The Conservatives are having problems with their socials again. Having claimed last month that London was “the crime capital of the world”, the party has now deleted another social media exhortation not to let “the doomsters and the naysayers” talk down Britain.
The post on X claimed that Britain was the second most powerful country in the world, illustrated by pictures including a Canadian-owned Aston Martin, a US F-35 fighter jet and a Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft developed by a European consortium while the UK was in the EU.
But the image may have been deleted from social media because it included a picture of King Charles – a breach of protocol since parties are meant to avoid dragging the royal family into political debate. Buckingham Palace did not comment, but it is understood that the post had been noted by senior palace officials before it was deleted last Friday.
It also included a picture of the England men’s football team lining up for their friendly against Brazil last month – a match in which they were very much second best. But sports teams, like the royals, are usually considered to be beyond politics.
Political parties are free to make up any facts they like in political advertising, so long as they do not publish false statements about the character or conduct of a candidate. But despite using phrases plucked from Boris Johnson’s thesaurus, there was a hint of truth in the post – a report by BrandFinance had placed the UK second in its Global Soft Power Index.
British soft power is more about a thriving cultural scene than fighter jets, though, and the film director Nick Murphy pointed out that the party was celebrating the arts with a picture of the Oscar winner Christopher Nolan weeks after cutting arts funding – something that campaigners have called a “national emergency” for artistic venues.
Dragging the king and the England football team into politics was a bad idea, said Mark Borkowski, a PR consultant and author.
“This says a lot about how no strategic thought goes into social media,” he said. “It is a medium for clickbait and dogwhistle politics. The mistake most political parties and MPs make is that they don’t think before they tweet. Now dragging the king into a political debate indicates how foolish and thoughtless this is.”
Borkowski compared the move with the fact-free attacks made by Donald Trump during his presidential campaigns.
“There’s a generation bewitched by this sort of attitude, a Trumpian way of using social media. People see this is as a sketchpad for ideas about propaganda, but these aren’t disappearing tweets. It just shows a lack of strategy.
“It also indicates how bloody the battle is going to be running up to the election. We’re in a phony war situation now, but there is going to be full-on mudslinging and really dirty fighting on social media platforms. So if this is the team at Tory party central office being deployed at this stage, God help us for the future.”
The Conservative party did not respond to requests for comment.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
