In two bonkers tweets, Laura Kuenssberg embodies the BBC’s biased local election coverage

Laura Kuenssberg
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An honest pundit will tell you there wasn’t much to learn from yesterday’s local elections. Once it became clear the UKIP vote had swung to the Tories, the election became unmappable to a general election. That’s because, while UKIP is a significant force in council votes, it reflects just 1.8% of the vote share in a general election. Regardless, the BBC and other establishment outlets would like to argue that last night was curtains for Corbynism. Two bonkers tweets from the BBC‘s chief political editor Laura Kuenssberg sum up the double standards.

Kuenssberg vs Kuenssberg

In local elections, if no party wins the majority of council seats required for an outright win, the result is ‘No Overall Control’. This is how Kuenssberg responded when the Conservative Party lost control of Trafford, “the party’s only council in Greater Manchester and its flagship northern council”:

Read on...

Meanwhile, in Derby, where Labour lost overall control of the council…

After criticism, Kuensssberg acknowledged Trafford as a Conservative loss.

The knives are out

Predictably, anti-Corbyn Labour MPs were busy assembling for the next coup. During the final hours of the vote, Chuka Umunna was busy promoting the antisemitism smear on his party for LBC radio:

And Blairite Ben Bradshaw kicked off the recriminations this morning.

All, once again, ably assisted by Kuenssberg.

Laura Kuenssberg shares Jess Phillips tweet

Groupthink

The local election coverage of Britain’s centrist commentariat can be summarised like this:

Labour GAIN: “This was to be expected and means nothing.”

Labour HOLD: “Very disappointing result for Labour. They threw everything at this.”

Labour LOSS: “It’s basically end of days for Labour’s hopes of winning next the next general election.”

And voters noticed this trend too.

In reality, there was something positive to grab for every party bar UKIP. So expect peak hysteria from centrists and conservatives seeking to leverage the night to oust Corbyn.

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