And yet experience shows that he will be forgiven in a way others wouldn’t be. The core of my argument, Sunder, is it we can’t keep ignoring the changed shape of the information economy here. IMHO, the centre-left have always been unaware that policy is even a tool here.
Not challenging him on this issue seems a misplaced thing to do with that broader concern. I don't see how anybody can know the answer to "how far is a hypothetical Farage government immune to all of the questions that swing voters ask of potential governments, or still somewhat subject to them?"
He's never gone above 4 million in a first order election. The next 15% are clearly different people to the first 8% and 14% But the winming post might not even be 33% or 30% - and that low bar is unprecedented. And the information environment is changing (for different people in different ways)
I realltly don't understand what "experience" or evidence you already have (outside of low turnout second order elections) of how swing voters that would put Farage on 27-35% respond to challenges and critiques of a potential Farage government in an election he is thought to be a possible winner of
Under normal circs, of course I’d agree with you. But the public discourse in the months leading up to a general election will be v like the 2nd half of July ’24, or this month. Chaos. Govt floundering. Centre & left in disarray. £millions in undeclared dark money disrupting the info economy.
I just wanted to challenge what "experience shows". There is very little/no experience of it Farage's future prospects of growth depend on 4-6 million people who have never voted for him yet. They have some things in common with 4-5 million who have 1-5 times, but thats one big difference too
Surely we’ll know fairly quickly if his polling is hit by what he said about women and children? He said it, he rowed back on it, in aggregate he will be (I suspect) forgiven. I’d love to be wrong about this, obvs.
That seems to me to muddle up v different things - is it a mistake for opponents to attack is conflated with will it destroy him - will it affect him quickly in early midterm polls 40 months out? vs how far is Reform immune from "normal" scrutiny of a potential PM/party of govt due to info changes
Fair point. What I’m trying to convey is that we’re discussing this in terms of triangulation. The next election may just be chaos. Industrial quantities of shit thrown in all directions- less to boost Reform than to wreck Labour. We say “you’re mates with the Taliban and they say “you’re pro-paedo”
Paul, you are labour stanning yourself out of any political attack on Farage at any time lol. Our party is full of morally bankrupt morons. We do not need to go into the night with them.
On the contrary. I’m arguing that he needs to be attacked properly, not in the way that is visibly failing at the moment. bsky.app/profile/paul...
That was not conveyed by your message. The government was not adapting the strategy/tactic that you say is being tried and is failing, though others argued that they should
I’d agree that, if you’re in a gunfight and the only weapon you’ve left the house with is a knife, you should try using the knife. But I’d prefer it if the government went back home to get a gun.
Paul, in the name of god. We are the government. We have machine guns.
I agree. To stretch the metaphor to breaking point, the government don't believe us. They don't think that determining the shape, and the role of the media is the government's business. However, most governments have kinda pretended it isn't while subtly acknowledging that they need to do it.
I just think that we’re in a world where traditional methods of triangulation are a bit like sending out horse-cavalry against tanks.
The most successful centre-left government of my lifetime (Blair's) was dedicated to understanding the changed information economy of the late '90s, early '00s and used policy and comms extremely effectively.
I agree that New Labour were very good at news media management. However, there were critics *at the time* (I was one) of their failure to challenge Murdoch, carrying on with the Faustian pact that the Tories had started with the 1990 Broadcasting Act. Many of today’s problems started there.