Curiosity wrote:
MrChris wrote:
Go on, prove that there has never been any criticism of Johnson , Hunt and Gove being shit at their jobs. Go on. Because it's bollocks and you know it.
That's a straw man.
It‘s not a straw man, it is literally a refutation of what you actually just said. Right there, just then.
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They get called out on it, but it is easily forgotten and they move on.
All of those have done more stupid things than Abbott, but she has a much worse reputation and public perception, and she did even before the car crash interview yesterday. Most people can't even remember WHY unless they search on the Internet. There's the hypocrisy over private schools (for which she deserved to be criticised) but beyond that it's just a general negativity that has not been attached to the establishment types such as Gove, Hunt, Johnson et al.
It's not that those guys don't get criticised, it's that it doesn't stick to them.
And that’s the media’s fault then, is it? So contrary to what you just said, you accept they get called out on the same stuff (so no bias there then), but you’re annoyed because people don’t, as far as you can see, bang on about it for ages. Which of course they do, though. There’s a running theme of Johnson being a buffoon (although the public seem to like that in him), Liam Fox being “disgraced former minister Liam Fox” Gove being a fucking stupid backstabbing idiot, etc etc etc.
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And while you're at it, prove that the negative coverage of Abbott is because "her face doesn't fit".
People can be ostracised by the media like this for various reasons. Miliband stood up to Murdoch and was subject to (at that time) the most negative political campaign in modern British history.
Likewise, Abbott is in many ways anti-establishment. That attracts negative coverage. Then she's also a woman, and also black. It's the perfect storm!
In short, I can prove racism, sexism, and class prejudice exist, and that a lot of media in the UK is run by people with an agenda. If you think that isn't a factor, at all, in the stick she gets from the press and the absolutely vile abuse she gets on a daily basis from the public, then, well, gosh.
I think a substantial part of the reason Abbott gets stick is because she’s an idiot and a hypocrite. I dislike her hugely, but not because she’s a woman or black. It's because I've read and listened to a lot of what she's said over the years, and I've made a judgement based on the words coming out of her mouth.
Proving racism and sexism exist does not prove that people publish negative coverage of Abbott because she’s black or a woman. That’s not even at the level of post hoc ergo propter hoc, it’s just simply an unconnected statement by you, Andy Bear of London and your opinions based, I might suggest, on your biased view of the people running the press. All of them. Every single one.
I think her being consistently a very vocal and visible hypocrite has done her no favours, and behaviour like that tends to attract a degree of approbation – rather correctly. As it does with other great hypocrites (“Family Values” and the Tory scandals of the 90s ring any bells?).
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It may be comforting to think that it's all due to the big bad biased media, but it isn't. Most of your fellow Britishers, and in fact most of your fellow humans, are stupid, venal, uninterested, lazy, selfish twats who can't be arsed to do any thinking about anything. And it's never, ever, ever going to get better. That's the problem.
Well that's a shitty attitude to take.
It may well be, but it has the virtue of being accurate.
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Things are better now in many ways compared to the past. Being resigned to this continuing is nonsense.
And it's absolutely not comforting at all to know that the media is fucking awful a lot of the time. If most people are what you say they are, then that makes the media even more important, because people will just take whatever lazy slurs reinforce their own prejudices rather than actually think about things.
And those who try to improve this, who try to change the way it works, they get slaughtered in the press.
Well no, they don’t always. Not even that often. That's just melodramatic hyperbole.
And as I’ve already alluded to, a massive, massive difference with this current shower in charge of Labour is that they don’t even try to work within the existing system. It’s all very well saying “well it should be better and we should change it” – but it isn’t and you’re not going to change it before the election. So they should wise the fuck up and play the game. Blair got himself elected three times despite being at odds with the politics of much of the mainstream press. You may hate Campbell et al, but it bloody well worked.
I'm not sure that we're necessarily at odds here, other than your view that Abbott is unfairly picked on and the Tories are given an easy ride. The media is shit blah blah, yes. but that's not news, and it was Labour's job to get elected, but they have consistently shown themselves unwilling to do what they need to in order to actually win an election - but then I think we all know that really that's not what Corbyn and pals are really interested in.