Yes but you've missed my point entirely which is that stats are meaningless and can say anything you want them to.

The claim that 'stats are meaningless' just because you can field misleading ones is so astoundingly stupid that I'm shocked someone clearly as intelligent as yourself actually just said it. That's Britain First/UKIP/Russell Brand levels of analysis. You may as well write off the entire concept of evidence-based analysis if all stats are equal.

'That Florence Nightingale bird's talking a load of bollocks. You can get a pie chart to show anything these days.'

That's not the point. The point is that those lost seats were barely mentioned. Anyone who watched a few hours at the start of Thursday night and then nothing more until Friday night could still easily be under the impression that the Tories gained seats in England.

You're right - I'd have been furious that they were barely mentioned. If I were a Conservative spin doctor, that is, considering the norm is for an unpopular government to lose swathes of council seats. For all some allege that the BBC is biased towards the Conservatives, if they actually were they could've spent the whole evening trumpeting that a government at the depths of its popularity barely lost anything at all. Unprecedented when you consider governments that lose negligible numbers of seats in local elections tend to be at the height of their popularity.

You're right - I'd have been furious that they were barely mentioned. If I were a Conservative spin doctor, that is, considering the norm is for an unpopular government to lose swathes of council seats. For all some allege that the BBC is biased towards the Conservatives, if they actually were they could've spent the whole evening trumpeting that a government at the depths of its popularity barely lost anything at all. Unprecedented when you consider governments that lose negligible numbers of seats in local elections tend to be at the height of their popularity.

 

Well, quite.

 

They already HAD their story against Labour decided before the results and did not change that story at all during the night and following day ...

 

The Tories have an election fixing scandal and an extremely racist campaign, yet BBC decided to lambast Labour over the anti-antisemitism engineered row (not even bothering to check the source of those re-tweets, comically) whilst giving the Tories a free ride and following Establishment bias.

 

I think this article puts it quite nicely:

 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourbeeb/tom-m...ablishment-bias

You're right - I'd have been furious that they were barely mentioned. If I were a Conservative spin doctor, that is, considering the norm is for an unpopular government to lose swathes of council seats. For all some allege that the BBC is biased towards the Conservatives, if they actually were they could've spent the whole evening trumpeting that a government at the depths of its popularity barely lost anything at all. Unprecedented when you consider governments that lose negligible numbers of seats in local elections tend to be at the height of their popularity.

 

I don't know why you and other people keep saying this. A party is not going to be "at the depths of its popularity" just a year on from winning a general election.

 

Again, if you want stats, then ALL history suggests it's going to get a hell of a lot worse for the Tories from here, because that is ALWAYS what happens after a government's honeymoon period ends.

Edited May 8, 20169 yr by Danny

I don't know why you and other people keep saying this. A party is not going to be "at the depths of its popularity" just a year on from winning a general election.

 

Again, if you want stats, then ALL history suggests it's going to get a hell of a lot worse for the Tories from here, because that is ALWAYS what happens after a government's honeymoon period ends.

I'll rephrase. They're at a point where the scandals, splits, and general treatment the Conservatives are getting from the media are of a similar magnitude to their lowest point in the 2010-2015 government (between the 2012 Budget to the January 2013 pledge for an EU referendum). It's at the depths of its popularity over the last six years and objectively speaking is a fairly unpopular government. It is unprecedented for a government which is at its most unpopular to that point* to be barely losing seats.

 

You're correct in that history suggests they're likely to go downhill from this point, but I think how the Tories react to the result of the EU referendum could make the difference. If they patch up and agree to a truce then I think it's likely they'll be more popular this time next year than they are now.

I'll rephrase. They're at a point where the scandals, splits, and general treatment the Conservatives are getting from the media are of a similar magnitude to their lowest point in the 2010-2015 government (between the 2012 Budget to the January 2013 pledge for an EU referendum). It's at the depths of its popularity over the last six years and objectively speaking is a fairly unpopular government. It is unprecedented for a government which is at its most unpopular to that point* to be barely losing seats.

 

You're correct in that history suggests they're likely to go downhill from this point, but I think how the Tories react to the result of the EU referendum could make the difference. If they patch up and agree to a truce then I think it's likely they'll be more popular this time next year than they are now.

 

Personally, I don't think the Tories' troubles over the last few weeks have been anything particularly out of the ordinary. Governments are always having bust-ups about something, they are always making gaffes, voters always find something to be discontented about. It will most likely continue right through this parliament -- with the kicker being that voters will take a progressively less forgiving view of the government's setbacks the more that the last general election recedes into the memory, as always happens.

 

Remember that in the run-up to the 2011 locals, the cuts were kicking in, the economy was in terrible shape, the phone-hacking scandal was getting underway with Andy Coulson already being forced to resign, there'd been a big furore about bankers awarding themselves pre-2008 levels of bonuses, and the government were in-fighting over the AV referendum (a minister accusing someone of "Goebbels-like propaganda" is easily more strong than anything we've seen in the EU referendum so far). Yet in spite of all that, the Tories still won the voteshare that year, and Labour did worse (relatively speaking) that year than they've done in 2016.

Well, quite.

 

They already HAD their story against Labour decided before the results and did not change that story at all during the night and following day ...

 

The Tories have an election fixing scandal and an extremely racist campaign, yet BBC decided to lambast Labour over the anti-antisemitism engineered row (not even bothering to check the source of those re-tweets, comically) whilst giving the Tories a free ride and following Establishment bias.

 

I think this article puts it quite nicely:

 

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourbeeb/tom-m...ablishment-bias

Would you miss the BBC if it was gone?

Would you miss the BBC if it was gone?

 

The Tories likely will do away with it anyway, so kt may as well bite rather than cowering down.

The Tories likely will do away with it anyway, so kt may as well bite rather than cowering down.

There's plenty of Tory voters (and MPs) who rather like the BBC and will object rather loudly to Whittingdale's proposals, which include shifting every show which gets high ratings to a different time slot so as not to get in the way of the commercial stations. They might be less inclined to defend it if the Beeb is seen to be biased against them.

 

As an organisation it's guilty of generally being a bit small-c conservative at times and completely beholden to the Royal Family (these two things may be related). That's because it's part of the establishment and inherently reliant on the government of the day to provide it with the funding to keep going. The Tories can't just "do away with it" without enormous public uproar and wasting of political capital which they'd rather spend on changes to education, health or welfare - why give them the excuse?

You're right - I'd have been furious that they were barely mentioned. If I were a Conservative spin doctor, that is, considering the norm is for an unpopular government to lose swathes of council seats. For all some allege that the BBC is biased towards the Conservatives, if they actually were they could've spent the whole evening trumpeting that a government at the depths of its popularity barely lost anything at all. Unprecedented when you consider governments that lose negligible numbers of seats in local elections tend to be at the height of their popularity.

We were told many times in the weeks before the elections that Labour were going to lose a lot of seats. Who was likely to pick up most of them? Many of their predicted losses would have been to the Tories, yet the whole tone of the coverage was that Labour had done less badly than expected. There was not even a hint that the Tories might have done less well than expected. The decision had been taken that these elections were all about Jeremy Corbyn with the concocted anti-semitism row added into the mix in the days before.

 

The elections in Wales (where both the Tories and Lib Dems did badly and Labour were probably relieved to lose just one seat) were almost entirely ignored.

 

On a night when very few councils changed hands, they could have said more about the few that did. Arguably the most newsworthy was the Lib Dem victory in Watford. After all, no party lost control of a council they had held for decades. As far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong), the Watford result was the only one where a party gained control of a council they hadn't controlled before. However, as it happened fairly late, it was barely mentioned. They could have treated Watford as a reason to talk about something other than Corbyn, but they didn't.

I saw quite a lot about Wales actually, particularly on the "round-up" sections where they covered Scotland in brief as well. By contrast, I only found out from friends that the Lib Dems had taken Watford. The focus on the local news in the North West was (unsurprisingly) them losing control of Stockport, although I managed to sneak on there for a second by virtue of losing to the leader of Trafford Council.

Most of the coverage of Wales was about Leanne Wood winning Rhondda and UKIP's success. There was almost no mention of the fact that the Tories and Lib Dems had done badly.

 

On the subject of UKIP, their performance in terms of seats won was pretty poor overall. UKIP have gained a lot of seats in the last three sets of local elections. This was effectively the end of the four-year cycle for them, the last set of elections where they start from a very low base. Next year the comparison will be against a set of elections when they did well (assuming they haven't closed down after the referendum).

We were told many times in the weeks before the elections that Labour were going to lose a lot of seats. Who was likely to pick up most of them? Many of their predicted losses would have been to the Tories, yet the whole tone of the coverage was that Labour had done less badly than expected. There was not even a hint that the Tories might have done less well than expected. The decision had been taken that these elections were all about Jeremy Corbyn with the concocted anti-semitism row added into the mix in the days before.

 

The elections in Wales (where both the Tories and Lib Dems did badly and Labour were probably relieved to lose just one seat) were almost entirely ignored.

 

On a night when very few councils changed hands, they could have said more about the few that did. Arguably the most newsworthy was the Lib Dem victory in Watford. After all, no party lost control of a council they had held for decades. As far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong), the Watford result was the only one where a party gained control of a council they hadn't controlled before. However, as it happened fairly late, it was barely mentioned. They could have treated Watford as a reason to talk about something other than Corbyn, but they didn't.

Watford was already Lib Dem - though it should have been mentioned, as it was a surprise that they consolidated control of it so much. The expectation was that they would lose it.

Watford was already Lib Dem - though it should have been mentioned, as it was a surprise that they consolidated control of it so much. The expectation was that they would lose it.

Unless the reports were wrong, the Lib Dems did not have a majority before.

The BBC, I would imagine, are frightened to say boo to a goose these days, lest the Tory party take the trouble to put them at the front of the line for the next round of firing squads - theyve already had big budget cuts, effectively.

 

They do have a responsive show, though, where they can be taken to task over the coverage - hopefully someone will have taken the time to do that...

That fake electoral map doing the rounds on Twitter makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

Meanwhile, Rallings & Thrasher have confirmed national vote shares for the locals

 

Labour 33%

Conservatives 32%

Lib Dems 14%

UKIP 12%

 

Confirming that Corbyn has slightly outperformed Miliband, relative to the Conservatives, on their respective first outings in local elections.

 

The 32% for the Tories is the third-worst performance for a government in the first locals of a cycle since 1979, ahead of only the Tories in 1993 (31%) and Labour in 2006 (26%). Also considerably down on the 38% they got in 2011.

 

First-year performances for governments

1980 Conservatives 40% (2% behind Labour)

1984 Conservatives 38% (1% ahead of Labour)

1988 Conservatives 39% (1% ahead of Labour

1993 Conservatives 31% (8% behind Labour)

1998 Labour 37% (4% ahead of Conservatives)

2002 Labour 33% (1% behind Conservatives)

2006 Labour 26% (13% behind Conservatives)

2011 Conservatives 38% (1% ahead of Labour)

2016 Conservatives 32% (1% behind Labour)

Edited May 9, 20169 yr by Danny

That fake electoral map doing the rounds on Twitter makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

That map is so obviously wrong that I'm not entirely sure what point it is supposed to make.

That fake electoral map doing the rounds on Twitter makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

 

What map?