Negative Campaigning
Friday, 6 November 2009
As the SNP have been on the backfoot pretty much since the start of this campaign every time either Labour or the press highlight one of the blunders that David Kerr has made there is an accusation of horrific negativity as this new evil of campaigning has been invented by the spawns of Satan in Scottish Labour.
Yet the hypocrisy from the SNP is astounding. They won Glasgow East saying that they should "send Gordon Brown a message." Where is the positivity in that?
The Scotsman's blog 'The Steamie' have started running a terrific feature giving all the candidates the chance to lay out their stall which should be the perfect chance for David Kerr to tell us his ideas for the seat in this wonderfully positive campaign brimming with ideas and suggestions.
So what did he say?
- An attack on Labour for the delay in the by election
- An attack on Labour for school closures (I wonder how he feels about the SNP Council in Edinburgh closing schools?)
- Attacking Labour on taking people 'for granted.'
The line which everyone in the SNP have been repeating is that of '74 years of neglect.' Ignoring the fact that it is not true where are the positive policies on tackling the social evils of poverty and inequality of opportunity?
I can, and have, spoken about the problems of tackling it as well as Labour's progress tackling it. It's why I joined the Labour Party which is why I talk about it on a semi-regular basis but you only hear about it from the SNP when there is a Glasgow by election.
And I hope no one insults their own and my intelligence by somehow blaming Trident for poverty.
By elections are sadly not positive in the media wars. It is on the doorstep where a positive case has to be made. This sanctimonious attitude moaning about the by election when you lose the media battle just makes them look petulant and hypocritical.
Posts
17 comments:
LOL Your cracking Yousuf, what's wrong the canvassing not giving you the results you'd hoped for?
"And I hope no one insults their own and my intelligence by somehow blaming Trident for poverty"
Truly morally vile.
I noticed that you haven't attempted to defend any of Kerr's accusations.
Where are your policies?
Watching the politics show hustings last night and the housing one previously the question for me is are there any Labour policies that Willie Bain actually supports?
He says he was against Iraq, he is against any privatisation of the post office, he was against the 10p tax cut, he thinks pensions are too low, he has invented his own policy on imprisoning every single individual found carrying a knife for four years, he agrees with the SNP rather than Scottish Labour that local authorities should lead local housing policy ..
It's astounding. Will he actually be able to take the Labour whip if elected?
Wardog - I have said it before and I will say it again, I think we are going to win
This blog is fast becoming "observations from Yousuf's parallel world"!
You know that bank in reality Willie Bain's campaign is nothing but negative lies about the SNP:
"SNP pay for 14 new schools - not a single one in Glasgow" - yet the Labour Party has just recently closed a raft of schools in Glasgow.
"Scrapping airport trains with loss of 1000 jobs" - this had risen to a claimed 1300 last night - showing that it was plucked from thin air, a fictious number. How the hell can a mile of railway track create 1000 or 1300 jobs? Sorry, its just not a sane suggestion.
"Worst ever budget deal for Glasgow NHS" - hang on, haven't we just committed to build a new hospital in Glasgow? And without saddling Glasgow NHS with loanshark-rate borrowing under a Labour PFI agreement
"£260 million SNP cut from housing & regeneration" - another figment of Labour's statistical imagination. This SNP government is the first in decades to start building council homes again, and the first to ensure that they remain community assets.
"No money for national roads in Glasgow" - so we must be imagining that new M74 extension getting built through the city then?
"No big-city supplement for Glasgow" - given that Glasgow City Council already gets more money per capita than anywhere else in the mainland isn't it time they started improving lives of the citizens of the city - instead of closing schools, privatising parts of the council and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds in senior pay-offs for Labour MPs wives?
Oh and as you have mentioned the Steamie - how about the fact that Willie Bain chose to use that very platform to extend his negative campaign AND bring up the "local" smears again? Heard of the birthers in the US Republican party? Having got so close to the American right-wingers over the past 10 years is the UK Labour Party now importing their campaigning tactics?
Yes Indy he is independently minded. He is proud of the massive achievements that Labour have to their name but doesn't think it is enough and is willing to stick his neck out to fight for it.
Not everyone will like it and if people want a party yes man then there are other candidates they can vote for but I think people in Springburn will vote for Willie on Thursday,
Yousuf, it's not whether you win but by what margin, this is the 2nd safest seat in the UK, to date you've been alrgely unopposed, certainly whilst an SNP Government has been in power.
The real question which you've abjectly failed to answer is what is Willie Bains policies to tackle deprivation in this, one of Western Europe's poorest areas?
Why is being being dishonest with the voters over funding for the few brain waves he's had?
What nonsense Chris. I see you don't even try and defend SNP tactics and attack Labour again. Just to confirm is it that Labour negativity is OK but SNP negativity is pure evil?
Also show me one quote where Willie says that is you are not local then you shouldn't stand in the seat?
Trident yousuf?
That multi-billion dollar, obscenity that can never be used? Why would I try to blame it for poverty?
Don't try to link the Trident abomination with Labour's 74 years of failure in Glasgow, in order that you can dismiss the link. Noone ever made that assertion. What we're saying is that Trident is a wholly unacceptable abomination. An unnecessary and evil blight on our country
The fact that the money could be better spent elsewhere may only be latterly occurring to you Labour stooges, but I couldn't care if you stuck it under the mattress, just don't spend it on turning the Clyde into Europe's number one target for a Nuclear conflict.
I don't think anyone in the SNP should take any lectures about campaigning tactics after Labour's vile tactics in Glenrothes.
We all have to accept that by-election campaigns are by-election campaigns and probably be thankful that the worst offenders of the lot - the Lib-Dems - are not in the running.
I'm expecting Labour to win but I'm also expecting the marked up register to disappear as per Glenrothes. 4,000 newly registered electors since Michael Martin resigned cannot be a co-incidence.
Whether it is Glenrothes or Glasgow, the fact that Labour have to resort to blatant manipulation of the electoral process in these previously rock-solid seats tells you everything you need to know about the state they are in.
I've just had the misfortune to have "The Local Voice" plop through my letterbox. Where to start . . ?
"Sick of SNP being soft on crime" - how's this resolved other than more active policing and possibly longer prison terms. And who funds this when Central Government has to tighten the belts after the bank bail-out?
"Ripped-Off Outrage at SNP Health cuts" Again, central funding issue ..
"TWO FACE of the SNP Candidate" Please spare me this froth. We have among the worst health and unemployment problems in Europe. Lets address that.
"Oor Willie Fae Sprinburn. This is Ma Hoose and I love it round here" No, I'm not making this up and its beyond parody. But perhaps I could bare the deprivation around here better if I worked and lived in London 3 days a week.
"Anger grows as SNP cancel Airport Link" A thousand local jobs lost, apparently. To build a mile of railway. That would be 190,000 per person. But I can't get outraged as the airport bus suits me fine. And I also have witnessed the disaster of the Edinburgh tram scheme. Everyone knows when there is a cost over-run, the tax payer always catches the bill.
No one can seriously complain about SNP being negative compared to this shower. My complaint is David Kerr has not done enough to rebuff the nonsense spouted by Bain and his cronies, and challenged Mr Bain's obnoxious communications. "The Local Voice" insults the intelligence of the people of Springburn. And Mr Bain lacks any coherent or deliverable policies. "Better Local Shops" anyone?
I take it you didn't read Willie Bain's contribution then, Yousuf? About three quarters of it was SNP-bashing, with a little bit of Harman chat stuck on the end.
I always find the Glenrothes smear very funny. The SNP lose an election, the SNP council then lost the register and somehow it is Labour's fault. Aye, ye can tell that the SNP are still behaving like the opposition.
Dissent is allowed in the Labour Party, unlike the SNP who drum out anyone who disagrees with the maximum leader. Just ask Campbell Martin, Margo MacDonald or Dorothy Grace-Elder. I'll forgive the SNP for the last on common sense grounds.
My predictions for Friday
Turnout 40%
Labour Majority 1,200
SNP 2nd, Tories 3rd, BNP 4th
Alex Salmond proclaims a 'political earthquake'
Labour sigh of relief
SNP supporters mentions of 'monkey in red rosette' 25 times
SNP supporters believing it is a conspiracy by perfidious albion: 1,765
Yousuf
I reckon it's fairly predictable that you've chosen to ramp up the spin as the by-election gets closer.
But this...
"This sanctimonious attitude moaning about the by election when you lose the media battle just makes them look petulant and hypocritical."
Lose the media battle? The SNP will never win a media battle. There is never a level playing field in this area. From Maddox and Farquharson at the Steamie / Scotsman, to the Red Tops, the posh tabloids and the BBC. Even MacWhirter, who is after a federal settlement, is accused of being in bed with the party of independence. That tells you all you need to know.
What is also obvious, however, is a lack of Labour voices online. Why is this? Even on your devout Labour blog Yousuf. Where are your supporters? I'm genuinely interested. So much so that I'm actually searching for a Labour blogger ( without a censorship policy ) with which to debate.
"They won Glasgow East saying that they should "send Gordon Brown a message." Where is the positivity in that?"
Possibly one of the stupidest things I ever read.
Take your blinkers off you fool.
Post a Comment