In a way I’m glad to see the swash of banal bloggosphere commentary that posting as above parade as informed opinion with information.

Britain doesn’t have the appalling news channel’s of the US…and that’s all of them….but we are creating a similar network online.

Tories slag off Labour: ‘Tory ads: taking negative campaigning to new places’

Labour slags off Tories: ‘Humourless Tories outraged over bad-mouthing’

Take the “We Can’t Go On Like This” line, first seen accompanying David Cameron’s shiny airbrushed forehead. Rather than a reason to vote Conservative, it reads like the first stage of a relationship break-up.

Well duh. That’s exactly what it is. It’s giving a reason not to vote Labour, followed by a reason to vote Conservative.

Last week there were the tasteful “R.I.P OFF” gravestones, taking a mooted proposal, dishonestly elevating it into Labour policy, and turning the morally complex issue of end-of-life care into a macabre political football.

Look, if it weren’t Labour policy, and there was no intention that it should be, why wasn’t it denied? There’s evidence of Labour polling on this very issue and the ridiculous Burnham was telling the Guardian last week that it was his preferred option but he wasn’t sure he could persuade Downing St ‘before an election. As for this absurd notion that this issue should be above politics – we’re coming up to an election where a choice is going to be offered. A back-room stitch-up is hardly in the interests of democracy is it?

As a further point if the ‘Rip off’ posters were such a disaster for the Tories (and if cross-party talks are so much more important than petty political point-scoring), why is Burnham threatening to ‘exclude’ the Tories from a conference on the subject unless they take down their howwid posters?

Of course, there’s another good reason why all the Tory posters have been negative, focusing attention on Labour’s failings.

Well, except that they haven’t have they? The first poster offered an explicitly positive reason to vote Tory “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS” and the latest one also offers explicitly positive reasons to vote Tory (family policies, and economic policies). There’s only been one Labour poster, of course, and it has been a negative attack poster on David Cameron personally.

It’s remarkable really, one whiff of grapeshot and you chaps are squealing ‘It’s not fair! They’re really horrible!’. We’ve been putting up with this for years. You don’t like tendentious posters that turn a policy option into a policy. Brown just flat out lies. In the Observer:

“The Conservatives now say they will remove the child trust fund from any family with an income above £16,000,” he says. “So basically anybody who’s got an income of more than £16,000 will lose this benefit.

“Then they say that a couple where one is earning £16,000 and the other £15,0000 – so the joint income is £31,000 – that you will lose your tax credit.

Spot the problem?

The Conservatives have never, ever, said they will remove the child trust fund or the tax credit from any family with an income above £16,000. They have never come near to that. They have no intention of doing that. Gordon Brown made it up.

As long as Brown is leader of the Labour party, any attempt to accuse the Tories of being misleading (or of misusing statistics, or of disloyalty, or of unsavoury friends) will be met with a hollow laugh. It’s like being accused of being a poor husband by Bluebeard.

Re: 2

The first header refers to official campaign slogans.

The second header refers to unofficial personal slights made by party members.

It’s not possible to honestly confuse the two.

#You know, decontaminating the Nasty Party brand by claiming that Ordinaries can vote Tory too. “Conservative Voters: not just climate-change-denying, EU-obsessed, Thatcherite troglodytes wearing tweed!”#

Just a quick aside..were you even out of short pants the last time we had a Tory government?..and surely you were munching Farley’s Rusks when Thatcher was PM..it’s just the way you speak about it with such knowledge and assurance..it’s as though you were on the picket line at Rossington, or battling hand to hand with the police at Orgreave

…oh no..hang on..that would make you a left-wing, working-class, union loyalist wouldn’t it?…but it was that lot you had to get rid of so that you could assume the mantle of the new Left-liberal internet rainbow victims alliance…sorry..my mistake comrade.

I’d like firstly to agree with Tim.

I have been reading this blog for a month or so now and I have to say that I have not been impressed…. this is not a liberal blog dedicated to furthering liberal thoughts and ideas.

All this blog seems to do is cling to a dying socialist party, liberal is not the same as left wing and given the state that the left wing party is in I cannot see how someone who genuinely cares about the future of the UK can continue to support it.

It seems that many of the contributors to this blog have a very closed minded approach to life (again not inkeeping with liberal ideaology).

The starting position seems to be that the Labour party is basically good and right in all things it does, and that by default anything the conservatives do is evil.

The original post is a perfect example of this. The conservatives have not gone negative they arent attacking brown or any politicians – they are perhaps taking campaigning to a new level – by treating voters as intelligent people, but that is not negative.

Example negative ad (based on Tom in ‘the thick of it’): The leader of your party is insane, on drugs and needs a professional carer to get dressed in the morning.

Example positive ad: The other party is not running the country very well (here is why) vote us in and we will do better without cutting these services.

I hope you see the difference and why all liberal minded people should be voting conservative.

RR

@5 I can never figure out if people like you are really right-wingers sent to satirize working class activists, or if you’re serious.

I was born in 1984. Am I not allowed to know or have an opinion on anything pre-2000 (take the year of my 16th birthday as a nominal age after which I might be trusted to make up my own mind)?

Besides, the bit you quote from Paul has nothing to do with “being there” – it’s part of current politics. It should be pretty evident to anyone who earns less than £40,000 per year that a Tory government is a bad idea for them, unless they fall into special social categories which the Tories have singled out for special treatment.

I am working class, I am left-wing, I am a union loyalist – and Paul’s spot on in what he says. So what’s your point?

Re: 6

I think the site’s name is a shout-out to the US conservative line that the evils of society are caused by liberals working secretly in concert.

It’s fair to state also, while liberal does not mean left, neither are they mutually exclusive terms. Indeed this blog defines itself as aiming to revitalise liberal-left debate.

Regarding definitions of positive and negative campaigning, you’ve been misled. Positive campaigning is saying “We’re good”, and negative campaigning is saying “They’re shit”.

Simply adding “but we’re better” to a negative campaign does not make it positive, and neither does it flatter the intelligence of its audience. It targets the lowest common denominator (people who think Labour are useless) and doesn’t risk alienating that mass by mentioning actual policies (which tend to divide opinion in the real world).

# I can never figure out if people like you are really right-wingers sent to satirize working class activists, or if you’re serious.#

I’m serious…and I’m well aware that Tory governments are a very bad idea..I remember it well…it’s just that while the left is ‘dominated’ by the kinda thinking evident on here then the alternative is not a great deal better as the last 13 years have shown.

# I am working class, I am left-wing, I am a union loyalist#

Good..but…until or unless we get a repeal of Thatcher’s anti-union legislation, the last part of the above statement is largely moot…and where’s the LibCon campaign for that? As for “I am working class, I am left-wing”..that’s interesting..do you feel Liberal Conspiracy represents your political concerns? It’s always struck me as rather more representative of a middle-class liberal agenda…notably anything by Paul Sagar; I’m not even sure he’d disagree either.

So let me get this straight – because we currently aren’t talking about the issue you want us to, Earnest, then therefore this place isn’t proper leftwing. Even though, earlier, you want to slag off lefties anyway. Let me guess: a right win concern troll. At least Tim J diagrees with the article and explains why. All you’ve got is a boilerplate concern-troll post. Go away and set up your own blog and write what you think we should We talking about. Maybe you’ll become really popular.

Lastly – the left has always been a coalition of working class lefties and middle class lefties. The fact you don’t understand something so basic doesn’t help your already teetering case

Re: Gwyn
but what is the liberal left?

At the moment based on this blog I would define it as a group of people who do little more than find inconsequential reasons to hate on the conservatives.

Surely you guys believe in more than THATCHER BAD, TORIES BAD?

Regarding negative campaigning
1) patronising people and assuming that you know best (telling me that I have been misled for example) is rude please dont.

2) I stand by my original definition of negative campaining which is based on personality politics, a game that gordon seems determined to play (cf Piers Morgan interview)
Saying that another party is bad and we can do better is not negative, it is a sales pitch…. highlighting the differences between the parties and setting out a vision of being better…..giving people a reason other that personalities to vote for another party. What is negative about saying “we can do better”

RR

@11 – “Saying that another party is bad and we can do better is not negative”

It’s the “bad” that explicitally makes it negative. If the party truly thought they were better then they would need only set out their agenda and demonstrate it

If the party truly thought they were better then they would need only set out their agenda and demonstrate it

Saying that your policies are better than your opponents’ is negative campaigning? Truly, the Tories are taking negative campaigning to new places…

#So let me get this straight – because we currently aren’t talking about the issue you want us to, Earnest, then therefore this place isn’t proper leftwing.#

No Sunny..and as long as transgendered, Somali sealcubs have a higher profile than union rights, I’ll continue to regard all this as bourgeois dilettantism.

# Even though, earlier, you want to slag off lefties anyway#

Oh yeah..where was that then?

# Let me guess: a right win concern troll#

Classic!..don’t agree with Sunny and you’re a right-wing racist troll QED. Apparently I’m also the well-known racist right-wing troll known as “the Sentinel”..at least according to one of your more respected and entertaining contributors.

# Lastly – the left has always been a coalition of working class lefties and middle class lefties.#

Or rather was..I think the middle class / Fabian / identity faction has kinda taken over completely n’est-pas?

# The fact you don’t understand something so basic doesn’t help your already teetering case #

OK Sunny..I’ll piss off and bother CIF or something for a while..you’ve convinced me this isn’t the place for me. Nice job mate..get yourself a nice big latte..you’ve earned it. Oh but do please show me any examples of where I’m “slagging off lefties”..this is the third time I’ve been accused of this in two days, and each time I ask for examples, I’m blanked. I think you’ve got a bit of an issue going on here. Basically…it seems to be: take issue with the LibCon editorial line (go on..tell me there’s no such thing) and it means you’re a right-wing troll. Can’t you see the absolute conceit in that position?..no..maybe not.

Re: 11

I think of the liberal-left as an intersection of two schools of thought with which my views broadly align, rather than as describing a set of people with which I identify. I certainly wouldn’t say I’m a member of the “you guys”. To quote Groucho, I wouldn’t join a club that would have me as a member!

As for what it means, ‘liberal’ refers to ‘wishing for pure social equality and a right to political freedom’ and ‘left’ equals ‘advocating redistributing some wealth in order to improve society’. The phrase ‘liberal left’ usually is a shorthand for the theory that a healthy, enlightened and empathic society will prosper under a system that reduces wealth inequality. The magnitude and methodology differs depending on who you ask.

1) It wasn’t intended personally, but earnestly. I still think you’ve been misled. Sorry.

2) ‘Negative campaigning’ is to focus on the other party’s flaws, which is different from resorting to personality politics. If Y claims X is woefully incompetent, and Y then claims it ‘will do better’ than X, then the comparison doesn’t add anything of substance that would qualify the statement as being ‘positive’. Hence, this is a negative campaign.

Re: 14

I’m not saying unions weren’t important back in the day, but these days they don’t really have much presence in the public consciousness due to the minimum wage and improved conditions. Any blog that focused on unions would be mining a dated niche, as opposed to the rather more universal and current interest in human rights (which luckily includes worker rights).

# I’m not saying unions weren’t important back in the day, but these days they don’t really have much presence in the public consciousness due to the minimum wage and improved conditions.#

Ok..I was going to leave it but I had to nip back for this one. Are you absolutely out of your mind?
“Those nice politicians have given us a minimum wage and human rights so we don’t need unions any more”

..er.. I’m afraid you have no idea what you’re talking about and if your view is one shared by a significant number of the alleged ‘left-wingers’ on here then I really do fuckin despair…and I think you all need to take a good look at yourselves and decide just what the hell you think you’re all up to.
Is this view typical of the new left?…Jesus wept Sunny…what have you done to these people?

# Any blog that focused on unions would be mining a dated niche, as opposed to the rather more universal and current interest in human rights (which luckily includes worker rights).#

Surely the most bogus, transparently cynical and half-arsed political scam of recent years is the one whereby rather than actually spend or act upon anything, politicians just blithely grant us notional rights upon which they never deliver? You want rights, you demand them and take action…this requires solidarity..this requires the ability to organise and withdraw labour. The fact that this is now virtually a logistical and legal impossibility is what has destroyed the unions’ “presence in the public consciousness”..not a derisory minimum wage or a hypothetical set of ‘rights’.

(Also..you tend to mine ‘seams’..not niches…then again, how would you know?..it’s not like there’s any mines left…luckily the miners were granted the right to fuck off and find careers in the dynamic new enterprise economy)

Right..I’m really going this time..no..don’t try and stop me..we had a laugh, but it’s kinda run its course

Re: 17

I didn’t mean that I thought trades unions weren’t desirable in this day and age, and I’m sorry. I agree, there is a real need for a body to represent the needs of temporary contract workers (the single largest employment sector, yet with an invisible political presence) and I’m not sure any politician ever talks about call centre staff (who, by all accounts, have pretty much the most stressful jobs in the UK)

I meant to simply point out that society today seems to have consigned the concept of strong unions to history. A contemporary left blog making them a high priority (as in, given precedence over other topics) would seem anachronistic and eccentric. That’s just the way it is, not that I like it.

And yes, it should have been ‘mining a dated seam’, please forgive my garbled English.