Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

BBC news really have reached a new level of dumbing down today.

156 replies

TheWaiting · 12/12/2019 16:31

Switched on News 24. Reporter outside polling station has just explain that you put a cross next to the name of your preferred candidate and if they get the most votes they become an M.P and represent you in Parliament. 🤨 We then go back to Christian Fraser in the studio who proceeds with a segment titled, ‘How to vote’ 🙄🙄🙄
I honestly thought they were running a Newsround episode.

OP posts:
ThisIsSanta · 12/12/2019 17:05

I voted behind a first time voter today. He actually returned to the desk because he was so shocked that all he had to do was put his cross on and pop it in the box. I have no idea what else he expected. The lady on the desk asked if he would like some party poppers and confetti to go off 😂

ScreamingValalalalahLalalalah · 12/12/2019 17:06

That’s obviously very school-dependent then as we didn’t at mine

Yes, probably. Mine was a bog-standard comprehensive - I don't know what things were standard across state schools in those days.

However, it was also covered in a more general sense in history - not the mechanics of voting, but how elections work - we looked at how gerrymandering had been used to sway elections, for instance and I remember a debate about the merits/demerits of P.R.

Tangfastics · 12/12/2019 17:08

Well I agree with you that it should be taught in schools because educating people how to vote is a GOOD thing.

Can you see how you’ve negated your own argument here?

Jux · 12/12/2019 17:09

It wasn't taught at my school, but I think dd had a few elections in primary - class rep etc at least had secret ballot similar to GE, though I doubt the school ran to booths and boxes. She did come with us the first time she voted and we'd talked her through it anyway.

bridgetreilly · 12/12/2019 17:13

Also, while it's great that you took your children, OP, plenty of people grow up with parents who don't vote. Who is going to teach them how to vote?

baileysandamincepie · 12/12/2019 17:15

He actually returned to the desk because he was so shocked that all he had to do was put his cross on and pop it in the box.

My kids were amazed at how old fashioned the process is compared to all the tech they use and take for granted to get things done in their relatively small lives. They couldn't believe you just put a pencil cross on a piece of paper, post it in a box, then lots of people in a big room literally divide the voting papers and add them up. "what you can't vote on an app??!!"

SheOfManyNames · 12/12/2019 17:17

Voting on an app sounds horrendous. Not that it couldn't be great, but I don't trust any government to implement it properly or make it secure enough.

baileysandamincepie · 12/12/2019 17:18

I've also met people who were planning to get photos of their 18yrs olds putting the cross on the ballot paper for the first time, or get their little kids to put the cross on, and then be amazed there are actual laws, not just rules, prohibiting this. A small price to pay for a free and fair demacracy I say, but to them it rather spoiled their fun day out.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 12/12/2019 17:22

I would have thought exactly the same as you, OP, if I'd seen it, but then, as PPs have said and going on some of my own experiences, you can also see why they do it.

There can be a huge disconnect between what different adults do and don't know. Sometimes it's down to basic intelligence, but it can be down to all kinds of different factors - background, parenting, school attendance, social circles, whether or not people read or watch the news. My in-laws are older people - both very intelligent and highly educated, but they wouldn't have a clue what basic internet terms meant. I'm sure there are things that are stinking obvious to them which I would know nothing about.

I sometimes compile community quizzes, aimed at a wide range of abilities and different backgrounds, but I'm still shocked at some of the (what I think are) silly easy questions I include for a bit of fun (or to use to shoehorn a joke in) that still baffle certain of the adults there. For the last one, I'd done a couple of separate rounds for the younger children, so that they wouldn't feel excluded; but in truth, some of the kids would actually have known the answers to several of the 'adult' questions that some of the adults were stumped by. Then again, one of those adults is a mother of five children, whose husband works away during the week, and she keeps their household running smoothly in a way that I could never begin to imagine how to do myself.

I suppose the BBC is there for everybody, so they need to cater for all levels of ability and interest, but it's an impossible balance to strike perfectly, not going over the heads of the least able and leaving them uninformed without making the most able feel patronised and insulted.

DGRossetti · 12/12/2019 17:22

Isn't this taught in schools anymore?

Anymore ? What makes you think it was ever taught ? Certainly not in my (English) school.

It never ceases to amaze me how much guff is taught, when a decent grounding in civics should be considered essential.

Don't US schoolkids have to learn the constitution ? Admittedly learning and understanding would be even better, but it's one up on the UK.

Although as this thread illustrates, there may be sinister reasons why people think it's acceptable to leave such important matters untaught.

tillytrotter1 · 12/12/2019 17:25

I honestly thought they were running a Newsround episode

Unfair to children!
My Mother and her sister once went to the polling station and went into adjacent booths. My Aunt called 'Oh, I've forgotten my reading glasses' to which my Mother called, 'Ours is the third one down, just count them'!

Whattodoabout · 12/12/2019 17:26

I remember worrying before I first voted, I was scared I wouldn’t know what to do. It can be quite daunting the first time, especially if you’re very young.

tillytrotter1 · 12/12/2019 17:26

but to them it rather spoiled their fun day out.

Aw, diddums. Soft play closed then?

joCmummy · 12/12/2019 17:28

Haha just watched an episode of hey Duggee that said.the same maybe we should swop the news presenters for the squirrels

tillytrotter1 · 12/12/2019 17:29

Well, you are being a snob OP. You’re looking down on people who you don’t think meet up to your educational standards.

You say that like it's a bad thing!

joangray38 · 12/12/2019 17:29

@Lllot5 yes hedgehogs do have fleas but not the same type as cats, they bite then drop off and die. they won’t infest the same way.

ScreamingValalalalahLalalalah · 12/12/2019 17:29

Anymore ? What makes you think it was ever taught ?

I was assuming my totally average 80s comprehensive school was the same as everyone else's 80s comprehensive school. Obviously I have underrated its standards of civic education! I would contact the school to say thanks, but it's been pulled down and replaced with a futuristic-looking 'academy' now Sad.

Spamantha · 12/12/2019 17:31

Wasn't the most googled phrase in the UK, the day after the referendum, 'what is the EU?'

I don't people overestimate the general public's understanding of politics, so that BBC segment was probably more useful than you'd think.

Tennisnet · 12/12/2019 17:31

i was completely gobsmacked at a couple of middleaged women in the queue (well ahead of me, not exactly a queue) asking what to do at the polling station this morning. once they'd each gone in the booth and presumably made a cross on the paper, one went round waving it asking if she had to fold it to put it in the ballot box, the other then started stressing that she couldn't remember whether she'd folded hers or not.

Sounds like a reasonable question actually. The last few times I've voted, we've had a mile-long piece of paper which couldn't fit into the box without being folded. This time in my area we only had a few candidates so the paper could actually fit in without being folded.

user1471510720 · 12/12/2019 17:36

Anything the BBC produces for the Election is done with a motive, have a wild guess who this segment was aimed at for the most part.

Tangfastics · 12/12/2019 17:37

tillytrotter1

Of course it’s a bad thing! Unless you think it’s ok to disparage a not so great education.

Jeez, if you can’t see the obvious I’ll point it out again. The OP is complaining about people being stupid and uneducated whilst complaining about a news segment which was aimed at educating people.

DGRossetti · 12/12/2019 17:38

I was assuming my totally average 80s comprehensive school was the same as everyone else's 80s comprehensive school.

Well I'm more 70s (2 years into the 80s). No formal introduction to UK civics at all.

We learned US, Italian, Russian, German and Chinese civics as part of history. I learned more about Weimar than Westminster.

Everything - everything I know about UK constitutional matters is what I have picked up from my late DM, and DF who - being Italian - had a very different take on it all. As someone who grew up under Il Duce might be expected to.

That said it did sow a seed of curiosity - especially as I am a massive history bore. And the history of the UK is really the history of our constitution in some respects.

Marmablade · 12/12/2019 17:38

A 22 year old in my office not only had to be told how to register to vote but also who was standing, what we were voting and how to physically vote. She would definitely have benefited

ReceptacleForTheRespectable · 12/12/2019 17:38

have a wild guess who this segment was aimed at for the most part

People who haven't voted before.

...and your point is? Why is increasing participation a bad thing?

MedusasButterDish · 12/12/2019 17:44

Same, @Tennisnet! I only had 4 candidates to choose from, and the ballot paper did really feel small!

Shock at Googling anything to do with how to vote, and as for voting by app... no, just no. My children have probably worked out my PIN (and I'm going to change it), so NO BLOODY WAY.

I was looking forward to some nice non-party-political programming on "Today" this morning, but the bastards put on an interview about the Trump impeachment, which was scarcely.. er... restful.

Swipe left for the next trending thread