DoBelieveTheHype

The strange thing is there news content being so skewed to the right when there dramas constantly pander to the far left.

The televised debates aren't anywhere near as important as we all thought they would be after their introduction in 2010. Best plan is just to scrap them but neither party leader will feel confident suggesting that. We'll likely just get a BBC and an ITV one this time round - which is enough.

Starmer looking far more Prime Ministerial in his speech and actually offering us something to go at as a voter.

And off we go, a surprisingly good campaign video from the Labour Party https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1793315231147405811

Probably not tonight. Guessing they'll just fill until 6pm.

'Who do you trust?' - not you.

This is the least Prime Ministerial speech that's ever been given. completely soaked wet through and Things Can Only Better being belted out. Really should have done this inside - is that room they used for Covid not available?

Cut the crap and announce. Bollocking about the furlough scheme.

Lecturn being set up now.

'Inflation is back under control' is already cropping up. Expecting us to forget that the Tories are the reason it was so high in the first place.

Sums up the Tory party - https://x.com/nicholaswatt/status/1793286414651572467

https://x.com/nicholaswatt/status/1793286414651572467 What happens if he calls the election and then the no confidence threshold is reached?

Just realised that spreadsheet goes by date of dissolution not day the election is called, so it could be 4 July if he calls it today.

But he wouldn't need to call the election today for the 4 July. He'd need to call it next Thursday. The list is here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/resear...fings/cbp-9921/ Unless his government is so incompetent it can't work out what day to call an election under the rules. If he calls it today and goes to see the King it would be for the 27th June.

Cameron's cut short his trip to Albania to 'attend a meeting in London'. No clear indication of what that meeting is. Unless Sunak's changed his mind in the space of a few hours after he said 'second half of the year.' I've thing were looking at a national emergency rather than an election being called. Unless he's announcing a potential date now, to go to the king later in the year to ask for it? That would be an unusual move.

Yes the US election is held in November but campaigning will be in full swing with a Trump v Biden debate taking place on ABC on September 10th.

Definitely not happening - sticking to 'second half of the year' line at PMQs. 27 June isn't second half of the year so won't be calling a general election today. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2...-latest-updates

These rumours that an an election is about to be called seem to crop every week and are getting tiresome. I really hope they're right for a change as at least it would stop this rubbish of constant rumours that never seem to lead anyway. If he does call it today that would make the election on the 27 June. I'd imagine he wants to avoid an election in July/August and the other option is then September/October which would clash with the US presidential race.

In all fairness that's a good trend, most of it was dogshite. The dance seem seems to the best bet of getting some decent home-grown chart success, and I'm sure it won't disappoint as we approach summer.

Just found this snippet in Radio Times - Moffat's Christmas episode is going to his last and he's cast an eye over the Series 15 finale 'for reasons that will become apparent'. I wonder what makes him so confident he'll not be writing any more episodes unless he has information we don't about Series 16 onwards? https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor...fat-newsupdate/

Either Spotify has recalibrated how it counts streams, the auto play feature is being used to push certain songs more or just generally more people are using spotify.

I'm not arguing about a show I'm not bothering to watch. I watch Doctor Who every day, several episodes in fact and I do intend to watch these new episodes when I catch up on my marathon - watching the new show would take me out of my watch of the old one it's so different now - so I'm holding them over. I certainly don't want to the show to be in danger, I'd like it to continue to run and run and have plenty to watch when I do catch up on my marathon - and yes the Disney deal might have saved it from any immediate cancellation worries that might be there if it was wholly BBC funded and doing these numbers. That's a good thing. I'd still prefer to see it retain it's popularity in it's home country; something these ratings show it's clearly not going to manage with this latest revamp. Unless you're admitting the show is no longer Doctor Who (another debate) you can't accuse me of arguing about a show I don't watch. I do care about Doctor Who and want to see it doing well but the facts are it isn't on any objective measure. The fact I've stopped watching it doesn't mean I don't care about it but I'm not so blind to see it's struggling as some others - not just on this forum - are. Saying the ratings are fine is just denialism. People have turned away in their millions and something needs to be done - a proper reset - doubling down on the Timeless Child adoption arc is not the sort of reset we needed. I watched The Church on Ruby Road at Christmas and it was a good episode, however the first few minutes of Space Babies has turned me off watching these newer episodes any time soon. You can only blame so much of the decline on 'the way TV ratings are going now' when an episode of show is failing to make the Top 10 most watched programmes for the week and doing such low numbers for the show. Chibnall drove the show into the ground and RTD looks unable to lift it back up despite the decent (by admittedly lower current TV ratings standards) ratings for the specials. You and many others are trying to frame record low ratings as a good thing, it's absurd.

I didn't know that as I don't read the magazine. Surprised anybody does these days to be honest. BARB stopped generally releasing them years ago. Maybe they will provide a bump but it'll still be a lot lower than The Church on Ruby Road. In my opinion if someone's waiting until after 7 days to watch the show they aren't that bothered. I see you pointedly ignored the stat about The Devil's Chord being the lowest rated non-special of the entire New Series. Maybe that doesn't sit with your 'framing of the narrative' eh? These are poor ratings, there's no two ways about it.

The +28 figures aren't publicly released and haven't been for years. They're irrelevant. No one is framing the narrative to match their opinion, they're objectively poor ratings. With the exception of The Legend of the Sea Devils (3.47m) they are worse than every Chibnall episode. The special The Legend of the Sea Devils attracted a mere 3.47m viewers. A cursory glance at Wikipedia shows every regular series episode of the Whittaker run had higher consolidated figures than The Space Babies or The Devil's Chord. The last regular series episode (non-special) to rate as low as 3.9m was Battlefield Episode 2 in 1989. The last episode to rate lower than that was Battefield Episode 1 at 3.1m in 1989. Claiming these ratings are fine is a nonsense.

So BARB's updated Space Babies - 4.08m The Devil's Chord - 3.90m These are really poor ratings as demonstrated by coming in 10th and 12th place on the weekly top watched shows list. With a drop of 3.41m viewers from The Church on Ruby Road those at the helm of the show are going to be somewhat worried about it's future now surely - especially as ratings in recent years have generally declined over the course of a season. It simply looks like the appetite for New Who revamped for the millionth time is no longer there following successive show-runners running it into the ground. Even RTD - the hero of Whovians everywhere - isn't a big pulling factor.