Most polls indicate that Cameron emerged as the winner in the Channel 4/Sky debate last evening. But at 6.30am this morning and then subsequently across its news channel, the BBC handed the victory to Miliband. Remarkable.
MILIBAND THE WINNER…
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ICM / YouGov polls both called it for Cameron. Interestingly, the snap reaction on the Guardian live blog, had this from the Britain Thinks panel – “Top line view is that DC’s performance is more assured and confident than EM – also better command of facts and figures…People in the panel are responding to the policies in a partisan way but even strong anti-Tories in this small sample tended to rate Cameron’s performance over Miliband’s”
Similarly, the post-debate verdict from the Daily Mail – Cameron looked more composed / serious, although Milliband gave Paxo as good as he got.
Two partisan organisations giving a fairly balanced account of the debate.
Cue BBC Newsnight. Allegra, immediately after the debate – “clear win” for Milliband, tonight demonstrated why Cameron didn’t want to do a head-to-head debate, he was constantly attacked on his record, and apparently, the 2 most memorable moments were the food banks and zero hours contracts questions to Cameron. She even goes on to assert that Milliband looked relaxed (he didn’t – he looked fired up, willing to argue his corner, but I haven’t heard anyone else say he looked more relaxed).
It was unbelievable – it was verbatim what a Labour party spokesperson would say, to the point where Caroline Flint came on later, and repeated almost the exact phrases that Allegra had. When asked about the ICM poll, she even responded “I agree with Allegra”
It’s worth a watch, as it’ll leave you open mouthed at how ideologically connected Newsnight is to Labour.
what’s not to like about Ed the Great? He’s the only leader in the world who will stand up to catastrophic climate change and stop runaway global warming. Vote labour for colder summers
I forgot to add “no emotional honesty” to the list of Allegra’s charges. Interestingly, you did have the editor of the Independent, in the same show, say that Allegra was a bit harsh on Cameron – he actually gave a more honest assessment – Labour would overall be more pleased, but that was in part because expectations were so low (a point that Allegra failed to mention).
I do find it troubling that a BBC political correspondent can look at that debate and come to such a conclusion, lacking in any balance.
There was also a lot of mention of what social media was saying during the debates – whilst this is a way of measuring public perception, it is important to remember that not everyone goes on their phone and tweets their opinion, therefore you’ll get a biased sample when analysing “who won on twitter” versus “who won overall”. Hence the disparity between the ICM poll and social media trends – again, something that seemed to be lost on Newsnight
‘…I do find it troubling that a BBC political correspondent can look at that debate and come to such a conclusion, lacking in any balance…’
It wasn’t just what she said, the joy on her face was quite remarkable, leaving no-one in any doubt who’s side she was one.
I thought that she was about to have an orgasm.
Serial lying fantasists still wearing their red rose tinted specs, even if they do no good if you`re looking at an eclipse.
Miliband would only have to not collapse at the podium to be declared Newsnights winner.
Thankfully, we`d all just seen it-so the embarrassing rush of Stratton to big up the useless Miliband,only puts us all on standby for the retching six weeks to come.
Luckily the British people aren`t listening to Radio 4 or Newsnight…so we`ll get a Tory UKIP coalition at this rate.
If only the Tories would bin the BBC in revenge for the rest of us…they always seem not to screw the left in the way that the left choose to do 24/7, when it comes to demolishing the right-or indeed any opposition or common sense.
i would of called it a draw,no clear winner,but in all fairness to david cameron.he looked unwell,a touch of the flu i suspect, but ed millband spooked me last night with his totally arrogant attitude,what was all that i stood to to putin and obama about,i bet they are shivering in there boots at the prospect of him getting elected in may,well if they arent,we should be,sorry ed,last night you came across as a man desperate to be the next prime minister,very shiftty unconvincing performance indeed.
I think in fairness to Milliband he was facing outrageous interruption from the Murdoch attack bitch. ‘Your poor mother’
I thought it was meant to be about politics not Millibands fucking family. The question is ,is Putin afraid of Britain not Milliband. He certainly doesn’t give a crap about Cameron.
Topping it all was that prima doña Paxman who as we all know just likes the sound of his own voice.
It was Miliband who brought his family into the media, by blaming his mother for the tax avoidance for instance.
BBC must have been watching a different debate to me. Cameron was totally in command of the facts and figures when questioned by the Audience and gave direct and confident answers to the questions posed by them.
Paxman is a pratt. What relevance is it that Cameron could or could not live on a zero hours contract. What possible answer could he give. Zero hour contracts work for students and those who don’t want regular employment. Of course there are some who cannot get or want regular work for various reasons but that is often due to life style, preference of dress, tattoos etc.
Of course there are more food banks, lefties will make sure of that. Should Milliband get in then they will disappear but not due to conditions getting any better for the less well off. The lefties will make sure of that !
Milliband was not relaxed, spouted a load of unsubstantiated rhetoric and capped it with a pathetic attempt at toughness.
As for the Audience warming to him, there were just a few clapping every answer (sorry utterance) he gave. No doubt they were the usual clack supplied by Labour to do just that regardless of content. The majority of the Audience were laughing at him.
The lefties now want to show their approval by wildly whooping, clapping and cheering every pathetic comment made by their wimp ish, sneering leaders. The bbc is full of them. It appears as though they have the upper hand.
‘The other obvious point is that the early growth of the food bank network precedes the recession.
That causes problems for Labour if they want to suggest that food banks are symptomatic of recent mismanagement of the economy……..
Some strategic-level interviewees felt that rising unemployment, as a consequence of the recession, had led to a rise in ‘need’ which could help explain the rise in the number of food banks and the numbers of those clients helped…”
“This view was contentious, however, with other strategic-level participants arguing that the ‘needs’ being met by food banks were largely pre-existing before the current recession…
The move to a social franchise model in 2004 encouraged food banks to spread and it’s difficult to separate this natural expansion from the effects of the recession.’
http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/food-banks-is-cameron-on-the-money/12486
And funny isn’t it that nobody seemed to have heard of foodbanks before the coalition came to power. Our local paper, in one of its endless foodbank promotions, featured a woman who had recently lost her job. She didn’t know what she would have done without it as she would have starved whilst waiting for her benefits to come through. Er, my son was in a similar position in 2009 but none of us knew anything about foodbanks then.
Amazing what a bit of publicity will do.
IMHO, the true winner of this debate was Paxman. In fact that is the whole point of these debates. It was never, is never & will never be about the politicians, their party or policies. And in the rest of these artificial & pointless debates, it will be about these millionaire, tax-dodging, expense-fiddling presenters who have so much money that it will never matter to them who governs the country. It is all a game to them.
And we the people should not get into this game which we can do by simply not watching or listening to any of the debates. If you have ½ a brain, then you should be able to figure out quite easily who to vote for. Don’t let the media tell you who to vote for because all they are interested in is spreading disunity in Britain.
FWIW I thought the winner was Farage.
Vote UKIP. Common Sense.
Yup but no policies, apart from the one
One ? Well they do say they have these…….
http://www.ukip.org/policies_for_people
He’s been told before. And before that. And before that.
Another Groundhog Day with Mr Omnibus aka ‘Keep telling the lie often enough and people will believe you’.
Vote kipper ,& get Millipeed /SNP .The pedictitions give the kippers 2 seats , maybe the 2 they already have . Most of potential kippers I know , are voting Tory ,to cut down the chance of a Millipeed/SNP Government, that prospect frightens the shit out of them.( As well as me.)
Unfortunately in the constituency I live in UKIP have no chance of winning so I’m afraid Tory is better than the other likely winner. This is a likely scenario up and down the country sadly.
Can be have an election to vote out the BBC?
HELL YEAH, Milipede won the leaders ‘showdown’ hands down with his eye bulging tough guy act. That moment alone was so cringeworthy that I had to turn over, it was just embarrassing. What else was the biased media going to say? Most of them are desperate for a liebour win.
You can clearly see how the liebour spin crew are setting Ed up in the coming weeks, the new mean Ed, “That’s it Ed, you’re a tiger..rarrgghhh”. Just look at the man when he does his walk rounds, he looks astonished that people actually think he is vote worthy.
You can also see how the media, bbc in particular, are negating the UKIP factor, they are bigging up every lefty party going, first it was the Liberals, then it was the Green loonies (until their leader proved she didn’t have a clue and now the pet status has gone) and now it’s Plaid Cymru, whose leader is so cliched she makes Matthew Wright look positively interesting, who will vote for Plaid? A few Welsh die hards maybe?
It’s utterly pathetic, I’m all for aiding minorities but at this rate the outer Mongolia freedom party will be on the podium. The bbc are now in mouth frothing mode, their unashamed bias is on show and they don’t care a jot.
If the bbc have anything to do with the UK’s future then we are facing serious trouble. I watched a shocking bbc3 political programme called ‘Free Speech’ (a total misnomer of a title if there ever was one on the bbc) where the yoof have a say and get to question the main parties.
The audience was full of brain washed lefty Brands and Brandettes, their attitude to the Conservative representatives was not far short of vicious, their disdain toward UK pensioners was shameful and their me,me,me attitude was just disgusting. These vermin now use mental ‘elf. issues as an excuse for everything, it’s more common than the common cold, yet every one of them are lucid enough to know exactly what this country owes them.
I see nothing but disaster for this country if liebour are voted in.
BBC news is insisting on giving Miliband a platform:
For the Tories it’s all about the cuts, innit?
The only platform I want for Miliband is 9 3/4 at Kings Cross, where he might just disappear.
Can’t see that happening, seeing as J.K. Rowling is a millionaire champagne socialist.
I listened to many of the BBC post debate pundits and was quite shocked at the way they managed to twist reality yet again.
It’s something the BBC are very good at, although they might convince themselves it’s difficult for people outside their train of thought to follow the logic because it is by its nature so twisted and involves leaps of faith (in Fascist left ideology).
A case in point was the Lee Rigby Killing which apparently had nothing to do with Islam and was whitey’s fault because of foreign policy !
And so it went with the debate last night.
If you introduce enough variables it is obvious that your man will win on one of them.
Radio 4 Today said that in most peoples eyes Cameron won the debate, but they had asked a number of undecided voters after the debate which way they would now vote, and 7 out of ten owners said their cats would vote Millipede (or some such number). This they claimed was actually more important than the debate itself as it showed Special Ed’s ability to influence undecided votes and therefore he was the real winner !
This is out & out distortion and if it had happened the other way around it would not be reported in Cameron’s favour.
It’s a little like the days of the old Soviet Union where an American and a Russian have a race which the American wins. The following day Pravda reports:
Yesterday an American and a Russian had a race, the Russian finished second, but the American finished next to last !
I have no interest in this farce. It is a joke and we should all ignore it.
I would rather go fishing.
Any body who cares about the future of England should have made up their mind to vote UKIP. The Cameron/Milliband/Clegg trio are out of time and out of ideas.
And ukip seems to be all out of policies. But hey don’t let that stop you.As I’m sure it won’t!
There is one very good policy that springs to mind…get the UK out of the basket case that is the EU.
Oh, another, stop thinking we can save the world by chucking money about like it’s going out of fashion and spend it on our own country instead…maybe it will help solve povurteh, housing shortage, NHS collapse, food banks, mental ‘elf issues, yoof employment, infrastructure collapse blah, blah, blah.
That’ll do for me, guess who I’ll be voting come May?
Significantly, the ‘one policy’ addresses what trendy broadcasters call an ‘existential threat’. The rocks and soil of the UK aren’t threatened, of course, but the indigenous population and their culture is in danger. In this situation, nothing else matters. I’m sure you’ve heard of Maslow.
Right on. It won’t. I take the old fashioned view that we, the voters are sovereign and that we elect a parliament to govern us and that no one parliament can ever agree to cede that sovereignity to any outside body or power.
I thought we established this in the 17th century and see no reason to change anything about it.
Here is the ICM poll results from the ukpolling.com site.
“An ICM poll straight after the debate found people thought Cameron came out better than Miliband by 54% to 46% – we will have to wait until the weekend to see if it has any impact upon either voting intentions or perceptions of the leaders. Over the last five years Cameron has consistently had better ratings than Miliband, so in many ways a performance that’s pretty even has the potential to help Miliband far more than Cameron. As ever, time will tell.”
I listened to most of this on the radio and was struck again by how much better non-BBC picked audiences are. Less partisan, more representative, less inclined to Pavlovian applause, no jeering or heckling and no angry questions. Why doesn’t the BBC use Survation?
The Left always interrupt and shout over people. This partly because of their narcissism (they do not like to hear alternative views) but it is mainly it is because of their authoritarianism.
I remember the BBC went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on about how Bernard Ingham was undermining the impartiality of the Civil Service because he once called John Biffen semi-detached from the government.
When the New Labour fascists under Alasdair Campbell really did politicize the Civil Service, the BBC portrayed it as a joke. Indeed they actively connived with New Labour news management, until that is they provoked the ire of Alasdair Campbell by attacking Blair from the Left, and then suddenly it all became about the freedom of the BBC – not the freedom of the press you notice.
The bloated BBC news and current affairs division tells you next to nothing about the real world. It is a Potemkin village of expense accounts, disinformation, and Leftist bigotry dressed up analysis.
The reporters who are exceptions to this rule are so few I could count the on them fingers of one hand. We all know who they are, and although pushed to the margins they do some excellent work, but If I worked for the BBC I would be ashamed.
BBC under fire for failing to declare David Cameron as winner of Battle for Number 10
Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, said on Twitter: “When Obama beat McCain 54-46 in a head-to-head it was called a landslide. But for the BBC that’s called ‘no clear winner’. Odd!”
The party’s press office Twitter account: “BBC showing clear editorial bias by saying there was ‘no clear winner’ last night despite Guardian/ICM poll saying the exact opposite.”
So, just what are the Tories going to do about it ? A judicial review perhaps ?
Propaganda and censorship, a potent combination in the right hands.
Hence Allegra tells it often enough in face of poll results, and such as that Today snap audience reaction gets quietly sidelined.
The BBC will interpret events, and results, to suit. Hence the BBC report on the Guardian 10:10 coverage managed to see 100:1 trashing as ‘opinions being split’.
I think most other commentators called it for Jeremy Paxman .
… which is quite a statement in itself, to be honest.
Millipede looks like a total lunatic, how any normal person can vote for the Labour shower is beyond comprehension.
Built-in tribal loyalty from the “I’m proud of my working-class roots, my dad voted Labour, and his dad voted Labour …… ” brigades.
Stop Press Moaners hour decides that the new Disney Cinderella is simply not politically correct enough for todays audience!
The story of a young girl reduced to a life of drudgery before being elevated to the status of princess is just not on and apparently it’s also ‘gender exclusive!’
Two harridans from the Grauniad were rolled out to moan about the Disney remake of the old story and completely missed the point of the story which is in fact a morality play about not giving up hope because things will get better – totally went over their heads.
Televised debate = X-Factor politics.
If people are swayed by a single programme to vote one way or the other they obviously haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been happening in this country for the last 18 years.
People know there’s little difference between Cameron and Miliband, so any attempt to dramatize differences comes across as contrived. However, Clegover has never recovered from the thumping Farage gave him last year. I’m sure it’s fear of Farage that has Dave running scared. Farage gets his one chance to clobber Dave on Thursday; I hope he makes good use of it.
I am getting bombarded with Labour campaign literature, being in a high Labour target seat. (I hope they are not overspending?)
Having been informed about how little the Labour candidate for Prime Minister is appearing in campaign literature I did check through half a dozen recent leaflets on their way to recycling and could not find one mention of EM or one picture out of many of the local candidate in the presence of EM. It’s a bit like in the Soviet Union where people get air brushed out.
I do hope our ex BBC political reporter Labour candidate finds time to canvass me.
That’s interesting – so am I. In fact I’ve received so much from Labour that it occurs to me they must have found a way of fiddling the election expenses rules.
I suppose a BBC investigation is too much to hope for?
That £1000 a seat courtesy of Tony Blair is probably helping. Anyone getting Labour literature and being canvasses should ask the candidate whether they received his ‘blood money’.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
A report on the aftermath of the debate for anyone who is interested.