UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 212

On July 15 2016 17:24 zatic wrote:
At this point I doubt a whole lot is going to happen for the next months or even years. I believe the UK gov will do anything to postpone invoking article 50 for as long as possible, and rather be in a state of continuous uncertainty than run off a cliff.

On July 15 2016 23:21 RoomOfMush wrote:

That could kill their economy. The last thing big businesses want is uncertainty. They want to plot their numbers years in advance (even though they are quite meaningless most of the time).

On July 15 2016 17:02 RvB wrote:

The Netherlands has an election in 2017 as well. Dunno if elections will change anything though.

On July 17 2016 20:03 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
I'm surprised they could find 13% that think England will win a major soccer tournament in the next ten years.
Gotta beat teams like Iceland first guys.

Three-quarters of newspaper stories about Jeremy Corbyn in the first months of his leadership either distorted or failed to represent his actual views on subjects, a study has found.

Academics at the London School of Economics analysed the content of eight national newspapers between 1 September and 1 November 2015, when Mr Corbyn was first elected.

The media researchers found that in 52 per cent of articles about the Labour leader, his own views were not included – while in a further 22 per cent they were “present but taken out of context” or otherwise distorted.

In just 15 per cent of 812 articles analysed, Mr Corbyn’s views were present but challenged, and in only 11 per cent were they present without alteration.

“Our analysis shows that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimised as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader,” Dr Bart Cammaerts, the project director concluded.

“These results relating to sources and ‘voice’ are evidently troublesome from a democratic perspective.

On July 17 2016 22:05 bardtown wrote:
Was there a control study? If not, it's essentially meaningless.

On July 17 2016 23:14 Dan HH wrote:

There's no such thing as case-control for studies that aren't about causal relationships. This study makes no no causal or correlative claims about why Corbyn's views are distorted in the media, it's only determining if and how distorted they are. But even if did make such claims, we know that a political candidate towards which the media is neutral doesn't exist.

So I assume you're not talking about a control study per se, but rather if they did this analysis about any other political figures? I haven't found others on the LSE site, but I disagree that this is only meaningful if the views of Tory candidates' or the views of other Labour candidates' are presented more accurately in the media, if that's what you were suggesting. This is a significant problem even if the views of all UK politicians are distorted by roughly the same degree.

On July 17 2016 23:18 silynxer wrote:
I found this interesting. Apparently social class is not a very good predictor for the opinion on Brexit while views on harsher punishment of criminals/death penalty are.
One shouldn't read too much into this of course. For example it could be that there is a high correlation between having a pessimistic outlook for the future, supporting Brexit and supporting harsher punishment but still.

Labour’s internal split over renewing the Trident nuclear programme was reinforced on Sunday as the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, urged her party to abstain from a vote in parliament on its renewal this week, while leadership challenger Owen Smith said he would back the government and Jeremy Corbyn said he would vote against.

The House of Commons will spend much of Monday debating the government’s decision to replace the fleet of nuclear-armed submarines. The vote was decided earlier this month by David Cameron as a way to put the decision “beyond doubt”.

However, the debate has threatened to exacerbate divisions within Labour. The leader, Jeremy Corbyn, opposes renewing Trident but many of his MPs take a similar view to Smith, and official Labour policy is to back the renewal. The party is in the midst of an internal review of its nuclear weapons policy.

Thornberry, who was shadow defence secretary until she was promoted following mass resignations from Labour’s front bench, said the vote was “shameful” and “a political game”, when parliament could have been discussing the Nice attacks and the coup in Turkey.

“There is nothing new in this debate – a vote in principle was agreed in 2007 – and nothing whatsoever will happen as a result,” she writes in the Guardian. “It is being held simply to sow further divisions inside the Labour party. The Tories know that those with strongly-held principles on either side of this debate will vote with their consciences, and the media will turn that into a fresh Labour crisis.”

Labour MPs, says Thornberry, “should treat this government and this vote with the contempt they deserve”.

“There are clear principled and practical reasons why Labour MPs should refuse to vote with the government on Monday,” she says. “They propose an open-ended commitment to maintain Britain’s current nuclear capability ‘for as long as the global security situation demands’. Such a vague, indefinite commitment precludes any possibility of Britain ever stepping down the nuclear ladder and contributing to global multilateral disarmament.”

In the piece, co-authored with Labour MP Clive Lewis, she adds: “We will be abstaining from this ludicrous exercise, and getting on with the real job instead.”

Labour whips are expected to grant MPs a free vote because of the ongoing policy review.

On July 17 2016 23:52 bardtown wrote:


The point is that the study implies that there is a causal relationship between Corbyn being the Labour leader and all this negative press. We already know that the vast majority of the press distorts politicians' political views. The risk you run is that this study may itself distort the situation by making it seem as though JC is unique in attracting this level of criticism, when in reality he isn't. That's not to say that he isn't, but to say that without comparing the data to some other figure it can only be used as an inditement of the press as a whole and not of their coverage of JC in particular, which is how it will be interpreted by JC supporters who are already convinced that there is a MSM conspiracy to smear JC.

Theresa May leads Jeremy Corbyn by 39 points over who would make a better Prime Minister (58% vs 19%).

British adults are overall fairly positive towards Mrs May. More than half of British adults say that Theresa May is a strong leader (55%). Only 13% say the same for Jeremy Corbyn.

Similarly, half of British adults are likely to say that Theresa May is good on the world stage, compared to just one in ten British adults who say the same for Jeremy Corbyn (48% vs 11%).

However, two in five British adults say that Mr Corbyn understands ordinary people, compared to a third who say the same for Theresa May (42% vs 31%).

Of all attributes tested, Britons are most likely to say that Mr Corbyn is principled, however Mrs May still performs better than Mr Corbyn on this strength (43% for Corbyn vs 44% for May).

British adults think both leadership challengers stand a better chance than Jeremy Corbyn of winning an election for Labour; one third say that Owen Smith has a better chance of winning a General Election for Labour compared to Jeremy Corbyn (34% vs 27%).

Indeed, similar proportions of British adults think that Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle have better chances of winning an Election (32% vs 36%).

Despite this, Labour voters are far more likely to think that Jeremy Corbyn has a better chance of winning a General Election compared to Angela Eagle (50% vs 23%), and Owen Smith (44% vs 26%).