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Related: About this forumKim Jong-May awkward and incredulous as journalist asks question
Dont the voters deserve better than to be spoken to in soundbites? asked Andrew Marr.
Dont be silly. What this country needed above all were strong and stable soundbites. I believe it is in the national interest to have a strong and stable leadership because only a strong and stable leadership can deliver a strong and stable economy.
Marr reached for the pistol. Him or her? This wasnt the interview he had been hoping for. It was the one he had feared. That does sound rather robotic, he observed. The Supreme Leader began to relax. Robotic was good. Robotic was strong and stable.
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/30/kim-jong-may-awkward-and-incredulous-as-journalist-asks-question
Brilliant. An unnecessary farce of an election deserves complete mockery.
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)Buoyed by concerted MSM misreading and misrepresentation of recent polls to try to bolster the myth of the Great Tory Revival in Scotland (to the extent that they're only marginally more unpopular than they were during the Thatcher years), her campaign chose to fly her up to Banchory in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, a ward which for a variety of demographic reasons is rather favourable to Brexit, Unionism and the Tories. It ... didn't go well.
Theresa May has fuelled accusations from Labour she has been hiding from the public during the general election campaign after she held her latest rally in a tiny community hall in Aberdeenshire with such poor phone reception that live coverage of the event was impossible.
About 200 Conservative campaigners crammed into Crathes hall, Banchory, a tin-roofed single-storey building at the heart of a swath of woodland in rural north-east Scotland, from where journalists were unable to tweet or broadcast.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/29/theresa-may-campaign-event-in-scottish-forest-prompts-new-claims-she-is-hiding?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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PM Theresa May arrives in north east, expected to ask Scots to vote for her to "strengthen the Union", economy & her hand in Brexit talks.
Or, as Labour activist Eoin Clarke more succinctly put it:
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Theresa May sneaking in the emergency exit of a village hall in a forest 17 miles from Aberdeen. Doesn't look very strong to me.
And about those "200 Conservative campaigners" the Guardian article mentioned:
The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that many of those forming the audience for Theresa Mays speech in Crathes looked even less enthusiastic than usual.
The real Tories are very obvious to spot. But when you look at the BBC video from which this picture is taken, you can see that the others not only do not look enthusiastic, they do not join in the clapping. Do not take my word for it, watch the video the body language, apart from the obvious Tories, is more of hostages than supporters.
My contacts in Banchory tell me that this is because, in a weird Tory return to the 19th century, it was made clear to tenants of the Crathes estate that they were expected to turn out to support strong and stable leadership. The heir to the estate, in whose name the hall was booked, is Alexander Burnett, old Etonian and Tory MSP. Which century are we in?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/04/theresa-mays-fake-meetings/
And then ...
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Wings Over Scotland @WingsScotland
This is some properly audacious bullshit from Tim Shipman in the Sunday Times 😂😂😂
And so it was that later in her flying visit, Mrs. May went to the nearby village and knocked on some doors ... and knocked ... and knocked:
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For the cameras, Theresa May attempted to deliver 4 (FOUR) leaflets today...no one answered the door.#VoteLabour #GE2017
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That awkward moment a Tory leader goes knocking on doors in front of the cameras... but nobody answers #GE2017
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.@theresa_may's campaign trip to Scotland summed up in four seconds. #GE2017 #ToriesOut
How long can she (and our media) keep this up?
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)Theresa May is facing fresh accusations of hiding from voters after a campaign event held in Scotland was publicly listed as a childrens birthday party.
Bemused locals in Aberdeenshire had been unable to find the location of the Prime Ministers visit, which was not advertised in advance.
It was only after Ms May spoke to assembled supporters at Crathes village hall that they discovered it had been booked out as a child party between 10am and 5pm.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-election-latest-scotland-speech-visit-crathes-village-hall-aberdeenshire-corbyn-childs-a7709921.html
T_i_B
(14,738 posts)...but we have had a similar event happen in my district, where Mayhem visited a factory after hours, didn't engage, couldn't even remember the name of where she was, talking about "this particular town" rather than Clay Cross, and spoke in favour of Fracking, which the local Tories are actually loudly opposed to!
By rights it should have been considered a gaffe strewn disaster, but the fact that a Tory PM is campaigning in Clay Cross, (an old pit village that's most well known for producing Dennis Skinner) is being seen as successfully parking the Tories tanks on Labour's lawn. The Tories are running an incredibly bad campaign that would have been loudly jeered by the media 20 years ago, and being allowed to get away with it.
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)Another invite-only small village hall with shipped-in supporters.
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The Prime Minister gets rushed in to Mawdsley Village Hall with locals watching on
Similar antics to those in Crathes, but with more protesters outside.
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Protesters outside Mawdesley Hall in South Ribble, a Tory safe seat, where the PM is attending a campaign event
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These troopers still showed up before anybody in the village knew #SaveOurNHS
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Theresa May in South Ribble. She has already said 'strong and stable leadership' twice and we're about 1 min in
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Theresa May's second attempt of escaping the village hall (through a different door, so nobody knew until she was getting in the car)
Strong and stable.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)The prime ministers visit to a diving equipment factory in Helston, in the marginal seat of St Ives, was marred by a row about restricted media access when reporters from Cornwall Live said they were locked in a room to enforce the ban. They later clarified they were shut in the room.
Cornwall Live, the news website of a group of local newspapers that includes the Cornish Guardian, the Western Morning News and West Briton, was granted two questions with May but was prevented from filming the interview or any part of the visit.
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Jacqui Merrington, the digital editor of Cornwall Live, said the restriction showed an old-fashioned attitude towards the media. It feels like either contempt or a lack of understanding of what we do in the local press generally. You cant expect any local media to be entirely print-focused now and not have any digital element, she said.
She said her media group had never experienced such an attempt to control journalists, adding: This is certainly a different level in terms of restrictions. A number of us have had an experience with David Cameron and Tony Blair in the past this was much more restricted than we have seen in the past. David Cameron did a walk through the town with us in Penzance about three years ago. We were allowed full access to him for a 45-minute period.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/02/theresa-may-liberal-democrats-defectors-south-west-stick-with-tories
10:51 Strong leadership
image:
Mrs may managed to get the words 'strong' and 'leadership' into her second sentence.
10:46 Three minutes of the PM's time
We've been allowed to ask our questions to the prime minister (although we are forbidden to film or photograph her answering them).
We were given at most three minutes and were refused to be allowed to ask why we were not allowed to film her.
Our reporter Lyn was then ushered out of the room.
Read more at http://www.cornwalllive.com/prime-minister-theresa-may-visits-cornwall-ahead-of-general-election/story-30306323-detail/story.html#J7jIbAE1LaMwCVoe.99