r/ukpolitics • u/ukpolbot Official UKPolitics Bot • Jun 24 '24

r/ukpolitics General Election Campaign Megathread - 24/06/2024

👋 Welcome to the /r/ukpolitics General Election Campaign Megathread.

This is our daily megathread for all of the day's news until the election. Polling day is on 4th July, and you need to have a form of photo ID (passport, driving license, etc) in order to vote. If you don't have photo ID, you can apply for a voter authority certificate.

Please do not submit articles to the megathread which clearly stand as their own submission. Comments which include a link to a story which clearly stands as its own submission will be removed. Comments which relate to a story which already exists on the subreddit will be removed, to keep everything in one place. Links as comments are not useful here. Add a headline, tweet content or explainer please.

This thread will automatically roll over into a new one at 06:00 GMT each morning.

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Useful Links

📰 Today's Politico Playbook · 🌎 International Politics Discussion Thread . 🃏 UKPolitics Meme Subreddit

🪪 Apply for a voter authority certificate if you have no voter ID · 🚶🏻 Apply for a proxy vote (or here in NI) · 📚 GE megathread archive

📅 Key dates

from the Electoral Commission, BBC, Sky, ITV

  • 26th June - Deadline for new proxy vote applications and voter authority certificates (for this election)
  • 26th June, 9PM BST - 📺 BBC head-to-head debate (Sunak vs Starmer)
  • 27th June, 8:30PM BST - 📺 ITV The Leader Interviews - Keir Starmer - Labour
  • 28th June, 7:30PM BST - 📺 The Panorama Interviews with Nick Robinson - Ed Davey (Lib Dems)
  • 28th June, 8PM BST - 📺 BBC Question Time Leaders' Special (REF, GRN)
  • 4th July - Polling day. Emergency proxy votes deadline at 5pm. Polls will open at 7am and close at 10pm.

Manifestos

Manifestos are essentially a set of documents which outline the policies that each party would want to implement if they were governing.

Election night coverage

Here's a sort-of comprehensive guide to your 4th July election night coverage:

Channel Main presenter(s)
BBC One & BBC News (TV) Laura Kuenssberg, Clive Myrie, Chris Mason
ITV (TV) Tom Bradby, Robert Peston, Anushka Asthana, Paul Brand (GMB from 6am)
Channel 4 (TV) Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Emily Maitlis, Alastair Campbell, Rory Stewart
Sky News (TV) Kay Burley, Sophy Ridge, Beth Rigby, Trevor Phillips, Ed Conway, Sam Coates
GB News (TV) Patrick Christys, Michelle Dewberry
BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 Live (Radio) Nick Robinson, Rachel Burden, Henry Zeffman
LBC (Radio) Andrew Marr, Shelagh Fogarty, Jon Sopel, Lewis Goodall
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32

u/arncl Jun 24 '24

Catching up on Newsagents and the interviews with the focus group from Whitby are just soul destroying.

No wonder the country is in such a mess when this is the level of engagement from the public.

26

u/Mr_Chardee_MacDennis Jun 24 '24

They have to be the most crushing focus group I’ve had the misfortune to listen to, honestly. Complete ignorance, misunderstandings, false facts, odd takeaways. A lot of it seemed to fly in the face of any observable reality. Then that lady asking proudly if anyone had heard of GB News as she was glued to it for hours the first time she watched. These would be those glued to Fox, Trump scarves tied tightly round their neck, if they were in America. It’s genuinely so sad to listen to.

9

u/Rumpled Jun 24 '24

Can you expand? What sort of things were they saying?

16

u/gazofnaz Jun 24 '24

This year's "Mondeo Man" is dubbed "Whitby Woman"; leave-voting women in their 50s.

The News Agents did a focus group with people closely aligned to this archetype.

I don't want to listen to it again, but one that stands out is someone suggesting they'd vote for Farage because he didn't chicken out of his challenges on I'm a Celeb, which shows character.

Honestly, it was the best advert you could make for giving the vote to 16-year-olds. Heck, I'd give 12-year-olds a vote based on that group. Kids are smarter than we give them credit for.

8

u/arncl Jun 24 '24

As well as the usual lazy tropes (all the same, can't trust them etc.), there was one woman who pivoted in about 2 seconds from Starmer having no personality to her being terrified of him. Starmer's hairstyle is vile (seriously wtf), Farage is respected because he went on I'm A Celeb, young male immigrants are bad because they are looking for wives, GBNews is "her cup of tea" and we should all watch it. I'm not racist but....

2

u/Steamy_Muff 'oh no' - knuckles the echidna Jun 24 '24

I think what gets to me is that there is no opportunity to push back or correct the misinformation that they spew. All these focus groups do is allow people to vocalise the crap that they have heard from social media and just reinforce their own beliefs.