Best Of

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

The election probably comes down to how tactical the LLG block is willing to be to stop Reform (including even where it wants to be tactical can it actually know when to vote Green vs Labour vs LD).

Bit depressing if the main thing the left-of-centre parties are trying to do is stop another party winning, instead of trying to positively win themselves. Would the Tories with 50-75 seats prop up a Reform minority?

My main reservation about Labour (and I'm still chair of my CLP) is the negative bias - I largely agree, but I'm genuinely unsure what we are trying to achieve in the long term. The Greens don't seem to have seriously considered the choices of actual power, and still project themselves as a pressure group. Your Party? Maybe.

I don't understand why Labour doesn't introduce PR before the next election. Better to be in office as part of a coalition than not at all.

Hugely unpopular government unilaterally altering the way elections work might not necessarily go down well.

It also sets an abysmal precedent, especially given the lack of a manifesto commitment.

A Channel 4 study found that 51% of adverts featured black people compared to them being 4% of the population. Maybe that's what Kruger was talking about.

Imagine the fuss about representation if only one in fifty actors in adverts were non white, and how much value would be given to the argument that it didn’t matter because they are just works of fiction that aren’t meant to be representative.

Then David Lammy or Diane Abbott mentions it, and is accused of racism by every virtue signaller in town

50% of ads feature black people - but 100% of populations in the UK feature black people (there's one population, sure, but it's the right comparison).

Neither of you has considered *how many* people there are in each advertisement.

The true comparison to the 4% figure is the probability that a single person in the collective population shown in the ads is black. The ads might, put together, be precisely representative, over-representative, or under-representative. I have no idea which is right.

I wrote a blog about a similar thing twelve years ago, the Midsomer Murders controversy, and the ratio being complained about was roughly accurate.

The biggest culprit is EastEnders, they really do under represent Black & Asian people. To be honest this is an argument against my point, because there hasn’t been outrage about it, which surprises me. Accuracy would involve completely changing the cast, storylines and ethos of the show, but it was originally meant to reflect the East End. As I’ve said before, I think the BBC don’t accurately portray the demographic because no one outside the M25 would believe it if the show was mainly Muslims speaking Urdu & Arabic

http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-eastenders-more-racist-than.html

And what about the number of murders, suicides, divorces, accidents and deadly diseases?
They aren't proportional either.
Maybe it's just a TV show.
And folk wouldn't watch if it was all getting up early, coming home late, grabbing a takeaway and having an early night.
Because it's entertainment. Just as advertising is marketing.
It isn't supposed to be realistic.

Well, you say that…

Wikipedia's description of the original producer of EastEnders objective reads;

"the show was to be about "everyday life" in the inner city "today" and regarded it as a "slice of life". Creator/producer Julia Smith declared that "We don't make life, we reflect it". She also said, "We decided to go for a realistic, fairly outspoken type of drama which could encompass stories about homosexuality, rape, unemployment, racial prejudice, etc., in a believable context. Above all, we wanted realism"."

A Channel 4 study found that 51% of adverts featured black people compared to them being 4% of the population. Maybe that's what Kruger was talking about.

Imagine the fuss about representation if only one in fifty actors in adverts were non white, and how much value would be given to the argument that it didn’t matter because they are just works of fiction that aren’t meant to be representative.

Then David Lammy or Diane Abbott mentions it, and is accused of racism by every virtue signaller in town

50% of ads feature black people - but 100% of populations in the UK feature black people (there's one population, sure, but it's the right comparison).

Neither of you has considered *how many* people there are in each advertisement.

The true comparison to the 4% figure is the probability that a single person in the collective population shown in the ads is black. The ads might, put together, be precisely representative, over-representative, or under-representative. I have no idea which is right.

I wrote a blog about a similar thing twelve years ago, the Midsomer Murders controversy, and the ratio being complained about was roughly accurate.

The biggest culprit is EastEnders, they really do under represent Black & Asian people. To be honest this is an argument against my point, because there hasn’t been outrage about it, which surprises me. Accuracy would involve completely changing the cast, storylines and ethos of the show, but it was originally meant to reflect the East End. As I’ve said before, I think the BBC don’t accurately portray the demographic because no one outside the M25 would believe it if the show was mainly Muslims speaking Urdu & Arabic

http://aboutasfarasdelgados.blogspot.com/2014/11/is-eastenders-more-racist-than.html

And what about the number of murders, suicides, divorces, accidents and deadly diseases?
They aren't proportional either.
Maybe it's just a TV show.
And folk wouldn't watch if it was all getting up early, coming home late, grabbing a takeaway and having an early night.
Because it's entertainment. Just as advertising is marketing.
It isn't supposed to be realistic.

Never been much of a TV fan but back in the day I used to find the then version of Emmerdale Farm tolerable - when it was about a farming community. Then suddenly it became all trouble & strife & conflict. No, thanks, not for me, but apparently that's what most of us want to watch. Drama.

Honestly I suspect why anyone should CARE about the number of black people in ads. If black people want to make as much tits of themselves as white people singing about Tesco Clubcard in a random street, why shouldn't they?

I'm really pleased that fewer adverts seem to be aimed at me. I hate people trying to sell me shit

I always think one should also think about how we evaluate whether an advert is good or not. Often the ones we think are good are ones we can't remember what they were for and the apparently crap one we do remember what they are for. The classic for this was the Cinzano and Martini ads. Both did apparently great ads but people could not tell you which was which.

To the consumer, the 'good' adverts are the really entertaining ones, but doesn't necessarily mean the product is memorable.

For a long time I thought that the adverts for Audible were for headphones.

Honestly I suspect why anyone should CARE about the number of black people in ads. If black people want to make as much tits of themselves as white people singing about Tesco Clubcard in a random street, why shouldn't they?

Not sure that many do.

What many DO care about is this that those who commission and make the adverts deciding who should be in them based on the colour of their skin.

It is cynical and sickening.

Do you also have a problem with models being disproportionately tall?

Thinness is the bigger issue. Genuinely causes societal problems by presenting abnormal thinness as normal.

So that's 1/3 of people in ads should be obese to correctly reflect the UK population

YouGov / Sky / Times voting intention

RefUK 27%(+1),
CON 17%(nc),
LAB 17%(-3),
GRN 16%(+1)
LDEM 15%(nc),

According to YouGov, the 17% for Labour is, they believe believe, the lowest we have shown them on and the Green score is their highest.

Needless to say, it's an unusual result with four parties within 2 points of each other.

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1983053821849817502

The election probably comes down to how tactical the LLG block is willing to be to stop Reform (including even where it wants to be tactical can it actually know when to vote Green vs Labour vs LD).

Bit depressing if the main thing the left-of-centre parties are trying to do is stop another party winning, instead of trying to positively win themselves. Would the Tories with 50-75 seats prop up a Reform minority?

What the left of centre parties do is different to what the LLG voters do. An ex Cameroon Conservative may well be in the LLG block as is an always voted Labour Brownite, as are Corbynites and committed Greens.

Good luck with finding a single unifying winning policy platform for that lot.

I think I could have a go at creating a policy platform that 50% of the electorate would vote for.

Would it be any good for the country though?

Good morning, everyone.

It would be good for half the country.

For a while.

OK

1) Merging employee NI into Income tax. Sort out the cliff edges while we are at it. Exemption for lower rate pensioners, so only pensioners with income greater than 50K are affected.
2) As part of this, enact the quadruple lock. Pensions are the same as the Tax Allowance. The Tax Allowance is the same as the pension. Note that as part of the tax rework, we get rid of the removal of the personal allowance - replaced with higher tax rate. The idea is simplification - fixed allowance, 2-3 tax bands, the end.
3) Old age benefits go in the blender. Come out simplified and taxable.
4) Larger fines for illegal employment, split with the employee. Plus indefinite leave to remain if they need it. Make layering with contractors legally non-protective of the employer.
5) Subsidies/tax breaks on *delivery* of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, UK car production, UK green steel production etc. Scaled to UK content - if you make in China and add a sticker in the UK, you get 0%.
6) UK space program. Strand one - liquid fuel rocket, reusable first stage. Strand Two, liquid fueled rocket, both stages reusable. Strand three - mobile, solid fueled rocket, called the Black Shrike. All payment will be on delivery of working, to fixed prices based on other countries programs. Big And Expensive can go cry.
7) Steadily increase the training capacity for medics by *at least* population growth+1% per year. If this means temporarily sending UK people abroad to train, fine,

that's the start.

You'd get over half the pb-ers I think. If Labour or the Tories tried it however their rating would continue to fall or flatline.