UK politics general discussion

[WillPS]

So it's effectively more like a talk show about current affairs, kind of like Have I Got News For You and the like (but less satirical than HIGNFY)?

Eh, not really. I kind of dislike both but HIGNFY's primary intention is to entertain, with current affairs just being a backdrop to that in the same way that music was/is for Nevermind the Buzzcocks (ask your parents) but it never really intended to be a music programme.

GB News is trying to appeal to those with (and reinforce) the view that liberal values are to the average man's detriment. It's quite hard to explain to be honest, but imagine you're not a bright first year university student, full of hope and optimism... imagine you're like the opposite of that, middle aged, ground down by decades of a working life which has been somewhat poor - and you see these shifts in society which you can't understand or get on board with. Maybe you're "alright with the gays" but you can't get on board with all this trans stuff... and what you want to hear isn't that you should stop being a dick and accept that anybody can identify as whatever the hell they like, but actually hear 'the worlds going mad'. That's the person GB News aim their content at.

 

[Matt.GC]

Did no other news outlet post them?

Also, I never knew papers had biases… I thought they were all meant to be fairly unbiased? The BBC is unbiased, anyway.

Dear lord! And you're allowed to vote?! Have your parents kept you bound and gagged in the attic for the last 18 years?

 

[Alsty]

Probably worthy of it's own thread, but have a look at the front pages of the newspapers here and compare the differences in tone to yesterday's PMQs. The Daily Mail and Express in particular are very pro-Conservative. From what I can tell, The Express is written by Boris Johnson himself.

 

[Matt N]

Dear lord! And you're allowed to vote?! Have your parents kept you bound and gagged in the attic for the last 18 years?

I haven’t had the opportunity to vote in anything yet, but when I get the chance, I’ll make sure I have all the information I can get before making a choice. I don’t want to make an ill-informed choice, and I want to make my vote count.

For clarity, my parents also haven’t shielded me from the media, either, so it’s not like I know nothing about politics.

In hindsight, I guess the bias is quite overt in some of the papers (particularly the likes of the Mail and the Express in favour of the Conservatives and the Star in favour of Labour), and I did notice a distinct positive & negative spin in some paper headlines, so I guess I should probably have connected the dots earlier… I was under the impression that all newspapers were unbiased, though. All of the news sites I’d read never seemed particularly biased, anyway; they all just seemed to be reporting current affairs at face value.

I never really think to look for bias by nature, so unless it’s “ToriesRule.com” writing the article or whatever, or it had a headline that was very strongly in support of one particular side, I probably wouldn’t naturally twig the bias.

 

[geo4chg]

I haven’t had the opportunity to vote in anything yet, but when I get the chance, I’ll make sure I have all the information I can get before making a choice. I don’t want to make an ill-informed choice, and I want to make my vote count.

For clarity, my parents also haven’t shielded me from the media, either, so it’s not like I know nothing about politics.

In hindsight, I guess the bias is quite overt in some of the papers (particularly the likes of the Mail and the Express in favour of the Conservatives and the Star in favour of Labour), and I did notice a distinct positive & negative spin in some paper headlines, so I guess I should probably have connected the dots earlier… I was under the impression that all newspapers were unbiased, though. All of the news sites I’d read never seemed particularly biased, anyway; they all just seemed to be reporting current affairs at face value.

I never really think to look for bias by nature, so unless it’s “ToriesRule.com” writing the article or whatever, or it had a headline that was very strongly in support of one particular side, I probably wouldn’t naturally twig the bias.

It is almost impossible to get news that isn't unbiased in some way - everyone has an agenda or subconscious bias and you only have to look at how statistics (something that are data driven and factual) can be used to argue opposite sides of an argument to see how media can spin things to support their point of view.

This isn't inherently an issue so long as the reader/viewer/listener is aware that this is the case, but can be dangerous if people get their news from sources such as Facebook, or even news aggregators such as Apple News, as content comes via algorithms that mean news of similar points-of-view will appear in your stream - read enough arguments from the same perspective and it becomes hard to have an open and rounded understanding of the topic at hand.

 

[Rick]

The BBC is unbiased, anyway.

Which is why a government might choose to remove it or fundamentally change it, whilst selling off Channel 4 ...

 

[rob666]

I haven’t had the opportunity to vote in anything yet, but when I get the chance, I’ll make sure I have all the information I can get before making a choice. I don’t want to make an ill-informed choice, and I want to make my vote count.

For clarity, my parents also haven’t shielded me from the media, either, so it’s not like I know nothing about politics.

In hindsight, I guess the bias is quite overt in some of the papers (particularly the likes of the Mail and the Express in favour of the Conservatives and the Star in favour of Labour), and I did notice a distinct positive & negative spin in some paper headlines, so I guess I should probably have connected the dots earlier… I was under the impression that all newspapers were unbiased, though. All of the news sites I’d read never seemed particularly biased, anyway; they all just seemed to be reporting current affairs at face value.

I never really think to look for bias by nature, so unless it’s “ToriesRule.com” writing the article or whatever, or it had a headline that was very strongly in support of one particular side, I probably wouldn’t naturally twig the bias.

Thought you sneaked in under your dad's vote last election Matt.
I still owe him a pint for doing so!

 

[Matt N]

Thought you sneaked in under your dad's vote last election Matt.
I still owe him a pint for doing so!

Ah yes, I did; I’d forgotten about that!

He has little interest in politics, whereas I’d followed the election quite closely, so he let me vote on his behalf in 2019. I think I went with Corbyn’s Labour Party, as I liked a fair few of his policies… I think most of my family voted Labour, come to think of it.

It didn’t make an awful lot of difference, though, as the Conservatives still won our seat with a majority of around 30% and nearly 60% of the vote… our constituency of the Forest of Dean is a fairly safe Tory seat and has been since 2005.

We were also one of the seats most in favour of Brexit (I think our Leave vote was something like 60%? UKIP also got a pretty strong vote share of nearly 20% around here in 2015), so in that regard, I guess Boris’ 2019 stance would have been pretty appealing to your average FoD resident…

 

[Matt N]

In other news, the Sue Gray report has now been handed to Boris Johnson, and it will be released publicly in “a few hours”, with Boris making a statement in the Commons at 3:30pm: https://apple.news/A0EoeJC6gSJOJy17wXgJq_A

I feel like the next few days could be very turbulent politically…

 

[JAperson]

In other news, the Sue Gray report has now been handed to Boris Johnson, and it will be released publicly in “a few hours”, with Boris making a statement in the Commons at 3:30pm: https://apple.news/A0EoeJC6gSJOJy17wXgJq_A

I feel like the next few days could be very turbulent politically…

I don’t think the Sue Gray report will say much at all. It will be designed to protect her colleagues and then by extension the PM and other politicians.
If anyone has ever seen yes minister you will know what I am on about, the show seems more relevant today then ever. As much as it’s a comedy it seems to demonstrate just this type of situation,

 

[Matt N]

I don’t think the Sue Gray report will say much at all. It will be designed to protect her colleagues and then by extension the PM and other politicians.
If anyone has ever seen yes minister you will know what I am on about, the show seems more relevant today then ever. As much as it’s a comedy it seems to demonstrate just this type of situation,

Apparently Sue Gray isn’t actually a Conservative, so she has no strong bias; she’s also worked for Labour governments as well.

As much as she does work for the Cabinet, she has a reputation of doing very good, truthful reports in the past, so I don’t see why this one wouldn’t be the same.

I don’t think she’ll declare anyone culpable, but she will give details of what happened; this report will tell us the facts.

 

[JAperson]

Apparently Sue Gray isn’t actually a Conservative, so she has no strong bias; she’s also worked for Labour governments as well.

As much as she does work for the Cabinet, she has a reputation of doing very good, truthful reports in the past, so I don’t see why this one wouldn’t be the same.

I don’t think she’ll declare anyone culpable, but she will give details of what happened; this report will tell us the facts.

But I think you miss the point that her other mates, other civil servants were at these parties, she won’t want all her colleagues in that position. I think it will tell us the bare minimum.

 

[Rob]

But I think you miss the point that her other mates, other civil servants were at these parties, she won’t want all her colleagues in that position. I think it will tell us the bare minimum.

She's referred the matter to the police, so I think the final report whenever we see it is going to be pretty damning.

 

[BarryZola]

It'll clearly get whitewashed.

 

[Thameslink Rail]

Enjoy folks
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ent-premises-during-covid-restrictions-update

 

[BarryZola]

Report here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ent-premises-during-covid-restrictions-update

 

[Matt N]

Sue Gray’s report has come out, and it’s surprisingly damning, with some surprisingly strong language used. If you don’t want to read the report for yourself, some of the key info includes:

• 12 different events over 8 different days are being investigated by the Met Police. 16 gatherings in total.
• Some of the behaviour surrounding the gatherings was deemed “difficult to justify”.
• The gatherings have been deemed “a serious failure to observe the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time”.
• The report states that “too little thought was given to what was happening across the country”, that “some of the events should not have been allowed to take place”, and that “other events should not have been allowed to develop as they did”.
• The “excessive consumption of alcohol” was deemed inappropriate in a professional workplace “at any time”, and the report encourages the government to set out a clear & robust policy surrounding this.
• The garden was used for gatherings “without clear authorisation or oversight” according to the report. The report states that “any official access to the space, including for meetings, should be by invitation only and in a controlled environment”.
• Sue Gray concluded by saying that there is “significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across government”, which she says “does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded”.

I’m interested to see Boris’ Commons statement at 3:30pm… I think it could be tense.

 

[BarryZola]

First thing, apparently the investigation was looking into 16 different gatherings. Yes, 16 (there were multiple gatherings on some days). Of those, 12 will apparently be looked into by the police.

Second thing I've noticed:

"In respect of the gatherings that the Metropolitan Police has assessed as not
reaching the threshold for criminal investigation; they have not requested any
limitations be placed on the description of those events, however, I have decided
not to publish factual accounts in relation to those four dates. I do not feel that I am
able to do so without detriment to the overall balance of the findings."

So even the 4 events where the police are not going to investigate, Sue Gray still is not willing to give any details.

Next thing I'm finding (in the findings & conclusion) is that this is going to lead to a massive 'Lesson's will need to be learned' but then they'll just carry on doing whatever they want to, as per usual:

"A number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did. There is significant learning to be drawn from these events which must be addressed immediately across Government. This does not need to wait for the police investigations to be concluded".

Just what I expected. Very vague. Now for them to string out the police investigation for as long as physically possible until the findings eventually become less relevant than they are in the current period. We've been done again.

 

[Matt N]

Just what I expected. Very vague. Now for them to string out the police investigation for as long as physically possible until the findings eventually become less relevant than they are in the current period. We've been done again.

What reason does the police have to draw out the investigation beyond the absolute minimum length, out of interest? The government has nothing to do with it, so there’s no political bias influencing it.

The report is being described as “preliminary” and as an “interim” report, so I think the intent is that we will get the full thing eventually.

 

[WillPS]

I want so badly to trust the Police are impartial, and that if there is any scent of interference from number 10 in their undertakings that somebody will do the right thing and leak it.

I just can't believe that an investigation in to wether or not a fine should be issued is something that should take more than a few days. The whole point of FPNs is they are for crimes where the offense is of an overwhelmingly obvious or strict liability nature.