population with derision as 'Mail Readers', or 'Guardian Readers', when in reality their total readerships barely represent the UK population with any significance.

DM daily reader: 3.9m
Guardian reader ship 136k

Obviously this does not take into account web traffic - the Press Gazette Pamco study (2109) (may be flawed, but they are hardly like to have it understated) suggests that only some 25m people in UK read a UK newspaper or it's website every day.

One simple conclusion could be that, if less then 40% in UK read a paper, how can any claim that UK press decides elections, have any real weight?

When I worked in press (pre-internet) we used quote circulation & readership, the latter was based upon the number of people who would 'read' each copy, it was generally '3'. This seemed quite arbitrary, also the number of people who read each copy would often go up as the circulation went down. Very different times.

The figures from the Press Gazette could be rather optimistic & it doesn't take into account the differing ways of media consumption (on & offline).

 

[glancaster]

Gave me a Viz Top tips moment.

The original line of Take That would be a fine and attractive opposition shadow Cabinet. Think about it - they all have nice hair and all their own teeth, they do great dance routines and are equally embraced by older people, the gay community, plus all the kids could sing along to what could the first ever musical manifesto, with interpretive dance moves.

Let's face, they could hardly be any worse than the current shower.


Rule The World!

Sadly, it is going to take Labour more than a minute to sort out the mess they are in.

Whether the wider public know or care about Owen Smith isn’t really the point. The membership need to consider the candidates’ strategic judgment as well as their political position: that’s not navel gazing, it’s the basic justification of mass party politics. It isn’t all about telegenicity, especially these days.

The membership voted in Corbyn. Twice. That really ought to lead them to question their own strategic judgement. Banging on about what happened with Owen Thingy so is totally missing the point of what just happened to Labour and why, it's just a perfect demonstration of how disconnected Labour thinking has become. If you are a Labour Party member wondering how to vote, don't use your own judgement, please. Phone a friend.

If you really want to go there (and honestly very few do) then, granted, Thingy was bested by Corbyn in debate, and seemed overall a bit of a lightweight, but how do you think he'd have done in a General Election? Try as I might, I can't see him doing any worse than Corbyn just did: it simply doesn't compute. He seemed more likeable, had a definite Brexit position, and more able to work constructively with the PLP and cross-party. He might have done OK or at least only Miliband-level bad.

Kind regards

- Garry

 

[Woodface]

A lot of my students only get their news via SM. The Majority of it is from the Mail and Sun online, but they don't always know this.

The papers' influence has just moved online.



I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I predicted the outcome pretty accurately.

It wasn't hard to do.

It's why I said that the opposition agreeing to Johnson's timetable was 'madness'.

Any Labour leader will be vilified by any infraction that would not make a jot of a difference to Johnson.

If the MSM (including Johnson's own personal mouthpiece, the Telegraph), are so ineffectual, why do you think the above is so?

Stephen

Its a very fair point. I am trying to differentiate between an actual bought copy of a paper (& how that is consumed) compared to a scanned click online. The power of the press is diminishing & its funding is under threat, this is the new reality & LP needs to tackle it. They have been in power before, usually when they had an effective comms strategy.

 

[Woodface]

If we are to avoid a terminally nauseating round of ‘told you so’ from the bien pensant in due course, no we can’t. Anticipating attack lines is an obvious part of the most rudimentary strategy.

Unless you are part of the Labour machine it is just moaning though

 

[glancaster]

When I worked in press (pre-internet) we used quote circulation & readership, the latter was based upon the number of people who would 'read' each copy, it was generally '3'. This seemed quite arbitrary, also the number of people who read each copy would often go up as the circulation went down. Very different times.

The figures from the Press Gazette could be rather optimistic & it doesn't take into account the differing ways of media consumption (on & offline).

That's interesting. There is something up with the figures quoted earlier. It looks like the DM figure is readership (scaled by 3x), but the Grauniad one is circulation (unscaled = 1x):

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nati...rculation-lift-as-bulk-sales-distortion-ends/

 

[stephen bennett]

Its a very fair point. I am trying to differentiate between an actual bought copy of a paper (& how that is consumed) compared to a scanned click online. The power of the press is diminishing & its funding is under threat, this is the new reality & LP needs to tackle it. They have been in power before, usually when they had an effective comms strategy.

Fair enough.

But I think the influence of newspapers/MSM (or the owners anyhow) such as the Mail and Sun (and even the Guardian to a lesser degree) is increasing due to the context-free articles popping up on SM.

Stephen

 

[Deej]

Clive Lewis wants a referendum on the Royals?
A sure way to make you unelectable and face attacks from the Daily Mail.

 

[Woodface]

Fair enough.

But I think the influence of newspapers/MSM (or the owners anyhow) such as the Mail and Sun (and even the Guardian to a lesser degree) is increasing due to the context-free articles popping up on SM.

Stephen

The Guardian is very close to running out of cash, The DM is an interesting one as they were quick adopters to online but I think a lot of their readers will never vote labour anyway. 'Context free' is an interesting one as this is probably counter productive as there is less trust in online news than there is on press/TV. Traditional media is in a right spin about how they can monetise online, the pace of change is very, very quick at the moment.

 

[Woodface]

Clive Lewis wants a referendum on the Royals?
A sure way to make you unelectable and face attacks from the Daily Mail.

This just sums it up, what an own goal, does anybody actually think before speaking? This will play well wit the Labour members (perhaps) but maybe not with wider country.