the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I know that I bang on about this a lot but to me it represents the very worst kind of politicing.  The kind that ignores the very real problems we face and instead chooses to focus on matters that are ultimately trivial by comparison.  

I refer of course to my long held belief that the state should be engaged in state sponsored euthanasia. I don’t mean compulsory state sponsored euthanasia,  I mean a voluntary state sponsored one, as I discussed here.

And just because it might be unpalatable to some, is that enough of a reason not to discuss it? Because it might upset people? Are we spending Christmas with our in-laws or our we seriously contemplating what the long term spending implications of an ageing population are for the government.

 According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, government spending on social security payments – the state pension, pension credits, the winter fuel payment and other entitlements – is expected to be £152 billion (5.9% of national income) in 2023–24. 

This amount is only going to become even more burdensome for the state, as not only are people living longer and less people are being born, this therefore means that number of working age people to pay those taxes is dwindling. 

So if the various political parties can’t be honest about this then what else are they not being straight with us about?  They’re all say that they’re prepared for taking tough decisions and making tough choices but are they?  

Poncing about with tinkering here and there with things will only have any real effect if society limits the numbers possible to claim those things. Otherwise, such tinkering is about as much use trying to put out a raging fire with a water pistol.

*********************************************************************

With wonderful timing this appeared in yesterdays Daily Mirror,  

‘EXCLUSIVE: Tory ministers in line for £1million in taxpayer-funded payouts if they lose General Election

Ousted Tory ministers will be in line for more than £1million in taxpayer-funded payouts if the party loses the General Election.

Under the current rules, every Government minister under the age of 65 is entitled to a quarter of their annual salary in severance when they lose their jobs. Analysis shows taxpayers would be left with a whopping £1.03million bill for pay-offs for the 103 Tory ministers who are eligible.’

This perfectly exemplified what I have been banging on about all during this election campaign regarding the media’s obsession with the election betting nonsense and the search of Jay Slater. The wilful complicity of the media to allow itself to be so distracted when there are far more important matters to be addressed.  

Obviously a headline that read ‘Employer to fulfil legal obligations to staff facing redundancies’ isn’t much of a story but then its only MP’s so who cares?!  And if the Mirror thinks that £1 millions is ‘whopping’, what on earth would they call the £120 millions a day that the UK pays as interest on the national debt? 

**************************************************************************************************************

If Russia really did want to cause serious disruption to our democracy and want us all doubt the integrity of the general election result, there exists a wonderfully simple way to do it. They may in fact be doing even now, as you read this. Indeed they may have interfered with the last three of our elections. 

They could’ve stopped all that twatting about with setting up fake social media accounts and having a small army of people constantly posting fake news on them. Instead of going to to all that time and trouble, they could simply have created a slew of fake online identities, each with a different political outlook and have got them signed up with online polling companies. The kind of polling company that every media outlet now uses, the kind that has for weeks predicting a Labour landslide, the ones that base their predictions on the opinions of rarely more than a few thousand people, and which the media will then report on, and then report on that report.

This creates the ‘bandwagon effect’, which as one might imagine, describes the effect of people wanting to back a winner, especially if that winner is confidently predicted to be winning by everyone. Essentially opinion polls create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and one that by reporting on these polls, the media helps inflate out of all proportion.

My opinion of opinion polls has been low since their disastrous misreading of the 2015 election, one that was only eclipsed by the failure to call the 2016 referendum. Mind you, that was only eclipsed by their utter failure to in any way predict clearly the 2017 election. So, improvements were urgently needed, as every newspaper and media outlet said in 2015, again in 2016, and er, in 2017 and yes finally some things changed and they got it  a bit right in 2019.

But remember the the ‘horse-meat’ scandal back in the olden times of 2013? When inexplicably, and to much public outrage, it turned out that one wasn’t able to buy a £3 lasagna ready meal and for it not contain the best cuts of meat? How consumer wanted everything but the blame. They instead directed their anger at the food manufacturers and the way that they advertised their products, supermarkets who sold themselves to shoppers on the basis of price, of how every little helped, of being able to eat well for less and of not being little on quality

Remember all that? 

And maybe then you recall the speed with which it was all forgotten as Christmas 2013 approached. The speed with which a collective amnesia about the scandal which seemed to possess people was matched only for their hunger for ‘bogof’ deals.

That’s why opinion polls are much like ready meals, people remember what they want to remember!

******************************************************************

Speaking of foreign interference in elections one of course immediately thinks of the Guardian.  

Back in 2004 the Guardian embarked on a campaign that sought to influence the voters of Clarke County, Ohio to vote for Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry and not for George W Bush.  Yes you read that right.  ‘The Guardian’, having bought the electoral roll of Clarke County, then invited its readers to get the  address of a voter from its website and then write to them urging them to vote for Kerry

Yes, Clarke County was a swing state and therefore liable to go either way in the presidential election, but why none of staff high up there on Mount Virtue didn’t put a stop this before it left the editorial meeting is anyone’s guess.  My guess is that ‘The Guardian’ and its readership are so convinced of the moral superiority of the opinions of which they believe in that it’s inconceivable to them that another, just as valid, opinion might exist. 

Bizarrely the residents of Clarke County were not best pleased by this!  And whether it had any tangible effect other than annoying the people of Clarke County, I don’t know, but I do know that there was never a President Kerry.  Of course ‘The Guardian’ would much rather that this whole thing was forgotten about and never mentioned because foreign interference in elections is a bad thing.

So probably best that forget that you’ve ever heard of it.

******************************************************************************************************