Dirty Politics 2017 style
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4:05 pm, June 8th, 2017 - 27 comments
Categories: campaigning, crosby textor, Deep stuff, democracy under attack, Dirty Politics, facebook, making shit up, spin, uk politics -
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Latest polls and some anecdotal evidence from the doorstep are showing a move back to the Tories in Britain. If so it may in part be due to last-minute dark and dirty personally targeted Facebook advertising to voters in marginal seats. They cost so will need to be watched later on here.
The strategy was revealed in the Observer, with the example drawn from the marginal seat of Delyn in Wales.
The article reveals that the Tories also purchased Facebook ads to drive up the costs for a charity trying to persuade young people to enrol.
More information here and from Buzzfeed with details here.
Tories are refusing to give the Electoral Commission copies of the ads so as to ensure the Commission cannot ascertain whether they are local or national ads. This comes at a time when one MP is being prosecuted for exceeding the limit at the last General Election.
This ad has also been extensively used. The Australian calls it American-style negative advertising, used for the first time in the UK which has previously banned or like New Zealand limited broadcast television advertising. But the format is classic Crosby. If it gets closer here in September, be warned and watch out.
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It was the media!
(Drink)
Of course the media is totally unbiased……
You have seen the cover of the Sun right?
The continued terrorist attacks are probably having an effect as well. Their purpose was to increase the chances of the Conservatives getting back in. The first one didn’t work so they did another one.
Citation on this claim?
ep expressed an option James.
“The article reveals that the Tories also purchased Facebook ads to drive up the costs for a charity trying to persuade young people to enrol.”
Really ?
Because it looks like they simply purchased adverts and out bid them – nothing about that being their agenda as you seem to be indicating (Please correct me if im wrong).
“We calculated that if only half of those who clicked on the adverts decided to go out and vote Labour, we could still make a real difference.”
It seems that this was a ‘charity’ with an agenda to get people to vote Labour – not just to register to vote.
Perhaps she is playing some dirty politics herself.
Nope – a high rate of citizen participation in democratic processes is intrinsically a ‘good thing’.
Anyone using any technique to prevent that (because they believe reduced turnouts favour them) doesn’t believe in democracy.
You are very ethically muddled James.
“Nope – a high rate of citizen participation in democratic processes is intrinsically a ‘good thing’.”
I agree.
“Anyone using any technique to prevent that (because they believe reduced turnouts favour them) doesn’t believe in democracy.”
They were not doing that.
You’re simply a shill for billionaires…..
Ed
You have probably hit on the point. He is hanging round here being bright and contention and hoping some rich type will give him some handout.
How to win an election in seven complex steps outlines this campaigning style. The microtargeting of Facebook won’t really work on an electorate-by-electorate basis in New Zealand because we have proportional representation, but it could work in terms of voting blocks. Men and women, ethnic groups, parents, retirees etc.
I remember the day before the election in 2014, the NZ Herald site was plastered with advertising for National. They’ve probably already booked it out again.
Even if they haven’t granny would oblige.
Yes the Herald doesn’t need money to advertise for corporations.
That’s its raison d’être.
don’t suppose you’ve got the leftie version? 🙂
Good link Ovid spells it out. I think it is worth thinking about how the same techniques could be used here in MMP environment – “Brighter Future” on the top line and vote-discouraging negative stuff under the radar to targeted groups as you suggest
thoughts on how the left (parties and outside of parties) can optimise their own chances?
They have probably been using companies like Cambridge Analytica. The data is out there to use it in this way but you need lots of money and lack of ethics to use it. Tories have both (and so does the National Party).
Christ and i thought our right wing media was bad…..
https://www.thecanary.co/2017/06/07/a-very-british-coup-against-corbyn-is-being-played-out-and-its-been-decades-in-the-making/
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Well, kind of ….. but slightly more complex than that, Mike
Final Polls (with % point change from previous)
6–7 Jun BMG/The Herald
Tory 46% ….. Lab 33% ….. Tory Lead 13%
(No previous Poll to compare)
6–7 Jun Survation
Tory 41% (+ 1) ….. Lab 40% (+ 1) ….. Tory Lead 1% ( = )
6–7 Jun ICM/The Guardian
Tory 46% (+ 1) ….. Lab 34% ( = ) ….. Tory Lead 12% (+ 1)
5–7 Jun YouGov/The Times
Tory 42% ( = ) ….. Lab 35% (- 3) ….. Tory Lead 7% (+ 3)
5–7 Jun ComRes/Independent
Tory 44% (- 3) ….. Lab 34% (- 1) ….. Tory Lead 10% (- 2)
4–7 Jun Qriously
Tory 38.5% ….. Lab 41.3% ….. Lab Lead 2.8% (Whoo Hoo !!!)
(No previous Poll to compare)
2–7 Jun Panelbase
Tory 44% ( = ) ….. Lab 36% ( = ) ….. Tory Lead 8% ( = )
1–7 Jun Kantar Public
Tory 43% ( = ) ….. Lab 38% (+ 5) ….. Tory Lead 5% (- 5)
4–6 Jun SurveyMonkey/The Sun
Tory 42% (- 2) ….. Lab 38% ( = ) ….. Tory Lead 4% (- 2)
4–6 Jun Opinium
Tory 43% ( = ) ….. Lab 36% (- 1) ….. Tory Lead 7% (+ 1)
Probably a Tory win …..
But one tiny glimmer of hope …..
Putting aside the barely known and untested Qriously Poll (with its Lab Lead) ….. the 2 Polls with the flimsiest Tory Leads …..
Survation …………. Tory Lead 1%
SurveyMonkey ….. Tory Lead 4%
….. were the only Polls to get the 2015 Tory-Lab gap more or less right (they said 6 points – actual gap 6.6)
All other Pollsters waaay out
Survation pretty much spot-on with Tory-Lab %s too –
Survation Final Poll ……… 37% Tory ….. 31% Lab
2015 Election Result ….. 37.8% Tory ….. 31.2% Lab
It is of zero interest what the electorate is doing now, CORBYN HAS WOUNDED THE TORIES, let’s simply celebrate that and try very hard to emulate it!!
Do what, Amigo ???
Have a wee look at the date and time of my comment, compadre ….. pre-Election, not post-Election, Capeesh ?
These figures seem to be misleading. 46% v 33% is a 25% lead, not 13%; 42% v 35% is a 20% lead, not 7%. etc
Percentage Points
The conventional – indeed the only – method used by Pundits and Pollsters for measuring Poll leads
You’re in a minority of one, young fella
Nevertheless, they are still misleading, inasmuch as they suggest that the differences between the parties are less than they really are. i.e in the first case 25% more people are intending to vote Tory than are intending to vote Labour, not 13%.
I thought I’d view the latest Brit election news.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2017/jun/08/general-election-2017-uk-polling-day-live
As the timeline unfolded dogs got into the picture. A big white poodly thing with its mouth seeming to be ringed with red that looked like blood. I don’t know what to make of that – the next little dog was licking its lips. Seems to becoming a tense situation over there – going to the dogs I think.
And that middle-easty blurb on Corbyn’s image – what has that got to do with the price of fish, that great British saying? This is the country that went to war against Iraq in a cavalier manner (without the lace collar), leaving one of its advisors distraught and killing himself. Showing an ad with some naughty groups’ names on it is hardly going to break the British stoicism.