Labour Slip to 4th, Tories 3rd

Thrugelmir

michaels wrote: »

Agree with Wookster, this is definitely a great result for Labour.

If you know Southampton well then no great surprise that 4,000 voters turned out to support Labour.

What there wasn't was any turn to Labour.

Appears even LIBDEM voters went UKIP. Which suggests a hardening of attitudes towards Brussels. Similar to as in Italy last week.

German elections in September are goiing to be interesting. Merkel is under at pressure at home.

Wookster

michaels wrote: »

Could the clue be in the question?!

I'm not arguing with this however, the world is littered with examples of those who fail to adapt being wiped out: look at the Republicans... look at the Catholic church in the western world. They are dying.

They may (or may not) have great ideas but unless they can make themselves appeal to the average members of society as they are now, rather than as they were 100 years ago, they aren't going to be doing anything spectacular.

chucky

Thrugelmir wrote: »

If you know Southampton well then no great surprise that 4,000 voters turned out to support Labour.

What there wasn't was any turn to Labour.

Did you miss that the Conservatives lost nearly 11,000 votes in this by-election? That's terrible news for the government.

Masomnia

chucky wrote: »

Did you miss that the Conservatives lost nearly 11,000 votes in this by-election? That's terrible news for the government.

Lib Dems are in government too, of course. Tories the biggest losers of the night, no doubt. The fact that Labour got over a thousand fewer votes, only a .2% increase in vote share, during the mid term with austerity, u-turns, unpopular NHS changes etc means they have to take a serious look at their message.

chucky

Masomnia wrote: »

Lib Dems are in government too, of course. Tories the biggest losers of the night, no doubt. The fact that Labour got over a thousand fewer votes, only a .2% increase in vote share, during the mid term with austerity, u-turns, unpopular NHS changes etc means they have to take a serious look at their message.

Absolutely, it's a bit like the Conservatives who after having Gordon Brown in charge couldn't get enough votes to have an absolute majority and had to go cap in hand to the Lib Dems begging to form a coalition.

With all that's gone on the Conservatives losing 50% of their vote is tragic and could be seen as a crisis.

BertieUK

I think that the Conservative Party should put a vote to the people of the UK and ask them a question...

..Do you not like our Policies or is it our Leaders

Be interesting to see how the country would answer these questions.

TheConways

I think people vote very differently in by-elections compared to a national election. I'm not convinced that the same people who voted UKIP would do so in the same number in a general election.

I've actually spent time canvassing in (B)Eastleigh when one of my friends was standing for election. I suspect a lot of people would be natural Labour voters if it were not for the insurgence of the Lib Dems as the "main party of the left". It's a bit of an odd constituency.

My feeling is that Nigel Farage is actually holding UKIP back from gaining more support - he's a decidedly odd chap. He gets support from a certain section of people, but I think the "mainstream" are put off by him... He's just a bit odd.

Conrad

Generali wrote: »

On the face of it, if the Tories promised to do enough of the things UKIP promised they'd have romped home yesterday with 50+% of the vote. Clearly that's not going to happen when you have an unpopular Government. This is a protest; no more, no less.

What it does do is strengthen the anti-EU part of the Tory party.

Protest votes like this have been happening all over Europe from Grillo in Italy to Front Nationalle in France.

Posters kept telling me the LD's were dead and I always argued that was too simplistic and linear a prediction.

Consider the landscape in 2015;

+ Lower unemployment, rising employment

+ People used to low interest rates

+ Fear of a return to Leftwing immigration and cosying up to Europe

+ Millipead as unpopular as ever


Tory / UKIP vs Lab / Lib coalition.

The_White_Horse

at the election, i will vote UKIP. Osbourne can do one purely based on his utter balls up over child benefit. Who would have thought the conservatives would keep pumping benefits to single parents with 10 kids whilst taking away from the decent hard working people who limited themselves to one or two kids. Osbourne, you're scum. Oh and I almost forgot that couples on 100k keep it all whilst single earning families on 60k lose it all.

UKIP all the way. I agree with most things they say, except gay marriage. Let people do what they want, as long it doesn't cost me money.

Graham_Devon

BertieUK wrote: »

I think that the Conservative Party should put a vote to the people of the UK and ask them a question...

..Do you not like our Policies or is it our Leaders

Be interesting to see how the country would answer these questions.

Think the answer would be that both are a problem.

The problem for me, and it seems many others, is that not only are the leaders just saying whatever they feel thye need to say to get a vote, they also disregard their promises and policies once in government.

Who on earth would have thought that at a point of record welfare, the tories would come in and actually increase welfare spending? That's what they have done by allowing more and more to take housing benefits, more on unemployment benefits, more on other benefits such as SMI. That should be labour. Labour would of course do exactly the same thing. The tories are like rabbits in headlights when it comes to their "tough approach" on sorting out benefits.

It's all too blurred at the moment, it doesn't seem to matter who or which party is in power, the result will be the same. UKIP appear, at the moment to go against this.

A lot of the parties all being the same can be blamed on the step change in the economy. On this week last night, both ex MPs stated people are now seeing what has happened around them. I.e. business has taken over and it's no longer politicians who pull the strings, it's business.