Oh Andy, Andy, Andy.. just Why?

Oh really I didn't know that 🙄thanks for the mansplaining/womansplaing!

You must live in the back of beyond. 1 day a week and if you take it you can't get back. 🤷

I’m genuinely sorry if you felt my response was patronising - the way you said he was using the “medium of frogs cos us thickos can only understand the language of chocolate” implied to me you weren’t familiar with the trend he was riffing off, because if you had seen it, I would’ve thought you’d have known that the Prime Minister using Freddos was nothing to do with him thinking his audience were thick, and everything to do with effectively leveraging engagement from an existing trend.

I'm genuinely sorry you don't have a sense of humour.

Okay, but if you know he doesn’t think his audience is thick, and you know that that’s how you do get high engagement on social media, then what actually is your complaint about the Prime Minister’s social media communications strategy?

Other than it’s not for you - which is of course fine, no communications strategy is ever going to be for everybody.

I will say on a social media strategy being successful, we’re on SM on this forum. So we could be part of the metrics.

Well, yes absolutely - and the fact we’re even talking about his TikTok account on here shows the high cultural penetration of the Prime Minister’s social media campaigning. But for sure there’s a risk that in appealing to 18-35s on TikTok, you inadvertently alienate a wider audience elsewhere.

I think he’s probably doing better than the last one. But for some reason I don’t see AB’s posts but I did KS even though I follow neither.

That’s IG, I don’t do TikTok at all.

But anyway my thought at the end of KS tenure was that his SM team didn’t like him that much either, it was bizarre negative reaction bait. AB’s probably do like him and they’re trying to do something. Which isn’t for me, but younger people.

There is that.

This type of SM might appeal to some age groups, then again is it enough to steal them
away from the Green and is it worth alienating some more established voters?

Also, the shelf life of this engagement can be quite short.

I can see how this seems tempting at the moment, because it highlights the ways AB is different, but let’s see if it’s worth it.

I’m feeling deeply patronised -OP

I agree with the OP. I'm also feeling deeply patronised (by the PM and also by pp as apparently I don't know how SM works or what 'meme hijacking' is!

I don't need the PM of this glorious country to use children's toys and chocolate to explain to me social policy and how Labour are going to fix 'Broken Britain and 14 years of Tory disaster'.

Yes, I also noticed the 'patronising' pattern that you picked up on. And, I also didn't think AB was deeply compassionate about frogs.

And here we have it. The downside is he is going to be extremely polarising - if he doesn't just get on with the seriousness of the job he has put so much into securing.

I don’t think the poster was patronising.

I think they do know what they are talking about and explained it nicely,

But respectfully, if you feel patronised by it, then you’re not the target audience for it.

It’s not like it’s all he’s doing - parliament have only been back for two days, and he’s already broken the record for the longest statement in modern parliamentary history.

I just personally think - whatever your party politics - seeing more young people engaging in political content, and especially political content that doesn’t rely on rage-bait or mud slinging, is a really great thing for our democracy.

But isn't that why we have the likes of Crew Kerne Gazette to get the youngsters involved in politics 😅Maybe he should have rapped out that statement or him and Kemi could have had a rap battle!

I think kids playing with lego and toy buses might be too young to vote, whereas young people rapping...

Sorry but all he did in the video was waffle, in fact to the stage it was getting boring. He offered no creditable solutions at all. If fact I would say he is clueless in what he is saying. Pity he didn’t have the same empathy and compassion with the young children involved with the grooming gangs.

Yes social care does need sorting. He did mention profiteering, but how would he enforce that? Most care homes are privately owned.

Where are all the costings? He seems to talk the talk but doesn’t come up with any credible answers.

I agree- apparently he will find 'solutions'.

What everyone wants to know is what these solutions are and how will the public purse be paying for them. Otherwise yet again these are empty promises.

Less words, more action and put those toys away!

I have been sticking with a particular theme to make my point - that Burnham tells us what we want to hear. So yesterday, in the HoC:

will the Prime Minister urgently commit to charting a pathway to reaching 3 per cent of GDP spend on defence by 2030 which, as his Chancellor rightly noted, is critical to keeping our country safe?' Singh Dehsi

'I've made that commitment very clear, and I have done for a considerable period of time.
'I was in Ukraine last week for a very specific reason, to repeat it on the world stage there.' Burnham

However, today

the PM's position on the target was 'unchanged' from his previous refusal to say one way or another. Sources

On his IG/TT, AB does not come under scrutiny. In Parliament he must - so anyone who cares about these matters should hold him to account.

Can’t disagree.

He does waffle on and there was nothing of substance.

Words are cheap.

Agree-infact words are freeee

He certainly talks to his audience in a way that suggests he thinks they are a bit dim witted. and judging by some of their comments, he is probably right.

What an unkind and - while we’re on the subject, patronising - way to talk about people who like different politicians to you.

Unnecessary too - there are plenty of people on this thread who clearly have robust, passionately felt, opposing opinions but they’ve all been able to express them without name-calling.

The thing is, though, you don’t need to meet some random person on Mumsnet’s criteria for intelligence to able to vote - or to have a sense of moral clarity and opinions about the kind of society you want to live in.

And the fact remains, at this moment in time most people massively favour Andy Burnham over any of the other party leaders. So, maybe it’d be more useful to reflect on where their communication strategies and styles are going wrong.

Have you read some of the comments on social media?😂 I'm not sure you would be quite so defensive about them if you had. Not all of them will be voting for Andy even if they are engaging with the content.

It might be useful for you to reflect on the fact that putting politicians on pedestals invariably ends in disappointment.

No don’t change it. It never works when politicians try to emulate and chase.

The public is fickle and can switch again.

I like Andy Burnham - and one of the main reasons I like him is he has made me feel engaged with and inspired by politics for the first time in a long time. When - online in particular - politics has become increasingly snide and sniping, he’s been a breath of fresh air.

But I certainly don’t have him on a pedestal (beyond an admiration for his communication strategy, which I think is fairly flawless as these things go). And I’m very much aware I’ll likely be disappointed in the long run. In fact, throughout this thread I’ve repeatedly agreed with posters - some of whom probably have very different politics to me - when they’ve said that we’ll have to wait and see to really know how good a Prime Minister he’ll be and that the real test will be what he does in the budget and beyond.

Obviously, I haven’t read all the comments on his social media, but what I have read (and linked to earlier in the thread) is an independent report analysing the comments, and showing that compared to other politicians, he has an unusually high ratio of positive to negative comments.

Do I confidently think all the people who currently like his social media posts or currently favour him in the polls will go on to vote for him in an election? Obviously not.

But I don’t think any of that makes calling people who disagree with you dim-witted any less rude.