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.

Really? In my experience it’s the other way, I lean to the left, I’ve not personally attacked or thrown any insults at anyone but have definitely felt them coming towards me. I guess it’s like people claiming both left and right wing bias from the BBC, comments perceived in very different ways

@hattie43 "I'm fed up with how the left can't have a debate without resorting to personal attack and insult throwing"

<Counts times I have been called a bleeding heart liberal, a commie or a champagne socialist. Gives up at about 57>

No matter who is President, Jesus is Lord. There you go all

Gosh, either there are a lot of bots arguing with each other on this thread, or Mumsnet is made up of humans who may not agree with your political stance!

I don’t think too many people are affected by what Mumsnet or any other media site think.

Just vote for who you like. 🙄

The wails of Tory bots has made me laugh, as did the last line in your post. Blame it on the last government and now their imaginary bots.

Starmer didn't win a resounding mandate (whatever the Greasy Morgan McSweeney might like to tell us), he won 33.7% of the votes. Reform placed second in 100 constituencies and in a large number was snapping at the heels of the labour candidate. Support is far weaker for the Labour Party than his seat tally might suggest.

The push back on MN is merely a function of his loveless "landslide" in an election that drew fewer voter to the ballot box than any other election in the last 20 years. Even labour voters are regretting their choice.

Jesus, maybe take some time to look at the graph of his approvals ratings before coming on here to moan. His popularity has plunged. Whilst his "iron chancellor" who is guilty of plagiarism and lying on her CV (she isn't an economist) has just unleashed budget that will stall growth and takes our tax burden to its highest ever.

A high percentage of the anti-labour threads are started by posters with very little, or no posting, history and who seem to share posting style characteristics.

Make of that what you will.

Do you read or listen to any political stuff?

If they don't start a thread and abandon it, then they clearly aren't the subject of my post, are they?

(and have the farm posters realised yet that for most family farms it will be a £2m cap not £1m?)

If you don't like a thread skip it, if you don't like a poster don't read their stuff. You can only be manipulated if you engage.

I doubt you have changed any of your opinions due to your perceived manipulation.

Lots of strong characters on here with diverse opinions.

This. ^ I won't engage with them tbh. The far left are as bad as the far right.

'Far left wing and far right wing are two cheeks of the same arse' I think the saying goes...

I do find people who are quite left leaning are really rude and obnoxious though, eg; they label anyone who dares to voice an opinion about too many boats coming across the channel 'racist scum.' Basically, they try to shut people down by insulting them. I don't know why they're like this. They're infuriating to be honest. As I said though, they're best ignored. CBA to play their little games.

Given I perceive MN to be a predominantly middle class domain, I would imagine most of the users here align with right of centre politics (I do). I post my political views accordingly, I’m not a bot.

There are still plenty of Tory voters out there, and I think a lot of Labour voters this time were historical Tory voters who felt like they had no other choice, and those people are now unsurprisingly not delighted at the current government.

The vitriol aimed towards Tory voters over the last 15 years has been immense. Many people have been quiet about their political views to avoid the backlash from sharing any sort of Conservative ideology. Now Labour are also making a barn’s arse out of running the country, it’s not surprising they’re taking some flak and the right leaning masses are becoming more vocal. It doesn’t mean every poster is a Tory bot (and it would be a weird investment of time and money at this point in the Parliamentary cycle. Memories are short and the only opinions that matter are those in 4-5 years time, so that’s when the bots are likely to be deployed).

Reading your thread I now wonder if you are Labour HQ?

I’m a farmer and there are quite a few of us on here. I was dreading this budget because of the possibility of IHT on farms There is actually footage of Keir Starmer saying he wouldn’t bring in this policy. He is deceitful and devious to a degree I didn’t think possible.

This.
This is one of the reasons that I stopped voting Labour.
The attempts to shut down discussion and inability to see that there are different viewpoints is embarrassing.

People sometimes just disagree with your positions, it’s not a conspiracy.

Quite - the IHT change for farms has been the main subject of conversation locally today. To quote Starmer:
"we do care deeply about the countryside. But if we face facts, all too often when I reflect on the Labour Party, we have come across as the party of urban Britain, only mentioning the countryside to say what we can’t do, not what we can. So if I only get one message today, let it be this – this is a different Labour Party. I won’t bore you with all the details, but over the last three years I’ve had an intense focus on changing our party. We’re a changed party – from top to bottom. We’re a party that’s fit to serve, that is compassionate and competent, that aspires to govern for every corner of our country, and that seeks a new relationship with the countryside and farming communities on this basis. A relationship based on respect and on genuine partnership"

I certainly do not see any respect to the countryside or farmers.

I posted some stuff under a different username a while ago and was accused of being a tory bot/shill/HQ. It’s really childish and I am none of those things.

I respect posters who argue the point instead of blathering on about how I must be a plant. It was really very extraordinary. They genuinely couldn’t get their heads around the fact that someone may actually just not agree with them.

A part of me suspects that they hope that if they can discredit by convincing others that the poster is some sort of political operative then they don’t actually have to deal with the substance of their point.

Made me chuckle too 😆

That is not unusual. It's a shame but I think it's to drive people off so they don't post

But it's madness it's just a site with different opinions, or should be

YANBU.

I was told earlier this year by someone in the know that Mumsnet is one of the online spaces that the Conservatives focus on, so none of what's been posted here over the last few months has surprised me. An interesting aspect was that they allegedly want to reach people who don't click into the actual thread, so they ensure they include as much anti-Labour/pro-Tory information in the thread title as they can, so that people scrolling past are still influenced by it.

I suspect all major parties do this to various extents. I'm not implying that the other parties are angels by any means! It's just that the Tories are the only ones where someone has confirmed the strategy to me.

“Someone in the know” is incredibly vague. I actually doubt it because at this point in the electoral cycle it would be wasted effort.

Okay but there were some excellent ones during the election. I liked the one who claimed to be a hard working family immigrant aspirational landlord who at the same time couldn’t spell and posted in caps to make a point which was usually in total defiance of reality.

Do you seriously think the Tories are capable of that level of syops 😆

(Of course I would say that, wouldn't I 🤔Double triple bluff )

There were equally as many clearly bot/manipulation posts against the Tories before the last two elections. Did you object to them too?

Not a Tory voter, but they were very obvious.