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.

Exactly.

I remember through covid the allegations of bots from either side.

Just as there MRA posting stupid stuff everywhere, I do think there are Russian-backed provocateurs stirring up all sorts of horrors on here too.

Getting people riled up and annoyed, chipping away at social cohesion and institutions.

Look at all that rubbish about Kate being kidnapped / sick / in a cult - that was linked to nation state actors fanning the flames….

I agree there are bad faith actors but also, conspiracy theories are incredibly mainstream these days.

The threads just on MN about Nicola Bulley and Jay Slater when the obvious cause of both of their deaths was SO obvious yet the threads ran into thousands of comments proves that.

There is a fairly obvious identifier (to me at least).

Posters who never start a thread themselves and/or only ever join threads concerning Labour.

@dontbedaft2000 My view is Labour look comparatively more left wing is because the Conservatives have moved increasingly to the right especially when Johnson expelled the moderates.

Thats interesting because I think the conservatives have shifted to the left and that Labour shifted further to the left with Corbyn etc. shows people can look at the same thing and see something different.

The Conservatives shifted lock, stock and barrel to the left in the pandemic, which is why Labour just sat there not saying anything as billions of taxpayer pounds was handed out willy-nilly to every scammer with their hand out and ever more crazy and totalitarian state edicts issued forth from No 10. Sunak was the most left Conservative chancellor we've ever had. Yet all we ever hear is how far right the Conservatives are - they aren't far right at all! Hence the rise of Reform and all its earlier iterations.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDqpjgamq3YiDpC7ZenXTj074fR6CUDmr0RQdsSFI-NA7aEw/viewform?usp=sharing

Respond in this survey about manipulation in politics and how YOU want to see it represented in the media 😁

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Add your opinion on how manipulation in politics should be represented in the media for a students primary research!!😁

So Labour are responsible for Johnson's behaviour in the pandemic? Boris Johnson was left wing? When he gave lucrative contracts to his chums and wasted billions on PPE, that was left wing too?

Was the Rwanda scheme left wing? Millions were completely wasted on that white elephant.

Labour will struggle to keep costs down. Crossings going up, millions on various ways to try to combat it.

I don't really see it. I have often felt a lone Tory voice in a sea of Labour supporters, not vice versa. Obviously those affect by VAT on school fees are going to write about it, just as people who are going to lose benefits money under Labour are pretty vociferous on the other side currently too.

Spot on @Xenia.

I can't believe I wrote that. You're on the money.

I hope you're well.

Wow. Great conspiracy theory.
But really, Labour supporters are aghast at what the government has done so far. Supporting the unsupportable seems a little bit ‘politicised’ iyswim- and that’s what OP is doing.

I think in some ways the shift in politics hasn't been right or left as such, and that is part of why it's not always easy to characterize it.

There really isn't any hard right libertarian party in the UK, even Reform doesn't especially fit there.

But on the left, the shift has been particularly from a traditional focus on class to identity politics, and that isn't really "further left". In fact sometimes it seems more right wing or individualistic, although I think that is actually not the case, and it's certainly more racist.

Really it's just a very different lens. But the identity politics followers inevitably accuse anyone who doesn't agree of being a hard right fascist, whether that person is an old school conservative or a radical leftist.

Since the Rwanda scheme is being replaced in part by an Albania scheme I think it’s safe to say that wasted spend on immigration is a cross-party tactic to be seen to be doing something!

It’s only an idea at this point. Presenting it as fact is highly misleading.

Oh I’m sorry; I mistakenly relied on what our Lib Dem MP said…I should have known better. Mea culpa…. Though, the fact that it even being considered still makes my point I think…

Is it? Has that decision been made then? Are you certain it's the same as the Rwanda scheme?

It's a similar principle, same with the US taking people to prison in El Salvador and Australia (which turns rounds all boats anyway now) to Nauru and Papua New Guinea. My view is those are very expensive schemes and it would be better changing the law so that you are assessed within 7 days and removed immediately with only a right to appeal at your own expense once you are back home. That would be cheaper.

A two tier justice system? Do you think that's a good idea?

5 members of our Labour led council, including the leader, have resigned in the last fortnight because they don't believe that Starmer's policies align with Labour core values.

I'm sure that somehow the Tories will be to blame for these deflections, rather than people disagreeing with the actions of the current Labour government.

I don't know anyone left wing who would agree with Labour's policies. However this has been happening for a long time. Starmer purged the left from Labour when he became leader.

It always comes across as very egotistical to me if people cannot imagine that others think differently and conclude they must be bots.

It was so rife during the Scottish independence campaign I stopped coming here.

endless unionist bots who all disappeared after 2014