Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Wed Jun 28, 2017 6:10 pm  

jakeyg95 wrote:

I'm slightly troubled by the constant dismissal of the "mainstream media" as if it's just some sort of biased homogeneous blob. There's a wide variety of different viewpoints on offer from mainstream sources, anyone trying to claim that the "mainstream media" is biased as a whole towards one side (left or right) is just being daft, Comment is Free is pretty much the antithesis of The Mail or The Express. I'd much prefer a society where people get their news from generally mainstream sources such as newspapers, whose various biases are pretty well known and at least have to have some maintain some kind of journalistic standards as opposed to getting it from random unknown bloggers who can pretty much just write anything they want.

My mum voted to leave the EU based on a video she saw on Facebook with loads of completely made up statistics about immigrants, my dad gave me a list of ways in which the "mainstream media" had been biased against Jeremy Corbyn that he saw on a blog post somewhere, which all turned out to be completely made up. I once called out a mate of mine for being pretty Islamaphobic on Facebook and his reply was a Youtube video with loads of made up statistics claiming things like France being 75% Muslim by 2030 and Britain by 2050. Telling people not to listen to the "mainstream media" just leads people to believe this kind of crap instead.

Accusations of BBC bias are probably the most annoying though. You can simultaneously see on something like Facebook one person complaining that the BBC is too right wing and biased against Jeremy Corbyn whilst another person bemoans them for being politically correct liberals who are afraid to tell it like it is. The whole thing reminds me of referees in rugby. Fans of two different teams can watch exactly the same game yet both conclude that the refreree was biased against their particular team, usually as it doesn't fit in with their extremely biased opinion.

The problem with UK daily papers is that 2/3's of the publications are in the hands of just 3 "groups" and Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation) along with Lord Rothermere have a huge influence over our country, in terms of the output that we read in the various daily papers.

As far as the BBC goes, I dont think they are too far from being "balanced" and as you say, it's seems that both sides of the political debate believe that they are being hard done by, which would seem to imply that they (The BBC) are not too far away.
Some of the on line streams are wildly biased and deliberately so but, to have balance in any subject, you have to be able to see things from all angles, if not, it's easy to become insular and extremely narrow minded.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:51 am  

jakeyg95 wrote: I'm slightly troubled by the constant dismissal of the "mainstream media" as if it's just some sort of biased homogeneous blob. There's a wide variety of different viewpoints on offer from mainstream sources, anyone trying to claim that the "mainstream media" is biased as a whole towards one side (left or right) is just being daft There is undoubtedly a very strong Tory bias in the MSM - that's not opinion, it's been proved many times over; here's one example of an academic study that concluded just that. You again cite Facebook as a source of fake news - I agree - it's largely an echo chamber, and interest groups will invest heavily in making sure their messages find their way into your feed, free from the scrutiny of the EC. But there are many more sources of news and comment on the internet now that aren't controlled by billionaire press barons - a lot of Labour's success in the GE can be attributed to the agility and diligence of that kind of reporting, which is much more likely to be consumed by young people, so I don't think it's fair to dismiss it. I can understand how you would want a MSM that is respected for it's independence and journalistic integrity - but we just don't have that, and we never will again.

jakeyg95 wrote: I'm slightly troubled by the constant dismissal of the "mainstream media" as if it's just some sort of biased homogeneous blob. There's a wide variety of different viewpoints on offer from mainstream sources, anyone trying to claim that the "mainstream media" is biased as a whole towards one side (left or right) is just being daft There is undoubtedly a very strong Tory bias in the MSM - that's not opinion, it's been proved many times over; here's one example of an academic study that concluded just that. You again cite Facebook as a source of fake news - I agree - it's largely an echo chamber, and interest groups will invest heavily in making sure their messages find their way into your feed, free from the scrutiny of the EC. But there are many more sources of news and comment on the internet now that aren't controlled by billionaire press barons - a lot of Labour's success in the GE can be attributed to the agility and diligence of that kind of reporting, which is much more likely to be consumed by young people, so I don't think it's fair to dismiss it. I can understand how you would want a MSM that is respected for it's independence and journalistic integrity - but we just don't have that, and we never will again.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Thu Jun 29, 2017 9:53 am  

Meanwhile - the Tories, for all their fulsome messages of thanks and appreciation for our emergency services, used the DUP to vote down a modest pay increase for nurses and firefighters, then laughed and cheered about it; I don't know how these people sleep at night.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Thu Jun 29, 2017 11:25 am  

bren2k wrote:

then laughed and cheered about it; I don't know how these people sleep at night.

Plenty of practice.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 1:46 pm  

Despite some Tories having now "broken rank" and agreed that there should be an end to the public sector pay cap, our ruling party has re-affirmed its commitment to keep the cap in place.
With shortages in the police force and the NHS, is this really the right thing to do, when the rest of us, will inevitably wish to call upon these services.
A two year pay freeze plus, 5 years of a 1% cap is, in real terms, a huge reduction in pay.
Is this how we should treat our public servants ?

[Bullseye]

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:41 pm  

My friend who is Polish who has qualified as an operating theatre nurse over here is considering her options with a move to another EU country becoming more likely, especially if pay stays as it is. She won't be alone The government can't just ignore this issue.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 4:08 pm  

Bullseye wrote:

My friend who is Polish who has qualified as an operating theatre nurse over here is considering her options with a move to another EU country becoming more likely, especially if pay stays as it is. She won't be alone The government can't just ignore this issue.

Indeed.
The cabinet does seem to be split on this issue and perhaps T. May could come out and tell local government employees how long their pay increases are going to be capped at 1%, which is a real terms cut every year fro the last 7.
It's disgraceful.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 5:27 pm  

People working in the public sector of the economy usually have a job for life. Surely that counts for something. This country's economy in the next two years will suffer the biggest slump for years. Household debt is extremely high, borrowing on credit cards and high mortgage repayments is out of control. Not to mention all the dodgy car loan deals people have signed up for.
Also the majority of people have no savings whatsoever. The economy and the housing market is slowing down ,all it needs to push people over the edge is an interest rate rise.
So if I worked in the public sector I might thank my lucky stars I have a secure job.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 5:40 pm  

Backwoodsman wrote:

People working in the public sector of the economy usually have a job for life. Surely that counts for something. This country's economy in the next two years will suffer the biggest slump for years. Household debt is extremely high, borrowing on credit cards and high mortgage repayments is out of control. Not to mention all the dodgy car loan deals people have signed up for.
Also the majority of people have no savings whatsoever. The economy and the housing market is slowing down ,all it needs to push people over the edge is an interest rate rise.
So if I worked in the public sector I might thank my lucky stars I have a secure job.

If they have been in the Public Sector for a while, then yes. But most are agency staff on short/fixed term contracts without the old index linked pensions etc. BUT, why do ALL Public Sector employee's deserve a raise, it should be performance related like any other career.

Re: T. May the worst prime minister ever ? : Mon Jul 03, 2017 5:56 pm  

PCollinson1990 wrote:

If they have been in the Public Sector for a while, then yes. But most are agency staff on short/fixed term contracts without the old index linked pensions etc. BUT, why do ALL Public Sector employee's deserve a raise, it should be performance related like any other career.

For any industry to have wages effectively frozen for 7 years, with no end to that "freeze" is just wrong and whilst those who have been in local government for 20 years + may have superb pensions, that most of us can only dream of, this isn't the case for newcomers.
Personally, I wouldn't stay in that environment and would, as many appear to be doing, look for work elsewhere.
However, what really takes the pi$$ is when there are terrorist attacks and major incidents and we all expect those undervalued employees to go above and beyond to help us, whilst at the same time, telling them that they have to live on less and less (in real terms), I bet they love it.

Can you imagine taking a job and not getting a rise for 7 year +

AND on top of this, our beloved MP's happily took an inflation busting increases and this was partly to discourage them from fiddling their expenses.

Those public sector workers would have been sacked for doing the same but, we're happy to go along with such appalling double standards.