Mezla PigDog, on 13 December 2019 - 10:26 AM, said:
This result really could herald the break up of the UK.
I kind of feel this idea resonates more with English commentators because English political commentary tends to consider the rest of the UK chiefly in order to reflect upon English politics. Brexit has dominated English politics since the referendum and so this gets projected onto the rest of us. For example Scottish Independence is framed as a possible
reaction to English politics, in order to make a point about English politics, because that's the chief discussion - and the dynamics of Scottish politics itself get a bit glossed over.
Scottish Independence has recently been polling better but is still below 50% when I last checked. I also think English commentary overstates Scotland's Remain credentials (and anti-Tory credentials in certain regards), and that Brexit fatigue could easily play against people voting for another constitutional shakeup.
I agree that the possibility is there, especially depending on how the government handles the transition in regards to things like granting another referendum. But overall I think English media has been quick to play up "the Tories destroying the Union" - particularly given most of them are happy enough to forget about the rest of the Union except when it's a convenient tool to make some point about English politicians - and I don't yet believe the hype.
Mezla PigDog, on 13 December 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:
The only exception being the last European Election where the results reflected the country that I think I'm living in. It really must be the electoral system in that case, right?
There's research that suggests that people vote closer to their true preference in those elections because they're not seen as so important (though this can also increase protest voting and such). It's harder to eliminate strategic voting in the elections people prioritse but we could certainly do better than FPTP.
TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 December 2019 - 12:34 PM, said:
There's a trainee solicitor in my team at work who converted to law having studied politics, with a masters in political communication. She was saying at our Christmas meal the other night that if people actually understood the amount of sway and control the media have on the political opinion of this country there'd be a riot.
The impact of the media (and media bias) is fairly hard to establish but there's a fair amount of research that suggests it's probably smaller than a lot of people think. For example there's an interesting study that mapped the introduction of Fox news across towns in America and found that Republicans gained between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points in Presidential elections from Fox being introduced.
The tendency to overstate (and generally blame) the influence of media on both sides is a big part of the present populist landscape. To me, it risks failing to address people's real political concerns and playing into the general attack on traditional politics, experts, etc. I think the media deserves some of the scrutiny it's getting - I certainly don't think its unbiased - but especially in a thread about Brexit think we should be careful of assigning it too much weight.
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