Friday, 27 December 2019

The Blame Game

The Left-Wing Corbyn grass root and political supporters in the UK are clearly deluded .... many actually believe that the reason why Labour has just lost the 2019 general election was .....

Andy McDonald And Jeremy Corbyn Accuse BBC Of Bias
Why's Everybody Always Picking On Me ... Jeremy

.... wait for it, BBC anti-Corbyn bias!!

One of his supporters, MP Andy McDonald who won his seat in Middlesbrough, went public on BBC Radio Four last week, and said the broadcaster should have "a look in the mirror" if they believe they were impartial in their election coverage. He accused them of "playing a part" in Labour's downfall, adding that "I’m very worried about our public service broadcaster". When the radio presenter asked are you saying "the BBC was in part responsible for Mr Corbyn’s loss?" He replied, “We got this wrong but if the BBC are going to hold themselves out as somehow having conducting themselves in an impartial manner, they’ve really got to have a look in the mirror" ..... laughable, and deluded.

Question Time November 2019 - Anti-Corbyn Bias?
Question Time November 2019 - Anti-Corbyn Bias?

But he is not alone in this theory, Twitter and other platforms are full of basically the same claims ... with many other Labour supporters citing the BBC Question Time TV show (QT), which as a rule features audiences that are on the face of it definitely not pro-Tory .... for instance in his recent QT interview, a half hour session on the 22nd of November, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister faced a barrage of hostile questions, and when he tried to answer, he was repeatedly heckled. The shows host had to repeatedly intervene, to try and stop an audience member, who just refused to stop shouting at Mr Johnson.

The final interruptions tally for the QT show, in which four of the party leaders appeared, was given as eleven for Mr Corbyn, fifteen for SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, seventeen for Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and forty five for Mr Johnson, who at times was almost unable to get a word in. The BBC was later accused by some of the national press of choosing an audience of ‘political activists and trade unionists’ instead of ordinary voters.

The BBC in its defence, insisted the audience of 150 people in Sheffield was a ‘roughly equal’ split between Labour and the Conservatives, with a ‘smaller number’ of Liberal Democrats and SNP supporters. It also claimed there were more Leave voters than Remain in the audience to reflect the Brexit referendum result. But with three parties participating that backed Remain to some degree, creating a balanced audience proved extremely challenging. However the BBC have said in the past that: “Question Time does not bar people from its audience because they have held elected office or are political activists."

But despite this evidence, and a consensus by many political observers that it was Mr Johnson who took the brunt of the hard questions, Left-wing supporters feel that Corbyn had faced only hostile questions early on .... which I personally took as warning sign of his deep unpopularity, not a right leaning bias in the QT audience. 

Now I accept that this is clearly a devastating defeat for Labour and its younger supporters, which lost, despite some seemingly popular manifesto polices, such as a majority of voters apparently supporting re-nationalising some essential industries (77% energy, 76% railways and 83% water), but to blame it on the BBC, which just is not anti-Labour, far from it in fact, is delusional.

Its even worth pointing out that, that despite returning the lowest number of Labour MP's since 1935, Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, has achieved a higher share of the popular vote than ...

All of whom led the Labour Party to often crushing defeats.

But it wasn't the BBC, or even the news media elsewhere that led to this latest defeat ... the fact is that when Tony Blair led the Labour Party to three election victories (the last in 2005), he did so on what were ostensibly middle of the road policies .... not Marxist Socialist ones. But that fact is anathema to the people who run the Labour Party now, who hate him almost as much as their pet bogey woman, Mrs Thatcher.

Electoral Views On Brexit By Voters
Many Labour Voters Still See This As A Vote On Brexit
 ... A War That Has Been Lost By A Disunited Front.

I am looking forward tremendously to the blood letting on the far left in the new year, and seeing whether the grass root membership will continue to support a far left candidate. Or if, fed up of electoral defeat after defeat, the mainstream party will turn again to a Kinnock type leader, to kick Momentum and its supporters out, tighten up the MP rules to remove closet Marxists and Communists from the party and as MP's ...

Otherwise it may be another decade or more in the political wilderness ... probably long after I have left the scene and am able to comment on it ... pity really, but probably for the best, at least until the party rejoins the mainstream of British voters opinions.

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