An "unprecedented and historic result"

mcfisco

This pretty much hits the nail right on the head

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/03/nigel-farage-superpower-politics-lightly


The smaller British politics gets, the more it feels that you might as well judge a politician by that key question: could you honestly bear to have a pint with them? I could bear to have a pint with Nigel Farage. Not anyone else in his party, you understand. But a pint and a fag with Farage, and probably a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, which I'd tear down the seam and spread out on the table while Nigel told some story against himself.

I think after five or six pints Nigel might start airing a few views I couldn't warm to, so I wouldn't stick around. But I could stand one pint with him, quite possibly even a pint and a half. With Messrs Nicholas Clegg, Edward Miliband and David Cameron, however, I would cross continents to avoid taking even a fluid ounce. The other leaders – and I do think we must refer to them in the same breath as Farage, just because it annoys them so hilariously much – look about as convivial as haemorrhoids. They have spent the week of the local elections looking like pompous !!!!!!, while the affable semi-berk Farage has led Ukip to the biggest surge by a fourth party in England since the second world war.

Devon_Sailor

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Theres a lot of talk at the moment about UKIP taking votes from the tories and this being bad for the tories.

What's not mentioned quite so much, yet, is what this means for labour.

Labour can no longer make a coalition with the lib dems (apparently, according to the number crunchers), which the lib dems have already stated could be their intention.

Labour will now HAVE to win a majority. The option of a coalition between labour and lib dems has now dissipated. Like last time around, they would need a 3rd party to join.

The tories can still join up with UKIP to form a coalition. So it may be bad for the tories....but it's worse for labour!

Graham,

Yes, a staggeringly bad day for Labour. All the talk and expectation beforehand was of re-taking 500+ seats; they managed less than 300. For a party that is 9-10% ahead in national polls they barely managed to hit their baseline targets - win the South Shield by election (since they have held it since 1934 it was hardly rocket science that they would keep hold of it this time!) and win the Mayoral election.

They even managed to contrive to loose a few % points back to the Cons - 29% of vote v. Tories on 25%.

I must say though that all this talk of a Tory "coalition" with UKIP at the next election is somewhat far-fetched, not because they are not similar of outlook, but because of basic electoral maths. Yes, UKIP got 24% of the vote. A great result for them. But there is as yet no single concentration of UKIP voters large enough to force an General Election win - they do not have an MP so cannot by definition enter into a coalition! What is virtually certain to happen, is that UKIP will keep their broad spread of popular vote percentage, and effectively cripple a lot of Tory re-election prospects, thus letting Labour and the Libs back in to marginal seats.

There is a fascinating fact raised somewhere that if only 890-odd votes had gone a different way in 2010, Cameron would have had an overall working majority. Now multiply that by how many votes they could loose to UKIP in a spread of seats, and you could see some really bizarre Con strongholds falling to Labour in 2015.

All this talk of "the moment" having passed for a Lib/Lab coalition is ridiculous. The Libs have shown many time in the past they have utterly zero principles and will slide into bed with whoever will have them to keep their grubby little mits on a semblance of power (Scotland? Wales? 2010? Boundary reform promises? they have form!!!)

Without the implementation of the fairer Parliamentary constituency boundaries, and with a mass underlying popular vote for UKIP, 2015 is going to be a Labour or Lib/Lab win. UNLESS the economy keeps its slow and steady upward progression. Two years is a long time in politics and if Cameron can point to even one whole year of upward growth (18 months better - 2 years will seal it) I think many protest voters and political pragmatists will come back, rather than let Milliband/Balls back in through the back door.

Regards,

DS

Moby

michaels wrote: »

A question for DLW/Moby et al. If UKIP mostly took votes from the Tories isn't 29% a very poor result for Labour?

Yes it was a poor result for Labour. It was an even worse result for the tories though and as for the Lib Dems!
Remember General Elections are won in the centre though. Cameron knows that, Blair knew that.....UKIP's support is wide and shallow and will not translate into seats at Westminster but the hope is for people like me that they cause enough damage to the tories to screw up Cameron's chances of an overall majority next time....together with his failure to push through the boundary changes.....us left of centre people can see a lot of nuisance value in the plonkers who actually believe in whatever it is that UKIP stand for;)

Moby

Devon_Sailor wrote: »

Graham,

Yes, a staggeringly bad day for Labour. All the talk and expectation beforehand was of re-taking 500+ seats; they managed less than 300. For a party that is 9-10% ahead in national polls they barely managed to hit their baseline targets - win the South Shield by election (since they have held it since 1934 it was hardly rocket science that they would keep hold of it this time!) and win the Mayoral election.

They even managed to contrive to loose a few % points back to the Cons - 29% of vote v. Tories on 25%.

I must say though that all this talk of a Tory "coalition" with UKIP at the next election is somewhat far-fetched, not because they are not similar of outlook, but because of basic electoral maths. Yes, UKIP got 24% of the vote. A great result for them. But there is as yet no single concentration of UKIP voters large enough to force an General Election win - they do not have an MP so cannot by definition enter into a coalition! What is virtually certain to happen, is that UKIP will keep their broad spread of popular vote percentage, and effectively cripple a lot of Tory re-election prospects, thus letting Labour and the Libs back in to marginal seats.

There is a fascinating fact raised somewhere that if only 890-odd votes had gone a different way in 2010, Cameron would have had an overall working majority. Now multiply that by how many votes they could loose to UKIP in a spread of seats, and you could see some really bizarre Con strongholds falling to Labour in 2015.

All this talk of "the moment" having passed for a Lib/Lab coalition is ridiculous. The Libs have shown many time in the past they have utterly zero principles and will slide into bed with whoever will have them to keep their grubby little mits on a semblance of power (Scotland? Wales? 2010? Boundary reform promises? they have form!!!)

Without the implementation of the fairer Parliamentary constituency boundaries, and with a mass underlying popular vote for UKIP, 2015 is going to be a Labour or Lib/Lab win. UNLESS the economy keeps its slow and steady upward progression. Two years is a long time in politics and if Cameron can point to even one whole year of upward growth (18 months better - 2 years will seal it) I think many protest voters and political pragmatists will come back, rather than let Milliband/Balls back in through the back door.

Regards,

DS

DS
Your post over cooks how bad Labour results were; wishful thinking? Please remember this was the tory constituency! No-where was it predicted that Labour would get 500 seats. The expectation was 300 on the Andrew Neill show last week....I do agree with the rest of your analysis though. Ed needs to keep his nerve and depend on the Lib Dems to compete with you in the south and hope that UKIP continue to sap your strength as well....and that together with the failed boundary changes might see us home:T

....but I acknowledge ...there are still 2 years and a lot can happen in that time!

Generali

Moby wrote: »

Yes it was a poor result for Labour. It was an even worse result for the tories though

On what basis?

Prior to the election the Guardian website had a win of 310 seats for Labour as a worst case scenario. They didn't even come close having won 291 seats according to the BBC website.

During the worst economic times that pretty much any voter can remember, Labour failed to get even a third of the votes. That's off the scale bad. A quarter of the electorate effectively voted for None Of the Above rather than voting for HM opposition.

It's good to see that all three BNP candidates standing lost their seats. See you later racist scum!

michaels

Moby wrote: »

Yes it was a poor result for Labour. It was an even worse result for the tories though and as for the Lib Dems!
Remember General Elections are won in the centre though. Cameron knows that, Blair knew that.....UKIP's support is wide and shallow and will not translate into seats at Westminster but the hope is for people like me that they cause enough damage to the tories to screw up Cameron's chances of an overall majority next time....together with his failure to push through the boundary changes.....us left of centre people can see a lot of nuisance value in the plonkers who actually believe in whatever it is that UKIP stand for;)

I suspect we agree on our analysis, the 29% in reality was depressed by some voters who would otherwise have voted Labour but are quite xenophobic and sent a message by voting ukip. I also think the Tories can not win if they tack to the right but it is unclear if they can hold their nerve and stay near the centre.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

I suspect we agree on our analysis, the 29% in reality was depressed by some voters who would otherwise have voted Labour but are quite xenophobic and sent a message by voting ukip. I also think the Tories can not win if they tack to the right but it is unclear if they can hold their nerve and stay near the centre.

If there's one thing we learned from Maggie it's that The Centre in politics is not static. It might be that the British electorate which has always had quite a Libertarian bent (e.g. the UK is unusual in that the cry of votre papiers s'il vous plait is unknown) might be demanding more freedom and also (separately) less immigration.

Graham_Devon

Moby wrote: »

DS
Your post over cooks how bad Labour results were; wishful thinking? Please remember this was the tory constituency! No-where was it predicted that Labour would get 500 seats. The expectation was 300 on the Andrew Neill show last week....I do agree with the rest of your analysis though. Ed needs to keep his nerve and depend on the Lib Dems to compete with you in the south and hope that UKIP continue to sap your strength as well....and that together with the failed boundary changes might see us home:T

....but I acknowledge ...there are still 2 years and a lot can happen in that time!

That expectation was very much revised.

The 500 seat thing even I saw in the media.

Chucka Urma (Think I have spelt that wrong) made everyone crack up on the BBC news yesterday, including the presenter and the BBC political correspondant.

He actually seriously tried to suggest that you take the number of seats that the tories state labour will win. Divide that by 3 and you come up with the number of seats labour should win.

They all cracked up because it was said so much on the spot that you could actually see him working out the math.

Of course, once you had run his made up calculation, labour came out spot on where they should be....and miracles prevailed!

This kind of denial does not help any party. Everyone around the table laughing at you is never good. It's one thing to have the other parties laugh, but everyone including the presenter and correspondants!? He wasn't much impressed!

Thrugelmir

Graham_Devon wrote: »

He wasn't much impressed!

In his current role of Shadow Business Secretary has been totally underwhelming. A further indication as to why UKIP made such gains yesterday. People can see through the cardboard cut out politicians for what they are. Nice people, wrong job.

wotsthat

What's quite depressing is that I suspect that when labour, the lib dems and the conservatives conduct their post mortems they'll only be thinking about what they need to say to get elected and get votes back from UKIP.

Instead of drifting to the right because that makes them electable why not say what they think is best and argue the point?

Obviously I know the answer - they're politicians and just want to be in charge and are quite happy to exchange principles for votes.