When Mothin Ali won a council election in east Leeds, he didn’t expect to make headlines across the rightwing press. But the real story is how Labour has problems in its ‘heartland’ seats, writes Craig Gent.
The point of Betteridge’s law isn’t really that they’re false, it’s that the editor hasn’t got the evidence that it’s true because if they did it wouldn’t be a question.
In this case it’s a hard no. The main threat to Labour isn’t the greens it’s people thinking it’s a forgone conclusion and not voting, the new constituencies that reduce the number of city seats because poor people register to vote less than others, which reduces the number of Labour MPs, voter disenfranchisement, the Conservative Party election machine which will narrow the polls as we go through the weeks and biased coverage from the print and broadcast media.
Last night a BBC report on the election has several minutes covering Rishi’s “energetic” election campaign with plenty of clips of him claiming to like talking to people, then a single soundbite from each of Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and Reform followed by a still of Keir Starmer with a voice over saying he was campaigning too and then a one minute segment on controversy once Diane Abbot. The message was “Rishi is working hard to meet lots of ordinary people, here’s some quotes for balance, and Labour are divided.” I think the Conservatives are far more divided and that Labour will work far harder for ordinary people, but I’m not a conservative donor who’s been appointed to make editorial decisions about BBC politics, so what would I know?
All studies in the linked Wikipedia article (under the topic “Studies”) show that the answer is more often yes than no.
The point of Betteridge’s law isn’t really that they’re false, it’s that the editor hasn’t got the evidence that it’s true because if they did it wouldn’t be a question.
In this case it’s a hard no. The main threat to Labour isn’t the greens it’s people thinking it’s a forgone conclusion and not voting, the new constituencies that reduce the number of city seats because poor people register to vote less than others, which reduces the number of Labour MPs, voter disenfranchisement, the Conservative Party election machine which will narrow the polls as we go through the weeks and biased coverage from the print and broadcast media.
Last night a BBC report on the election has several minutes covering Rishi’s “energetic” election campaign with plenty of clips of him claiming to like talking to people, then a single soundbite from each of Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and Reform followed by a still of Keir Starmer with a voice over saying he was campaigning too and then a one minute segment on controversy once Diane Abbot. The message was “Rishi is working hard to meet lots of ordinary people, here’s some quotes for balance, and Labour are divided.” I think the Conservatives are far more divided and that Labour will work far harder for ordinary people, but I’m not a conservative donor who’s been appointed to make editorial decisions about BBC politics, so what would I know?
The politics part is a bit too deep for me as a non-UK resident, but thanks for the elaboration in your first paragraph, that sounds plausible.