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This is a good paper worth reading from the LSE showing media bias against Corbyn. Of course readers here are well aware of this bias but it is good to see a properly researched paper
http://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/assets/documents/research/projects/corbyn/Cobyn-Report.pdfThank you SA for uploading this interesting piece. I think, however that newspaper bias against Jeremy Corbyn is very widely known in the country.
It was interesting to see that the Daily Express appears to be the worst offender and that the Daily Mail was comparatively benign.
As the research paper acknowledges this has been going on in this country for a very long time. People used to rely on the BBC for more balanced reporting, but I think it is fair to say that standards there too have fallen in recent years and that it is no longer the comparatively reliable mainstream media source that it once was.
Andy Anderson, the Democratic Socialist Federation Education officer and an agent for Labour for Independence, wrote an extensive report on “how the postal ballot was rigged” during the Scottish referendum. He said that: “We maintain that there must be an investigation into our claim of ballot rigging, because if we are right it undermines our democratic institutions, and if we are wrong and this can be demonstrated clearly, then it strengthens them. So the outcome of such an investigation is beneficial whatever the findings are.” But, here we are again, a full three years later, still unable to have any confidence in the integrity of our electoral system; when will this end?
Here is the data to judge for yourself whether the 2019 General Election result was valid or potentially a rigged vote: I believe the results totally defy logic and must at least be investigated.
House of Commons Data for General Election 2019: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8749 Full Data Breakdown
This paper will be updated with further analysis in 2020. Further election articles are available on the
Commons Library website. This includes a dashboard showing election results by constituency.
Download the full report General Election 2019: results and analysis ( PDF, 17.62 MB)
Supporting documents HoC-GE2019-results-by-candidate (Excel Spreadsheet, 512.18 KB)
HoC-GE2019-by-constituency (Excel Spreadsheet, 125.79 KB)Despite the cold and rain of winter, given the copious photographic evidence of unusually long lines of people waiting to cast their vote, perhaps the most incomprehensible piece of information presented was this:
“Turnout was 67.3%, down from 68.8% in 2017. The total registered electorate was 47.6 million, up from 46.8 million in 2017”. If the claimed low turnout in your area does not anyway near match your personal experience on the day or the photos you might have taken while waiting in line, please let us know as this is just one of many anomalies that must be taken seriously. There was a massive voter registration drive before both the 2017 election and prior to this latest election, so why were many eager to register, but disinclined to vote? This makes no sense.For comparison of relevant data results for the 2017 General Election:
https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7979
Download the full report General Election 2017: full results and analysis ( PDF, 15.19 MB)
Supporting documents Data file: detailed results by constituency (Excel Spreadsheet, 112.75 KB)
Data file: detailed results by candidate (Excel Spreadsheet, 519.81 KB)The private companies behind British elections are Civica, Democracy Counts and Idox, Idox having bought competitor Halarose for £5 million in 2017. All three major companies provide “electoral solutions” to local authorities, including registration and election management solution software. Idox count over 90% of UK local authorities as customers, providing a software database of all requested postal votes, training and providing staff to deal with the system. The company boasts control of the majority of elections across the UK and was given contracts across Scotland for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
According to Idox: “The Postal Vote Checking software.. [enables] Returning Officers to compare 100% of signatures and dates of birth on returned Postal Vote Statements with stored application forms… the software allows users to run their opening sessions at remote locations, even outside the council’s network infrastructure for ultimate flexibility” Idox
Given the fact that:
Idox is a subsidiary of an Oil & Gas Company unlikely to support a progressive “Green” agenda.
A clear conflict of interest due to the long-term involvement of Tory MP Peter Lilley as director.
The percentage of Postal Votes has doubled to 38% since the 2017 election.
This statement made by Idox would open up the potential for a massive breach of public trust in the integrity of our democracy. A lot of very important information us divulged on this website:
https://redrevolution.co.uk/2019/12/24/postal-votes-the-danger-of-industrial-scale-electoral-fraud/Like the staggering number of postal votes (38%) at the general election. There were equally alarming figures coming from the independence referendum, with postal vote turnouts of nearly 90% in Edinburgh and even over 96% in some areas. For a comparison, Electoral Commission data from the 2017 general election showed that 85.1% of postal electors used their postal vote.
In his extensive report on “how the postal ballot was rigged” during the Scottish referendum, Andy Anderson revealed: These allegations, the so-called “McTernan Plan”, suggest that once the ballots were initially opened the identification data would have been inputted into computer systems. By cross-referencing this data with held data on who had applied for a postal vote, a list of those who had not returned their ballots could be created, leading to the possibility of producing thousands of fake “genuine” votes. The theory would lend credence to reports that some voters were told they had “already voted” when arriving to cast their ballot.
If fake or substitute votes were introduced this would, by sheer volume of demand, require an automated process. The automation would help reduce those in the know to a minimum to eliminate the chance of exposure. I was told by the Electoral Commission that all of the ballot papers, as well as the “A” envelopes they were sealed in by the voter, are all retained for a year. The evidence is there for inspection, so that raises a number of questions:
1. Are ballot papers and the “A” envelopes stored by the Councils concerned or entrusted to Idox?
2. Under what circumstances can ballot papers and their envelopes be examined?
3. Who has the authority to order such an inspection?
4. Can this evidence be removed for forensic testing?It is important to identify which Councils are using the Idox vote management system, the total volume of postal voting packs they sent out and how many were validated for inclusion in the final count. From the General Election results data it should be possible to narrow down the number of constituencies where, due to inconsistencies and unexplained anomalies, the possibility of vote rigging is alleged to have taken place.
Those who are clamouring for IndiRef2 be warned, I would be the last to say you should be denied the right to self-determination. However, if it was rigged last time and nothing was done about it then what do you hope to accomplish by handing the Tories another opportunity to fabricate Scottish support for remaining in the union? The most urgent priority is to uncover the truth and make sure that all of our elections reflect the genuine votes of the people in future.
If you a wondering why I might be devoting my time to this post on Christmas Day, it’s because I am not celebrating: we have nothing but misery to look forward to under the potentially permanent Tory dictatorship that lies ahead. Three years on from the Scottish independence referendum many did not trust, followed by the Brexit fiasco and other dubious electoral results, complacency rules and nothing has changed. There is no time to procrastinate because this might be the very last chance to rescue our democracy.
Kim,
I’ve tracked down dozens of polling station workers via Facebook, have expressed my concerns, and I had 3 people from geographically distant constituencies willing to talk, and all for the same basic reason; they could not reconcile the result with their deep knowledge of their specific constituency ward, what they saw and heard on the day, and the ‘result’. On the same day, and within the space of an hour, all 3 had blocked me.
In terms of how this was rigged, the only practical method is false tabulation. This is something the postal voting system is totally exposed to, and only requires dishonesty on the part of a relatively small group of people. So 5k postal votes for the Labour candidate are instead attributed to the Conservative candidate. When you’ve misattributed as many votes as you can feasibly get away with, you then simply start discounting votes for the Labour candidate (hence the unfathomably low turnout)
Here’s something to be known. Now the election is over, we find out that internal Conservative party polling had the election as a tie (within the margin of error, and whose favour that margin was in is not stated). Interesting then, that despite the polling fiasco od 2017, (or perhaps an aborted electoral fix, more on this another time) the MSM spent the entire campaign beating Labour over the head with every poll that came out, as if it was the actual result. I’ve never seen a general election, even before polling became so unreliable, where opinion polls have been so front and centre, so much discussed, and so much used to sell the reality of a result before a vote (postal or otherwise) had been cast.
Even if irrefutable proof of massive postal vote fraud could be provided, the MSM aren’t going to touch this, there exists no legal mechanism to overturns the result, and anyone who tried to take it to the courts, would likely find themselves sharing a cell with Assange.
Greg Palast has been pursuing election fraud in the US since George Bush junior won the 2000 election I think.
https://www.gregpalast.com/we-have-mortally-wounded-jim-crow-program/
What we need in this country is someone like him to look at various mechanisms by which this is done. Interestingly he is setting something up with The Guardian to look at US election fraud but of course I doubt that the Guardian would be interested in this in U.K. for reasons that will be known here.Ross – “In terms of how this was rigged…” Are you suggesting that rigging is accomplished at the count itself? This would surly involve the Returning Officer’s compliance, but it would be out of the control of Idox and haphazard at best. I think that the system used would need to be far more predictable than that, accomplished at an earlier point within Idox controlled facilities and done to fulfil a precise substitute order for each constituency. Once the ballot boxes reach the count postal votes are mixed in with boxes from polling stations so they are not tallied separately.
What I have been told so far is that the outer envelope containing a postal vote is opened and subjected to a verification process to insure the signature and date of birth match those kept on record. There are rumours of large numbers being rejected at this stage, but the inner “A” envelope containing the ballot is the real prize. The “A” envelops carry a number with a matching number on the ballot itself. These envelops are opened in batches at opening sessions where candidate representatives and observers may attend, but ballot papers are kept face down and not meant to be seen or counted.
My question to the Electoral Commission, the one that has remained unanswered, where and under whose protection are the unopened ballot envelopes stored until a batch is ready for opening? If they remain under Idox control during this period then it would be quite simple for a duplicate batch of “A” envelopes to be printed up and substituted for the originals before the opening session. Due to the volume needed and to keep knowledge of the fix to a minimum this would have to be an automated process, from envelope to inserting completed ballot paper and sealed it closed.
The opening sessions are where the illegally obtained information regarding results has allegedly been seen and leaked to the media on a number of occasions. I think that is the excuse given, but the real data comes from knowing how many rigged ballot papers were substituted for the genuine votes cast. At the opening session the ballot papers are put into a ballot box for delivering to the count; these boxes are supposed to be sealed. Candidates or their representatives are able to add an additional seal to the ballot box so they it is harder to tamper with the ballots after this stage.
The counted ballots are then stored for one year, not sure where. If it were legally possible to gain access and have investigators remove suspect ballots for testing there are ways to potentially differentiate between the polling station ballots and the ballots from postal votes. When you receive a postal vote you must enter your signature and date of birth; after that it is natural to mark the ballot paper using the same pen. At the polling station a pencil is provided for marking the ballot. The substitute ballots would probably be X marked in ink as part of the automated process. I presume variations would need to be introduced to reduce suspicion, but they might think no one will notice so why bother.
Once the postal votes are separated out there are further tests that could identify automation rather than the individual handling of a voter. A significant number of fake ballots in any batch of ballots cast would, or certainly should, invalidate the vote. This must have been organized on an industrial scale to produce the sheer volume of incomprehensible results that were announced a minute after 10 PM supposedly based on exit polls; the announcement itself aroused suspicion. The task now is to analyse the data to determine which results look the most suspect.
In the past, cases of voter fraud might not have overturned a vote, but if this was a nationwide fiddle that affected multiple constituencies to put the wrong government in place I think there is a really strong case. The exposure of this rigged election would make previous votes involving the same company equally suspect including the EU and the Scottish Referendums. Since right now we are still a member of the EU, we have recourse to the European Court of Justice as our rights as RU Citizens have been violated. It would delegitimize the government and force another election. Idox could be barred from handling the new vote and independent foreign observers could be called in to oversee a rerun election. We can but dream…
No, I too think the fix would have been done at IDOX controlled facilities. All I mean by false tabulation is that they have not simply created lots of postal votes under false names, rather misattributed and disregarded actual votes to favour Conservative candidates.
I have discovered this Website covering police protocols for investigating cases of alleged electoral fraud.
https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/policing-elections/investigating-electoral-malpractice/https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/policing-elections/core-principles-and-legislation/
This link goes to a page that includes the most relevant information printed below re our recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. The UK still has access to the protections of the Human Rights Act while we remain a member of the EU and I think also throughout the transition period. After that the Tories intend to gut the act to restrict our recourse to justice; we need to act fast.“The use of all police powers must be considered in accordance with the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). This requires all public authorities, including the police, to act in a way that is compatible with the rights set out in Schedule 1 to the Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) into domestic law.
The following Articles are of particular relevance to policing elections:
• Article 3 of Protocol 1 (under which states undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature)”“The ECHR places both negative and positive duties on the police. With regard to each of the Articles listed above, there exists a ‘negative’ obligation which requires the police to refrain from interference with the rights in question. In addition, in certain cases positive duties are also imposed on the state. This is the case with regard to Article 3 Protocol 1 under which there exists an obligation to hold free elections, and Article 11 under which there exists a positive duty to secure the effective enjoyment of the rights of assembly and association, such as peaceful canvassing and assembly at or near polling stations.”
The last item on the main page includes the following statement:
“……Hearsay alone will not be sufficient to start an investigation.
A robust approach should be taken when dealing with unsupported allegations. This will avoid wasting resources on investigating allegations that will never result in a prosecution.”Ross – This statement above has relevance to any of the contacts you tried to establish on Facebook. If they directly witnessed an illegal activity taking place they should make a sworn statement to police. If they reported anecdotally about concerns they had that the final result did not match the generalized evidence they witnessed on the night, that is on far shakier ground as it is essentialy hearsay.
Despite the suspicious Facebook blocking, the most important piece of information right now is just a documentation of all the constituencies they represent. If there is a strong pattern of complaints across the entire country matched by a truly incomprehensible result then there is a starting point of places where an investigative journalist could dig for hard evidence. I doubt that there was any attempt to tamper with votes in the safe seats like mine, where the Brexit question was not a relevant factor. This would arouse too much suspicion that could not be justified by BBC or other media propaganda.
There is no question that the exceptionally high level of biased coverage was used to prepare the public to accept the result without question. We need to get one of the respected Universities who have already done studies on media bias to do an analysis of the BBC output during the election period. There are rules governing equal and fair presentation during this critical period and they were substantially violated to bolster the Tory spin supporting a landslide victory. One of the BBC reporters broke the law by revealing vote tallies prior to the polls closing and there were several incidents written of as “mistakes.” The total BBC bias picture is very damaging and by itself calls into question the legitimacy of this government. WE need to work on both fronts.
SA – Re Greg Palast: While he is an excellent investigative journalist, he is based on the far side of the US. I looked at recent postings on his Website which strongly suggest that he has already accepted our 2019 General Election result as legitimate and supports Boris’s plans for Brexit. It might be hard to get him onside if his mind is well and truly made up.
Palast also wrote that in his view “Corbyn has zero integrity” due to the claims of a serious threat to our NHS taken from the evidence he freely distributed to the press. While this set of documents supporting this concerns may have strongly implied danger rather than setting out solid documentation of a transaction was available for members of the press to judge for themselves. Stating a well-founded opinion is hardly a breach of integrity. I believe Palast’s opinion on this is heavily outweighed by John Pilger’s recently released film exposing the vulnerability of our NHS.
I do not know how Greg Palast could possibly believe that the lying, cheating, racist, misogynist scoundrel that has just taken office has the slightest scintilla of integrity. Boris has been caught out lying over and over again; does that make him a shining example of integrity: I think not. We know Boris’s track record of evaporating pledges and rapidly broken promises, definitely not a man of integrity. Palast is welcome to his misguided opinion, but he is not much help to us the other side of the pond.
John Pilger is passionate about the injustice suffered by Julian Assange and for good reason. However, with this election outcome the long tunnel just got a whole lot darker for Julian and the cause of protecting the free press. Of course that does not mean Pilger should feel obliged to wade in to try and overturn the election without solid evidence to support a case. However, he is a very well respected investigative journalist, so if anyone can uncover the truth it is him.
Thank you
I did not know that about Palast. Come to think of it this could be an interesting link because of the Guardian connection with security services and the same ones that also pushed the Russiagate narrative,
It is very good of you to pursue this. I for one was amazed by the extent of the landslide, the lower turnout than 2017 despite all the increased registration and the reports of long queues at polling stations.Perhaps Palast is not particularly anti Corbyn, he is far too smart to be totally taken in by Boris’s shallow waffling, but I doubt he would get involved here in the UK at this time. He will be totally absorbed in trying to insure that the massive problems in the American electoral system are fully exposed and corrected before the 2020 Presidential election. As someone with family in the States, and the right to cast a vote in the US election, I would not want to drag him away from that important task. That still leaves us in desperate need of a well respected investigative journalist.
You won’t be hearing much about this on the BBC
Ross – Your link doesn’t work. Sorry for my double post, I was trying to correct a misspelling of Corbyn’s name. [ Mod: Fixed. ]
I was just reviewing the pre Election post, “The Largest Vote Swings in British General Election History Censored Out By the BBC and Mainstream Media.”
The focus of Craig’s hopeful post was on the disgraceful media bias trying to convince us all that there would be huge Labour losses but that the Tories would prevail unscathed. As he pointed out YouGov generally over compensate in favour of the Tories. This was the last really big Multilevel Regression and Post-stratification (MRP) model YouGov poll done prior to the vote. Despite the relentless propaganda spewed by the BBC and MSM, to discredit Labour and shore up the Tories, as he said the polls were already starting to narrow and Boris was having a very bad final week full of shamefully embarrassing gaffes.Craig focused on a number of constituencies where YouGov had predicted a shift in votes; some were more significant than others. He identified Dudley North, Ian Austin’s seat as a place with a predicted swing from Labour to Tory of 4.9% according to a YouGov poll. Ian Austin was an oafish right leaning Labour candidate who was reprimanded on several occasions for heckling plus he was issued a caution by the Labour NEC. He attempted to distract from his own bad behaviour by joining the chorus of Tories defaming Jeremy Corbyn and then urging voters to support the Tories. While this was lapped up by the press a lot of Labour supporters were really glad to be rid of Austin and were ready to vote for the new candidate, Melanie Dudley. The result on polling day should potentially have seen less of a shift to the Tory candidate, but instead of YouGov’s predicted 4.9% it was a whopping 17% swing!
Craig then focused on Wokingham which he described as being “In safe Tory Berkshire, close to Johnson’s own Uxbridge constituency, John Redwood the MP for a generation…” was under serious challenge. He went on to reveal that: “YouGov shows a swing from Tory to LibDem in Wokingham of 20.35%. Let me say that again, 20.35% swing from Tory to Lib Dem. That is one of the biggest swings in general election history (excluding freak circumstances like brand new parties)” he emphasised. Redwood went into the election with a sizable Tory majority but, he was a core ERG supporter of hard Brexit and his pro Remain constituents were flocking to the LibDems. He must have been reassured by the team that it would be all right on the night: although he did take a 20% hit it was a far more modest loss of 7%.
Craig noted that in Grimsby the swing measured by YouGov from Labour to Conservative was 3.6% but, on Election Day it was far greater, over twice that at 13%! Pro Brexit Grimsby is a major fishing port where the electorate have a legitimate concern with the EU over the fishing policy. The Melanie Onn scandal did not help and turnout was really low, but does it justify the YouGov poll being that far off?
In contrast Craig highlighted: “Putney has the same swing as Grimsby, with Labour expected by YouGov to take the seat from the Tories on a swing of 3.5%.” Closer to prediction there was a 4% swing on polling day but, was a far more significant shift stymied by an unexpected increase in voter turnout from a healthy 72.1% in 2017 to 77% turnout in 2019. It took a 5% increase in turnout in a remain backing London constituency to achieve the solitary Labour gain of the 2019 General Election.
In Esher and Walton, another core supporter of hard Brexit was under siege from the pro Remain LibDem candidate. This threat did make the news as Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was at risk of losing his seat. Craig noted that in the same YouGov poll they measured “a 19.6% swing from Tory to Lib Dem in voting intention and only another 1% swing needed to get rid of Raab.” At the close of polling Raab was able to do better with half that loss suffering a swing of 9%. This was also one of the areas where there was an admitted increase in turnout from 73.9% to a healthy 77.7%. I say “admitted” because overall the turnout was claimed to have been lower than in 2017 despite numerous pictures of young people waiting in exceptionally long lines to vote.
I believe that the Tories calculated as precisely as possible exactly how many votes per target constituency they would need in order to take as many seats as was feasible. This based on the most accurate polling data that they would have had to commission privately and keep under wraps. Somewhere there must exist a computer file containing all of the directions for Idox to print the required number of substitute ballot envelopes. This data master plan would be absolutely necessary to crunch the numbers for obtaining the desired result without arousing too much suspicion. Beyond that the Tories could rely on the BBC and compliant right wing media to manipulate public expectations in anticipation of their doctored result.
This information must be stored on a file probably on more than one computer. We need a whistleblower to leak that file to the media and present it to police. At least one copy must have been sent to Idox to initiate the printing instructions. I would bet the Dom’s laptop is worth seizing in a number 10 raid! Fat chance of that, but nab that file and you expose the full extent of this rigged election.
I don’t Twitter or Tweet etc, but I think it might be worth enlisting the help of one or both of these women: The first is Jennifer Cohn.
Jennifer Cohn @jennycohn1 Election security advocate & writer; attorney; Contributor @WhoWhatWhy, @NYRDaily #HandMarkedPaperBallots #ProtectOurVotes ? Dec. 23, 2019 3 min read
https://threader.app/thread/1208934955813720064“Jennifer Cohn is an election integrity advocate and writer whose articles on election security have been published in the New York Review of Books, WhoWhatWhy, Salon and TYT Investigates. She is also an attorney who practiced insurance coverage and appellate for many years as a partner with Nielsen, Haley & Abbott LLP in California. Since the 2016 election, she has focused her efforts on investigating insecure computerized election systems and promoting potential solutions. She has about 100,000 followers on Twitter, where her account serves as a blog providing daily updates and commentary on election-security developments throughout the country. Her Twitter handle is @jennycohn1.
Cohn is a recognized authority in the electoral security field with a global knowledge base on the subject; she appears to be based in the US.
Most Western democracies flee voting machines. Dec 31, 2017
By Jennifer Cohn @jennycohn1 January 21, 2018The second lady, StillDelving Haylee, is closer to home based in France. We should try to contact her and encourage her to keep delving. She has a Go Fund Me page trying to raise money to support her ongoing research, I have not included the link as I was not sure that would be appropriate. Here are a couple of things Haylee has uncovered:
Facts Central @StillDelvingH “I realise I’ve not provided the link where the Elec Com says it does not supervise Idox, nor has the slightest idea of the extent of the electoral services it provides to the country. So here https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/idox_and_the_eu_referendum …
+wouldn’t say who ended up making result collation software?”Her potential solution for securing the vote is worth noting:
“17/ It does not apparently publish the polling station totals so that the public can confirm that they add up to the aggregated total reported by the vote collation software.
All it takes is publishing every single poll station’s results so anyone can add them up to check the accuracy of the total. We have that in France (all poll station results available to everyone).Election transparency is fine.
Come on @ElectoralCommUK prove me wrong https://twitter.com/StillDelvingH”Does someone want to get Twittering and Tweeting or whatever it takes?
I didn’t vote, and unlike the Scottish Referendum (which I think was bent), and BREXIT, (which I thought was bent – but not bent enough cos of the “death” of Jo Cox). I thought the result of the recent General Election was legitimate (accepting that the anti-Corbyn propaganda, by The BBC and all the media – was totally outrageous).
However, I am now not so sure. The postal voting figures, are almost unbelievable in volume, and postal voting is wide open to corruption, as documented by Craig Murray, many years ago in Blackburn, when if memory serves me right, he stood as a candidate in Jack Straw’s seat.
Just look at the state of these figures
“Postal votes – We found 38% saying they had voted by post. The Conservatives won 48% of postal votes, with 29% going to Labour and 13% to the Lib Dems. 41% of Conservative and Lib Dem voters voted by post, compared to 34% of Labour and 33% of SNP voters:”
Postal voting needs to be restricted to very special cases, far less than 5% of the population, and even then, very closely monitored, by independent objective honest people, as it is so wide open to corruption.
Tony
I am concerned that far too many people have been, and continue to be, totally sucked in by the relentless BBC and MSM propaganda. In what warped spin cycle did it become normal to obsess over the failings of the losing party with such scant focus on any potentially positive aspects of the winning team? It is clear that these right leaning news outlets still feel there is an ongoing need pump out more slurs as they desperately try to sell the believability of this incredulous result.
To help justify an investigation into how this General Election, and possibly other votes in the past were rigged, we need to fight back with an evidenced based campaign to discredit their false narrative. What does unpopular look like? There were pictures taken at venues all over the UK at rallies that drew massive crowds singing “Oh Jeremy Corbyn.” Some of these “secret” rallies were in places where the alleged radical swing to the Tories took place: we need this evidence. Contrast Corbyn’s open public engagements with the only available PR shots of Boris confined to his carefully vetted silo events and his rapid escapes from angry public interventions.
What does lower turnout look like? A lot of people took pictures of the exceptionally long lines of people waiting in the bitterly cold weather to vote. The demographic of many of those waiting patiently in line was of a younger crowd who according to statistics are more likely to vote Labour. Do these images support the claim of a lower turnout than in 2017 in your constituency? Do these pictures of predominantly younger voters match the exit poll claims or render them not really at all credible? Can these pictures be compared constituency by constituency with the incomprehensible claims of reduced turnout?
We must focus on all three credible lines of attack:
1. Matching the hard evidence data produced by each constituency and evaluating the credibility of the postal vote contribution to the final tally.
2. Exposing the deliberate suppression of powerful evidence of universally strong Corbyn support and popularity throughout the UK even in Brexit supporting areas.
3. Demanding an immediate investigation into BBC bias and the dramatic impartiality breaches in addition to admitted “mistakes” and the criminal conduct of Laura Kuennsberg.There must be people out there that are fully aware of all the facts, possibly scared into silence and too afraid to step forward and expose the truth. Never has your courage and honesty been more important to this beleaguered nation. We all face a very bleak future if you maintain your silence; please help us to expose the truth.
It is important for us to be focused on the main issues of how to get labour back into power. The first step is to accept that labour was defeated and to start to honestly analyse the cause of this defeat. I found this analysis very useful although I do not endorse the conclusion regarding succession.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/17/letter-from-britain-why-labour-lost/
The problems about doggedly pursuing the line that the elections were stolen as the main activity in this critical stage is that it never really works. The electorate does not like bad losers who blame others for their shortcomings. The scale of the loss makes minor tinkering very unlikely as explaining the results. The regional variations also makes tinkering with postal votes less likely as presumably postal votes were cast in areas that labour held as well as those that were lost.
My feelings about priorities at this stage is as follows;
1. An honest analysis of why labour lost along the lines of the above article. I have my own list.
2. Argue vehemently against those that are trying to blame Corbyn alone for this loss. This includes the so called centrists within the Labour Party as well as their cheerleaders in the BBC and press.
3.stress that the level of defeat is not as bad as made out, again using arguments set in the above link. Labour’s share in the vote is still better than that under Brown and Milliband. It is the collapse of the LibDems in this FPTP system that leads to this distorted ‘landslides’.
4. The next major battle is that for the next leader. Sadly I do not find anyone suggested so far as being of sufficient calibre to really shake the party. We need someone honest to emerge from within a party. We will need a solid apparatchik who can skilfully play the parliamentary system perhaps to pave the way. My favourite still remains Starmer mainly for pragmatic reasons. RLB may be a future leader but she is not currently experienced enough.And Kim, I am in no way trying to say that it is not important to pursue the process to ensure the integrity of elections especially when there will be increased reliance on IT run by commercial firms. That is an extremely important issue but it should not distract us from the difficult and urgent tasks.
On this topic, many years ago while canvassing locally and perusing the voting register I noted several addresses in the ward that had a significant number of postal votes; in some cases twenty or more. On asking the agent were these houses in multiple occupation, (HMOs) he glanced over and said, that, no, these were care homes.
‘Do they all, vote? I mean, even those with dementia and Alzheimers?’
He didn’t know.
‘Were any checks made to see if everyone was still living? This list could have been drawn up a year or more ago.’
He didn’t know that either. The Marked Register (those who had actually voted) wouldn’t be available for months, and we would have to pay for it, and frankly we couldn’t afford it. It would be well out of date by the next election anyway.Second revelation was knocking on doors and finding that scores of houses which were supposedly single occupancy, – benefitting from a reduced community charge – had several occupants, sometimes many.
Typical conversation would start with me smiling and a greeting. ‘Good afternoon, are you Mr. Jones?’ This was often met with a puzzled denial followed by a short confab with other occupants. I would be told Mr. Jones was unknown, didn’t live there or he was the landlord. So none of those who lived there were on the register and the one individual who was on the register didn’t. In local elections which are won or lost a few votes I saw enough of that to question the integrity of the so called democratic system.This sort of thing, with variations, happened so frequently that when I learned the then most recent census reported there were fewer residents than the previous decade, I was incredulous and raised it at various political meetings. No one was interested, yet it was on the basis of census returns that the government allocated resources.
It is absolutely delusional to believe that if we accept this potentially corrupt result there will be another “fair” opportunity in five years time to vote this government out. Abolishing the Fixed Term Parliament Act was a clear priority in a Tory manifesto designed to install dictatorship. Stripping powers from the Judiciary so that they can no longer “interfere” to reign in Boris’s rogue Tory Government was another top priority. After that our supreme leader is above the law, he can prorogue parliament whenever he wants, for as long as he wants.
This time around the determination of who would be allowed to take which seat had to at least preserve a modicum of believability solidified by BBC propaganda and the warped Tory media. It would cause immediate suspicion if the vote was rigged in a safe Labour constituency like mine, plus our council does not outsource vote handling to IDOX so we were left unscathed. Boundary changes, voter ID restrictions and absolute control of propaganda will secure the final push to remove all opposition next time we vote.
“It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.” (Joseph Stalin) ixQuotes.
In any future purely cosmetic elections I don’t doubt for an instant that the Tories will force all parts of the UK to use the insecure, unreliable electronic voting machines that are so easy to rig. We know these machines are corrupting the voting system right across America our new partner in crime. With a huge majority in the commons and all of the Tory MPs sworn to vote in unison who could possibly stop them?
Jennifer Cohn is a recognized authority on electoral fraud, an election security advocate, writer and attorney. Her article on the dubious use of voting machines entitled: “Most Western democracies flee voting machines,” is well worth a read. Sadly, unlike most Western democracies, the UK still uses a thoroughly undemocratic First Past the Post voting system where most people’s vote simply doesn’t count at all.
While not all challenges will ultimately prove valid, the necessity to make such challenges strengthens the most robust defence of truth and justice. Challenging our electoral process where we identify any perceived weaknesses can only help to eliminate the potential for future errors and points of manipulation that may or may not have been taken advantage of in this or previous elections. There have been significant suspicions in past elections and referendums, but each time we bow out gracefully despite the known harm it will cause.
According to the Electoral Commission there should be no party political conflicts of interest among employees at any company handling the vote, but Tory MP Peter Lilley remained a director of IDOX for years and is still a major share holder. We now have most constituencies in the entire UK using the IDOX “Postal Vote Managed Service” and our official public watchdog has no oversight whatsoever over this. Despite a YouTube video touting the comprehensive service IDOX provides, the Electoral Commission denied that the postal votes are checked and sorted by IDOX and they would not even provide a list of which Councils outsource vote management to IDOX.
Prior knowledge of results leaked to the media is a frequently repeated crime that is still consistently ignored with impunity. At what point do you say I am sick of being cheated and lied to? These concerns are legitimate. To suggest that it is far more important to avoid the possibility of being ridiculed as a sore loser than to defend our right to electoral integrity and a fully democratically elected government is horribly defeatist. Unfortunately, to try to write off this legitimate area of questioning is to defend those who might seek an opportunity to try to commit fraud. What you are really claiming is that any degree of corruption will be acceptable to you because, for reasons of saving face, it must never be investigated.
A healthy degree of scepticism is our ultimate protection from future fraud and manipulation of our democratic mandate. If my suspicions are proven dead wrong, well great, we can move forward with renewed confidence in our electoral process. However, when doubts linger under the surface, due to truly incredulous results, they just serve to undermine public trust and belief in our democracy.
Everything is being done to erode our trust and disenfranchise vast swaths of the population; it is our duty to challenge any and all questionable results. This is especially vital when our election results are produced via a company with a significant vested interest in manipulating the vote! How much more corrupt do you want to encourage our electoral process to become? We need to draw a line in the sand now, before it is too late.
Other angles to pursue
https://www.financeuncovered.org/investigations/ehud-sheleg-tory-treasurer-halcyon-gallery-ran-sheleg-binary-options-binary-affiliates/
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/ehud-sheleg-tel-aviv-born-tory-treasurer-surprised-by-knighthood-1.488499
http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Donations/C0414564
Now working on the following. Foreign interference with British politics. There are many strands to this
MPS and Lords with dual citizenships
Foreign money Russian, Israeli, American influence in our elections
Spy agencies influence
The Press and its ownership not just by the billionaires but by the spy agencies.The most recent articles you have identified make valid points that contribute to the injustice of a vote bought and paid for by the wealthy. I am not an expert on financial matters; obviously there are many areas where corruption can warp our politics with the infusion of vast sums of money. These avenues of questioning over funding and foreign interference are well worth investigating, so I hope you will stay on the case and not give up.
I do respect other points of view in an attempt to make sense of this shocking result, so I did read the article you directed me to “Letter from Britain, why Labour lost.” Overall I thought the piece was a good analysis right on the money in many respects but, as hard as I try, I still can’t get my head around the part that justifies Brexit reasoning. “This points to the underlying explanation for Labour’s debacle, which was Labour’s impossibly over-complicated Brexit policy.”
First of all, despite all the attempts to make the Labour offer sound incredibly complex, in reality it was amazingly fair, pragmatic and ridiculously simple. It lays out a clear roadmap for success that should have been adopted before the 2016 referendum, working through all of the complex issues ahead of the referendum so that at decision time the public actually know what they are voting for. Last time there was absolutely no planning regarding how to carry out Brexit; it was just a nebulous pipe dream, heavily reliant on lies and bigotry, that the architects of this disaster were incapable of managing after their shock winning vote.
The “will of the people” mantra, enshrined for all time as an immovable obstacle to rational thinking and considered review of the damaging consequences, has endured as a form of morally bankrupt coercion. The 2016 vote has been used as a stick to beat dissenters into submission despite recent surveys that, on reflection, indicate public sentiment has changed. A confirmatory referendum with proper restrictions on campaign spending, elimination of outside or foreign influences and heavy penalties for lying to the public would have provided a legitimate defining decision representing the genuine public sentiment of a well informed majority.
Corbyn’s neutrality as an honest broker was an honourable decision that in hindsight should have been adopted by other Labour MPs, but it was hard to articulate anything given the overwhelming media propaganda on this issue. We should not be considered mindless automatons, led by the nose and absolutely dependant on the opinion of a select few MPs. How any one person casts their personal vote is completely immaterial if you firmly believe in a democracy where every single vote counts.
One can only consider expanding the voting franchise to be “unfair rigging” if you honestly believe it was fair to exclude certain key groups in the first vote, which clearly it was not. Lowering the voting age to sixteen merely recognizes all those young people who will be forced to live with the consequences of the EU referendum for the longest period of time. These young people will have seen all the tantalizing options for their future within the EU fade, replaced by the strong probability of a recession and endlessly prolonged austerity. How fair was it to exclude this key demographic in the first place?
EU citizens, many of whom who have lived, worked and contributed to our thriving economy here for years, in some cases decades, should have had the right to decide on a referendum question that would disproportionately impact their lives in particular. Interesting this interpretation of “rigging” is expressed by an American writer who should remember his own nation’s history; the reason for the Boston Tea Party was: “taxation without representation!” Many of these European workers have helped keep our NHS and other essential services running and we will be rewarding them by shattering their lives and tearing families apart just as May did with the Windrush generation. Is that really fair?
I note that the Tory manifesto once again makes the same empty promise of allowing those living abroad to retain their right to vote beyond the current fifteen year limit. I have no doubt this will be the first promise jettisoned by Boris, but if the Tories had kept to their word and honoured their 2015 manifesto pledge last time, this group would not have been excluded in the 2016 referendum. How fair was it for the Tories to renege on this manifesto promise? In reality it was the initial referendum that was seriously rigged including a House of Commons vote on an “advisory referendum” on such a major issue, with only a 50% threshold, that was then deceitfully offered as a binding vote.
“Unsurprisingly, pro-Brexit working-class voters in northern England and in the English Midlands, presented with a proposal like this, turned their backs on Labour, and voted for the Conservatives instead.” Certainly messaging was heavily distorted by the pro Tory propaganda machine; all of these important points could have been presented a lot more clearly if the BBC had not forced every Labour interview down the fake anti-Semitism cul-de-sac. However, despite these challenges the claimed reasoning for the recent Tory “landslide” still does not stack up.
I have digressed somewhat from the issue of what in the results of this recent election still cannot be explained by the apparent conversion of Labour working class voters to support the cause. This was the Tory party responsible for inflicting, what we now publically acknowledge was, unnecessary suffering due austerity cuts, neglect and abandonment that impoverished and destroyed their communities. Although this was well and truly beyond unforgivable, we are expected to believe it was heartily rewarded with overwhelming support because the most important item on the agenda was Brexit. Brexit at any cost, ignoring the consequences and placing trust in a party that had exploited them for decades; I just don’t buy it.
In the article it states that: “By contrast pension-age voters, many of whom would have voted Labour in their youth and who would once have held working-class jobs in Britain’s now closed coal mines and factories, now vote overwhelmingly Conservative. In the general election that just took place 62 percent of pensioners voted Conservative, as opposed to just 18 percent who voted Labour.” Many of these pensioners would have used a postal vote handled by the IDOX Postal Vote Managed Service. Their apparent conversion to the Tory Party was easily manipulated to match their dedication to Brexit as stated: “This almost exactly correlates to the 60 percent of pensioners who voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.”
However this correlation, although at first glance believable, falls apart under logical scrutiny. The now retired parents of today’s workforce, while more secure personally, will still have issues with the rabid Tory agenda they have endured for the last decade. Along with the public in general they might no longer be under the obscure illusion that Brexit will magically solve all their problems. Among their OAP ranks are a large number of the WASPI women who started work at or before turning 16 and suffered years of pay inequality only to be cheated out of years of retirement. Support their cause or not, they would still have represented a significant factor even if they doubted the extent of Labour’s offer to compensate them.
Retirees would still have had to consider who could be trusted with our precious NHS at a point where they will increasingly be reliant on healthcare services. Some will even remember a time before a Labour government introduced the concept of free access to healthcare. The Tories disgraceful track record of neglect, underfunding and accelerated privatization is an undeniable fact. Pensioners would have considered their future access to personal care as well as treasured facilities like the public libraries and other public facilities closed during Tory cuts. The only Tory salve on offer was an easily abandoned or compromised pledge to start undoing the severe damage inflicted on UK communities through a decade of ideologically driven austerity. To say that such a dubious promise was worth all the risk for the already debunked illucive “benefits” of Brexit is totally irrational.
Beyond their own personal needs most of these OAP’s will have children, grandchildren and friends who are being severely impacted by the swinging cuts of austerity. Many will know of disabled people demonized by this government and forced to endure the uncertainty and torment of constant unfair assessments of their ability to carry on working; some will have died trying. They will have witnessed the retched impact of alcohol and drug addiction on members of their own family driven to desperation over paying ever rising rent, bills and expenses while dealing with the insecurity of zero hour contract work; some will have ended up on the street or taken their own life.
These working class pensioners will have grandchildren failing in crumbling schools with bulging classes, few supplies and dismal prospects for the future. They will have their own children using food banks and constantly begging them for money because they can’t make ends meet despite working fulltime jobs. They will have daughters who have been forced to move back home after an eviction who are now sharing their cramped childhood bedroom with their own brood of kids. They cannot simply right off the appalling impact of the Tory Universal Credit scheme driving people into poverty and destitution, because to do so would be to ignore their own kith and kin.
How could these vulnerable working class voters have been duped into believing that Boris and his group lying Tory millionaires would halt their needless exploitation of the poor and be more inclined to respect their interests after years of unspeakable cruelty and deception? Why, when Corbyn offered the potential of an end to the decimation of abandoned Northern communities, reversing privatization, halting austerity and Universal Credit, with a Green New Deal for jobs and investment would they vote Tory? In addition to all of this if a Labour Brexit deal would prioritize safety standards, the environment, and above all, their welfare and hard won rights at work, why would working class voters risk more poverty, inequality and injustice?
Even if Labour only followed through with a fraction of their ambitious promises their fully costed manifesto was a lot more believable and inspiring than the proven track record of Tory deception and instant campaign promise retractions. The article claims that this confidence trick came down to Brexit but, no nostalgic desire for the past can overcome the brutal realities of the here and now; the undeniable evidence that under the Tories there will never be a genuine intention to relieve the plight of the underprivileged. Despite her determination to persecute the vulnerable under the hostile environment and being caught out over the Windrush scandal, Theresa May made the exact same warm pledges to help the “Just About Managing.” Later, under pressure from Corbyn, she claimed that austerity was over but, in her own words, “nothing has changed!”
“Why Then Did Labour Lose? The short and unavoidable answer — and one which is gradually gaining acceptance, despite continued denials from some quarters — is because of Labour’s stance on Brexit.” The article claims: “It is not a coincidence that these regions voted heavily for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.” This well hyped myth has not gained my acceptance as I try to expose the truth. No, this illusion is part and parcel of a fabricated tissue of lies constantly being fed to us via the BBC and print media to try make their narrative fit the contrived numbers of this rigged election.
Place greater faith in human nature and do not readily accept fanciful nostalgia, isolationist bigotry and incomprehensible gullibility. The Brexit supporting Northerners really are caring people, not so selfish that they voted for their children to suffer destitution and their grandchildren to starve due to their ignorance. I believe that these pensioners postal votes were deceitfully stolen to bring this hard right government to power and maintain neoliberal inequality. The exploited working class voters, both young and old, have a lot more common sense than the media give them credit for. I remain convinced that this election was rigged.
The BBC are still trying to hide the alleged criminality of their reporter Laura Kuennsberg revealing postal vote election results prior to the poles closing. The Politics Live broadcast containing that crucial segment is discreetly unavailable on iplayer; I wonder why? It is viewable courtesy of the many people who captured it and posted it online as well as through the alternative news websites trying to hold the BBC to account for Laura’s conduct like Skwawkbox. The Electoral Commission say this has been handed over to the police, but we cannot allow them to simply abdicate responsibility for this compliance issue; it was an obvious breach that violated the law.
Also reported on by Skwawkbox in this post was the following damaging information regarding the handling and mishandling of postal votes:
“Since the election, Royal Mail workers have claimed to have seen ‘huge’ racks of postal votes standing undelivered on polling day in at least one major sorting office, while two of the companies contracted to run the postal vote process were dissolved shortly after the count.” I am not sure why Skwawkbox did not identify the names of the two companies in question but, it would certainly be worth finding out.Obviously this needs investigating further and we must keep putting pressure on the Electoral Commission to determine if there were missing votes. I still have had no reply from them on what happened to past cases concerning illegal pre close of poling results leaked to the public. Why have a law to prevent disclosure of this sensitive information if it is regularly breached with impunity? There have also been investigations and inquiries over postal vote irregularaties in the past, but you never hear of any conclusion being drawn let alone people charged.
Does the Electoral Commission just rely on keeping quiet letting time and distance from the election make inconvenient voting crimes and rigging allegations go away? We cannot let them get away with that tactic; we cannot afford to give up this time. Keep trying to uncover the truth or it will not be a happy New Year or a pleasant decade that we can look forward to.
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