Election 2015: Tangled up in news

STILL not decided who you are going to vote for when the polls open? Don't bother listening to the national press - which seems altogether pretty confused.

In fairness to the newspapers, this is a General Election in which the result and the aftermath are going to be much more fascinating than a largely uneventful campaign.

There has been no Gillian Duffy moment, no John Prescott punches and certainly no incidents of party leaders falling into the sea.

Green leader Natalie Bennett has had an unfortunate frog in the throat in an "excruciating" interview - while UKIP has had inevitable problems with a candidate or two.

The three main Westminster parties, however, have run sickeningly dull, stage-managed campaigns in which journalists have been restricted in how many questions they could ask - and even in their access.

Of course, there were always going to be the broadcasters' set piece events: first, David Cameron and Ed Miliband were quizzed by Jeremy Paxman before being questioned by the audience on Sky and Channel 4 in the Battle for Number 10.

A couple of weeks later, there was a seven-way leaders' debate on ITV - and then, two weeks after that, an opposition leaders' debate followed on BBC.

Finally, last week, the usual Question Time panel format was replaced by questions from the audience to Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg separately.

Unfortunately, none of it has been particularly enterprising or even stopped me - a self-confessed political geek - from watching football during the Battle for Number 10, going to a football pub quiz during the leaders' debate and a gig during the opposition leaders' debate.

Of course, I did the best I could to catch-up on such events by watching the news headlines and then full re-runs where time allowed.

But at no stage did it feel, at the time, as if I had missed out on anything particularly major - and the complete stalemate in the polls would suggest this to be true.

As such, perhaps it is no surprise to have seen national newspapers over the last few weeks ramp up the rhetoric in an attempt to get something - anything - extraordinary to happen.

Instead, all they seem to have achieved is a bunch of, often contradictory, headlines which make them look rather silly indeed.

For instance, after the seven-way leaders' debate, the headline on the front page of the Guardian was "Labour buoyed as Miliband edges Cameron in snap poll".

By contrast, the Telegraph went with "Miliband flops as outsiders shine" and the Sun produced a dreadful double-entendre next to a photograph of Mr Miliband.

In fact, an average of the four polls held after the debate made it difficult to tell who had 'won' - with Mr Cameron on 22%, Mr Miliband on 21.5%, UKIP leader Nigel Farage on 21% and Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon on 20%.

Ever since, of course, Ms Sturgeon's reputation has grown and she has emerged as one of the principle figures of the campaign - even though she is not standing for Parliament herself.

The Scottish Sun has even backed her party in a complete contradiction to its own national edition which has backed the Conservatives to "stop the SNP from running the country" under a minority Labour administration.

The Daily Mail has also taken to a demonisation of Ms Sturgeon - even referring to her as the "most dangerous woman in Britain". Funnily enough, that again did not quite make it into its Scottish edition.

It also appeared rather confused again yesterday when top half of its front page ranted against a potential Labour government and the bottom half despaired at a basic public service, waiting times for GPs.

Elsewhere, the Telegraph seems to have become obsessed with offering the whole of its front page to letters from business people backing Mr Cameron's government.

Shortly after the Budget, it published a "key" list of supporters - and then, in a separate list, the solicited responses of 5,000 small business owners were plastered across the paper just over a week ago.

Except the impressive number of 5,000 was rather less than that - some of the names were duplicates, others no longer had current business, and at least one signatory even asked to be removed.

Daily Express readers will no doubt be disappointed when it slowly dawns on them that, under the First Past the Post electoral system, UKIP's relative popularity will not translate into dozens of seats.

Meanwhile, the Independent must also be bracing itself for disappointment having stuck by the Lib Dems.

The Guardian, which backed the Lib Dems in 2010, has switched its allegiance to Labour - but it, too, was caught out when it prematurely predicted a surge for Mr Miliband's party on the back of just three half decent polls in a row.

Instead, the polls, averaged week-on-week, have remained obstinately level.

However, this does, of course, leave the election wide open with claims to post-election legitimacy perhaps even extending to the total number of votes overall as much as total number of seats.

It is important then for everyone to use their vote, and for everyone to vote on the strength of their own views - not those of anyone or anything else, least of all the newspapers.

Polling stations are open from 7am-10pm.

Cat fight overshadows Conservative conference

A DRAB conference season from all of the parties briefly sparked into life thanks to an extraordinary spat between two ministers over an asylum seeker with a cat.

Home Secretary Theresa May was first to unleash her claws at the Conservative conference in Manchester.

She used her speech to deride the Human Rights Act and claimed it had saved a South American man from deportation "because - and I am not making this up - he had a pet cat".

Mrs May was treading a dangerous line - surely her script-writers should have worked out that such a ridiculous claim would not stand up to scrutiny.

Indeed, it was unsurprisingly soon rebuffed by top judges from the Judicial Communications Office and Mrs May's Conservative colleague, the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke.

But, despite scorn being cast upon her comments, Mrs May had still done enough to play to the gallery who lapped it up gleefully.

And Mr Clarke, who has always cut a rather controversial and sometimes lonely figure with his pro-Europe stance in a largely Eurosceptic party, was also rebuked by Prime Minister David Cameron in his keynote speech.

Mr Cameron, who was, in fairness, attempting to make light of the issue, referred to the fact that he had been involved in recording audio books for the blind as part of a social project being run at the conference.

He said: "There was one book that I chose personally. I said 'Ken, this one's called Crime And Punishment and I want you to read it, twice'."

That appeared to be a slight on Mr Clarke's generally softer stance to sentencing than most of his party and, indeed, some of those on the opposition benches.

However, on a separate issue, Foreign Secretary William Hague was unable to appease the Tory right as the party's divisions over Europe continued to bubble under the surface.

Mr Hague ruled out a referendum on Britain's membership to the European Union, arguing one would be called only to approve or reject further transfers of sovereignty. "Our place is in the European Union," he said.

Nevertheless, this still did not stop the rather one-eyed populist press from claiming a breakthrough - most notably, here in the Daily Mail, and here in the Daily Express.

But those on the Tory right knew where they really stood after Mr Hague's speech, and some inevitably grumbled about taking their vote to UKIP instead.

Of course, although the number of defectors may actually be small, the issue of Europe still leaves Mr Cameron in a political quandary.

Does he pander to the right in league with the tabloid press or does he continue to alienate them and risk failing again to get an outright majority at the next general election?

For now, the coalition with the Liberal Democrats forces Mr Cameron's hand in that he must do the latter.

And, as the world economy dives into perhaps "the worst financial crisis in history", there seems much about Mr Cameron's premiership which is - frustratingly for him - outside of his control.

Certainly, when he launched his election manifesto over 18 months ago on Westminster Bridge, his vision of a Big Society was at the forefront of his objectives.

Now, in power, he seemingly faces a daily battle just to stop society from falling apart and so it is to his credit then that his approval rating remains as 'high' as it does.

In YouGov's weekly poll for the Sunday Times, Mr Cameron's rating is steady at -8, well ahead of Labour leader Ed Miliband who is on -32.

Similarly, the same report by Populus for Lord Ashcroft, 'The Leadership Factor' - which labelled Mr Miliband as "weird" - was much kinder to Mr Cameron whom the general public consider to be "determined" and "competent".

However, none of the party leaders scored particularly highly when people were asked who had the best policies on a wide-range of issues.

Of the ten areas selected, the 'none of the above' party led in eight with the Tories leading only in two categories - cutting the deficit and reforming welfare.

And so, while Mr Cameron is more well-liked than Mr Miliband, you would be hard-pushed still to argue that the current Prime Minister has widespread popular appeal.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary since the Conservatives last won an outright majority at a general election.

Once considered the natural party of government, Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes recently pointed out: "The Tory party is absolutely not the dominant force in British politics that it used to be."

As the UK Polling Report website notes, Mr Cameron and his party still have an image problem in vast swathes of the country up north.

Indeed, in some areas, the spectre of Thatcherism is so toxic that it is hard to see, now over 20 years on, the Tories ever recovering their ground.

This continued lack of presence in the north is especially problematic for the Conservatives as the retained first past the post system requires them still to win yet more seats to gain a majority.

Even accounting for the collapse in the Lib Dem vote, the rise of the Scottish Nationalists and the overall representation of other parties may still prevent there being a decisive result.

As the Britain Votes blog explains: "At the 2010 general election, 86 seats were won by parties other than Labour or the Conservatives.

"The result of that is, whichever of Britain's two major political parties comes out on top, they need to beat the other by 88 seats just to get a majority of two"

"The Conservatives' 48 seat advantage over Labour last year would have given them a majority in all post-war elections up until 1997.

"Instead, [Mr] Cameron ended up 20 seats shy, and more like 40 short of a workable majority. The worrying conclusion from all this is that Britain could be heading towards a state of perpetual hung parliament."

Of course, Mr Cameron was not slow in congratulating the work of the campaigners who argued against the Alternative Vote - it was, in fact, the second item of his speech.

What delicious irony it would be if the retained ever-so reliable old system can only provide us with another stalemate in 2015!

Perpetual hung parliament under first past the post? That would really set the cat among the pigeons.

Latest tosh from the nationals

HIGHLY-PAID national scribes regularly produce a load of pap to fill the column inches but some bad journalism simply cannot be left without censure.

Indeed, two pieces published in the last few days are so cringeworthy that they merit a blog post.

The first load of rubbish comes, somewhat unsurprisingly, from the Daily Express. On Friday, it published a poll claiming that 99% of British people want to leave the European Union.

In the intro to the article which carries the findings, the Express laughably claims that the survey shows there is "a massive weight of public support surging behind the Daily Express's crusade to liberate Britain from Brussels".

But, as professional YouGov pollster Anthony Wells points out on the excellent UK Polling Report blog, the poll is a nonsense, referred in the industry as a 'voodoo poll'.

Mr Wells wrote: "There is unlikely to be any attempt to properly sample or weight the data, nor protections against multiple voting, nor preventing pressure groups organising people to ring up en masse.

"Yes, in this case it’s blindingly obvious that the poll is bunkum."

Of course, there is nothing unusual in the populist press publishing some sort of article based upon its own telephone poll.

Frankly, people who call up a premium rate number to declare their interest would seem to have too much time on their hands but that is besides the point.

The reason why the story probably provoked so much ire from Mr Wells was not so much the lack of caveats or weighting but the fact that the Express ran the story "in massive font on the front page".

This story was undoubtedly a case of irresponsible journalism, effectively presenting the opinions of Express readers bothered enough to pick up a phone as fact, then - worse - giving it wide exposure. Was there really nothing else to report?

Perhaps the only surprise in the wake of the Royal wedding announcement is that Prince William and Kate Middleton were not mentioned. Or, for that matter, Princess Di.


The other terrible item to turn stomachs and yet make it to the presses this week was written by the Guardian football writer Louise Taylor on Thursday. It came to light in this post on the FleetStreetBlues blog.

Ms Taylor has recently been to Doha in Qatar and, on her return, produced a sickeningly-sweet puff piece about the small Arab state's prospects of winning its bid to host the World Cup 2022.

She even attempts to suggest that Qatar's stance on the existence of Israel would soften in the event of the Israelis qualifying.

And, putting aside my personal distaste as a Newcastle fan towards Ms Taylor as a writer - she honed her dubious skills on Sunderland fanzine A Love Supreme and rarely fails to show her bias on Tyne-Wear matters - this article still stinks.

Sports blog editor Steve Busfield gave what he referred to as "full disclosure" when he explained that Ms Taylor "was on a press trip to Qatar with several other national newspaper and broadcasting journalists, ahead of the decision for the 2022 World Cup next week."

Mr Busfield added: "During the trip Louise wrote news stories about the Brazil v Argentina match and on Alex Ferguson. She was asked to write a comment piece about her impressions of Qatar."

However, when further comments queried who paid for her jaunt to the Middle East, Mr Busfield finally confirmed that "the trip was organised and paid for by the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid committee."

In other words, the original "full disclosure" was in fact the truth but not the whole truth and the whole truth shows a massive conflict of interest.

Oddly enough, the article now seems to have been somewhat buried - certainly, it is no longer visible on the football front-page of the Guardian website.

But this is nothing new for the Guardian which has fallen foul in the past to an expose in the comments box by its own readers.

In 2008, a rather dull travel blog by young Skins writer Max Gogarty was revealed in the readers' comments to have been written by the son of freelance journalist and regular Guardian contributor Paul Gogarty. Nepotism at its best.

The comments were scathing then and it is no different this time with heavy moderating showing the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' policy only applies so far.

Of the opinions which have been allowed through, the best are those which suggest Ms Taylor seeks alternative employment - as an official for the Qatari tourist board.

No doubt she would do a good job, and there would probably be plenty of money in it for her too.

Hat-tips: UK Polling Report, FleetStreetBlues