To be fed up of the political manipulation on mumsnet

[ZenNudist]

It's incessant and it's wearing. It's been going on for years and I'm fed up of the massive amount of tory party generated and lobbying content blocking up mumsnet.

I appreciate mumsnet is seen as a key voter demographic but a lot of the threads being posted are so transparently fiction.

The billion VAT on school fees threads must have been a mix of real people and tory HQ.

Fake outrage started immediately and now well into saying that with less than 4 Months of government and before enacting their first budget the Labour Party are apparently making a mess of everything and reversing the great gains made during tory rule. What great gains? I don't know. I saw one post trying to take tory credit for reducing inflation like that was Rishi's doing, laughable.

I also have seen a few fake scenarios for adverse impact of the budget on inheritance and small business taxation. Speaking as someone who will be adversely affects by increasing employer NI and the reduction in business property relief I still support these changes. My friends who are small business owners feel the same way.

Labour promised not to put up the main rates of income tax and employee NI. They were clear that measures would need to be taken to increase the tax take. They still are trying to drive growth because at the end if the day increasing the tax base is the best way of increasing revenue to the exchequer.

I know a lot of mumsnetters say they can't spot trolls or AI threads. I also think a lot of people will not spot the blatant manipulation by lobbyists and tory campaigners.

Tory party now playing a long game.

The Tory party is funded by the rich for the benefit of the rich. The rest of the middle, the poor, the marginalised have almost no voice and no one funding a political machine to work in our favour.

That is about the most even handed thing on this thread. Most British people are small c Conservative. They really only elect Labour governments when their public services are on their knees. The issue is that overall British people have a champagne taste on public services but a beer budget on the tax needed to sustain them.

We are ageing as a country, we have fewer, sicker workers. Immigration is publicly despised. Our infrastructure is in need of replacement. Asset tax is not going away. the classic income tax model is basically useless as a revenue raising method (you have got to be a higher rate taxpayer to even start contributing net). I don’t expect those on the right to be delighted with the budget but honestly there are another four and a bit years to go being in high tax environment

Omg yes I saw that one and thought it didn't ring true at all!
I'm sure there are a few threads which are genuine. But I di think some are plants. There was loads of it on all other social media platform why would this one be free of it?
Much more obvious on places like Facebook and twitter/x tho as you'd see different 'people' saying the exact same story word for word. So it would be a 'GP from Birmingham' 'an anesthetist from Hull' and a 'nurse from the wirral' who posted the same personal story of how something the labour government proposed stood to negatively effect them, word for word the same.. obviously not real profiles.

BBC News - GPs demand protection from Budget tax hike
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79z87wzv2no

Do you honestly think that the press and public would have reacted the same if Corbyn had put a major donor, and son of one of Putin's inner circle, into the House of Lords, against security service advice, as they did when Johnson did it?
The former editor of The Sun has said that if Labour had delivered Truss's mini budget, absolutely 100%, there would have been a general election. They would never have got away with it and just changed PM.
For what it's worth, I think it's good Labour (and others) are held to high standards. I just wish the Tories were as well.

In the 2019 election there were obvious planted posts on Facebook. I lived in a town with a very low proportion of immigrants yet there were posts on local Facebook pages that didn’t reflect the problems faced in a small ex mining town but were geared to large multicultural cities.

Omg yes I saw that one and thought it didn't ring true at all!

The GP one? This is madness, there is a BBC article on the impacts on GPs, they have been around for a while posting on stuff including GP related topics

I think this is pretty bad actually, if pp have an issue report to mnhq rather than do this undermining as fake

In fairness you can report an obviously fake thread to Mumsnet and 95% of the time they leave it up. People know that, and know they can post false threads with impunity, and in that context I think it is reasonable to comment directly on the thread where you have doubts.

Troll hunting isn't actually in line with mn guidelines

They usually delete the comments so I don't think you have that right

I find it astonishing too that we talk about 'running services into the ground' or having them funded correctly when I think the majority issue is a cultural one - what do we actually want the NHS to provide? Or schools? I'm afraid politicians of both parties are afraid to tell the truth: NHS is better when people use it responsibility, to do this we may need some nominal charge. Education would be far better again when used responsibly - if your child is persistently disruptive they will need to go somewhere else.

100%. The whole welfare system is unsustainable. Demographics have changed so much, people are living so much longer - great generally - but hugely expensive in terms of medical and care costs.

We need an honest conversation about what we want our welfare state to provide, how much it’s going to cost and therefore how much tax we all need to pay.

But that’s not a conversation that gets people elected so I don’t think it will happen.

I experienced the full force of a left wing supporter who took umbrage with me from 2021 onwards.

Just because I supported coming out of lockdown, and I am centre-right, and I liked to debate on immigration, she saw me as fair game. I was never rude and gave what I thought was reasoned answered, but everytime I posted she would parrot inane comments about Boris Johnson and challenge me to answer the same question over and over again even though I was talking about a different subject. She followed me around MN. Topics about immigration were derailed by her all the time. It got childish at times.

She used to post on a regular chat thread with likeminded left-wingers and they would hint at my comments, laugh and sneer. I am old enough to take it, but eventually I stepped back last year, name changed and took a rest from politic topics. My dad always told me to turn the other cheek and be tolerant. But yes she silenced me and no doubt others.

But hey she disappeared!! Like a puff of smoke after posting multiple times a day, every day, just left MN this year. Now I am thinking it could have been a political manipulator. I had a feeling she wasn't from the UK by some of the comments - but it took me a while to realise she had gone. Woohoo! But I have namechanged to make this comment - just in case she returns.

But don't be put off taking time out. You never know who you are talking to behind the keyboard or their motives.

I had that from Covid onwards, how funny

Well not really funny but reading your post was familiar

Yes I had that experience too.

Interesting I wonder if it's the same pp(s)

No names on here obvs

Possibly, I just ignore them. But it shouldn’t be allowed to happen,

Interesting I wonder if it's the same pp(s)

Probably. It was a very sarky style of posting and even if she has name changed, I have not seen anyone write in a similar manner, so hopefully she's gone for good.

In my experience, most of the time right wingers only get a volley of abuse when they venture into ignoring clear, irrefutable facts. There will be people who venture into bad tempered debates about matters that will always be driven solely by opinion like debates on abortion and transsexuál people but most people don't get involved in that or debate respectfully.

I only go beyond my patience with right wingers when they refuse to acknowledge facts staring them in the face, normally because their self interest warrants denial. Such as farmers claiming inheritance tax changes will impact farming, when the reality is that only 37 landowners a year will be impacted by the changes. And I say landowners because most people impacted are people who inflated the price of farmland because they started buying it up to avoid inheritance tax in the first place!!!

Have the radical far left echo chamber posters stopped shouting BOT BOT BOTTITY BOT yet?! I can't actually be arsed checking.

Individuals who lack theory of mind are generally incapable of realising that other people think differently to them. It makes them bad at predicting behaviour, low in empathy and they often become confused and misinterpret situations - such as with the OP who simply cannot bear the notion that millions of people disagree with her in real life - this despite Starmer only gaining 9 million votes out of a possible 48 million and even Reform gaining 4 million.

Another thing people like the OP never accept is that many of us - and certainly this is true of me - used to vote Labour.

We stayed precisely where we were, believing in public housing, a hand up for genuinely struggling people, socialised medicine and education - and Labour scuttled far, far left and become absolutely entrenched in and obsessed with identity politics and turned totalitarian.

So the reality is that people are tired of being shouted down and accused of racism, bigotry and phobias whenever they dare criticise the left and lots and lots of people find much to criticise.

I didn't leave the left - the left left me.

True, I used to say that Christians weren't under attack, but for the last few years they actually have been, both in person in some countries (which you don't hear about) in bombings and burnings of churches (loads in America which never seem to be reported on) and in the way people abuse them for their beliefs online.

Templemore Street Church, Belfast: On August 27, 2024, this church was set on fire in an arson attack treated as a racially motivated hate crime. Two masked individuals breached the church's shutters and ignited a flammable substance inside, causing significant damage before firefighters extinguished the blaze
Pitsmoor Christ Church, Sheffield: On July 4, 2022, this church suffered an arson attack that is currently under investigation by South Yorkshire Police. This incident is part of a broader pattern of arson attacks affecting churches across the UK
All Saints Church, Mackworth: In December 2020, this Grade I listed church was gutted by fire. Restoration efforts are ongoing to recover from this devastating incident
Church of the Ascension, Lower Broughton: This Grade II listed church in Greater Manchester was devastated by an arson attack in 2017. The fire caused significant damage to the historic building
St. Andrew's Church, London: In 2021, this church was severely damaged by fire under suspicious circumstances during a period of increased tensions and attacks on religious sites
St. George’s Church, Birmingham: In recent years, this church has faced vandalism and attacks amidst rising tensions related to social issues and anti-religious sentiment

There's lots more. The mainstream UK media remains silent.

https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2024/01/for-turkeys-christians-attack-is-a-remembrance-of-things-past
https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/thousands-christians-deliberately-targeted-killed-nigeria-new-report-says
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/259071/56000-killed-in-nigeria-s-ethnic-and-religious-violence-christians-disproportionately-affected
https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/21/egypt-mass-attacks-churches
https://timep.org/2024/05/09/the-forgotten-war-on-sudans-christians/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-25/heritage-church-herberton-destroyed-fire/101699948

We stayed precisely where we were, believing in public housing, a hand up for genuinely struggling people, socialised medicine and education - and Labour scuttled far, far left and become absolutely entrenched in and obsessed with identity politics and turned totalitarian.

This is exactly how I feel.
My views haven’t changed all that much in the last ten years or so (except for becoming gender critical), but while I used to see myself firmly on the left, I feel more centrist/ having conservative tendencies now.

@ZenNudist

Totally agree. It's wearing and blatantly transparent. The FWR threads in particular (they are, of course, the most politically active women so it makes sense to have targeted that side of MN) have been completely highjacked. I'm just amazed that more people can't see it, and glad to see I'm not wholly alone in noticing it, thanks!

I report any of those bot hunting posts I see as troll hunting, which is what they are, they are generally deleted

I think it's cognitive bias.

I see far more comments on MN which I perceive as 'left' and anti-Tory/conservative because that's my perception of the site.

You see it differently. We pay attention to the things that confirm what we already think.

What are you suggesting?

That posters aren't real or what exactly

Well if both sides are right, it raises the amusing prospect of a leftie bot and a rightie bot just arguing with each other in an endless loop. What is a bit telling is that lots of these threads never progress to any kind of conclusion or if you do disagree, what else would you do?