This election: has it always been like this?

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I feel like this is the first election I’ve really opened my eyes and followed properly researching and fact checking for myself. I’m 36 years old and have voted in 5? 6? General elections.

Is it always this bad? The constant smearing and the lies (I’m talking about the tories). It’s absolutely disgusting. Is this what the run up to the election is always like? I’ve never seen it this bad before.

I’m 55 . Smears, lies, fake news and social media representations have deemed this election the worst ever , as far as I’m concerned.
There’s always been white lies and accusations but this year has been absolutely horrendous.
Just about everyone I know has said that come Thursday, they’ll get their ballot form and will literally not know who best to vote for.
It’s an utter shambles all round.

What I do know is that whoever gets voted into power will be very short lived .

So I’m really not imagining it. You hear of personal attacks and smearing happening in other countries where democracy isn’t always upheld. Seeing all these fake stories and tv presenters like Piers Morgan inviting politicians to the studio for a “chat”.. it’s like Jeremy Kyle, Politics editions.

Completely agree with the poster upthread that there’s no ethos left. There are some nasty words being spoken by a lot of politicians, and most of the time they are lies. Sajid Javid has a particularly nasty way of tweeting, I’d hate to meet him in RL and see what kind of person he is.

That poor man who died in the terrorist attack; his dad was being bashed for using his son’s death for his own agenda against Boris. How the hell can people be so vile?

Agree 100 per cent with Optimummy. I feel that Johnson just wants to win because he feels he deserves to be PM, not because he has any ideas on how to make people’s lives better.

All sides are awful, all people except extremists will turn away from it.

Bad things are coming, and the only learning will come from them, as no-one is currently listening.

Social media is an awful way to discuss some of the issues.

Its the worst I remember and I'm old enough to remember Thatcher.
Have you heard of the Nolan Principles for public life? You look for a politician that holds them;

1. Selflessness
2. Integrity
3. Objectivity
4. Accountability
5. Openness
6. Honesty
7. Leadership

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2

...... and this week's two main episodes: a friend who turned out not to be a friend, and shroud waving in one of the UK's finest hospitals.

Fare that Fred West would have trouble coming up with.

It is a mix of the change in the media and a result of austerity I think.
Media wise I saw a meme - it used to be that the news told you what had happened, and you had to decide how you felt about that. Now, the news tells you how to feel, and you have to decide if it happened. It really does feel like we can't trust any of the major news sources.
Then there is Brexit, which no one in my circles admits to supporting, but clearly some people did. I don't think there is a person in the country satisfied with the botched execution of it though.
The parties are further apart than ever - Corbyn aligned with Momentum, Johnson with the billionaire elite, rather than being just each side of centre.

And lastly, tempers run high because of austerity.
Those of us who work with vulnerable people and have done for a biggish number of years see the damage caused by austerity, not just the immediate effects, but the knock on effects. If you aren't meeting people's needs at the right time, you move the problem elsewhere (adults not getting social care bed blocking a&e; kids not getting mental health needs met because they are on a waiting list measured in years not months showing challenging behaviour in school which needs resourcing, which impacts on the rest of the year group). We feel that there might be an end to this, and there might not, and my colleagues will be despondent.

Lastly, and this won't be universal, the candidates in my area seem rubbish. I have moved house, but I used to have decent choices. There really isn't a candidate I think has the necessary skills and experience to do a decent ish job. So I'm looking at the fact that one party I like barely got their deposit back last time so I'm supporting the other one I like, that just scraped in, on my area.

Austerity has been so bad, and Brexit do botched, that it feels personal. 24/7 media needs stories, so they are grasping onto personal stories.

Oh, and I don't believe any of the manifestos. It's all a bit depressing really! Stark contrast to 1997 (I was too young to vote but not to drink there was a jubilent atmosphere that night)

Question Time last night was particularly unedifying. A fantastic opportunity to engage with the young electorate and they screeched vitriol at each other throughout. MN is horrible at the moment. You cannot admit to have a preference to wanting to vote Conservative without being called truly dreadful names and directly blamed for child poverty and people’s future deaths.

Yep. I've lived through Thatcher years and seventies Derry...this is the worst. All down to Tories I might add.

I have never known it to be so bad particularly bad mouthing each other. They are all acting like a load of kids in the playground I just think it’s bad when it would appears that no one wants either of the main parties. Would we trust kids to run the country although they might do a better job.

Thank you @Thelnebriati I’ve never seen that. I can’t say Boris has any of those qualities. But I can’t say anyone in government atm has all those qualities. The tories are a shambles.

Completely agree with the difference from 1997. I was only 14 but I woke up in the sunshine to happy shiny people on the TV as Tony Blair waved to everyone...I agree this is just so depressing.

Definitely worst it has ever been.

Use of personal insults and smears has been ramping up for a while now. People were right to call out Johnson recently for his use of violent language, but both sides are guilty. I believe Labour less so. Use of lies similarly - but I don't think I've seen such cynical deliberate use of known and admitted lies before. Johnson knew he was touting lies in the 2016 referendum and did it anyway, knowing that by the time they caught him up people would have accepted them.

Electronic data formats and social media enable new levels of data manipulation that we have never seen before. The habit of using them for soundbites devoid of real meaning has grown too. You have to check the background of absolutely every statistic now, because most either mean nothing, or at least not what they claim to - and most people do not have the time, or the skills, or the subject knowledge, to do that.

We have a major problem with information now. There's so much out there but distinguishing it from propaganda is increasingly difficult.

No, labour have never been this unelectable

It's awful - most of the lies and misinformation emanate from the Conservative party

And what was that dreadful party political broadcast earlier - not even an attempt to promote policies or set out an agenda, just an awful Love Actually inspired piece of theatre designed to appeal to the masses. No substance all style

There's a link to an interesting video of Johnson's attitudes here voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/12/07/inequality-is-essential-boris-johnson-says-crank-up-the-cruelty-in-order-to-compete-effectively/
Ignoring the headline it's presented with a moment, he seems to imply that he thinks intelligence = both wealth, and the right to mislead others.

with recent international elections facebook and fake political stories i wonder if mn will follow suit and not allow the spread of misinformation.
it's hard enough to dig up the real policy and the real objective behind a comment without page after page of bs.

I think the amount of blatant lying is unprecedented.

The manipulation of social media, fake news and advertising on social media also makes it harder for many people to work out the truth.

Imo the BBC has been hugely Pro Tory and Anti Corbyn - see today's story about honesty in political advertising - their headline is that there is lots of dishonesty, but the detail says that 88% of Tory ads are dishonest compared to 0% of Labour ads.

There have been insults in the past, but it does seem far worse now. There’s a chasm opening up between different groups and I don’t believe for a moment that Brexit will solve this. For example, I can remember the Tory posters attacking Labour’s defence policy using drawings of a hedgehog with lots of spines (Conservatives) and a hedgehog with few spines (Labour). I don’t remember character assassinations, albeit I was quite young back then.

Right now, I’m worried about the suppressed report about Russian interference in British politics. Why hasn’t it been released? What is Boris hiding? Why aren’t we demanding to see it before the election? We need know what we’re voting for.

I am in my late 60s so I have seen many elections. This is the most unpleasant campaign I have seen, in particular from the Conservatives who are not letting the truth get in the way of a good story. Social media also allows insults to fly. The BBC has not lived up to the standards it should maintain. All round poor behaviour.

Yes, of course this is the worst it's ever been.
Those nasty evil Tories are just so nasty and evil compared to the Labour Party, the one that's never, ever smeared anyone or has ever lied and twisted facts and figures.
Poor Labour, it must be fabulous to be led by such a saint, one who has never told a lie or spun a story in his whole life.
🤣🤣🤣

butter there is an objective story today that the Tories have been found to have told lies in 88 per cent of their FB ads and labour have been found to tell none. I think that’s pretty impressive.

Corbyn does have a very long way to go to match the dishonesty that Johnson is displaying butterisbest . No one is saying anyone is saintly but Johnson and his closest cronies are in a league of their own. They are not just Conservative they are a particular brand of Conservative.

Definitely the worst I’ve known. I’ve kept the campaign leaflets & letters coming through the door so my future grandchildren will be able to pick through the lies/half truths we’ve all been told with the benefit of hindsight.

The Momentum strategists have clearly thought, we haven't got a hope in hell of winning if we discuss Brexit, so we have to move the focus onto something else. What is the one topic that Labour is traditionally strong on compared to the Tories? The NHS! So they bang on and on and on about the NHS. Why is the NHS suddenly such an issue since the election was announced? My facebook is full of Labour memes about the NHS and how much healthcare costs in the US. And also Labour memes about how if you don't vote for them because you don't like the leader then you're stupid (Momentum strategists / social media advisors obviously realised how unpopular Corbyn is).

And people blaming 'the right-wing newspapers' - seriously, what percentage of voters read newspapers these days?