This election: has it always been like this?

[Abc123def]

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.

[ReceptacleForTheRespectable]

Lots of people read them online.

[LimitIsUp]

Errr - they have an online presence and appear in people's news feed on Facebook and elsewhere

[Renoirsdancer]

@2stepsonthewater why don't you think the NHS is an issue? It's always been an issue and is far more important than brexit.

[AJGranny]

The conservative tactics are a reflection of their leaders character and sociopathic narcissism.

[2stepsonthewater]

Renoirsdancer I agree it is one of many important issues other than Brexit. But you're missing my point. I'm talking about media strategies. I don't see loads of Labour party memes about, for example, global warming, because they know that's not a vote winner.

[ImGoingToBangYourHeadsTogether]

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

Errr... the NHS has been an issue in every election I remember, next to education. In addition, right now it is on its last legs and close to collapse.

[BingoLittlesUncle]

Not so much the dirty tricks, but the level of hate reminds me very much of the 1970s and the Wilson/Heath party battles.

[BingoLittlesUncle]

Max Hastings has come out and supported the LibDem candidate in his constituency.

[colouringinpro]

seen Newsnight?

[Havanananana]

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?

Perhaps because everyone is still waiting for the £350m a week that Johnson promised the NHS?

You seem to believe that it is Momentum that has sent Johnson into all those hospitals since he announced the general election. Was it really Momentum that drove him to The Pilgrim Hospital in Boston (5/8), Whipps Cross (18/9), Princess Alexandra, Harlow (27/9), Addenbrooke's, Cambridge (30/10), Kings Mill, Sutton (8/11), Bassetlaw, Worksop (22/11) and West Cornwall, Truro (27/11)?

Hardly a day goes by without Johnson spouting falsehoods about how he is going to build 40 new hospitals (he's not - he is only providing the money for feasibility studies for 4) and how he's going to recruit 50,000 new nurses (he's not - the ambition is to recruit 32,000 new nurses, which will be far too few to keep pace with the number of nurses retiring, leaving the NHS because of overwork or EU nurses buggering off back where they came from) and how the NHS is not being discussed with the US (when the US drug companies and health providers have it as item #1 on their negotiating list).

[Snowy111]

This says that 88% of Tory election ads have misleading claims.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/technology-50726500?__twitter_impression=true

And have seen something that says that the adverts are being “lost” by Facebook - covering up the deceit- can’t find it now but will post when I do!

[colouringinpro]

The NHS is an issue because it's precious, amazing and admired the world over.

And on its knees.

Being deliberately underfunded by the Tories and increasing numbers of contracts going to private companies.

[1066vegan]

I'm in my early 50s and this is the nastiest election that I have ever seen.


We have a right wing press that has always done a hatchet job on whoever the leader of the Labour Party happened to be. That hasn't changed. All parties have always run ad campaigns that are as much about smearing their opponents as about promoting their own policies. That hasn't changed.



What is different this time is that the Conservative Party has been taken over by an extreme right wing minority that is happy to tell outright lies in order to stay in power.


I hated Thatcher but will acknowledge that she was driven by a consistent belief in an economic and political ideology. I think she did a lot of harm but believe she thought that she was doing what the country needed.



I hated Thatcher but I despise Boris Johnson. He is a congenital liar and a nasty piece of work (as exemplified by his willingness to give the address of a journalist to a friend who wanted to have the journalist beaten up) who has no morals and will say and do whatever it takes to be in power. No wonder many Tory MPs and former Tory MPs (including a former leader and former cabinet ministers) have urged people to vote tactically to get rid of him.

[colouringinpro]

Re Newsnight, Hancock is connected to the woman who promoted the fake news story about the 4 year old in Leeds.

[Snowy111]

Have to say that if you keep an eye on sites like fullfact.org/ it is astonishing that the same lies are repeated over and over again by BJ and his cronies

[colouringinpro]

Snowy! (long time ago, Vicar's village threads) nice to "see" you

[AlunWynsKnee]

I agree 1066vegan.

[1066vegan]

@Snow111 unfortunately I don't think that it is astonishing that the same lies are repeated over and over again. I think it's a deliberate tactic.


There's a quote often attributed to Goebbels: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.



It turns out to be true. One of my favourite podcasts is a science one called Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This effect has come up in couple of episodes. It's called the illusory truth effect and is linked to processing fluency.

[Snowy111]

Sorry colour, different snowy

[wafflyversatile]

Social media has apparently had a polarising effect.

If the tories had done anything worthwhile, or even just harmless instead of harmful while in power they could use that as a positive campaign but they havent so its lies and smears.

[StarbucksSmarterSister]

I'm 63. It has never been this vile.

Johnson has seen what Trump got away with and is copying him.

[DippyAvocado]

The blatant lying is the biggest problem. It's a vicious circle. Various promises are made to get people to vote, then when the promise is not kept people say "Well, that's ok, politicians never keep promises", even if it is the promise that made them vote in the first place.

It's like the NHS bus lie before the referendum. It made a big promise which at the time lots of people said was the reason they were voting leave. Then when it was pointed out immediately after the referendum that it was a big lie, everyone said "Well of course we didn't believe the bus."

[colouringinpro]

snowy oh well. Hi new snowy, great name

[StarbucksSmarterSister]

Although that said, I have read that in the 1945 election campsign the smears about Clem Atlee were so bad he was asked to consider resigning as Labour leader before the election. He refused and actually won a landslide. ( Not that I am suggesting a Cirbyn landslide).

That was just with radio and print media.

[pigsDOfly]

I'm 71. I've never known an election like this.

I'm pretty certain that during the years I've been voting the country has never been so divided but then I don't remember a time when there was an issue like Brexit that cause such a division.

When we joined the EU there wasn't this level of nastiness around the campaign.

MPs have always lied but this lot carry it to a new level and the racism, the sexism and the nastiness just keeps on growing.

It's all very depressing.