How Condescending Is This?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2665102/UKIP-voters-not-know-use-internet-send-emails-claims-Labours-Chuka-Umunna.html

/// UKIP voters are disconnected because many cannot send and receive emails, use search engines or browse the internet, Labour’s shadow business secretary has suggested. ///

/// Chuka Umunna said that ‘a lot’ of people who voted for the party in its European elections victory were not computer literate and did not have basic online skills. ///

How could he possibly know that, and I wonder how many Labour, Conservative, or even Lib/Dems know how to use the internet or send emails?

[Svejk]

he's a wee bit arrogant alright. I'm sure even our Labour supporters wouldn't argue with that.

[ChillDoubt]

He promised that a Labour government would be ‘absolutely focused’ on connecting people who have been alienated from the wider economy.
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Aw, that's nice, he's gonna get started on MP's first then.........

[wolf63]

Any sweeping generalisation like that it dangerously stupid.

Anyway, even if it were true, how does he 'know' his information is genuine?

Eejit

[AB Editor]

It's probably 7/10 on the condescension scale.

Is he wrong though? It is generally true to say that more mature persons don't always get on as well with technology as younger persons - and we also know it to be generally true that more mature people vote for UKIP than younger people.

There's got to be some overlap between those two groups.

Whether the internet is really the thing to "liberate" people from UKIP's camp into "Camp Chuka" is probably the question?

[Canary42]

Nice bit of non-logic there from Ed.

Of the style "All cuckoos have two legs. Ed has two legs. Ed must be a cuckoo"

[Canary42]

To get back to the thread, ALL MPs are condescending IMO.

[Gromit]

AOG

I thought that too. How can he know they are not computer literate?

Most of the people I know who voted UKiP are computer literate. All the AB Newsers who said they were going to voter UKiP are obviously computer literate.

Not a good way to win back any voters who may have deserted Labour for UKiP - dismissing them as stupid. The Labour Opposition is abysmal and are mostly a talentless bunch.

[DrFilth]

if i knew how to use one of these modern fancy dangled computers i might be tempted to give him a piece of my mind

[andy-hughes]

To equate a lack of computer savvy to a level of illiteracy is a sweeping, iloigcal unfounded and dangerously offensive position.

Ticks all the boxes for an MP's observation about potential voters then!

[cassa333]

What has being computor literate or not got to do with voting UKIP?

I am sure the vast majority of them can read and watch the telly!!!

All of the UKIP voters I know have computors and send emails on a regular basis.

However I do k now a conservative voter without a computor!!

[jno]

sounds more like a hypothesis than a claim; and it's an interesting one: that if you're not up to speed with computers (this isn't the same as being stupid) you may feel cut off from the modern world. I'm not sure he's right, but I'm not sure it counts as condescension either; he may be stating a simple truth.

[andy-hughes]

jno - the art of communication is a bedrock of a politician's working life - but sadly, few of them have mastered it with the requisite degree of skill.

That leads to hamfisted tut like this - the gentleman may have a valid point, but it needs to be rfead carefully, and some deductions made in order to see it.

Since howling media wolves lie in wait for just such a poorly delivered point, the MP would do better to read his statements first, or have someone read them for him, who can spot the ease with which the 'ready-to-be-insluted will leap on his mealy words, whipped up by a media for whom such foot-in-moth gaffes are bread-and-butter.

[Quizmonster]

I'd suggest that a lot of voters - for whatever party - are "not computer literate". Accordingly, I can't see how it is offensive to say it is so as regards UKIP voters. Even the BBC research referred to in the link says the same as I did in my opening sentence above.
I'm perfectly capable of typing answers here on AB, but that is far from making me computer literate. Indeed, any time the wretched machine plays up, I have to wait for my wife to get home before it gets sorted out! I'd bet that the same is true, of older people especially, of whatever political hue.

[Quizmonster]

Sorry, J, your answer wasn't there when I started to type mine.

[AB Editor]

Canary42 - Maybe all the UKIP supporters from the "mature" group are the ones who get online perfectly well.

Maybe they're all here :)

You know my assumptions are fair, unlike in your example.

And I am a sparrow, not a cuckoo :)

[ludwig]

I don't necessarily think that's what he said or meant.

It looks more like a case of a paper picking a few sentences out of context and turning it into a 'Chukka says UKIP voters are all knuckle draggers' story.

If this is what he's deliberately trying to insinuate, he's obviously learnt nothing from Labour's recently failed 'let's insult UKIP and it's voters out of contention' campaign.

[Svejk]

He opens every sentence with 'look'. Seems rather boorish to me,,,,,,,,,,,,like.

[VHG]

>>>All of the UKIP voters I know have computors

Some can even spell computers.

p.s. The word comes from "compute" to add up.

[youngmafbog]

Sounds like it could have come from any of the three (now two) 'main' parties.

Anything to throw muck at UKIP. I suspect they still think that if they throw enough some will stick, what they dont realize is that most UKIP voters are mature and do think things thorough

[andy-hughes]

QM - "I'd suggest that a lot of voters - for whatever party - are "not computer literate". Accordingly, I can't see how it is offensive to say it is so as regards UKIP voters."

You are prerfctly correct of course, but what the media will seize on, and so will anyone who does not read the wordls correctly and understand them - is the use of the term 'literacy' which will be spun into its wider context, literacy in terms of reading and writing.

If you even hint that people lack literacy, even though the point is factually correct, then the damage is done.

This was worded carelessly - and the fall-out will run away with it, regardless of the semantics.