• We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies from this website. Read more here

Politics Today

RedPaul

Well-known Exeweb poster
Joined
Apr 23, 2004
Messages
5,298
Location
Woking
Both the comment pages and lead article in the Spectator today, written by pro-Tory commentators delivering withering critiques of the PMs current performance.
 

Mr Jinx

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
14,792
then they were usually daft enough to post fb photos of themselves out & about(I kid you not)
No I can well believe it. FB - the great leveller. It's great for catching out liars. Someone tells you one thing, then when you check Facebook, you find out something else actually happened. Usually not by them themselves, but by one of their other friends tagging them in.
 

Mr Jinx

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
14,792
Are the political folk on here able to corroborate the story that DC & BJ are off as soon as brexit is done and Gove will then take the helm? Possibly as soon as February.
Gove is making a big play for it, that's for sure.

But I really don't think someone that has wanted to PM since he was a nipper, spend years attaining his goal and prize, only to get there, gain a stonking majority then walk away from it after little more than a year. And most of that year will have blighted by Covid. Walk and he leaves no legacy. That's just not his style and I just can't see it.
 

tavyred

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Aug 23, 2004
Messages
13,904
Sorry I worded my post a bit clumsily I do not think that the BBC are biased though I am still grappling with what an unbiased media outlet looks like.
I think that if you have strong journalism then your output will stand on its own merits, irrespective of whether politicians choose to engage. Some of MSNBC's coverage in the USA shows what is possible.
Maybe my real problem is that there is no "Guardian TV Channel". I mean even Putin has "Russia Today"
Broadcast news in the UK is supposed to be politically neutral and the vast majority of their output is just that. There are occasions however when the widely reported left leaning cultural bias in UK newsrooms is exposed.
If news channels in the UK can’t temper their cultural political biases then perhaps we should just end the pretence and allow a US style free market approach to broadcast news in this country.
 

Jason H

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
36,827
Location
Hounslow, Middlesex
Broadcast news in the UK is supposed to be politically neutral and the vast majority of their output is just that. There are occasions however when the widely reported left leaning cultural bias in UK newsrooms is exposed.
If news channels in the UK can’t temper their cultural political biases then perhaps we should just end the pretence and allow a US style free market approach to broadcast news in this country.
Agreed - for the most part certainly the BBC does keep to its remit with its news reporting, although they are adept at using semantics in order to display "unconscious" bias. Take, for example, their online reporting of the UK-Japan trade deal last week, the sub-heading online being something like "It only boosts the economy by 0.07%". They have also spun the historic agreements in the ME brokered by Trump as negatively as possible.

We'll continue to see more of this despite the new DG being clear in his intentions - Private Eye reported last issue that there is open warfare in the news department due to the new appointment not being "One of Us".

The bigger complaints around the BBC centre around their entertainment coverage which is rapidly turning into a left wing echo chamber. But it was pretty much ever thus, albeit less overtly.

ITV, I don't know, but I'm led to believe they're generally OK (although they have one in the negative column by employing Peston). Channel 4 is clearly left of centre. Sky too these days, thanks to their parent company essentially being the broadcasting wing of the Democrats in the US.

I don't wish to see the broadcast news in this country become overtly partisan like in the US. Once again I point to the historic deals signed between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. If your news viewing is confined to CNN or MSNBC you may not be aware that this has actually happened as they're now so entrenched that they refuse to broadcast anything that presents the Donald in a positive light.

I want the news channels and their presenters here to broadcast the news, not try to be the news. I think we do it *quite* well, but the regulator needs to show its teeth on occasion.
 

Alistair20000

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
May 5, 2009
Messages
52,234
Location
Avoiding the Hundred
Gove is making a big play for it, that's for sure.

But I really don't think someone that has wanted to PM since he was a nipper, spend years attaining his goal and prize, only to get there, gain a stonking majority then walk away from it after little more than a year. And most of that year will have blighted by Covid. Walk and he leaves no legacy. That's just not his style and I just can't see it.
Generally the occupant of No 10 has to be dragged out kicking and screaming unless serious ill health intervenes or the Great British People give them the The Elbow.

Torygraph article today giving him 6 months to save his Premiership.
 

Mr Jinx

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
14,792
Agreed - for the most part certainly the BBC does keep to its remit with its news reporting, although they are adept at using semantics in order to display "unconscious" bias. Take, for example, their online reporting of the UK-Japan trade deal last week, the sub-heading online being something like "It only boosts the economy by 0.07%". They have also spun the historic agreements in the ME brokered by Trump as negatively as possible.

We'll continue to see more of this despite the new DG being clear in his intentions - Private Eye reported last issue that there is open warfare in the news department due to the new appointment not being "One of Us".

The bigger complaints around the BBC centre around their entertainment coverage which is rapidly turning into a left wing echo chamber. But it was pretty much ever thus, albeit less overtly.

ITV, I don't know, but I'm led to believe they're generally OK (although they have one in the negative column by employing Peston). Channel 4 is clearly left of centre. Sky too these days, thanks to their parent company essentially being the broadcasting wing of the Democrats in the US.

I don't wish to see the broadcast news in this country become overtly partisan like in the US. Once again I point to the historic deals signed between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. If your news viewing is confined to CNN or MSNBC you may not be aware that this has actually happened as they're now so entrenched that they refuse to broadcast anything that presents the Donald in a positive light.

I want the news channels and their presenters here to broadcast the news, not try to be the news. I think we do it *quite* well, but the regulator needs to show its teeth on occasion.
What really gets my goat is the amount of exposure they give Krankie. I hear more of her voice on beeb airways than I do Johnson & Starmer put together.

Scotland, with its population that is around half that of London's, gets way more airtime than it deserves. I couldn't even tell you who is first minister of Wales or NI. Scotland gets more MPs than it should and is totally over-represented in the HOC. I mean you have Na h-Eileanan an Iar with its 21,000 constituents whose voters have a vote that is 5 times more powerful than those living on the Isle of Wight. Get those boundary changes in already Borisdalethorpe!
 

DB9

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
24,497
Location
Hampshire. Heart's in N Devon
What really gets my goat is the amount of exposure they give Krankie. I hear more of her voice on beeb airways than I do Johnson & Starmer put together.

Scotland, with its population that is around half that of London's, gets way more airtime than it deserves. I couldn't even tell you who is first minister of Wales or NI. Scotland gets more MPs than it should and is totally over-represented in the HOC. I mean you have Na h-Eileanan an Iar with its 21,000 constituents whose voters have a vote that is 5 times more powerful than those living on the Isle of Wight. Get those boundary changes in already Borisdalethorpe!
You have to admit Johnson does go very quiet and out of the limelight when things look dodgy, He's not very good at taking criticism Imo.
 

DB9

Very well known Exeweb poster
Joined
Jun 19, 2005
Messages
24,497
Location
Hampshire. Heart's in N Devon
Grayling's pension fund doing very nicely!

 

Jason H

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 1, 2004
Messages
36,827
Location
Hounslow, Middlesex
Generally the occupant of No 10 has to be dragged out kicking and screaming unless serious ill health intervenes or the Great British People give them the The Elbow.

Torygraph article today giving him 6 months to save his Premiership.
The Torygraph has been openly hostile towards its former employee throughout the Covid crisis, mind.

I think Jinxy is right about Boris' personal ambitions in terms of wishing to leave a legacy, but whispers I've heard are that he is still suffering big time from the long-term effects of the severity of his fight with Covid, and that ill health could force an early retirement (March is a date I was told).
 
Top