What the hell are the UK media up to?! (Politics)

[Wildtree]

I think they try too hard to be cool, and I wish they'd get back to journalism without all the bells and whistles, but as far as bias goes we have some people in this very thread stating the BBC is pro-Labour and others claiming it's pro-Conservative. It's bizarre.

Sounds like the publicly funded ARD/ZDF from Germany. They too are always accused for being biased. And usually too from both sides of the scale.

[Frozenbeef]

I watched a lot of news broadcasts on friday where the labour gain was downplayed and the conservative loss was ignored

[Kalis]

Essentially dont use the BBC for impartiality on British politics. An outside source is probably better since they dont have much to gain or lose.

For mainstream English language news about British politics, the BBC is about as impartial as you'll get.

[Trassk]

I watched a lot of news broadcasts on friday where the labour gain was downplayed and the conservative loss was ignored

Of course. Certain newspapers and news stations are owned by parties. This is why I don't buy newpapers except my local towns, and get all my news from multiple online sources for conferring points.

[Deleted]

I watched a lot of news broadcasts on friday where the labour gain was downplayed and the conservative loss was ignored

Well tbf, the Tory loss was minimal for the time of term and the Labour gain was pretty awefull considering the term aswell. Had Labour been any sort of popular they would have gained a lot more. The gain they made just goes to show how lackluster they actually are in HM opposition.

I doubt we will see another single party majority government for a long while now. Will no doubt require a coalition govnt again next year

[Trassk]

Well tbf, the Tory loss was minimal for the time of term and the Labour gain was pretty awefull considering the term aswell. Had Labour been any sort of popular they would have gained a lot more. The gain they made just goes to show how lackluster they actually are in HM opposition.

I doubt we will see another single party majority government for a long while now. Will no doubt require a coalition govnt again next year

Lib dem, who are they? Oh THOSE guys who made up the numbers and little else.

But sadly since labour did this, it could mean conservative will take ukip on as a joint party to beat labour.

[MerinPally]

Well damn. Heres some solace for anyone wondering about the Scottish vote, I havent heard of a single person who even considered UKIP. So hopefully they will shut up for awhile.

Why would they, the SNP are a kind of scottish UKIP. The people who'd vote for UKIP in Scotand, get a better deal from the SNP.

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Lib dem, who are they? Oh THOSE guys who made up the numbers and little else.

But sadly since labour did this, it could mean conservative will take ukip on as a joint party to beat labour.

[Deleted]

Why would they, the SNP are a kind of scottish UKIP. The people who'd vote for UKIP in Scotand, get a better deal from the SNP.

The SNP are more like the BNP rather than Ukip. The only reason the SNP are not banded in the same "racist" card as BNP is because they are in power. If the BNP pulled the same stunt the SNP are doing they would be instantly branded as extremist and racist.

Comment based on the fact that the SNP stock answer for most stuff is to blame the English/Westminster without every actually answering a question

[Trassk]

Eww.. I feel I need to peal off my skin and roll in salt after watching that.

[Deleted]

Eww.. I feel I need to peal off my skin and roll in salt after watching that.

hmm.. if you turn nick green.. then tilt his head the other way, and shave his hair off.. kinda looks like your avatar..

[MerinPally]

Eww.. I feel I need to peal off my skin and roll in salt after watching that.

I can make it worse. Here, watch this, it's definitely a good analogy to our current government. ABSOLUTELY NSFW (unless you have cool and similarly ideological coworkers)

[Kalis]

Well damn. Heres some solace for anyone wondering about the Scottish vote, I havent heard of a single person who even considered UKIP. So hopefully they will shut up for awhile.

Scottish politics won't be interesting for another few months - they only have 6 MEP seats to scrap over and the SNP might go from 2 to 3 seats...meh.

[Trassk]

Actually that one was spot on, lol ^^

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hmm.. if you turn nick green.. then tilt his head the other way, and shave his hair off.. kinda looks like your avatar..

Duuuude, don't, orcs have suffered insult enough. though in context to what kosak did to orcs lore...

Another thread, another time..

[Kalis]

Kinda half the point I guess, I suspect most people will vote SNP because of how little representation there is.

Little representation in what way? Not enough seats, or not enough of the main parties going after them?

[Activi-T]

I've never really understood the continued bitterness towards the Lib Dems. Yes they broke a promise they had no real business making but they didn't do anything other politicians haven't done to get into power, why are they being held to a higher standard of honesty than Labour and the Conservatives?

[Deleted]

I've never really understood the continued bitterness towards the Lib Dems. Yes they broke a promise they had no real business making but they didn't do anything other politicians haven't done to get into power, why are they being held to a higher standard of honesty than Labour and the Conservatives?

Likely because that group - students - make up a significant fragment of internet forums.

[Trassk]

I learned myself that you can't trust politicians of any party or there values, its all bunk. I did vote for lib dems in the previous election, thinking enough though they had no chance of winning, it was better then labour or conservative. Then conservative snatched up lib dems into there joint party and won, effectively making my vote for lib dems become one that gave more power to conservative.

I decided that day never to vote again, because even voting for the party that won't win your likely end up helping one you don't want to win.

[Deleted]

UKIP have gained a fair number of seats, but out of the total number of seats have around 3% of the total vote

Its FPTP so that's not how it works, UKIP got an estimated 17% of the overall vote in the local elections (where only 1/3rd of councils were in the pool), the average is skewed downwards because of how London votes/they only put candidates in less than half the available seats.

They put a lot of emphasis on it because of what it means for the EU elections, and they had an 8000% increase in councillors compared to last time.

UKIP were only expected to get 80 councillors, they got 160.

They didn't do "worse than the last local elections", its just how the average is skewed downwards by how many councils they decided to pool for compared to the overall available councils.

Labour did worse than expected compared to how the opposition usually does in Local Elections.

Its the first time in a century a new party has made these types of gains.

You'd have to have a good knowledge of the 1000s of council seats to get a good idea of what this means for the GE in 2015; (which is all that really matters) predicted swings/safe seats/likelihood of the protest vote reverting ect ect ect. Its much, much more complicated than 'Labour made gains so they must be doing well'.

You should have done a bit more research about how the average is worked out in conjunction with the Local Elections. Considering UKIP are polled gain a majority in the EU elections tonight, do you really think they only got 3% of the vote in the Local Elections?

[Deleted]

I've never really understood the continued bitterness towards the Lib Dems. Yes they broke a promise they had no real business making but they didn't do anything other politicians haven't done to get into power, why are they being held to a higher standard of honesty than Labour and the Conservatives?

Because most Lib Dem voters are students, for most students, this is probably the first hung election they've seen, or atleast been aware of, and the first coalition, that's all. Plus the fact that Nick Clegg comes off as a smarmy git at the best of times.

[Activi-T]

If it's just political naïveté why hasn't it subsided with time? It's been, like, 4 years.

Out of Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Farage, personally, I would say Clegg comes in third in terms of smarminess. (Farage, Cameron, Clegg then Miliband - from most to least)