The Brexit vote was popular because they have been left behind relative to the SE and they have been told that this is the fault "of Europe" and/ or immigrants for decades. After a while people will believe black is white if you tell them often enough.
Going to the pub on Saturday?
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vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
He’s opening a new range of beer garden only establishments for the more budget conscious drinker.
99p for a pint of slops.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
I once complained to the BBC after Scruton made a radio programme in which he presented as facts views which I believe I called ‘proto-fascist’.
Not long afterwards, he was sacked by the government for claiming islamophobia was propaganda invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, Chinese people were replicas of each other, and that George Soros had some kind of empire in Hungary (ie huge antisemitic conspiracy trope). It was the kind of hilarious level of self-own that you’d expect from a character in Blackadder the Third or something.
IIRC I later heard Slithy Gove talking about great he was after the new administration had re-employed him. But I think he died before he could say anything really fun again.
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
i actually don't agree with roger scruton at a very profound level, but i respect his intellect and, as with salvoj zizek (a hopeless continentalist -- as in non-analytic, not anti EU), he has a lot to say that forces me to think.
one of the 3 points you raise (regarding sacking), seems to be the central point and happens to be something i'm very familiar with: the reference to chinese people being "replicas". this is possibly the most egregious example in history of quoting something out of context to present the opposite of what was meant. scruton was actually advocating the neo-liberal anti-china stance and attacking the chinese government for attempting to shape citizens in this manner. oddly enough, i actually find that stance to be somewhat problematic and proto-imperialist.
as for the other 2 things, i have no idea. can you point me to some articles? all i get from google is a terrible article in the guardian (which i had a very expensive north-american subscription to for most of my adult life until a few years after they rebranded as pro-corporate centrists).
p.s. sorry for the late reply. i somehow missed your posting.
Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
In your opinion.
I come from Newcastle. My brother lived in Scarborough for 20 years, I’m reasonably familiar with the place. I lived in the Harrogate area for a good number of years, a lovely place. My mother even moved there into an Anchor housing setup, it was that nice a place to live. The north is very familiar to me.
What was the mechanism used that told people being left behind was the fault of Europe and/or immigrants? Nobody told me that. What I heard over many years was it was down to the UK govt and became really bad under Thatcher. This is what has helped form my genuine distrust of the tories.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
That’s right, the Brexit campaign was based on Tory social injustices.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
While I stand by the proto-fascist bit, the 3 points were from this BBC report on his sacking. I remembered that he’d been sacked, but not specifically why, so just quickly looked it up. Essentially I was quoting, not arguing.
I agree about Zizek, I’ve always enjoyed watching/reading him when I’ve stumbled across him. The national character vs toilet design thing might not be his finest or indeed most serious argument, but it’s hard not to raise a smile. And Violence was interesting. But I’ve never encountered Scruton in his ‘day job’ capacity. I have a background in metaethics, and I gather that he was markedly not keen on that sort of thing (comments mentioned on Wikipedia about the ’thin and withered countenance’ of philosophy about anything other than art or literature).
Since you say his stuff is at least stimulating, maybe I’ll read some of it one day, as aesthetics has occasionally interested me from afar. But given that I’d apparently be starting from a point of disagreement with him so profound that he regards my discipline as a dreary, dead thing, while I find it hard not to write him off as a controversialist dickhead, I won’t rush to do so
They didn't do it directly, it was the constant drip drip drip of poison by most of the popular daily tabloids. The leave campaign hardly had anything to do after that.
thebigfredc
pfm Member
Except that the tabloid readership for the right wing rags totals about 3 million across all of the uk.
Strange, given the Sun alone claims 2.6m daily readers of physical papers, totalled up amongst them including their websites I bet it's a good deal more than 3m.
blossomchris
I feel better than James Brown
That is a side view of my old local, although not 100% sure as usually viewed from a prone position
It depends how they calculate the readership.
I worked in regional press many years ago & the factor for readership always seemed to go up as the circulation went down, not sure it ever stacked up.
Now we have people reading online but do they consume the content in the same way as if they’d bought the paper? What about all the copies that get given away to hotels etc?
There are a number of elements to consider.
Brian
Eating fat, staying slim
Not convinced, matt. I believe plenty of people blame the UK govt for the north being left behind.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Thrown through the back door, face down in the dirt? -wake up in the morning with your coupon resembling radioactive corn beef.
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
I think there are various reasons to want to think that the number of readers is as low as possible, when in actual fact the tabloids direct public political discourse.
Much of the non-print media acts as little more than a magnifier for the print media's set of opinions, and to think that press barons don't dictate the political weather in the UK is wilfully naive.
No, you have completely misinterpreted what I said. I am just trying to give you some insight into how things are measured. I’ve worked in media for over 25 years so what do I know eh?
The counter argument is that the media is often used as a smokescreen by some to deflect form the fact that the electorate just doesn’t want to vote for them.
The actual reality is somewhere between, in that the ‘press’ still has power but is greatly diminished from what it was. The real power is Facebook & Google & this needs to be addressed. Even if all the papers were owned by the biggest right wing nutter it would still only be about 20-30% of what the above duopoly has in terms of reach.
My argument is borne out by the number of titles which have gone to the wall over the last decade, print media is having a very tough time.
Historically it was much more than that. About 2000-2010 it was about 6M paper copies of The Sun sold and it was estimated that between a third and a half of the UK population read at least part of it on any given day.