Election alternatives: bar lends homeless voters their address, ice sculptures as political strategy, and Bristol’s electoral infowars
Did you notice there was a UK General Election on? Here’s a few items which celebrate actions and strategies that go below (or above) the clash of manifestos.
Homeless, want to vote—but no fixed address? This Bristol bar will help you out, by lending you theirs
From BBC:
Staff at a bar in Bristol are helping the city's homeless to register to vote ahead of the general election.
Bristol Beer Factory is offering its address for rough sleepers and people with no permanent address to use, and helping them to fill out the necessary forms.
According to the Electoral Commission, people with no fixed address can register an address where they spend "a lot" of time or have some connection.
Pub manager Domhnaill Barnes said there had been strong interest on social media, with organisations in other parts of the country keen to set up similar services.
Bristol City Council, said the bar is part of the Arnolfini building and the company is offering the Arnolfini address to those with no fixed abode.
"The actions of Arnolfini are completely legal and the council approves of these actions."
This isn’t the first time ice sculptures have figured in a general election
Our sister party in Denmark, Alternativet, ran this advert in the Danish General Elections last year.
They used the imagery of the political posters you habitually see plastering the lampposts of any community, during election time - except they cast them in melting ice.
A Google translate of the text in the video:
Our planet is getting warmer. The ice is melting, and with each drop becomes earth less habitable for our children and grandchildren.
We've known about the problem for decades. Now time is running out.
But there is an alternative.
In Alternativet, we have the green solutions and the political will needed to push the other parties in the greenest possible way.
We will make history with Denmark's most ambitious climate policy. A policy that involves a transformation of our entire community, and we believe at the same time will give us all the opportunity to live the life we ​​long for.
For the climate crisis is not only our time's greatest challenge. It is also our greatest opportunity to create a new society.
We need to work less, we must consume less and we should own fewer things. Instead, we have a life where there is time to indulge, be outside in nature and be with those we love.
In short, we believe that the way to the green transition is also the way to a richer life.
What’s the digital infowar like at the local level? It’s all happening in Bristol
From Open Democracy:
Up until the 2017 General Election, Daniel was anything but a floating voter, having been loyally Conservative his whole life. The 37-year-old solicitor was even a party member for a period. But his recent political history shows the contortions the country has found itself in since the EU Referendum in 2016.
“Brexit has morphed the Conservatives beyond all recognition,” he tells the Cable, and stopping Brexit is now his primary concern. To further that aim he has now joined the Lib Dems. But in a further twist, he is considering a vote for Labour in the marginal constituency of Filton and Bradley Stoke, held by the Tories and where the Lib Dems got just 6% of the vote in 2017.
Like millions of us, how he engages online in the run up to 12th December will be key in a campaign that will be fought through your screen as much as on the doorstep or traditional media.
Hundreds of thousands have already been spent on paid-for adverts by the parties on Facebook and Instagram as they try to win votes, or at least put you off voting for rivals. Alongside parties, there are unofficial and affiliated groups and campaigns pushing various messages onto your feed, with varying levels of transparency, accuracy and ethical standards.
One thing is for sure, incidents like the Conservative Party’s Twitter account masquerading as FactCheckUK during the Corbyn v Johnson TV debate have cemented Daniel’s rejection of his former political home. “They’re just behaving like a bunch of students, like it’s all a big wheeze,” he says. “But it’s not, it’s people’s lives, the country’s future. If you’re going to start going around doctoring things and misleading people then I don’t know how we get past this.”
Alongside the Facebook adverts of Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson or Boris Johnson’s face, or Labour’s plans for the NHS that float down his timeline and are transparently paid for by the parties themselves, Daniel is targeted by murkier interests based on a profiling of who he is, including as a parent. He sends me a series of screenshots of what he is seeing.
One ad is posted by ‘Parents Choice’, a page created in October under the ‘community’ category of Facebook. The post is labelled as ‘Paid for by Richard Patrick Tracey’ and has so far been seen by up to 60,000 people with a spend of £700.
There is no mention or information on the fact that Tracey is a former Conservative MP and minister for sport under Margaret Thatcher. The page has spent £10,000 on Facebook adverts since October 11th.
There is no traceable information whatsoever on who is behind the posts being served to Daniel from ‘Capitalist Worker’, a page that has spent £1,500 on Facebook adverts attacking Labour since October.
Neither is there traceable information on the groups pushing claims on Corbyn’s allegiance to the IRA, on Labour’s plans to make mortgages more expensive, or who is asking Daniel to ‘save Brexit’.
One post is from the Fair Tax Campaign, a group run by a former aide to Boris Johnson. But you’d have to take the step to search Google to find that out, as the information box provided by Facebook offers nothing of the sort.
It’s not just what parties and groups are doing online that is dismaying for Daniel. “You can share any old shit at all and people will have seen it and absorbed it before anyone can come back and say that’s not true.” Daniel sends a screenshot of a recent Facebook post by a relative about Labour’s policy on abortion.
The post refers to a Labour manifesto commitment to reform Victorian era laws technically still in force that criminalise abortion and restrict women’s privacy and choice over reproductive rights. Decriminalisation is supported by a range of institutions including the Royal College of Midwives and the British Medical Association.
But parts of the internet have been lit up with outrage, with anti-abortion campaigners Right to Life stating that Labour “have pledged to introduce abortion, on-demand, for any reason, up to birth.” While anti-abortion activists might not like Labour’s plans, there is nothing to suggest this is the case, or even that there will be any extension to the period that abortions can be accessed.
Daniel recognises that his relative is hardly a social media influencer, but “as of this afternoon, some people now believe that Jeremy Corbyn wants to kills an eight-and-a-half-month-old baby, which is just bollocks,” he says.
Offline politics and campaigns have always been a dirty fight. But, they were also very public: whatever was said on leaflets or in the media was accessible to record, scrutinise and challenge. But social media has enabled a very private experience of elections, perhaps the most public event of all. No one except you can see what is on your feed, which means there are multiple barriers to find out what is being said, and by and to whom.