to be glad that the Guardian is making enormous losses

[longfingernails]

www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-losses-reported-to-have-escalated-by-a-further-10m-to-68-7m-for-the-last-financial-year/

Great stuff. Their chatterati condescension, Islington moral vacuum and politically correct echo chamber has been a malignant blot upon our society for decades.

Let it wither upon the Viner.

Fair enough, I'll count the Guardian winning far more in recent times as it being the better newspaper over the last decade ;)

The young overwhelmingly voted to remain, as did graduates, the working class Labour vote overwhelmingly voted to leave,

And in the estimation of my CLP's post-mortem, being told they were stupid and that their concerns were worthless by people in London was a significant part of that. I was shocked by Toynbee's piece at the time, and it made me re-read some of the literature I was delivering in a new light.

Did anyone in the Remain campaign, at any point, think that "we hear what you are saying, and would like to talk to you about the concerns you have and see what policies might be developed to address them?" might be a worthwhile approach? Or was "you're wrong you're racist you're stupid" thought a more winning policy?

I was delivering leaflets, with Alan Johnson's photograph on them, telling people in an ex-manufacturing constituency that we had to remain in because otherwise jobs would be lost in the financial sector. I suspect that pamphlet cost votes, because many people will say "good: then they might know what it feels like". How did anyone think "vote remain to protect jobs in the financial sector" was a winning national campaign?

Graduates voted 57% remain, 43% leave. I wouldn't say that was "overwhelmingly" remain. (Ashcroft poll)

Still larger than the outcome of the actual vote that we've made this decision on!

Cuboidal,

I campaigned for remain, and I listened to people talk about immigration as their concerns, many, many of them were just repeating things that they'd been fed by the media. I certainly never heard, or read in the Guardian people being accused of being racists, unless they actually said racists things. Which people did actually do when I was campaigning!

" I suspect that pamphlet cost votes, because many people will say "good: then they might know what it feels like".

Well fuck me what a good reason to have voted out. London and the city will remain prosperous, but if the taxes from the Finance industry fall other areas may not get as much spent on them. Sunderland certainly won't prosper if Nissan cuts production.

hey, I'm just an uncontrolled immigrant, what do I know about the finer points of grammatical construction, I'll take your self-contradictory points on board.

In any event, again, I wonder who is responsible for the large rise in abuse and violence towards immigrants and those perceived as not english in the wake of the referendum, seen here: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/huge-rise-in-anti-immigrant-hate-crimes-caused-by-eu-referendum-police-chiefs-warn-a7130631.html.

Yes but I think exaggerating the difference in voting patterns for different groups of people (age, class, education, race), which many commentators have done, has been unhelpful, simplistic and divisive.

Small, I agree it's a better paper than the mail but it's an obvious meaningless statistic that you selectively quoted, it means nothing in regards to the op unless we hold the mail to the same standards, something that I doubt you would do.

Winning the award doesn't negate people's problems with the paper, nor does it absolve it of obvious biases.

Fair enough Wrong.

My last post was a reply to Fox at 00.41.

London and the city will remain prosperous, but if the taxes from the Finance industry fall other areas may not get as much spent on them.

That's exactly the patronising tone that played so badly outside London. It's basically saying that nothing any of us do is real work, because without London to do the real work everyone will be poor. Even if it's true, it's normally held to be poor manners to drive through poor parts of tow shouting "I pay your benefits, dole scum" out of the window of your Porsche, which is basically what that argument amounts to.

It isn't saying that basically none of the rest of you do no work, merely noting the fact that London is a massive net tax contributor while huge swathes of the rest of the country are in net deficit, and that London's prosperity , for better or worse, is tied inexorably to the rest of the country's prosperity.

It also goes back to the "kicking London" point, which is not what the vote was about, although it does rather show that people have bought into the elites narrative of the leave campaign.

Any anti immigrant abuse and violence is vile and should be treated with the full weight of the law, but, trying not to make excuses here, I haven't found any background statistics of numbers, I've if the number is relatively low the percentage increase is going to be larger, there was also a backlash from the remain camp that activley pushed people into reporting apparent hate crime, plus the somewhat discredited reports that Nigel far age and the leave campaign poster was recorded in some statics, to me, as non white thinks we should wait to see a longer term trend to see if there really is an issue.

I have to say, even though it goes against the mindset, I've not met anyone who has told me to go home or seen any anti immigrant graffiti etc, I don't discount others views, far from it, but I think the numbers are definetly muddied at the moment.
I repeat even the smallest number is wrong, I'm just not getting into the whole rage baiting side of the news yet.

are you saying that people reported hate crimes because they were somehow put up to it by Remain voters?

surely you can see that this is absurd as well as insulting?

It also goes back to the "kicking London" point, which is not what the vote was about

Clearly in the eyes of some voters it was. They're the ones with the pencils in their hands, so the vote is about whatever they choose to make it. You appear to be of the technocratic bent which wants to discount votes cast for reasons which don't live up to your standards of intellectual insight.

People vote in general elections for all sorts of reasons, many of them entirely irrational. Obviously you perform a complex thesis-length examination of the offers being made, and evaluate using Mathematica, R and a monte-carlo model of the economy which to vote for. Other people vote because they think the candidate is pretty and they went to school with her sister who was nice. Your vote is no more valid than theirs.

The likes of Remain, Yes2AV and indeed Labour and the LibDems will continue to lose elections for as long as they believe that the electorate are idiots, that the votes of London "intellectuals" count double and that people should apologise for being wrong last time.

The electorate are never wrong.

Well,whilst I don't necessarily agree with all guardian content I like the overall paper. I like that it doesn't habitually objectify women,or write sleazy comments about Taylor swift/other females flaunting their legs when they are in fact simply walking.in guardian Women aren't referred to by dress size. Or house price.

Guardian provides a balance to the bilge that is sun , daily mail. I don't read the aforementioned but am aware of their online content and overall shite.so all things considered I hope guardian doesn't go bust. I have online subscription to both guardian,telegraph and read on iPad.

"The electorate are never wrong."

No they can be.

If you voted out in the EU referendum to "kick London" or out at the elites. You were wrong, because these things were not in question.

If you voted out in the EU referendum because you thought that immigration would stop? You were wrong, becaue the likelyhood is that it won't, and even with strong controls over all immigration is likely to fall by100,000.

If you voted out in the EU referendum because you thought it would make the NHS or UK services better. You were wrong.

The electorate can be wrong, their vote still counts, but it can be wrong.

The electorate is often wrong, I'd say.

So what do you think, politically, you can do about an electorate whose conclusions you don't respect? Remove the vote from people who don't like Eddie Izzard? Restrict the vote to people with Level 8 qualifications? Bring back the property qualification? What?

It is the obligation of people who want the electorate to vote in a particular way to convince them to do so. If they don't vote that way, you (or indeed we) didn't do the job well enough. Why was AV rejected? Because it was a not very good idea, with one of the most incompetent campaigns we have ever seen in this country. Why did Leave win? Because Remain is a nuanced proposition, the campaign was shit (with a lot of the "Remain" argument being "well, we think it's a bit shit too, but hey, stay with us, it'll get better") and we were unable to deal with the immigration narrative other than by throwing accusations of racism, stupidity or both at the Leave camp.

The Remain campaign was a difficult sell, which was lost in part because a London-centric campaign wasn't willing to listen to, never mind engage with, people who were potential swing voters. The Leave campaign were simple-minded, dishonest and willing to get out into the country and talk to people. Why would people vote for a proposition promoted by people who obviously have nothing but contempt for them, when there's a proposition that looks human? Voters don't vote for ideas, they vote for emotions. And Remain's man emotion was contempt.

It was a shit campaign. We lost, because we fought a shit campaign.

Cuboid - I would just like to say thanks for pursuing this discussion so intelligently. Keep it up.

Surely a fundamental part of democracy is to allow others to disagree with each other?

Is it necessary for everyone to agree with the majority, and change their opinion accordingly so it is in lockstep?

I certainly do think an electorate can be wrong - there were voters in the US who consistently voted in segregationist governors and representatives. Surely I am not obliged to say that this is correct, or ideal, simply because a majority chose it?

As to the referendum, the wishes of the (slim) majority of voters in certain areas of the country may be respected without everyone having to agree that they are right.

How bizarre and antidemocratic to suggest otherwise.

Perhaps, if a uniform electoral voice with no deviations from the script is desired, posters so wishing could move to north korea.

I haven't read all the thread but this has made me decide to subscribe to the Guardian as well.

Remain's emotion was never contempt, in fact the leave campaign' was far more contemptuous of the people it was targeting.

Leave blatantly misused figures, preyed upon and exploited people's fears, misled people about the impact of immigration and made continual appeals to emotion and history.

The remain campaign spent lots of time trying to dissuade people from being misled so wilfully.

"The remain campaign was about contempt" is a revisionist and inaccurate reading of the situation. Politicians who are in contempt of their electorate are the ones that mislead them and do so in order to get them to vote against their best interests.

Agree strongly, smallfox, that the Leave campaign was deeply, deeply contemptuous of voters.

You don't get a much clearer demonstration than Boris doing a runner when the people he'd been playing games with actually believed him. He intended them to give allegiance to him, while he gave nothing to them. Didn't quite work out.

You're missing the point of "the electorate are always right". It's not a moral decision, or an economic one: it's the simple truism that electorates take decisions, and telling them afterwards (or before)

It doesn't mean that the outcomes are right: obviously, there have been bad governments elected in free-ish and fair-ish elections, although not that often (segregationist US states didn't have free and fair elections). It also doesn't mean that individual voters are right, because clearly people that for for openly fascist parties are bad people.

The point is that the electorate, as a whole, judges political positions, and in the UK at least, it's hard to think of an occasion they've got it wrong. If you want to convince them otherwise, convince them. Telling them that they are "wrong" is for losers: you need to make them right. What the slogan means is that it is pointless to go around telling them why they don't understand, and if only they did understand, they would do differently (the Tories under Howard, who sought an apology for 1997; Labour under Miliband, who were still fighting 2010, if not 2005). You need to convince them that you are right.

Labour were deaf in 1979 and 1983. It took until 1987 for Labour to get even close to starting to talk with the electorate. The Tories ditto in 1997 and subsequently until 2010 (and even then they weren't great). For as long as parties believe that they were right, and it's the electorate's fault they lost, they continue to lose.

And you can point to quite a number of other "surprising" results and see that the electorate were ahead of the politicians: 1945? Yes, Winston, great wartime leader, thanks, but no thanks. 1950? The NHS is great, thanks, but bread rationing like we didn't even have in the war? No thanks. And so on.

Parties that don't listen don't win. Remain didn't listen. Remain stood on the moral high ground and shouted.