Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Sometimes the British press is suspect to me. It is crazy to think they coordinate so I am not saying that, but they sure seem to have a routine of joining in the beating of the same drum one of them starts, to make sure there's as much engagement as possible.

It's not coordinated but they're called a "press pack" for a reason. There is definitely groupthink.

A lot of it is very simply that they're spending time together. Journalists share office space and press rooms in parliament and Whitehall. They will be travelling together to those events. They will have similar overlapping social lives. They will always be looking for what the "story" is or what the "line" is to come out of any thing they're going to.

I always think this is most clear with the party conferences. I mentioned it in the run up to the Labour conference wher it falls into the traditional narrative of "leader under pressure": "leadership speculation and discontent running into a party conference; first couple of days all the talk is about the splits and divisions and possible challengers (especially with one roaming round the fringe like Andy Burnham); party faithful start talking about how the country just need to see the "real" Keir; the leader's speech gets billed up as "make or break" - it goes well, the crowd love it, the leadership talk dies down" only to return two months later. 90% of that is based on the same journalists going to the same conference centre, watching the same speech and coming to the same conclusions over whether it was "enough" or was it "flat".

I think outside of Whitehall, Westminster etc there is less of that - but it still exists in other specialised areas of reporting too.

The negative side is there is absolutely a groupthink or consensus in reporting especially in those small spaces. The positive side of it is that when there's a whiff of scandal they can hunt like a pack forcing resignations or people to be fired because when there's a big scandal story every outlet is covering it and going to be looking for their own angle.

I also think the print media's main power now is in its ability to set the agenda for broadcast - so BBC, Sky, ITV look at the front pages to decide what they'll cover in a day (especially as both have largely shut down their own investigations programs). But that's very out of date given declining print circulation - and it ignores the diital side of media entirely (I still think the BBC and Sky can't fully work out what to do with the digital news). But in digital for example, The Guardian is the most read news site (and I do think that post-print the most successful news brands being the Mail and the Guardian does explain a lot of our politics ).

Like the asylum-seeker crimes. What else are you going to get for clicks? The government is... thinking about doing stuff, maybe, maybe not? YAWN! The weather is... mild? YAWN! The mooning stock market seems to be hiding a global recession creeping in? That's complex. YAWN! The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

Just to slightly defend the BBC the top story was Jamaica. There were the three crimes I've just mentioned there - and, you know, the reality is one was deported, one was convicted and one murder was committed on the same day - but they did also cover Sudan with Jeremy Bowen and reporting that had the "some viewers may find this upsetting" advice and they covered the Chancellor's rental story slightly bound up in her preparing for the budget.

The thing that annoyed me with the Jamaica coverage was the white tourist clip. I mean there's a big Jamaican diaspora in the UK. Clive Myrie was hosting - his parents are Jamaican and yet they had a clip of someone from a luxury resort (obviously as well as reporters and interviews on the ground).

I believe only one of those made national news, suggesting that editorial discretion was selected in which items went to print.

I'm not saying BBC, Guardian, et al. were wrong to select the stories as they wanted ones that woul get more eyes on, those that would generate more clicks.

I will say they are certainly playing an active role in what 'normal every day people' think about asylum seekers and immigration more broadly.

I agree - but the other side of this is that the stabbing Derby and Uxbridge were basically random. In both cases the people killed did not know their attacker.

I've been to a thing where it was flagged that those are broadly the cases the media cover more - which at that event was discussed as an example of structural sexism in the media because the vast majority of women who are victims of violence know their offender. The "domestic" murder is not reported. The random on the street/bank/park murder is which means that we don't hear as much as we should about violence against women and the threat context which is the home.

I could be wrong but I suspect that might be an element in the reporting of young men killed by other young men. I always think in Liverpool when there's been a few incidents of gang violence but the one that really caught the city's attention (and got national attention) was when a child was killed in the cross fire. Not quite "known" victims and offenders but somethin similar and, again, possibly under-reported.

I think John Burn-Murdoch made a similar-ish point on the stuff about why people are more concerned about crime despite serious crime declining. Part of it was obviously that low-level visible crime has significantly increased. But he also said that well over 50% of victims of violent crime know their attacker so in a weird way while it's very good that violent crime is falling it also already feels less threatening - whereas many people see or experience shoplifting, phone snatching, theft etc so feel personally more vulnerable/exposed to that, which is increasing a lot.[/quote]

[Tonitrus]

Thing is: in Russia they can pogrom the migrants to the front where apparently they'll assault Ukrainians lines as eagerly as the Russians themselves.

Read an article recently on how the Russians are torturing and murdering their own troops as means to maintain discipline (as it were). Total abject depraved evil.

This humor is a bit dark...but the "orc" slang idea does indeed keep living on...

[Sheilbh]

Going to respond on some other points.

But this is pretty extraordinary - lots of time, not predicting the future and need some other polls (YouGov came close recently though) but...


A total aside on this we have talked a lot about Tories and Labour. Given their total collapse - I can't help but feel Ed Davey and the Lib Dems are fairly drastically underperforming. Unless the Reform attack line of calling Labour and the Tories the "uniparty" is how voters feel and the Lib Dems are just part of that blob of the traditional mainstream parties and from the Coalition, through Brexit years to Starmer they are all perceived to have failed? But even just thermostatically, I sort of feel Tories and Labour collapse the Lib Dems should do something but they're the only party that's basically just flatlining from the last election?

[Josquius]

Further proof that amongst other things labour should really be pursuing voting reform.

[viper37]

The conflict in Sudan has reached the "entire hospitals massacred" level? Can't spot a single Jew in there. YAWN!

Prince Andrew just got stripped of his official title.  What do you think is more important to the British readers, a few more dead Africans, or their Prince?  The death of a lion would be newsworthy, not an hospital massacre.  

But Canadian news talked about it, it was on La Presse front page all day, meaning people clicked on it.  Quebecers, at least.  

[Tonitrus]

Further proof that amongst other things labour should really be pursuing voting reform.

Do you think that Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems could form a viable coalition?

Seems to me a better chance of a Reform/Tory one instead.

[Valmy]

A traffic light government.

[Tonitrus]

I might have liked to know the "don't know" numbers before they excluded them though.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Thing is: in Russia they can pogrom the migrants to the front where apparently they'll assault Ukrainians lines as eagerly as the Russians themselves.

Read an article recently on how the Russians are torturing and murdering their own troops as means to maintain discipline (as it were). Total abject depraved evil.

Considering that soldiers usually have some kind of weapons near them, ebnven the Russians, they sure must all be a bunch of masochists

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Further proof that amongst other things labour should really be pursuing voting reform.

Better be careful with that, even when necessary, cause its a tool that can backfire. And is popular with the likes of orban

[Richard Hakluyt]

One thing to bear in mind, if Reform wins a lot of seats, is that on current evidence there will be very little party discipline. They are little more than a protest group right now and when confronted with actual policy fall out with each other. A Reform led government could easily be a very short-lived government imo.

[crazy canuck]

One thing to bear in mind, if Reform wins a lot of seats, is that on current evidence there will be very little party discipline. They are little more than a protest group right now and when confronted with actual policy fall out with each other. A Reform led government could easily be a very short-lived government imo.

And one need only look at the BC Conservatives for evidence of that. A new party (with an old name) that came 1 seat away from government and promptly self destructed.

[Josquius]

Better be careful with that, even when necessary, cause its a tool that can backfire. And is popular with the likes of orban

I'm not sure what you mean. Didn't Orban change things completely the other way to make the system less democratic?

One thing to bear in mind, if Reform wins a lot of seats, is that on current evidence there will be very little party discipline. They are little more than a protest group right now and when confronted with actual policy fall out with each other. A Reform led government could easily be a very short-lived government imo.

Yeah, this is their big weak point to be attacked really.
Yes they're horrible racist bastards.... but everyone knows that.
What's a bigger point against them for those who might otherwise consider them is they're utterly incompetent.
Alas when Labour and the Tories are as they are today this one won't land as well as it might.

I've been wondering on Reform whether we should be cheering for UKIP. Reform are in a tight place of trying to moderate themselves a bit to appeal to the normies (though the focus is on radicalising boomers of course) but whenever they say something a little bit sensible they piss off their crazy core.