The News?

[cee-dee]

Is "The News" on TV worth watching for the next few weeks?

At lunchtime today the BBC spent twenty minutes on the election issue and Sky news was the same. What for?

The actual, real news was that Parliament had been dissolved and that was it. The rest of the waffle was numerous commentating nobodies espousing their take on little or nothing. Surely devoting so much time on non-news surrounding political issues will only bore people to the extent that they will take no interest in either politics or voting?

Perhaps that's the idea so that only hard-bitten political followers will bother to vote?

They've already produced numerous "opinion polls" showing the percentage of "voters" for the main parties and a couple of also-rans and when you see how many people they'd roped in to their "poll" (less than a couple of thousand) don't you think such "polls" are of little value?

So, leaving aside one "side" or the other, what sort of interest in politics is there here?

[jambuttyminer]

Politicians and the media think elections are exciting and worthy of vast amounts of airtime and typeface..

The majority of voters don't share the feeling

[al**bear]

Yes

Because the News is usually full of Celeb ( of all levels), TV show & entertainment gossip, so at least it keeps that to a minimum

But of course some non-entity leaving some non-entity band or some wrinkly Pop Diva making a fool of herself during a contract signing, still makes it to the main News.

[mustard-tree]

I never watch news on tv.

I look on yahoo, and I can choose the bits I want to read, and it certainly will not be any pre election waffle.

I avoid all the sports antics as well

[bill-xxx]

Each party, with their pre election waffle, spout the same old policies and promise us the earth, and in doing so bore me almost to tears. And each time I too say the same thing ~ how come we didn't 'get the earth' last time they were in power?

[cee-dee]

The waffle from participants wouldn't be so bad if "the media" didn't try to make news out of non-news and then proceed to give a much longer (and more boring) "explanation" by two or three "experts".

[Anonymous]

I never watch the news and also hardly ever read a newspaper.

I don't need all that negative inflow in my life. If I can't change it, then I don't really want to hear about it.

[papko]

To make politics and elctions more exciting , just offer a 100 free ipads at every polling station 

 And you will get half the country up all night waiting in line 

 (no doubt 95% in working class areas , or with more than 20% of on on DLA ) 

Politics is boring because everything has been done , there is no iniquity or injustice any more , there is free everything and the rule of law 

[jd.linklater]

The common view seems to be that any political party will tell you anything you want to hear to secure your vote, after that you can go to hell as far as they're concerned. It's all about getting in to power, so whoever you vote for you're going to end up disappointed as usual. Most of the voting population realise that nowadays which is why we have such poor turnouts come election time, they are sick and tired of the same old parties making the same old promises and they have simply lost interest in the whole process.

But that's also the main reason we ended up with a coalition government at the last election and if we don't want to end up with the same again, more people have to become engaged with politics. I think that was the main reasoning behind having televised debates, to try and get more of the population interested. And that's why the media are pushing hard to get the message across that politics is important. Every election is important and if people don't exercise their democratic right and put pen to paper we will never have anything like a true proportional representation of how the populace feel. If people don't bother to vote, things will never change.  

[fallen-archie]

Today is international Transgender Day, a day of celebration hardly mentioned on our domestic News programmes.
Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex assigned to them.
I hope you will all join me in a quick toast to all those Transgender individuals who frequent the ebay Community and offer a warm welcome.

[malacandran]

Things might change, if more people refused  to vote.

Nothing will change -  as long as people keep trooping round to the polling booths, like sheep,  and voting.

The answer is : just stop voting. Don't do it.  Stay away. Express your contempt for the politicians, by not voting for any of them.

They're all tarred with the same brush, whichever Party they're in.  They all want, ultimately,  to destroy our country. That's obvious, from what they've done to it in the last 50 years. 

So, why keep voting for them?  

[malacandran]

---

@fallen-archie wrote:
Today is international Transgender Day, a day of celebration hardly mentioned on our domestic News programmes.
Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex assigned to them.
I hope you will all join me in a quick toast to all those Transgender individuals who frequent the ebay Community and offer a warm welcome.

---

Are you mad? Or just awesomely politically correct?

[fallen-archie]

Sadly not mad.




Are you Transgender?

[jd.linklater]

You sound like Russell Brand. He doesn't realise either that the people who stay away from the polls are doing just as much to keep things the same as those who do bother to turn up and vote. A missed vote is the same as a vote for the other guy.

[malacandran]

Well, I give up. You people who keep voting for politicians, then complaining about the inevitable result.

Just stop voting for them!  

I mean, it seems obvious enough. 

[papko]

 Hi to save you labouring the point , here is the actual link to UK GE results since 1945 

 You can see who voted for who , how many voted for them , how many MP's they got and 

 Voter turnout as a %

 http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/uktable.htm

 It was about 80% after the war and went up and down , and reached its nadir in 2001 , with 60%

 its actually back on the rise again now as 2010 had 65%

That is off course GE results  council elections an d EU elections have much lower turnouts

 because counil elections have low turnouts , do you want us to do away with councils ?

 the turnout is only 40%

 so the majority of people dont vote for them

 It could also mean people dont care who takes the rubbish away , or fixes the roads  

 It could mean anything 

 seemingly the likelihood to vote amongst drug and alcohol abusers , is way lower than the 65% average turnout in a GE 

 it could be these peopel have other priorotites on voting day ?

[malacandran]

Thanks papko for the link you provided - it seems to show that as a general trend, fewer people are voting in "elections" for politicians.

That's very heartening.   It shows that people are increasingly aware of the absurdity of "voting" for politicians.

I mean, politicians don't really want to do us any good.  They just want to get powerful and rich.

This is so obvious, that it's always seemed a mystery to me, why anyone should vote for them.  But nowadays we are getting wiser,and seeing through their schemes.

Which is why electoral turnout is falling, as your link shows. We aren't all dumb!

[cee-dee]

The point of the thread was to seek opinions on the seemingly blanket coverage of non-news on The News related to "the election" all created by "the media" when in actual fact there's very little real news on the election front.

When all's said and done after a round of various "correspondents" (reporters) dotted round the country there then has to be "Analysis by our political editor" which is only a re-hash of what's already been said coupled with his/her own boring take on the situation.

[malacandran]

cee-dee, I should do what any intelligent person such as you, ought to do.

[papko]

cee-dee, I should do what any intelligent person such as you, ought to do.

  emigrate to Nigeria ? they seem to have th ehandle on democracy these day s