Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Yes of course it is more efficient than anything previously, but if you truly want to neuter this, then suddenly you have an authority deciding what is political and therefore verboten, and what is not.

[Sheilbh]

Yes of course it is more efficient than anything previously, but if you truly want to neuter this, then suddenly you have an authority deciding what is political and therefore verboten, and what is not.

Well we have some legal regulation in every other strand of advertising.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/insights/who-regulates-political-advertising/

And, as I say, how can you counter something you're not aware of?

I have no opinion on this to be honest, but the other point is if you said to Facebook and Twitter etc - we will fine you x amount if you don't take down political advertising or false political advertising - my guess is it wouldn't be the authority deciding what is political. It'd be those companies deciding the risk is too high and shutting down anything that looked political because, chances are, their financial benefit from that type of engagement is lower than the costs and negligible compared to their commercial data harvesting.

[crazy canuck]

Yes of course it is more efficient than anything previously, but if you truly want to neuter this, then suddenly you have an authority deciding what is political and therefore verboten, and what is not.

social media companies have been able to function without the regulations that apply to all other media companies for too long.  Time to put an end to that, yes.

[Sheilbh]

Oh and in other despair of all our politics news. Today a couple of stories about local candidates.

In Cities of London and Westminster, Labour are running a QC who helped set up the Jewish Voice for Labour (pro-Corbyn, anti-"witchhunt" Jewish group) who ran the review of anti-semitism accusations and has been accused by other Jewish Labour groups of whitewashing supporters of the leadership.

And the Tory candidate for the safe seat of Broadland is in trouble over previous comments he'd made that women should "keep their knickers on" to avoid being raped.

Meanwhile in other news that makes me wonder if the Tories knew that voting for an election in December would cause an election in December, the Education Secretary to local authorities asking them to find new polling stations where possible (often they're in village halls or school halls) so they don't disrupt school Christmas plays and concerts. There is a reason we don't have elections in December

[crazy canuck]

Meanwhile in other news that makes me wonder if the Tories knew that voting for an election in December would cause an election in December,

Best line in a while

[The Larch]

Meanwhile in other news that makes me wonder if the Tories knew that voting for an election in December would cause an election in December, the Education Secretary to local authorities asking them to find new polling stations where possible (often they're in village halls or school halls) so they don't disrupt school Christmas plays and concerts. There is a reason we don't have elections in December

How can that be an issue at all? I know Britain has plenty of idiosyncratic issues, but is the dreaded possibility of having elections disrupting Christmas plays really one of those?

[Sheilbh]

The Cabinet Secretary advised 12 December is the latest an election could be held because after that the village/school halls are all booked up for Christmas events and they normally cost a little bit of money so I tend to agree those bookings should be respected and not let a thoughtless government trample over them.

But the real issue is political. Cancelling Christmas is rarely a good look for a political leader. All it'll take is one primary school cancelling their nativity play because the school hall is needed as a polling station, plus some crying 8 year olds for this to blow up into a multi-day story.

[Sheilbh]

And again in the weirdness of the Tories calling this election. Every other party has launched their campaign, every other party leader has got their message out and Johnson's done nothing. It's baffling, early days, but weird given that they wanted the election. I wonder if it's maybe that there's divisions of who's responsible, what the strategy should be etc?

So Johnson is launching their campaign tomorrow. With a newspaper column in the very conservative paper that used to pay him £100k a year:

As above. This feels like a very weird campaign in 2019.

Maybe they're doing something interesting behind the scenes or will pull this together. But this is just all a very odd way of going about things

[mongers]

This evening, Bridgen has told BBC Radio 4's PM programme:
...snip....

Listening to the clip is actually worse

Yes, I heard the full interview on the radio and was astonished by the arrogance of his reply, far worse than the original foot in mouth/tone deafness of JRM.

[Agelastus]

Maybe they're doing something interesting behind the scenes or will pull this together. But this is just all a very odd way of going about things

While I am aware it is an advert for Boodles jewellers I am surprised that the Telegraph was quite so tone deaf as to allow an advert including the name of a famous gentleman's club to appear on the same front page as the Tory leader's opening broadside of his election campaign. Given Johnson's background, of course.

[garbon]

Yes of course it is more efficient than anything previously, but if you truly want to neuter this, then suddenly you have an authority deciding what is political and therefore verboten, and what is not.

social media companies have been able to function without the regulations that apply to all other media companies for too long.  Time to put an end to that, yes.

Agreed. Besides it isn't like social media is some haven of free speech. They all have content that is banned, so why should political lies get a free pass.

[Josquius]

So Johnson is launching their campaign tomorrow. With a newspaper column in the very conservative paper that used to pay him £100k a year:

As above. This feels like a very weird campaign in 2019.

Maybe they're doing something interesting behind the scenes or will pull this together. But this is just all a very odd way of going about things

So the Tories are going for "yes we know we are shit. But Corbyn!"

[Syt]

German paper reports that the government is holding back the report on the investigation into Russian influence on the Brexit campaign and the 2017 election?

[Richard Hakluyt]

The really disgraceful thing is that there are still hundreds of buildings with the unsafe cladding :

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2019/06/two-years-after-grenfell-dangerous-cladding-still-covers-hundreds-buildings

"Accidents" waiting to happen 

[Richard Hakluyt]

German paper reports that the government is holding back the report on the investigation into Russian influence on the Brexit campaign and the 2017 election?

Yes they are https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50300551

This government hates scrutiny of any sort.