General Election, June 8th

[Strokes]

Hung parliament with a rerun would be ideal, a chance to put May out to pasture and get someone decent at the front. Then with a proper conservative manifesto, I could vote for them. 

[Guest MattP]

Just watch it, genuinely shocked at times.

 

I knew the Cambridge audience would be bad but even I didn't think it would be like that, BBC have a lot to answer for.

 

At one point Nuttall and Lucas said exactly the same thing regarding Saudi, total silence for the former and huge applause for the latter

 

Fair play to Rudd, to do that hours after your Dad has died is incredible.

[katieakita]

6 hours ago, MattP said:

Just watch it, genuinely shocked at times.

 

I knew the Cambridge audience would be bad but even I didn't think it would be like that, BBC have a lot to answer for.

 

At one point Nuttall and Lucas said exactly the same thing regarding Saudi, total silence for the former and huge applause for the latter

 

Fair play to Rudd, to do that hours after your Dad has died is incredible.

Disagree the only one who has something to answer is May she has had an absolute shocker this campaign and has done nothing to raise her stock. Vote for me because everybody else is rubbish is always going to be risky. All well and good giving reasons not to vote for the rivals but May has done nothing to encourage people to vote for her. 

[Footballwipe]

8 hours ago, MattP said:

Just watch it, genuinely shocked at times.

 

I knew the Cambridge audience would be bad but even I didn't think it would be like that, BBC have a lot to answer for.

 

At one point Nuttall and Lucas said exactly the same thing regarding Saudi, total silence for the former and huge applause for the latter

 

Fair play to Rudd, to do that hours after your Dad has died is incredible.

 

Quote

The BBC asked polling company ComRes to pick audience that is representative of the country demographically and politically.

 

Maybe ComRes have a lot to answer for? The BBC have outsourced something to a private company to do and people still aren't happy with it. Amazing.

[Jimothy]

Boris just spent a 5 minute interview on BBC breakfast, plus another 5 minutes or so on 5Live which I caught in the car, bashing Labour and telling us why we shouldn't vote for them. Telling us if we do they'll go into coalition with the Lib Dems and the SNP. Also he consistently forgot Nicola Sturgeon's name. 

 

Not great is it. Firstly stop telling my why I shouldn't vote for the other side, and tell me why I should vote for you. Sell your party to me. Secondly Stop assuming it'll be a coalition, maybe as unlikely as it might seem, but if labour get enough votes, they'll get a majority. Thirdly after the shit Corbyn got for double checking an exact figure, let's see how much Boris gets for not remembering the name of the leader of the third largest political party in the U.K. This is a man who we send abroad to represent us and he struggles to remember prominent people's names. 

 

Poorest interviews of the campaign so far, even compared to Abbott, so that's saying something.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

16 minutes ago, Facecloth said:

Not great is it. Firstly stop telling my why I shouldn't vote for the other side, and tell me why I should vote for you.

Sums up politics for me. I'm not voting against all your rivals, I'm voting FOR you. If it were up to me in these debates (of which I managed about 3 minutes last night before I had to turn it off), chatting sh!t about the other parties would turn your microphone off. 

[AndWhat?]

Tories wouldn't have anything to say if they weren't allowed to chat shit about Labour. 

[The Guvnor]

9 hours ago, MattP said:

Just watch it, genuinely shocked at times.

 

I knew the Cambridge audience would be bad but even I didn't think it would be like that, BBC have a lot to answer for.

 

At one point Nuttall and Lucas said exactly the same thing regarding Saudi, total silence for the former and huge applause for the latter

 

Fair play to Rudd, to do that hours after your Dad has died is incredible.

Paul Nuttall would have been booed even  if he was throwing £20 notes into that audience. 

[Realist Guy In The Room]

9 hours ago, MattP said:

Just watch it, genuinely shocked at times.

 

I knew the Cambridge audience would be bad but even I didn't think it would be like that, BBC have a lot to answer for.

 

At one point Nuttall and Lucas said exactly the same thing regarding Saudi, total silence for the former and huge applause for the latter

 

Fair play to Rudd, to do that hours after your Dad has died is incredible.

Rudd was thrown under the bus and any Tory in the room knew it and that's why they were silent.  Nothing to do with a left wing audience.

 

I felt really sorry for her because anything she had to say was always undermined by the fact that it was her saying it and not May.

 

Forget the past.  In the here and now, Theresa May is a worse leader than Corbyn.

[The Floyd]

Perhaps slightly Orwellian but I do wish the audience were forced to be silent during debates. 

[Guest]

Just now, The Floyd said:

Perhaps slightly Orwellian but I do wish the audience were forced to be silent during debates. 

They'd be no point in having an audience in that case. 

I'd rather the candidates were forced to be c quiet when others are answering!

[ramboacdc]

well my vote has been made up. The lib dem candidate for North west leicestershire decided to start sharing britain first esque stuff on his facebook the other day and stood by it when challenged. I complained to the party since i am a member and they are looking into it, and broke the confidentiality and told him it was me. Cue the barrage of shit my way. Never even thought of putting it on social media or telling any press about it (like they would care to be honest.) Not supporting someone who has those sort of right wing views. My vote is going to Corbyn. 

[The Floyd]

Just now, toddybad said:

They'd be no point in having an audience in that case. 

I'd rather the candidates were forced to be c quiet when others are answering!

They'd still be posing the questions, your second sentence I can strongly agree with though. 

[ramboacdc]

11 hours ago, filthyfox said:

That is about as hung as you can get. Hopefully will mean a second general election.... as a presiding officer at a poll station, I will be quids in!

i was looking at vote counting for this and offered £125. how much is presiding officer and chief presiding officer? 

11 hours ago, filthyfox said:

Her suicide was the care at home policy. Just spent a fortune choosing a decent home for mother in law that allows for limited mobility only to find that it will be taken away if she needs care in it.

that and no costing in her manifesto have cost her here. 

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, ramboacdc said:

i was looking at vote counting for this and offered £125. how much is presiding officer and chief presiding officer? 

that and no costing in her manifesto have cost her here. 

The fact that public services are collapsing isn't helping either....

[Innovindil]

Foxestalk has become infected with lib dems adverts!

 

 

[yorkie1999]

What would happen if no-one voted in protest at a bunch of lying scheming highwaymen whose sole purpose in life is to persuade everyone to believe in them by offering them the earth and then spend the next 5 years figuring out ways to break their promises while creaming as much dough of the people that put them there in the first place. That scotch pygmy is about the most honest of the lot.

[Alf Bentley]

Well, I don't think anything in last night's debate was a game-changer, unless the furore over May's non-attendance lasts several days, which it probably won't.

Neither Corbyn nor anyone else will have seized the nation's imagination, but nor did anyone ruin their reputation.

 

Here are my ratings, doing my best to judge on performance, not how much I agree with them:

Farron 8 MoM - Several wounding one-liners, somehow avoided attack for defying the Brexit vote

Lucas 8 WoM - Less fireworks than Farron, but the most articulate panelist

SNP bod 7 - Landed some sharp blows on Corbyn & Rudd, but waffled & disappeared at times

Corbyn 6 - Took a few blows, but nothing fatal, made some good points but weak on Brexit & spoke too much to his core vote

Rudd 6 - Resilient under pressure, but took a few blows (e.g. Tory record laughed at), got some sharp points at Corbyn

Nuttall 5.5 - Handled it better than I was expecting, but nothing much to appeal beyond his dwindling core vote

Wood 5 - One or two decent points, but not very articulate and didn't make much of an impression

May 0 - Loses credibility for not attending, but events will move on so will probably do her little harm

 

Ref (Mishal) 6 - Asked all participants some sharp questions, but sometimes allowed speakers to get drowned out....though it's a difficult balance; a bit of heckling/interjecting is fair

 

Audience 6 - A decent range of questions, though debate about Brexit and economy was brief. There was definitely more cheering of lefty points (Nats, Farron & Lucas, rather than Corbyn) than of Tory/UKIP, but didn't sound like the whole of the audience.

As Com Res were tasked with providing a strictly balanced audience, I assume they did - and should be challenged if there's any evidence that they didn't. Maybe lefty audience members just made more noise? In fairness, there can be an element of self-righteous display from some lefties proclaiming how right-on they are about poverty, internationalism or immigration. So maybe some were cheering loudly to big themselves up, while the Tory boys (and Tories are older, on average) were sitting silently, more like a cross between Arsenal fans and the Flask Army? 

[LiberalFox]

1 hour ago, ramboacdc said:

well my vote has been made up. The lib dem candidate for North west leicestershire decided to start sharing britain first esque stuff on his facebook the other day and stood by it when challenged. I complained to the party since i am a member and they are looking into it, and broke the confidentiality and told him it was me. Cue the barrage of shit my way. Never even thought of putting it on social media or telling any press about it (like they would care to be honest.) Not supporting someone who has those sort of right wing views. My vote is going to Corbyn. 

 

Is this stuff publicly viewable?

[Guest MattP]

4 hours ago, katieakita said:

Disagree the only one who has something to answer is May she has had an absolute shocker this campaign and has done nothing to raise her stock. Vote for me because everybody else is rubbish is always going to be risky. All well and good giving reasons not to vote for the rivals but May has done nothing to encourage people to vote for her. 

What that supposed to be a reply to me? I agree with you by the way.

 

2 hours ago, Footballwipe said:

Maybe ComRes have a lot to answer for? The BBC have outsourced something to a private company to do and people still aren't happy with it. Amazing.

I knew as soon as they said they had outsourced it what was coming, we hear the same every time, "representative" of the public - if that was the case about 42-25% of the audience should have been Tories, instead we get people whooping at things Caroline Lucas has said and the SNP being lauded in an English city. They were about as balanced as a gorilla on a unicycle.

 

Not the first time, won't be the last.It's no different to the one in 2015, Farage was saying stuff about stricter controls immigration (which polls at about 85% support) and being booed by the audience   Last night we had the incredible sight of people groaning when Paul Nuttall mentioned Islamic fundamentalism.

 

Lucas got HUGE cheers for saying we should scrap nuclear weapons, another policy that is unpopular with the public.

 

1 hour ago, Realist Guy In The Room said:

Rudd was thrown under the bus and any Tory in the room knew it and that's why they were silent.  Nothing to do with a left wing audience.

If you don't think that was a left wing audience then I really don't know what to say, total denial. Even left wing journos were admitted it last night, something I never thought I would see as they generally bunker down on that issue.

 

This feels like most left-wing audience in any election debate. #BBCDebate

— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) May 31, 2017

The person responsible for balancing the audience on #bbcdebate is presumably backstage, being chased around by an angry Tory press officer.

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) May 31, 2017

What is going on with the #BBCDebate audience? Know how meticulously these things are chosen but it sounds like Momentum filled up the seats

— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) May 31, 2017

There’s no way this is a balanced audience. #BBCDebate

— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) May 31, 2017

Let's be honest though. I'm a leftie, but that was the most left-wing audience in the history of anything #BBCDebate

— James (@JamesFl) May 31, 2017

 

Journalists from Labour-supporting publications admitting the BBC audience was laughably biased towards Labour tonight.

 

I can see why Theresa May didn't bother turning up, her just stood there being shouted at by a load of Corbynistas would have been tragic and far worse than not turning up. She knew exactly what was coming with a BBC (or comres sorry) audience, fair play to her for spotting it.

 

1 hour ago, The Floyd said:

Perhaps slightly Orwellian but I do wish the audience were forced to be silent during debates. 

Agree.

 

The shouting over each other was also dreadful but as much blame for that goes on the hopeless presenter.

[Guest MattP]

8 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

Well, I don't think anything in last night's debate was a game-changer, unless the furore over May's non-attendance lasts several days, which it probably won't.

Neither Corbyn nor anyone else will have seized the nation's imagination, but nor did anyone ruin their reputation.

 

Here are my ratings, doing my best to judge on performance, not how much I agree with them:

Farron 8 MoM - Several wounding one-liners, somehow avoided attack for defying the Brexit vote

Lucas 8 WoM - Less fireworks than Farron, but the most articulate panelist

SNP bod 7 - Landed some sharp blows on Corbyn & Rudd, but waffled & disappeared at times

Corbyn 6 - Took a few blows, but nothing fatal, made some good points but weak on Brexit & spoke too much to his core vote

Rudd 6 - Resilient under pressure, but took a few blows (e.g. Tory record laughed at), got some sharp points at Corbyn

Nuttall 5.5 - Handled it better than I was expecting, but nothing much to appeal beyond his dwindling core vote

Wood 5 - One or two decent points, but not very articulate and didn't make much of an impression

May 0 - Loses credibility for not attending, but events will move on so will probably do her little harm

 

Ref (Mishal) 6 - Asked all participants some sharp questions, but sometimes allowed speakers to get drowned out....though it's a difficult balance; a bit of heckling/interjecting is fair

 

Audience 6 - A decent range of questions, though debate about Brexit and economy was brief. There was definitely more cheering of lefty points (Nats, Farron & Lucas, rather than Corbyn) than of Tory/UKIP, but didn't sound like the whole of the audience.

As Com Res were tasked with providing a strictly balanced audience, I assume they did - and should be challenged if there's any evidence that they didn't. Maybe lefty audience members just made more noise? In fairness, there can be an element of self-righteous display from some lefties proclaiming how right-on they are about poverty, internationalism or immigration. So maybe some were cheering loudly to big themselves up, while the Tory boys (and Tories are older, on average) were sitting silently, more like a cross between Arsenal fans and the Flask Army? 

That's a very fair point, you do get that from the let wingers even on shows like QT - but at one stage the camera panned out and at first glance it looked like 80% of the audience were clapping when Caroline Lucas said something about Freedom of Movement being wonderful.

 

[RobHawk]

Lets be honest, The room wasn't representative of the views of those eligible to vote across the UK, otherwise the room would have been 2/3's empty!

[Realist Guy In The Room]

14 minutes ago, MattP said:

What that supposed to be a reply to me? I agree with you by the way.

 

I knew as soon as they said they had outsourced it what was coming, we hear the same every time, "representative" of the public - if that was the case about 42-25% of the audience should have been Tories, instead we get people whooping at things Caroline Lucas has said and the SNP being lauded in an English city. They were about as balanced as a gorilla on a unicycle.

 

Not the first time, won't be the last.It's no different to the one in 2015, Farage was saying stuff about stricter controls immigration (which polls at about 85% support) and being booed by the audience   Last night we had the incredible sight of people groaning when Paul Nuttall mentioned Islamic fundamentalism.

 

Lucas got HUGE cheers for saying we should scrap nuclear weapons, another policy that is unpopular with the public.

 

If you don't think that was a left wing audience then I really don't know what to say, total denial. Even left wing journos were admitted it last night, something I never thought I would see as they generally bunker down on that issue.

 

This feels like most left-wing audience in any election debate. #BBCDebate

— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) May 31, 2017

The person responsible for balancing the audience on #bbcdebate is presumably backstage, being chased around by an angry Tory press officer.

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) May 31, 2017

What is going on with the #BBCDebate audience? Know how meticulously these things are chosen but it sounds like Momentum filled up the seats

— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) May 31, 2017

There’s no way this is a balanced audience. #BBCDebate

— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) May 31, 2017

Let's be honest though. I'm a leftie, but that was the most left-wing audience in the history of anything #BBCDebate

— James (@JamesFl) May 31, 2017

 

Journalists from Labour-supporting publications admitting the BBC audience was laughably biased towards Labour tonight.

 

I can see why Theresa May didn't bother turning up, her just stood there being shouted at by a load of Corbynistas would have been tragic and far worse than not turning up. She knew exactly what was coming with a BBC (or comres sorry) audience, fair play to her for spotting it.

 

Agree.

 

The shouting over each other was also dreadful but as much blame for that goes on the hopeless presenter.

I cannot agree about the audience.

 

Last night was Rudd lying in the hole that had been dug by a shockingly awful campaign and everyone knew it.  Regardless of who was in the audience (Paul Nuttall was applauded at points so it couldnt have been completely left wing), she was a lamb to the slaughter.

 

I'm not in denial about anything.  For you to say you can see why May didnt show up just to get shouted at is denial.

 

She's the Prime Minister.  She's supposed to be able to take that sort of thing and come out the other side looking strong.  What she did last night cannot be defended and trying to explain it away with conspiracy theories about the audience is laughable.  Its the sort of shit that Corbyn supporters have been laughed out of town about since he became leader.

 

I'm usually a Tory voter but Theresa May is possibly the worst example of not just a Tory, but of a politician in general.

 

Completely superficial with absolutely zero substance and no qualities at all that you would want in a leader.

 

She's played a really dangerous game here and I hope to god she gets away with it, sneaks in but then fvcks off and actually lets someone competent take over.

 

If she is the figurehead of the Brexit negotiations, we are all fvcked.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, MattP said:

That's a very fair point, you do get that from the let wingers even on shows like QT - but at one stage the camera panned out and at first glance it looked like 80% of the audience were clapping when Caroline Lucas said something about Freedom of Movement being wonderful.

 

I think the audience looked balanced when the camera pointed at them but the right wingers weren't making as much noise as the left. There were quite a few sitting in silence when the noise was being made. 

I wonder if the issue is that the left has a candidate that actuslly wants to implement a significant charge of direction which is getting them fired up. The right have ukip spouting nonsense and a government that doesn't appear to have any policies. Harder to get fired up over. Also why many of the tory foxestalkers seem to be pretty morose regarding their parties canpaign so far.

[Alf Bentley]

1 minute ago, MattP said:

That's a very fair point, you do get that from the let wingers even on shows like QT - but at one stage the camera panned out and at first glance it looked like 80% of the audience were clapping when Caroline Lucas said something about Freedom of Movement being wonderful.

 

 

I don't remember noticing the audience reaction at that point, but do remember her comment - quite an idealistic point, but well expressed ("I've enjoyed our freedom to travel, work, study and love in 27 countries" or something). It wouldn't surprise me if some people applauded who wanted immigration controls, but liked the sound of freedom for themselves, or who just enjoyed an idealistic point poetically expressed. It's easy to forget that some of the audience were probably non-committed but just excited to be at a big event.

 

Re. the allegations about audience bias: people making that point should demand to analyse Com Res' audience selection procedures and criticise anything untoward they find....otherwise they risk sounding like Wenger being interviewed after Arsenal have lost ("the ref made bad decisions against us, the other team was constantly fouling" etc.).

 

Anyway, I don't think many will have been swayed in any direction by that. Apparently Lynton Crosby has been put in sole charge of the Tory campaign now, so Corbyn better get his tin helmet on and prepare for a shitstorm of abuse!