Fake News and the “Punch” that never happened
What one media lie tells us about the way our “news” works
Kit Knightly
Yesterday the Health Secretary Matt Hancock went to Leeds to visit a struggling NHS hospital. It was a PR stunt designed to make the Tories look pro-active in the face of a late-campaign PR disaster.
The hospital in question was hitting the headlines because of the viral images showing patients sleeping on floors and benches. This particular image of a small boy curled up on a coat with an oxygen mask was absolutely everywhere:
The Tories really needed a distraction. A great big dead cat to slam down on the coffee table. So they invented one, and the obedient press did the rest:
The story was put about that Labour had taxied in a “mob” of protesters, and one of them had “punched” Hancock’s aid.
It was a complete lie.
Here’s the video of the “flash mob”, as you can see it’s maybe two dozen people…
Far from a punch of any kind, this would appear to show Hancock’s advisor walking into the outstretched hand of an activist.
Rather different from the way it was initially spun to journalists. pic.twitter.com/i1YqKiHnnr
— Matthew Thompson (@mattuthompson) December 9, 2019
…and, just in case you missed it, here is “the Punch”:
Here’s the “punch” on Matt Hancock’s adviser outside of Leeds General Infirmary@bbclaurak @Peston @PaulBrandITV resign you absolute clowns pic.twitter.com/nJitUvyFaL
— 🚩 The Election Leftorium 🗳️ (@LeftoriumThe) December 9, 2019
As you can see, it’s nothing. It’s such an enormous exaggeration it brushes against “entirely made up”. However, it would be wrong to lose ourselves in gloating and focus on the specifics. In doing that, we miss the greatest lesson in this.
Yes, it was a direct lie, cynically done, but most importantly, we only know that because someone happened to film it.
If not for that snippet of footage, rather than talking about how the Tories and the media invented this story, we’d be losing ourselves in a discussion of “what this means” or cross-party denunciations of “political violence”.
We’d be knee-deep in analysis of an entirely fictional event, simply because we haven’t yet adjusted our mindset enough to encompass how much the media simply make stuff up.
Again, just like the death of Oleg Babchenko, we’re reminded that in this modern media world it is perfectly valid for our first question to be “did this even happen?”
*
Perhaps the most telling thing about this incident is the reaction of the media when it was revealed they’d been spreading the lie, perfectly exemplified by ITV’s Robert Peston:
It is completely clear from video footage that @MattHancock's adviser was not whacked by a protestor, as I was told by senior Tories, but that he inadvertently walked into a protestor's hand. I apologise for getting this wrong.
— Robert Peston (@Peston) December 9, 2019
See how he apologises for “getting this wrong”? Not the fact he didn’t check. Not the fact he mindlessly repeated the Tory line without even rudimentary research.
This is the product of a totally controlled media class. A sub-set of the elite, conditioned to be obedient without even realising that’s what they’re doing.
Their bias is innate, in-built and unquestioned. They are selected, early on, for their ability to toe a line whilst thinking they’re independent.
They openly admit to simply reporting everything the Tories say as fact, without checking, and simply expect us to accept it…because they don’t think it’s wrong.
Jeremy Corbyn was uncharacteristically forthright in his condemnation:
This never happened.
Invented by the Tories to divert your attention from a child having to lie on a hospital floor; reported by media that didn’t bother to check if it was true.
This is what media bias looks like. pic.twitter.com/LQsBv2jZzB
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) December 9, 2019
And we applaud him for that. This should have been his attitude from the beginning. When the game is so obviously rigged, the only way to win is to not play.
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Speaking about Fake News. You surely saw this yesterday. PressTV was banned by shmeagle. So, they started their own. It is of course not possible to create your own version of shmeagle tube over night. The replacement platform must have existed before the switch.
However, PressTV is very popular among Western Integritists (folks that have a spine) and this disturbance has of course rattled the unevolved and they had to ban PressTv from their video platform.
The unevolved however, have once again failed to acknowledge the important role Barbara Streisand has in this and all other cases, where the attempt is made to shove something down the throats of the population, or take stuff away.
Thank you Ms. Streisand, for providing one of the best effects the Universe has ever seen.
The moment I saw the name ‘Kuenssberg’ I knew the whole thing was a thundering great lie. What is this propagandist doing on the public payroll? What are almost all of them doing on the public payroll?
It’ll be interesting to see if the ABC’s Corbyn-hating national radio channel runs with this fabrication, even though the video evidence disproves it. Wouldn’t put it past them.
Didn’t know the name Kuenssberg but from what you say it makes me still wonder if the whole thing was staged, a fake fake as it were. It simply has a stagey feeling to me. Usually, the signs are very obvious but either they’re not or I’m missing them or, of course, it’s genuine. How about these things? Photo of little boy — Doesn’t the bag look anomalously pumped full of air? — The hand on the left looks smaller than the hand on the right. I actually took snapshots of each hand and put a line on the fingers and they definitely seem different in length. Cyclist video — At 14 seconds the cyclist says “You are not welcome in this […] hospital”. — At 22 seconds the aide says “Are you […] people?” I find what the two speakers say in the ellipses unintelligible – can anyone enlighten… Read more »
Just to add to seeming anomalies:
— The homogenous maroon theme seems a little odd: the sleeves of the boy’s shirt, the thing over his head (is it the shirt’s hood?), the track pants at the top, the blanket over the boy and whatever garment under the blanket – there seems to be no differentiation between the blanket and the garment, assuming that what is on the boy is a blanket and what is below is a separate garment.
Any thoughts?
That’s a non-rebreather oxygen mask with reservoir. The bag is always inflated as it contains the oxygen reservoir to assist patients maintain levels.
Don’t know what your point is but I work in an inner city A&E and I see kids in conditions like that EVERY DAY. The idea anyone would need to fake it is laughable. Last week we had a two year old die of acute respiratory distress due to asthma and bronchial infection while sitting on her dad’s lap in the corridor, waiting for a bed to be free. Older people die on trolleys here every single day. People just don’t have a clue how bad things are.
She doesn’t have a point, she has a condition.
I think it’s you, Robbo, who has the condition. Your constant attacks on my comments signify a disturbed mind to me.
And your constant unhinged comments signify one toxic bint to me:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/11/paper-story-jack-williment-barr-online-lies-yorkshire-post
So, “unbiased reporting” is stenography, and “investigative reporting” is PR. I was a journalist for 15 yrs, fired three times for “biased reporting”, ie reporting the truth. I gave up, moved into publishing. Why be a whore when you can run the brothel?
Why be a whore when you can run the brothel? It may come as a surprise, but the truth is, that a significant number (especially in non-religously fanatic places) made their hobby a vocation. You cannot be a journalist for 15 years. When you are a journalist, you are a journalist. Whether you like it or not. It does not go away – this deep sitting self-explaining urge to investigate lies. It never goes away. You may not work based on this urge and, as you also did (so you say), switch to another segment of content creation. Free of the conflict between the misinformation your corrupt publisher wants to be spread and the truth you found out investigating a fishy story about a concrete plant owner. While it is much wiser to be a publisher, or even fiction writer, it is however not wise to publish the truth about… Read more »
Nonsense. Before I was a journalist, ie working for newspapers and magazines, getting published – and paid, I was a teacher. Before that an engineer involved in solar and other “green” energy work. Before that, an engineering business.
After I saw the futility of journalism, except the freebies and women, I chucked it, got into running the media that used to pay (and fire) me. It’s called experience.
You armchair patriots annoy me. What next, a true poet lives on air and rain water rather write crap for dinner?
Stop you sermonizing. Walk through a coup, armed with a camera and face nervous recruits fumbling their M-16s to get a story the editor won’t print, and then tell me about “you’re always a journalist”. Tosser.
This should have been his attitude from the beginning. When the game is so obviously rigged, the only way to win is to not play. A game rigged, thus to be considered, from one angle is an altogether different proposition than a game rigged from many. The heirarchy of the Labour party, that follows from its constitution and the practices of a seemingly endless series of officious gatekeepers, between a proposal from a member at a constituency meeting and its appearance on the agenda of the party’s annual conference is reasonably analogized as like a survival test between a succulent seedling in a small pot strapped to a tortoise’s back and an established cactus in a large gardening tub on the back an Arabian stallion in a high summer race across 100 miles of the Mojave. The chances of even the most mildly radical proposal making it onto the second… Read more »
After the JFK murder, the celebrated Dan Rather of CBS was the only journalist to view the Zapruder film. Who can forget seeing his sombre report of JFK’s head going ‘forward’ after the shot. It wasn’t until the Zapruder film was publicly available over a decade later that everyone could see JFK’s head going back and to the left. Evidence of journalists making stuff up goes back many years – Operation Mockingbird is still in force.
Oh, Dan is right up in there with the power elite as are a number of other big media people. We see that in 9/11. They all knew – of course – and even let us know they know. It makes much more sense when you realise that, essentially, 9/11 was Full-Scale Anti-Terrorist Exercise pushed out as a real event where the only major realities of the day were destruction of and damage to buildings. Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor asks Jerome Hauer, WTC Security Contractor about the cause of collapse of the twin towers: “Is it possible that just a plane crash could have collapsed these buildings? Or would it have required the prior positioning of other explosives in the building? What do you think?” “No my sense is just the velocity of the plane and the fact that you have a plane filled with fuel hitting that building… Read more »
!! Oxford College Dictionary DWEEB ALERT !!
I get the grammar, Robbo, and that he’s asking a question. You think my inference is unwarranted that this conversation is scripted? You do accept that 9/11 was an inside job, right, and therefore they want control of what the media says, wouldn’t you agree? You don’t want media people saying the wrong thing on such a big day – but my thesis is (backed my numerous examples) that in their control they always slip out the clues. And you will notice that in the last conversation between Brian and David it’s Brian who says the words “No. 7 … that just went in,” and “you knew this was comin’ all day.” So what do you think, Robbo, do you think that Brian knows but Dan doesn’t and that Brian’s conversation is scripted (surely, you don’t think Brian’s conversation isn’t scripted??) and Dan’s isn’t? Is that your inference from the… Read more »
What the young boy on the floor tells you is not that the Tories decimated the service, it could have happened easily under Labour, probably did, the boy is a vivid example of the service being not fit for purpose, it has failed to deliver, will never deliver, no amount of money can improve it, the principles upon which it’s based ‘the free at the point of delivery’ is but the same as the communist ‘to everyone according to his needs, from everyone …
It feels warm, noble, desired, but it ain’t doable. Communism collapsed, the NHS in its present form will also implode, it’s uncontrollable, unmanageable and prone to chronic failures. It has to be fundamentally transformed or it will bury us.
‘the NHS in its present form will also implode, it’s uncontrollable, unmanageable and prone to chronic failures. It has to be fundamentally transformed or it will bury us.’ – it IS about to be transformed assuming Johnson wins a clear majority. So whatever cash is left over after paying exhorbitant rent, sky-high untility bills and over-priced transport costs will find its way into the coffers of corporations keen to open up lucrative revenue streams driven by market conditions that favour them rather than those who might not have deep enough pockets to cover all of their health care needs. One family in the US was hit for a health bill of $244,806 after their daughter developed a brain tumour. Please don’t say we will all be insured – we won’t, at least not unless British citizens are prepared to pay far more for health care than they already do. Don’t… Read more »
Here in the US, 40% of families have less than $400. “Insurance” doesn’tprotect you from massive healthcare bills. If BoJo wins, you are totally fcuked.
It’s never been fit for the purpose that is popularly imagined.
http://www.frombehindenemylines.org.uk/2017/12/the-beneficent-nhs-where-corporate-government-makes-a-buck-from-population-control/
That was a shot from the Dad’s Army manual of Anglo Zio Capitalist propaganda. About as on-target as ‘Corbyn is Anti-Spasmodic’.
So tell us, Baron, why the NHS (which covers everyone) costs so much less per capita than the US health system (which leaves millions uninsured)?
Or financial ruin so that rich health care providers can squeeze as much cash as possible out of the sick
Unpaid health care bills are the biggest cause of US bankruptcy cases (put at 68%).
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/medical-bankruptcy-killing-american-middle-class-2019-02-14
The number of bankruptcy cases due to unpaid NHS bills is zero – for now.
Communism collapsed the nhs?! Fuck right off explain communism to me an actual communist and don’t use a google copy and paste job either
…the principles upon which it’s based ‘the free at the point of delivery’ is but the same as the communist ‘to everyone according to his needs, from everyone … It feels warm, noble, desired, but it ain’t doable. Communism collapsed, the NHS in its present form will also implode, it’s uncontrollable, unmanageable and prone to chronic failures. It has to be fundamentally transformed or it will bury us. In its present form it might well implode and it might then even bury you (but it’s more likely that your local funeral director will continue to undertake even that unusually pleasant task). The NHS is indeed uncontrolled because it is unmanaged (most recently intentionally so, i.e manipulated, by the managers of the managers) this time round–predictably–not by overfeeding it to compensate for it’s original, vermin-class distorted (thus decency-deficient) design flaws, but by starving it, as demanded by the swivel-eyed loon species’… Read more »
When I qualified 30 years ago the NHS I worked in was underfunded but working. Waiting times in A&E were humane. It was a rare event to have patients waiting on trolleys in the corridors or literally dying before they were seen. It doesn’t work now because evil pricks like you have creamed off its funding running tender schemes and outsourcing do they can get rich at the expense of ordinary people. When working people pay their NI contributions they’re paying INSURANCE against future need. This money funds the NHS (or should). It’s the same exact system used by private health insurers minus the massive profit margins and with distributed funds, which is why the NHS costs about a tenth as much for the same amount of care. Of course it works , it did work and saved millions of lives, and would work now but for selfish greedy fucks… Read more »
If the video link in the article doesn’t work here’s a YT link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PojRJo9-ltI Punch? Are you kidding me? Was it all staged though and is the cyclist “controlled opposition”? Have the power elite decided it’s Jeremy’s turn? It may well be real, of course, but as everything seems to be so controlled I always question. I have written a post, How major fraud propelled John Howard to election victory in 2001, and what surprises me in the film I analyse, Leaky Boat (a telling title), about the alleged refugee boats, the Tampa and the SIEV 4 (that “happened” in August and October, sandwiching 9/11 in September, before the November 2001 election), is that the Labor opposition leader at the time, Kim Beazley, seemed suspiciously “on board” with Howard. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/blog/how-major-fraud-helped-john-howard-to-election-victory-in-2001 This is the product of a totally controlled media class. A sub-set of the elite, conditioned to be obedient… Read more »
No.
Consider therapy.
Actually, Frank, just to say I only suggested it as a possibility because everything is so controlled but if he were controlled opposition then we’d expect “special” signs – they are good like that – and I can’t see any. It really is a good idea to check for the possibility because there’s an awful lot of controlled opposition out there. This is an excellent exposition of controlled opposition using the character of Goldstein in 1984.
https://medium.com/@roderick/what-is-controlled-opposition-3714bf797a7a.
Perhaps you’ll consider recommending your own psychiatrist, you condescending, virtue-signalling twat.
Consider that disagreement with someone prompts you to apply abusive epithets to them, Frank. Aren’t we supposed to be against violence on this site? Aren’t we aiming for peace? Violence whether verbal or physical doesn’t help us move towards peace, Frank. Why not simply express why your disagreement? No problems with that.
Not for nothing was Kim Beazley known as the Zeppelin without a breeze.
Whores & pimps of Journalism never promised the client 100% satisfaction guaranteed and customers of corporate whores are free to shop left or right side of the political street. Editors are pimp & whore brokers that assign the whoredom to the pimps & whores of Journalism. Schools of Journalism train the whores, pimps, & editors to expropriate value for nothing in exchange for services rendered so that consumers are repeatedly ripped off for value-exchange which is why they call the customers ‘tricks’ after they appropriate their money.
If media whores peddled the ‘truth’ there world be no left/right duopoly and everyone would become a Unitarian.
The truth is that media & journalism is mere propaganda and not really news. Orson Wells taught us all that news was relative back when he aired War of the Worlds in the day for the CIA.
MOU
What you don’t mention, and perhaps should, is that both John Major and Michael Heseltine (not to mention Ken Clarke) are all telling people to vote against Boris Johnson.
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/john-major-michael-heseltine-former-tory-mps-urge-voters-to-put-country-first-and-stop-tory-majority/07/12/
This kind of stuff is totally unprecedented in any modern election.
What you’re also not telling people is what’s going on in France at the moment: the biggest general strike in post-war history, and this latest wave of protests started in early 2006, nearly four years ago now.
These protests are all against the neoliberal agenda (ditto the EU agenda).
But if you go 21 miles across the channel to the UK none of these massive protests seemingly exist.
https://twitter.com/CerveauxNon/status/1202572490243006464
@RobG: “This kind of stuff is totally unprecedented in any modern election.”
Ken Clarke and his gallant little band also voted against the Bush / BLiar “Coalition of the Killing” in Iraq. I do not know what John Major’s agenda might be (as director in Rothschild Carlyle Group) but Clarke (British American Tobacco) seems to be an occasional voice of Conservative sanity.
Kit, I hate to tell you this but you have misjudged this one horribly.
Clearly the incident was a terrifying Marxist plot to thwart NHS-loving tories from expanding yet more hospital services, while ensuring the price of pharmaceuticals is not jacked-up in order to appease the corporate lobby in America who only want what’s best for our citizens.
Hard working cryptofascists should not be subject to such flagrant intimidation and it would probably be best for all of us if future demonstration were marshalled by tactical police units dressed in paramilitary uniforms that would not look out of place on the set of dystopian sci-fi’ movie.
Sadly that’s the only sort of language the hard left understand a fact which is seldom lost at the BBCs politburo or by Laura Kuenssberg
The point is that the NHS is already being privatised and the Tories are lying about it, blatantly and this RT video from Renegade Inc on 9th December proves the witness of highly qualified analysts- worth the 20 mins watching and listening:
https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/475353-uk-private-sector-healthcare/
most of the uk radio is owned by global radio glr london radio has a super story full of emotion about city of london fish mongrels
jack merrit talking about khan a very fishy zio tale indeed.
khans jacks coens what a family
nothing but liars deceivers and mentalists
everything media is psycho warfare scripted actors
init
Hahaha. Tulip Saddiq’s loyalty questioned on Ch4 news. Not a f***ing word about Indian nationalist Priti Patel or 80+% of Labour/Tory MPs actively working for Israel.
97% of all UK MPs are actively supporting the Gulf oil magnates. That is both the Persian and Mexican Gulfs. Oil in dollars keeps the FED printing presses on 24/7/365 without massive inflation. Some spoils of that are well spend amongst Five Eyes (and other) “legislators”, bureaucrats, judges, colleges etc. Just look at Canada or the EU top!
Even Off-Guardians are distracted by the popular Israel! meme.
Membership of Conservative/Labour/LibDem Friends of Israel isn’t a cultural phenomenon, it’s a cold hard fact.
Kudos to ch4’s Simian Brown for exposing the Tory social media fakery over the photo of the boy in Leeds hospital.
So we go from “made up deflection incident” to “the boy on the floor is a contrived image” riposte. Its getting hard to keep up.
LK doesn’t see it as pushing fake news . It was just a bit of “confusion” and was somebody else’s fault. As her later tweet shows.
Laura Kuenssberg
Verified account
@bbclaurak
Follow Follow @bbclaurak
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Happy to apologiSe for earlier confusion about the punch that wasn’t a punch outside Leeds General – 2 sources suggested it had happened but clear from video that was wrong
10:48 am – 9 Dec 2019
Very much a non-apology, isn’t it?
Ah well, it was a nice, if impossible dream and Jonathan Ashworth has just delivered the final blow.
“The issue of his leadership, which has been hanging around for years now, has come blasting back into the news”
Kuenssburg BBC 6 0’clock news 10/12/2019.
Johnathon ‘Dearlove’ Ashworth.
If ever there was a time Cob, to exercise leadership, it would have been now.
Johnathan Ashworth -backstabbing fifth columnist – kick him OUT!
The German magazine recently ran an article in which they still claimed “Russia hacked the DNC Emails”.We know that the emails might’ve been leaked from inside the DNC. Wasn’t there forensic evidence that was removed from the official report?
Quite frankly, I am not at all surprised. Mainstream media in the USA and most of Europe (where it slavishly follows instructions from the USA) has been in the fake news business for a very long time. I saw distorted and false reports in the US mainstream media of events I in which I was present already in 1984, and an interview of myself some 20 years ago completely changed and full of things I never said nor claimed and completely different from the subject I had agreed to be interviewed on in a popular media here in Switzerland – and that subject was by no means political. Some journalists can be very dishonest.
In my very limited experience, journalists seem very ready to “fake” things. Of two incidents that come to mind in which I was directly involved, one was local BBC radio, and non-political, and one was BBC national TV, and was to do with education cuts, so was implicitly political. the “faked” things were relatively trivial, and to do with scene-setting. Even so, it taught me not to trust them 100%.
To be fair, I’ve also had some positive experiences, both with local radio and regional TV.
I tend to think that TV lends itself to fakery, by its very nature. Radio tends to be more genuine, although not always.
in the usa and uk i believe it is not bell pottinger rita katz site intel group news
illegal for media types too make up stories.
please tell us your story baby jack
stories are stories full of e motion
kuwait understands the traumerville of babies on the floor
after new hitler saddam ran amok
did he or did he not
this
time filler and oxygen wastage
a babylonian play
before the word where sin bulls
names numbers gesture even a pointed finger
mean something a
code of sum such
the key is the name jack
as in jack
never trust a cohen a khan or a jack
i think you will find i said this before this
non dung event
no good guys here
i am sadly saying
all the politico actors captured
already
just sayin sayanim
init
You dumb mother****ers didn’t think that here at the MSM we just lie to you about Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Bolivia, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Brexit, immigration, the economy and the NHS, do you????
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
I know it’s just one lie after another and what frustrates me is that people will recognise the more prosaic lies but not the operatic ones. These guys have range – they can do the littler-but-still-highly-significant WMDs and they can do the big operas like 9/11.
When I confided my interest in staged events to someone I didn’t know recently, he said, “Well, what I wonder about is the refugee boats before the election.” I’m like, face-palm, yes, of course, it wouldn’t have just been the “children overboard” nonsense, the boats would have been completely made up. Of course, didn’t take long at all to find the evidence for it.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/blog/how-major-fraud-helped-john-howard-to-election-victory-in-2001
I suppose at least Peston apologised, can’t imagine we’ll get the same from Kuenssburg on the 6 0’clock news tonight.
I’ve posted LK’s later tweet above. She calls it an apology . Judge for yourself bearing in mind the alarmism of her original tweet ( activists “scrambled” .. it turned “nasty” ) . This is pure fantasy.
I wonder who the 2 trusted sources are that she blamed. She attributes no blame to herself whatsoever.
I think this type of thing is perhaps becoming a feature. That in propaganda terms we’re in transition from the omission/distortion stage being prominent to the outright lying stage. It is fairly brazen and journalists no longer seem afraid when their lies are called out. You’d think in the age of narratives collapsing one by one they’d retreat back to something subtler.
Amazing watching jounalists attack Peter Hitchens over OPCW. It’s like they get some enjoyment out being exposed for their lies and incompetence. Perhaps it’s desperation.
Peter’s Twitter feed is a must read for watching intellect and wit squash utter idiots.
I dont know who is advising Corbyn but agree – he should have put distance between him and the circus long ago.
Shock! Gasp!! Breaking News!!!
From Our Special Correspondent Sid Scurvy, Ace Reporter for the Daily Bugle.
– Experts now predict at least a 500 seat majority for Bojo on Thursday.
– Labour will get less than 50 votes nationally.
– Even Jezza’s dog refuses to vote for him. “I don’t trust him,” said Rover. “He keeps trying to make me bite Jews down the park. I’ve just had enough.”
– There are credible reports that Jezza is about to flee to Moscow to be welcomed by Putin in person.
You should replace “the Daily Bugle” with the Daily Express.
Seamus Milne, ex Guardian…enough said!
Nor is there any indication that any of the people involved were Labour supporters, let alone a mass of them ferried in in a hundred taxis. This outrageous fiction suggests that in this election the orchestration of the Tories, the media, capital and the owners of the means of production have come together to form a political machine. Like the Nazi machine or the Soviet machine we have the Tory machine. All very dark and very sinister.
Finally the ICM poll being quoted last few days have published their data https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/ICM-Voting-intentions-Data-tables-06-09-Dec-19.xlsx I suggest the amateur psephologists get on the case. I am out for the day so won’t have time to look properly but at first sight it looks as if their selected group voted 7% more tory than Lab in 2017. The actual difference in the election was 2.5% – So an over representation of 4.5%! Their basic raw votes are shown as 35% tory, 31% Labour. A margin of 4%. Remove the over representation and the raw difference becomes a 0.5% LEAD for LABOUR! It is only by adding undecideds in an uneven manner and the initial over representation of Tory voters that the headline tory Lead is invented. Subject to a fuller analysis and any major error on my part I declare GAME OVER. NOW YOU KNOW WHY THE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN HIDDEN AND… Read more »
You’re quite right of course but they don’t pay good money for polls to inform them of the truth. The only purpose of all polls other than exit, is to gather waverers and the undecided. And they obviously think they’re getting a good return on their money.
Hi DunG – I suppose this may be OT but over on the Craig Murray site when the topic was the curious absence of the Tories in this election campaign, you made a comment about a plan to have Labour elected so that the NHS would finally be carved up under a Labour govt. Unfortunately I can’t find the comment you made. But it has been playing on my mind. Do you think it’s possible? Of course it implies that the NHS is doomed anyway. But I’ve noticed an odd absence of Tory activity even where I live – in South West Scotland i.e. a trad Tory area. Maybe I’m getting paranoid but …I feel there’s something funny going on.
Could even be that the Blairites in the PLP have decided to sit back and let Corbyn and the Momentum-ites do the heavy lifting. Corbyn gets into Downing Street, probably with a tiny majority. He can’t get anything really radical through parliament, but that suits the Blairites fine. They gradually take back control (if you’ll pardon the expression) of the party, and lever Corbyn out (even if he is sitting PM …. there are ways). Then a “proper” leader (Blairite) is chosen and becomes PM, and then the real business can begin. The business of privatising the NHS of course, as practised by New Labour, and will be continued under its successors. May well even be a stitch up going on between the Tories and the Blairites. maybe that’s the “something” that George Mc is referring to. Might explain why Blair himself has been relatively quiet lately. Company directorships, knighthoods,… Read more »
I found the original DunG post:
The idea being that Labour could then be blamed for “finishing off” the NHS which can then be presented as “a failed Labour experiment”.
Also note that DunG is talking about what “would have” happened, presumably meaning if the Blairites still controlled Labour. But maybe they still do – or can again quite easily.
I stand by that. It doesn’t say what you implied above.
I did not make such a comment. Ever. Someone else.
What are you talking about?
I don’t know the truth about opinion polls, but they won’t affect me. There’s been some talk recently about them being a device to sway opinion not reflect it. Well I can’t imagine life without them!
I was going to vote Labour, but my MP is Ashworth and I can’t vote for him after what he said today. Chances are Labour will still win here, but they’ll win without my vote. Mine will be a “none of the below”.
Boris will likely win. I don’t like him and while Corbyn is likeable, he has shown a distinct lack of leadership in seeing off the antisemitism smear.
Fuck Ashworth. And all other NuLabInc 5th columnists who will linger on in their guaranteed majorities, to be the chicken coupers of the next parliament.