Ukip

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

A likely outcome.



Latest poll out today shows UKIP support has fallen away rapidly, and the Tories have been the big winners.

CON 36%, LAB 36%, LD 13%, UKIP 7%.

Amazing what a bit of sunshine and a few good-news stories can do to decimate protest party votes.

It's interesting that both Tories and Labour seemed to lose votes to UKIP but it's only the Tories that are gaining them back.

Still, a single swallow does not a [STRIKE]porno[/STRIKE] summer make. I still expect UKIP to do well in the Euros. They're the only anti-EU party and that reflects a lot of peoples' views. Other elections you can make about the economy (stupid) or education x 3. The Euro elections are fought on UKIP's strong ground.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Generali wrote: »

It's interesting that both Tories and Labour seemed to lose votes to UKIP but it's only the Tories that are gaining them back.

Still, a single swallow does not a [STRIKE]porno[/STRIKE] summer make. I still expect UKIP to do well in the Euros. They're the only anti-EU party and that reflects a lot of peoples' views. Other elections you can make about the economy (stupid) or education x 3. The Euro elections are fought on UKIP's strong ground.

Agree completely.

The mid-term local result was a pure protest-vote play, UKIP ran with barely any credible policies, but a platform that targeted the annoyances of a huge number of little englanders, at a time of economic depression with an unpopular government.

The result was an unsurprising SDP of 1983 type of protest vote share, but in an election that matters less.

The Euro elections are their specialty, and with low turnout from an apathetic electorate, UKIP should absolutely dominate there.

But for the GE, in the face of a recovering economy, improving housing market, and when the outcome actually matters to people's day to day lives, I suspect their share will tumble and todays poll is indicative of that.

rabbit_burrow

armour wrote: »

First up, we've got the Euro elections in 2014. There'll (probably) be a low turnout and, because of motivated Ukip voters and the (much fairer in my opinion) PR system, I expect a significant No. of Ukip MEPs to be returned. It could be that the agenda for the GE is thus shifted towards Ukip territory. Then who knows what could happen.

BTW. On the radio this morning I heard that the unit price for electricity in France is 9 pence per kilowatt hour whilst in the UK it is more than double that at 19 pence per kilowatt hour.
Imagine the boost to the economy if electricity prices were halved!
I would genuinely like to hear people's opinions on this.

That would be fantastic for prices to be halved. How exactly will this be achieved? If the prices were going to be lowered by the utilities companies in the UK, then surely they could've done so already instead of increasing them, after all, they boast about their multi-million £'s of profit.

Electricity cannot be stored, so we sell it on, and buy it as we need it again.

How will we control the price that it is sold to us? How will we force other countries to buy our excess at higher prices if they don't want to sell it any lower?

armour

I don't know if we could halve them but I do know that UK electricity prices are inflated by numerous EU and domestic interventions. Here's a link to a Ukip document detailing a few. Look at page 6 onwards.
http://www.ukipmeps.org/uploads/file/keeping-the-lights-on.pdf

Here's my tuppence worth:
At a time of record low coal prices, we have perfectly serviceable coal fired power stations which we are decommissioning whilst China is building them.
I suggest keeping these going while we develop the enormous amount of shale resource we are sitting on.
Imagine the boost to the economy if electricity prices were halved!

Generali

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

But for the GE, in the face of a recovering economy, improving housing market, and when the outcome actually matters to people's day to day lives, I suspect their share will tumble and todays poll is indicative of that.

To that you can add the utter pointlessness of voting UKIP in a General Election. They'd need to be polling around 20-25% to gain a single seat.

rabbit_burrow

armour wrote: »

I don't know if we could halve them but I do know that UK electricity prices are inflated by numerous EU and domestic interventions. Here's a link to a Ukip document detailing a few. Look at page 6 onwards.
http://www.ukipmeps.org/uploads/file/keeping-the-lights-on.pdf

Here's my tuppence worth:
At a time of record low coal prices, we have perfectly serviceable coal fired power stations which we are decommissioning whilst China is building them.
I suggest keeping these going while we develop the enormous amount of shale resource we are sitting on.
Imagine the boost to the economy if electricity prices were halved!

What happens when the source runs out?

Sampong

rabbit_burrow wrote: »

What happens when the source runs out?

What - shale gas?

There would be a few hundred years to worry about that.

rabbit_burrow

Sampong wrote: »

What - shale gas?

There would be a few hundred years to worry about that.

I would rather worry about it now, use renewable as much as possible, and have non-renewables as emergency back-ups. Electricity is used much more now than it was a couple of hundred years ago, and with electric cars and a technology dependence, it is most likely set to rise further.

It's no good using everything up, and not allowing any back-up safety nets for future generations.

CLAPTON

rabbit_burrow wrote: »

I would rather worry about it now, use renewable as much as possible, and have non-renewables as emergency back-ups. Electricity is used much more now than it was a couple of hundred years ago, and with electric cars and a technology dependence, it is most likely set to rise further.

It's no good using everything up, and not allowing any back-up safety nets for future generations.

unfortunately renewables are expensive and unreliable

at night voltaic cells or other solar energy produce nothing
when we have high pressure conditionover the UK, we often have no wind

wave power may be a longer term possibility but expensive

so we need 100% backup by other power stations with all the costs of have twice the capacity we actually need

Sampong

rabbit_burrow wrote: »

It's no good using everything up, and not allowing any back-up safety nets for future generations.

But that is not UKIP's policy at all (if you are inferring it is).

If you read the policy, you will see that they support development of other sources of electricty, not just shale gas.

I was merely making the point that there are a few hundred years worth of shale gas and it is a reource we can tap into nearly immediately, meaning energy bills would be cheaper and the economy boosted.