Ok, for some reason you’ve decided to go ad-hom on me twice already, treating it as open-&-shut that I don’t know how Reform voters consume media & that I hold them (ie a substantial portion of my own family who I’m very fond of) in contempt, so I’ll leave it there until you calm down.
I’ve gone “ad hom” because you opened with the word “obviously” and because you are literally making claims that are untrue. You can switch from condescending to Reform voters to condescending to me, but it won’t make what you are saying true.
You seem to be confusing “ad hom” with “statements that are true”. You are a Labour partisan, and you’ve stated as much in the past.
And yet one who disagrees with both the current leader and the last one on so much, it seems. I’m absolutely someone who will need a very strong reason to not treat a social-democratic option as the least worst one. Tell anyone who knows me that I’m some pro-Labour dalek and they’d laugh at you.
Yet in the here and now, you are excusemaking and the reality is for all your disagreements, you are in the tank for it. That’s ok, but you are also kidding yourself if you think you are not a partisan.
Ok. I think I know what you’re arguing against, but not what you’re arguing for. I think political biases are only a small part of this, but do you think, in aggregate, the news & commentary consumed by the public judge Labour politicians/policies by the same standards as they treat conservatives?
The bias across old media, YouTube and TikTok is not so great to make “don’t even take a punt on attacking the Taliban” a good call, and the audience is not just Reform voters. It is also people who think that the government’s economic policies took a marked turn for the worse after July 2024.
He will row back on it. He will get the benefit of the doubt. I mean, it may sow some small doubts but the traffic is v much in the other direction. Again, to think there is an equivalence with Salisbury is a mistake.
Paul - you are not a swing voter and you hold them with contempt. No, there is not equivalence, in that the Tory machine in 2018 was not midway through being replaced, the SWP position was less unpopular than “give money to the Taliban”.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your analogy. And also, I Do Not Hold Swing Voters Or Reform Voters In Contempt. I’ve no idea why you are saying this.
Because you keep demonstrating that you do. Maybe you could start by not treating *me* with contempt, just a wild idea.
I said “I believe, obvious reasons”. In our replies I offered the the point which I believe to be obvious: that The Public Sphere gives a huge benefit of the doubt to right-wing populism at the moment. Do you think it doesn’t?
No, this is wrong for two reasons. There isn’t a public sphere any more, and that same dynamic also allowed you lot to get away with a manifesto that had a big fiction at its heart.
Wait… what? “There isn’t a Public Sphere any more”? I didn’t have that argument on my bingo card!