> Many of the women who responded to an online callout or spoke to the Guardian expressed frustration with politics that had failed to address poverty, inequality, healthcare for women and children in particular, the climate and Brexit, and voiced acute fears for their and their families’ future: mothers of children with SEN (special educational needs) or mental health issues, mothers unable to afford childcare, or with adult children unable to buy homes, unpaid carers, women feeling exploited in low-paid jobs with no prospects of progression, and women with disabilities fearing harsher welfare conditions in future. > >Scores also said they were concerned about rising extremism and political polarisation, misogyny, violence against women and girls, antisemitism and Islamophobia. > >About a fifth of respondents said they had either decided to spoil their ballot paper or were considering doing so, among them Sharon, a 60-year-old social worker and “lifelong Labour voter” from London who does not own her own home and has no savings. Her two adult children are unemployed, despite having gone to university, each owing about £40,000 as a result. Private rental housing was “beyond their means”, she said. > > ... > > Politicians, she said, had repeatedly failed to deliver on promises, such as building more houses, improving the NHS, or reducing knife crime. > >“However, the final straw for me is the issue of women’s rights,” she added. > >Sharon was one of hundreds of women who shared that sex-based rights for women and girls was a main political concern of theirs this election. > >Women from across the country, dozens of them economically disadvantaged or with disabilities, said they would abandon Labour, the Lib Dems or the Greens over this issue and vote either Conservative, Reform or spoil their ballot – particularly women from marginal areas Labour is hoping to gain, such as Lincoln, Darlington, Derbyshire, Warrington North and Truro and Falmouth. > >Various said they felt “politically homeless” because of this issue, with Starmer having repeatedly referred to ​​the debate over trans rights as “divisive and toxic” culture wars.

> Keir Starmer has accused the Conservatives of desperate tactics amid claims that Tory criticism of his defence of family time was insensitive and had antisemitic undertones. > >With Rishi Sunak embarking on a marathon day of campaigning, beginning with a pre-dawn visit to a distribution centre and closing with a late-night rally, Tory ministers and aides sought to contrast these efforts with what they termed Starmer’s “part-time” approach. > > ... > > Downing Street chiefs believe the criticism of Starmer for saying he would maintain his current habit of trying to spend time with his wife and children after 6pm on Fridays “pretty well come what may” has resonated with voters. > > However, it has sparked an angry backlash, with senior Jewish figures saying the decision to target such a culturally significant time of the week – Starmer’s wife, Victoria, comes from a Jewish family – was ill-judged and deeply unfair. > >“I would have thought to anybody it’s blindingly obvious that a Friday night is quite important in some religions and faiths,” Starmer told reporters during a campaign stopover in Derbyshire. > > ... > > After spotting a social media response to the comments, Conservative campaign organisers chose to pile in and inaccurately argue that Starmer had said he would not work on any evening. > >“It’s after 6pm so of course Angela Rayner is back in charge,” said the party’s official account on X. Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, said: “I do think that it’s pretty unrealistic for a prime minister not to work past 6pm.” > >The comments prompted warnings from senior Jewish figures about the risks of singling out someone for trying to observe the tradition of spending time with family on Friday evenings. > >Marie van der Zyl, who was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews until earlier this year, called the attacks “horribly stigmatising”.

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are in a close race to form the official opposition.

Probabilistic seat count: LAB 484 CON 64 LD 61 SNP 10 RFM 7 PC 3 GRN 3

34,558 interviews conducted online and on the telephone. The full survey can be access here > Survation survey

😮‍💨

Does anyone else live in a safe seat that may flip during this election? Looking at the latest Survation poll, which predicts Labour will win 484 seats (vs 64 to the Tories and 61 to Lib Dems), I can't believe how tight some of the results are projected to be in what have previously been very safe Tory seats as far back as I remember.

https://www.survation.com/survation-mrp-labour-99-certain-to-win-more-seats-than-in-1997/

I've lived in some of these seats and always voted but without any real hope of flipping it. For them to turn red would be a huge change.

One seat, North East Hampshire, was the safest Tory seat in 2015 (by numbers and by %) but this election the projection is Lab: 24.2%, Con: 32.2%, Lib Dem: 29.3%.

Results night could be very interesting!

"In a letter to private health entrepreneur Praful Nargund, the former Labour leader said voters had been left “disappointed by your repeated ducking of local hustings.”"

I've been watching several YouTube videos featuring interviews with people from various constituencies, and there's a common theme among those voting for Reform. They often say, "I can't vote Tory, and I won't vote Labour, so I have no choice but to vote Reform."

This sentiment gives me a strong sense of déjà vu, reminiscent of the confidence among Remainers before Brexit and the optimism of the left in 2015.

Is it possible we could be heading towards a dark timeline with a Tory-Reform coalition?

> British female politicians have become the victims of fake pornography, with some of their faces used in nude images created using artificial intelligence. > >Political candidates targeted on one prominent fake pornography website include: the Labour deputy leader, Angela Rayner; the education secretary, Gillian Keegan; the Commons leader, Penny Mordaunt; the former home secretary, Priti Patel; and the Labour backbencher Stella Creasy, according to Channel 4 News. > > Many of the images have been online for several years and attracted hundreds of thousands of views. > >While some are crude Photoshops featuring the politician’s head imposed on to another person’s naked body, other images appear to be more complicated deepfakes that have been created using AI technology. Some of the politicians targeted have now contacted police.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/13847307

> Taken from a Press Release by the group: > > LONDON, 1 July 2024—Two young trans activists scaled the NHS England’s London headquarters at 133–135 Waterloo Road in London on Friday to stage a protest and have remained there ever since. The group, now made up of seven young protesters, all 18 or under, has one simple message: Trans Kids Deserve Better: we are not pawns for your politics. > > The powerful direct action has been organised by the “​​Trans Kids Deserve Better” network, which is calling for: access to gender affirming healthcare for trans children and young people, protection from discrimination and disrespect in their daily lives and the right to be heard in all decisions that affect them. > > Their protest comes in the wake of the government using emergency powers to ban all access to puberty blockers in the UK, a move that was supported by Labour’s Wes Streeting, likely to be the next Secretary of State for Health. It also comes in the context of a General Election campaign where trans people and trans youth have been used as ‘culture war’ talking points, but not allowed to speak for themselves. > > “We are staging this protest to remind politicians and voters that we’re real kids, not just political talking points. We may not have a vote, but it is our lives that are at stake,” said one of the activists staging the protest. “Gender-affirming healthcare is a matter of life and death for us, and we hope that our actions will bring awareness to this fact and encourage others to fight for the healthcare and dignity that we are so shamefully denied.”

There are lots of different tactical voting sites and sometimes they disagree on the most effective anti-Tory vote.

Fortunately, someone has built a tool to help you aggregate the different recommendations and make the best possible choice on Thursday!

Of course, spoiler alert, the best anti-Tory vote in most seats in the country is still Labour.

> […] As a British Bangladeshi, I saw my phone light up the moment Starmer publicly singled out the country as a source of illegal migrants, saying in an event hosted by The Sun that they were not being “removed” from the UK in sufficient numbers. > […] > Starmer’s choice to single out Bangladesh was odd for a number of reasons. Bangladesh is not among the top five countries for asylum claims to the UK. Nor does it feature in data from Oxford University’s Migration Observatory on the top 10 nationalities of those who cross the channel in small boats. > > The comments caused such a backlash that British Bangladeshi Labour candidates reached out to me to express dismay that their party leader had done this. One sitting member of Labour’s National Executive Committee described it as “dog whistle stuff”; the deputy leader of Tower Hamlets council, home to Britain’s largest Bangladeshi community, quit the party in protest. > […] > We covered the story at ITV News, and asked Starmer if he was aware of the hurt that had resulted from his words. His answer, on camera, was fairly clear. He did not mean to cause any worry, concern or offence. He praised the contribution of the British Bangladeshi community. He mentioned that he had visited the country as an MP, and that he was simply highlighting that the UK has a new returns agreement with Bangladesh that it had signed earlier this year. > > This explanation may satisfy some — but it is notable that Starmer did not say he was sorry. One senior community leader in the British Bangladeshi community was far from impressed with it. “It is always one excuse or another,” they told me, “just like the time he never meant any offence when he called the Black Lives Matter movement ‘a moment’ and never apologised.” > > The problem for Labour is that this feeds into a narrative that it has a worsening relationship with the British Muslim community. Since the escalation of the conflict in Gaza, the situation has been fraught; as I have travelled around Britain both before and during the election campaign, I have heard from countless British Muslims who feel ignored and let down by the party’s failure to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Data analysis carried out for ITV News found that Labour had lost 33 percentage points of vote share in areas that are majority Muslim, suggesting that the rift has had an impact at the ballot box. > […] > Ultimately, the Labour party is a long way ahead in the opinion polls, and the upset over Starmer’s remarks on Monday night is unlikely to have any impact on a national level. What it does, however, is exacerbate a problem that has been building for quite some time. > > Starmer and his team are aware that governing is very different from being in opposition. Theoretical ideas become life-changing policies. All governments seek to unite the country and all parties believe their policies can do that, but leaving one community potentially feeling alienated and ignored can undermine this, which in turn can ultimately erode trust among the wider population.

Sorry for the Twitter link, but I've not seen the video elsewhere.

EDIT: Twitter link now replaced, courtesy of [email protected].

Just thought this was really great! It starts off with Rayner talking about how much Brown's policies (like Sure Start and the child tax credit) helped her and her kids, then they move on to talking about how the next Labour government hopes to do the same. Then it finishes with the amazing detail that Rachel Reeves had a Gordon Brown poster on her bedroom wall as a teenager.

> A Reform UK candidate has disowned the party and is backing the Conservatives amid a row over racism. > >Liam Booth-Isherwood, who was standing in the seat of Erewash, announced he was dropping out of the race and would instead be endorsing the Tory contender Maggie Throup to "stop Labour". > > He said he had become "increasingly disillusioned" with the behaviour of the party and accused leader Nigel Farage of not taking it seriously. > > ... > > Pressed on why his party seems to attract people who hold extremist views, the former UKIP leader claimed it was because he had driven the British Nationalist Party (BNP) "out as an electoral force". > >"Ironically, destroying the BNP means people who are minded that way don't any longer have a home to go to, and so some will gravitate in our direction," he added.

TL;DR: arguably.

> A Tory student group has apologised after leaked footage showed them dancing to a Nazi marching song. > > The Warwick University Conservative Association asked the DJ at a gathering following their annual “chairman’s dinner” to play Erika, a song composed in 1938 by Nazi soldier Herms Niel. > > In a leaked video published by The Times, students can be seen dancing and laughing to the song before one member spots the camera and says: “Don’t film!” > > The students are also accused of chanting “Kill the Hughs” – substituting the word “Jews” for the name of their outgoing association chairman Hugh Herring. > > Reports suggest they also said: “Heil the chairman”.

They are:

1. Why Did Farage Lie About Meeting the Russian Ambassador?
2. How Could Farage Not Have Known About Arron Banks’ Multiple Visits to the Russian Embassy During the Brexit Campaign?
3. What Did Farage Know of the Russian Hacking of the Clinton Campaign?
4. How Could Farage be Blind to Trump and Steve Bannon’s Backing for Russia?
5. Why Did Farage Hide the Assessment that his Leave.EU Campaign Funder was an “Agent of Russian Influence?”

See also:

• Previous thread on Russian interference in the current General Election
• Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum on Wikipedia, which seems well-written and properly sourced

> Claims of Russian interference in the general election campaign are "gravely concerning", the deputy prime minister has said. > >Mr Dowden told Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that Moscow allegedly using Facebook pages to spread support for Nigel Farage "is a classic example from the Russian playbook". > >The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) says it has been monitoring five co-ordinated Facebook pages which have been spouting Kremlin talking points, with some posting in support of Reform UK. > >Mr Dowden, who has called the ABC report "gravely concerning", told Sky News: "This is something that I've warned about for some time. > > "There is a threat in all elections, and indeed we see it in this election, from hostile state actors seeking to influence the outcome of the election campaign. > >"Russia is a prime example of this and this is a classic example from the Russian playbook." > >He added that this was a "low-level use of bots". > > ... > > The broadcaster also reportedly found most of the administrators for each page are based in Nigeria, which is a significant connection as previous online Russian propaganda networks were found to have been operating from Africa. > >The reports come after Mr Farage faced a backlash for saying he blames the West and NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. > >Mr Farage called it "cobblers" to claim bots generated by foreign state actors could interfere with the election outcome - as he launched a personal attack on Mr Dowden.

> Neil Kinnock has warned his party not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Nigel Farage, as concern grows in Labour ranks that Reform UK could pose a long-term threat for them as well as for the Conservatives. > > The former Labour leader told the Guardian he wanted Labour to turn its guns on Farage’s party in the final week of the election campaign, saying the populist right could gain a stronghold in the UK as it has across much of Europe. > > Labour has been accused of not putting up a fight against Farage because the Reform party appeared to be taking more votes from the Conservatives. But with Reform predicted by some pollsters to win more than a dozen parliamentary seats next week, Kinnock said Labour needed to start taking the threat seriously. > > ... > > Kinnock added that if Labour was overly cautious in government, it would play into Reform’s narrative that there was little difference between the two main parties. “Absolutely vitally, [the populist right] have to be combated with actions,” he said. “That means the implementation of change which is positive and cumulative, and driven by strong purpose in the service of the community.”

> Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker will launch a bid to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader after the election, it is understood. > > The Brexiteer Conservative is expected to attempt to replace Mr Sunak if the party is defeated on 4 July. > > Mr Baker hinted at a leadership run if he retains his Wycombe seat at the general election. > >bHe said: "One thing at a time. I want to represent the people of Wycombe the best that I can, as I always have done. > > "Then let's see what happens." > > It is understood he will announce his intentions after polling day.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/23066599

Since 2017, Wikipedia editors have compiled a list of news sources from which articles are highly likely to employ systematic bias, lack professional editing and/or journalistic standards, regularly misrepresent sources, and/or fabricate information.

While its list is by no means a complete list of publications with the aforementioned problems, it has helped make Wikipedia articles more reliable by basing them off of sources covering the same events and information from a less biased point of view.

To make Lemmy news communities better than their Reddit counterparts, I think avoiding links to those sources in favor of more reliable alternatives would be worthwhile.

Starmer responds to questions from the Big Issue journalists and from vendors. Nothing particularly groundbreaking here but it all sounds good.

> A Reform UK activist in the constituency where Nigel Farage is standing has been secretly filmed making extremely racist comments about Rishi Sunak, as well as using Islamophobic and other offensive language. > > Farage said he was “dismayed” by the views expressed by Andrew Parker, a Reform canvasser, who was filmed as part of an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News. > > The channel also secretly filmed George Jones, a longtime party activist who organises events for Farage, making homophobic comments, calling the Pride flag “degenerate” and LGBT people “nonces”. > > The emergence of the footage, filming of which concluded last week, comes on the same day that Reform dropped an election candidate in another seat, after the Guardian informed the party that Raymond Saint had been on a list of members of the British National party.