I found this opinion poll outcome, sent to me by Ipsos Mori this morning, fascinating:
Labour apart, the Greens have the second highest favourable rating of the Engish political parties fighting this election, and the lowest unfavourable rating of all.
That will not, of course, be reflected in the election outcome.
First-past-the-post delivers outcomes so far from what we desire in this country. Most certainly, it will not deliver the outcome people seem to want for the Greens. As a result they are the potential biggest losers from this campaign.
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FPTP is definitely the biggest hindrance for smaller parties like the greens, but I think the media share some of the blame. Impartiality is often interpreted as “let the biggest parties from the last election have their say” on some given issue. But as we see from data like this, that kind of impartiality might not be really fair nor representative, and might give people who would support a green party the impression that there is no point voting for them because no-one else will. Coming in to an election, I really hope that places like the BBC will do a lot more to provide genuine impartiality across the entire political space and not just the usual big names.
I agree with you LonM ref:
“I think the media share some of the blame. Impartiality is often interpreted as “let the biggest parties from the last election have their say” on some given issue”
but it goes much much deeper. Even the Guardian is unquestioning in its LINO support. At no point is anybody questioning Reeves on statements such as this:
“Unlike the Conservatives, I won’t make unfunded commitments, because the truth about unfunded commitments is that no one has any confidence that you can deliver on them,”
What does “unfunded commitments” mean? Unfunded by who? The gov’? But the gov has the bank of England to cover commitments. Assuming that “unfunded” means that tax returns won’t cover funding commitments, how does she know that? If the commitment was to, e.g. pay nurses more – then 35% of the commitment comes IMMEDIATELY back to the gov as nat’ insurance and tax. & shortly after that more comes back through other taxes levied when people spend.
An Observer article was rightly criticised by this blog. The journalist is little better than a shill for LINO & this seems to be the case for both print and broadcast media. Folks – you are all being groomed.
I think one of the answers is to call for local hustings.
Apparently MPs standing again, particularly, are so wary of being trapped into saying anything which could “go viral” they are keeping appearances to “safe” spaces.
The local press used to arrange hustings and I think we should try and encourage them to do it again.
But it could be done other “impartial” organisations like Churches, Round Table, Rotary, Round Table, sports groups, football clubs….
Let’s hear from all the candidates and get to ask them all about what they propose
I subscribe to most of the opinion about Labour on here. They are disgusting. Your Venn diagrams, Richard, are ‘it’ in a nutshell. My vote rests in a constituency that has flip-flopped between Tory & Labour for decades, so highly likely it will revert to Labour. Locally, I’m hearing lots of reports that the Tory vote is disinclined to turn out and likewise with Labour voters; even my local Labour councillor, door-stepping me at the May election, conceded he was getting much disenchantment amongst Labour members. I cannot imagine Labour getting anything near the circa 12,870,000 votes of 2017.
Although I’ve not been too impressed by the local Greens, my vote will go to the Greens. I think a relatively high Green’s vote across the country, albeit for a relatively slim number of MPs, will at least send an important message, re wrongness of FPTP, and moreover the scale of support for ‘Green New Deal’ policies. I can only hope your Taxing Wealth Report – https://taxingwealth.uk – can be exploited by the Media to help them (And my goodness they need help) to pose essential questions.
My modest contribution, and one way of scrutinising party manifestos, for comparison, is to interrogate and attempt to score on issues relative to eight described axes. Explained here:
https://steadystatemanchester.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/politcalmanfstos_comprsnfrmwrk_ssm_apr24-rs-mb.pdf
Hi Richard,
There are a lot of Independent candidates popping up all over the country, with various beliefs but many with much passion for change.
You can check who has already registered in your constituency here – but the list will not be complete till after June 7th.
https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/ppcs/details/
Thanks Shelagh
Green and Lib Dem voters are all too aware of the grossly unfair FPTP voting system.
Electoral Reform Society report from 2019 election that it took 865,897 votes to elect a green MP,
Lib Dems 336,038, Labour 50535, Tory 38,264. What a set-up job!
You can see exactly why neither of neoliberal mainstream parties will ever want to move to PR!
Gravy Train shared!!
As a bare minimal concession to democratic fairness the Greens got a tiny opportunity to plead their case today – BBC cursory drive-by coverage of the Green Party launch. They let Carla Denyer do her level best to include a rarely mentioned financial necessity: fairly raising certain taxes that impact the wealthy. She has caught on to your plan to equalize Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax earned at work! Wow, Denyer actually managed to articulate that controversial idea on taxing wealth before they put her back in her isolation box. Now the media can completely ignore the Invisible Party and hope that not a single person in the UK heard that radical idea or dares to challenge the two ‘must vote for’ parties on it. By the evening we were back to the standard BBC obsession with Nigel Farage on Question Time.
Even the IFS are now proposing that