Hannah Fry on austerity

Nano said:
In my experience, as someone who produces data, I would be very surprised if it was an error rather than what was needed by the person making the request. The amount of times I get a request along the lines of "this is what we are going to do, I need some data to support it" are very common. Cameron and co had a plan, they'll have asked for the data that backs it up and ignored any that doesn't. Then it's just about selling it and hoping nobody digs too deep. If they do it's passed off as an error. If you ask very specific questions then you can get very specific answers from data even if they are not representative of the whole picture.
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Definitely truth in your experience from the things I’ve read.

For example. I was staggered when reading the first Secret Barrister book. The lies told by Tories to justify hammering Criminal Justice was based on figures they’d basically made up. Of course, the Minister presenting it sounded confident and their media pals just lapped it up.

It’s stuff like this that has made me conclude there is no such thing as free press in Britain. Most journalists (certainly the wealthy well known ones) just follow the party line. They’ve been to the same schools as politicians and mix in the same circles. They’re not interested in showing things for how they actually are.
 
Nero said:
It’s stuff like this that has made me conclude there is no such thing as free press in Britain. Most journalists (certainly the wealthy well known ones) just follow the party line.
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This is my gripe when those on the right carp on about free speech and democracy.

There's no free speech if there's nobody to print it and only one side is broadcast. There's no democracy without it.
 
Nero said:
Ideological attack on society by the Tories all based on flawed research and subsequent policy. This flaw was highlighted a few years ago by Grace Blakeley - of course none of the UK media organisations gave it much coverage.

The Tories went on a campaign of smear and lies to justify their austerity measures. That alone should make the people of this country never vote for them again.
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Not mentioned? From the Grauniad in 2013

www.theguardian.com

The error that could subvert George Osborne's austerity programme

The theories on which the chancellor based his cuts policies have been shown to be based on an embarrassing mistake
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
festa5 said:
Do they though?

Or do they just believe any promises to invest will be ridiculously hammered by our state propaganda machinery and it'd potentially cost them the election (whether it would or not is another debate).

I guess we'll find out. Hopefully.
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Fingers crossed that they don't believe it. They're right about the political fallout but I'm none too confident that Reeves isn't a true believer.
 
WindyNook said:
Hannah doing a Carol. Nailing her colours to the mast!
Good on yer girl!
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I think she has nailed her colours to the mast but, as much as I love it - as an excercise in clarity I’d like to see
* the difference adding the new countries actually made
* how long it took for the discovery ‘some time later’ is really vague.
* at the start she said the paper argues debt can hurt growth. Unless we see what happens to growth when there is lower debt we still can’t conclude anything.

That’s all well and good btw
The thought that politicians were acting on anything other than their own self interest and ideology is flawed.

Data? Pah…..
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
There was a regular poster on here many years ago shouting about how it was what we needed. A wealthy chap, had a place in the Shard. Absolutely clueless with regards to the economy away from his own pocket. He wanted to see wages tumble.

Number 9 was his nickname. What a ****.
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wages have tumbled in real terms and now everybody is ****ed.
 
festa5 said:
Do they though?

Or do they just believe any promises to invest will be ridiculously hammered by our state propaganda machinery and it'd potentially cost them the election (whether it would or not is another debate).

I guess we'll find out. Hopefully.
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That's the Labour dilemma sadly. To get elected you have to out Tory the Tories on issues like the economy and immigration. It's the only way to keep media opposition manageable, in contrast with what Corbyn faced. Personally I think the 2019 election has had a disproportionate impact on the Labour psyche. They are like generals fighting the last war.
 
speckyget said:
That's the Labour dilemma sadly. To get elected you have to out Tory the Tories on issues like the economy and immigration. It's the only way to keep media opposition manageable, in contrast with what Corbyn faced. Personally I think the 2019 election has had a disproportionate impact on the Labour psyche. They are like generals fighting the last war.
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Yeah I agree.

They should have beat May really. The manifesto was very popular, a lot of people turned out to back it.

Arguably the campaign was fine, the issue was the person fronting it and how easy it was to attack him.

There's no doubt many more people probably liked what Labour were proposing, but we're successfully scared off Corbyn by the tories/media.

Would a more politically savvy leader without some of Corbyn's "baggage" been able to win that election on exactly the same manifesto? I think they would.
 
festa5 said:
Would a more politically savvy leader without some of Corbyn's "baggage" been able to win that election on exactly the same manifesto? I think they would.
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Not sure, although I agree Corbyn could have ran on a 'free money, beer and sex' ticket and still come a distant second. Brexit was probably what won in for Johnson, because the lies hadn't been found out by then.
 
festa5 said:
Yeah I agree.

They should have beat May really. The manifesto was very popular, a lot of people turned out to back it.

Arguably the campaign was fine, the issue was the person fronting it and how easy it was to attack him.

There's no doubt many more people probably liked what Labour were proposing, but we're successfully scared off Corbyn by the tories/media.

Would a more politically savvy leader without some of Corbyn's "baggage" been able to win that election on exactly the same manifesto? I think they would.
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(y)
There was a 'blind' poll of the manifesto which.
Judging manifesto polices alone (no party mentioned) those under JC polled 60%
 
speckyget said:
Not sure, although I agree Corbyn could have ran on a 'free money, beer and sex' ticket and still come a distant second. Brexit was probably what won in for Johnson, because the lies hadn't been found out by then.
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Aye the 2019 GE is a different matter altogether. Labour didn't help themselves, but they were always up against it because of brexit.
 
Tories always look for the data to support their ideology. I never fell for the Cameron and Osborne 'I'm your new dad and we've got to sort this out' schtick. It was clearly a programme they all revelled in and now the services people need have been routed and hollowed out.
 
1finny said:
(y)
There was a 'blind' poll of the manifesto which.
Judging manifesto polices alone (no party mentioned) those under JC polled 60%
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People in the main like socialist policies.

But they've been taught that socialism = bad. A party can definitely win an election on a heavily socialist manifesto, but they'd probably have to put in a lot of work to convince people it wasn't.

The tories have been doing it for years, pushing fascist, neoliberal policies and pretending it's just "capitalism".
 
festa5 said:
People in the main like socialist policies.

But they've been taught that socialism = bad. A party can definitely win an election on a heavily socialist manifesto, but they'd probably have to put in a lot of work to convince people it wasn't.

The tories have been doing it for years, pushing fascist, neoliberal policies and pretending it's just "capitalism".
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Without a doubt. The amount of confusion regarding socialism is bad for everyone. A social democratic system is not the USSR.
 
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