Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[DarloRich]

The problem is that there will be plenty of the electorate who believe what they're told

of course - you only have to see the comment trail on any social media post made by Khan. Much of that seems to be bots or Yanks but there many home grown simpletons who lap this stuff up.

What is it about a brown man winning elections they are scared about?

 

[takno]

Anything that is critical of anything to do with another political party would be a start point.

Ultimately, I want to be told why I should vote for party A, not why I shouldn't vote for parties B, C and D

None of this happens in a vacuum, and the current situation is that we have an embarrassingly terrible government making the country much worse every day. If the opposition weren't allowed to point that out then they'd be forced to just make up a bunch of fictional stuff that they won't implement in order to appeal to the electorate. That wouldn't be better.

 

[Gloster]

Once Central Office have got it out there, some people will remember it dimly in the future and be influenced by their jumbled up recollections. The same with ’Beergate’: there was nothing in it, but some people will recall it vaguely and equate it with the shenanigans in Downing Street. Even the unusual amount of publicity about just how inaccurate this one was won’t dislodge the confused and inaccurate memories of some.

 

[jon0844]

Presumably he was offered "something", it'll be interesting to know what in due course.

You can likely bet on that....

 

[brad465]

Here’s an idea

Pass a law that bans all negative advertising in political campaigns. Make them focus on why they’re good, not why the other mob are rubbish / corrupt / flag shaggers / paedos / pro-Muslim etc etc

Obviously it’ll never happen mind

Define negative.

Anything that is critical of anything to do with another political party would be a start point.

Ultimately, I want to be told why I should vote for party A, not why I shouldn't vote for parties B, C and D

Go a stage further and ban all advertising full stop. If you need something, look for it yourself.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Anything that is critical of anything to do with another political party would be a start point.

Ultimately, I want to be told why I should vote for party A, not why I shouldn't vote for parties B, C and D

But if parties B, C and D are making claims that are misleading, or proposing policies that are unlikely to work, how will the electorate know if party A isn't allowed to tell them?

I do actually agree with you to the extent that there is too much negativity in politics, and it would be much better if all parties spent more time saying what they would do and less time slagging off their opponents. Ultimately, all parties tend to campaign negatively because in the short term, making people worried about your opponents has proven to be a much more effective way of getting people to vote for you than telling people what your own policies/philosophy is - but the long term impact on politics of everyone doing that is pretty toxic But sadly, I don't see any way you could legally enforce more positivity without lots of very bad consequences for free speech.

 

[SteveM70]

But if parties B, C and D are making claims that are misleading, or proposing policies that are unlikely to work, how will the electorate know if party A isn't allowed to tell them?

I do actually agree with you to the extent that there is too much negativity in politics, and it would be much better if all parties spent more time saying what they would do and less time slagging off their opponents. Ultimately, all parties tend to campaign negatively because in the short term, making people worried about your opponents has proven to be a much more effective way of getting people to vote for you than telling people what your own policies/philosophy is - but the long term impact on politics of everyone doing that is pretty toxic But sadly, I don't see any way you could legally enforce more positivity without lots of very bad consequences for free speech.

Oh yeah, it would never be enforceable, but its a nice thought.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Oh yeah, it would never be enforceable, but its a nice thought.

Agreed. One suggestion though - I would have thought it ought to be possible to enforce a ban on telling outright lies for political purposes, with some agency able to enforce that - we do after all have the Advertising Standards Agency that does something similar for commercial advertising. Any such law would have to be very carefully framed so as not to infringe on legitimate free speech where the facts of something are genuinely in doubt or people do have different interpretations of something, but I would have thought something like that ought to be doable. As an example, taking the description of the Tory ad we were discussing, as described by the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpw05l5p6d7o)

The video also warned of "squads of Ulez [Ultra Low Emmission Zone] enforcers dressed in black, faces covered with masks, terrorising communities at the beck and call of their Labour mayor master, who has implemented a tax on driving, forcing people to stay inside or go underground".

That's an bunch of straight-up lies, and I think there's a good argument that we ought to have some independent body similar to the ASA that could bring prosecutions against the publishers of that kind of material (in this case, the Conservative Party).

 

[SteveM70]

Agreed. The problem then wouldn’t be the most outrageous lies like the stuff we’ve discussed, but the ones designed to mislead but probably not a clear lie

 

[brad465]

I do actually agree with you to the extent that there is too much negativity in politics, and it would be much better if all parties spent more time saying what they would do and less time slagging off their opponents. Ultimately, all parties tend to campaign negatively because in the short term, making people worried about your opponents has proven to be a much more effective way of getting people to vote for you than telling people what your own policies/philosophy is - but the long term impact on politics of everyone doing that is pretty toxic But sadly, I don't see any way you could legally enforce more positivity without lots of very bad consequences for free speech.

This is a consequence of FPTP: it causes voters to vote for what they see as "the least worst", not what they want, so parties resort to attacking each other more because that's what the system causes. A combination of PR voting and mass-rollout of critical thinking education would go a long way to solving this.

 

[Richard Scott]

This is a consequence of FPTP: it causes voters to vote for what they see as "the least worst", not what they want, so parties resort to attacking each other more because that's what the system causes. A combination of PR voting and mass-rollout of critical thinking education would go a long way to solving this.

You can try and rollout critical thinking education as much as you like but reality is most can't be bothered to think like that. I work in education and try it everyday. If you have a sure fire way of succeeding please let me know as will honestly help me in my job!

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Two more Tory MPs standing down and resigning government positions

Ministers Robert Halfon and James Heappey quit government in mini-reshuffle

that brings the total to 98 Torys now. The ship is clearly taking on water faster now

 

[brad465]

You can try and rollout critical thinking education as much as you like but reality is most can't be bothered to think like that. I work in education and try it everyday. If you have a sure fire way of succeeding please let me know as will honestly help me in my job!

How do you teach it (i.e. a separate subject/qualification or part of another subject)?

 

[3141]

You can try and rollout critical thinking education as much as you like but reality is most can't be bothered to think like that. I work in education and try it everyday. If you have a sure fire way of succeeding please let me know as will honestly help me in my job!

One difficulty of course is that children hear views being expressed by their parents and other members of their family. If the result of being encouraged to think critically in class leads to a conflict with their parents' views, what will happen? The child may not wish to recognise that their parents are prejudiced and that their thinking is confused. The parents may get angry with the school for trying to brainwash their child - or so it seems to them - into viewpoints that the parents disagree with. The obstacles to a rollout of critical thinking education are considerable.

 

[najaB]

Anything that is critical of anything to do with another political party would be a start point.

What if it's completely factual? Eg. "Under the current government NHS waiting times have gone up 20%. We have a plan to bring them down again"?

 

[Richard Scott]

How do you teach it (i.e. a separate subject/qualification or part of another subject)?

Try and include it in the subject matter.
I think it's really important (events of 2020 highlighted that) but it's difficult as many just want to go along with crowd - especially with social media.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

What if it's completely factual? Eg. "Under the current government NHS waiting times have gone up 20%. We have a plan to bring them down again"?

Without disagreeing with the wider point you're making about it being impossible to split out stuff critical of other parties, is that statement completely factual? 'NHS waiting times' is pretty vague as a measure. What does it refer to? GP appointment waiting lists? Hospital waiting lists? Times between initial appointment and operation? People waiting to get on a waiting list in the first place? And are you using the mean or some other aggregate? When you pick it apart, rather than being factual, that statement is the kind of thing that might or might not be true but you'd need to specify exactly what measurement you're using to determine it.

And 'we have a plan'...Define 'plan'. Is it a vague 'We'll recruit X thousand more doctors overnight' without any thought having been put into where we'd find all these fully trained but currently unemployed doctors, how we'll pay for them, or where they'll work? In other words, something that scarcely qualifies as a plan? Or is it something that's been carefully planned in detail by subject experts, worked out, costed, risk-assessed, etc.? Most times in politics when parties claim they have a solution, I'd bet on something nearer the first.

Not trying to cast doubt on that the situation for people waiting for NHS treatment is dire, but I think that illustrates that what is 'factual' isn't always that simple. Which I think reinforces what you're saying.

 

[jon0844]

The Tories are all on brand by talking of 'the plan' without ever saying what it is.

Any remotely good news brings out the 'the plan is working' line and I suppose it might convince some people.

 

[SteveM70]

The Tories are all on brand by talking of 'the plan' without ever saying what it is.

Any remotely good news brings out the 'the plan is working' line and I suppose it might convince some people.

Give them some credit, they also say that Labour don’t have a plan

 

[najaB]

Not trying to cast doubt on that the situation for people waiting for NHS treatment is dire, but I think that illustrates that what is 'factual' isn't always that simple. Which I think reinforces what you're saying.

Note that the statement in the post you quoted was hypothetical, but you've illustrated the point that defining both negativity and truthfulness in political messaging are incredibly difficult.

 

[edwin_m]

The Office for National Statistics could have a role in monitoring when false claims are made or statistics used in a misleading way. Not that it did much good in 2016.

 

[Eyersey468]

The Office for National Statistics could have a role in monitoring when false claims are made or statistics used in a misleading way. Not that it did much good in 2016.

Or in 2020/1 come to that

 

[jfollows]

Good comment in The Guardian just now (https://www.theguardian.com/politic...vatives-labour-angela-rayner-uk-politics-live):

Labour has 99% chance of forming next government, says elections expert Prof John Curtice​

A lot of political commentary in the media is framed by the notion that there is still some doubt about the outcome of the next general election. In part that is just sensible caution, because nothing in life is certain, and unexpected things happen; in part that is because parts of the print media are very rightwing, and find it hard to conceive that Labour can or should form a government; and in part that is because journalism is about narrative, and it spoils the story if you reveal the ending in advance.

But it is probably time to give up pretending that the Conservatives might win. There are few people in the world of political commentary more cautious than Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist and lead election analyst for the BBC, and even he has decided it’s all over for the Tories.

Curtice told Sam Blewett from Politico that there is now a “99% chance of Labour forming the next administration”. He said the chances of a Tory revival were small and that, even in the event of a hung parliament, Keir Starmer was better placed to become PM than Rishi Sunak. “The Labour party will be in a much stronger position to negotiate a minority government than the Conservatives because, apart from possibly the DUP, the Conservatives have no friends in the House of Commons,” Curtice said.

So if you can get 100/1 odds on the Conservatives winning the next election it might be worth a punt, but any worse than this isn't worth bothering with. And any Conservative politician who seems to seriously suggest that they'll win the election is either lying or bonkers. Not that most normal people who participate in and read this forum think that they'll win.

 

[Magdalia]

The Office for National Statistics could have a role in monitoring when false claims are made or statistics used in a misleading way. Not that it did much good in 2016.

This function is already performed by the UK Statistics Authority, and its regulatory arm the Office for Statistics Regulation.

What we do

The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body at arm’s length from government. We have a statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that ‘serve the public good’. The public good includes: informing the public about social and eco

uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk

The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body at arm’s length from government. We have a statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that ‘serve the public good’. The public good includes:

• informing the public about social and economic matters
• assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy
• regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics

The collective mission of the official statistics system, set out in the Statistics for the public good strategy, is to provide high quality data and analysis to inform the UK, improve lives and build the future.

Our remit covers the three principal elements of the UK official statistics system:

• the Government Statistical Service (GSS), which is the cross-government community of all those involved in the production of official statistics in the UK
• the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority and the largest producer of official statistics in the UK
• the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) which is the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority. It assesses official statistics for compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, reports on system-wide issues and on how statistics are used, celebrating when the standards are upheld and challenging publicly when they are not.

A Memorandum of Understanding describes the responsibilities of the Cabinet Office with respect to the UK Statistics Authority, as an independent statutory body.

 

[najaB]

This function is already performed by the UK Statistics Authority, and its regulatory arm the Office for Statistics Regulation.

What we do

The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body at arm’s length from government. We have a statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that ‘serve the public good’. The public good includes: informing the public about social and eco

uksa.statisticsauthority.gov.uk

Do they they cover political ads, or just official government publications?

 

[Magdalia]

Do they they cover political ads, or just official government publications?

The Interventions Policy of the Office for Statistics Regulation is here:

Our Interventions Policy

The Authority’s role in making public interventions on the use of statistics Introduction We use our voice to stand up for statistics and to represent the public, reporting publicly where we have concerns and highlighting good practice. The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) es

osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk

We use our voice to stand up for statistics and to represent the public, reporting publicly where we have concerns and highlighting good practice.

The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) established the UK Statistics Authority with the statutory objective of “promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good”. This includes regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics.

In particular see the last point here:

When considering issues around the use of statistics we recognise that the context is important. We do not seek to be a mediator in political debate and it is not for us to take a view on decisions made on the basis of statistics. However, we will stand up for appropriate use of statistics. We will intervene if:

• official statistics are shared before publication
• the advice of professional statisticians is ignored, or
• official statistics or data used in a document or statement are presented in such a way that, in the Authority’s opinion, they are likely to mislead the public or undermine the integrity of official statistics

In considering whether documents or statements are liable to mislead, we judge whether, on a question of significant public interest, the way statistics are used is likely to leave a reasonable person believing something which the full statistical evidence would not support.

Anyone can raise a concern about the use of official statistics or data with the Office for Statistics Regulation.

 

[edwin_m]

The Interventions Policy of the Office for Statistics Regulation is here:

Good that this formal duty exists, but what is lacking is any sanction on politicians (or anyone else) who uses statistics in a misleading way. As far as I'm concerned they should be required to cease using any statistical claim found to be false or misleading, and issue a correction with equal prominence to the original claim. Failure to do so immediately could attract sanctions such as a fine (to be taken off the total permitted campaign spending) or even disqualification.

I'm not suggesting this should be applied to promises, just to factual statements that a someone having done a reasonable amount of research ought to have known were incorrect at the time of making them.

 

[Gloster]

Good that this formal duty exists, but what is lacking is any sanction on politicians (or anyone else) who uses statistics in a misleading way. As far as I'm concerned they should be required to cease using any statistical claim found to be false or misleading, and issue a correction with equal prominence to the original claim. Failure to do so immediately could attract sanctions such as a fine (to be taken off the total permitted campaign spending) or even disqualification.

I'm not suggesting this should be applied to promises, just to factual statements that a someone having done a reasonable amount of research ought to have known were incorrect at the time of making them.

So the politician issues a correction and if it is someone the papers dislike, then it will be blazoned across the front pages ‘XY admits he lied to the voters’. If it is someone they like, well, you might get a two sentence correction on page 47, just below an advert for ooh-la-la gardening trousers. And what happens if the person who made the original statement claims it was accurate or reasonable? Do you go through a long process of checking, with the party’s legal experts arguing, which goes on until long after the vote?

 

[Dent]

So the politician issues a correction and if it is someone the papers dislike, then it will be blazoned across the front pages ‘XY admits he lied to the voters’. If it is someone they like, well, you might get a two sentence correction on page 47, just below an advert for ooh-la-la gardening trousers.

Without commenting on whether this is a good idea, what you described would be prevented by the clause "issue a correction with equal prominence to the original claim".

 

[Gloster]

Without commenting on whether this is a good idea, what you described would be prevented by the clause "issue a correction with equal prominence to the original claim".

The politician might issue a correction with equal prominence, but does he or she have control over how the media report it. Even if you could somehow get the media to reproduce the correction of something they only reported, can you be sure that they will cover it with equal prominence: if they spent ten pages discussing something that later proved to be incorrect, can they spend ten pages discussing it being incorrect? And this ignores the risks of getting too prescriptive as regards the media.