The Daily Telegraph’s Handy ‘Guide’ To The Election Is Exactly What You’d Expect
The Daily Telegraph accusing someone else of running a "scare campaign" is kinda cute.
IT’S ELECTION TIME, BABY. Well, not quite, but it’s definitely pre-election time! Yesterday Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull finally bit the bullet and confirmed the next election will be held on Saturday, July 2, at which point the nation shrugged and watched Waleed Aly and Noni Hazlehurst dominate the Logies instead.
While we all wait for Andrew Bolt to start shrieking about how a Muslim man winning the Gold Logie is proof that Western civilisation is due to collapse under the burden of political correctness or whatever, the country’s major newspapers, TV channels and radio stations have switched into Election Mode, ensuring that every dimwit backbencher with a focus-group tested line to peddle will be treated like an important news story for the next seven weeks.
Leading the charge is the Daily Telegraph, kicking off its election coverage with its usual brand of nuanced, restrained journalism:
Oh good. (Image via Radio National/Twitter.)
There’s a lot to unpack from that front page, not the least of which is the Daily Telegraph having the chutzpah to accuse anyone else of running a “scare campaign”. You don’t get to claim someone else is trying to whip up unjustified fear when you’ve frothed at the mouth about LGBT-friendly documentaries in schools, university course guides, sharks and the ABC in the last few months alone.
As the ABC’s Matthew Bevan points out, a last-minute change before the paper went out this morning paints Turnbull as the “underdog”, which is a pretty damning assessment given the guy’s only been in the job eight months.
Interesting change to the @dailytelegraph‘s front page between first (L) and second (R) editions this morning. pic.twitter.com/EvHEA6XzSc
— Matthew Bevan (@MatthewBevan) May 8, 2016
The fun continues inside, with an extremely helpful and not-at-all crazy ‘guide’ to who should get your vote in July. Besides peddling the widely-believed and deeply untrue myth that the Coalition is “the stronger economic manager”, the Tele also has a go at Labor and the Greens, who are dismissed as “a leftie rabble that puts animals, drugs and sexual freedom above the economy”. Word’s still out on whether the Greens are adopting ‘Animals, Drugs and Sexual Freedom’ as their official election slogan yet, but at the very least that’s going to be a great theme for my next birthday party.
@Rob_Stott this inside pic.twitter.com/FdEywLexd7
— Anthony B, (@swearyanthony) May 8, 2016
If you’re sick of all this idiotic nonsense now, I have terrible news for you. This is going to be the longest official campaign since 1969, so just wait until six weeks from now when it all gets cranked up to 11 and the Tele starts putting out pearlers like this old beauty:
That turned out well.
The electoral rolls close on May 23, by the way, so if you’re not enrolled to vote, go do that now. Don’t miss out on your Democracy Sausage.
