There’s been an awful lot of misinformation around all parties. It’s at the stage where if you’re reading it from a source that isn’t the original group, it’s probably somewhere between exaggerated and completely fabricated. If you want to know the details of what Reform are proposing, only the policy papers will give you the full breakdown and that’s pretty much exactly the same for every political party. There’s so much media, whether it’s the traditional press turned Social Media click gatherers, these wonderful ‘somewhere’ Live sites that spread BS like it’s a new sport or the other parties editing video from their competitors in a way that Panorama would find inspirational.
What’s worse is that this isn’t just about ecological policies, as anyone who’s been watching events over the last month would know, the disabled communities are feeling that pain. Partially fueled by reviews of PIP and mostly by popularist statements that come from the same sources that spread BS about political parties. The recent changes to Motability are purely the consequence of a spineless government reacting to the formerly fake news from the various media outlets that have all built this story of disabled people driving their Mercedes and BMWs around for free whilst avoiding work from leaving school at 12.
If someone who was an educated adult from, say, 1950 was transported to now and given a while to catch up on all the technological changes, was then placed in front of the new version of the daily papers online, plus given the resources necessary to research and question what they read, it’d be carnage. They’d probably be convinced that the national intelligence had fallen off a cliff, that critical thinking that was a base requirement for becoming a graduate then has been obliterated or outlawed, with only a few hiding away in corners trying to point out the inconsistencies in these stories and still getting shot down by the masses.
Campaigning policies and processes changed in Britain somewhere around the Referendum for Brexit. Somehow, Boris and Nigel discovered that if they said whatever they thought would get them the votes they needed often enough and with sufficient conviction, they’d get the support they needed. What’s worse is that it worked. Statements that were walked away from within hours of the results (the £350m NHS bus claims, for only one example) were apparently believed to be facts because they were stated by people with vast amounts of self belief despite previous statements from the same people having been proven nonsense. Now we get declarations from the current government telling us we voted for change and they’re delivering it, or from opposition parties telling us just how they’d be doing everything so much differently. All the time ignoring the fact that nothing significant has changed for the better, that everything they’ve said before was proven rubbish and that anyone employing even the slightest smidgen of research might just see the contradictory facts. Take for example employment, how can the government of the day claim that employment has never been higher or unemployment lower, whilst the opposition are claiming employment has never been lower and unemployment increasing uncontrollably? The same with economics, there’s still the same opposing claims that at the last General Election the economy was the most improved in the G7 AND that the economy was amongst the worst of it’s rivals.
Once we accept those that are supposed to be trying to lead us can freely keep the truth at arms length, society has to be pretty much lost, does it not? We currently have a handful of political parties all telling a whole bunch of stories, why is anyone believing a word from any of them? If confidence in politics was low after BoJo’s messing around, surely it’s at rock bottom now?
I'm Autistic, if I say something you find offensive, please let me know, I can guarantee it was unintentional.
I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.
Mark