The Aged P

…just toasting and ruminating….

Tories Go For PR, UKIP Prefer Principles

We hear from James Kirkup, a resident hack at David Cameron’s fan club newsletter (aka the Telegraph) that the Tory Party machine is now big into “Data Electioneering”. Apparently this is the equivalent of the supermarket loyalty card where you use information gathered at the checkout to decide how you will stock your shelves

 

 It would amass information about voters and seats, information that could be used to ensure that the party knows where the electorate is, what it thinks, what it wants.The result is an extraordinarily extensive – and expensive – programme of opinion polls and focus groups generating huge volumes of data about voters’ views and preferences

 

 In other words the quaintly old fashioned idea of a political party being the coming together of a group of individuals with a common view of political principles and ideas which then seeks to persuade the voters to elect them into government is now so yesterday. Instead you fashion your policies around consumer research, social media reaction and, eventually, product testing. Presumably, after all that, you come up with a to do list which will aim to please mumsnet, greenpeace and the Daily Mail…

Good luck with that.

Of course, it’s all very expensive for the Tories – but when you have the bosses of the big global corporations who do well out of the EU trough and cheap labour via uncontrolled immigration in your pocket then why worry? OK your party membership at local level is collapsing but, like the banks, who needs branches when you can centralise?

Hence the reshuffle, aimed, we are told at

 

women, especially those with young families. Such women, alongside Ukip supporters who used to vote Tory, were a key audience for the reshuffle, both precisely identified by that polling operation for a data-driven reshuffle that is without precedent in British politics.

 

Odd, though, that “UKIP supporters” should be furrowing brows amidst all those data drivers at Tory HQ…..UKIP, a party led by political outsiders, permanently cash strapped with only the bare bones of a professional cadre and with no support from any national media outlet yet which consistently  polls well ahead of the Liberal Democrats. Enough, if it continues, to possibly win a seat or two, certainly enough to undermine the chances of the Tories getting a working majority in 2015.

 

There is little evidence yet of a fall in Ukip support now the European Parliament elections have passed, confounding the expectations of pundits who believed the European election victory was the “peak Ukip moment”. Our estimates have Farage’s party at 14.8 per cent, down just 0.1 per cent on last month. The Liberal Democrats, however, continue to slide to new record lows. This month they register just 8.8 per cent, down 0.5 per cent on last month, and an all-time low under our new methodology.

 

Much ink has been spilt, of course, over a lack of clarity over UKIP’s policies on tax, the NHS etc and, to be fair, some of this criticism has been justified. But then to what extent can people be clear about the policies of the three establishment parties on these issues. However most voters are aware that UKIP wants to withdraw from the EU (not negotiate) and impose stricter controls on immigration – and they say you cannot have one without the other. The three establishment parties claim to be concerned about uncontrolled immigration but don’t really want to leave the EU. They also have hang ups about upsetting the high priests of political correctness in the media. UKIP couldn’t care less about the media, focus groups or pontificating pundits – what you see is what you get and that message has resonated, pitching through all the spin and PR noise of modern politics.

One comment on the Kirkup piece (from Telegraf) encapsulated the vacuity and shallowness of the Tory data obsession “It’s good to know that politics is now simply a marketing campaign involving a brand on an empty box that once used to contain principles.”  But then what can you really expect from a party led by “a onetime PR man for ruthlessly profitable trash TV”

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posted by david in UK Politics and have Comments Off on Tories Go For PR, UKIP Prefer Principles

UN To Combat The Grim Reaper With Regiments Of Lobbyists & PR “Experts”

Most of us in Europe, Asia and America are living longer – but not so much of that in Africa. Many people in Africa are dying earlier than us of malaria, typhoid etc….those old fashioned diseases caused by bugs, dirty water and exacerbated by under nourishment.

However few of us will simply die in our sleep – instead we will die of other diseases like cancer or heart/blood pressure problems because these are diseases of old age. Most Africans, for the moment, are spared that.
The diseases that will kill us off are non-communicable diseases, known as NCDs and you’ll be glad to know that the UN is on the case.

On Saturday at the sixty-fifth World Health Assembly – a meeting of the 194 member countries of the World Health Organisation – ‘delegates approved the development of a global monitoring framework for the prevention and control of NCDs, including indicators and a set of global targets.

Don’t rush out into the street proclaiming that the WHO has found a cure for cancer because we’re not talking about SCIENCE. The guys and gals in their white coats are still shaking their test tubes and are still far away from finding a cure. No, we are talking about the only global industry that is in permanent growth mode – public health agitprop or health “education” as the industry prefers to describe itself.

‘The NCD Alliance, a global advocacy organization representing a network of more than 2,000 civil society organizations led a major lobbying campaign, and mobilized its network to ensure this target was secured.’
‘Intense lobbying by NGOs’ : the epitaph of our times. How delightful it is that these organisations think that lobbying and legislation is a substitute for biology and medical science.

You know exactly what sort of people will be implementing these campaigns says Chris Snowdon at Spiked

the puritans, bureaucrats, nannies and headbangers of public health are so keen on the idea of ‘non-communicable diseases’, because it gives them what every trigger-happy army general wants: a war without end.

…and it gives them salaries and funds to spent upon “marketing strategies”…and once in situ they will always be demanding more money for “one last push” and the supply of money will be limitless because it will come from “governments” i.e. taxpayers pockets.

Here’s a novel idea – why not by pass the lobbyists and “civil groups” and marketers with all their high rent offices and glossy leaflets and bustling office staff and give the money to the guys and gals in the research laboratories shaking their test tubes and help them find an actual cure….

Nah – on second thoughts that’s a bit too old fashioned and so not 21st century….and there wouldn’t be any “ambassador” jobs for Hollywood celebrities and their hangers on….

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posted by david in Medical,UN and have Comments Off on UN To Combat The Grim Reaper With Regiments Of Lobbyists & PR “Experts”
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