A tale of two newspapers - how local media suppresses election candidates

Report from the front lines of Party of Women's general election campaign.

Jul 03, 2024

At 15:20 in this livestream from Hyde Park on Sunday 30 June, I spoke about the way Kellie-Jay Keen was being suppressed as a candidate in Bristol Central.

https://www.youtube.com/live/nxl6H6U3XvE?si=abmp_D-hNp9cOnak

Anyone who has been working in this (very bizarre) election campaign for a small party or an independent, will have discovered the various ways candidates can be deliberately hidden from the voters. By “Dirty tricks" or sometimes just ignorance of proper procedure.

As someone with 40 years as an unpaid political party worker (and local candidate, several times) behind me, I've seen and experienced just about everything that can happen during an election!

My last substack was about no-platforming at a hustings. The 16 Party of Women candidates have all experienced this, to one extent or another, in their constituencies.

There ARE excuses for this behaviour that organisers of hustings can legitimately make, but that doesn't help voters who have given up their time to come and see, and have the chance to question, their local candidates.

Another way candidates are suppressed is by local media outlets. Here's the paper I was holding up at Let Women Speak, the Bristol Evening Post. In tiny writing down the page they named the non-Uniparty candidates, and stated that they'd invited them all to submit a statement for the article. I've every reason to believe they had not done this with our candidate.

As you can see, they couldn't be bothered to change the page layout, so that the Kellie-Jay-sized gap is like an empty chair on stage, and with the same implication - that person was either not invited or deliberately didn't attend. Either way, a snub to the voters.

We were lucky that the online media outlet, Bristol 24/7, took the opposite approach.

They DID include Kellie-Jay, without any bitching about “we asked all the candidates for a statement”. They simply did the logical thing, and took her photo and blurb from her candidates page on the Party of Women website: https://www.partyofwomen.org/kellie-jay-keen

They included her in two ‘round-up of candidates’ features, and platformed her in their own hustings last night -at the same venue where we were treated so badly on 25 June!

The atmosphere and attitude of the staff this time was completely different. They made sure we were escorted to a back entrance afterwards, to avoid the silly children protesting at the front. All kudos to their editor, Martin Booth.

He has stood as an Independent candidate himself in the past, so he clearly understands what candidates go through. And the pressure they are under at an event like a hustings.

You can see the full video on Bristol 24/7s YouTube channel, and clips on Kellie-Jay’s channel. One hilarious clip in particular has taken off, and is being shared by several youtubers!

Now I want to contrast the Bristol Evening Post with a newspaper in the constituency of another candidate I've been supporting, the Barnet Post free paper.

In Finchley and Golders Green there are 7 candidates. Instead of cherry-picking, the editor simply used the double page spread in the centre, to feature all of them spread right across. It's very impressive. (I could only scan part of it on my A4 scanner).

Once again, like Bristol24/7, no messing, just the photo and statement from Katherine Murphy's page on our website:

https://www.partyofwomen.org/katharine-margaret-murphy

The Barnet Post is an example of a local paper doing the right thing by all the candidates and the electorate in their area. So a shout out to Editor David Floyd!

Party of Women candidates have faced particular difficulties in coming forward as potential candidates, and campaigning in public. Abuse of the kind that men, and other party candidates of either sex, simply do not get aimed at them.

Abuse which is aimed not just at uppity women, but our policies, such as “Repeal the GRA".

The very fact of women daring to step forward and speak in public about their own and their family's experiences of the intrusion of the transcult into their lives, is so objectionable to some that we face noisy opposition and threats of violence. To the point where we often need massive police protection.

If you are still unclear about this, and haven't seen the recent Let Women Speak in Brighton, I urge you to watch this video, (this week's “homework assignment”)!

https://www.youtube.com/live/n4Sgw2jsDJA?si=FUxikZQ0RGFAhkd1

But what I have found most fascinating, in these last 2 weeks before the election, is how Reform have been quietly sliding left, into the centrist blob of acceptability, and Party of Women have been shoved along in the other direction, to take their place as the FAR-RIGHTFASCISTRACISTHOMOPHOBETRANSPHOBICSCUM Party, on the “fascist spectrum”!

Middle-aged Labour and Green activists, like the ones who packed the Bristol 24/7 hustings, are perfect examples of the people we used to call “stripped-pine-Socialists” in Bristol. The gentrifiers of the inner city, with their mass-influx of IKEA kitchens and Hygge decor.

Only a month ago they would have said Reform were beyond the Pale. Now they are platforming them, interviewing them, listening to them, and politely clapping them! Very, very odd!

We - the Ultras- Party of Women, have arrived to claim our rightful spot as the REAL Rebels of British politics.

After you've recovered from this election, I hope you will consider joining us. We now have a legal political platform, which no one can cancel us from. Our message to the public has been approved by the Electoral Commission and the Royal Mail! This is the genius of Kellie-Jay Keen.