I:
-325120-52832000THE QUALITATIVE ELECTION STUDY OF BRITAIN 2017Colchester Pre-election Post Debate GroupTranscribed Focus Groups Dataset Version 0.5Date of release: 21 September 2017Principal InvestigatorDr. Edzia Carvalho, University of DundeeInternational Co-InvestigatorDr. Kristi Winters, GESIS, CologneCo-InvestigatorDr. Thom Oliver, UE BristolFunded by: GESIS-Leibniz InstituteUniversity of DundeeUE BristolThe UK Data ArchiveQESB Contactsqualesb@e.carvalho@dundee.ac.ukkristi.winters@32766054610@qualesbqualesb2015‘QESB’00@qualesbqualesb2015‘QESB’ Website: READ MEEarly Release of Transcribed Focus Groups Dataset Version 0.5On copyright and attributionCopyright of this transcript belongs to Drs. Edzia Carvalho, Kristi Winters and Thom Oliver. Individuals may re-use this document/publication free of charge in any format for research, private study or internal circulation within an organisation. You must re-use it accurately and not present it in a misleading context. You must acknowledge the authors, the QES Britain project title, and the source document/publication.Recommended citation: Carvalho, E. , K. Winters and T. Oliver. 2017. 'The Qualitative Election Study of Britain 2017 Dataset', version 0.5. Last accessed Date of website visit. Available at: On the transcriptionAll participants’ names have been changed and any direct or indirect identifiers removed to protect their anonymityThe transcripts in this version also do not include extensive instructions given to participants at the beginning of the groups, introductions by participants, and some exchanges between participants and moderators during exercises.Initial Transcription by: Just Write Secretarial Services, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Contact: m.mckillen@I:And we’re going to start with the beginning, which is your reactions to when you heard about the snap elections and your thoughts on it. So shall we start with – oh yeah, and your names here. We’ve got Sarah, Steven and Cathy. Sarah, when did you hear about it? And I know you thought of us. FR:That’s the funny thing, it was my first thought. So yeah, I was quite shocked by that actually. My stepdad had put on Facebook, "oh, I think there’s a snap election coming." And I thought, "no, it can’t be right". And then when it happened I thought, "oh wow, okay." That was a bit of a surprise; but that’s about it, it was just a surprise. Yeah.I:Any thoughts on your assessment of why she decided to call the snap election now? Your thoughts on that?FR:I hadn’t thought about it at the time but then when I realised that she’d promised that she wouldn't and then she did, I was like, "huh, there we go!" [laughs] She’s like a, I don't know, what is it, a turncoat, or – I don't know, she’s going back on her word, and I thought that’s all the more reason not to trust her..I:Steven, do you remember when you heard, your reactions when you heard about the snap election, your thoughts?MR:I don’t think I was shocked, to be honest with you, because I think anybody that wasn’t voted in as Prime Minister, or you need to be quite strong to pull off the Brexit side of life, with Brexit coming up and lots of questions, and I think the way she was being questioned all the time about the legality of being Prime Minister, I wasn’t shocked, to be honest with you. I think you could see it was on the cards something was going to happen and I think, to be honest with you, it was needed, because we’re going to go through a rocky patch and it obviously it needs to have the validation of someone that is actually elected or been voted in. And to push Brexit through or to take it forward, someone has to have the backing of people to do it.I:Yes. I know, certainly in some of the groups, you hear people talking about the tactics of it, the timing of it and how, for her, it made a lot of sense to do it now.FR:Can I respond to that? Because I thought I – yeah, once I did find out I was quite pleased that it had happened, because I thought it gives us, maybe would give us a chance to get out of the Brexit situation. I know that’s not going to happen, but I thought at least there may be a tiny bit of hope that we can salvage the situation.I:Yes. And the other thing I should say, we are happy with a range of opinions, so this focus group is more for giving your opinion, your thoughts and not to come to agreement or anything like that. So definitely, hearing different views and slight disagreements, or agreements, is all really good, because it’s more data for us. Any other thoughts?MR:I just think it was right, at the end of the day, to do it, because I think whoever takes it forward has got a big job to do, and I think that has to have the backing of the country. I:So having the result will kind of put that new government in a position to go forward.MR:I don’t think that they should be voted on just on the Brexit side it, but that is one of the big push forwards in there. They put their manifesto there. I’m starting to question some of them as well, but we’ll come onto that.I:So yes, sticking with the snap election, Cathy, your thoughts when you heard about it?FR:I thought, oh God, here we go again, like another election. It just feels like we’re constantly at the polling stations. I don’t think I was that shocked, because I think that Theresa May thinks she’s at her strongest point, so in order to get a bigger majority, she thinks now is the time to call an election, because I think she thinks that she’ll get a huge majority this time, and she obviously wants that landslide victory, because not only will she go down in history, if she can get a bigger landslide than, I think it was Steven Major possibly, or Thatcher, one of them two, she’ll also have strengthened herself as we go into the Brexit process. So I think she’s probably got all of those things in the back of her mind. Although, when I heard about it, I went into it thinking, "oh, she won’t have to do anything; she’s just got this in the bag", and actually, over the weeks I’ve thought, "mmm, might not quite be as easy as you thought it was going to be." So that would be my thoughts on it.I:Yes. Well, it’s like sporting matches, right? That’s why you plan, because you never know, you can look at two teams and game out how good the result’s going to be, but until you get them on the pitch, you’re not going to know.FR:Yeah. Exactly.MR:Chelsea/Arsenal this week, say no more.I:That’s why they play. So we’re going to do our usual leaders thing and the impressions of the leaders. Some of you have written some things out and others of you had more top of the head reactions. But let’s hear, if you want to go first, the next bit?I:Yes. So we’ll just do three of the seven, because we don’t want to do all the seven.I:You don’t have to do Wales and Scotland, basically. [laughter]I:So we’ll just do Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Farron, and we’ll do positive, neutral and negative. And if you want to add to the ones that you’ve already written, please do.FR:Yes.I:But if you want to just tell us the phrases that came to mind when we talk about each of these leaders, that’s fine as well. So I’ll just give you a couple of minutes, if you want to add something or you want to refresh your memory –FR:I didn’t add anything last time. I obviously just made a symbol last time I did it.I:That’s okay.MR:I think if you’re looking at these, it’s the photos, as you say, like the picture paints a thousand words. You’d need to have a bit of history of the person you’re looking at, and, like I said to you, when you actually posted these, I see Corbyn’s face was that big, you look at Theresa May, she looks like she’s coming out of No. 10, she’s like the confident person stepping out, and, sorry, when you go to the bottom, it just looks like, you know, employee of the month sort of photograph. [Laughter]I:We’ll go through each of them, because it’s those first impressions that we want to capture, whether they come with a history, whether they come with your – just your reacting to the photos, whichever way you want to see it is fine by us. But we want those kind of quick impressions.MR:I think it’s because we live by the media, you look at those, and I think sometimes a snapshot sets the tone and I think when you look at those, I think they’re not far off in the first, second, third the way the pictures work out. So that was my – because when I read it, it does actually turn around and say look at the photo. And that’s what I look – I’m a photographer myself, I love photography and I looked at the photographs and I was like, they don’t do some people the justice that, you know, or paint the picture that they should do.I:Yes. I have the impressions with Tim, more like the estate agent business card.FR:Yes.I:But I don’t want to – [[laughs]]FR:That’s exactly it, isn’t it?I:Shall we start with like Theresa May? Positives?I:Let’s start with Theresa May. So positives, any positives that you had for Theresa May?I:Or if you want to just mention now, words and phrases.FR:I’ve only got "strong". But then she does keep telling us that she’s strong so maybe that’s why I’ve got strong in my head. But she has got that kind of – I suppose what I haven’t got on there is "determined". If you look at that again, she’s kind of got a determined stride on her, so it’s "strong and determined" but that’s the only positive and that’s one she’s told me that she has. [laughs]FR:I’ve got strong as well, and again, I think exactly like you say, it’s because a lot of the time she’s telling you how strong she is. But I also think she looks very confident in this photograph, and also very capable. So she is like very determined and "I’m going off to work and I’m doing all I can." So I think it’s a positive picture certainly, positive impression, she’s a bit smiley, isn’t she, sort of, a little bit? So she looks – I:More so than Corbyn?FR:Yes, she looks approachable. So she looks like she’s got everything that you would want, that she would be able to do. If you’re just literally going on the picture and the present issues, like she would be able to do what you need her to do.MR:I think if you go down to the City of London, that sort of – I think they do have professional people to dress and make, you know, the turnout and all the rest of it. But if you walk down to the City of London, she could walk out of any boardroom or anything like that, the turnout –FR:Looks like a leader.MR:– professionally – yes. That’s what I got. I mean, she’s – I got like "professional look", and that’s the way we look at people. And, I mean, when we have to deal with some of the people round here you have to be professional, and just that look and the way she takes things forward. And she looks like she’s up, you know, she could take the job on. But that’s what I just put, I put "a professional trusting leader, looks the part", and I think that’s what someone needs to be. You need to look the part. If you’re going into that or down into deal with a situation, you need to look the part as well. It’s no good sitting here in the corner all shrivelled, you’ve got to stand upright and you’ve got to pose yourself, put yourself out there.I:Thank you. Any neutrals for Theresa May? The things that are neither negative nor positive.FR:No.I:Okay. Any negatives?FR:I’ve got lots of negatives.I:Go on, Sarah.FR:Because I think she looks quite unfriendly and I think –FR:Oh, do you?FR:Yeah, and I find her quite hard-looking. She’s not somebody I would want to speak to. She’s not somebody I’d find very approachable. I think she looks uncompromising. She’s not going to back down on anything, you know. She looks defiant. I suppose that’s kind of – I put it as a negative, because I don’t like it.I:Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of the things you’re – someone might say determined is a casting... it’s the positive negatives, but also the words that you’re using too.FR:Defiant, which actually would annoy me, because actually you need to be – you need to have a bit of give and take, and if she’s being defiant all the time then I don’t – I wouldn't like that. I’ve put her down as looking strict. I think that’s kind of this teacherly thing. I’m trying not to be judgemental, as a female, like trying to – do you know what I mean? I:Right.FR:Yeah.I:Trying to not use roles like school – FR:Schoolmarm and that sort of thing, but she has got that kind of strict headteacher look about her, which is a bit scary, perhaps, but doesn’t listen. But that’s not necessarily the picture, I think that’s just –I:Aha, your association?FR:My association with her. I think she looks very upper class and snobbish and a bit deceptive and sneaky.I:Positives, any other things? Any other negatives?I:Any of you?FR:The only negative is a really bizarre negative, what I find really distracting is her choice of jewellery. She wears these really massive necklaces all the time, and they’ve all been doing these interviews on television with Tim somebody, is it, Tim somebody?I:Is it The One Show one?FR:No, not The One – I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s with just a guy, an interviewer and the leader and she had literally like a chain, it looked like it should have a padlock on it, round her neck. I couldn't take my eyes off it and I couldn't listen to what she was saying, because she had this massive great necklace on. And in this picture she’s got another blooming enormous great necklace on, and I keep thinking to myself, "I wonder why she wears that? What’s she hiding under there?" I:Mrs Thatcher just had like 12:13FR:Yes.FR:Yeah. Yeah.FR:Understated. But there, she always wears these humungous great big pieces of jewellery and I just think, I wonder who’s – FR:It's a statement in bold, isn’t it?FR:Who is advising her that that is where she wants to go?FR:And the Paxman interview, she was wearing bright orange, yeah, with another big, bold something going on here, I think it was a neckerchief or something, I don’t know, but there was something going on here with this big, bright – it was very bold and in your face.FR:What is under there? Like I wonder if she’s got a tattoo of her children? Or – she ain’t got children, has she? But like her, you know, husband’s name, or something. [Laughter]FR:“I Love Corbyn”. [laughter]I:Any negatives? You don’t have to, by the way, we don’t want you making it up if you don’t have one, but if you have anything, any associations, yeah?MR:I haven’t really, because –I:Yeah, that’s fine.MR:– I just look at it, and like I said, I look – I posed it amongst the three, the top three and I’m just going off the, you know, she hasn’t done me no 13:07.I:That’s absolutely fine.I:Right, let’s move on to Corbyn then. Any positives for Corbyn?FR:Yeah, all of mine are positive, actually.FR:I haven’t got any positives. Mine are more neutral.I:It’s a nice mix.MR:I’ve got negatives, so – I:Okay. Lucy?I:After you.FR:I think it looks caring, I think he looks thoughtful. In that picture I think he’s a nice, thoughtful – I think he looks approachable, down-to-earth and relatable. I think he’s a good listener. Again, that’s my impression rather than the picture of him, I think. I think he looks passionate about – he is passionate about what he believes in, and I’ve see him on the telly. Activist. I put "good leader, truthful and upfront."I:So I guess we’re moving down to neutrals, then?FR:Just from that picture I think he looks uninterested and unsure of himself. So that – I mean, I haven’t got anything more to say about that, really. But he comes across as neutral. He doesn’t look like he’s particularly one way or the other, he just looks a little bit uninterested by the whole thing, you know.I:That’s your perception, yes.FR:That’s my perception.I:Neutrals, Steven? MR:Well, there’s nothing there. You just look at the photo, like I said, I think it was unfair representation of the photo. Like I said, I do a bit of photography. I just think when you actually looked at it 14:37. You can’t see the rest of his demeanour or the way he is and all the rest of it, so I didn’t go much on the photo at all. But neutral-wise he just looks like Uncle Bob sitting there really, doesn’t he?FR:Uncle who?MR:Bob.FR:Uncle Bob.MR:Uncle Bob.FR:I do think – I think he looks quite – I don’t know, he looks quite academic actually. I haven’t put that down, but – FR:Yes, he – yeah.FR:He’s kind of like – hmm, he’s thinking and he’s pondering things. I think he just – I think he looks thoughtful and – I:People’s reactions are interesting.FR:Yes.I:Jam making came up. You know, he makes his own jam.FR:Oh really?I:You can see him at the church fair with like a sun hat, you know, and he’ll come up and talk to you about his organic – you know – FR:With his socks and sandals on. [Laughter]FR:Yeah. Like an ageing hippy.FR:He looks like maybe a chancellor, like an old chancellor that would be on the wall FR:Yeah.MR:That’s the picture though, isn’t it?FR:Yeah, it’s the picture, it’s the way the picture’s taken.MR:Yeah. It’s the way the picture’s taken. [through a round hole. 15:36??]I:Yeah. So I’m sure the Labour Party people, and they should always read their transcripts, the next election –FR:I like that picture, though. I think that’s a nice one of him.I:So then the negatives?FR:Of – ?I:For Corbyn?FR:Corbyn. I haven’t got any.FR:I haven’t – I haven’t really got any. Mine just – I’m just neutral on it.I:Steven?I:It’s okay. We want all your views. There is no wrong views.MR:I think there’s a trust problem there. Where my trust problem is, I’m ex-military so I have no trust in him whatsoever to stand there as Prime Minister, his association with the IRA is another big bone of contention, and nobody can turn around and say it’s not, because these photos are not 16:24. I was around when he was prancing the streets as well in Ireland with Gerry and the rest of the crows. So no, I’ve got no faith in anybody that’s set aside with – he was quick to come out and condemn so much the Manchester bombing, but you’ve got to think, he was around also when they were blowing Birmingham up, and there was other places, he was standing alongside them, at the end of the day. And all these sort of shouting about the military, he wants to cut the military, he wants to cut a lot of the defence budget and all the rest of it, because he says we should all be hugging trees and being nice to each other and all the rest of it –MS3:Making jam.MR:Making jam, yeah. So no, I have no trust in the gentleman himself and I just – and it’s like some of the bits and pieces that he’s trying to bring forward, they’re only what the Labour Party has brought in, in the first place so I – I’ve not – but you do, he doesn’t – I don’t – he doesn’t breed trust in me, and as I say, I’ve got a bit of history there with the military and all the rest of it. He doesn’t look the part. And the reason I say that is, we see him in a nice shiny photo there but when he’s actually out on the ground, when he’s turned out to some major events he actually looks like someone’s just been dragged off the pavement, like he’s been living rough. I mean, some of the outfits he’s – he walks into... and some of – I mean, not even singing the national anthem sometimes. I mean, if you’re going to be leader of the country then you’ve got to be – there’s got to be a presence about you, and I just – it’s the way he’s walking around at the moment, I just – he’s unkempt half the time and he just looks like, that’s it, Uncle Bob, he just looks like someone’s who’s come off the boot sale. And he doesn’t – you talk about control though, even with his own party, there’s so many infighting inasmuch as everybody is waiting for him to make the next disaster. I mean, all right, they’ve had the vote and turned around and backed him, but the unions, most of the unions don’t trust him, at the end of the day. If they would, they wouldn’t be dropping their money left, right and centre, and there’s been a massive, even with my own union, at the end of the day, for the political side of life. The amount of people turn around and say we don’t want to back the Labour party now, because that’s one of his questions, do you want to pay into the – the actual – contribute towards the local party or is the local political fund, 18:20 fund? And most them want to change that now, and as a unionist as well, I mean, he doesn’t – I don’t know, he didn’t really give me that sort of – to run the Labour Party, we want someone, at the end of the day, that’s going to go in there and fight, and he doesn’t put the fight into me. Some of the things that he’s stood up for in the past are questionable, at the end of the day. So that’s – I mean, I’m just putting bits and pieces there, but I’m just like, no control, I just – if he had control then there wouldn’t be so many people waiting for him to make a slip. And I don’t see that with Theresa May at the moment, but with him, there’s no – with some of the gaffes they’ve made on the TV, I mean, Diane Abbott, I mean, ugh! Definitely a mathematician there somewhere along the line, and he went and did the same thing a couple of days ago.I:Yeah, yeah, Women’s Hour, right.MR:Yeah. So I’m – that’s why I say the "no trust", because they seem to be grasping at certain bits and pieces that they want to take forward, and I know we said we’re going to come onto the political side of what they’re actually offering, but a lot of what they’re offering is what they took away in the first place. So I’m – no, I’m sorry, I know what makes it worse, I’m chair of the union here and that really grinds me, that I have to turn around and say, I would not follow the Labour Party rule on this one, sorry. No way.I:I think that’s great, because we’ve been in Scotland and we’ve been over in Bristol and those are – you’re saying things that we haven’t heard. And that’s precisely why we’re really happy to hear them.I:Yeah. That’s precisely why we go around the country, not just do it in one place, because we get this kind of diversity of opinions. And it’s not just about people who support a particular party, it’s even within people who support the same party, we get a diversity of opinion. So thank you very much, Steven. Yeah? Shall we go on to Tim Farron?FR:Can I respond to any points?I:Yeah, go on.FR:I don't know, if that’s useful to you or not.I:No, no, yeah, of course.FR:But I don’t know enough about the IRA situation, how he supported it back in the day, but how I see it, on a very superficial level, at the moment is that I – and I actually did listen to him talk about it yesterday, I think it was, and – or it might even have been first thing this morning, where he was saying his kind of friendship –I:You can talk to us. Yeah. You’re not responding to each other, so you tell us your impressions, yeah.FR:So like the friendship he had with terrorists, I suppose, or calling them friends, he was defending himself against those kind of criticisms about the IRA, in that by using it as an inclusive word, he said that he was trying to say like the way to deal with terrorism is to kind of to try to have a dialogue with them, as opposed to just continually fighting them, which isn’t going to work, but if you have the dialogue with them and get and know them, then you can deal with them.I:Yes. And that’s what you kind of took away from his comments?FR:Yeah. And I thought, I like that approach to terrorism and terrorists is you can’t just keep bombing them, because they just keep bombing us back. If you actually get to find out, I mean, that’s my social scientist or the psycho-social in me, is trying to understand what is the motivation, what’s going on and then deal with that, get to know people and then deal with them. It’s a different way of approaching terrorism. So I don’t know enough about it, back in the day, with how pally-pally he was with the IRA, but I did wonder if that was part of it.I:For us, this is fascinating, because you’re kind of sitting at the same table and coming at it from completely different points, and I’m just thinking – I:Yeah. And there’s generational differences too, right?I:So whatever experience, you know, as a young person has, it stays with you in what you pick up on.FR:Yeah.I:So I mean, this would be a fascinating discussion, but I’m mindful of time.FR:Of time, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure.I:It will be useful for us to move on to Tim Farron and then continue on with the rest, because we don’t want to keep you past the hour.I:After 7 o’clock you’re working for free.FR:That’s fine.I:So Tim Farron, any positives that you may have with Tim Farron?FR:I’ve put "he looks friendly and relatable-ish." I’ll add the-ish.FR:I think he’s one of those people that I just have not heard from, anything about him, I’ve not seen him interviewed. I just – when the election first was announced I said, "who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats now?"FR:Yeah.FR:"Is it still Nick Clegg?"FR:Yeah. I thought it was Nick Clegg.FR:And it was like, no, it’s this other bloke. I was thinking, when did that all happen? That must have just completely passed me by, because I just have no recollection of it. So this has all been a new thing for me, but even in this bit of the election, the run-up, where everybody is on the television, I still haven’t seen anything of him. I don’t know where he is, I don’t know what he’s doing, is he out meeting people or is he on – I just haven’t seen any footage.FR:I have seen on telly.FR:Have you?FR:But up until I saw him on telly I thought, "who’s that guy?"FR:Yeah.FR:Oh, I thought Nick Clegg was the leader.FR:Yeah.FR:But I didn’t notice the switch either, and it’s only when he came on telly, I thought, "oh..."FR:So that aside, the fact that I had absolutely – I’ve got no real opinion of him because I don’t know anything who – how he ended up in that job or whether just, you know, he just walked into it –FR:He got given it.FR:Yeah, I just don’t know anything about him. But just from the picture, I think he looks overconfident or possibly a little bit smug in that picture, and off the back of that I would say untrustworthy, unapproachable, because he looks like he’s going to sell you down the river. He is going to tell you everything you want to hear and then do completely the opposite.I:I’m guessing these are negatives?FR:Yeah, actually, I suppose they are. I did wonder if they were neutral but now I’ve heard myself, they’re negative, aren’t they? Sorry. We should have started with positive, I’ve started at the wrong end there.I:That’s okay.I:No, that’s fine. That’s fine. But just going back with the positives, just to make sure that everybody has had a chance, any other positives?MR:I can’t say it’s a real positive, like I said, he’s a nonentity, at the end of the day. He’s someone – at least the others have got street cred. They’ve held jobs in parliament, they’re quite upfront, at the end of the day. I mean –FR:I’m sure he was in the party, wasn’t he? Was he in the party, just on the backbenches or something?MR:Yeah. But that’s – he’s got no street cred, at the end of the day. At least Theresa May has and Corbyn have, because of their past and all the rest of it, they’ve got that past. Like I said, he’s just appeared out of nowhere really. He’s – and even when – I don’t think he can empathise with the people he’s talking to half the time. Because if you look, he looks very, I don’t know, uncomfortable when he’s dealing with people. I know Theresa May can sometimes be that. Because they always do that cheesy thing when they go to somewhere like an ironworks and she’s dressed the way she is and it’s like some of the others, and they go strolling up to this bloke, who’s got face covered in soot and all the rest of it-I:Hard hat.MR:Yeah, hard hat and he’s – they’re trying to have a general conversation about something. It looks so wrong. But as I say, he don’t even seem to be doing that, really, because, like I say, you always see the other two out and about and doing something. He never seems to be –FR:I wonder if he just hasn’t got the media coverage? Because they probably think that they haven’t really got much of a chance so they’re not giving him the coverage that they’re giving in the main – what they class as the main two parties? Where it wasn’t that many years ago that they thought Liberal Democrats would be in charge of the country.I:2010, yeah.MR:But if he was any kind of a leader, that’s what these are for, elbows, you’d be in there pushing your way to the front and getting your point out there, you’d be out there turning up, doing things and the rest of it, and it’s like –FR:Kissing babies. Shaking hands.MR:You’d most probably get arrested.I:Making a name for yourself in P&Qs.MR:Yeah.FR:He was in the leaders’ debate, wasn’t he?I:The one that they had or the – MR:The other.FR:The kind of 26:37.I:The five leaders, you mean?FR:The five leaders, yeah. He was in – that’s where I saw him and I thought, oh – FR:So what’s the one tonight then, if that was the – ?I:It’s the six leaders debate with the seventh one being Amber Rudd.FR:Amber Rudd, yeah.FR:Oh, okay.I:Actually no, it’s the five leaders, because Nicola Sturgeon isn't coming.FR:Oh, she’s not going, she’s not bothering either. [Laughs]I:Okay. So anybody have any neutrals or any other negatives?FR:I’ve got neutrals of "sweet".FR:Sweet?FR:Sweet. He looks kind of sweet. And I put Northern, but it doesn’t mean anything in particular. It’s just that when I speak I hear him, he’s always referring to Northern issues. [laughs] I:Oh, okay. The North remembered.FR:Yeah. The North remembered. Negatives, I put "weak and caricature", and I think caricature, I think you summed it up, a bit like an estate agent or employee of the month, that’s kind of what I was trying to get that, I couldn’t think of another way for it, but caricature is – he’d make a great spitting image puppet, wouldn’t he?I:Great. Well, thank you very much I:We're not doing the Green? Okay, we're not doing the Green.FR:Can I just say one more thing? I know we’re not going to go on to Sturgeon, but I would really love her to be Prime Minister, but with someone else’s policies, because I really like her as a leader. And I think – I:As a spokesperson.FR:As a spokesperson. If it was her with a bit of Green party and Labour mixed together, that would be my perfect government. [laughs] FR:Yeah. You talk about the Spitting Image thing though, but what about her, is it Mhairi, the MEP that was – I:Mhairi Black.FR:Oh my God, she’s just like a caricature of – she is this hard-nosed real kind of little terrier type, and she’s so driven, she’s really young – is she the youngest MP ever to be voted in?I:She’s 20, I think.FR:Yeah, but she’s obviously wants to be Nicola Sturgeon, doesn’t she?I:When she grows up.FR:When she grows up, yeah. But yeah, whenever I see her on the television, and they’re always taking the mickey out of her in the paper, like they do little cartoons of her.FR:Yeah.FR:Because she is just a bit unhinged. Is that wrong, to say that? Should be mad.I:Yes, so then we’re coming onto your voting considerations. You’re going to be casting your votes, coming up. When you’re thinking about, you know, putting your X next to the party of your choice, what are the things that are going to be going through your head that’s going to help you decide which party you’re going to be supporting? So Cathy, do you mind if we start with you?FR:No. So I feel under immense pressure this year, because I’ve been given a proxy vote as well by somebody who’s living overseas and they’ve asked me to make the decision on their behalf. So I feel like I’ve got two gos at it, which at first I just wasn’t bothered about and then as it’s becomes more towards it, I’m like, oh my God, actually these are great, because I’m thinking, well, I can do one here, because you know, sometimes you’re a bit undecided, and I’m thinking, okay, I can split it, because I can do one for that one and one for that one.I:You’re going to cancel your vote out.FR:Yeah!I:You’ve going to cancel out your own vote?FR:So yes, so – sorry, what was your question? I’m still like – I:What do you – yeah, when you’re going to be putting your mark on either one, so let’s take yours and then take your proxy, like what are you thinking about when you’re making those decisions?FR:I think the most prevalent thing for me, the thing in the front of my mind this time is about Brexit. I just think it has to be because it’s just such a huge issue and there’s a lot actually, a few more parts of Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto this time that I found more attractive than maybe I did last time, but I think Brexit for me, has the overriding sort of, you know, sway and for the next four years I think that’s where we need to be focusing. I know there’s other issues that go on around that but that’s going to be the biggest thing, and I just think we need somebody really strong and steady at the helm of that, and Theresa May comes across as, I think, the person most suited to driving us through that process. I know that, you know, she’s not the most popular in Europe. However, we started this process with her and I think she’s got to be the one to take it through. Because it’s – when Europe are looking in on us and we don’t want to be changing our leaders all the way through the Brexit process, because we don’t want to be contradicting ourselves through the process. So, for me, my vote really this time is probably, I may have voted slightly differently if we hadn’t been for Brexit this time, but yeah, that’s definitely I think for me this time, that the right – I:And you want a hard bargainer? Someone who’s really going to go in and take a –?FR:I do. I think we need to decide what our stand is, if you like, and stick by it. I don’t think we need to – I kind of like what you say about you can’t be the ones who constantly just put up a brick wall and just say no to everything, you have to be able to negotiate and you have to concede on certain issues, but I err towards the stronger, "no" to most things and I might say "yes" just really occasionally, and that is how it comes across to me, that she’ll take us through, because we don’t want to be seen to be not really knowing what we want and somebody suggests something, "oh yeah, oh, we haven’t considered that, yeah, I’ll think about that now," and then somebody else say, "yeah, but what about this?" "Oh no, yeah, you’re right, no, you’re right, no, you’re right, no, you’re right", and then we’re in this big sea of nothingness. You know, I need somebody that I have confidence in, that I think is going to make the right decisions on behalf of the country. So for me, that’s her.I:And on the proxy vote?FR:So, the proxy vote, I thought maybe I could go maybe Green on the proxy because – or should I just use it as a double vote for Theresa May? I can’t, I’m really struggling with it. Like you say, if I go – if I vote for somebody else I’ve cancelled my vote out, so I don’t know. I’m really – I:Is it in the same constituency?FR:No, it isn’t, it's a different constituency, so I’ve got to do it, like I’ve got the thing at home, actually, I need to send it via post, I think we have it like that. So because it’s not a local election, it doesn’t really matter where we’re situated. It’s the general election, and they haven’t lived in this country for like two or three years so they’re completely out of the loop of what’s going on, so they’re just like, yeah, "just the person that you think is going to be the best". I’m like, "okay. I’m not sure of any of them are that, but okay", and I’ll really have to think about it. I don’t even know if I need to tell them, they haven’t said, "are you going to tell me who it is?" They just said, "you do it." So yeah, I’m more undecided about my proxy than I am on myself, because I’m trying to second-guess maybe where they would want to put their vote. So – I:We’ll definitely have to get you in a post, because it would be fascinating to know how the story goes.FR:Yeah! Yeah.I:What do you do in the end?FR:Yeah, what did I do, and then I told them and they went, "oh my God, what the hell did you do that for?"FR:What have you gone and done?FR:Yeah.I:Steven, what things are going into your – you’ve listed a lot of concerns already that you have, but what are the things – yeah, going to your vote and how you’re going to – where you put your mark?MR:Brexit is obviously number one at the moment. Theresa May with her past jobs has got a standing within – that’s what you need, you need someone to know what the – because she’s got an insider’s view as well, so she’s been on this for a while in her previous jobs –I:Home Secretary – MR:Home Secretary, and a lot of the other jobs she’s done in the past. She’s dealt with these people on numerous levels, to be honest with you, she knows when they go to the table, how they’re playing their cards the majority of the time. And I think that’s where they’re more worried, at the end of the day. If she does get in, yes, she will take the hard line, we shouldn’t be selling out, we should be trying to take as much as we can to get what we need to push through on this. Her facts and figures add up a lot better than other areas and all the rest of it, or the other parties. My other thing is some of the promises that they’re promising and all the rest of it, as I sit here with my union head on, I’ve been Labour for donkeys’ years, when I first started, but when they didn’t repeal a lot of the trade union Acts and all the rest of it, when they were in, that sort of worried me, well, hold on, the Conservatives brought it in, you didn’t repeal any of it here, so we’re still under the cosh as a union, at the end of the day, and it’s getting worse and worse, at the end of the day. I think once we pull out of Europe, I think it may get worse, I don’t know. But my other thing is it’s like we talk about tuition fees. Well, which party brought the tuition fees in, in the first place? Labour did, at the end of the day, and now they’re saying they want to take them out. You know, you can’t just keep on bouncing backwards and forwards, one time you put it in and the next time you take it out. At least the Conservatives, like I said, they’ve got street cred, and Corbyn at the end of the day, hasn’t held any major posts, at the end of the day. And that’s, I think, what I’d be looking at, is like a stability type thing. We just need someone that’s a statesperson to stand there amongst the others and then fight the case. And like I said, she’s done it before, she’s done it in her previous jobs and, unlike some of the others, she survived it. So she must be good at what she does to survive the rat race of the party political system, at the end the day. Like I said, my only problem there is if Corbyn gets in, will he have the backing of the people behind him, and like Cathy said, turn around and say we need someone, at the end of the day, who’s going to – we don’t need to be changing every 10 minutes, we don’t need to be second guessing, we need to be pushing through. But that’s the way I look at it at the moment, I want a steady set of hands and, at the moment, Corbyn’s not the man to do it. Definitely the man at the bottom is definitely not the man to do it, at the end of the day, and you look at some of the other characters and all the rest of it –FR:It will be, well, I think, between the top two. Don’t you?MR:Oh yeah.FR:I can’t see that there is, I mean, like you never know, do you, but, you know, I just think it is like a two horse race, definitely. Though one of the things that I listened to on the radio today, which absolutely made me not like her very much, was this thing which I’ve not heard of before, but when she was Home Secretary and she cut policing in – about three years ago, four years ago, and the police then said "if you cut community policing there’s nobody on the ground collecting intelligence and there will be a major terrorist attack." And she was like, "oh don’t be so ridiculous; of course there won’t." And now here we are, she is now Prime Minister, we’ve had a major terrorist attack and she hasn’t addressed that specifically. I’m sure she said loads of things at different jobs that she’s held, which now the opposite’s happened, but that in particular, probably because it’s at the front of everybody’s minds, that is being used as a thing, and she – I just wish she would have just addressed it. Because it – why is it that they can never just say, "do you know what? I made a bit of a mistake there and actually this is the way forward, we will invest money so this doesn’t happen again." Why do they always have to like, sort of, you know, cloud the waters around it and sort of never come straight out? That really put me off her, actually, today, when I heard that.MR:But the problem with the terrorist situation is, you can say that though but when we had our highest rate of police officers on the ground we still had the IRA bombing us left, right and centre. We’ve had, what, two, three instances? The IRA were bombing us left, right and centre in the seventies and into the eighties.FR:I don’t know if she’d said it before the – like other London bombings, I don’t know if she said it before then, after then or whatever.MR:Well, no, it wouldn't.I:2005, wasn’t it, the July bombing?MR:Yeah.I:7/7? 7/11 – Americans, 7/7, oh that was easy, yeah. Because I think, oh no, which is the month, which is the date.FR:Was that 2005, was it?FR:Yeah.FR:And was it before then she said that or after then?I:No, that was much after that she became Home Secretary.FR:So we’d already had a terrorist attack?MR:Yes.I:Yeah. Around the buses, right, the tube.FR:So this is the thing, because I haven’t had the chance to look at everything, I’m hearing that sound bite, a comparison and I’m thinking that’s really awful, but yeah, actually, when you look at the bigger picture –I:Well, it is a 39:32, and without Manchester we wouldn't – this – the attention wouldn’t be on those kinds of issues.MR:But the other thing you’ve got to look at, and also, how many have been stopped, terrorist events have been stopped –FR:Yeah. This is it, which you don’t hear about.MR:You don’t understand that, at the end of the day, the situations. I mean, in my previous role with the military, I was a company commander working out of London, I used to get the intelligence updates regular, we used to get them put on the computer and all the rest of it, and I used to get warning updates and what state we was in and all the rest of it. And then these things are fluent [40:07] all the time, there’s things going on all the time that we will never – these incidents is happening in London all the time and across the country and in foreign lands as well. How many times have they stopped these terrorist things? So if you look at it, and they’re saying, what, something like 25,000 possible terrorists that are sitting in the UK at the moment? Well, to me, as much it grieves me, one in a blue moon I think we’re – the security services are doing well to try and stop what they are. Nobody can condone anything like taking on what they did with Manchester. At the end of the day, if you take on kids, at the end of the day, you know, it’s not going to work. But the bigger thing there is how many have they stopped all the way through this? One happens and there – everybody is condemned, and it’s like, say, for instance, the policeman who was stabbed at the – what’s it called? parliament, at the end of the day he had a stab vest on, he had everything there, he wasn’t armed, because he’s front based and all the rest of it, how do you stop someone with a knife? With a bomb you’ve got intelligence, with a knife - you can go into any store and pick up a knife.I:Lone wolves are the most dangerous.MR:Exactly. So I just think – I hear what you’re saying but, however, how many are actually thwarted and stopped, at the end of the day? I think there’s a bigger picture.FR:So to follow on a little bit, another word for her would be evasive.FR:Mmm.FR:Kind of – that’s how I see her, is that she doesn’t answer the question, when I’ve seen her in debates, whereas I think Jeremy Corbyn, when he’s been criticised for all kinds of things, including like terrorist affiliations, he’s had a good – a decent, humane answer, you know, he’s been able to be relatable and like be able to put yourself into the position, and think, okay, I understand where you’re coming from, actually, whereas she’s not answered her questions very well. I think she’s giving these strong sound bites but they’re often very scripted, I think, and don’t seem very relatable. She’s practised them, whereas he seems very much more down-to-earth in that way. But where my vote’s going to go – yeah – [laughs] I:We’ve got time, like I said, it’s kind of nice to have the flexibility to hear people’s thoughts and we’re not like, okay, now you, okay, now you, okay, now you, so –FR:It’s 90% probably going to go to Corbyn. In previous focus groups I’ve been quite a floating voter, I’ll go, "hmm, I don't know where I’m going to go," but I’ve not liked the leaders, particularly, in the past, but I do like Jeremy Corbyn a lot, so I’m most heading to Labour. But then the Green party issues, I agree with a lot with, but I just think it might be just a wasted vote to go with the Green party. I’ve also got a friend of mine who’s standing as the Green party candidate and in some ways I’d like to – love to just give him a vote. But then I just think it’s kind of a bit –I:How much do I like you as a friend?FR:Yeah, I know. He put a little sweet pleading statement on Facebook I think it was today or yesterday saying, you know, we’re never going to win but if you vote with your heart then vote for me. And I thought, oh yeah, I could vote with my heart."FR:I’ve got a spare vote. I could vote for him! [laughs]FR:If I had a spare one I’d give it to Blake, but I think if I want it to be useful it’s going to go to Corbyn. But then I also really like Nicola Sturgeon, but then that again is a pointless vote, because she’s not going to benefit me unless I choose to move to Scotland.I:Yes.FR:But I wish she was – yeah, one of the other leaders.I:Would you move to Scotland?FR:Yeah. You know, what she’s got envisaged for Scotland, I think is brilliant. I think that’s the kind of society I want to live in, but it’s just that she only wants it for Scotland. [laughs] If she wanted it for the rest of us I’d be voting for her.FR:Yeah.MR:I think that’s her problem, is she is very nationalist, the way she does it, it’s very Scotland, that’s it, Scotland or nothing. I can understand, up to a point. But what we’ve got to look at is also, as a country, we’ve been separating; they hold a lot of strategic-ness up there. I go back to military, Faslane nuclear base is up there, where the submarines are and all the rest of it, there’s already talk that she could rent that out, at the end of the day, if they withdrew the military back and all the rest of it. It’s Scotland, at the end of the day, as a stand-alone, and I don’t think they can stand alone.FR:I think she’s going to lose a lot of power this year, this election.FR:Yeah.FR:I think she’s going to lose a lot.MR:Because all they – all they – FR:Because she had like so much last time and I just don’t think – I think she’s lost a lot of the support. I don’t think I disagree with her, necessarily. I think she’s good for Scotland, but I think – I think a lot of Scottish people put their hopes and dreams into her and she probably hadn’t done a lot other than last year’s –MR:But the Scottish people voted, they didn’t want independence, and that’s another Brexit job, isn’t it, at the end of the day, because it’s – FR:So now that they don’t want independence, it’s sort of that which was her big thing and I think would be back on the agenda, because she does want to go down that road again. But I think a lot of the Scottish voters will put their votes elsewhere this time, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a big Conservative swing in Scotland.I:That’s what we heard, that’s what they were depending on, local elections with "we won’t have another independence referendum", and that’s the Conservative message in the local council. That’s nothing to do with local councils, it’s nothing to do with – FR:I don’t want Sturgeon and Scotland to be independent. I want them to come down, come down, come and lead us, come and join us. But also another reason why I might vote for Corbyn is kind of opposite to you. I’m so anti-Brexit, I kind of want someone to disrupt at all. Yeah.FR:Yeah.FR:I don’t know if that’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing, but I just want someone to just mess it up.I:And I’m a – I’m a Remain voter definitely, but I kind of feel that we are at a point where this is it, so we’ve either got to just go for it and get the best deal, because if you disrupt it, and that’s kind of what I want to do as well, but at the end of the day, it’s happening so we need to kind of get our way through it and that’s – yeah, but I would love it to be reversed, I really would but I just – it’s just not going to happen, we’ve kind of passed that point now.FR:Yeah.I:We’ve got five minutes left and there’s a lot to get through. Actually I was interested more in, to be honest I’m more interested in – because we talked about Brexit, the debates, if you want to put your thoughts on – we talked about the Manchester thing, and actually I’ve been adding this in, because if we don’t ask about Manchester we’re going to get methodological. So you’ve talked a little about it. Do you think, have any thoughts on how Manchester might have been impacted – I don’t want to politicise it, but obviously there’s a lot of politics that go along –FR:Yeah, of course there’s a political thing with that. Yeah.I:-afterwards when, you know, could have something else been done, who’s to blame or could do better? Do you feel like that’s having an impact now on –?FR:I guess so, and actually again, I wish I could like verbalise exactly what he said, what I heard him say on the radio about – he’s not being a terrorist sympathiser but it’s acknowledging them and trying to work with them to get a different kind of solution than doing military attacks on terrorists, because the amount of times I hear kind of, let’s say, really racist people, let’s say, who say "let’s just go bomb all ISIS." You can’t just go and bomb ISIS, because ISIS is an ideology which has spread and it’s people amongst you who might be ISIS that you can’t – they’re not all sitting together in a group somewhere where you just go and bomb them. So you do have to work with the people that you can get to know and try and work on different solutions to terrorism, than just going bombing somebody.I:Yeah. I think Manchester, there was a lot of stuff that comes up which is in security issues, you don’t hear about the successes, you know, there’s – what are the causes of terrorism. FR:Yeah, off the back of that, it always makes me worry about the immigration, because as soon as there’s an attack like that everybody is like, "close the borders, deport everyone!"FR:Close the borders, yeah.FR:You know, the bomber at Manchester was British-born –FR:A British born person.FR:– person, right, so he wouldn’t have been deported, he’s British-born and British educated. So that is always like the fallback position. It’s, you know, getting rid of everyone, and it’s just not the way to look at it. That whole close our borders thing, I find really scary, and I hate it because, you know, and if you were like a Muslim person it must be so difficult to empathise without people saying to you, you have no idea what you’re talking about, and I just – I think it’s terrible. I think it’s terrible, because it’s one person in a group that is doing that, it is not a whole, you know, society of people.MR:But we’re not the only country, though, is it?FR:No.FR:No.MR:You know, if you start looking across Europe, Germany definitely wants to shut borders, France definitely wants to start looking at their border control, America’s definitely onside with putting a big wall up and somehow –FR:But that’s what I hate, it’s all of that "everybody put a wall round their country and don’t ever let anybody in", so the social side of mobility where you need to have movement of borders and be able to take people into your country who are being persecuted, you have to be able to do.FR:Yes.FR:So you can’t just have this stand-alone, "that’s it, nobody’s coming in", because some of those people are already here.FR:Some of them are already here, yes.I:Can I ask, when – because you talked about your – like, you know, being in the military when the IRA –MR:Yeah.I:– was active and bombing and did terrible – MR:I did the first Gulf War as well.I:Okay, yes, and when the people talked about the IRA, and how to deal with it, I mean, it seems easy to shut borders then but that would –MR:No, you couldn't –I:How was the – what were people talking about in terms of – ?MR:Ours was hearts and minds. A lot of that was hearts and minds. We was – because we was actually based in the communities, exactly what they’re trying to do with Afghanistan and Iraq, they try to put areas, you actually work in the areas. I was in a small town on the South Armagh border, really terrorist country, and that’s what we were, I mean, we went up and helped the convents and, you know, when they wanted to have a clean-up day, you know, we was out there doing that, we patrolled the streets all the time. We had a double thing there, there was never a burglary in those areas because we was always on the streets. So the Ulster Defence Regiment and the police and the rest of it were virtually made redundant when we was out there. But because we was a part of the community as well, that’s what made a lot of it, and you look at what they’ve done in, say like Afghanistan and a few others, where they can get an isolated area, the people were coming back, opening up their bazaars and all the rest of it. But people don’t, there’s an external one or two don’t want that to happen. And what annoys me with a lot of these countries, they’re not necessarily the nationals that live there are the ones that are doing it. – they’re coming from outside, and that’s what ruins a country and all the rest of it. Like, say for instance, Afghanistan, most of their thing was working off poppy fields and stuff like that. So you have to find something to replace that poppy field drug culture and all the rest of it, and that’s what a lot of that stuff was, it was hearts and minds, teaching them how to do, you know, move on and stuff like that. So it was lots of things that, you know, moved on. But we just don’t seem to – hearts – you take, for instance, the first – some of the first people to come out in Manchester were the Muslim community. I mean, the taxi drivers were out there, and I must admit, and it really gets up my nose, we live and die by the press. The press make or give people an idea, at the end of the day, it’s like you Jihadi Steven going out beheading people. Well, there’s only one way you’re going to get that into your head then, then everybody is like that, at the end of the day, and he was English, at the end the of day, so he was going out doing that. But that’s where it’s wrong. The press, at the end of the day, have got a lot to answer for, because they are turning – not simple minds but they’re turning a lot of people in that direction. It’s right to do that but we’ve proved it time and time again, and the bombings go off, there’s always the same crowd of people turn up, helping and all the rest of it, doctors, nurses, there’s no colour or creed there, they turn out in their hundreds to deal with these, taxi drivers might turn around and say homeless bloke, I mean, prime examples there, he had a dying person in their arms, looked after him right up until they went. So, at the end of the day, but how much is really fixation, is them and those nurses and doctors, the Queen went straight up there, congratulated everybody, was seen speaking to people. but we’ve always had about the fixation of the bomber. I understand that the information of what he’s done leading up to it, my thing there is it’s not all bad across the board, and I think that’s what we need to be looking at. However, when people do cross that line, we need to deal with it a bit more harsher. I just think –FR:Can I say, one of the time things – I:Last thing, yes?FR:One of the guys that was killed in the bombing was a guy called Finn Head, and I read about what his mum had said after her son had died, and I found it really poignant, because she said, "I haven’t cried, I haven’t sobbed, I haven’t thrown my arms in the air, I haven’t been distressed by his death, even though it was only a day or two ago." She said "maybe I will be in the future but", she said, "he lived such a positive life that I can only ever see him laughing, and he still makes me laugh." And she said, "and as for the bomber himself, I don’t feel anger to him because he doesn’t deserve my anger." And I thought that’s a really nice way to look at it, that actually somebody like a terrorist doesn’t even deserve the anger, doesn’t deserve our attention, it deserves just to be ignored and – not ignored exactly but, you know, just not – I:Marginalised.FR:Yeah. Not even – yeah.I:Not given the attention for being the bomber, focus on the good of the people who – yeah.FR:Yeah.MR:I mean, you’ve only got to look round the university, I mean, we work in a accommodation, and across the board you think how many races and nations all work together here that in theory if they were in their own country, they’d hate each other. Or the natural hate there, and it’s not – I don’t see it as a major problem. I’m proud to work at the university, even with my past and all the rest of it, you know, to be honest with you, if people just looked at what is around them, the way the university deals with problems and the way the cultures are, they’re a great leveller, at the end of the day.I:So like a personal note, when I was living in the Keys, sat down and there was a guy who was Greek and one who was Turkish and they were both drafted into mandatory military service, they were trained to hate, you know, like yeah, don’t like the Turks, don’t like the Greeks, and they just sat and complained about their army commanders and how crap it was to have to serve in the army in their countries and they could, outside of the situation, you know, kind of commiserate and, you know, became closer even though their governments wanted them to be hostile. Well, guys, thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed this.FR:Thank you.FR:Thank you. I did, it’s lovely, I like the little groups, they’re quite nice. You get a nice chance to –I:And a really great range of news and different perspectives, thanks for that. What’s the details on the post? Do we have a date?I:Probably the 10th.End of recording ................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- baha i songbook
- i ve got to pay him back black preacher sermon
- level 1 english internal assessment resource
- each day is the lord s
- use the annotation chart on the back to look for
- tim s free english lesson plans use them share them
- illinois great rivers conference
- dylan wiliam formative assessment transcript
- İngilizce dersi yazılı soruları konu anlatımı test kelimeler
- verbatim reflection format
Related searches
- how do i sell stocks i own
- i ask or i asked
- synonyms for i believe or i think
- i choose or i chose
- i think i found the one
- i bet or i ll bet
- humss cw mpig i 11 humss cw mpig i 12 humss cw mpig i 13
- i took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart i am i am i am
- i feel like the things i should say are the things i can t say
- i have loved words and i have hated them and i hope i have made them right
- i looked and looked at her and i knew as clearly as i know th
- i e 577 02 9006 yah shua 577 02 9006 holy spirit i i e yah shu