It should shake the government to the core, but voters are well protected from this unwelcome news by our largely pro-Brexit press.
As someone who actually did pro-Brexit PR for a time that isn’t quite how I recall it. We were the nutters, off there over the edge of allowable opinion. Sure, we might have been wrong – I don’t think we were but let’s be reasonable about knowledge – but the idea that the British press was pro-Brexit is absurd.
They are probably slightly less anti-Brexit than before (except FT, Graun, Indy …) especially after recent stupidities.
> but the idea that the British press was pro-Brexit is absurd
But what other explanation can there be for the British disagreeing with Toynbee…
Where is this pro-Brexit press? Even the Daily Mail went fullbore Remoan during the negotiation period. Indy, Guardian, Standard and FT are foaming at the mouth Remoan. A few journos at the Bellylaugh and Times make pro Leave noises from time to time. Is it time to section Polly and try to help her to cope with the strange voices in her head?
From the article she links to:-
“Experts said the scale of the decline in January trade was unlikely to be permanent because there was evidence companies stockpiled goods before the Brexit deadline, meaning they would not need to send as many shipments as usual in January.”
Jesus, can’t people even read what they link to?
“Prof Katharine Tyler, of the same Exeter team – and currently re-interviewing voters from Lincolnshire, the south west and Newcastle – finds no shifting views in either leavers or remainers. Nor does she expect real-world effects to have much impact given Brexit’s strong connection to national and personal identity. Bad trade news bounces off sovereignty-seekers, for whom any economic price was always worth paying.”
This is just drivel. Bill Clinton may have had poor taste in women, but “it’s the economy, stupid” is pretty good. And specifically, according to people who ran the Leave campaign, they wanted to keep the news agenda on the cost of the EU.
An excellent example of the self-lacerating tendencies of Guardian readers. I presume he is not allowed anywhere near sharp implements
https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2021/mar/10/revisiting-the-rose-tinted-british-history-i-was-taught-60-years-ago
Well according to this stupid woman and her fellow travellers, the press is “right wing” ergo, evil. This is because they have to rationalise their own failure to convince the electorate at large that their misanthropic, authoritarian utopia will not actually mean penury and misery. So, we are all victims of “right wing propaganda” and the Grauniad is really the voice of truth and goodness, leading us to the sunny uplands of communism, because it will work when Polly, Ash and Owen are in charge. Honest.
Well, we must remember that Brexit is a plot by “big business” and the top ranks of the Tory Party.
After all, don’t we remember how Cameron, Osborne, the CBI et al were marching, waving flags, beating drums, and all calling for us to get out of the EU soonest?
I think some people are making the mistake of believing that Polly Toynbee actually believes what she writes.
She’s a liar – she’s a leftist, and they’re all liars, and they all lie all the time.
She knows full well that the UK press was largely pro EU; the most powerful UK media voice, the BBC, was rabidly and disgracefully anti-Brexit – it didn’t even try to hide it, with years and years of 4-1 panels on Question Time merely being the most egregious example.
What Polly is doing is smearing the very few pro Brexit voices in the media as being part of a giant conspiracy (when in fact we all know which way the conspiracy went), while at the same time scrabbling around for psychological cover to protect her own brain from the glaring fact that her side lost despite having at its disposal the 1st Bn the Commentariat Fusiliers, the entire 3rd Twitter Army (barring a few saboteurs who were able to get behind the lines), the motorised infantry of the Artists and Celebs, and the Tory Party’s own substantial fifth column.
She is a cunt almost without equal, in an extremely crowded field of cunts.
They really cannot get over the delusion that the plebs don’t have the ability to form opinions, only to reflect what propaganda they have been subject to. So if they read the evil right-wing press (what?) thye get evil right-wing ideations. What the left does not acknowledge is that those who read the sainted left-wing press would be equally as subject to persuasion without critical appraisal, so the Guardian are just as guilty of propagandising as anyone else.
@rhoda
They really cannot get over the delusion that the plebs don’t have the ability to form opinions, only to reflect what propaganda they have been subject to. So if they read the evil right-wing press (what?) thye get evil right-wing ideations. What the left does not acknowledge is that those who read the sainted left-wing press would be equally as subject to persuasion without critical appraisal, so the Guardian are just as guilty of propagandising as anyone else.
I dunno. I think you’re giving tyhem too much credit – that this is an innocent mistake of some sort. Like I say, I don’t think they really harbour this delusion. I think they know very well indeed that the average person doesn’t agree with them, and why – they just don’t care about the average person, and will do everything they can to discredit the opinions of the average person.
The Deal is shite because Bogus Blojob Johnson did his best to sabotage the Brexit Deal. To the extent that he could. In the end creating a talking shop of connected UK/EU scum who could pave way for rejoin at some point.
He couldn’t do an all out Treason May caper–esp after the virus shite kicked off because the combo of virus tyranny and Brexit Betrayal would have finished him.
But he kept the negos going to the last possible minute and yellow u-turned on the Int Market Bill.
Thus setting us up for this mess. The cunt should have gone no deal but was determined to get some shite no matter how bad it was. To please Tory Hier scum.
The mess –if it be one and NI certainly seems so–is Blojerk and Tory CCHQ/MP scums mess. Bogus got rid of only the worst most brazen EU owned MP trash. The rest of the scum Tory sellouts are still in their jobs and were joined by more compliant Tory trash after Dec19.
It almost goes without saying now but if the day has a ‘y’ in it’s a day the left will be lying. The real question is does the cognitive dissonance cause mental illness at higher rates than for right wing types?
Andrew Again
“The real question is does the cognitive dissonance cause mental illness at higher rates than for right wing types?”
Well we have ample scientific research to tell us that the answer is – Yes.
Higher rates of neuroticism, depression and mental delusion have all been empirically proven to exist in greater statistically relevant levels on the Left.
The only newspapers that were significantly pro-Brexit were the Daily Mail (but not its Sunday sibling) and the Sun. The rest were either broadly neutral (Times and Telegraph) or screamingly anti-Brexit (Guardian, Independent and Mirror). And, of course, the 800 lb gorilla in the world of UK media, the BBC, was even more anti-Brexit. What sort of demented moron could see this as a sea of pro-Brexit propaganda, other than a Guardian ‘journalist’?
Forget the media, the biggest Remain advocate was HMG. A £9m campaign just before campaign spending restrictions started and The Treasury working on Project Fear. That plus Status Quo bias meant the should have walked it.
Would the wrinkly rockers have that much influence?
The Times was very anti-Brexit. The Sunday Times published some atrocious Project Fear stuff.
The Times, Graun, Independent, FT, Economist, Mirror, BBC, C4 and Sky were very pro-remain, not to mention the government of the day, but still the British people saw sense and voted to secede.
Jimmers – it’s Rocking All Over The World, a call for a global Britain if ever I heard one.
Well the mailing of answers is always better