Guido Fawkes - "TBP supporters back Boris' deal" - REALLY?

Parliamentary gossip broker Paul Staines aka "Guido Fawkes" confidently transmits this news:

... commenting:

"Despite Nigel’s continuing opposition for opposition’s sake, it seems his usually loyal followers are abandoning him in favour of Boris’s new deal. Last man in the bunker… 

"A new Survation poll out this morning shows 67% of Brexit Party voters want the Commons to pass the deal, a little behind the 73% of leave voters and 90% of Conservative voters. In the country as a whole, the deal has 47% support versus 37% opposition. Theresa May could only dream of numbers like these…"

_______________________

Survation's Tweet makes it clear that their results indicate 51% still wish to leave the EU, versus 45% wishing to remain and 5% unsure.

More usefully, Survation give a link to the full results [https://t.co/kiRyQXmIJA] and it is worth seeing what underpins this apparently overwhelming endorsement for the new Prime Minister's deal.

The context is a worry. The first page of the spreadsheet (see the second and third tabs at the foot for Contents and Tables) show that the survey was conducted on behalf of the Daily Mail, a newspaper that has radically changed its stance on Brexit since Geordie Greig took over the editorship from Paul Dacre. Greig's preference is for Remain, but also for Scottish independence, a stance I find illogical - you either believe in national sovereignty or you don't.

Also, I'm not quite sure who set the questions, and why they did it that way. The answers you get are conditioned by the way you ask the questions.

At any rate, "Guido Fawkes" is picking his sample results from Table 60, which you can check for yourself on the third page as linked above.

Table 60 analyses responses to Question 26, which reads:
"From what you have seen or heard about the government's Brexit deal, to what extent do you support or oppose the deal?"
Already we wonder what the respondent knows - who has provided that information, and how has it been presented?

Moreover, the respondents are merely a subset of the total respondents - only 674 out of 1,025 - so the margin of error is greater. Even then, not all in that subset replied to all parts: the "current voting intention" line (line #1641, Columns Q-W) adds up to only 601 people, and only 596 people said how they voted in the 2016 Referendum (Columns H and I).

And, of course, this news item is not only cherry-picking statistics out of this smaller sample, but combining them to give a misleading impression of homogeneity of feeling. For example, of those who told the pollster they intended to vote for the Brexit Party next time, only 15 people "strongly supported" Boris' deal, as opposed to 36 who "somewhat supported" it. That's a dodgily combined total of 51 people - reported as "67% of Brexit Party supporters." If you want to know what TBP supporters feel about the deal, go and poll them. 5,248,533 people voted for TBP in the 2019 European Parliament elections - that's more than 100,000 times that 51-person sample!

The same kind of game is played with "Leave voters" (those who voted Leave in 2016) and "Tories" (those telling the pollster that's who they will vote for in the next GE - they'd never lie, would they?).

Safe and reliable? I'm not inclined to think so.

In fact of ALL those who responded to question 26 and also indicated their voting intentions in the next General Election, only 137 "strongly supported" the proposed deal, and a further mere 158 "somewhat supported" it. Even adding them together - sheep with cows (Little Boy Blue, you're falling down on the job) - you get 295 people out of a total survey population of 1,025. 295 very variably informed people with probably very differently nuanced stances on their support for "deal".

I wonder what results we'd have got if respondents were restricted to those who did more than read the Daily Mail or watch BBC News, and instead looked at the online commenters' analyses of the pros and cons of the full deal.

It would have been comical, had it not been almost tragic, to watch ex-PM Mrs May castigating the Opposition in Parliament for failing to honour the statutes they helped enact - withdrawal from the EU, and the triggering of Article 50.

Did they mean it? Well, did she, when she then came to the Commons three times with a ball-and-chain Withdrawal Agreement? Or her successor, who has returned with much the same (lipstick on a crocodile, I call it)? Or those who now call for another Referendum, with a choice of a rotten deal or Remain - the latter being the one thing that was definitively ruled out in 2016?

What is "Guido Fawkes" doing, cheerleading this farrago of misleading information?

Walkabout to Wave Hill

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067959/mediaviewer/rm1550407936

Our ramble begins with an internet writer's reference to an Australian comedy book from the Seventies, The Outcasts Of Foolgarah. Surfing the reviews, I came across a Depression-era larrikin Oz classic, Here's Luck, by journo and rake Lennie Lower, which is now making us laugh.

But Outcasts, by Frank Hardy, was far from the author's most significant work. His most notorious was one that got him in court for criminal libel - the last case of its kind in Victoria; but that's not where this journey leads us. The experiences of the Depression that gave Lower his comic material had radicalised Hardy, as they did so many others, prompting him to join the Communist Party and use his talents to fight the Establishment.

We have since learned what Communism did; but the instincts that it exploited - compassion for the poor, and vicarious indignation - are valid. In our secular age, they inform ecological panic and adolescent self-loathing, an opportunity for ostentatious do-gooders to secure bossy, well-upholstered sinecures for themselves.

In Australia, they take us to the aboriginals.

Twenty thousand years before Neanderthals recolonised an unpeopled Ice Age Britain, forty thousand before modern man supplanted them in Europe, even longer before humans saw the Americas, the first Australians came to their island continent. Early agriculture? The cities of China and Mesopotamia, Egypt and Mohenjo Daro, the stones of Wiltshire and Giza? Last week's news.

For them, time had no meaning, as is so with all of us, our past always fading into dream, driving us to build, write, record images; futile attempts to preserve our intangible selves in something that endures forever, though nothing will.

Where are their monuments? In their minds, and in their tongues. In their myths of creation and arrival, in the songman's store of rhymes that give life-saving directions for nomads in a pitiless land; an inconceivably long heirloom of songs, some maybe stretching back to the birth of language itself. Old to young, old to young, the chain continued, handing on words and skills that gave them their law and culture; the policeman and warrior, the getter of food and drink, the builder of shelters contained in their skins and carried within their hands and brains wherever they went.

Until the last link broke.

Dispossession, displacement, disrespect; opium via the Oriental trading in Port Darwin; alcohol everywhere, ruining the young as it did their counterparts in America, where sometimes crazy-drunk First Nation kids hang out of cars as they tear around settlement lands which they cannot sell or mortgage.

Instead of the remorseless pressure of daily survival, jobs: money, enough to get by and for some, to dream the modern dreams of easy intoxication. And since the young stopped listening to the old, the elders (some, at least) shut their lips. One by one, the guiding stars of the aboriginal are winking out of existence, taking their knowledge with them.

Materially, a little is done to compensate material wrongs, some in response to action by the victims themselves. Following a walkout in 1966 by mistreated Gurindji aboriginal workers at the vast Wave Hill cattle station, a small portion of their traditional lands were eventually restored to them, and the law has begun to address past injustices. Frank Hardy helped to publicise the issues in his book The Unlucky Australians, and a TV documentary followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tWBmqZVSTg

What can make up for the vast, invisible vandalism of an ancient way of life? Like all humanity, the original Australians have always known war and crime, but what they carried in them was no less precious and far older than the historical relics over which we wonder and grieve in museums.

Still, many times older is the history of humanoids written into all our genes, itself dwarfed by the general relay of life that began billions of years ago. It is fleeting life that endures.

Dumbographics: Greta Thunberg and the young "femographic"

Sex Pistols manager Malcom Maclaren said, "You can make more money exploiting yourself than by exploiting other people."

He didn't add, "Except your kids and other youngsters." That can be left to politicians, and quangocrats like Greta Thunberg's milieu. Canadian investigative journalist Cory Morningstar has already deconstructed the moneymaking juggernaut that has poor Greta tied to it like the secondhand teddy on the front of a lorry, referring to "the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”".

And the social media owners are happy to manipulate our discussions to help the panic along. Here's an example from today's Facebook feed:

What I'd like you to notice is that when you click on "1 comment" you find that comments are filtered for "relevance". How kind.

Except that when you drill down further to see "All comments", here is what that one person said:

I don't know whether this subtle censorship is done by machine, or is handmade. But surely that comment is spot-on for relevance. China is the world's biggest CO2 emitter.

When public affairs are to be guided by a latter-day Shirley Temple fresh off her Good Ship Lollipop we should start lowering the lifeboats.

Et Tu, Guido? The Boris Deal Is Lipstick On A Crocodile

"Guido Fawkes" on the proposed new deal:

Snap Poll: Public Want The Deal Passing

Important snap poll from YouGov. Top lines:

Excluding ‘don’t knows’, the public want the deal passing by 63% to 37%
A quarter of remain voters, Labour voters and Lib Dems want the deal passing – less than half of each group oppose passing the deal
Only 10% of Leavers and Tories oppose passing the new deal
With an election looming, this should be a huge wake-up call to MPs…

Here's the YouGov poll HEADLINE:

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/18/two-thirds-leave-voters-say-parliament-should-acce

Here's the YouGov poll FULL FACTS:

I comment at Guido's - not sure it'll get past the censor:

"Get it straight: 45% of the general population say they don't yet know enough to decide; 15% are neutral; 17% say it's a good deal, versus 23% saying it's a bad one. So far then, it's a NO."

UPDATE

Well, it's on, now. 
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/orderorder/snap_poll_public_want_the_deal_passing/#comment-4656930048

FRIDAY MUSIC: Ray Charles, by JD

Ray Charles Robinson (1930 - 2004)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Charles

Ray Charles is so well known that there is nothing I can add to Wiki's potted history of his life and career. But I can add a couple of my own anecdotes: I think it was 1962 when I bought the EP of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival concert. The two sides of that EP are the first and last videos below. A work colleague who was also a Ray Charles fan was with me when we visited a local record shop after work and we listened to both sides standing in one of those booths, remember them? It was great to be alive in those far off youthful days!

And then sometime later in the sixties I saw the great man himself in concert with his full orchestra, and of course, The Raelettes (including Margi Hendricks) Quite possible the most electrifying concert I have ever seen; sensational and euphoric.... pick any superlative you like and it will still fall short in describing that concert!

The Irish Backstop, and Common Sense - by JD

All of those who are arguing over where to 'draw the line' of the so-called Irish Backstop (whatever that means) should be compelled to read and re-read Spike Milligan's novel Puckoon. I say read and re-read until it enters their thick heads that the whole idea is an absurd bureaucratic fantasy!

The trailer to the film version of Puckoon contains the immortal line - "the only way to fight the stupidity of bureaucracy is with......stupidity!"



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puckoon

This excerpt from the book illustrate perfectly the stupidity and lack of common sense inside the bureaucratic mind:-

~~

"When an attempt is made to bury one of the locals across the border in what had now become “British territory”, Barrington, the customs officer in charge of the Border Customs Post, has a few preconditions:

‘I presume the deceased will be staying this side permanently?’ ‘Unless someone invents a remarkable drug – yes,’ answered the priest. ‘Then,’ went on Barrington, ‘he will require the following: an Irish passport stamped with a visa, to be renewed annually for the rest of his – ‘ Barrington almost said ‘life’ – ‘stay’, he concluded.

Well, that was that. While the deceased is off having his passport photo taken it’s decided that all corpses on the Unionist side of the border be exhumed, repatriated and reinterred on Irish soil."

~~

The events in Puckoon take place over a few weeks in 1924 when the Boundary Commission has just about agreed on where the border between Northern and Southern Ireland will lie. The only thing that stands between them and getting to the pub before closing time is “the microcephalic community of Puckoon” a fictitious village which Spike locates “[s]everal and a half metric miles North East of Sligo. When an accident destroys the surveyor’s equipment they decide to get the matter over with by all putting “one hand on the red pencil and draw[ing] a line that falls naturally and peacefully into place:”

In what was meant to be a solemn moment, all hands held the pencil and pulled slowly across the map. All was silent, the room filled with suspicion. Occasionally a gasp rent the silence as they all strained for the advantage.

‘Steady, someone’s pulling to the benefits of Ulster.’

‘Lies, all lies.’

‘Who gave that jerk?’

‘Ah! I felt that.’

‘Swine!’

Finally the pencil reached its destination. Faces broke into relieved smiles and a series of rapid unplanned handshakes ensued.

~~

Unfortunately the border cuts right through the heart of Puckoon separating houses from outhouses, the church from its graveyard and annexing a corner of the pub where the locals crowd because the drink is thirty percent cheaper there.

Yes, I know it sounds absurd but it does happen in real life. The partition of India and Pakistan was an arbitrary line on the map which no doubt pleased those who had drawn it but the consequences were unknown numbers who died in the resulting chaos and fighting as Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs suddenly found themselves on the 'wrong' side of the new border and were obliged to uproot themselves and try to move to the 'right' side.

The madness of bureaucratic systems and yet the politicians and civil servants remain oblivious to the problems they create!

And to answer the question what is 'common sense'?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_common_sense_realism

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Common-Sense-Nation-Unlocking-Forgotten/dp/1594038252/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=common+sense+nation&qid=1571059682&sr=8-2

Faux: a lifestyle for many, by Wiggiatlarge

The recent faux outrage in the House Of Commons over a word, ‘humbug’ is in itself not worth talking about but the moronic MP who pursued the claim and demanded an apology is symptomatic of what has become an almost instinctive reaction to something that they believe will have a positive effect on the general population in their favour.

It took me back to thinking: when did all this start? Whenever it was it has been exacerbated by the massive spread and the use of the internet and social media, enabling the latest slights to become ‘news’ in minutes and back up comments from those who want to prosper from this nonsense to appear almost immediately.

When did it all start? Politicians have been using various forms of malfeasance since time immemorial to get their point of view across, but before the internet it had to be from a main player who had the ear of the press not the use of a smartphone which gives all and sundry access to their five minutes of fame or disgrace.

Much of it stems from the increasing use by those big players of spin doctors and advisors. A whole army of them now advise everyone on when and how they should use the media. For those people it is more a case of promoting an image, and the one that for me epitomises it perfectly was the sight of Tony Blair emerging from No 10 after the election in 2000 wearing a casual shirt, no tie and holding a mug of tea; he then crossed the road as a man of the people would, to speak to the press.
I remember watching this and saying to myself how utterly staged it all was and it was confirmed, not that it needed to be, by his never actually taking a sip of the tea, certainly whilst on air anyway, so false, so staged and so actually of the time. They have never looked back.

In ‘97 we had of course the mass outpouring of faux grief from the public themselves, proving if nothing else it wasn’t the preserve of the political class. Princess Diana's death sparked a nationwide epidemic of not wanting to be outdone in the grief stakes by tens of thousands who had never met her and knew precious little about her apart from what was seen in the tabloids. The British do State occasions well and the public were not going to let this one go without emptying the flower merchants in Amsterdam. Somehow those involved never saw the cringe side of this but everyone to their own.

The pattern was set after that. Blair exploited his man of the people profile, 'I’m an ordinary kinda guy’ and ever since the stakes for moral outrage have been set lower and lower.

Certain words and phrases go with the look that has been honed to perfection in the mirror and under the tuition of the personal PR aides. ‘Concern’ is top of the list, trotted out at the drop of the hat for every thing that veers from path of normality. It can be used in conjunction with the appropriate look for anything from too many road accidents, hurty words from a foreign power and anything else that seems appropriate. Nothing in the material sense ever follows up the concern though, even after a suitable inquiry is launched.

Inquiries themselves have proved to be nothing more than a faux response to concerns. When did anything of substance last happen to right the wrongs found after a lengthy and costly inquiry? 'Lessons have been learned': another phrase bandied about with no intention of learning anything.

What we are now seeing and which has been much promoted since the Brexit vote and Trump becoming POTUS, is an increase in faux outrage against both by those who wish to derail the two. This has reached levels of absurdity in faux statements, remarks and intent from people who in some cases one thought better of, but when it comes to retaining or regaining power all bets are off and lies upon lies are trotted out with the full knowledge of what they are. But as any marketing outfit will tell you, repeat the lie enough and many will eventually believe, so as with the constant emails and postal fliers that bombard you with anything from funeral plans to '50% off windows this month only', enough bite to make these approaches however fake worthwhile for the companies involved. The fake discounts are a classic example of marketing to the naive: we have a chain of bathroom retailers who have a permanent 50%-plus reduction on everything it has been doing it for years; many other examples exist.

Yet more worrying today is that the faux concern used by politicians and NGOs has spread to the public at large. The recent XR demos have shown a new twist to demonstrating: no longer content with being a bloody nuisance, the demonstrator has added faux emotion to his public face in an attempt to curry favour with even more vulnerable people. Anyone who saw the man crying under the car with the picture of his children in his hand, repeating 'their future is being taken away' while crying for the camera, can be in no doubt that faux emotion has reached a new level. Anyone believing that display needs a reality check.

What next, who knows? Most of these fads blow over with time, but not in this case, too many politicians and their ilk have this whole fake PR act embedded in the way they now approach the public. The Twitter feeds from the likes of two prime examples, David Lammy and Stella Creasy (picked, I might add, because they are two prime examples, not because of their party loyalties} are just fake in what they say and what they purport to support. It is amusing to read, if you can be bothered, and I have included Lammy’s now infamous “haven’t seen a policeman since we have been here picture” but worryingly they get that percentage they are after who support their inane utterances and that of course is what it is all about. So the whole thing goes full circle, faux emotions and image supported by people displaying faux loyalties to in many cases something they have no grasp of other than a misguided fake belonging to a false narrative.

We now await what could be the biggest fake announcement of our time, the leaving or not of the EU. If we end up with the PM declaring we have left with a version of Theresa May's agreement (which means we have not left), expect levels of faux euphoria in the political classes that will put them in the running for Olivier awards; or alternatively if we leave without a deal, armageddon and threats of people eating their babies will be the mantra from the other lot - all fake, of course !