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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The national press will be much less influential at GE2015 than in previous elections
One factor that we should bear in mind is that the national media is in a sharp decline. For every five people that bought a daily national paper when the coalition was formed just four do so today and who knows what the above table will look like in May 2015.
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how are the parties with the it declining memberships going to resource that? Pushing envelopes through the doors of every residence in a 70,000+ voter constituency requires a lot of foot soldiers
Yes, but on the other hand targetted direct mail is very sophisticated nowadays, and there are other means of reaching voters through e-mail and social media.
How good the parties will be at doing this, and how well it will work, is a bit of an unknown.
The Independent -62.44%
The Guardian -37.76%
Financial Times -35.36%
Daily Star -34.28%
The Times -24.14%
The Sun -23.58%
Daily Record -23.12%
Daily Telegraph -21.67%
Daily Express -21.30%
Daily Mirror -16.10%
Daily Mail -13.58%
Interesting to note that the Express, Mail and Mirror have all declined the least.
Those are papers I do think of particularly as selling motherhood and apple pie to their readerships. I guess that is what people want.
The mailonline website, for example, received 105.72 million unique web browser visits in August 2012 and visits have been growing at near 50% per annum. These figures simply dwarf the 1.8 million circulation of the Mail's paper editions.
The readership behaviour of website visitors is of course different from that of subscribers to the paper edition, but this can work in favour of political reporting and commentary.
I am certain I read more Mail, Sun, Mirror, Guardian and Indie articles today as a result of links from websites than I ever did when the papers existed only in paper editions.
There is also far more commentary on original articles published by the large papers. Hardly a day goes by without Dan Hodges's opinion of Ed Miliband being quoted, linked and discussed on PB.
The same applies to polls commissioned by the leading newspapers. Today we see all the polls not just those in the papers to which we subscribe and each poll can be further researched with downloadable tables and interactive discussion.
It is therefore wrong to conclude that the big newspaper publishers will have less influence in 2015 than they did in prior elections just because of a fall in their paper circulation figures.
Proper research needs to be done to verify this claim, but I would guess that the leading political journalists and their publications will have more rather than less inlfuence due to the near universal digital distribution of their published views.
Just think, PBers, SeanT may even swing the deciding vote in the deciding marginal in 2015.
Life_ina_market_town said:
Mr Justice Silber is hardly an activist, and Lord Justice Laws' obiter dicta are not relevant to this case in any way. Can I suggest that you read the judgment? The Secretary of State acted unlawfully by purporting to exercise powers in relation to Lewisham that had not been conferred on him by Parliament ([74]-[96] of the judgment of Silber J). That was an issue of statutory construction and the powers of the executive, which manifestly falls within the jurisdiction of the courts.That is unless you believe like the late President Nixon that the law of the land is what the executive says it is. Stopping judicial reviews of this nature would amount to nothing less than an abrogation of the rule of law.
The more interesting part of the judgement for me is at para 173ff. Essentially, the SoS did have the power by the statute to reorganise hospital services in south London by s8. This required a consultation process. There was a consultation process albeit not in the name of s8 but on the recommendation of the administrator. Justice Silber states that he is not persuaded that the result of a consultation under s8 would necessarily have reached the same decision. He expresses the opinion, probably correctly, that the fact it was very likely to reach the same decision is not enough.
I suspect any appeal will focus on this point. In the meantime, in accordance with the undertaking given by Hunt, we have a trust continuing to lose £1m a week of taxpayer's money to fund inefficient and expensive services. Funding this will cause problems for the Heath service budget. I remain to be persuaded that it is useful for the courts to get involved in this way. The Act authorised the SoS to reorganise health services. That is what he has proposed to do. We simply cannot afford to keep paying the extra costs that delaying decisions of this type cause.
Newspapers, and the stories they choose to run, still have an enormous influence on the electronic media giving them an influence well beyond their actual readership. If you are a politician and want to highlight a talking point a splash in a sympathetic newspaper followed up by TV and radio interviews is still the way to do it. You are far, far more likely to get a hearing on the back of a print story.
"SLHT was formed on 1 April 2009.....There is no doubt that SLHT had considerable problems. It had large and unmanageable obligations under five PFI schemes, which cost £89m a year. .....In the 12 months to March 2012, SLHT reported a deficit of £65 million making it the most financially challenged Trust in the NHS and it was forecast to have an accumulated deficit of £196 million for the five years from 2012/2013 to 2016/2017....."
That was the Secretary of State's fallback position. The fact is that he purported to take the decision under a different set of powers, namely those conferred on him by Chapter 5A of the National Health Service Act 2006. We shall await the Secretary of State's grounds of appeal to the Court of Appeal, but Issue E does not appear to be a particularly viable point. If the Secretary of State's decision is condemned on the vires point however, it is his last refuge. It's good however to see that you have retreated from your palpably ignorant view that this was not a matter which should have come before the High Court of Justice.
http://www.themediablog.co.uk/the-media-blog/2012/08/bbc-guardian-sun-subscriptions.html
Would any sane adult prefer to spend half an hour being doorstepped and leafletted by IOS instead of reading a SeanT or Dan Hodges blog for five minutes at a time and place of their choosing?
I know which I would prefer.
"The Guardian’s print advertising business has been hit particularly hard by the drop off in public sector recruitment. Digital revenues were up 29pc to £55.9m. Online advertising accounted for £25m, online recruitment £16m and subscriptions, including the Soulmates dating website, £15m. Overall digital accounted for around 28pc of total Guardian News & Media revenues, which edged up slightly to £196.3m. " http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/guardian-publisher-loses-31m-115728359.html
The Guardian is becoming a dating site for lefties!
Pork has already banked his winnings and the NHS needs a visionary leader.
"Thanks for the feedback on rail ownership (useful for me as it's something I want to push if I'm selected, so I thought I'd try it out in the bracing pb climate first)."
I really hope that 'ownership' is not what you are going to push on. If so, the end result will be as much an ideological mess as the current system, if not worse.
The system needs looking at. The problems need examining and solutions finding without throwing out the things that are working well. That may involve going back into public ownership or it may not.
But it needs looking at from a dispassionate, non-ideological viewpoint.
Oh, and BR was much worse despite some very good staff keeping the system going with belts-n-braces.
Almost every major story is driven by the press be it on or offline.
Because the medium changes doesn't change the opinion formers.
The Guardian is becoming a dating site for lefties!
Have you done a search on "tim"?
I predict a suitable match with "Hortence Withering".
The protestors have taken advantage of that error to seek judidical review. The court has currently decided that because of the lack of cleverness there was an issue of whether or not he could take the decision under the power that he purported to use. As a result the absolutely necessary reorganisation of the South London Hospitals has been delayed for months at a cost to the public purse of over £1m a week (according to the DoH).
This is absolutely not in the public interest. It needs to be stopped. I did not feel any differently when it was decisions of ministers under the last government that were inhibited in the same way. Laws LJ's comments were clearly in a different context but it really is time our Superior courts backed off in these types of areas. It is costing the country a fortune it cannot afford and resulting in a misallocation of precious resources.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/parliament/2013/07/selection-results-published-for-european-election-regional-lists.html
We can live without knowing who got 6th place in desolate Yorkshire.
The seats won by Conservatives in 2009 were
3 in London
4 in SE
3 in SW
3 in East
2 in EM
3 in WM (after Lisbon)
2 in Yorkshire
3 in NW
1 in NE
1 in Scotland
I take a break now! :-)
Once upon a time I bought it daily; indeed before I retired I had it delivered.
Am I atypical (of Guardian readers)?
I'd be interested in the income the Guardian now makes on job adverts. Before I left DWP - all adverts except specialist jobs had gone to Monster for a 10th of the cost.
As for the Grauniad, thanks to the Scott Trust it has a few years breathing space to work out how to turn its huge online readership into cash. A paywall of some kind is probably the answer, but it needs to establish the brand globally more strongly first - hence the dedicated Australian and US editions. The Mail is essentially a photo and news aggregation site. It can make ad money from that and turn a profit, but that may have a knock-on effect on its investment in journalism. Why bother if your directly employed hacks are not the ones making you the cash? Best use agency folk instead.
http://order-order.com/2013/07/31/full-tory-mep-candidate-rankings/
"Third, I am neither required nor qualified to comment on the merits or otherwise of the proposals concerning the future of LH and indeed will not do so."
Welwyn Hatfield, GE 2005: Elected, Grant Shapps, swing: +8.05%, national swing +0.7%
Welwyn Hatfield, GE 2010: Elected, Grant Shapps, swing: +11.1%, national swing +3.7%
What an amateur.
Conservative Party show their firm belief in democracy with a truly anti-democratic MEP selection procedure that sees all MEPs re-selected.
Justice vs. the Law
DavidL vs. LIAMT, LJ
Boots on the ground may also be important if voter registration is tightened up. Anybody know what the latest on that is?
Robert Mugabe's main rival says he has the support to end the president's 33-year reign and predicts a "resounding victory":
http://news.sky.com/story/1122554/zimbabwe-tsvangirai-predicts-election-win
Up to now they've been monochromatic but election campaigns are over a broader spectrum.
The downside is that process becomes an end in itself. Each decision reached by any public body is scrutinised to check if every box has been ticked and consultation has been properly made. If there is an error then the courts will intervene and quash the decision.
The rule of law you refer to has been extended in this way by the massive extension of administrative law. When I was studying law at University 30 years ago it was not even its own subject. Now it forms a large part of any law library.
As I have said I do not think this is a good thing. Clearly where you draw any line about where the courts should interfere is going to be contentious but I have no doubt that it would be better if much greater restraint was shown by the courts in limiting their powers of interference to the most serious cases of plainly illegal conduct.
Given the powers that the SoS had I do not think that this case fell into that class but there may be room for differences of view in that. What I think is indisputable is that this extension of the rule of law is a very expensive and ultimately unproductive addition to our legal system.
DavidL vs. LIAMT, LJ
I am on the same side as Denning? Yippee!!
Calm your passion.
It is most unladylike.
tim defends a judicial decision which protects the rights and powers of the key construct of the Lansley reforms.
Pork will turn pink with embarassment.
Looks like this is a club anyone can join. Not exclusive at all. Sorry about that.
Personally I never miss the Mail's sidebar of shame. I await Stella Creasey's appearance in it having seen her on Newsnight last night. Who knows, after TOWIE and MIC, we could get TIP - Today in Parliament.
IIRC, there was data showing that the Mail's readership voted pretty much in the same way as the rest of the population, and that there were a significant number of Guardian-reading Tories.
The most important part of the papers is how they can help set the news agenda.
Nick, if you are still about, I just went back and read your comments on rail nationalisation. You said that you didn't get the nomination but I presume that this was only the Unite nomination and that the decision in Broxstowe is still to be made?
It sounds a genuinely interesting process. If you can tell us, what was the level of knowledge on the part of those asking the questions? Would they have had guidance from Unite about the scenarios etc?
There is also the role of the written press in scandals. It allows the TV media to speak about the effect of the story even when they were reluctant to touch the sleezy episode on which it was based.
Memory tells me that The Times readership best mapped the result.
I'm assuming it is a very unpleasant smear that you are trying to develop into a meme.
Perhaps you can provide a link to support your claim?
I don't have a particular issue with what they did, but it is breath-taking hypocritical of them to run regular moral crusades against people who legally minimise tax
Which bit says he is "mad" or "crazed"?
Firm goes into administration this afternoon.
Victim of WCML screw up? Adds some fuel to fire on debates re merits of government intervention in railways.
DavidL: yes, the selection in Broxtowe is on Saturday - the unions only influence the nomination process. You lose if you don't get any nominations; otherwise it doesn't usually matter much, but of course it's nice to be able to say that branches X, Y, Z and unions A, B, C all nominated you.
Union nomination is in my experience done at a regional level, by officers rather than individual members. In general I think they'll typically have a group of full-time officers and members of the political executive. Unions invite you to send in an application in writing saying why you think the union ought to nominate you; in some cases they say they're particularly concerned about issue X (e.g. UNISON was especially interested in equality rights) and what do you think about that?
UNITE is the only union that I know that goes further and invites you for interview. The same panel will interview all the candidates they've invited and will spend all afternoon doing it. You get two questions about "what would you do as an MP if..." (both cases of constituents asking about rights at work) and twenty minutes to answer them in writing. Then you're asked a standard set of about 20 questions about what you'd do as a candidate and MP. Some of these are union-specific (do you think current legislation on unions strikes a fair balance, or if not what would you change?), others are general (how would you deal with current apathy towards politicians?). There was no hint that they hoped you'd answer one way or another. In the evening, they call the candidates and tell them who won and what the panel thought were their strong and weak points for future reference. I thought it was admirable (much better than most employers for regular jobs). They had four UNITE applicants and a very left-wing candidate, but they opted for a different non-UNITE candidate as they felt his answers were the best.
And saying "the crazed Lansley" is not an opinion it is a statement of fact.
For it to be opinion you need to put "Lansley is crazy" or "What a crazy decision".
There is absolutely no way I'd have the time to read a newspaper every day. I think most people are the same these days regarding their free time available for newspapers. I suspect that and the Internet are the reasons for their decline.
The rate of decline is so rapid that the weight given to their opinions is already very overrated. Sooner or later that will catch up and politicians will start openly ignoring them.
Did you get so excited when judicial reviews under Labour were successful, such as these ones involving your hero Alistair Darling?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1542738/Greenpeace-wins-nuclear-power-victory.html
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/14/03/2007/39693/alistair-darling-in-the-dock-over-uk39s-failure-to-implement-eu-equal-treatment.htm
In a time of falling membership it once again illustrates the importance of the Union link for Labour. Miliband should be careful about that.
Best of luck with the nomination.
Individual journalists with a big online presence will be more influential than whole newspapers.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious the Judge did not express any view on "Hunt's irrationality". He said a decision was irrational which is a rather different matter. It is a legal test met in this case by an alleged lack of power under the relevant provision and an alleged lack of consultation under the provisions that could have empowered it.
I have no idea why some people believe in homeopathy. I can see that it would have potential benefits via a psychological-physical feedback loop (as can, for instance, placebo or prayer) but I haven't seen evidence for a direct benefit.
That said, people can believe strange things in one area (e.g. that Ed Miliband would make a good PM) and be entirely rational in others
Is that a common experience for folk here?
This one was exception though, Richard.
There was a clear need to protect Lansley's reforms and the powers and rights of GP commissioners.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jul/31/lewisham-hospital-services-decision-reversed-judge
As it happens I am reading a biog of US Grant that I acquired in America at the moment. Lincoln's famous debates in the Senatorial race for Illinois are surely the other extreme. Of course there was no day time TV or celebs in those days...
I'm guessing not.
Leafleting and canvassing and the like are some of the many activities I engage in that I dont ever admit to in front of strangers!