Was living in UK in 97 so missed that one but would agree with you that media manipulation is something to be concerned about, the recent Larry Murphy witchunt was the start of something particulary sinsiter.
Does anyone believe that Labour will win more than 40 seat’s in the next election? Personally i think 30-35 would be a huge achievement.
the uk or britain?
orange cunt
On the tabloid front it was alright. The Indo’s stamp duty campaign was a much starker warning though. That was a massive event. I couldn’t believe how rabidly right wing the Sindo turned largely moderate people into. As an institution it has framed the public debate more than any other organ in the state. It’s massively powerful and it is out and out corporate. There is no counter balance either, that’s the worst thing.
I think 40 or over is a very realistic target for Labour. Can see them getting two seats in a lot of Dublin constituencies. In 1992 they were able to pick up seats in rural constituencies like Kerry South and Clare. FF got 68 seats in that election, they won’t get near that next time and a lot of the FF seats will go to Labour rather than FG in my opinion. I don’t think FF will get two seats in many constituencies at all. They may lose out completely in some places in Dublin.
How many constituencies are there in all? 42 or something?
I always thought Dan Miller in the thick of it had to be based on David Miliband
FFS- there is a reason there is no counter balance- there is no fuckin demand for it- its the most popular newspaper in the company. its not turning people right wing- thats their opinion anyway- your just an arrogant twat who has a chip on his shoulder that he is in the minority- get over yourself
How interesting
Funny enough I was only reading the chapters of Cooper’s book about O’Reilly and the Sunday Indo over the last few days. There was an opinion poll of what the big issues were before the 2007 election and stamp duty came joint bottom of 14 issues to choose from, but it somehow became the main one as far as the media was concerned because of the Sindo’s influence. As far as I know a lot of Sindo journalists were trying to get rid of houses around that time.
Gene Kerrigan is always put forward by them as the example that there is balance in the Sindo. He’s an excellent writer but very much tokenism as far as balance is concerned.
That’s what I’m saying.
Governemnt spending as a percentage of GDP in UK increased from 40.51% in 1997 to 44.02% in 2007. Not huge you might think, but in the context of a booming economy it is very significant, just because by definition it’s harder to bring up Govt spending as a percentage of GDP when the GDP of the private sector is doing well. It’s actually a 45% increase in Government spending (measured at constant prices) in 10 years. That’s huge.
To put the 44.02% of GDP in context, it is less than the likes of France, Denmark and Sweden, who came in in the early 50s. It is comparable to Germany, and is much higher than USA or indeed Ireland. Ours was 36.24% in 2007. I would say that the Blair Government was left of centre economically, but I guess it depends on where you define the centre to be.
All figures from OECD btw.
anguish fanning was selling his house
mor interesting than the idiotic thoughs of the pompous drivel that comes from a lad that still think he is an 18 year old student
I saw a study presented by a UCC panel on the ed/op balance of 5 major Irish newspapers over the last two years, centred on union stances on various issues. Tokenism would best describe Gene Kerrigan’s inclusion alright. I mean the Indo is so blatantly biased it’s utterly ridiculous to present them as anything other than a right wing propaganda sheet. I think their vitriol will only grow as the economic crisis deepens and more emotional issues enter the public arena. Whatever about Sindo writers trying to flog houses sid, remember the property sections at the height of the boom? I’d love to know what percentage of their advertising revenue was made up by the construction industry.
Is that adjusted for defence spending as well? Regardless it’s hardly a comprehensive measure is it? Important obviously but hardly conclusive evidence.
I’ll see if I can find one without defence spending tomorrow, going to bed now. Not sure it would make much difference, because defence spending was fairly high throughout the Blair years, engagements in the Balkans and Sierra Leone for example in his first term. Not a comprehensive measure and of course not all public spending is necessarily redistributive, but as decent an objective measure as you’re going to get I would have thought.
have you any evidence to back up your stance or is it just the usual pap?
Really? Would you not look at health, education, taxation, industry regulation and so on?
In fairness they weren’t alone but were the most sickening example of it. Cooper wrote that the Indo instructed him not to start a Tribune property section back as 1997 because they wanted to protect their own advertising revenue. He went ahead anyway. In November 2007 the Tribune sacked their property editor Richard Delevan after Ken McDonald of Hooke and McDonald estate agents objected to a mildly critical article Delevan wrote about him. The Irish Times property supplement probabaly required a small forest to be cut down each week it was so big. The Times had their own writers who would have been right at home in the Sindo. Orna Mulcahy and Isabel Morton. Holy fook.
Adam Curtis’s documentary “The Trap” has a good bit about how Blair’s government became obsessed with statistics and quantifying everything and how this obsession lbsically ed to fraud in a range of different fields. For example hospital staff would falsify figures about hospital waiting lists because if they didn’t they’d lose their jobs. Also goes into how school league tables led to dumbing down and a very narrow focus in the curriculum.
It would be good to do up ist of the 10 biggest nutcases/cunts/no marks to write for the Sindo over the last decade.
I’ll start it off.
Harris (obviously)
O’Connor (obviously)
Mark Dooley
Is there not already one thread dedicated to this? Hardly relevant here.