Article about Mumsnet on Unherd. "Has Mumsnet fallen for Farage? Labour is losing Middle England"

Maybe - just maybe - there isn't one.

Would love to know what site or media channel is a “representative microcosm of the UK”.

And this is the more pertinent point:

'there are far more politically homeless Mumsnetters than Faragist ones.
The more significant story, though, is the fall in support for the Labour Party. Labour’s share of the poll fell from 41% in 2024 to 18%. Among a demographic staunchly supportive of social welfare, this is damning. Presumably a few have broken for Reform, bumping that 14% up to 20%; but the biggest beneficiary is “Don’t know”, rising by 20%. In other words, a proportion greater than Farage’s entire poll share has abandoned Labour, mostly for political homelessness. '

Parties who want to win over some floating voters should be engaging with, and listening to Mumsnet.

That massive drop in support for Labour? You could reverse that.

Ask me how.

'The only reason someone might imagine this particular community to be a hotbed of Right-wing sentiment is that Mumsnet is a key platform for gender-critical feminism. Several of the campaign groups that successfully opposed the Tories’ daft “gender-self-ID” legislation in the 2010s spun out of forum debates there, aided by the founders’ commitment to civil, open debate.
But unless one becomes “far Right” merely by knowing biology is real, that tells us little about Mumsnetters’ overall politics.'

Bingo.

First point on that site for my area:

'Launched new legislation to bring the UK's railways back into public ownership which will improve rail services across Scotland.'

We already nationalised the railways in Scotland. In 2022. They're still shite. Next!

Protest votes can have bad outcomes. Lots of people said they voted Leave to teach Cameron and Osborne a lesson . About Austerity I suppose?

Anyway, the voters will have plenty of time to judge Farage and Reform on their record , running councils in Durham , Kent and Nottingham. That's going to be .... interesting.

Don't think I stood up for labour in my post. I am a lefty but they haven't done as many things as I would have hoped for. Hell would have to freeze over before I voted for Toad of Toad Hall though

It's not balanced. The headline is awful- women interested in politics are ' falling' for people? When would you ever get that applied to a male audience. Also cleverly associating the word Gammon with working class- this word has never been about the working class. It's specifically describing UN unintelligent misogynistic Nazi types- more male than female- it's a political description not a class one.
Only thing I agree with is communication is the answer. But the women who are wise to the type of people leading reform need to start mobilising quickly and find ways. This will be settled by women.

Women's rights, farmers, fishermen - how have Labour demonstrated that they care about any of these?

I'm not advocating for Farage here - just pointing out that Labour really aren't any better.

And since Labour are in power, them not caring actually matters.

Never in a million years would I vote for that grifting charlatan. He cares no more about women's rights than he does farmers or fishermen.

I'm in the market for a new bridge. The stream is about 2m wide with solid banks and it hasn't breached in the 19 years that we have lived here. A wooden replacement bridge would be fine but I rather fancy a concrete half culvert and brick affair. Can you help?

Many years ago, P J O'Rourke (sadly missed) was on a phone in on a London radio station. As usual he was pushing his more reactionary world view and there were a stream of "liberal lefty" callers.

After the 4th or 5th, the host asked him in an amused tone "So many people disagreeing, where are all your supporters ?"

"They have jobs"

was the instant reply.

Can't think why I remember that.

I'm getting lots of:

Launched
Announced
Set out plan
Started
Unveiled

not so much of:

Delivered

I think that holds true for a lot of subjects on MN. While activists might try to sway things one way or the other, they are simply drowned out by the sheer number of MN users.

Whenever you see Reform/Farage threads on here you get dozens of posters who are anti and a couple of pro Reform posters who bang away for day after day putting up one post after the other. The recent Epstein/Farage thread was a good example.

Constant pro Reform posts but from a very few posters.

If you want to know what Labour has done, is doing in your area there's information here https://whathaskeirdone.co.uk/

Don't be silly. If anyone here is supporting Reform, it's because of the failure of the Tories and Labour and as a protest vote.

We rightly grumbled on the other thread that the 'MN is now backing Reform' headline in the Independent was misleading, because only one in five 'politically engaged' MNers said they would vote for reform.
So four out of five would not, which is hardly a resounding endorsement of Reform!

I.e. 20% would vote for Reform. Which is quite a bit lower than the figure for the UK population as a whole - IPSOS puts that at 33%, well in the lead over Labour in second place at 18%.

And IPSOS' figure also supports a PP's assertion that MN is not representative of the UK.

I think that was a very astute and interesting article, thanks for posting it OP.

I think the article sums up how I'm feeling pretty well. I want our politicians to care about us (their fellow citizens) and put our needs first rather than taking us for granted or looking down their noses at us.

I want politicians to come out of their lobby bubble and genuinely find out what their voters want and need. I want politicians who are more interested in public service than virtue signalling. I want politicians who have had real jobs and life experience rather than going straight from student politics/activism to Westminster.

I want politicians who take things like infrastructure, manufacturing, social mobility, the safety of women and girls, and energy security seriously. The world is reforming itself into new power blocs and I don't feel that the UK, or many other European countries, has taken this threat seriously. They can't managerialise their way out of these large and looming problems.

Starmer and Johnson both talked about national renewal when campaigning to Red Wall voters but had no policies for, or seemingly any genuine interest in, making it happen.

AI usually writes the headlines to draw in clicks.

My first engagement with MN came when it was flagged on my event scanning radar for IT strategy in (checks notes) 2009. That was part of a much wider piece on social media and it's place in advertising and the economy. And I stand by my assertion that if anyone thinks it's somehow a window into some balanced representation of the UK, then they really need to look at who chooses to advertise on here.

It’s a classic “question to which the answer is no” clickbait headline. I feel sorry for journalists on this as they generally don’t write the headlines, just the articles.

The piece is by Mary Harrington - and we like her, don't we? She says she sometimes debates on here, and I'd love to know who she is.

Anyway, she's basically right. Nobody on here much likes Farage but we are all sick to the back teeth of both the Tories and Labour.

Well Betteridges law of headlines applies, as always.

However if anyone believes for a moment that MN is a representative microcosm of the UK, then could they please PM me, as I have some really exciting deals on bridges you won't want to miss. You won't believe what #3 is.

At least the Unherd writer is explicit in the article:

"So are the nation’s mums really swinging behind Reform? No: it’s more that they have declared a pox on Keir Starmer."

I suppose the headline has to have pull, hence making it a question rather than "Mumsnet has not fallen for Reform" which is less clickbaity.