The Media, Reform & Ephology
Private Eye 1651
The above satirises the result of the recent Hamilton By-Election where Reform came a good third. Of course in first past the post elections there is only winner, the candidate who comes first. That did not stop the BBC news site from posting an article stating that ‘another winner’ was Reform.
Nigel Farage holds the record for the most appearances on BBC Question Time, and recently a BBC memo has surfaced which examines how more Reform supporters can be attracted to the BBC.
None of this is particularly new. The historian and new left activist E P Thompson wrote as long as 1959 about where Psephology- an analysis of election voting- became Ephology, where it morphed from reporting opinion to trying to mould opinion.
There must be a note of caution. Reform is not just a media bubble with a right wing media looking for an an alternative opposition to a failing Tory Party. Reform is feeding off real grassroots discontent and generalising it to the right, around racism and small boats. The task facing the left is to generalise that discontent not against the have nots but against the haves. That task wont be led by Labour in Parliament. It needs to come from below in workplaces and communities.
Still Private Eye makes a good point
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