Wool. Eyes. Pull.

Written By: - Date published: 5:52 pm, July 16th, 2018 - 8 comments
Categories: Dirty Politics, facebook, Jeremy Corbyn, labour, political parties, uk politics - Tags: , ,

Did UK Labour HQ help Labour lose the UK General Election?

Well, according to claims made in a new book by Ed Miliband’s former Head of Communications – Yes they did.

At the moment, there’s only a light smattering of reporting in msm. But what’s there so far suggests the claim holds water. 

Essentially, Labour Party HQ paid for micro- targeted facebook advertising such that political messaging would only be seen by Corbyn, his advisers, and fellow travelers in the media alongside the likes of supporters within Momentum. But what they were meant to be doing was ensuring widespread dissemination of political messages to the general population.

One such message was on encouraging people to register to vote. Labour HQ apparently didn’t like that message, and so put it out as a personally targeted piece of advertising that left Corbyn and others thinking it had been disseminated far and wide.

Tom Baldwin, whose book contains the claims, is no Corbynite by the way. As mentioned above, he was head of communications for Milband, and in articles he has had published in The Guardian, he’s suggested Corbyn’s politics belong to the bygone era of the 70s.

I’d expect the story to expand and firm up over coming days. If the claims are verified, Tom Baldwin has essentially just flung a stick or three of dynamite beneath a political establishment that has made much ado over deplorable and unsavory types gaming social media to their advantage.

Seems that the political establishment – the part that always likes to portray itself as the part the good guys belong to, might just been caught with it’s hand deep in the the cookie jar hollering something about a thief. 

8 comments on “Wool. Eyes. Pull. ”

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  1. Chris T 1
    16 July 2018 at 6:18 pm

    Look on the up side

    One less rich “old white man” in a position of immense power

  2. corodale 2
    16 July 2018 at 7:56 pm

    With the shadow govt so splintered, there is real hope for something honest to rise up from the ashes. But no hope if folk continue voting for UK Labour/Tory.

  3. mickysavage 3
    16 July 2018 at 8:28 pm

    I am sure Momentum has taken note!

    • Bill 3.1
      16 July 2018 at 9:04 pm

      I notice it’s still only the Times and Independent covering this at the moment, and yes, I’m fully aware the guy has a book to sell, but…

      on first blush, this shit is much more pernicious than say the Dirty Politics that Hager revealed.

      The “party machine” undermining the party….what’dya call that?

      It’s happening the US within the Democratic Party (the Intercept has some very good articles), and now we have (it seems) some of the nuts and bolts of it laid bare with regards the UK Labour Party. And, as I commented on Open Mike, it has echoes of NZ Labour under Cunliffe in 2014 when, if my memory serves me, some Labour MPs simply didn’t run a party vote campaign in the general election of that year.

      I could digress onto an argument as to why we need to drop the lens of “left” and “right” if we want to grasp what’s going on, but I keep promising myself a post on it 🙂

      • Jum 3.1.1
        18 July 2018 at 12:40 pm

        “some Labour MPs simply didn’t run a party vote campaign in the general election of that year.”

        So who were they, Bill, and will they be contesting the next election for Labour?

        The amount of party votes going to national and yet the candidate vote going to Labour were glaringly obvious in many electorates.

        80’s betrayals by roger douglas and his cabal were never about being on the side of improving the lot of the working NZer. There’s nothing nastier to democracy than a cuckoo in the nest; the last one was key, but he was america’s man and he undermined, mined and tried to dam/damn the whole country, including his poor but greedy supporters.

        Even worse in the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn is that his values are timeless; they involve the well-being of his own people. Why is that old-fashioned?

        Is it because greed would lose profit – yep. Always the bottom line.

  4. adam 4
    16 July 2018 at 8:56 pm

    Not surprised, there are so many so called leftist pulling this rubbish. Another example from a few days ago.

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/07/12/so-much-born-run-ocasio-cortez-accuses-joe-crowley-moving-sabotage-her-campaign

    Same rubbish different package. It’s like these hard devotees of status quo have no morals or somthing. Bit like their counterparts on the right.

  5. Pat 5
    16 July 2018 at 9:58 pm

    https://twitter.com/FromSteveHowell/status/1018404422479745025

    as someone called Mike would say…’watch this space’?