Germany has unveiled a plan to reintroduce national service and boost its depleted military, but the plans have been called discriminatory against men.
Teenagers will receive a letter on their 18th birthday asking them to consider between six months and two years in military service. Men will have to fill out their personal details such as fitness, willingness to serve, marital and educational status or risk punishment, possibly a fine.
For women, filling out the questionnaire will be optional.
That is a MASSIVE drop in Labour VI. I said a couple of days ago they will be nervous at the slide and was decried on here, they will be more than nervous now
No. They won’t. I decried you then and I decry you now. This is a PP reversion to the mean from the stupid LAB VI they had before.
Of course, dear. You’re not nervous at all
What kind of numbers do you think Labour could drift out too, and (presumably) the Tories gain, to bring the majority into question?
I'm sure if we Baxter them it will still bring a sizeable Labour majority
I honestly have no idea, does anyone? Reform could continue their rise - or fall back. Labour could continue to slide, or surge again
it’s a long campaign and neither of the big parties has much enthusiasm behind them, but the Tories are viscerally hated and Labour are merely tolerated as an alternative - for now
If I was in the Lib Dems I would be shouting loudly about Single Market membership immediately to peel off Labour Remainers, and then also a promise of referendum on Rejoin in a few years. That would be cat in the pigeons territory and could upend everything
I’ve no idea why they aren’t slotting this open goal
I will shit my boxers with pleasure if Labour slip into the 30s on the night.
Probably the one pleasure I will get. It will set off all sorts of internal recriminations and legitimacy questions, which will dog SKS for his whole time in office.
This is disingenuous, as well as untrue.
One of the reasons Labour are, or may, poll sub 40 (I think it will be 37-39.5%) is because there’s a much more savvy anti-tory vote now. I’m a case in point but just one of millions. I want to vote Labour, naturally, but I’m voting LibDem to unseat the tory MP.
So make up whatever discourse you want on the night if that makes you happy but it won’t be objective truth.
Coming back to the ‘debate,’ Sky's Jon Craig has written up his analysis, poorly. There are about 10 totally avoidable errors in this article. Just careless mistakes or deliberate, I’m not sure.
What I don’t like is sloppy journalism such as this:
'Mr Sunak even stumbled into a blunder that will reinforce his critics' claim that this millionaire prime minister is out of touch with the cost of living plight ordinary people are facing.
When a father asked about his daughter's struggle to buy a house, Mr Sunak talked about a property costing £425,000. In Grimsby? Oh dear. Really, prime minister!
A Rightmove search for Grimsby reveals that out of 914 properties currently listed for sale in the town, only 13 are up for £425,000 or more. His political opponents will seize on that.’
It’s quite irritating because that is NOT what Rishi Sunak said. He was talking about help to buy and to abolish stamp duty ‘up to £425,000’ not at £425,000
But the audience laughed about it and Jon Craig did the populist thing that all poor journalists do, glossed over the detail to score a point.
I’m no defender of Rishi Sunak and he was pretty flat last night but the standard of broadcasting and journalism in this country isn’t very high. I don’t think it’s only GB News that’s the problem.
p.s. another sloppy comment is to state that Sunak won last week’s debate. Er, well maybe narrowly with the one pollster that Sky use (YouGov) but not with the other two he didn’t. So why not say so and report it correctly?
The trouble is that too many journalists want to set the agenda rather than merely report on the agenda that is being set. That leads to highly selective reporting, it also leads to dumpster fires like GB News. It is rammed to the gills on that channel with wannabe politicians or failed or failing politicians. And the trouble is that they can’t help themselves from switching into campaign mode. So GB News has become a propaganda outlet not a serious news resource. It’s not great.
To be fair to the hacks, Sunak was asked what he wold do to support young people and he offered a change to Stamp Duty. He was laughed at - young people are not going to benefit from the level being raised to £425k.
GB News is going to poison politics here, just as Fox has in the USA.
I mean Farage can afford to skip interviews and debates because he has his own platform pitching softballs and propaganda every single day.
The Tories should rue the day they failed to regulate it properly. It’s destroying them from the inside.
How is he skipping interviews and debates? Seems desperate to do them.
He seems pretty careful about who interviews him. Nobody too bright or combative.
So you have no reports on him turning down interviews with anyone. Also he's not on GBNews during this campaign - as with other politicians turned GBNews presenters he has left for the campaign.
It's fairly appalling that you think it would have been a good idea for the Tories to regulate a right wing news outlet out of existence (keeping all the left wing consensus ones of course) because of a perceived electoral advantage in doing so. It shows a unthinking disregard for free speech.
Apart from that, great post.
He declined an interview with Nick Robinson just 2 days ago.
And yes, GB News is cancer. I’d like to see it subject to the same rules as all other broadcasters.
It is subject to the same rules as everyone else. I hope it continues to thrive and grow, and cause you far more gouty foam-flecked rage into the future.
NF has afaik been interviewed by Nick Robinson several times. That doesn't seem to show severe fear of Robinson's towering intellect.
The implications of this are even bigger than you think.
Starmer says he knew “for certain” that Labour would lose in 2019.
So why, when Labour led in the polls, did he help to engineer a position of a ‘people’s vote’ if he knew they’d lose anyway?
Sounds a lot like sour grapes that his faction got comprehensively politically outmanoeuvred.
Aaron’s point is that the price of that was full fat Brexit.
The trouble is that Aaron won’t be able to make a case that any alternative strategy would have led anywhere else. Starmer can at least point to the fact that his approach whilst leaning into a Tory victory last time with the Brexit implications has set up the current situation whereby Labour could be on the verge of a massive victory with the option to water down the Brexit settlement and potentially reverse Brexit entirely. He won’t because that would breathe life into the Tory corpse.
Aaron clearly doesn’t understand politics all that much, certainly not as much as Starmer does.
I'm hearing a lot of accounts of Sunak being laughed at, but this wasn't particularly evident in the BBC News clip.
The Tories will be relieved that most people didn't see it, although their campaign is going so badly I'm not sure it would have made much difference. They seem to be in perched in around the 18-22% zone.
Germany has unveiled a plan to reintroduce national service and boost its depleted military, but the plans have been called discriminatory against men.
Teenagers will receive a letter on their 18th birthday asking them to consider between six months and two years in military service. Men will have to fill out their personal details such as fitness, willingness to serve, marital and educational status or risk punishment, possibly a fine.
For women, filling out the questionnaire will be optional.
I await the hordes on here arising in loud condemnation of this policy of forced labour.
Forced filling out of a form?
Lol. If this were Rishi Sunak's Conservatives you'd be spitting teeth.
I find the hypocrisy absolutely pathetic.
It's a bit early to get on the sauce isn't it? Filling out a form isn't the same being sentenced to 150 hours unpaid work and you are too smart to think that it is.
I think that the females should have to fill it out too though.
I'm off to do some work, have fun trying to wind up PB_Lefties on here all day.
It will be fascinating to see the volte-face by liberal middle-aged men on here if the young turn rapidly to the right in the coming years.
There’s no reason to assume the UK is different to other advanced democracies.
So how, then, can we explain why it is different now? If it's different now why should it be the same in the future? The fact we've been governed into the ground by Thatcherism and its cosplay version for 45 years, rather than by social/Christian democratic consensus?
Every Western democracy is high tax/ high spend/ high regulate, regardless of the rhetoric.
As you perceive it. So why are the young in this country overwhelmingly of the Left and the old of the Right? To an extent not seen in any other developed nation?
Young people will look for radical alternatives to the current system, they will eventuallyj get attracted to the 'right' because of reactive dynamics. The thing that makes this more likely in my view is the 'right' is forbidden, outlawed through hate speech laws, lectured about in schools, people being sent to prison on dubious charges, etc. All this just makes it more and more attractive. It is what has happened in Europe and it will be likely to happen in the UK.
Simply saying that it is likely they will become so, does not explain why it isn't the case thus far. The Right has been the dominant narrative in UK politics for 45 years. Hate speech, well. Being an arsehole is frowned upon, yes. Absolutely no one is lectured about politics in schools. There's zero space in a bullshit curriculum of nonsense of little relevance to the modern world. Yes young people will look for radical alternatives, but they are of the Left overwhelmingly in comparison to other comparable nations right here, right now. So. I ask again. Why is that?
I have met a few Gen Z via my younger son (who will vote LD) who are Communists, even to the point of liking Stalin and Mao. Not students either, one is a chef.
I didn't start an argument, but his idea of what life under Communism was like is seriously mis-informed. The Iron Curtain fell a dozen years before he was born, so just history from a book, or more likely TikTok. Nice lad in other ways and good housemate of Foxjr2.
I find it horrifying that people can find anything good in the legacy of Stalin or Mao. How many millions of deaths because of them?
The development of economic and scientific super powers in roughly half a century.
Russia was never an economic or scientific superpower - and its industrial development was brought about almost entirely by American industrialists, and paid for by starving millions to export grain.
And China didn't start to become either until Mao's legacy was largely repudiated.
That is a MASSIVE drop in Labour VI. I said a couple of days ago they will be nervous at the slide and was decried on here, they will be more than nervous now
No. They won’t. I decried you then and I decry you now. This is a PP reversion to the mean from the stupid LAB VI they had before.
Of course, dear. You’re not nervous at all
What kind of numbers do you think Labour could drift out too, and (presumably) the Tories gain, to bring the majority into question?
I'm sure if we Baxter them it will still bring a sizeable Labour majority
I honestly have no idea, does anyone? Reform could continue their rise - or fall back. Labour could continue to slide, or surge again
it’s a long campaign and neither of the big parties has much enthusiasm behind them, but the Tories are viscerally hated and Labour are merely tolerated as an alternative - for now
If I was in the Lib Dems I would be shouting loudly about Single Market membership immediately to peel off Labour Remainers, and then also a promise of referendum on Rejoin in a few years. That would be cat in the pigeons territory and could upend everything
I’ve no idea why they aren’t slotting this open goal
I will shit my boxers with pleasure if Labour slip into the 30s on the night.
Probably the one pleasure I will get. It will set off all sorts of internal recriminations and legitimacy questions, which will dog SKS for his whole time in office.
This is disingenuous, as well as untrue.
One of the reasons Labour are, or may, poll sub 40 (I think it will be 37-39.5%) is because there’s a much more savvy anti-tory vote now. I’m a case in point but just one of millions. I want to vote Labour, naturally, but I’m voting LibDem to unseat the tory MP.
So make up whatever discourse you want on the night if that makes you happy but it won’t be objective truth.
If BJO's was the most ugly of the 912 posts I waded through CRs was the most bonkers!
Germany has unveiled a plan to reintroduce national service and boost its depleted military, but the plans have been called discriminatory against men.
Teenagers will receive a letter on their 18th birthday asking them to consider between six months and two years in military service. Men will have to fill out their personal details such as fitness, willingness to serve, marital and educational status or risk punishment, possibly a fine.
For women, filling out the questionnaire will be optional.
I await the hordes on here arising in loud condemnation of this policy of forced labour.
Forced filling out of a form?
Lol. If this were Rishi Sunak's Conservatives you'd be spitting teeth.
I find the hypocrisy absolutely pathetic.
It's a bit early to get on the sauce isn't it? Filling out a form isn't the same being sentenced to 150 hours unpaid work and you are too smart to think that it is.
I think that the females should have to fill it out too though.
I'm off to do some work, have fun trying to wind up PB_Lefties on here all day.
Congratulations: you've self-selected as an idiot. I only engage with the intelligent posters.
At least we can all officially recognise that now, and avoid wasting our time.
The implications of this are even bigger than you think.
Starmer says he knew “for certain” that Labour would lose in 2019.
So why, when Labour led in the polls, did he help to engineer a position of a ‘people’s vote’ if he knew they’d lose anyway?
Sounds a lot like sour grapes that his faction got comprehensively politically outmanoeuvred.
Aaron’s point is that the price of that was full fat Brexit.
The trouble is that Aaron won’t be able to make a case that any alternative strategy would have led anywhere else. Starmer can at least point to the fact that his approach whilst leaning into a Tory victory last time with the Brexit implications has set up the current situation whereby Labour could be on the verge of a massive victory with the option to water down the Brexit settlement and potentially reverse Brexit entirely. He won’t because that would breathe life into the Tory corpse.
Aaron clearly doesn’t understand politics all that much, certainly not as much as Starmer does.
That might be the one thing that Starmer really cares about and is intent on doing.
It will be fascinating to see the volte-face by liberal middle-aged men on here if the young turn rapidly to the right in the coming years.
There’s no reason to assume the UK is different to other advanced democracies.
So how, then, can we explain why it is different now? If it's different now why should it be the same in the future? The fact we've been governed into the ground by Thatcherism and its cosplay version for 45 years, rather than by social/Christian democratic consensus?
Every Western democracy is high tax/ high spend/ high regulate, regardless of the rhetoric.
As you perceive it. So why are the young in this country overwhelmingly of the Left and the old of the Right? To an extent not seen in any other developed nation?
Young people will look for radical alternatives to the current system, they will eventuallyj get attracted to the 'right' because of reactive dynamics. The thing that makes this more likely in my view is the 'right' is forbidden, outlawed through hate speech laws, lectured about in schools, people being sent to prison on dubious charges, etc. All this just makes it more and more attractive. It is what has happened in Europe and it will be likely to happen in the UK.
Simply saying that it is likely they will become so, does not explain why it isn't the case thus far. The Right has been the dominant narrative in UK politics for 45 years. Hate speech, well. Being an arsehole is frowned upon, yes. Absolutely no one is lectured about politics in schools. There's zero space in a bullshit curriculum of nonsense of little relevance to the modern world. Yes young people will look for radical alternatives, but they are of the Left overwhelmingly in comparison to other comparable nations right here, right now. So. I ask again. Why is that?
I have met a few Gen Z via my younger son (who will vote LD) who are Communists, even to the point of liking Stalin and Mao. Not students either, one is a chef.
I didn't start an argument, but his idea of what life under Communism was like is seriously mis-informed. The Iron Curtain fell a dozen years before he was born, so just history from a book, or more likely TikTok. Nice lad in other ways and good housemate of Foxjr2.
I find it horrifying that people can find anything good in the legacy of Stalin or Mao. How many millions of deaths because of them?
I don't think I was ever taught anything about Mao, Marx, etc in school. A bit about Lenin and that Stalin, he was the bloke who led the Russian and he was on our side....Then it was pretty much British history, Empire, slaves, etc.
I think there is a large collective blindspot to the fact the Hitler / Nazi's aren't the only super baddies in history.
I didn’t need to be taught about the evils of communism or fascism from school. My grandparents were born in the 1910s and 20s, and my parents in the 50s. I was born in the (early) 1980s. It was self-evident. The first or hand experience is starting to fade. That’s a problem.
I put communism and fascism on the same level of evil. I find it both amusing and worrying that posters - including on here - can say that next time we try it, communism will work. Next time will be different.
I think there is far too much focus on the cartoonish representation of historical figures and national mythology rather than exposition of and critical reflection about the underlying structure of totalitarian ideas that ensnare people into utopianism and hatred. People are seduced by promises made on unobtainable futures. Focusing on the imperfect as opposed to perfection and the capacity for hatred to grow in that gap. We should read: Hannah Arendt's work on Eichmann, Karl Popper's Open Society and Its Enemies. Barrington Moore: The social origins of dictatorship and democracy. Seymore Lipset.
Glad to see people still read Barrington Moore.
His is one of the most thoughtful books on the subject I ever came across, and as far as I am aware the thesis has never been discredited.
More recently, Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder are well worth reading.
Germany has unveiled a plan to reintroduce national service and boost its depleted military, but the plans have been called discriminatory against men.
Teenagers will receive a letter on their 18th birthday asking them to consider between six months and two years in military service. Men will have to fill out their personal details such as fitness, willingness to serve, marital and educational status or risk punishment, possibly a fine.
For women, filling out the questionnaire will be optional.
I await the hordes on here arising in loud condemnation of this policy of forced labour.
Forced filling out of a form?
Lol. If this were Rishi Sunak's Conservatives you'd be spitting teeth.
I find the hypocrisy absolutely pathetic.
Not really.
Just because Natty Serves isn't a good policy in the UK in 2024 doesn't mean it is not a good policy in other countries and times. It was fairly common in most European countries in the recent past, and still is in some like Greece. I can see why Poland, and the Baltic countries might want to continue it.
The striking thing about Sunaks policy was how poorly thought through it was, and considering the dire state of our military that we should look to fixing other issues first. I would suggest that exempting those with 2 years military or other defined public service from university fees or other benefits, as a sort of UK GI bill would be a better way of encouraging recruitment. Firing Crapita obviously too.
GB News is going to poison politics here, just as Fox has in the USA.
I mean Farage can afford to skip interviews and debates because he has his own platform pitching softballs and propaganda every single day.
The Tories should rue the day they failed to regulate it properly. It’s destroying them from the inside.
How is he skipping interviews and debates? Seems desperate to do them.
He seems pretty careful about who interviews him. Nobody too bright or combative.
So you have no reports on him turning down interviews with anyone. Also he's not on GBNews during this campaign - as with other politicians turned GBNews presenters he has left for the campaign.
It's fairly appalling that you think it would have been a good idea for the Tories to regulate a right wing news outlet out of existence (keeping all the left wing consensus ones of course) because of a perceived electoral advantage in doing so. It shows a unthinking disregard for free speech.
Apart from that, great post.
He declined an interview with Nick Robinson just 2 days ago.
And yes, GB News is cancer. I’d like to see it subject to the same rules as all other broadcasters.
It is subject to the same rules as everyone else. I hope it continues to thrive and grow, and cause you far more gouty foam-flecked rage into the future.
NF has afaik been interviewed by Nick Robinson several times. That doesn't seem to show severe fear of Robinson's towering intellect.
Interesting voxpop on R4 from their roaming the country series. Today they were in Redcar and it was surprising how many of the people they played interviews with had no idea how they were going to vote on the day.
There was one lady v pro Sunak, another wanting change, another wanting a protest vote so was going with reform but otherwise everyone else was “I really just don’t know” and many saying they didn’t know for the first time ever ahead of an election.
I wonder if this is the same across the whole country in real life and could it be that people who respond to polls largely feel obliged to give an answer (yes there are Don’t Knows) as they are en engaged in polling but largely there is still quite a lot to play for so over the next couple of weeks the Tories can go big on “Labour Tax Rises” and reduce the losses.
Germany has unveiled a plan to reintroduce national service and boost its depleted military, but the plans have been called discriminatory against men.
Teenagers will receive a letter on their 18th birthday asking them to consider between six months and two years in military service. Men will have to fill out their personal details such as fitness, willingness to serve, marital and educational status or risk punishment, possibly a fine.
For women, filling out the questionnaire will be optional.
I await the hordes on here arising in loud condemnation of this policy of forced labour.
Forced filling out of a form?
Lol. If this were Rishi Sunak's Conservatives you'd be spitting teeth.
I find the hypocrisy absolutely pathetic.
Not really.
Just because Natty Serves isn't a good policy in the UK in 2024 doesn't mean it is not a good policy in other countries and times. It was fairly common in most European countries in the recent past, and still is in some like Greece. I can see why Poland, and the Baltic countries might want to continue it.
The striking thing about Sunaks policy was how poorly thought through it was, and considering the dire state of our military that we should look to fixing other issues first. I would suggest that exempting those with 2 years military or other defined public service from university fees or other benefits, as a sort of UK GI bill would be a better way of encouraging recruitment. Firing Crapita obviously too.
Whether it's a "good policy" or not is entirely down to whether it is proposed by the Conservative Party, or not.
The confected outrage here and cognitive dissonance elsewhere is entirely transparent to anyone with half a brain-cell, and it's not impressive when someone tries to argue otherwise.
Coming back to the ‘debate,’ Sky's Jon Craig has written up his analysis, poorly. There are about 10 totally avoidable errors in this article. Just careless mistakes or deliberate, I’m not sure.
What I don’t like is sloppy journalism such as this:
'Mr Sunak even stumbled into a blunder that will reinforce his critics' claim that this millionaire prime minister is out of touch with the cost of living plight ordinary people are facing.
When a father asked about his daughter's struggle to buy a house, Mr Sunak talked about a property costing £425,000. In Grimsby? Oh dear. Really, prime minister!
A Rightmove search for Grimsby reveals that out of 914 properties currently listed for sale in the town, only 13 are up for £425,000 or more. His political opponents will seize on that.’
It’s quite irritating because that is NOT what Rishi Sunak said. He was talking about help to buy and to abolish stamp duty ‘up to £425,000’ not at £425,000
But the audience laughed about it and Jon Craig did the populist thing that all poor journalists do, glossed over the detail to score a point.
I’m no defender of Rishi Sunak and he was pretty flat last night but the standard of broadcasting and journalism in this country isn’t very high. I don’t think it’s only GB News that’s the problem.
p.s. another sloppy comment is to state that Sunak won last week’s debate. Er, well maybe narrowly with the one pollster that Sky use (YouGov) but not with the other two he didn’t. So why not say so and report it correctly?
Look. You’ve won. No need to take the piss like pretending you actually care about us getting naff treatment from the media.
If anyone on the left is taken in by today's headline in the "i" newspaper, remind yourself that since 2019 it has been owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust.
Consistent with the stance of those it has for years now given space to in its columns, especially the Corbynite left, it seems to be running a campaign designed to foster disillusionment about Labour and thus persuade left inclined voters to peel off to fringe parties.
Meanwhile the Daily Mail itself is ramping the Conservatives even now.
GB News is going to poison politics here, just as Fox has in the USA.
I mean Farage can afford to skip interviews and debates because he has his own platform pitching softballs and propaganda every single day.
The Tories should rue the day they failed to regulate it properly. It’s destroying them from the inside.
How is he skipping interviews and debates? Seems desperate to do them.
He seems pretty careful about who interviews him. Nobody too bright or combative.
So you have no reports on him turning down interviews with anyone. Also he's not on GBNews during this campaign - as with other politicians turned GBNews presenters he has left for the campaign.
It's fairly appalling that you think it would have been a good idea for the Tories to regulate a right wing news outlet out of existence (keeping all the left wing consensus ones of course) because of a perceived electoral advantage in doing so. It shows a unthinking disregard for free speech.
Apart from that, great post.
He declined an interview with Nick Robinson just 2 days ago.
And yes, GB News is cancer. I’d like to see it subject to the same rules as all other broadcasters.
It is subject to the same rules as everyone else. I hope it continues to thrive and grow, and cause you far more gouty foam-flecked rage into the future.
NF has afaik been interviewed by Nick Robinson several times. That doesn't seem to show severe fear of Robinson's towering intellect.
Gouty foam flecked rage! Lol, It’s not me who lives in a tiny paranoid world seeing politics through the prism of only I am right, and everybody is conspiring against my view of the world, bankers are part of the global left wing conspiracy etc. etc. it’s no more than ‘infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it infamy’. Your Darwinian view of economics had an airing. It resulted in the Trussterfuck, which cost me and many others quite dearly. A lesson learnt.
Comments
I find the hypocrisy absolutely pathetic.
Or perhaps they’re running an upgrade overnight.
NF has afaik been interviewed by Nick Robinson several times. That doesn't seem to show severe fear of Robinson's towering intellect.
Aaron clearly doesn’t understand politics all that much, certainly not as much as Starmer does.
The Tories will be relieved that most people didn't see it, although their campaign is going so badly I'm not sure it would have made much difference. They seem to be in perched in around the 18-22% zone.
I think that the females should have to fill it out too though.
I'm off to do some work, have fun trying to wind up PB_Lefties on here all day.
And China didn't start to become either until Mao's legacy was largely repudiated.
Apart from that, good point.
At least we can all officially recognise that now, and avoid wasting our time.
Just because Natty Serves isn't a good policy in the UK in 2024 doesn't mean it is not a good policy in other countries and times. It was fairly common in most European countries in the recent past, and still is in some like Greece. I can see why Poland, and the Baltic countries might want to continue it.
The striking thing about Sunaks policy was how poorly thought through it was, and considering the dire state of our military that we should look to fixing other issues first. I would suggest that exempting those with 2 years military or other defined public service from university fees or other benefits, as a sort of UK GI bill would be a better way of encouraging recruitment. Firing Crapita obviously too.
NEW THREAD
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-standards/politicians-acting-as-news-presenters-on-gb-news-broke-broadcasting-rules/
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-standards/misogynistic-comments-on-dan-wootton-tonight-broke-offence-rules/
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-standards/ofcom-opens-new-due-impartiality-investigation-into-gb-news/
https://youtu.be/cOXFQFWaSCE?si=k2bJsswf0PcrqGZU
Bloody brilliant
There was one lady v pro Sunak, another wanting change, another wanting a protest vote so was going with reform but otherwise everyone else was “I really just don’t know” and many saying they didn’t know for the first time ever ahead of an election.
I wonder if this is the same across the whole country in real life and could it be that people who respond to polls largely feel obliged to give an answer (yes there are Don’t Knows) as they are en engaged in polling but largely there is still quite a lot to play for so over the next couple of weeks the Tories can go big on “Labour Tax Rises” and reduce the losses.
The confected outrage here and cognitive dissonance elsewhere is entirely transparent to anyone with half a brain-cell, and it's not impressive when someone tries to argue otherwise.
Consistent with the stance of those it has for years now given space to in its columns, especially the Corbynite left, it seems to be running a campaign designed to foster disillusionment about Labour and thus persuade left inclined voters to peel off to fringe parties.
Meanwhile the Daily Mail itself is ramping the Conservatives even now.
It's a pincer movement.