Why is there no coverage of reform party policies ?

[Alfreddoeblin]

Just that really. Labour and Tory party to a greater or lesser extent are being scrutinised hugely. The reform party not so much. Why ?

Yes perhaps coverage isn't the issue. Proper scrutiny is needed. I dont seem to see the same level of 'how' 'cost this' for them. The coverage feels like promotion

@midgetastic Population is what it is. Of course Wales and NI are smaller. I cannot vote for their nationalist or other parties either. SNP decided to separate! Scotland does have Conservative and labour options. I don’t have a SNP option so their policies snd coverage are largely irrelevant to the majority. They get huge coverage in Scotland because they are a 100% Scottish party. Who have failed to do their main objective.

All I was saying was that the bbc currently hasn't yet got all parties manifestos covered not just reform which is still waiting

And they are not being done on size of party by any obvious metric so there is no unique insult to reform

And reform was on the front page along with labour and the tories so how the fuck you can think its being ignored and sidelined I can't tell

I suppose evidnece and facts are not things reform is comfortable with though

And the telegraph covered the reform manifesto 2 days ago

Why can't you find this yourself ?

Probably because the Telegraph’s behind a paywall.

You mean the manifesto that’s not being released until tomorrow?

-Because they don't have any actual policies beyond blaming immigrants for everything

-Because they are not really a political party, just a vanity project for Nigel Farage.

About TikTok

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-06-14/suspicious-accounts-being-used-to-push-pro-reform-uk-content-on-tiktok

But cybersecurity experts at Cardiff University working with ITV News noticed a collection of accounts with "unusual behaviour" on TikTok pushing support for Reform UK.

I want Reform to be in opposition. I voted both Labour and Tories in the past. Hate the current political set up - they truly don't give a shit about ordinary people and don't listen to electorate at all. The only way to make political leaders to listen is to make them afraid that they will be fired by public.

Which seats in the North do you think Reform stand any chance of winning @Telephere ?

the distributed nature of their support makes that a very unlikely scenario, even the Torygraph makes that clear. The FPTP system makes it incredibly difficult for smaller parties, unless their support is much more focused in a smaller number of seats. I could well imagine Reform winning a slightly larger share of the GE vote than the Lib Dems. But the Lib Dems will likely win maybe upwards of 30 seats, and Reform perhaps 1 or 2 neither of which, perhaps ironically, will be in the North.

I am a trifle confused. Why would a company that exists for the promotion and enrichment of its shareholders, particularly the one with the golden share, have political policies?

Because we know that their only policy is to stop "nasty dirty forriners" from soiling our country 🙄

@bozzabollix I've seen a lot of this type of thing too. It is deeply worrying. Even if reform don't form a government they are still a danger. As someone else said there is the potential for them to become a significant if not the main opposition and then what next election? It's difficult because suppressing some people's opinions and not others is arguably undemocratic, the thin end of the wedge and all of that. But at the same time allowing these kinds of people to rise to power has not ended well historically.

Someone who doesn’t quite appreciate how FPTP actually works though @DrCoconut. Now if parliament consisted of 6 rather than 650 MPs granted Reform might end up being the official opposition. But it does have 650 MPs, and Reform, even if it does win a couple of seats will remain in parliamentary terms at least an irrelevance, rather like the Greens.

In which seats if any is Reform projected to win at least 30% of the vote? Last time I looked that would be none.

I really fear the rise of Reform, because it acknowledges so many people's fears about their lives and prospects. But Reform is not sufficiently mature or coherent to have developed any answers to the detailed questions. They have a lot of billboards out locally, and we have an inconsequential Tory MP, and a changing population (it's Cornwall, and there are bundles of well-off blow ins buying nice houses in pretty villages, which they will almost certainly try to set in aspic). So I personally am very conflicted about this election. I think it's possibly the most difficult of my voting life, and I cast my first ever vote for the Common Market in 1975.

Yes. Cornwall doesn’t even like the English! Heaven help anyone from Uganda. Oh wait - hardly any immigrants in Cornwall.

@boys3 I agree - FPTP makes it difficult for any party with wide appeal, but not enough appeal in any constituency, to win it.

I do have to say though, that the fuss about Reform is all down to the media reporting polls. They report them without context. No weight is being given to how the polls measures up in seats because the poll data needs to be in target seats. There could be a few backlash seats for not delivering Brexit promises, but I think very few.

The main issue is that by splitting the centre right/ right vote, there will be a Labour landslide. As I articulated earlier, I don’t believe this is good for democracy. I think UKIP got 4 million votes and 1 seat previously? Votes don’t equal seats and maybe we should be pleased about that!

Which seats specifically do you think they might win?

We have no Reform candidate where I am but a few nearby and none really have any chance of getting elected.

Farage is an odious little shit and I hate him. Genuinely concerned how much influence he has. His party has very little credibility but then so did the claims of Brexit that the NHS would get £350 million a week and people believed that. The fat right is on the rise and it creeps in by trying to look semi respectable

Do they actually have any, other than hating immigrants?

Oh and privatising g the NHS?

Your first two sentences echo my thoughts exactly. Reform are there to say that they know things have to change, and they will listen to everyone's complaints and nod along. They won't say what they think in case it's contradictory. They'll just say they will fix it - no plan as to how, what the impacts will be, whether it'll work. They're just populist liars.

I think they’ll get Clacton. And I think Lee Anderson might get reelected.

I sadly agree with this. I was wondering about the seats Up North? Would that just be Lee Anderson?

Maybe it's all a conspiracy by the main stream media.... bloody liberal elite them lot... or maybe, just maybe it's because their manifesto launch is today so they haven't actually published any policies yet?