U.K. interviewers

The interviewers in the 2010, 2015, and 2017 campaigns all the same attributes. If you are familiar with British politics, can you comment on any of the following? Feedback will help in determining these interviewers’ attributes.

The attributes are Stance (Far-Left to Far-Right), visibility (Low, Medium, High), contentiousness (Low, Medium, High).

The interviewers are

  • BBC’s Newsnight
  • BBC’s Today with John Humphrys
  • The Economist Magazine
  • ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald
  • Channel 4 News
  • BBC’s Daily Politics
  • Five News
  • ITV Evening News

Also, have these changes between 2010 and 2017? Are there important interviewers not on this list?

57 thoughts on “U.K. interviewers”

  1. Basically TV news has to be centerist netural unlike US but if I was to be more harsh
    BBC’s Newsnight (Center) High
    BBC’s Today with John Humphrys (Center) Medium
    The Economist Magazine (Economically Conservative,Socially Liberal) Medium
    ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald (No longer presented by Trevor) Low
    Channel 4 News, Center Left ,Medium
    BBC’s Daily Politics, Center, Medium
    Five News, Center Right Low
    ITV Evening News Center Right Medium

  2. @Milo,

    Thanks very much for this. Are your ‘Medium’ and so on ratings for visibility, or contentiousness?

  5. One little thing that has always bugged me is that endorsers like ‘The Mail on Sunday’ should only endorse on a Sunday. At present they endorse on any day of the week.

    Regarding the Andrew Marr Show and also Peston on Sunday on ITV, It should only be possible to accept an invitation to appear on these programmes on a Sunday. At present it is possible to appear on things on days when they are not broadcast or published.

  7. anthony_270admin that was for visbility
    for contentious (I assume how far they are to challenge the politician)
    BBC’s Newsnight (Center) High
    BBC’s Today with John Humphrys (Center) High
    The Economist Magazine (Economically Conservative,Socially Liberal) Medium
    ITV’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald (No longer presented by Trevor) Medium
    Channel 4 News, High
    BBC’s Daily Politics, High
    Five News, Low
    ITV Evening News Center Medium

  8. I’d add Andrew Marr as well it gets far more views than Channel 5 or some of the others mentioned
    Marr would be center, medium and High similar to daily politics

  10. Stance, visibility, contention

    BBC’s Newsnight
    Centre-Left, high, high

    BBC’s Today with John Humphrys
    Centre-Right, high, high

    The Economist Magazine
    Centre-Right, low, medium

    BBC’s Daily Politics
    Centre-Right/Right, very high, medium/high

  11. All TV by law is neutral. The left claim the BBC are right wing as much as the right claim they are left wing. I think therefore all TV should be centrist/neutral in game.

  12. Can someone describe the actual laws in this regard? For example, I don’t find British political programs to be neutral, they have overt or implicit bias, and so on. How exactly are they regulated?

  14. The Ofcom TV code says that the network cannot give a viewpoint on an issue, however individual presenters can. It also says that figures/statistics cannot be deliberately misinterpreted to change the audience’s viewpoints. However, you do not have to provide equal time for both sides of an issue (although some networks, such as the BBC, often do this anyway). For the fairness of regulation, you would be looking for Section Five of the code (you can find it here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-five-due-impartiality-accuracy)

  15. I would however, disagree with the idea that they should not be on the left/right scale. For example, questions often differ in difficulty (perhaps most prominently during the 2015 election, where during a debate Paxman went after Milliband on a personal level, whereas he attacked Cameron over his policies). There is also presenter bias, such as Andrew Neil on the daily politics, who has worked for a variety of right wing media outlets.

  17. Andrew Neil / Daily Politics
    John Humphrys on Today
    Paxman on Newsnight

    are all on the right-wing of the spectrum and high profile interviewers

    Jon Snow on Channel Four is considered Centre-Left

    The Economist is centre-right editorially… though I have never seen an interview from them

  18. “That being said, Paxman is a Tory and was equally brutal to May and Corbyn this year. David Dimbleby is highly respected, presents the election show and Question Time and is a Tory.”

    Paxman did explicitly ‘come out’ as a Tory a year or two ago, but has it ever been confirmed that Dimbleby is so? People seem to assume so on the basis of his accent.

  22. Anthony

    When are you going to release an update for President Infinity? At least the one that includes the new diplomacy screen by which alliances can be made.

  25. @anthony_270admin
    Sorry,if I came across as abnoxious it’s just that the constantly extending timeline is driving me crazy.

  29. Anthony

    I want to propose that the VP candidates from other parties are included for anyone to choose. If I am a Democrat trying to run a more centrist and bipartisan campaign I would be inclined to choose a person from the opposite party especially if I want to take over Arizona(MCain) or Ohio(Kasich). Real life example: McCain – Lieberman 2008.

    You can also include that certain nominees would be more compelled to choose a more bipartisan running mate and others would just choose a more extremist choice. Pence is a more extremist choice because of the impact he has on issues like abortion, same sex marriage and other types of issues that were trending towards a more liberal consensus. So i would be inclined to conclude that a McCain nomination would trigger a Biden or Lieberman as VP.

    To organize this is possible to add a percwtanhe or likelihood for choosing? I know this would include a lot of work because of the interface but for example. If Romney is the presumptive nominee and he is loosing let’s say, a toss up state like Ohio, then I would be inclined to think that Portman possibility and likelihood for VP would go up.

    Romney as presumptive nominee short list would be like this:
    Portman: 40% (factors like Ohio being a swing state and a toss up or perhaps trending democrat might increase the chances for Portman to be Romneys Vp)
    Ryan 20%: realliable democratic state to make it a toss up.
    McDonell (VA): 20% same as Portman. Make Virginia a republican pick up.

    In that regard the game will have more consistency. A John Tune on the ticket is not making things more competitive, especially if there is no voting blocs yet.

    Clintons choice for Kaine was to block republicans path, they thought Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as reliable democratic and a democratic win would be consolidated if those states would have remained democratic. So Kaine as Vp was also part of that strategy. Pence was chosen at a point in the race when Indiana was apparently up for grabs for the democrats and Trump was like 15 points down nationally. So this notion that a John Thune or a Newt Gingrich might work on a VP shortlist is not likely for today’s stantadda and I think PI should include this for the future.

  30. @Andres,

    Yes, more can be done in terms of how AI picks Veeps.

    As for being able to pick a Veep nominee from another party, it’s a nice idea, but has this ever happened in modern campaigns?

  31. I have a couple of things to suggest:

    – firstly, I don’t know if this has been made clear but Peston on Sunday should only be available in the 2017 campaign as it only started broadcasting last year. Likewise, the presenter changes to the Today programme and others are quite recent changes although I can’t remember the exact dates off the top of my head.

    – secondly, I know it’s long been a request of many people to be able to export election results and use them as a basis for a new campaign. I don’t know how feasible that is, but I wondered if a way of starting with that was to allow that to happen where no feasible majority government can be formed and the pop up now says there are new elections. It would be quite fun to fight those new elections and try again for a majority, in my opinion.

  32. @Will The second request is being implemented if I remember correctly.

    Also,Anthony could you add a “Purge from All Ballots” feature by which I can remove a party (especially an observational party) from all Regional Ballots

  33. @Will,
    .
    Re the second one, that’s a good idea, but contra NYRep, it is not being implemented. We’ll see.

    @NYRep,

    Editor > Regions > select constituency > select party > make sure On Ballot is unchecked > click ‘Set All’ next to On Ballot button.

  35. The only ones where it is common to see one of the main two party leaders interviewed are the sunday programs, The Andrew Made show on the BBC and ITVs Preston on Sunday, so I think those should be the only ones from the Broadcast media with high visibility, except from maybe the BBCs Question Time (on Thursdays), which is a panel show rather than an interviewer, but still has quite a large audience, though only minor party leaders tend to appear, probably because they would be put in front of an audience of regular people and four other panelists.

    So it’s probably highly contentious, though idk if you’d rank it high or medium for visibility. I’d say the Daily Politics would generally be low. I’d also add ITVs the Agenda (on Monday). There is also the BBCs Question Time, which

  36. @JDrakeify,

    Thanks for this. I’ve finalized the interviewers for the next release, but once it’s out, please let me know re any feedback.

  37. @Anthony
    Considering 2016 polls, I saw just few days ago “Overtime Politics” polls have been removed from Wikipedia and have note been inclued neither in RealClearPolitics, the HuffingtonPost Pollster, and Fivethirtyeight polls.I found in Wikipedia forum that these were not considered as serious opinion work, but fake partisan remarks. Don’t you think these polls should be deleted and keep only polls reported in RealClearPolitics ?

    Also, I have seen when I start Republican primaries on october 2015 and January 2016, Jeb Bush ( ! ) is leading in both Idaho and Kentucky, and Huckabee is also close to the top, before Rand Paul in Kentucky. Isn’t it a mistake?

    Thank you very much !

  41. @Rophil,

    Re Overtime Politics polls used for some data points in the 2016 Republican primaries, the question is, what other polls are there for those states that are publicly available? For example, Michigan has Overtime numbers from the end of Dec., but before that you have to go back to an ARG poll that is in mid-September.

    For the specific candidate %s you mention, if you have poll data suggesting otherwise, I would be happy to see that data.

  42. @Anthony

    The reason why Jeb Bush is still leading both in Idaho and Kentucky when I start the game in october and january, is because you have only inclued one poll released in june for each state (PPP from june 25 for Kentucky and “Idaho Politics weekly” from june 24 for Idaho). These polls have been released before Jeb Bush’s campaign crashed and the Trump rise.

  43. In Idaho, I suggest two polls also released by Idaho Politics Weekly, but not reported in the game :

    1) in december 2015 : http://idahopoliticsweekly.com/politics/814-trump-has-big-lead-among-idaho-republicans-carson-and-cruz-trail
    (Trump 30%, Ben Carson 19%, Ted Cruz 16% and Rubio 10%).

    2) in august 2015 : http://idahopoliticsweekly.com/politics/567-poll-trump-leads-republican-field-in-idaho-clinton-sanders-biden-tied/
    (Trump 28%, Carson 15%, Bush 7%, Cruz 7%, Rubio 6%, Rand Paul 5%).

  45. Now we are talking about polling, I have also seen Ted Cruz is second in Tennessee in october 1st when Ben Carson is way behind despite the fact in national polls Cruz only gets 6% and Ben Carson is second. Again, I think it is because of overtime politics poll released in december. To me, this poll released in november reflects more accurately the situation in october:

    https://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/fall2015pollslidefinalfinal.pdf
    (Trump 29%, Carson 25%, Cruz14%, Rubio 12%, Bush 6%)

    I also suggest to you to look to the Opinion Savvy southern polls released in August, giving a good situation of the Southern States, putting Trump and Carson at the top:

    http://www.democraticconventionwatch.com/diary/4514/

  47. In Minnesota, Trump was less popular among Republicans, therefore Rubio won the caucuses easily, and Cruz was before Trump I suggest 3 polls for each starting date:

    PPP in July: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/PPP_Release_MN_80415.pdf
    (Walker 19%, Trump 18%, Bush 15%, Carson 11%, Cruz 7%, Huckabee 6%, Paul 5%, Rubio 5%, Christie 4%, Fiorina 3%, Kasich 3%, rest of the field 0%).

    SurveyUSA in october: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mn/minnesota_republican_presidential_caucus-5025.html
    (Trump 26%, Carson 19%, Rubio 16%, Cruz 4%)

  49. @Rophil,

    Thanks for this feedback and links – I have noted this thread for a possible future update of these numbers in PI.

  50. Thank you very much, I think the polls should really be adjusted according to the real strenght of each candate. Thank you !

  54. @NYRep,

    No, I’ll announce when an update can be expected, when I have good reason to believe I know when an update can be expected.

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