Yes I remember a visit to Harrogate. Was shocked at the prices for coffees/scones. Similar price to a top class Dublin hotel. There are always wealthy enclaves but my overriding view driving from Manchester airport to edge of the Yorkshire dales was a lot of desolation. Saw a Leeds v Blackburn game in Blackburn. Scary place I couldn't figure out how they won the title even with Jack Walker as benefactor.Get out a bit more and you’ll find there are plenty of wealthy middle class liberal remainder enclaves oop in’t north as well.
The lack of confidence comes from Corbyn being crap & the constant denigration fo the last Labour Govt, why would you vote for a party that attacks its own record in power?Yes it did ( have something to do with Labour. )
they were in power..they pursued some reckless financial policy's ( not forgetting PFI ) and it is documented that Darling failed to act quickly enough nor decisively enough when it could have made some difference to the UK's exposure to the crisis.
It's not an obsession with the failures but the failure to learn from the failures that is the problem.
Where do you think the publics lack of faith in Corbyns projected spending plans comes from ?
Not really as paid for content is more valuable. Whichever way you cut it the press has less powerThis ignores the website impressions though, doesn't it?
In spite of all this Labour would still have won if it wasn't all down to Brexit! Just look at how many votes the brexit party got! Although they thankfully failed to win any seats, a typical Tory win in a previously "Labour for ever area" was on the lines of:
Conservative- 20,000
Labour- 17,000
Brexit Party- 12,000
Lib Dems- 2000
If for now we ignore the logical paradox that if it wasn't for Brexit there would have been no Brexit Party... I think we can be reasonably sure that in places like Blythe Valley 80%+ of those Brexit Party votes would have gone to Labour and the Tories would have had maybe 30% less votes. It would have been a landslide for Labour as usual in Blythe Valley in spite of Corbyn! The "red wall" would be extant and Labour would likely have had a majority of say 20-30...
BloJo is also very unpopular and untrusted!
The Brexit Party are a single issue protest party at the end of the day... with no real policies, no MP's, no experience of governing! In spite of this they came second or third in many seats! This is proof that the turkeys were so eager to vote for xmas that they'd have voted for Santa himself if it brought them any closer to being an "oven ready Brexit" turkey!
With 20:20 hindsight it seems the idiot turkey vote had consolidated, there was no way Brexit was going to be stopped and maybe the least bad option was that Labour should have been staunchly pro Leave! The degree of devastation could have been limited by a soft Labour BRINO and we'd have a socialist gov in power! But that's hindsight for yer... In reality I think most here, myself included, would have said Corbyn should have got off the fence and been The Remain Candidate... but it seems that wouldn't have worked out well at all!
Which brings me back to the MSM! People who were kinda "EU? Haven't thought about it that much but I suppose I'll vote leave yeah" were turned into frothing at the mouth rabid Brexiteers by the Tory press and all the "Traitors!" and "Enemies of the people!" and "We'll fight for OUR Brexit together!" headlines. They tried to make it a conspiracy to "steal" "their Brexit", kept telling people that they (the papers) were their voice, the voice of the people, they were in it together and the papers would "speak truth to power" on their behalf.... If Corbyn got it in the eye off the papers then the concept of remaining, and anyone seen as being behind it, got it twice as bad!
I am not sure I understand what you are saying. The press has less power, it has a far smaller commercial market share, these are basic facts.From the evidence it seems clear it isn't that simple.
Firstly, the printed press continues for millions of people to set a large part of the 'mental agenda' of what 'everyone knows'. That targets a given demographic. This goes on day after day week after week and the Tories don't need to pay for it or organise it.
Secondly, we can now add 'social media' etc, where both the Tories and others who flock with them spend *millions* sending a flood of targetted material which can largely escape critical scutiny. The flood mean many more items of propaganda get out before you can respond to the previous ones. This goes for the demographics that don't read the 'Daily Bile'.
That doesn't reach everyone. But it does reach millions of people. So has an effect on people who already have seen that their lives have got crappier for decades.
So *any* big change can be hyped as something to go for, as maybe it will help.
Plus, if nothing else it might piss in the beer of someone who has been making profit from their misery. All you have to do there is hide the real exploiters from view and let the people who aren't like the ones who feel oppressed become the obvious targets.
You don't have to get everyone into that state. Just enough for the Tories and their backers to get their way.
Most of the above is an emotional response.How many read the 'papers' on line, etc?
How often are those papers used a clubs used by TV/radio reporters to have a go at a Labour politician.
How often are the journalists who write for those papers on TV/radio putting the same views? (Chosen *because* they write in a 'national newspaper' which is really a vanity publication in direct financial terms.)
How often are the items appearing on the newspaper website linked to, referenced, tweeted about, etc, by others?
etc.
Don't assume the raw conventional circulation figures tell you all you need to know anout the influence gained.
Labour can just as easily use social media as the tories, it's larger membership probably gives it an advantage.
It wasn’t the social media expertise that Labour lacked, it was the willingness to use social media to tell lies in a coordinated and systematic manner that also feed into a willing MSMISTR that Labour and its supporters did very well with social media in the 2017 GE.
Once the Tories got serious about social media and called in the professionals for 2019, Labour should have done the same and not relied on the enthusiastic amateurs of 2015 and 2017. Like with many other things, Labour thought that the excellence of the policies and the charisma of their leader nullified the need for anything else. It would appear that the period of reflection is not thinking about the 'games' they have to play to win the next election.
It wasn’t the social media expertise that Labour lacked, it was an electable leader.
Yes, absolutely correct. If Labour had a coherant digital strategy to start with their membership would have been able to amplify it more effectively. The caveat to this is that party members are not always an asset, think about how we Labour supporters view Tory members & imagine how some of our members can look from the outside.ISTR that Labour and its supporters did very well with social media in the 2017 GE.
Once the Tories got serious about social media and called in the professionals for 2019, Labour should have done the same and not relied on the enthusiastic amateurs of 2015 and 2017. Like with many other things, Labour thought that the excellence of the policies and the charisma of their leader nullified the need for anything else. It would appear that the period of reflection is not thinking about the 'games' they have to play to win the next election.
The key phrase in that paragraph is ‘got elected’.
Most of the above is an emotional response.
Amplification of press readership by social media is actually quite difficult to quantify but fragmentation across all media channels ultimately lessens the power of each channel.
Elect a better leader & you are half way there. Labour has always had to swim against the tide, this is nothing new.
Press has less power, TV is more fragmented & social media is getting a bit of everyone's lunch. This is the new reality, you cannot turn the clock back. Labour could buy all the press titles in the country (if it had unlimited money) & it would make no difference.
Indeed. The snag being that it is worse than pointless to be elected on the basis of then being just the same as the Tories. That just sets you up to be discarded again having shown you can do no better.
Maybe it's quite smart for a new John Smith type to get elected, saying all the crap that people want to hear, then proceed to promptly ignore th election pledges, and go on to do exactly what they wanted all along, Whilst using social media crap polls and stats, etc to drip to the masses "we are doing a great job for you." Many will believe this.
Say what you want to get the job, then do what you want for 5 years.
.
Indeed. The snag being that it is worse than pointless to be elected on the basis of then being just the same as the Tories. That just sets you up to be discarded again having shown you can do no better.
There are number of disputed ways of measuring amplification, many 'impressions' can be falsified by the use of bots. Newspaper often exaggerate their social media presence as a way of justifying rates.Actually, it was a series of questions. And it is clear that you don't know the answers to them, either.
But they do make plain that simply trying to tot up 'number of papers sold' fails to cover the level of influence and effect their content has, particularly when we add in the multiplier effects of the net media in modern times.
Easy to say "Elect a better leader". But back in mere reality, conveying 'better' to people then depends on what goes though the media. Ask yourself "What happened to Leveson 2?"
A big part of the "new reality" in media is the *millions of pounds* being spent on propagandising in targetted ways, behind the backs of those who might call out the content being spread. Often 'corroborated' by ye olde newspapers, day after day, via some of the means I questioned and where we can't actually quantify the effects because it is done in a way hidden from scrutiny.
If you can find reliable values that answer the questions I posed, please let us know so we can examine them and their sources/reliabilty.