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"Until proven otherwise I will maintain this was a stupid thing done by stupid people."

The fact a party with *checks notes* 18 years in power, dire NHS performance, collapsing school standards, mired in financial and internal sex sleaze scandals, AND who lost an FM through a year of self-inflicted stab wounds followed by getting humped in the GE is the best placed to win says enough

The money is there to be made by telling a vanishingly small (in general terms) number of people the same story they find anger-inducing enough to pay for, over and over again. The BBC's response to this is to represent a balanced debate, and not seek answers to the actual Qs being debated.

This is particularly clear with subscription based models which have, perversely, encouraged and incentivised pushing repeated narratives that confirm and build on an engaged audience's bias (e.g. trans - both sides - Brexit, Covid scepticism, immigration etc. etc.)

I just feel like this BBC story is a culmination of the impact of decades of pressure on news journalism across all newspapers and TV stations to become representations 'of the debate' - rather than as you write, detail and precision reporting - because that drives scale

To be fair that's hardly that different to oodles of copy being written about a council by-election in Barrhead or the arse-end of Fife

Scottish Labour: "But Barrhead and Hamilton!"

It is also why her levels of approval UK-wide infuriated so many Scottish opponents. They could see through it, no-one who knew anything about Scottish politics and (much of) her domestic record, however, saw anything but the spin/rehearsed lines

The last left-leaning politician to have this in the UK was Nicola Sturgeon - an absolute master of scripted authenticity

The performance only slipped when the 'authenticity' of the responses met the reality of the politics she faced (on gender, independence, to a lesser degree Covid).

There was a point during Covid (and after STL licences were brought in) where the Edinburgh market was flooded with dozens of very, very obviously ex-Airbnbs with high production value pics landlords just don't take. Described as a "welcome but not purposeful effect" by a minister... Aye right...

My overall takeaway from Labour conference was both that they are spending far too much time talking about an election that is four years away, and that they are not really doing enough damage/change to make the 2029 inheritance that difficult to have easy, early wins

When Harry Met Sally just tops every rom com ever written. Unbelievably good.

Barrhead getting repeated mentions at Conference, which for me is further evidence of senior SLab folk being high on copium

Thanks @scotvoting.bsky.social