Ukip - why are they gaining support?

[taffboy gwyrdd]

From the article:

- Benefit fraud: the public think that £24 of every £100 of benefits is fraudulently claimed. Official estimates are that just 70 pence in every £100 is fraudulent - so the public conception is out by a factor of 34.

- Immigration: some 31 per cent of the population is thought to consist of recent immigrants, when the figure is actually 13 per cent. Even including illegal immigrants, the figure is only about 15 per cent. On the issue of ethnicity, black and Asian people are thought to make up 30 per cent of the population, when the figure is closer to 11 per cent.

- Crime: some 58 per cent of people do not believe crime is falling, when the Crime Survey for England and Wales shows that incidents of crime were 19 per cent lower in 2012 than in 2006/07 and 53 per cent lower than in 1995. Some 51 per cent think violent crime is rising, when it has fallen from almost 2.5 million incidents in 2006/07 to under 2 million in 2012.

- Teen pregnancy is thought to be 25 times higher than the official estimates: 15 per cent of of girls under 16 are thought to become pregnant every year, when official figures say the amount is closer to 0.6 per cent.

Among the other surprising figures are that 26 per cent of people think foreign aid is in the top three items the Government spends money on (it actually makes up just 1.1 per cent of expenditure), and that 29 per cent of people think more is spent on Jobseekers' Allowance than pensions.

In fact we spend 15 times more on pensions - £4.9 billion on JSA vs £74.2 billion on pensions.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

How do I explain it? Does correlation = causation? Who is following who here?

That's a reasonable question. What else might be causing such widespread misinformation?

 

[treelover]

Btw, the Guardian seems to be in a state of panic about UKIP, there are about three articles a day at the moment attacking them.

 

[SpineyNorman]

That's a reasonable question. What else might be causing such widespread misinformation?

People's experiences and perceptions.

Benefits: bloke next door with no visible disability but who claims DLA and ESA and gets a mobility car. He's almost certainly entitled to every penny but you don't know that - changes your perception of benefits claimants. Especially as these kinds of things seem like bigger issues if you yourself and working and struggling to survive - you can't afford a car etc.

Teen pregnancy: some estates have much much higher rates than elsewhere. People on those estates, or who know people on those estates, might be led to overestimate it.

Migration - especially if they 'look different' people will notice them, especially if their numbers in the area you live are rising, and probably over-estimate them. It's pretty well established that people over-estimate the pace and extent of change - you don't need a media conspiracy.

Crime: On average it might be dropping but in a lot of areas it's not - it's getting a lot worse. People who live in or are aware of those areas will think it's going up - I know I find the falling crime figures hard to believe because, quite simply, they don't match with my experiences. Am I brainwashed by the media too?

Where in the media does it say that we spend more on JSA than pensions? If people are getting that from the media it surely must be somewhere. Maybe most people know more people on JSA than they do on old age pensions? I know I do.

The media does have some influence but it has to tap into something that's already there otherwise nobody will listen. How else do you explain most sun readers opposing the Iraq war for example? It's more a mirror than a source of light.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Btw, the Guardian seems to be in a state of panic about UKIP, there are about three articles a day at the moment attacking them.

Yeah but it's not like there are any other problems in this country is it?

The independent by contrast seems determined to put the boot into Ed Miliband, if today's edition is anything to go by.

 

[treelover]

It is notable that the Ukippers pictured are all old, ill educated people wearing bad clothes.

another CIF comment, satirical?

 

[J Ed]

another CIF comment, satirical?

Nah, just par for the course.

I love the idea that someone's clothes are being used to discredit them. Let's all just vote for whoever can afford the best suit, that's bound to work.

 

[treelover]

Mass brawl erupts between rival groups of youths in area where former Home Secretary David Blunkett warned of rioting due to influx of Roma immigrants

• More than 25 people involved in mass disturbance in Page Hall, Sheffield
• One teenager injured in violence which broke out at around 8pm last night
• David Blunkett warned of rioting in area last year due to Roma migrants
• He warned of an 'explosion' if culture of incoming community did not change
• Roma population in city said to be between 2,000 and 4,000 and still growing

By Emma Glanfield
Published: 16:49, 20 May 2014 | Updated: 19:49, 20 May 2014

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...tt-warned-rioting-influx-Roma-immigrants.html

Oh dear, this has been predicted in Sheffield, hot weather now, etc, I wonder if UKIP will stir the pot?

note the Mail so usual provisos, stirring it, not so many people, etc, Sheffield forum will have more

 

[SpineyNorman]

Status on my facebook wall by someone bragging about running out of their house after finding a UKIP leaflet had just been posted through their door, swearing at the woman who was delivering them, threatening to burn the leaflets and basically threatening her if she didn't leave the neighbourhood. 42 likes from Sheffield lefties in about an hour.

I fucking despair.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

People's experiences and perceptions.

Benefits: bloke next door with no visible disability but who claims DLA and ESA and gets a mobility car. He's almost certainly entitled to every penny but you don't know that - changes your perception of benefits claimants. Especially as these kinds of things seem like bigger issues if you yourself and working and struggling to survive - you can't afford a car etc.

Teen pregnancy: some estates have much much higher rates than elsewhere. People on those estates, or who know people on those estates, might be led to overestimate it.

Migration - especially if they 'look different' people will notice them, especially if their numbers in the area you live are rising, and probably over-estimate them. It's pretty well established that people over-estimate the pace and extent of change - you don't need a media conspiracy.

Crime: On average it might be dropping but in a lot of areas it's not - it's getting a lot worse. People who live in or are aware of those areas will think it's going up - I know I find the falling crime figures hard to believe because, quite simply, they don't match with my experiences. Am I brainwashed by the media too?

Where in the media does it say that we spend more on JSA than pensions? If people are getting that from the media it surely must be somewhere. Maybe most people know more people on JSA than they do on old age pensions? I know I do.

The media does have some influence but it has to tap into something that's already there otherwise nobody will listen. How else do you explain most sun readers opposing the Iraq war for example? It's more a mirror than a source of light.

Each of these instances would explain a certain amount of the population being a bit wrong, not the aggregated general population being very wrong.

For everyone who does live next door to such a claimant there are many who don't.

For everyone who lives in a relatively high teen preganancy area there are many that, by definition, don't.

And ditto down the line.

For a widely false statistical narrative to hold sway across the board points to more than just some people having understandably circumstances having moderately skewed perceptions.

 

[J Ed]

Status on my facebook wall by someone bragging about running out of their house after finding a UKIP leaflet had just been posted through their door, swearing at the woman who was delivering them, threatening to burn the leaflets and basically threatening her if she didn't leave the neighbourhood. 42 likes from Sheffield lefties in about an hour.

I fucking despair.

This time around the media hysteria and reaction to UKIP seems to be a lot stronger than anything the BNP ever got. I wonder why...

 

[treelover]

Status on my facebook wall by someone bragging about running out of their house after finding a UKIP leaflet had just been posted through their door, swearing at the woman who was delivering them, threatening to burn the leaflets and basically threatening her if she didn't leave the neighbourhood. 42 likes from Sheffield lefties in about an hour.

I fucking despair.

That's crazy,

maybe it was her ill fitting clothes

 

[SpineyNorman]

Each of these instances would explain a certain amount of the population being a bit wrong, not the aggregated general population being very wrong.

For everyone who does live next door to such a claimant there are many who don't.

For everyone who lives in a relatively high teen preganancy area there are many that, by definition, don't.

And ditto down the line.

For a widely false statistical narrative to hold sway across the board points to more than just some people having understandably circumstances having moderately skewed perceptions.

Bollocks. Pretty much everyone I know has a story like that about someone on benefits (I imagine most people have someone who'd fit that description on their street - most normal people anyway), crime (as I said - to be honest crime figures don't fit my experiences either but I don't read any of those papers - can they brainwash you without even reading them now? impressive!), pregnancy etc. You don't have to live nextdoor to them yourself - you just need to know enough people who do. There's other ways this stuff gets around but what's important is to understand how it gets worked through - socially.

You're just desperate to see someone pulling the strings - I don't know why, maybe it's more comforting than the disorganised and uncontrollable reality, or maybe it's just an easy way to make sense of things. I suspect the thing that makes you see the media pulling the strings is the same thing that makes you prone to Bilderberg type conspiracy theories and makes (made?) you prone to 9/11 nonsense too. The media make people right wing theory is just a slightly more sophisticated version of conspiracy theory style thinking after all.

 

[treelover]

Oh dear, this has been predicted in Sheffield, hot weather now, etc, I wonder if UKIP will stir the pot?

note the Mail so usual provisos, stirring it, not so many people, etc, Sheffield forum will have more

this was last night, the story is only just been put up on the D/M site, which updates frequently, strange..

 

[Awesome Wells]

Status on my facebook wall by someone bragging about running out of their house after finding a UKIP leaflet had just been posted through their door, swearing at the woman who was delivering them, threatening to burn the leaflets and basically threatening her if she didn't leave the neighbourhood. 42 likes from Sheffield lefties in about an hour.

I fucking despair.

Do you think the leafletter, who may well not have been a party member (though that's a bit of a stretch), would have wanted to stop and chew the fat?

I'm not condoning violence.

 

[SpineyNorman]

This time around the media hysteria and reaction to UKIP seems to be a lot stronger than anything the BNP ever got. I wonder why...

I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with their posing a much greater threat to the traditional parties. After all, if it was that would mean the the rabid anti-UKIP wadicals were being led by the media into doing the Tories, Labour's and Lib dems job for them and we all know they're the only ones able to see through the media's manipulations.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Do you think the leafletter, who may well not have been a party member (though that's a bit of a stretch), would have wanted to stop and chew the fat?

I'm not condoning violence.

What are you on about? She got threatened and chased off the street, presumably stopping her leafleting. Do you think this is healthy or productive?

 

[Awesome Wells]

What are you on about? She got threatened and chased off the street, presumably stopping her leafleting. Do you think this is healthy or productive?

there are 3 choices:

either chase people around the streets
engage them and try and point out and perhaps persuade them their policies are bollocks.
do nothing.

the first you object to because it's violent and unproductive, by and large I agree. Though i probably would have sent them packing if i'd been at home when they'd leafletted me (perhaps not with threats or some benny hill chase around the houses).
the second will prbably get rebuked.
the third achieves nothing.

 

[J Ed]

there are 3 choices:

either chase people around the streets
engage them and try and point out and perhaps persuade them their policies are bollocks.
do nothing.

the first you object to because it's violent and unproductive, by and large I agree. Though i probably would have sent them packing if i'd been at home when they'd leafletted me (perhaps not with threats or some benny hill chase around the houses).
the second will prbably get rebuked.
the third achieves nothing.

FFS this behaviour would be ridiculous if she was UKIP but she was probably just a postwoman or working for one of the private delivery companies, she has to deliver the leaflets or she gets sacked. This logic is just bizarre, where exactly does it end?

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Bollocks. Pretty much everyone I know has a story like that about someone on benefits (I imagine most people have someone who'd fit that description on their street - most normal people anyway),

Whose defining normal here? Quite a lot of people may not have anyone on their street on benefits. Farily wealthy people for example, who's misinformation levels leak into this kind of research data as much as anyone else.

crime (as I said - to be honest crime figures don't fit my experiences either but I don't read any of those papers - can they brainwash you without even reading them now? impressive!), pregnancy etc. You don't have to live nextdoor to them yourself - you just need to know enough people who do. There's other ways this stuff gets around but what's important is to understand how it gets worked through - socially.

Yet it creates misguided perceptions. Does one just listen to those concerns or does one challenge the fact that a perception of an individual case might distort an overall assessment? I hope the latter approach wouldn't involve any chest prodding.

Would you suggest that day in day out headlines (lies), which in turn drive broadcast media agendas, have zero effect? That's it's all entirely down to people misjudging circumstances of their own volition? If that's the case why do parties pay so much to the likes of Lynton Crosby to specifically drive agendas and talking points? Is there something you know that they don't?

"You're just desperate to see someone pulling the strings" You're doing my thinking for me again.

"maybe it's more comforting..." - cod psyhocology, based on premise that happens to be false.

Maybe decades of anti migrant lies in the press actually have an effect. Just...maybe.

"I suspect the thing that makes you see the media pulling the strings is the same thing that makes you prone to Bilderberg type conspiracy theories and makes (made?) you prone to 9/11 nonsense too."

That's changing subjects quite a bit. It's not even a case of pulling strings, and 911 is a very different matter indeed.

"The media make people right wing theory is just a slightly more sophisticated version of conspiracy theory style thinking after all"

You've been quite round the houses on this one, but you still haven't explained why people think it's "sticking one to the establishment" to vote for another right wing pro establishment party. The notion that the likes of Murdoch and Desmond push their own nasty agendas is hardly a conspiracy theory anyhow. Likewise, the role of the migration and other debates in smokescreening stuff like the privatisation of the NHS (barely a peep from the BBC on that one) .

Clearly this isn't all about media, but I could be just as quizzical about why you seem to want to diminish the importance as you are in seeing me as someone who wants to over exagerate it.


So much about this thread and similar conversations elsewhere is truly perplexing.

We're told that people "can't listen to the concerns of ordinary people" when they can, and when those concerns are very well known.

We're told that highlighting something racist is "screaming"

We're told that it's no good just calling ukip racist, even though an increasing amount of critique is about stuff far beyond that.

We're told that we don't understand how angry people are with the political establishment, when every fucker knows about that anger.

We're told that professional and aspiring professional politicians are the people to take on the "political class", that reaction is rebellion.

And we get odd phrases thrown about like "the real world" as if some people live in holograms or plasticine, "chattering classes" as if propensity to chatter is tied into an economic relation.

So much of all this is bogus. Since about the late 1980s reactionaries have used complaing about political correctness to justify their interpretation. "political correctness" has been assumed politically wrong for nearly a generation, yet opposing it is still presented as some kind of brave and fresh thing.

And for all this, the relative current popularity of UKIP can still probably best be described in 2 words : "False alternative". Is that falseness a media creation or something in the minds of people regardless of media? Both, I think

 

[brogdale]

From Buzzfeed's photo-essay titled....
I Went To The UKIP Diversity Carnival And It Was A Total Disaster

I wonder who that could be, then?

 

[butchersapron]

Oh no, a... rebuke.

From who exactly?

 

[SpineyNorman]

there are 3 choices:

either chase people around the streets
engage them and try and point out and perhaps persuade them their policies are bollocks.
do nothing.

the first you object to because it's violent and unproductive, by and large I agree. Though i probably would have sent them packing if i'd been at home when they'd leafletted me (perhaps not with threats or some benny hill chase around the houses).
the second will prbably get rebuked.
the third achieves nothing.

Let them deliver the leaflets. It's not difficult.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Bollocks. Pretty much everyone I know has a story like that about someone on benefits (I imagine most people have someone who'd fit that description on their street - most normal people anyway),

Whose defining normal here? Quite a lot of people may not have anyone on their street on benefits. Farily wealthy people for example, who's misinformation levels leak into this kind of research data as much as anyone else.

crime (as I said - to be honest crime figures don't fit my experiences either but I don't read any of those papers - can they brainwash you without even reading them now? impressive!), pregnancy etc. You don't have to live nextdoor to them yourself - you just need to know enough people who do. There's other ways this stuff gets around but what's important is to understand how it gets worked through - socially.

Yet it creates misguided perceptions. Does one just listen to those concerns or does one challenge the fact that a perception of an individual case might distort an overall assessment? I hope the latter approach wouldn't involve any chest prodding.

Would you suggest that day in day out headlines (lies), which in turn drive broadcast media agendas, have zero effect? That's it's all entirely down to people misjudging circumstances of their own volition? If that's the case why do parties pay so much to the likes of Lynton Crosby to specifically drive agendas and talking points? Is there something you know that they don't?

"You're just desperate to see someone pulling the strings" You're doing my thinking for me again.

"maybe it's more comforting..." - cod psyhocology, based on premise that happens to be false.

Maybe decades of anti migrant lies in the press actually have an effect. Just...maybe.

"I suspect the thing that makes you see the media pulling the strings is the same thing that makes you prone to Bilderberg type conspiracy theories and makes (made?) you prone to 9/11 nonsense too."

That's changing subjects quite a bit. It's not even a case of pulling strings, and 911 is a very different matter indeed.

"The media make people right wing theory is just a slightly more sophisticated version of conspiracy theory style thinking after all"

You've been quite round the houses on this one, but you still haven't explained why people think it's "sticking one to the establishment" to vote for another right wing pro establishment party. The notion that the likes of Murdoch and Desmond push their own nasty agendas is hardly a conspiracy theory anyhow. Likewise, the role of the migration and other debates in smokescreening stuff like the privatisation of the NHS (barely a peep from the BBC on that one) .

Clearly this isn't all about media, but I could be just as quizzical about why you seem to want to diminish the importance as you are in seeing me as someone who wants to over exagerate it.


So much about this thread and similar conversations elsewhere is truly perplexing.

We're told that people "can't listen to the concerns of ordinary people" when they can, and when those concerns are very well known.

We're told that highlighting something racist is "screaming"

We're told that it's no good just calling ukip racist, even though an increasing amount of critique is about stuff far beyond that.

We're told that we don't understand how angry people are with the political establishment, when every fucker knows about that anger.

We're told that professional and aspiring professional politicians are the people to take on the "political class", that reaction is rebellion.

And we get odd phrases thrown about like "the real world" as if some people live in holograms or plasticine, "chattering classes" as if propensity to chatter is tied into an economic relation.

So much of all this is bogus. Since about the late 1980s reactionaries have used complaing about political correctness to justify their interpretation. "political correctness" has been assumed politically wrong for nearly a generation, yet opposing it is still presented as some kind of brave and fresh thing.

And for all this, the relative current popularity of UKIP can still probably best be described in 2 words : "False alternative". Is that falseness a media creation or something in the minds of people regardless of media? Both, I think

Fucking hell - I honestly can't be arsed.

 

[SpackleFrog]

The idea that the media determine people's views, like they're just blank slates on which the establishment can write anything they like (obviously not you though, you're above all that, which is why you accept views on the power of the media that the likes of Murdoch have been deliberately cultivating for decades and take the exact same view of UKIP, who votes for them, why and how this should be combated as the 'establishment' media do). It's fucking insulting.

You're right about the failure of the left too - though it's not because we disagree with each other. It's because the more visible elements of the left are full of chest prodding twats who in truth don't trust the working class, who think they're just too easy for the right to manipulate.

Have you ever considered that people might have actual reasons (beyond being brainwashed by the Daily Mail) for disagreeing with you politically? That they might see through UKIP just as well as anyone else but vote for them anyway for a variety of instrumental reasons? I guess not - after all, that would mean actually listening to people and taking their concerns seriously. Much easier to assume they have these concerns because they Daily Express told them they should be concerned about them.[/QUOTE

It's also because most of "The Left" are full on afraid of working class estates. I've reached a point now where I've decided that most of the 57 varieties are constructing theoretical justifications to "vote Labour with no illusions" purely to avoid having to go near a council estate and discover how utterly fucking useless they are.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Status on my facebook wall by someone bragging about running out of their house after finding a UKIP leaflet had just been posted through their door, swearing at the woman who was delivering them, threatening to burn the leaflets and basically threatening her if she didn't leave the neighbourhood. 42 likes from Sheffield lefties in about an hour.

I fucking despair.

Who? Inbox if preferred.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Fucking hell - I honestly can't be arsed.

Give it out, but can't take it back. Standard. Run along now, prod someone else in the chest.

 

[William of Walworth]

Bollocks. Pretty much everyone I know has a story like that about someone on benefits (I imagine most people have someone who'd fit that description on their street - most normal people anyway), crime (as I said - to be honest crime figures don't fit my experiences either but I don't read any of those papers - can they brainwash you without even reading them now? impressive!), pregnancy etc. You don't have to live nextdoor to them yourself - you just need to know enough people who do. There's other ways this stuff gets around but what's important is to understand how it gets worked through - socially.

You're just desperate to see someone pulling the strings - I don't know why, maybe it's more comforting than the disorganised and uncontrollable reality, or maybe it's just an easy way to make sense of things. I suspect the thing that makes you see the media pulling the strings is the same thing that makes you prone to Bilderberg type conspiracy theories and makes (made?) you prone to 9/11 nonsense too. The media make people right wing theory is just a slightly more sophisticated version of conspiracy theory style thinking after all.

Spiney Norman

I'm as anti-conspiraloon as you I should think, and I've had big issues on here in the past with some of taffboy's crazier stuff in older threads.

But concerning mainstream media he's not completely wrong on this I think. I don't personally think the mainstream media brainwash people en masse, nor do I think that people are generally 'thick' enough to believe everything they're told, far from. Don't subscribe to any conspiracy either.

But surely there are plenty of people around IRL (I've encountered a fair few myself) who are quite keen (overkeen?) to believe the anecdotes they hear in the pub/from some neighbours or relatives/and yes from the media too (as well as from what they see, or think they see, themselves, in their own street or estates). People in shit jobs on shit money often want to blame an easy target, UKIP are pretty good ATM at tapping into that kind of understandable pissed off-ness. I'm not that interested in whether the Sun/Mail/Telegraph etc are orchestrating/manipulating or just reflecting/channelling peoples discontent, but its pointless to pretend the general media-dominant tone isn't playing a pretty significant part -- for a proportion of people at least.

I understand everything you and others have been saying about alienation from mainstream parties too, nor do I agree at all with shouting 'racist' at UKIP -- totally counterproductive.

I suppose the above ramble stems from my not being exactly sure what you're getting at. Can't believe there's not some overlap between yours and taffboy's positions.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Give it out, but can't take it back. Standard. Run along now, prod someone else in the chest.

Oh, fuck off and learn to quote properly. What you write is incomprehensible, at least try to make it legible.

 

[Awesome Wells]

FFS this behaviour would be ridiculous if she was UKIP but she was probably just a postwoman or working for one of the private delivery companies, she has to deliver the leaflets or she gets sacked. This logic is just bizarre, where exactly does it end?

Sorry what logic are you referring to? I dont advocate chasing people around and explicitly said it could well be soneone else delivering that isn't affiliated with ukip.