The end is nigh – not of the world, although the weather this weekend might well have given you that impression. Allegedly the Tories are worried that stormy weather might prevent their voters to go out to vote on Thursday. In my experience it’s the young’uns who usually can’t be bothered. Anyway, here’s the Met Office’s weather map for the UK on Thursday and it looks fairly normal to me.

The election ‘news’ are as boring as they’ve been over the last few weeks. Today, we’re  told where all Boris Johnson is going to visit (here, here, paywalled here and here) and that he’ll tell voters that ‘Corbyn will betray Brexit’:

“Mr Johnson will warn voters that they face a “great betrayal” under Jeremy Corbyn as he says that Labour MPs won their seats on a “false prospectus” of securing Brexit but subsequently “stuck two fingers up to the public”.” (link, paywalled)

Obviously, the Tories haven’t betrayed Brexit one bit nor stuck their two fingers up to the public! Johnson’s upbeat message is meant to reassure us how wonderful everything will be once he’s back, or so he told the readers of The Express (here). Meanwhile, here’s a scathing assessment of Labour by a former Tory SpAd in the DT. You might like to use those arguments when talking to Labour voters:

“Corbyn proposes to scrap Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and negotiate a different deal instead. Then, he wants to put that deal to the country in a referendum, in which the other option will be to remain. Corbyn says he will stay neutral in the referendum, but Labour’s policy is to change the franchise, allowing 16-year-olds and all foreign nationals resident in Britain to vote. Trying to negotiate a treaty with Brussels while telling the European Union you might not implement it anyway is a recipe for failure. But Labour does not care. A second referendum with a rigged question and a rigged electorate is a recipe for remaining in the EU after all.” (paywalled link)

Mr Timothy’s description of Labour’s cynicism is not exactly earth-shattering news, but this last paragraph is worth quoting:

“The rot in the Labour Party is so bad that several of its former MPs have advised voters to support the Tories. Yet many Labour “moderates” – who in recent years have called Corbyn a racist, a danger to national security and a menace to the economy – are campaigning to save their jobs and put this extremist into No 10.” (paywalled link)

Finally someone in the MSM acknowledges that most candidates – and not just those with a red rosette – are only in this to keep their bums on the green benches! Any lie will do. Any warning will be pooh-pooh’d. Here’s one, showing the mindset of the prospective new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr McDonnell. He, according to this report, said that it’s  not so bad that people on lower incomes will be worse off under him – they’ll be ‘compensated’ by pay rises and more benefits. It’s ‘give us all your hard-earned money and we’ll give you back what we think you deserve’.

Then there’s the Scottish tail making a final case for the SNP wagging the UK dog. Ms Sturgeon writes in the Times:

“Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” slogan is perhaps the biggest lie of the campaign, but he and his colleagues have sought to mislead and misrepresent every day of the last six weeks. As polling day approaches, there is an urgent need to ask if someone with such a blatant disregard for the truth is really fit to be prime minister.” (link, paywalled)

Of course, no other politician lied, evah! This label of ‘Liar Johnson’ was promoted early on by the MSM who have been using it incessantly. The reason is of course “Teh BuS”, and never mind that it’s been proven again and again that this was not a lie. Ms Sturgeon then plonks her cards on the table:

“Throughout this campaign, I’ve sought to be straight talking and open about the SNP’s policies and ambitions for what we can achieve: […] a progressive alliance with Scotland, through SNP MPs, holding the balance of power, is the best outcome for Scotland and I believe for the rest of the UK.” (link, paywalled)

The rest of the UK should welcome such ‘progressive alliance’ just so that the SNP can get a 2nd IndyRef, because of the ‘progressive policies’ which we surely all want:

“In the rest of the UK voters can stop a Boris Johnson government if they choose to vote tactically. Collectively we can then deliver a progressive parliament, focused on protecting our health service, ending austerity, eradicating poverty, delivering justice for women pensioners and, for Scotland, securing the ability to choose our future.” (link, paywalled)

Ms Sturgeon never explains why only the Scots should have the right to  ‘secure the ability to choose our future’. Ah well – ‘tis electioneering, innit. Regarding the use of tactical voting, this observation, reported in The Express, caught my eye:

“[…] tactical voting could be very effective with anything between three to five percent of voters doing so, in key seats. He [Mr Peter Kellner] added that despite polling experts expecting a Tory majority, tactical voting in key seats could prevent this and weaken the likelihood of Brexit being resolved.” (link)

Note how carefully Mr Kellner, the former director of YouGov, formulates his answer, that it’s about ‘getting Brexit resolved’. After all, a 2nd referendum under Corbyn would certainly ‘resolve’ Brexit. There’s another analysis, this time on the use of social media in the still ongoing campaign which is intriguing:

“Analysis by Cardiff University found that, since the start of the campaign, the Labour leader’s followers on [Instagram], the Facebook-owned photo and video app have grown by 45 per cent to 378,000. In the same period, the following of the Labour Party account has risen by 70 per cent to more than 135,000. The Tories have made smaller, but significant, gains. Boris Johnson’s account is up 15 per cent to 278,000 followers; the Conservatives’ account up 25 per cent to 93,800. In total, Labour’s Instagram posts have gained about 4 million views, compared with the Tories’ 1.2 million.” (link, paywalled)

I noted with interest that actual numbers were provided. These put the %-gains into a different light. I also noted that the analysts seem to think that ‘likes’ will equal ‘votes’. How the analysts play with numbers, and how the MSM report them, is also illuminating:

“Matt Walsh […]  said that Labour’s success on the app was particularly significant because it appeals to a younger demographic than Facebook or Twitter. “[…] Those aged under 24 are drifting away to other platforms, notably Instagram and Snapchat. Both the Conservatives and Labour have significantly increased their activity on both these platforms during this election campaign. But it is Instagram . . . that has become the key tool for engaging younger voters.” (link, paywalled)

It’s the under-24 age group which has been targeted, but note that in the next sentence these young’uns are lumped in together with older voters:

“There are nearly 24 million UK users of Instagram and three quarters are aged 18-44. Mr Walsh said: “That’s a key demographic that Labour needs to energise and encourage to vote. Its approach to Instagram shows it can reach a younger demographic and beat the Conservatives in engagement. This may yet play an important role in the final result.” He added that the “vast bulk” of Labour’s success on Instagram was driven by Mr Corbyn’s account.” (link, paywalled)

Well, reaching nearly 400,000 voters out of 18 million (3/4 of 24 million) 18-44 year-old voters is definitely money well spent! It’s sad though to read that it was ‘Mr Corbyn’s account’ which attracted all those ‘likes’: are the 18-14 year olds so dense that they don’t realise that it’s not ‘Magic Gramps’ who runs this account but his election campaign managers? That they are being cleverly manipulated? It would appear not! 

There’s also a little article in the Times today, a report from yet another polling analyst, describing that people have been paying more attention to the Yorkshire Flooding, to Prince Andrew and to the London Bridge attack (link, paywalled). I wonder why … it couldn’t be that these events were given huge space in the MSM?

Perhaps it’s because we peasants have heard it all anyway and have had enough of old has-beens like Blair and Major telling us to vote for Tory traitors like Grieve and Gauke just to ‘resolve’ Brexit’ the way the Remainers want to.

Anything might happen in these last three days before Polling Day. One thing though is certain: whatever our politicians regard as ‘event’ is easily topped by Nature itself. While I don’t expect a dormant volcano to erupt in the UK as it did in NZ (see e.g. here), snow is a possibility. After all, it snowed in the Sahara … 

There’s one and only one issue for us to focus on: not going to the polls is not an option! Tactical voting or voting NONE – that depends on your constituency. But going out to vote is a must!

 

KBO!

 

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