Standing up for Julia Gillard

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Standing up for Julia Gillard comes at a price in this country, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay. Most of us have to wear some cost for defending what we believe in.

And what exactly is that cost?

Well that depends on how public your support is. Mine is public, as it is with most supporters who are into social media.

The cost for standing up for Julia Gillard?  Sustained vicious, malicious, abusive, denigrating and threatening public attacks from the nastiest dregs in our society. They attack and threaten personally on blogs, Twitter or Facebook.

But do we care? Absolutely not.  They can throw the mud but it’s not sticking. And don’t they squeal like stuck pigs when it keeps falling off. They can continue with their chest-beating show of ‘heroics’ but nothing can hide the obvious fact that they collectively have the IQ of a moron.

The ferals across social media are tending to look more sinister lately and we have seen a number of attacks being removed from social media by order of the sites involved, in particular Facebook. I thought that some of the bile from the hate-filled Neanderthals I’ve seen on the blogosphere was bad enough, but they are little angels compared to what’s now emerging on Facebook.

When they’re not swinging in trees they are banging on the keyboard spewing out bar room profanities in our direction. The mere word “Julia” sets off the “must act like idiot” button in their tiny, unhinged brains.

Yet I have no idea what they stand for. They never get around to mentioning it. They’re too busy spitting venom.

Just like their hero.

Like it or lump it, I’m standing up for Julia Gillard.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Polls Apart

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Opinion polls conducted by the mainstream media over the last year and a bit have delivered disastrous results for the Government and show that Julia Gillard is locked in a tight battle with Tony Abbott as the country’s preferred Prime Minister.

The Newspolls, in particular, are followed up with the most imaginative dribble of spin from analysts employed by the same organisation that conduct the poll.  Even bumps in popularity for the Government are explained away as something negative and assures folks that the next poll will wipe away any illusion of a Government comeback.  I’m sure most of you are familiar with the rubbish I’m referring to.

The polls themselves are conducted simply enough.  Respondents are selected randomly and are phoned by the polling interviewer.  Only landlines are phoned as it is illegal for a pollster to call a person’s mobile phone as many people have phone plans where they may be charged for taking a call.

So who’s missing out on a call?  The younger voters, that’s who.

I’ve found the results of many surveys on the internet about mobile phone user demographics and they all provide the same story: The younger cohort groups do not use a landline and the older ones are less likely to use a mobile.  (I won’t bore you with the statistics as I have many of them to follow).

If you look at the Primary Vote results for the latest Newspoll you’ll notice that support for the Coalition jumps dramatically with each increasing age group.  The healthiest support is in the 50+ age group (yes, that same group who mostly rely on a landline phone).  When a pollster phones a landline number, the chances are high that a person aged over 50 will answer the call and respond to the pollster’s questions.

So how do we know what the younger generations think?  Again I relied on the results of surveys found on the internet and guess what I found?  Younger people are more likely to be engaged with the internet and social media than the older generations.  And again I won’t bore you with statistics.  You’ll just have to take my word.

Turning to the social media sites it was soon apparent that the results from media ran opinion polls do not reflect the opinions of a hell of a lot of people.  Facebook is a good starting point.

The Facebook Page for Julia Gillard has almost 129,000 followers.  The Facebook Page for Tony Abbott has a sprinkle over 24,000 followers.  From those figures it’s not too hard to deduce who the younger generations prefer.

The Liberal Party of Australia has its own Facebook Page and has a miserable 23,000 followers.  The ALP does not have its own official page.

Kevin Rudd, incidentally, has over 70,000 followers.

Twitter also has Labor people as clear winners in the social media ‘opinion polls’.  Julia Gillard has 245,000 followers, leaving behind Tony Abbott on 70,700.  The ALP has 18,200 followers whilst the Liberal Party is yet to work out what Twitter is.

Kevin Rudd clearly has.  He has almost one and a quarter million followers.

My conclusions might be a bit pie in the sky but what I see is a lot of younger people out there engaging with, ‘following’ and ‘liking’ Labor politicians many times more than their Liberal counterparts.  These are the people who are not likely to be taking calls from pollsters and responding by blowing kisses at the Liberals.

Do you get the picture?

(Photo credit: sitmonkeysupreme)

We’re 2

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Café Whispers is 2 years old today.

The site was actually built in February 2010, but the doors weren’t open for comments until June 6 when my good self Min, Nasking, joni and Ben Tolputt kicked off the blog.  Our first post appeared on June 8, being Ben’s Since when did the journalists become the story.  It attracted a whole five comments.

Now, two years later we’ve received over 76,000 comments from almost 700 posts and are nearing a half a million visits.  Over 300 bloggers have commented at the Café.

Most of our visitors come via Google, which is quite pleasing as it shows that people are searching for the Café.  Running a close second is Facebook where our posts get good coverage over a number of Facebook groups.

Of our two years, last month was our best month ever as far as the number of visitors, and last week was the best week ever.  The huge month coincided with Café Whispers making the final seven for the best commentary blog in Australia.

At times I’ve wondered whether the Café should become more of a serious political blog but I always knock that idea on the head as soon as I think of it.  I can say without much contradiction that we all enjoy the lighthearted blogging we offer here, mixed with the thoughtful commentary across a wide range of categories.  In a way that makes us unique.

Having said that, who’s to say we won’t continue to evolve?  Take that as an invitation to put forward any ideas you might have or any subjects you’d like to see introduced.

The real highlight of the two years has been the pleasure of blogging with everyone who visits the Café.  Thank you to the authors, commenters and readers, all of whom make running a blogsite worthwhile.

Now, should I open our cellar door? 😯