#30 Julie Elliott acceptance speech

I stayed up until around 4:30 (watching mostly BBC1) when Boris' result was being announced and the TV decided to upgrade its channels. I only noticed one occurrence during that time.

The first two results announced were from Sunderland. The second result was for Julie Elliott, Sunderland Central. Her acceptance speech included,

"The result in Sunderland tonight is clear. People want representatives that stand up for working people and their families, to put the interests of ordinary people first".

Images from the BBC coverage and from Ms. Elliott's Twitter page.

R4 The Media Show Ordinary Voters

Radio 4 at 4:40pm
The Media Show introduced by Steve Hewlett, this week, the programme's web page states,

"Steve Hewlett is joined by some leading political journalists; Michael Crick from Channel 4; Patrick Wintour from the Guardian; Andrew Grice the political editor of the Independent, and Isabel Hardman from the Spectator. They discuss how easy, or not, it's been to get access to politicians, why press conferences are now few and far between, and why the growth of social media is making advisers ultra-cautious in their media management strategy."

Contrasting the previous Question Time from Leeds, where real people expressed their frustration with politicians, with the over-managed media coverage, Andrew Grice suggested that our representatives should be "more open to ordinary voters in future".

No postcard as it is outside scope and, in this context, appropriate.

Image from The Independent.

April summary

The Feb-Mar summary is here. In April we had:

19. Apr 01 - Arnie Somogyi (R4 Extra)
20. Apr 06 - John Wilson (Front Row)
21. Apr 07  - Giles Dilnot (Daily Politics)
17b. Apr 07 - Sturgeon again (Scottish Leaders' Debate)
22.  Apr 11 - James O'Brien & 23 Will Self (Newsnight)
10b. Apr 13 - Bridget Kendall again, (Today) while James Naughtie and Justin Webb come close
24. Apr 15 - Nigel Farage (manifesto launch)
24b. Apr 16 - Farage (Today) and an OWP from Marco Biagi
25. Apr 26 - Tim Donovan (Sunday Politics)
26. Apr 30 - The Sun (reported on R4)

Near misses:
James Naughtie and Justin Webb come close (Today)
Rachel Reeves "small people and small businesses" (PM)
OWP from Marco Biagi (R4 News)
OWP from Ken Capstick (R4)
Recycled Radio on Money - unidentified OP (R4)

And the Manifesto Analysis


Analysis of sources

Source	Users
Andrew Marr Show	Ed Balls, Kristin Scott Thomas, Caroline Flint,
Big Questions	Kunle Olulode
Daily Politics	Frances O'Grady, Jonathan Isaby, Carole Malone, Shabana Mahmood, Giles Dilnot
Front Row, Radio 4	John Wilson
Moral Maze	Ed Mayo,
Newsnight	Evan Davis, Peter Kellner, James O'Brien & Will Self
PM, Radio 4	Bridget Kendall
Radio 4, 6 o'clock News	Nicola Sturgeon
Radio 4 (non-specific)	David Graeber, Michael Sandel
Radio 4 Extra (non-specific)	Arnie Somogyi
Spectator	Adam Nicolson,
The Sun	editorial
Sunday Politics	Caroline Flint, Tim Donovan
Today, Radio 4	Justin Webb, Bridget Kendall, Farage
Other:
Scottish Leaders' Debate	Sturgeon
Manifesto Launch	Nigel Farage

#29 IDS TWICE on Daily Politics

The Daily Politics hustings programmes, where Andrew Neil confronts a group of party spokespersons on a variety of issues have not been terribly interesting, but today's on benefits was a great show.

Iain Duncan Smith has come close to a postcard before with  an OWP on 29th March. Today he sank to two "Ordinary People"s on a single show:
The first at 13 mins on the subject of befits caps did not make much sense, but included the phrase, "when most ordinary people can't afford to pay their ...".
The second at 48 mins, in response to (fellow OWPer) Rachel Reeves' comment on living standards, "our economic plan has delivered to ordinary people".

Images from the broadcast.

#28 Claire Fox, Ordinary British kids

A rare catch on LBC, Nick Ferrari's Breakfast Show discussing Islamic fundamentalism and the Texas shootings spoke to Claire Fox of the Institute of Ideas who used the phrase "ordinary British kids". 5th May at 9:14.

Images are difficult to come by. There's not one on the Wikipedia page, nor on the Times or Guardian articles cited at the bottom of that entry. The image shown is from the Twitter account that may or may not be she.

#27 Rafael Behr ordinary folk

Westminster Hour, BBC Radio 4, Sunday 3rd May, Carolyn Quinn discussed pre-election events with a panel including Rafael Behr of the Grauniad who stated that "Conservatives have also had difficulty persuading people that they are really on the side of ordinary folk". 14 mins in.

 Image from the Grauniad.

#22b James O'Brien

In the last of the series of Friday Night addons to Newsnight, James O'Brien used a similar introduction as on 11th April, referring to "what everyone else is still calling ordinary people". He might well have done so on the intervening show(s) too, but I didn't see those. No second postcard.

Image from the closing sequence of the show.