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Election night 2005 - Brits, what's the score?
markb:
Actually Laabour only lost 50 seats which meant a "Swing" of 100 seats in parliament.
A majority of 60 plus seats is more than Margaret Thatcher had for her 1st term in 1979 and she pretty much did what she wanted.
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: JCL on May 06, 2005, 10:09:19 am ---Did any big media outlet predict a Blair loss? I didn't see it. I saw many of them predicting exactly what happened. So where's the lie? And does an Iraq war supporter really want to call others liars?
You might be saying "Shut up, my guy won!" like so many, but this is bad news for the next war that Bush wants allies in. Blairs ability to do unpopular things. What countries will go along with the next idiotic decision of Bush's? Our allies in Iraq are dropping away one by one.
--- End quote ---
Blair is far from "my guy", actually. I just hate media agenda. I hate it when they show bias towards conservatives and I hate it when they show bias towards liberals. Traditional journalism is long dead... all we have now is advocacy journalism at best and outright propaganda at times.
It's going to get far, far, far worse before it gets any better.
JCL:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on May 06, 2005, 10:22:22 am ---
--- Quote from: JCL on May 06, 2005, 10:09:19 am ---Did any big media outlet predict a Blair loss? I didn't see it. I saw many of them predicting exactly what happened. So where's the lie? And does an Iraq war supporter really want to call others liars?
You might be saying "Shut up, my guy won!" like so many, but this is bad news for the next war that Bush wants allies in. Blairs ability to do unpopular things. What countries will go along with the next idiotic decision of Bush's? Our allies in Iraq are dropping away one by one.
--- End quote ---
Blair is far from "my guy", actually.
--- End quote ---
ChadTower:
--- Quote from: JCL on May 06, 2005, 10:27:49 am ---
Please show me where the some big media predicted a Blair loss. They all predicted a win with a much smaller majority. And that is what happened! How can you possibly call that a lie?
You have a very low standard of the word lie for the people you don't like, apparently.
And unbiased media is a recent idea that was never a reality.
--- End quote ---
The 'lies' I'm referring to are over the past two years, not the past two weeks. They've been telling us over and over again how Blair is dead in British politics, that a change is imminent, that England is nearly united against him now and that he is the least popular PM in recent memory. It's not about the overt prediction, it's about the pounding of the perception over a long period of time.
And yes, the media WAS less biased 50 years ago. Journalism was about the story then. Now, it's all about the reporter, and the outlet, and who broke first, and who gets credit, and who gets what book deal a year later... the media is no longer reports the news, it creates it most of the time and makes itself more of the story than the subjects. It all started, IMO, with Watergate (which was a great work of jounalism), when the media saw the type of wealthy star a reporter can become with a big enough story.
mr.Curmudgeon:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on May 06, 2005, 10:32:06 am ---The 'lies' I'm referring to are over the past two years, not the past two weeks. They've been telling us over and over again how Blair is dead in British politics, that a change is imminent, that England is nearly united against him now and that he is the least popular PM in recent memory.
--- End quote ---
Chad,
I'm on board with you regarding the uselessness of our media here in the States. But you don't have a case on this one. As JCL has pointed out, this is not a real "victory" for Blair, just his Labour Party...and barely at that. He lost a tremendous amount of seats and there is the remote possibility that his party may show him the door because of that.
--- Quote ---They've been telling us over and over again how Blair is dead in British politics, that a change is imminent, that England is nearly united against him now and that he is the least popular PM in recent memory.
--- End quote ---
From the Guardian: "For the first time, a majority government in Britain has been elected by fewer people than those who could not be bothered to vote. Labour's 36% share of the vote was lower than the 39% of the electorate who didn't make it to the polling station."
mrC