Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
There's so many aspects to this though. For one thing, as much as I do it myself, we have to be careful talking about "the media" as if it was a coherent entity. The FT and The Economist are completely different animals to the Daily Mail and The Sun, which are different again from The Mirror, or the BBC, or ITN. Some of them have been led a merry dance, while others are sunk to the nuts in Brexit ideology themselves, being owned by the same people that funded the Leave campaign. Some journalists dont understand these complex issues, as you said, while others are trying to simplify it to make it digestible for their readers, who they know will scan it over their cornflakes, or on their tea breaks, and have no time, inclination or ability to understand the nuance involved.
And then you get into the philosophical question about the optimal relationship between the media and the market. Is journalism essentially the same as any other business, where you make a product and its up to people to vote with their feet and consume what they want? Or would you make a case, as I have made for football clubs for example, that this is not an area that should be left to the market - that the media has a kind of educational responsibility to report, over and above the entertainment value people get from their news? And if so, how is that even achieved?
Of course you regulate to ensure a certain level of accuracy, but there is a line at which reporting fact becomes editorialising - are journalists free to offer their opinions, if sincerely held? Reporters should not lie, but how to you control what is and is not reported - which seems to me to be the single most important way the media manipulates news coverage?
This is before you even get into the added problems from New Media, with echo chambers and outright fake news written by people who dont even pretend to be journalists.
Corbyn is so shit, Torries have to say his lines.
The first sentence in that tweet reads like a parody account. Politics is truly beyond satire.
Don't panic though folks, our representatives are going to be working night and day to stop the country from crashing into disaster and.. oh..
You're right, in that I was excluding the likes of the Sun and the Mail, but I think it's a dangerous game to assume that Mail and the Sun journalists are expressing sincerely held beliefs. In fact, I think there's a fairly well strong argument that an awful lot of their staff writers are covered by my 'too concerned about their career' line.
I don't think your 'philosophical questions' are particularly difficult ones mind. We've seen what a deregulated (or self-regulated media) gets up to. There are valid concerns about how you ensure oversight of the media, and the Government's influence over the BBC editorial agenda is a good example of it, but the need for regulation is fairly unarguable.
Although a bigger problem is the privilege needed to get a job in the media. I'm sure there are very good journalists coming through, but when idiots like Dan Hodges get jobs (and even win awards) because of their parents opening doors for them you know it's fecked.
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@NinjaFletch a conversation for another thread and another time I guess.
I wish I could agree. But it's a bit like saying a car crash won't happen because the consequences will be terrible. IF tory MP's are aware of all this and have been playing this game for so long I wouldn't put it above them to just ignore it come 29th of March. They'd basically have to admit to talking bs for last 3 years if they didn't.
They’re hardly likely to turn around and say they just didn’t go their job in time. They’ll just find a scapegoat instead.
I'm still amazed that people think politicians actually know what they are doing other than playing party politics.
They are given far too much credit.
They are given far too much credit.
Yeah, but a scapegoat for cancelling the mess or a scapegoat for the mess? I fear the second. (And still hope for the first).
Me too.
Yep.
Real life politics is much more "The Thick Of It" and much less "House of Cards".
Absolute stupidity. The caller is a few sandwiches short of a picnic
Ireland don’t have much of an army for a start, it’s a neutral country
Maybe, but I think the media's inability (as a whole) to deal with the breakdown in competency amongst the political class is a pretty direct cause of where we are now. Sure there's always been Domesday cultists working for some big papers, but its the legitimisation the BBC gave the likes of UKIP from the early days which fanned the flames that led to Brexit.
Interesting in recent days to see people remember that a powerful Irish-American lobby exists across the Atlantic. Having all those Irish names in the last two US administrations may prove useful for the EU going forward:
First I just have to insert the disclaimer that I think the causes of this mess are too numerous and complex and interrelated to summarise in a short post.
Having said that, my take on it would be that while I agree it is a cause of where we are now, it is only one of many, and I wouldnt personally describe it as a primary cause, or one of the main causes. The media, as in the MSM, such as the BBC, are less powerful than they used to be. If I was going to attribute this to a section of the media I would put it down to new media more than old, to social media - Facebook and Twitter. A lot more has been said about this in the social media thread and I wont go into it too much here but I will repeat something I mentioned a week or two ago in there, which was about parallels between the rise of social media and the early days of newspapers, to the first cheap, widely available daily newspapers. As they gained traction in Europe the population became increasingly radicalised, and within a couple of decades, in 1848, you can revolutions across most of Europe.
For me, when you look at the kind of upheaval we have in the UK at the moment - and in the US and loads of other places, taking different forms and different levels of severity in each place - and you are looking for a cause, you need to identify something that changed. Has MSM changed significantly? Enough to trigger all this? Its dying, you could argue, but it hasnt really changed, not fundamentally. So why would all this be happening now? What has changed is social media, not the BBC. (I dont think the competency of the political class has changed much either. Maybe things have come out confirming pre-existing concerns about their competence and integrity, such as the expenses scandal (revealed by a bastion of the UK press by the way) but I think people have been pretty cynical about their politicians for a long time.)
But I dont even think that is the main reason. I think, if you are going to put it down to one thing, it is economics. Revolutions happen when extended periods of growth and rising prosperity suddenly end. When people get used to believing that, whatever hardships they face, things will be better for them in years to come than they are now, and that their kids will be better off than them, but then that belief is eroded or killed entirely. What is bearable when average prosperity is rising is not bearable when it isnt. And that is what we have seen in the last 10-12 years. In January 2007 people had optimism about the future. By the end of 2008 they were genuinely asking themselves whether their money was safe in banks. Then austerity happened, people no longer felt financially secure and resentment about inequality went through the roof. Today it is common for people to believe things will be harder for our kids than it is for us. People fear losing their jobs, they fear automation, they fear offshoring, they fear never being able to afford a house, never being able to clear their credit card debt and the rest of it.
People were angry and in the mood to revolt. And then, along comes a referendum about the EU. In retrospect the result is completely predictable.
So does the media play a role in that? Definitely. You cant put this down to a thing and deny the input of other things, it is infinitely complex and interrelated, as I said. Has the media helped channel the anger into what it is, scapegoating immigrants and red tape as though they are the reasons they have lost their financial security? Of course it has. But ultimately I believe the shit was always going to hit the fan, one way or the other, after the crisis of 2008. Especially given the way none of the shenanigans were ever really punished, the people who caused it ended up getting richer and a system seen as grossly unfair by many was left largely intact. A few technical reforms nobody really understands about bank capital hardly feels like a satisfactory resolution to a crisis that triggered austerity.
"With our own planes" Does he mean Bombardiers or something else from de Havilland? When has the UK produced planes to compete with the likes of Airbus and Boeing?
So stupid, it's criminal.
Bring back the Vulcans.
So the peoples vote group have pulled the amendment because it might not pass whilst simultaneously criticising Corbyn for not backing it when it won't pass. On top of that the same MPs criticised Corbyn for not wanting to put down the VONC when they thought it wouldn't pass
The People's Vote lot are just another group looking after their own interests and self-promotion, particularly Chuka
The People's Vote lot are just another group looking after their own interests and self-promotion, particularly Chuka
I guess they would argue that if Corbyn had backed it, it would have a better chance of passing. That it is his lack of support that gives it so little chance of passing.So the peoples vote group have pulled the amendment because it might not pass whilst simultaneously criticising Corbyn for not backing it when it won't pass. On top of that the same MPs criticised Corbyn for not wanting to put down the VONC when they thought it wouldn't pass
The People's Vote lot are just another group looking after their own interests and self-promotion, particularly Chuka
Out of interest why do you reserve greater disdain for Chuka than others calling for PV?
With or without Corbyn it isn't passing at this moment. All they've done is mouth off and then retreated to a position of wait and see on the other amendments which was Labours position they so opposed.
I just have a view that his actions or words are all done for calculated self-promotion (like Boris) and have been for a long time. I certainly don't have great disdain for him just a lack of respect.
Oh, I don't mean by 'direct cause' that traditional media were the primary cause or the only cause; I just mean that they were a direct cause and are worthy of discussion in this thread as much as anything else.
I agree with much of your assessment, but I think you're underestimating how much of a role the media played (and were played by people) in making the EU the scapegoat for the issues you identify. I haven't checked the facts on this recently (you can find a post of mine from when I had done the research in discussion with Nick either in this thread or the OG Brexit thread) but if memory serves we went from a situation in 2009 where Europe was such a minor issue Yougov didn't even track it as an issue people cared about to 2015 to UKIP being the third largest party by vote share. Sure, we had a bit of whinging every five years during European elections, but UKIP numbers were steady between 2004 and 2009 and there's no sign that eurosceptisim was the initial response to the financial crisis.
People might have been primed and ready for a reactionary 'solution' to the problem, but they were spoon-fed and drip-fed it as readily by traditional MSM outlets (in particular the BBC) who vastly overstated the importance of the issue in their typical hamfisted attempts at faux 'balance' and gave them mainstream legitimisation and oxygen (like for example on Question Time: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/question-time-ukip-nigel-farage_uk_58d95295e4b03787d35ae186) as they were elsewhere.
That's not to say that all this was not going on on social media too (of course it was), or to suggest that had the media smelt what they were being sold years ago it wouldn't have turned out the way it did (it might still have done), but it is more simply just that the media (as is often the case) were as complicit in making Europe news as anyone else.
@NinjaFletch I do certainly remember feelings of bewilderment and exasperation at the number of times they invited Farage onto QT. In the end I put it down to the hunt for ratings - people tune in to watch Farage, even if they loathe the man and just want to shout at their televisions. Which brings me back to the dilemma aspect of dealing with the media. In some ways you have to say we have the media we deserve.
But yes, I agree with you, the media is definitely an important component in all this.
But yes, I agree with you, the media is definitely an important component in all this.
Brexabort.
100% - see this for example
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/lon...umunna-steps-up-new-party-plans-a4021426.html
Hard Border photo on Facebook...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46984229
Well, I guess one positive of Brexit is getting the French out.
Well, I guess one positive of Brexit is getting the French out.
"spared no expense"Hard Border photo on Facebook...
Yeah, I think it cuts both ways though. It did often net a ratings boom (although after a while I cannot see how UKIP continuing to be on QT was an oddity anymore), but I also think there was genuinely a misguided sense that giving fashes a platform and 'debating' them was somehow the right thing to do.
Take the Nick Griffin debacle in 2009 for a reference point. He got torn to shreds by all sides and was utterly abysmal on it, but it resulted in a 2% swing towards the BNP (and yes, also a huge ratings success).
But that has always been conventional wisdom hasnt it. Brushing something under the carpet - racism, extremism, whatever - makes it fester and grow, whereas having it out in the open and debating it, that is how you prevail over it. That is like a truism. Obviously you cant test the theory but it seems entirely possible to me that if QT had completely ignored UKIP or BNP types, the referendum could still have happened, the result could still have been the same and we could be in here discussing how the BBC was complicit in the result because it ignored the concerns of everyday people and acted as though the two main parties were still basically representative of mainstream views.
Yeah, but like all conventional wisdom it's probably wrong. There's very little historical or current evidence to suggest that giving fringe views a platform (no matter how wacky they are and how robustly they're defeated) does anything other than make people aware of them.
Ill have to take your word for that as I havent looked at this question and studied the evidence as you apparently have. I wasnt even aware of the 2% bump in BNP approval after Griffin was on the show. I find it hard to fathom political nerds watching QT seeing him on there and thinking, "wow, I had never thought about it like that before, this guy is really onto something...." I mean, how big can the intersection between BNP voters and potential voters on one hand, and late night, topical news and current affairs programmes on the other, actually be? I always thought negligible, but maybe this is another piece of conventional wisdom I am spectacularly wrong for believing.
I wonder if the 2% bump you mentioned could have been the result of Griffin being perceived as a plucky underdog, representing the views of the silent majority of good, honest, white working class folk, as the forces of the establishment closed ranks against him? So it becomes less about the content of the debate, and more about the optics of one person being "bullied" by the rest of the panel. And then the sense that "the establishment" twists everything to make perfectly reasonable concerns about immigration seem like racism? So it becomes more of a sympathy vote bump, rather than people actually finding their way to the BNP by watching QT every week, but somehow not being aware of the existence of the extreme right until they are invited onto the show.
It’s pathetic how Boris, Davis, Mogg etc all pick up huge payments on the side.