To wonder if anyone can explain why Theresa May is refusing to do any live interviews when she called this election?

[Bearbehind]

As far as I can see TM called this GE because she arrogantly assumed she'd walk it.

Unfortunately for her JC has upped his game and every time someone poses a question to her she rattles off some soundbite starting with 'let me be clear...' and completely ignores he question.

Can anyone defend the fact that she wouldn't participate in the live tv debate and now won't do any radio interviews either?

Shouldn't we be able to expect more from a PM?

Are Tory voters on here frustrated by her absence?

No.

She was explicit from the very beginning that she wasn't going to do the shouty-shouty debates - just the ones where she faced the audience & an interviewer.

She's done Andrew Neil, Sky/Ch4 & BBC tonight - she's done exactly as she said she would.

She's also done a Snapchat Q & A & a FB one iirc (reliably informed by my 15 yr old!).

I am pissed off by her not answering questions directly - but Jeremy Corbyn has been just as bad if not worse at this.
Tim Farron is atrocious at this too, but not anywhere near as bad as TM & JC.

(As much as I loathe him, Paul Nuttal is one of only a few that gives a direct answer - Caroline Lucas is another who seems to be straightforward)

It's been her two chief strategists running this campaign so far. She trusts them and the whole thing has been run by them. Lynton Crosbie who ran Cameron's campaigns has been out of the inner circle. I believe he's been brought back in to rescue things which is possibly why he's shutting down her 'Vote Theresa' message and trying to push other people forward.
The 'strong & stable' message is a joke and they need a new message very quickly.

OP asked why TM is avoiding live interviews and there are a lot of theories in this thread. It is odd, but she has, presumably, a team of the sharpest political strategists and media/communications advisors on hand. Do we think she is not going with a plan? (Would love to know that plan.)

At the same time, the media are having a field day with ratings and revelling in those car-crash moments and daily newsbombs. More than one interviewer has crossed a line from incisive and persistent to unprofessional and pointlessly goady. The front pages of the tabloids leave me jaw-dropped, and their blatant bias and total misrepresentation/prioritisation of events is truly depressing.

All this noise, focus on personalities and prurient nonsense is drowning out delivery of facts, pledges and straight answers to the electorate. We are barely skimming the surface or challenging the credibility of the manifesto commitments and we have less than a week to go.

My fear is that this is going to be the Referendum all over again, a country voting for something based on limited soundbites, lack of critical detail, and falsehoods on both sides and being generally blindsided by nonsense. Some of us will do due diligence and read the manifestos in detail, but that isn't enough (see pp) and many more will be guided by the press.

All politicians and journalists need to step up now. As Bear says, TM in particular has to stop deflecting questions and answer some real fundamentals. I really dont care how and by what medium but we are running out of time and just turning up now isn't enough.

I certainly feel I am being manipulated rather than informed.

I think May's assumption is that if she doesn't say anything at all, she can't say anything stupid. That's no doubt true, but it doesn't display a lot of confidence in her own abilities.

As for the notion that she has better things to do than debate, well in that case she should have got on with doing them rather than wasting everyone's time with an election she didn't have to call.

Bear - going back to your first post, I don't think she called an election solely because she thought she would romp home, I think it was also to do with the fact that Nicola Sturgeon and others (joe public included) kept bashing her over the head with the 'you haven't got a mandate' 'no-one voted you as leader' etc etc. It may backfire on her next week, time will tell on that one.

The Economist is pleading with its readers not to vote for Corbyn
but dearly wishes that Theresa May listened to people other than her two advisers.

She does not understand business
She does not understand economics
She does not understand science
she just hates immigrants.

THe Daily Mash gets it right wishing for a totally hung parliament where there an be no coalitoins (as happened in Belgium a while back)

She called an election because she saw what happened to Gordon Brown when he didn't

(Would love to know that plan.)

I don't think the Tories believe in planning. As with Brexit.

With no plan to be held accountable to, they can work everything out to the advantage of their circle of associates.

I couldn't care less as I never watch these "debates". I prefer to read the manifestos and watch some political programmes like Newsnight and This Week (love Andrew Neil)

She's a politician not a performer..

The "Leaders' Debate" was a disgrace and really makes me despair for our democracy. The low point for me was Caroline Lucas lying about what Paul Nuttall had said not two minutes earlier (accusing him of suggesting that the Manchester bombing was representative of Islam - he said no such thing or anything close) and getting a rousing round of applause for her lie. We are well into 1984 territory now.

If the future of our democracy is these sort of shouting matches, we are well and truly doomed.

AppearingNormal the NLP stuff only works if you have integrity and you believe in your message. It's also a skill that takes lots of work and you need charisma or at least a degree of rapport with people.
The problem with May is she is extremely internally referenced (that is her reference point is the only valid one), very low trust, task orientated (rather than people orientated) and has an inability to step into anyone else's shoes and show empathy (and mean it).
To be honest Corbyn has a similar profile and I wasn't a Corbyn fan at all, particularly post Brexit and their policies show more compassion.
Post Brexit I like nick clegg.
The quality of MPs are awful. MY fantasy - I think being an MP should be like jury duty. Random lottery every four years, maybe with a certain qualifying education? (get uni fees for free?) At least then you would get a cross section (ish) of society and when it's over you have to live cheek by jowl with the people your decisions affected.

As a fan of The Thick of It this campaign had been fascinating. TM's team must be in a tailspin. The bottom line is that if she was any good at debating or interacting with the public in a natural way she would have been forced to do it. She looks so uncomfortable in every chip eating primary school photo shoot that I almost feel sorry for her.

I have said on here how much i disliked Corbyn clinging on to Labour leadership and the damage he would do to the party. In the GE campaign he has impressed me and I hear the same from others. I am not voting for labour - I'm voting tactically to get the tories out - but I wish him well.

Wrong I don't think that's right. I've just been and rewatched the bit you're talking about . I can't make out what he's saying over the applause, can you?

Caroline didn't lie - she said 'the kind of response...that seems to suggest'. That's not the same as 'Paul said'.

In the wider context of how to make the country safer, where Nuttall leaped straight to Islam, outlining his plans for cracking down on mosques and whatnot, and ignored the neo-Nazi type terrorists, I don't think that's unfair. She's objecting to him tarring all adherents of a religion with one brush. As Tim pointed out, that sick bastard was reported 5 times by 'his own' community.

He said "politicians should have the courage to name it for what it is - Islamist extremists".

He's right - Caroline responded with:

"The response we had from paul which seemed to suggest that the violence in Manchester was somehow representative of Islam"

He said nothing of the sort, yet everyone whooped, cheered and ran with Caroline's lie.

Idon't think she called an election solely because she thought she would romp home, I think it was also to do with the fact that Nicola Sturgeon and others (joe public included) kept bashing her over the head with the 'you haven't got a mandate' 'no-one voted you as leader' etc etc

It's a bit naive to think she'd have done anything about comments about her mandate, or lack thereof, had she not thought she'd romp home though.

Hmmm, a lie is, according to the dictionary, "an intentionally false statement." Caroline said that what Nuttal said " seemed to suggest that the violence in Manchester was somehow representative of Islam". That's not a lie, it's how she interpreted his words.

I suggest anyone interested listen to the whole of what Nuttall said from about 12.39 and then Lucas's reply.

PlinkyTheFairyWitch

Wrong I don't think that's right. I've just been and rewatched the bit you're talking about here if anyone's interested, around 14:50. I can't make out what he's saying over the applause, can you?

He says, and this isn't word for word, anyone can watch who is interested, that we need to name the problem and the problem is Islamist extremism. And he wasn't drowned out by applause but by groaning and interruptions.

Caroline didn't lie - she said 'the kind of response...that seems to suggest'. That's not the same as 'Paul said'.

Word play. She said he said something he didn't say or suggest . If “naming Islamist extremist" is now the same as "saying the Manchester bombing represents Islam" then as I say, we are well into 1984 territory.

In the wider context of how to make the country safer, where Nuttall leaped straight to Islam, outlining his plans for cracking down on mosques and whatnot, and ignored the neo-Nazi type terrorists, I don't think that's unfair. She's objecting to him tarring all adherents of a religion with one brush. As Tim pointed out, that sick bastard was reported 5 times by 'his own' community

He didn't talk about cracking down on mosques. He talked about looking into Saudi funding of Wahhabism in mosques. Many people, including Muslims, are concerned about the spreading of Wahhabism and extremist Islamist ideology though Saudi funding of mosques. This needs to be addressed.

What did he say about Islam? Nothing from what I heard. He talked about many Muslim organisations not engaging with Prevent. This is a fact, many Muslim bodies and many non-Muslim other organisations (eg the university the bomber attended campaign against Prevent and Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester) do not engage with or campaign against Prevent. The Prevent strategy is our only counter-extremism strategy so the fact that many organisations are not engaging with it needs to be addressed.

Can you explain where he "tarred all adherents of one religion with one brush" or denied that Muslims reported the bomber? I didn't hear him say either of these things or anything which could be construed as saying them.

On the neo-Nazis, since 2005 there have been over 70 deaths in the UK at the hands of Islamist extremists and two at the hand of far-right extremists as far as I can work out. So it is not unreasonable to think that Islamist extremist terrorism is a bigger problem at present.

I think we are getting into very dangerous territory when people are attacked for trying to discuss the facts and reality of a situation. If Lucas disagreed that we are facing an Islamist extremist terrorism threat, disagreed that we need to look into Saudi funding of morques and spreading of Wahhabist extremist ideology, disagreed that Muslim organisations need to engage better with Prevent , she could have argued her case. Instead she just attacked Nuttall for something he had not said. Very poor.

His words were very clear though, and not at all woolly or open to different interpretations:

'Islamist extremists' can in no way be interpreted as 'representative of Islam'.

Can it?

Or was it just a case of Caroline et al running with their perception of Paul Nuttal & what they expect him to say?
Thus leading them to not actually listen to what he actually says.

(He says a lot of shit stuff, but in this instance he was woefully misrepresented by Caroline & the rest of them).

Xpost with wrongtrouser

I'm not too sure why this thread has descended into a debate about what Paul Nuttal did or didn't say, other than to detract from the subject of the thread,

I'm asking specifically what people think of TM being put on a pedestal by the Tory campaign to then be hidden from the public when it becomes clear she's not up to the job.

I think my real issue with the Tory party atm is the fact everything is so knee jerk and ill thought out.

There are countless examples of them doing something they've clearly not thought through then having to back track.

How will that work during Brexit negiotiations?

TM partly called the election because the CPS were considering whether to press charges against a number of conservative MPs which would have reduced her majority to 0 and given labour far more power when they woke up to it. And she thought she'd get a landslide.

Unfortunately for her, the campaign has made her look 'tired'( in a Margaret thatcher sense) weak, and woolly) and it has given Jeremy Corbyn a new lease of life - perhaps she'd forgotten how good he is at campaigning - and how hopeless at day to day business.

Bring it back to May Bear.

She is probably having the worst few weeks of her life, considering she wanted to be PM for a long time in the words of her own husband.
Her style has always been like this. She behaved exactly the same way during EU ref campaign and it's aftermath. And is probably thinking it will keep working for her infinitely.
From police cuts highlighted after Manchester attack to fox hunting, from handholding with Trump to being "disappointed" with him, she has let the spirit of this country massively down.
Must be thrown out now.

Well Tim Farron just did a storming webchat, Corbyn did one too. When's May's?

She ain't for turning and for turning up, didn't you know?
Must go into hiding behind some strong and stable stuff till election is over.