Why I hate the Daily Mail, as distilled into one edition

Labour did OK when they had their own Lynton Crosby, i.e. Alastair Campbell.

Lynton Crosby has dined out for a long time on that 1996 Australian election. He aint all that. In fact, the tories generally have not been all that good at converting widespread hostility to welfare into support for their party.

Why are they in power then?

Crosby came in after Coulson got booted. Considering all the attention paid to Coulson and Campbell before him, it seems a bit *tumbleweeds* not to pay attention to messaging and the methodology thereof as it pertains to the current spin doctor.

Who is a key adviser to a democratically elected politician. If people don't like that, vote the politician out.

Why are they in power then?

Yes, my theory falls down when it comes to the landslide majority the Conservatives currently enjoy in parliament.

As someone who works in a student's union shop that stopped selling the Sun/Star etc years ago, should we stop selling the Mail? Serious question.

Labour's utter failure to have any spinny response to Tory benefits policies would be baffling if I thought they had any interest in putting up any serious opposition. How hard can it be to come up with some neat phrase that summarises e.g. the fact that 60% of children living in relative poverty have at least one working parent?

God yes, student shops shouldn't sell the Mail.

They should sell proper toilet paper instead.

xps, addressing working poverty and the ways in which the government subsidises business that aren't paying a living wage requires more spine than they currently seem capable of, unfortunately.

They should only sell the propaganda of that section of society that graduates ought aspire to, rah rah

wow that's almost as insightful and accurate as when you said people here were only dismayed by the Philpott story because he wasn't a Tory, good work!!

Sharivari, merdey otm re lack of opposition application, but it's prob highly attributable to the ease and directness-of-hit comeback "hey, this is your mess we're cleaning up"

Thanks stevie! I like to think i live up to all y'alls example in making important differences

xp "You're spending a fuck of a long time about it." / "Why are you giving tax cuts to all your rich mates then?"

Eh snoball you forgot to ad-hom the dissenter and you've clearly attempted to address the point, wtf? Itt you are either a good lefty (by default nu lab obv) or the earl of limerick iirc, and the rules of engagement apply

you've clearly attempted to address the point, wtf?

Sorry, I'm a bit out of touch with modern political debate techniques.

You qualify for opposition bench id say

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22025035

Chancellor George Osborne has questioned whether the state should be paying for the lifestyles of people like Mick Philpott.

Philpott has been jailed for life after being found guilty of killing six of his children in a house fire.

He has been branded a "vile product" of the benefit system by some newspapers.

Asked about such claims, Mr Osborne said a debate was needed about whether the state should "subsidise lifestyles like that".

xp "You're spending a fuck of a long time about it." / "Why are you giving tax cuts to all your rich mates then?"

Don't know what the first quote means, second one, because they're rich and it's like that, and that's the way it is.

There will probably be a Tory majority in 2015.

If I was a betting man... the only way the Tories will win the election is if the economy perks up, all this shite about benefits and immigration and other dailymailisms isn't going to win them the election

That's what a lot of people thought in 1983.

What after the Falklands War you mean?

Yes, optimism was high then for a Labour victory, Michael Foot was virtually a shoo-in for Prime Minister

And in 1987.

And in 1997. The tories aren't omnipotent, it isn't complacency to recognise that they have serious problems themselves. Start from where you are, not where you'd like to be. And not from where your enemy would like to be either.

er, Grasshopper

No, in 1997 they wasted too much time wooing the floating voters and lazily assumed their heartland would still be there. They weren't.

In 1997 they did not have a GOOD STORY.

Labour had a better one. The "time for a change" meme which is too early to work again in 2015.

good story bro

It's probable that, even if people voted for John Major in '97, they still felt that if/when Blair got in, it was a chance for Britain and for themselves to start over, to make something of themselves, a new beginning. It may even be why Blair won the election, before the war and everything else came along and made things complicated. I don't think there's a politician today in Britain who could inspire the same feeling. It's all make do and mend government now. Except they're ripping things apart as opposed to mending them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22024264

I am listening to this, literally aghast.

it was horrific, wasn't it?

Yes Ms Nash, a Milliband government would be doing it entirely differently, wouldn't they?

I've written to the Labour Party to ask which of the policies introduced this week they plan to reverse. It would be nice to have a sense that they stand for something.

Given what's going on at the moment, they just seem too meek, too quiet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032

Yeah, didn't think that would take too long..

last week, the first "Youth / Police Commissioner", a 17yrold girl, gets hired.

DMail decides this is outrageous

Then they track down her twitter account

This week, girl resigns.

Um. She tweeted racist and homophobic shit. Of course she should resign.

(Though working for the police, it's hardly a surprise that she's a bigot.)

Mail more vexed about her tweeting about (obv. made up) drinking and sexual exploits tbf

i think it's important to know what public figures were tweeting when they were 15 and i look forward to the Daily Mail's ongoing investigation

quite.

She sounds like an ideal Daily Mail columnist, tbh. Paul Dacre should give her a job.

a) None of the news reports I've seen say that she was 15 at the time of posting, they just say "before she took the position" - this would imply shortly before to me. Where is your information coming from?
b) If she was 15, this would still only be two years ago. I would say being racist two years ago is probably relevant for someone who has to work with disenfranchised youth.
c) Was her twitter feed protected? No? Then it's not exactly phone-hacking.
d) The Daily Mail are horrible scumbags, but I have no problem with a racist and homophobe being removed from a position of power.

Police are investigating her over tweets she posted between the ages of 14 and 16 which could be considered racist and anti-gay.

yeah this is bad and stupid. she's still a child. i think maybe if the point of the post was to have somebody representative of young people they might be struggling to find anybody who hasn't said anything stupid and offensive in a public sphere.

Ms Sandys, the South Thanet Conservative MP, said on Twitter: "Paris Brown should step down as youth crime Tsar for Kent... Gimmicks always backfire."

Mr Collins, the Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe, said he did not think the role should have been created in the first place, and called on Ms Barnes to admit that it had been "a mistake".

i wd describe this as "subtext"

I don't think the police should be investigating anyone for going "lol fags", but I don't think someone who says "lol fags" should be given a position like this.

Don't really care about the subtext when the main body of the text is fucking bigotry.

emil.y OTM

whose daughter is she anyway?