Rayvin

I actually reckon Gloom's theory might be part of it - Assange desperate to get a power shift so he can finally get the fuck out of that embassy. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised or particularly critical of him for that, he must be fucking sick of it.

FWIW, I'm on the side of Wikileaks knowing exactly what they're doing and Assange fancying himself as a power broker, but I'm open as ever.

Ok but could you refute it with something?

Depressing and predictable.

Fair points. It's Branson though so he could be in it for PR as much as profits. Hopefully the scenario will be the former option.

As someone in the know, do you think privatisation would help?

Tbf to HF, that's a strong response. Especially if Wikileaks don't actually know their sources...

I don't want to bitch on about Neoliberalism again but ffs. They'll go in to much fanfare and start making it more efficient, which is good, but will then look to maximise profit further by cutting costs, which will lead to less focus on patient care, the cutting of corners, and very likely eventual and overt prioritisation of profits over the wellbeing of the individuals they should be looking after.

It'll be a wig, surely? Barack looks fucking delighted in that photo it has to be said.

He does look the type.

Hard to prove this one way or the other though, and all this muddies the water. What we can say for certain is that the Russians wanted Trump to win. Either way, it doesn't change the fact that we now have two data points to suggest the centreground consensus is falling apart. If France goes the same way it'll be 3 and I think we can assume that it's not all random coincidence and a sudden upswing in racism.

What do you reckon, more for his ego or for his wallet?

Maybe that's why they didn't correct him actually. Fair enough.

Yep, it's a fair point. The 'rebel' side is always likely to be more motivated to get its voter base out as well. For Brexit, I think you could credibly argue that those who didn't vote simply didn't know what the fuck their opinions on the whole thing were. For the US elections, where Trump had like a 15% chance of winning, I think it could have had more of an impact.

I hate when people get that wrong. The Americans tend to do it presumably thinking it's some kind of spin from loony toons. I once wrote to the Guardian to educate one of their US based MBM commentators on it We can let Rafa off but ffs someone tell should tell him...

It's lower than the last 3 by a couple of percentage points but probably about average when you look at the last 5. Either way though it's a good point. Given that populists will reach out to those who are disaffected, it makes me wonder how much worse this situation actually is than we're currently considering it to be. Unless of course people were so sure that Hillary would win that they stayed home...

Just a further thought on this - that's some awesome power wielded by Assange. Just saying mind, but for a guy holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, his influence is significant. The temptation is to find that worrying of course, but at the end of the day it's little different to the power someone like Murdoch has, although Assange is unchecked of course. Aside from being limited to existence in about 5 rooms anyway.

It sounds as though they withheld information concerning where their leak on Hillary came from (Russia) and information on Donald Trump's campaign (because it wouldn't penetrate through the already vocal criticism the MSM was offering anyway).

I could see that being true for sure.

The specific scenario wherein it is giving rise to right wing populism that is ascending to power is new in my lifetime. Why are we even arguing about this

Hard to argue with Assange on that one, the media were firing everything they had at Trump. This is undeniably true. The only reason Wikileaks could possibly have withheld that information would be because they actually did want to influence the election. I can't see another alternative myself.

That would be a true statement if our democracy was entirely unblemished by vested interests, market driven agendas, and a total misreading of the people our leaders are supposed to represent. Which is what I was complaining about in my earlier post, where I noted it was delivering us answers I didn't like, primarily because of these blemishes.

I mean, if that doesn't scream 'the left is failing', I don't know what does.

Well now you're just taking it to extremes. We can only use the word 'fail' in apocalyptic scenarios?

Fair enough Chez, I can see that argument. Russian meddling is particularly distasteful and in fairness, there is evidence to suggest that these leaks made the difference. With that said, I don't think it explains away the whole issue. I expected Trump to lose, but I thought we'd be facing something worse in 4 years time given how things are heading - Clinton winning was not going to make this problem go away.