‘Sack Kuenssberg’ petition taken down due to ‘sexist trolls’
The petition for the BBC to sack political editor Laura Kuenssberg has been taken down by its creator, who said it had been “hijacked” by “sexist trolls”.
Visitors to the 38 Degrees petition site will now see the following message:
“Joe who was running this campaign has decided to take down this petition. He said the following:
“’When I started my campaign I was trying to raise a serious issue about what I saw as a reporter not being balanced and fair in the way that the news was covered. My petition has since been hijacked by a group of people who absolutely do not share my views.
“‘I would like to reassure everyone that I am a passionate advocate for equality in all areas, not just gender equality. This petition has precisely zero to do with gender.
“‘As a result of the sexist trolls who have attempted to derail my petition, I have decided to take it down.’“
This Writer cannot help but feel suspicious about what has happened.
You see, if a petition is launched against a party political stooge of any colour – and I do think Laura K counts as one of these – all their supporters need to do is sign it and leave an offensive message.
Then the stooge’s supporters can come on and rant about it and, essentially, embarrass the creator into taking it down.
I’m not saying that was the intention here, but it may well be, from now on.
Meanwhile, evidence against Ms Kuenssberg continues to mount.
Remember in the run-up to the election, when the BBC’s political editor was determined that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour would lose dozens, if not hundreds, of council seats and that this would buck an established trend in which the incumbent government loses seats in any poll the year after a general election?
There is no such established trend, it seems.
A commenter on Vox Political tells us:
My nephew – who is an elections’ afficionado – has emailed me the following analysis:-
I have crunched some numbers perhaps you could spread them around; they make different reading to what the BBC is reading.
What annoys me is firstly they call these elections midterm when they are not and Laura whatsherface said Labour at this stage of the electoral cycle should be winning hundreds of seats.
Well the figures from previous local elections do not support that assertion.
The first local elections for incumbent governments are usually pretty good and the opposition makes no or little progress. Also the 2012 locals WERE midterm and so Labour did pretty well. Labour are bucking this trend but not the way the media is reporting it. See below.
1980 – after winning the 1979 election the Tories gained 40% of the vote only 2% behind Labour.
1984 – after winning the 1983 election the Tories won the local elections
1988 – after winning the 1987 election the Tories won the local elections.
1992 – after winning the GE the Tories won the local elections with 46% of the vote.
1998 – after winning the 1997 election Labour won the local elections.
2002 – After winning the 2001 GE Labour polled a mere 1% behind the Tories in share of national vote.
2006 – After winning the 2005 GE the government does indeed take a pasting which has been put down to the anger over the Iraq War.
2011 – After winning the largest share of the vote in the 2010 GE and set up the Tory led coalition support for the Tories drops only 1.1% from the GE.
2016 – After winning the 2015 GE the Tories votes drops 6.9% from GE support but this is not widely reported.As you can see in this stage of the electoral cycle, the incumbent government has tended to do well in the following local elections and so the idea that the opposition should be making progress or grabbing hundreds of seats does not bear scrutiny and is completely wrong.
In fact this is the worse Tory performance in the local elections since 1996 when John Major only got 29% which was an improvement from 1995 when they only got 25% of the vote. But again this is not being reported.
So we are left with the worst possible world, in which campaigners against pro-Tory media bias have been silenced and the person responsible is being allowed to continue.
My contention is that, if you want to know why this happened, you only have to ask one simple question:
Who profits from this?
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I went to the site and read what was said, bloody trolls, had to spoil it didn’t they, will there be a new petition created, there should be!
that’s a great shame…tbh I don’ tthink it should have been taken down…the issue was clearly formulated and simply about the impartiality of an individual intent on riding roughshod over the usual boundaries (hmmm…are they usual any more?) of journalistic integrity and reasonableness. She had crossed that line repeatedly. She needed (needs) to be held to account. Perhaps now the BBC should step in and do what they should have done anyway… this journalist is tarnishing the BBC brand…
I have never created a petition but have signed many. Surely it would be possible to disable a comment section on said website.
I think most of the Corbynistas have it in for Laura because she’s quite a lot cleverer than them. Amazing, isn’t it, how the left’s attacks on Israel and ‘Zionism’ quickly descend into anti-Semitism, while their crackpot conspiracy theories about the BBC quickly descent into misogyny.
Have you seen the clip in which Ms K brags about having found a Labour memo on what to say in the event of major seat losses last Thursday? John McDonnell tells her straight that he wrote part of it and that it was one of several documents providing details of Labour’s official line in any eventuality. That shut her up.
So tell me, who came out as more intelligent in that exchange – Kuenssberg or McDonnell?
As for your opinion about the anti-Semitism row – take it back to the gutter where it belongs. You know it’s nonsense and so do the rest of us because I’ve been writing about it ever since it began. The accusations of anti-Semitism were unfounded.
Finally, any misogyny comes from the trolls who hijacked the ‘Sack Laura Kuenssberg’ petition page. Whose side do they support? You can’t be sure it’s the left!
You said it much nicer than I ever could Mike.
tories mud slinging makes the petition look sexest better they look in the mirror
There’s another petition on Change.org that’s not been taken down yet here
https://www.change.org/p/james-harding-director-of-news-and-current-affairs-we-ask-that-the-bbc-review-the-current-political-editor-laura-kuenssberg-s-position
Great pity about the trolls. She deserves a fair trial. I wonder who might have put some of them up?
I still don’t see the relationship between Local and National elections. If you have, for example, Conservative Party local councillors that are doing a good job for your town, but Cameron and the Big Blue Clown party are ruining the country, why damn your town for the sake of the country?
When Bliar et al were ruining the UK, I voted Labour locally and LibDem in the GE as their candidate was saying things I wanted to hear.
Did any of them DO the things you wanted them to do, though?
I am sceptical regarding your claim that Conservative councillors do a good job.