Mumsnet is now backing Reform UK - survey

[IwantToRetire]

The ladies are for turning after all – as a new survey reveals that one in five of the politically engaged mothers on the social networking site are ready to pledge allegiance to Nigel Farage

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mumsnet-labour-reform-school-gates-keir-starmer-b2894524.html

Also in full at https://archive.is/V5P6n

Gosh, you really are conspiratorial, yes?
Americans genuinely voted against her because of Putin?
Suddenly Putin couldn't get them to vote Trump in 2020, any thoughts?
But was successful again in 2024?
I guess Farage can start choosing the wallpaper for No.10 right now because Putin will make it so.
Maybe Putin can also hack the John Lewis website so that Farage can get a discount?

If labour could listen, they would understand that lots of people arent following Farage as some sort of spiritual leader. Lots of people are thinking of voting reform as the best of a bad lot, because they cant vote for tory or labour, or they want the main parties to make changes not just talk about them.

The fact that Starmer talks about farage being a threat to democracy, and reform go up in the polls shows how out of touch labour are. Most people voting reform are doing so knowing theres a high chance nothing will change, not that voting will be cancelled or rights will be taken away. Labour have built a narative only they believe.

You do realise that people can name change on here right? So could still be on MN under a different username.
Doesn't automatically mean a conspiracy theory of "Labour must have been paying them" or a Labour bot or whatever 😕

The email server was publicly declared to be a Russian hack. No conspiracy.

Maybe she shouldn't have called a big part of Middle America as a "basket of deplorables".
The left still haven't learnt from that as anyone even Reform adjacent is called a bigot or far right.
For me, her biggest sin with that comment was not that she impugned tens of millions of Americans as beyond the pale, but that she used such classist language that not only were they beyond the pale, but that she deemed them beneath her, they were irredeemably none she could ever represent or wish to govern.
She gifted Trump the victory, there and then.

Labour, Greens, Lib Dems and SNP all have a bad case of, 'Everyone I hate is literally Hitler", and seem convinced that this is the correct strategy, rather than listening to and acting on the electorate's concerns. It's feckin student union politics writ large 🤦‍♀️

Well, if someone votes for Trump twice despite knowing full well what he stands for, then they are deplorable.

I agree it would be very unwise for a politician to say so, though.

Nobody cares, that was a decade ago and so much muck has been flung around by US investigations into email servers, laptops, and Trump impeachments that nobody cares.

The chattering classes and the media love it cos it fills up hours of telly time with speculation and drama but ordinary voters don't care.

Normal people have everyday concerns that are being ignored by globalist, managerialist, lanyard class politicians who tinker around the edges but never fix the problems at the heart of the blob.

Trump, awful man that he can be, tries new things and, even if they are a massive flop/disaster, a lot of voters like the fact that he tries them because none of the other establishment politicians has a clue on what to do to fix our broken institutions.

Politicians like Clinton got us into the mess we're in economically and socially and that type of politician hasn't a feckin clue how to get us out again because they don't see the crap effect of politics as usual on the lives of everyday voters as an actual problem because they live Davos/Harrods lives rather than Tesco/Walmart lives.

I struggle to think of a Western country that's got a bigger gap between the political class and the voters than the UK. Our rulers literally don't understand what's happening around them.

Today's lefty punditry on the Gorton and Denton by-election is Matt Goodwin being ridiculed for not being properly working class by those well known proletarians, Owen Jones, Adam Ramsay and Sunder Katwala.

OJ told us for many years that his parents were teachers, and it took a while for us to figure out that his mum was a full professor. (To be fair, his dad was a full-time organiser for Militant, which was never a well-paid gig.)

Ramsay, the Scotland correspondent of Novara Media, literally grew up in a castle.

I'm fairly sure Sunder Katwala didn't grow up in a castle, but I've met Sunder and he's the kind of person who, when you're talking to him, is always looking over your shoulder in case someone more important enters the room.

We really need to get away from the idea that there's an association between the "left" and the working class or even the normie middle class. They're a lot of Hyacinth Buckets, except at election time when they pretend to be Onslow.

What, like the left instead should actually make a positive argument for power?
Wow, that would be revolutionary.
They're too busy tone policing and insulting millions of voters, so I should cut them some flack, they just don't have the time.
Hilary literally didn't want tens of millions of the votes.
Those deplorables took her at her word.
Unless of course you think deplorables should vote for the person calling them deplorables?
Remember, Trump hadn't been elected by the time she said that.
She chose to not want to be a president for all.

Fabians are constantly disappointed by actual contact with the working class 🙄

Lol re Sunder. He's one of the last people on the left that I follow on Bluesky to get the "other side". Maybe I really shouldn't bother.
I actually really liked Chavs by OJ.
He'd absolutely hate it if I told him it catalysed my journey to being pro Brexit and Reform adjacent.
Indeed, I might go to a book signing of his just to tell him this to his face, lol

I care about malign foreign powers manipulating elections because sooner or later the outcomes bite, not just nationally but individually.

If we're going to make a mess of things, I want it to be our mess not someone else's

That' and the fact that she totally ignored the former manufacturing areas because somehow she thought she didn't need them.

I have a vivid memory of Michael Moore, just before election day, telling an audience of Democrats that Trump would win, because he was the first candidate ever to come to talk to the factory workers in places like Flint and tell them he was going to revive and protect the auto industry.

No-one sees Farage as any kind of spiritual leader. He's both a transactional leader, but also one that has had a consistent message, for two decades by the time of the GE, three decades of you incl his first foray into standing for office (late 90s EU election for Goldsmith's Referendum Party?).
People will be ambivalent voting for him, but will do so anyway because the two main parties are discredited.
This also applies to the Greens, and YP.
The main difference between Polanski other than politics, is that Farage has "been there, done that". Polanski? He's wet around the ears and has the typical CV for the new breed of left populists (ditto Mamdani), of vacuous back story (actor, therapist, activist) fed into message-oriented saviour story.
Sure, Farage is cult of personality in his way, but he's lived a life. What has Polanski done that equates to the basics for leadership?
Oh yes, learnt how to modulate language and communication via his acting and therapy training. Maybe this skill will really come in handy in 2029.

Yes I'm well aware thanks.

Now if I for example wanted to be proselytising the mumsnets on behalf of a cause l... I'd probably use my usual username to make use of my bona fides and social capital, no? Because I'd be well aware that low post count new names have next to zero social capital and are generally given low to zero credence.

So, if I actually had any social capital to spend for the cause, I'd tend to use it.

Adam, apparently, didn't. So yeah

The thing about Polanski's theatre kid background is - he's a very skilled communicator in broadcast mode, especially when he's doing vibes rather than policy. He's not so good in interviews, even with sympathetic interviewers like Bastani, I noticed Bastani asking a question and then becoming visibly irritated as Polanski went off into his talking points that weren't related to the question. And I don't see him being good in a debate setting.

He can fix all these things, but I wonder how much they're related to him not having an underlying ideology and consequently not being good at thinking on his feet.

I often say this about Farage, but it's true - obviously he's got an ego and loves the sound of his own voice, like everyone else in politics. But if you ever see him out and about interacting with voters, he hardly says a word. He's listening all the time.

GBN used to have a segment on the Farage show called "Talking Pints" which was a kind of freewheeling podcast bit where Nigel and someone else would chat over beer. The guests were a diverse range of people from all walks of life, many of whom didn't share Farage's politics. It played to one of his strengths, which is that he's genuinely interested in other people. I think that played a big role in disaffected Labour or Tory voters who'd only seen him in soundbite mode taking a second look and saying, I didn't like this guy but he actually seems intelligent and funny and likeable.

Very few politicians on any part of the spectrum are good listeners, or good at interacting that way. I struggle to think of any current Labour MP who would be good at hosting a podcast. Rayner, maybe, because she at least has a backstory and a personality and a sense of humour.

See also: Barron Trump (18) outsmarting the Democratic Party by telling his dad which podcasts to go on. The Donald did well on the podcasts, especially talking to Theo Von, where Theo talked about his struggles with addiction and got Trump to open up about his brother who died of alcoholism, which showed a human and vulnerable side of Trump that we rarely see. There are Democrats who can do well on podcasts (Ro Khanna springs to mind) but they aren't the Democrats who get chosen as presidential candidates.

Kamala Harris would have been scared witless on Joe Rogan.

I recall Adam really well, testament to the strength of her (I think) arguing skills. Hell, she very nearly convinced me Starmer would prove to be an ally of women.

I'm looking forward to seeing Matthew Goodwin, he's always impressive.

International espionage and electoral dirty tricks is absolutely a valid concern, so much so that I am baffled by Kier Starmer allowing the Chinese Embassy building alterations in London to go ahead given the various security concerns that raises 🤷‍♀️

But, honestly, these issues are just not at the top of the list of electorate's concerns at the moment. I think that for most voters the Russians/Chinese/North Korea interfering in our democracies is very esoteric stuff. The electorate wants everyday bread and butter issues dealt, security issues come further down the list.

Goodwin has interesting stories from his pre-activist life. He briefed Boris Johnson after the 2019 election to explain who voted for Boris, why they voted for him, and what they expected Boris to do for them. He says Boris wasn't interested - he thought he won a stonking majority because he was a great guy and everyone loved him, and they'd go on loving him if he reverted to his Tory wet comfort zone.

Goodwin also briefed Labour on polling, and they weren't interested in any findings that contradicted their theory of the electorate.

I remember a story I heard - I think from Peter Hitchens - about the time Alan Duncan almost blagged his way into being a Tory leadership candidate, because he gave great lunches and lobby journalists loved to have lunch with him and hear all his wickedly funny banter and gossip, and they wrote columns bigging him up as a potential leader, but Alan had neglected to schmooze MPs and couldn't find enough people to nominate him.

There was definitely a thing where Rishi Sunak benefited from having his best friend James Forsyth as political editor of the Spectator creating lots of copy about what a genius Sunak was.

If this sounds like a sort of Renaissance court where the nobles have got a feedback loop of courtiers telling them what they want to hear, you're not far wrong.

I think I would probably vote for him in any party he belonged to.

I really think that even if they belong to the "correct" party, if most of the candidates are idiots, you will have an idiotic government producing poor legislation and doing poor work.

And conversely, candidates being really on the ball, smart, and hardworking will tend to result in a government doing good work.

I have to give credit to PP above mentioning Farage being a good listener and connecting well with people.

I kind of viscerally dislike him but it's hard to elaborate precisely why. There's a lot going on to unpick. His smug brexit fibs, the facile way he lets on he's a man of the people not a nepo baby who got his first job in finance from a chummy round of golf with his dad's mate, the fact he comes out with simplistic guff that seems to havr transfixed and persuade folk I thought knew better...

But yanno, I can't deny that maybe I'd get on with him, nor that there is a deep rot and dark suspicion of the red blue hegemony thst he speaks to very eloquently, and that people are sick fed up of career politicos talking down to them, and that ordinary life is very tough and has been getting worse and so on and so on.

Bladdy hell he's going to be PM at this rate, and I'm like equal parts appalled and terrified, fascinated and curious. One thing I'm not, is optimistic.

There's no doubt that populists smoothly proselytise that problems are easy to ID, solutions are obvious. As we know from real life, that's rarely the case.
But the mainstream parties do this as well.
Starmer pretty much extolled that simply being "the adult in the room" and "not the Tories" would sort things. And evidently not the case.
Indeed, he believed his own propaganda, coming into office with no plan and no philosophy, and now ground into the dust after just 1/3 of his term.
We're currently experiencing the sharpest and fastest change in public opinion for a govt plus effectively the longest pre-election campaign in history.
So much to do with Starmer lying so much ahead of the GE, having no ideas, no philosophy, up against someone who's refined his philosophy for 20-30 years.
Whether that's enough for Farage if he wins in 2029, the jury's out.
From what I've read, he knows full well that the knives are out on day one, he has 100 days max to get the basics right.
And I think he's learning from Trump 1st term v Trump 2nd term. Especially what not to do.
IMHO Starmer is as big, if not an even bigger liar than Johnson. He lied every which way to get the leadership job from his rivals, and has lied his way thru office.
I'll take a populist like Farage anytime over an amoralist like Starmer.