Manufacturing consent

BBC Political Editors – Making It Up As They Go Along

Dutch politics, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, Media, Tories, UK politics
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UPDATE: Brown is currently announcing he’s going to see the Queen to resign and to recommend that she ask the leader of the opposition, ie Cameron, to form a government. But still, my post makes some valid points, not least that Nick Robinson should be sacked.

It ain’t over till the Queen lady sings…

The BBC are now performing a complete volte face and promoting a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition to the skies.

This is because, according to their ‘sources’, namely Charles ‘safety elephant’ Clarke, greedy backbench philanderer David Blunkett, that walking piece of unpleasantry John Reid and Bambi-eyed Andy Burnham (who must’ve been inhaling too much of his Maybelline mascara), that any Lib/Lab pact is dead.

The politicoliterati are still trying to turn this negotiating period into a two party adversarial contest (I blame Nick Robinson) – but that’s not what forming a coalition is about.

Take the Dutch model:

In the UK a party’s manifesto is its manifesto for government. In the Netherlands manifestoes exist to be melted during post-election negotiations, and fused together.

The process takes time. To do it in a week would be completely impossible in Holland. It cannot be done in days – or rather it can, but then Dutch people would strongly suspect that the job had not been done properly, and that the deal had not been well thought-out.

It’s understandable that the British newspapers are eager for a resolution, but it’s not correct that the UK is without leadership.

There is a caretaker government. The chancellor of the exchequer can continue to take part in discussions of the global economic crisis. Day-to-day decisions will continue to be made.

It’s absolutely normal, from a Dutch perspective, for parties to drive a hard bargain to get as many of their policies as possible into the programme of the new coalition government.

Dutch coalitions usually last for years… though one in 2002 fell after 87 days.

What is less normal is to have a party, like the Liberal Democrats in this case, in a position of so much power that it can make the difference between stable government and chaos. That is because, in the Dutch political system, there are always several coalition possibilities.

There is also less likelihood of a party holding simultaneous negotiations with the two biggest parties – so less scope for allegations of double-crossing.

This whole mess is a ridiculous media-driven one and it’s been talked up by the likes of Nick Robinson in order to fit his own preferred preconceived narrative.

This isn’t democracy, it’s government by media and the rumour mill, and in no way does it reflect the will of the voters.

If this latest rumour turns out to be true, the LibDems will, unsurprisingly, implode in acrimony and worst of all we’ll have a Tory government. The only upside is there’ll be another election along soon when it all falls apart as it’s bound to.

The downside is it’ll again be run under FPTP, and once again the voters will be robbed.

Attack of The Twitterati

Activism, Manufacturing consent, Media, TV, UK elections, UK politics
Published on 2 Comments on Attack of The Twitterati

What are they putting in Sky News‘ office coffee machine these days, crystal meth?

You’d think so, judging by the behaviour of Sky News presenters Adam Boulton and Kay Burley today….

But first a few words of explanation.

One of the most highly-trending topics on Twitter during the past day or so has been #don’tdoitnick. It’s been an attempt by twitterers to stop LibDem leader Nick Clegg forming an alliance with David Cameron’s Tories. Part of the action was a flashmob on College Green this afternoon.

It’s outside Parliament and always chosen by publicity hungry demonstrators, because a] it’s small and thus makes the protest look huge and b] it’s easy for the major media outlets to get to (especially as this afternoon, pre-El Gordo’s resignation announcement, they had bugger-all else to do).

In this YouTube video, Sky News presenter/reporter (I hesitate to dignify her with the title ‘journalist’ in this instance) Kay Burley interviews one of the protesters. She gets very shrill indeed, not to mention political, and starts shrieking at the quietly reasonable interviewee:

Sky, or rather Murdoch’s News Corp, supports the Conservatives, the party the twitterers are there to try and stop the LibDems forming a coalition with. If they were to form a coalition, the Tories could be the next UK government. There’s a palpable conflict of interest there, and Kay Burley’s not even making a pretence of being a disinterested reporter.

The protesters wouldn’t let it lie. “Sack Kay Burley! Sky News Is Shit!” – not only did they heckle her on live tv:

but before the end of the afternoon #sackkayburley became one of the top trending hashtags in the UK.

But it wasn’t just one shrieking Murdoch presenter – it was two. This wasn’t an isolated incident; cut to later the same day, and here’s Sky’s senior political reporter losing it in an interview with Blair’s former spin doctor Alistair Campbell:

(via Political Scrapbook, the best bit is at 4.00 min)

Boulton and Burley are hardly the Bill O’Reillys of UK tv, (USAnians would probably find their behaviour quite tame in comparison), but it’s clear to see that they are from the same stable.

All use the classic News Corp interview technique – shout loudly in order to drown out reasonable argument and if that doesn’t work, try to intimidate the interviewee out of challenging you further by the use of force majeure (ie turning off the camera).

But what these Murdoch employees really have in common is the whiff of panic they give off – it may be panic that they are no longer at the cutting edge of making and reporting news, or panic that any mere civilian should think they have the right to challenge them; or it could just be panic about the continuing existence of their jobs, as the news narrative (despite their blogs and online presence) slips out of their hands and into that of the public’s, via social networks and mobile devices. Or it may well be all of the above.

Whatever it is, it’s bloody good fun to watch.

UPDATE If only for completeness’ sake, here Boulton bollocks Ben Bradshaw.

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Freep Like F*ckery

Election Skullduggery, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, UK elections, UK politics
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Has a desperate Gordon Brown activated his last-chance strategy of freeping the election?

votessack.jpg

I hate to say I told you so (not that it ever stopped me) but… from this evenings Guardian front page:

The result of the general election may not be confirmed until late on Friday because the electoral system is struggling to process verification checks on a record number of postal votes, officers have warned.

Councils have reported applications for postal votes up by 60% in some areas, and with a new system of checking signatures and dates of birth against applications – and only 11 days between the deadline for applications and polling day – administrators say there could be delays.

[…]

The surge in postal votes has also raised concerns about electoral fraud, although the 50 allegations currently being investigated are mainly confined to the local elections are also being held in some areas tomorrow.

John Turner, the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, said: “If returning officers receive sackfuls of postal votes tomorrow, it’s going to put serious delays in the system because they will have to focus on verification before they start counting votes.

Me last week:

Poll Fraud 2010 – Let The Vote Rigging Begin!

Never mind, Gordon, even when the election looks well and truly lost, there’s always voting fraud…

[…]

The 2005 election, and specifically Birmingham 2005, was described by election observers as the dirtiest UK election ever, and that was down to Labour:

Vote-riggers exploited weaknesses in the postal voting system to steal thousands of ballot papers and mark them for Labour, helping the party to take first place in elections to Birmingham City Council.

They believed that their cheating would be hidden for ever in the secrecy of the strong boxes where counted votes are stored, never suspecting that a judge would take the rare step of smashing the seals and tracing the ballots back to the voters.

[…]

They coldly exploited communities where many cannot speak English or write their names. They forced what the judge called “dishonest or frightened” postmen into handing over sacks of postal ballots. They seem to have infiltrated the mail service: several voters gave evidence that their ballot papers were altered to support Labour after they put them in the post.

That’s not to say the Tories haven’t also been up to electoral shenanigans:

5 June 2006 The Times reported that the police in Coventry were investigating allegations that there had been personation offences in the ward of Foleshill at the local elections in May 2006 and that there had also been postal voting fraud. An election petition was lodged at the High Court by the defeated Labour councillor in the ward giving the names and addresses of ten voters whose identities were apparently stolen:

The Times has seen passports of three voters, a veteran Labour Party member and a young couple, which indicate that they were out of the country on election day, May 4. Documents also seen by the newspaper show that staff in polling stations in Coventry that day clearly marked the three down as having turned up and voted. The Conservatives won the ward, Foleshill, by six votes after a recount, one of two gainsthat turned a deadlocked council into one with a slender Tory lead.

Labour has conveniently left most of the loopholes that have allowed it to manipulate the vote firmly in place, despite numerous reports from such august bodies as the Joseph Rowntree Trust, fromACPO & the Electoral Commission, and most recently from Parliament itself, all pointing out the ease and prevalence of vote rigging. From the parliamentry report:

• Experienced election observers have raised serious concerns about how well UK election procedures measure up to international standards.

• There have been at least 42 convictions for electoral fraud in the UK in the period 2000–2007.

• Greater use of postal voting has made UK elections far more vulnerable to fraud and resulted in several instances of large-scale fraud.

• There is widespread, and justifiable, concern about both the comprehensiveness and the accuracy of the UK’s electoral registers – the poor state of the registers potentially compromises the integrity of the ballot.

• There is a genuine risk of electoral integrity being threatened by previously robust systems of electoral administration having reached ‘breaking point’ as a result of pressures imposed in recent years.

• Public confidence in the electoral process in the UK was the lowest in Western Europe in 1997, and has almost certainly declined further as a result of the extension of postal voting.

• The benefits of postal and electronic voting have been exaggerated, particularly in relation to claims about increased turnout and social inclusion.

• There is substantial evidence to suggest that money can have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections, particularly where targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.

• Outside of ministerial circles, there is a widespread view that a fundamental overhaul of UK electoral law, administration and policy is urgently required.

The Labour government may have made a show of reform with these postal vote verification procedures, but that’s all it is, a show, a bit of window dressing. Why change a voting system whose lack of integrity they’re exploiting to the full? And do we really think they’re not exploiting that lack of integrity today in 2010? A reported 60% surge in postal votes says to me they are.

Poll Fraud 2010 – Let The Vote Rigging Begin!

Election Skullduggery, Internet, Manufacturing consent, Media, New Labour, UK elections, UK politics
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Black box

Never mind, Gordon, even when the election looks well and truly lost, there’s always voting fraud…

Is this story the reason why we’ve spent the last 24 hrs hearing smears about poor Gillian Duffy from the Labour-leaning media, rather than reports on Labour’s latest attempt to skew the popular vote?

Labour’s new media tsar Kerry McCarthy today admitted inappropriately revealing a sample of postal votes on Twitter one week before the general election.

‘Inappropriately’, Guardian? Surely you mean illegally? Already with the minimising language… it’s no surprise either that the Guardian’s been pushing the Duffy story to the detriment of all others. Classic diversionary propaganda.

But now the Twitter leak story is out the Guardian is reporting it as though a Labour candidate and senior Prime Ministerial aide’s committal of voting fraud were mere youthful high jinks:

The parliamentary candidate for Bristol East said she was “kicking herself” after posting the results of some 300 votes to her 5,700 followers.

Sure. Like she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. Someone should be kicking her.

What’s more likely is that, if by some unexpected miracle (like, say, election security being breached, enabling Labour to more effectively target election resources) Gordon Brown is able to turn the Titanic away from the iceberg as a result, that McCarthy’ll be rewarded with a sinecure on the Table-Leg Enumeration Agency or some such quango.

After all, it wouldn’t be the first time Labour’s committed election fraud with postal votes, would it?

The 2005 election, and specifically Birmingham 2005, was described by election observers as the dirtiest UK election ever, and that was down to Labour:

Vote-riggers exploited weaknesses in the postal voting system to steal thousands of ballot papers and mark them for Labour, helping the party to take first place in elections to Birmingham City Council.

They believed that their cheating would be hidden for ever in the secrecy of the strong boxes where counted votes are stored, never suspecting that a judge would take the rare step of smashing the seals and tracing the ballots back to the voters. Election corruption has been so rare in the past 100 years that lawyers have struggled to find examples since the late 19th century, when Britain was adjusting to the novelty of universal male suffrage.

The elections last June were the dirtiest since the general election of 1895, when Sir Tankerville Chamberlayne, the Conservative candidate for Southampton, notoriously travelled by cart from pub to pub, waving and throwing sovereigns at the crowds. His election was later ruled invalid.

The Birmingham vote- riggers were more cunning than the flamboyant Sir Tankerville. They coldly exploited communities where many cannot speak English or write their names. They forced what the judge called “dishonest or frightened” postmen into handing over sacks of postal ballots. They seem to have infiltrated the mail service: several voters gave evidence that their ballot papers were altered to support Labour after they put them in the post.

So we don’t know if the postal vote results McCarthy tweeted can be trusted in the first place, given that Labour’s 2010 postal vote fraud effort was well already well underway before she brought Twitter into the equation:

McCarthy’s post, which has now been deleted, said: “First PVs opened in east Bristol, our sample: UKIP **; TUSC**; BNP ** Lib Dem **; Tory **; Labour **. £gameON!”

‘Game on’? How old is she? Certainly past the age of criminal responsibility, and let’s not forget, what she’s committed is a crime, not some silly, girlish error she can simper her way out of. The law is very clear:

An Electoral Commission spokeswoman said candidates who see the front of a ballot paper “must maintain the secrecy of voting”.

The guidelines state: “Anyone attending a postal vote opening session must be provided with a copy of the relevant secrecy requirements.

“They should be reminded of these requirements and of the penalty, on summary conviction, either of a fine of £5,000, or six months’ imprisonment in England and Wales, or one year’s imprisonment in Scotland.”

McCarthy said she had attended a “training exercise” in which staff verified personal identifiers on the postal votes. She said: “I was pretty silly to do it; it was just thoughtless, I was being over-exuberant.

Over-exuberant, my ass.

6 months in jail, eh? That ought to curb her exuberance, you’d think. But I doubt she’ll get it, especially if the miracle happens and the titanic turns. Table legs ahoy!

UPDATE

Maybe she will get the 6 months – her actions have definitely been reported to the police.

CotD: Matt Taibbi on work

Life under Capitalism, Manufacturing consent
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In the process of taking apart yet another idiotic David Brooks column, Matt Taibbi completely nails what work is like for most people:

Most of the work in this world completely sucks balls and the only reward most people get for their work is just barely enough money to survive, if that. The 95% of people out there who spend all day long shoveling the dogshit of life for subsistence wages are basically keeping things running just well enough so that David Brooks, me and the rest of that lucky 5% of mostly college-educated yuppies can live embarrassingly rewarding and interesting lives in which society throws gobs of money at us for pushing ideas around on paper (frequently, not even good ideas) and taking mutual-admiration-society business lunches in London and Paris and Las Vegas with our overpaid peers.

Most work isn’t fun, isn’t rewarding and most people would trade their job for a lifelong pension in a heartbeat. But you wouldn’t know it from the media; in discussions on e.g. pension age the examples you get are almost always the doctor or lawyer angry about being “forced” to retire at seventyfive, never the garbage collector with a broken back and blown knees who would love to retire at fifty, but can’t. We’re being forcefed this idea of work and our job as what gives our lives meaning, then feel guilty when we don’t actually enjoy it or don’t care about it. But the truth is that even interesting jobs are still just things you do to make enough money to survive, not because you like the idea of going to work every day.