I like Macavity: The Mystery Cat. Macavity reminds me of many a politician, being absent from the scene of the crime.
I thought of Macavity in a different way this morning, reading Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer this morning saying:
I hear a different complaint from Conservative campaigners. This is that Mrs May has given them nothing to sell on the doorstep. They report that voters can cite popular offers from Labour while all anyone can recall about the Tory prospectus is the things that they plan to take away from people.
Theresa May's creating a new twist to Macavity's art: she's absent of ideas.
The difficulty for her is that her crime has been rumbled. The manifesto has a cavity in the middle of it but has her name all over it. Can someone so devoid of a plan be prime minister?
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Yet people will vote for her in droves. Probably against their own interests.
I agree with you Leigh. The Tory Party strategy is probably to be as shtum as possible. Why say anything when the media are hounding the opposition so relentlessly on your behalf, as with the IRA issue right now? They know that’s a winner with older voters, irrespective of the historical context (https://tompride.wordpress.com/2017/05/27/shocking-revelation-tories-secretly-met-ira-leaders-7-years-before-corbyn-even-visited-belfast).
And if you are being interviewed, never give a direct answer; just keep repeating the prescribed mantra. It’s the srategy I’d adopt if I were them. I mean … who authorises Diane Abbott to be a Labour spokesperson? She’s an electoral disaster. I’m not casting any aspersion on her integrity as an individual, simply that she’s very vulnerable under pressure. Being good on the doorstep (one-to-one) is no guarantee you’ll be effective under media scrutiny, and vice versa. While Michael Fallon will be kicking himself for having been out-smarted, I’m not even sure his car-crash performance will have such a negative impact.
Luck is always an important factor in politics and sometimes a deciding one. Thatcher was incredibly lucky (Falklands, North Sea Oil, Kinnock etc.). And I think May is very lucky too. External events have played into her weak hand – Brexit, UKIP’s demise, Corbyn’s image, the MSM and the now Manchester tragedy. As the longest serving Home Secretary, she’s ‘comfortable’ on law & order. It suits her authoritarian nature. So, however much opposition she probably has within her own party, they know she’ll deliver an increased majority for them and will close ranks at least until the party’s over.
None of this good for our democracy but it’s how the UK political game is played out, time and time again. Until we have PR nothing will change. The Tories are currently in the driving seat – unless … ‘events, dear boy, events’. But time is running out even for miracles.
What we have to remember is, most failure can be given a makeover. I’m out campaigning every evening and I’m never surprised at the amount of justifications people have for voting blue. We have to accept that people become entrenched in their own beliefs. They have made their decision and they don’t want to agonise over it any more. You can selectively cite statistics that justify your cause but you can’t battle against peoples own self justification.
Regardless of people understanding little about the complexities of politics, people will still fight to keep their position, even if that means clinging to failure. We can challenge those who are fence sitting but we can’t challenge those who have already made up their mind.
Maria, I believe you are absolutely correct to say that we have to accept that people become entrenched in their own beliefs, that they have made their decisions and they don’t want to agonize their over anymore. I think it’s a huge challenge for campaigners to battle against closed minds and yet we just completely gloss
over it. People are so fed up they just seem to want resolution/closure – anything that relieves the need to actually think.
Grace, I absolutely agree. people are stressed and tired and often not enjoying life very much and would prefer to escape into a virtual reality. The last 40 years have, in my view, taken the piss out of the broad mass of the public. Politicians have UTTERLY FAILED to be educative and explain to the public what has been going on, partly because of their own (the politicians) blindness to their own ideology and their own vested interests in maintaining the system from Blair’s after-dinner speech fees to the revolving door culture that sees them waltzing into the financial sector after years in office propping the whole thing up.
vested interests love a knackered and cowed populace.
Look again at Macavity, Richard! I’ve recently realised that he genuinely isn’t there – but he’s a useful scapegoat (and probably shut up indoors all the time), so everyone blames him.
Quite possibly she can become PM from what I have seen on the net recently Richard.
I have been trawling YouTube recently looking at footage of some of my favourite bands playing live (and yes – footage of railway locomotives here and there too).
On numerous occasions I was faced with an advert section before the footage which had anti-Corbyn messages in it. These mention everything from things he has reportedly said in support of terrorism to warning people that he personally would bankrupt the country.
It made me realise that this is an election campaign on many fronts. I have not seen anything like this berating the Tories or the Lib-Dems. Has anyone else?
It is rather worrying. Not only that, the people putting this negative stuff up are not readily identifiable to the person sitting at the screen.
I confess I am not being targeted by those ads
Don’t be paranoid because you are!
It did not come across that I was being targeted. I do not go on YouTube that often. I felt that the ads were embedded in the clips as other adverts are. Not every clip had anti-Labour messages.
What I’m getting at really is who is paying for this stuff which comes across as American style negative electioneering? I’d love to now.
So would I
I would imagine Cambridge Analytica are getting fat off the funds from the Conservative Party!
The Tories are paying for Google ads… https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/22/conservatives-buy-dementia-tax-google-ad-as-criticism-of-policy-grows
…I wonder if that will be declared fully?
I wonder if, like Trump’s Alt-Right, they are also using the services of social media robots to drive traffic and trending stats?
Perhaps we need to ban spend on that rubbish and create a new, democratic and neutral social media platform / channel for political debate, leaving Twitter, Facebook and all to the celebs and cat pictures.
The Sun readers will turn out in droves as they are being fed something else entirely. With the advent of this election and given the recent upsets of Trump/Brexit I’ve been looking at DM and Sun websites to see how they are painting it. The DM comments section shows EVEN they are tired of the terrible Tory campaign. The Sun comments are still the usual vitriol so it does give me hope that the UK will not sleepwalk into another Tory government
May has failed as a leader and statesperson! The Tory party knows so. She relies on practiced sound bites but is stumbling in open debate, her minders fear she will fall apart in a sustained open debate on the Tories’ record in office.
She has sold Fear but not Hope and Joy. Less well off Tory voters are scared of her dementia tax policy.
Anyway the Tories are trialling out a potential successor – one Amber Rudd who will ‘fill-in’ for the PM in an upcoming “Leaders” election debate. What “Leader” perhaps will Labour counter with?
This ‘fill in’ is utterly bizarre
I don’t think even the Tory Party would seriously consider her as a potential leader:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/sep/21/bahamas-leaks-reveal-amber-rudd-involvement-offshore-firms
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/home-secretary-amber-rudds-former-8979537
She (and her father) has a very dodgy back-story.
Corbyn has to appear on the debate and go for the jugular on this. How on earth can the public trust her to keep her cool in the brexit negotiations when she is running scared from a tv debate with what they see as the weakest labour leader in a generation??
I agree with you
I think he should go on
The Guardian article doesn’t allege any wrong doing. I’m not sure being involved with a non UK company many years ago should necessarily be a factor in judging what someone is like. Or maybe it should?
There have been a number of discussions on the involvement
Wrong doing is not the same as having doubts about people who use offshore
It’s understandable considering they have not a clue on Brexit and they seem to almost wish another party holds the mantle!
indeed election time is a confusing event,
some have accused Mr Corbyn of taking us back to the 1970’s,
in an effort to make sense of it all I travelled back to the 70’s to have a look at a small public information film that helped explain it all from an outside perspective,
http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-vote-for-froglet-1974/
not everything about the 70’s was bad, infact some aspects were quite charming!
Unfortunately does not work on a Mac
The 70’s:
housing was affordable even with 26% inflation!
Jobs were fairly secure until the later 70’s
The housing bubble was in its early stages.
CEO pay to average worker was 30:1 as opposed to the 300:1
Yes, there was a need for change and modernisation but what happened was the opposite of what we needed and what the environment needed!
The ‘I’m-alright-jackists’ might carry the day for the Tories:
Its most recent polling has found an unprecedented shift to the Tories among the ‘settlers’ group, which makes up 32% of the electorate, with 57% backing the Conservatives and only 18% supporting Labour. The last time Labour won an election, its support among the group was almost double (35%) its current level. According to this analysis, it is this group that will deliver victory for the Conservatives.(Graun)