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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It couldn’t happen, could it? PM Farage
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » It couldn’t happen, could it? PM Farage
The toothy beaming smile said it all. The new prime minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and waved to nobody in particular but it was what the assembled media wanted anyway. They were as stunned at the result as everyone else. True, the polls a few days before had been predicting it but no-one really believed them did they? Polls had been wrong before. They couldn’t elect him – him – to lea…
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Oh, the last line is correct. UKIP will be on 5% at the GE and will only get a handful of third-places.
I've got £100 at 12/1 on "other" in the Hills GE2015 outcome market. This was meant to cover the hung parliament no coalition but would also extend to this.
I've got 40/1 that UKIP would be part of any coalition which is still available and seem a good punt.
I've got 8/1 on UKIP gaining more than 1 MP
It is interesting to guess how such a seismic shift would effect business and inward investment.
The not-so-illustrious history of UKIP MEPs might give us a signal. How many have they left?
Boris, the new Tory leader, announces his conversion to STV - "it works very well in the GLA" (nerds pointing out that the GLA isn't elected by STV are ignored) and Harriet Harman, acting Labour leader (they haven't been able to elect a leader to replace Ed Miliband owing to sundry lawsuits) makes a pact with him to push a Bill through the Commons - it gets some UKIP support because Nigel doesn't know anything about the "black arts" of Party whipping. So there is soon another election, under STV this time, and a grand coalition of Labour and Tory is formed (with the premiership starting with Harriet and passing to Boris at half-time) after more secret talks (between Ed Balls and Jo Johnston on this occasion) lead them to decide they have more in common than they do separating them.
A handful of Labour MPs defect to a "continuity Labour" party led by Jeremy Corbyn and a poll on this board organised by OGH shows that almost 80% of the previously Tory posters have defected to UKIP...
Nope.
This however could very easily happen.
If the tories lose in 2015 then they have a huge choice to make. They either elect another pro-Europe leader like Cammie or they choose a BOO leader who wants to take them OUT of Europe.
If they go for another pro-EU leader then everything they experienced for the previous five years will be repeated from UKIP. They will be again be outpostured and outflanked on Europe, immigration and a few other issues every single time by the kippers. With two differences. They will be getting outflanked by the kippers in opposition (tory MPs will just LOVE that) and the kippers will not be starting from a 3.1% base like they did in 2010. That situation is somewhat unlikely to kill the kippers stone dead but would be an ideal one for them to grow even more than this parliament.
On the other hand if the tories lose and choose a BOO leader who wants out of Europe then Farage will no longer be able to outflank the tories easily, if at all. In such a situation all the talk of pacts and deals that are being whispered about by fearful tories right now will suddenly become a very real prospect. Then it's Farage who will be faced with a very big choice.
If the tories win Farage will still be there waiting to see the kind of chaos that all the Cast Iron Pledges of an EU IN/OUT referendum will bring since there is no question at all that the tory party is split between OUT and IN.
As easy as it is to laugh at the idea of Farage as PM (it is pretty funny after all) the fact is that some of the most wishful thinking of all is that displayed by Cameroons who seem to think the kippers will just magically vanish in 2015. They didn't in 2010 when their 3.1% was more than enough to cause some tories to wonder if even that small amount cost them a majority. They certainly won't in 2015.
We've already seen the kippers drop after a successful set of elections but it's where they dropped to. The kippers had one of their best local election results last May with very high VI, but after it they dropped. Here's the crucial thing though, they still dropped to above where they were at the beginning of 2013. Most people expect after May that the kippers drop from an even higher VI and good set of EU elections for them. If the polling trends from last May repeat though they will till end up higher at the end of 2014 than where they are right now.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/96/UK_opinion_polling_2010-2015.png
So just how would that affect the tories at the beginning of 2015 staring down the barrel of a General Election?
Desperate panic, that's how.
Farage and the kippers dropping or falling after the May EU elections simply isn't good enough for the Cameroons. They need Farage to implode spectacularly.
But what would happen next? Would Farage have enough competent MPs to form a cabinet? The record of Kipper MEPs in terms of competence and work rate is not a good one. Neil Hamilton in charge of the Home office? Godfrey Bloom the Foreign Minister?
The truth is that UKIP will put Miliband in Downing street in 2015 on one of the lowest recorded vote shares. This to be followed by severe infighting as the Tories pick a europhobe leader, who then splits the right wing vote in 2015 with the UKIPpers so Miliband and Balls are re elected in 2020, this time as a coalition with the LDs, who have revived in numbers and spirit as the sensible centrist party, inheiriting a significant number of Tory voters who dislike the swivel eyed BOOers.
Nice article, Mr. Herdson. However, if UKIP had actually been pursuing a sensible strategy to get MPs they'd probably have 1-2 by now and stand a chance of significantly increasing that number. Because they've stupidly gone for broad but shallow support it wouldn't be a surprise if they failed to get a single MP next time.
Is that when RedRag learns that to use one password through multiple media-devices is simple (as posted by Ei|T, MHS* and Junior? Or when SoWo admits he is a boring, obese, tedious fart...?
On-topic:
I'll vote UKIP in Lewisham-Deptford (from; well, you'se knows) because it is a dumping-ground for anti-Tory votes. If the Conervatives had a Colin Moynihan chance of winning the spannahed area that is Hither-Green then I might think different.....
* My Honourable Self. Just so 'Plastic-Danes/Norwegian-wannabe-trolls' don't loose any more braincells....
There is a reason why the economic debate between the government and Labour is the art of small differences. There are in fact relatively few choices. And leaving the EU at the moment is not really one of them.
Yesterday the argument about real earnings was turning on a few tenths of one per cent. It was a bit like arguing whether you could notice the difference of a spoonfull being added or taken away from a bag of sugar. This is what politics is reduced to.
We are all centrists now, comrade.
(*) I don't think I was one of them (crosses fingers hopefully...)
At the moment both the mail and torygraph appear to me to be doing Conservative Central Offices bidding, but before long simple business principles will overturn this (ie don't upset your readers too much or they will stop buying).
As to a European referendum. Sorry its irrelevant now. A good chunk of people saw the Tories for years as the only bastion against the sort of policies the GLC and Lambeth Council propagated in the 1980s, only for Cameron to embrace such policies and go further than even Blair dared too.
Even if UKIP imploded tomorrow these people would not return to the Tories, as if you must have loony social liberals running the country, rather have loony social liberals who care for the poor (ie Labour) running the country than loony social liberals who seem to have contempt for the poor running the country ( ieTories).
What Miliband says now and what he would actually do are two completely different things. He's highly dangerous. remember Blair and Brown's 's promise about fiscal rectitude.. They stuck to Ken Clarke's plan for two years and then couldn't resist spend... spend... spend.. Do you trust what Balls says.??. Nooone in their right mind should.
The more green arrows you create on the Mail online site the slower this site runs. It's an EU plot.
Just to check: you are saying we should leave the EU *without* a referendum?
Metropolitan Police Statement :
"In the early hours of this morning officers of the Special Political Forecasting Unit took into custody a male of uncertain age thought to be the PB fugitive David Herdson.
Mr Herdson is helping with police enquiries into allegations that he with malice aforethought did have published a seditious account of the downfall of the Coalition government and its replacement by the notorious fruitcake and bonkers manifesto publisher Nigel Farage."
................................................
Owner of PB, Mike Smithson has also issued a brief statement :
"Burnley for the Cup !!"
Of course this would also cover traditional railway livery, so not all bad!
'Of course this would also cover traditional railway livery, so not all bad!'
And uniforms for taxi drivers..
What is it with these people and their dress codes?
Though in their favour at least the Kippers are holding onto their ties. A very lamentable trend for politicians and tv journalists to wear suit and no tie. I blame that John Major myself. It all started when he took off his jacket for a speech. Our illustrious leaders will be pitching up in their pajamas soon.
I'd love to be writing it. I'd feel tempted to add a line: "All political candidates to wear clown uniforms and appear in the stocks for one day at the new annual Festival of Englishness, at which warm beer will be drunk, cricket will be played and flights of Vulcan bombers will fly overhead. In the meantime, a giant trebuchet (made from English Oak) is to fling immigrants over the Channel to France."
Just to see if anyone would notice. Given their utter lack of knowledge about their 2010 manifesto, I doubt many UKIP supporters would ...
Ukip will never form a government but that won't worry them. They are a protest party and their aim is probably to affect the direction of travel. Economically, they will be a mixture of left and right - it doesn't matter what they put in the manifesto. And that's why they can attract Labour voters.
It's the social side that drives them (and I don't mean clubbing). All three main parties have embraced what seems to be the modern ethos - the green agenda, unlimited immigration, adapt or die, everyone has rights but no one has responsibility for their actions. Anyone who differs is to be insulted.
So they'll never be in a majority, but they are already influencing some of the debates. And if they stay in the teens or low twenties, they will continue to do this.
Will they? Probably not, but economics has never really been the argument.
I also meant to include some parliamentary Tory defections to UKIP around early 2015, which I'm quite sure would happen were UKIP polling ahead of the Blues at the time.
I've already decided this:it would have to be the one true livery: Midland Railway Crimson Lake.
After all, it was (nearly) good enough for the Hogwarts Express. And what's more British than that?
Broad but shallow isn't a great route to representation but if their primary objective isn't representation but withdrawal from the EU, it's not a bad one: it's pressurising hundreds of MPs.
There's also the slight chance - as per the piece - that a tidal surge could see them rise to the point where they do win seats, and once they hit that point, they'd start winning them very quickly. The contrast is with the Lib Dems, who also had a hugely inefficiently spread vote in the 1980s and have since concentrated it more effectively, but only at the expense of writing off about 85% of seats (and hence, any chance of *ever* being a premier league party - under FPTP anyway).
Nor are Eurosceptic tory MPs about to lessen the pressure on Cammie for red lines, renegotiation details and just more red meat on the EU. That pressure is only going to increase.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25885606
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10596376/Alex-Salmond-refuses-to-publish-luxury-hotel-costs.html
It's the cover-up that gets you in the end.
We've discussed 3D printing on here in the past. The Engineer has a very good article on the latest state of the art that might be of interest to some. In particular, at the very end some myths are busted. (h/t ThinkDefence):
http://www.theengineer.co.uk/channels/production-engineering/in-depth/your-questions-answered-additive-manufacturing/1017861.article
There is a basic problem - politicians are seen as liars. Note the reactions to both the Tories declaration that people are better off, and Balls announcement he'll run a budget surplus. Both statements are patently ridiculous - the Tories one because people aren't better off, Labour's one because oh look flying pigs in tutus. Regardless of personal opinions Farage - like Salmond - is seen as a bloke who talks sense. Ban burkas, yeah. Hand guns and smoking, ok. Last manifesto was rubbish, well you didn't win mate so obviously, I wish other liar politicians would do the same.
So him winning the election is unlikely -FPTP will see to that. But he isn't going away because he speaks to the people sick of the entire political class. Ultimately I think we will once again have a choice of a Tory government or a Labour government as has been for 80 years. But UKIP will win seats, and they will have a big impact on the overall result. The notion that they will see sense and go home sounds like the lament of Bennites towards Owenites in early 83.....
'It's the cover-up that gets you in the end.'
£486,000 for a week's piss up for Salmond & his pals,no wonder they want a cover-up.
people who'd given up on participating in UK elections.
"Fourteen months after a parliamentary answer from a cabinet minister gave the total cost of the trip, Mr Salmond’s officials announced that it had been “revised down” by £3,000.
The original figure indicated that the Scottish government spent £54,000 on the visit, but Mr Salmond’s spin doctors said last night that the figure had actually been around £51,000. "
Shall we get started on MPs expenses with Cammie and Osbrowne's very lucrative mortgage claims?
I still cannot see the attraction of a collection of dangerous fruitbats to a normally sensible person like Sean F.
Ukip certainly cause a reaction in normally sensible Tories.
Being called all sorts of names is obviously a good way to change minds.
Even Owen Jones tried to be polite to them - although being talked down to by a schoolboy in short trousers isn't likely to convince them either.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/24/emerging-market-currency-chaos-stock-markets
The complacent assumptions of the establishment bodies of constant steady growth are nothing but Brownian 'no more boom or bust' in practice. At some stage there will be another financial crisis and another recession. But we can be sure that they wont have been predicted or planned for by the governments of the day.
I think an alternative to your thread would be a Con-Lab grand coalition in 2015 with UKIP hoovering up the ever growing disaffected, especially during the recession of 2017-2019.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3751480.ece-paywall.
It was contained in this "Are Ukip a threat to Labour?".
http://policy-network.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=4544&title=Are-UKIP-a-threat-to-Labour
UKIP is not going away despite all the Tory attacks. It may indeed be helping UKIP. This is slowly becoming like 1982-83, in reverse.
Labour remains credible simply because it did not implode after 2010. It does not need to do much else. Miliband should not announce too many policies !
But it won't happen. Best result for UKIP is ~ 5 gains maybe... in the east.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/24/harriet-harman-labour-deal-lib-dems-coalitions
Milband will be worried if Labour slip from a majority towards a hung Parliament. Looks as if Harman has forgotten that the LDs were wary of her attitude in May 2010.
Laws implied that he was trying to deal with Mr Devious, Mr Grumpy, Ms Distracted, and Mr Whiny..
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n24/david-runciman/look
Whether the rest of the MPC sides with Carney is another matter !
China's private sector debt is ballooning as we speak: on official numbers it has moved more than 30% of GDP (in the wrong direction!) since the start of the crisis. Including the shadow banking sector, the Chinese economy could be more leveraged than Spain or Ireland were before the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
It is neither exports, nor domestic demand (consumption) that continues to drive the Chinese economy forward by what is know as "fixed asset investment" or "gross capital formation". That is, the Chinese are not selling more goods and services to us in the West, nor are their consumers spending more on toasters and washing machines; instead they are borrowing money to build factories and roads and houses.
Just before the late 1990s Asian crisis, fixed asset investment peaked in places like Korea in the low 40s, and with private sector debt-to-GDP a little north of 100%. China is spending nearly half its GDP on borrowing to build things. A Citibank analyst last week told me that construction in China was north of 20% of GDP - an extraordinary number when you consdier that millions of homes in China remain unsold (there are tens, perhaps hundreds, of Chinese "ghost towns", built for people who simply cannot afford them). China, by the way, uses more than half of all the cement in the world.
And the extraordinary demographic dividend of workers moving to the cities, and low dependency ratios, is coming to an end. The Chinese working age population will soon start declining.
If there is a Chinese slowdown (and by which I do not mean - as investment banks do - growth of 5%, but instead, an absolute decline in the size of the economy) then it will have extraordinary ripple effects: in particular, countries dependent exporting raw materials to China will badly hit - Brazil, and Australia are the obvious ones. Likewise, countries whose major industries are capital goods (i.e. machines for making things) will be similarly hammered - Germany, Sweden and Japan.
So: we shall see what will happen. History suggests we all worry about the next crisis being like the last one, when it will - in fact - be very different. How well positioned we are in the UK is another matter all together; we have delevered quite substantially, although our house prices are too high and our trade deficit too large. Government spending as a percentage of GDP is no longer on the low side of the European averages, so that should also make us a little cautious.
Do you think the Tories would promote a coalition after these elections ? With UKIP ?
What you cannot say is that UKIP will do any better: yes, they *may* take us out of Europe, but after that who knows what effect that will have? Also, who knows what their policies are?
The deficit under UKIP could just as easily be £200bn as £0bn. We just cannot know.
But I doubt Nige is thinking he will be PM.
Far be it from me to give my enemies tactical advice, but it seems to me that what's good weapon for attacking Cameron or Miliband (lack of competence, lack of consistency) isn't going to work on Farage (just as it doesn't on Boris)
(When I was a lefty, I was aghast that Boris beat Ken, and just could not compute how someone one that said "piffle" and "balderdash" would get votes in London.All my mates voted for him because he was funny, had character, and wasn't Ken Livingstone)
Think it's just human nature, when youlikesomeone, you forgive them flaws, you criticise others for. Much as it maybe hard for disgruntled Tories to take, Farage is liked by the man on the street and the last manifesto etc isn't going to bother the kind of person that is turning to UKIP. It just bothers Tories that want it to matter.
What would cause him grief is doing something that makes him look like "just another politician"
However unfairly (Cameron is not responsible for how the Chinese economy is run), the politicians of the day get the blame for crises and unemployment. The "they're all the same" meme can quickly gain traction, and like so many times before the belief that "desperate times require desperate measures" or "we need someone different" takes hold.
The most successful insurgent parties are the ones where people can paint their own beliefs and hopes on the faces of the politicians (and I would include Obama there). Farage has that skill: people see him as just like them, and people believe that, unlike Cameron, Clegg and Milliband, that he cares about their hopes and fears.
It is worth remembering that an emerging markets crisis, like the one I posited earlier, would almost certainly lead to many insurgent parties getting elected across the developed world. It would almost certainly lead to more populist economic policies: how do we protect domestic jobs? We must prevent foreigners from selling good and services to us that compete with domestic firms.
But: let's be optimistic for a second. Our economy is less imbalanced, and less indebted than it was on the eve of the GFC in 2007. The demographics of the world, with falling birth rates, makes war unlikely. We may have a really shitty period, but we will come out the other side.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/11/24/sam-asks-should-it-be-really-cool-hand-ed/
You are forgetting that the SNP also ran an opinion poll in the constituency, using a different question to the one that will be on the ballot, and they found that, er, less than 50%, would vote yes...
Two thoughts:
1) What are the chances of the Chinese 'going for broke' ie using their new spare industrial capacity and the powers of an authoritarian state to try to bankrupt foreign competitors ?
2) An issue which worries me about the UK is the psychological aspect. Most people think the government is 'paying down the debt' and that've we undergone austerity and are now 'booming' again. Something which has been encouraged by politicians needing to spin a line and journalists with headlines to write.
That's why media attacks against UKIP don't work, all they do is show UKIP supporters that Farage is a victim of establishment persecution as well.
For the record I doubt Farage could run a successful government but then the establishment politicians can't either.
Farage would I suspect run a more successful pissup in a brewery than the PPE boys.
At Westminster Elections, Scots, particularly around the central belt will simply vote Labour. Doesn't matter if they voted for an independent Scotland. They'll trust Labour because only Labour can do the bidding on their behalf against the Tories. And when they get to the ballot box the Labour tickbox is simply bigger than the rest.
We've had recent revolutions in north Africa and the middle east, rising north, up through the Mediterranean, with much turbulence in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Ukraine etc so it's logical to predict that major change will hit northern Europe too in the nearish future. From time to time, people do completely reject the old and strive to embrace the new. It's a trait of humanity. The unknown future with all its uncertainty becomes preferable to the status quo. Given that UKIP's vision of the future comprises what many see as the best bits of the past, it would be less a revolution, and more a reversion, which would help get the crucial older voters on board, who otherwise might be nervous of change.
A few more programmes like Benefits Street would help UKIP's cause. Makes me laugh how people are only shocked by reality when they see it on a screen, but not when they walk past in the street. I think the programme has been brilliant in helping people see what's wrong with one aspect of the current system. IDS, quite rightly, should be delighted.
'persecuting'
Oh lordy. Get a grip.
"Persecuting: subject (someone) to hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of their race or political or religious beliefs."
Nope, doesn't fit.
But less unlikely than the Lib Dems winning the Euro elections.
And when people are seeing their country being changed around them and when they see growing wealth divides and falling socioeconomic mobility, with themselves on the wrong side of the line, they have a point.
I also recall that you were all but calling for opponents of gay marriage to be effectively forced out of the Conservative party.
Some nice middle class progressive people should be a little more open minded about what others without their advantages are experiencing.
Harman may be stating the bleeding obvious. It is one thing making the case against a coalition between Lab and LDs in Jan 2014, but how much flexibility would she support in May 2015 if Labour fell short of a majority? The question is how far will she continue to make attacks on the LD/Labour option. If Labour's polling position worsens, will she be more strident or quiet?
Whether you or I agree with their perspective isn't relevant. Its their view, they honestly hold it, and a political party has opinions they feel best represent them. Saying that their views are ridiculous in youropi ion is going to what? Make them say "on second examination you are right! What a fool I've been! Be assured that I will now gladly vote for the fine politicians who until two seconds ago I thought were destroying all I hold dear!"
Or will they see your ridicule as proof of their world view and make them even more firm in their intentions to bring the oppressors down?
2. Government spending in the UK is too high, and we have done too little to combat it. In 2007, before the financial crisis, government spending was 50% of GDP. In 2012, it was 47.3%. We have cut just 2.7% from GDP spending (as a percentage of GDP). By contrast, Spain has gone from 47.3% to 41.1%, and Portugal has cut from 54.1% to 46.1%. We are lucky to have our own currency: but in the event of another crisis, we have more to do to cut government spending than many of our neighbours (France is obviously the exception). However, I would point out that we have done a fantastic amount of private sector deleveraging - our private sector debt to GDP has fallen more than 30% to a (still high) 176%.
If people think the EU is then they will be more likely to vote UKIP. And I reckon that people think that for sure.
" ... would be governed by a party I ideologically oppose, yet I kinda want to see it anyway. What does that say about me? Nothing good, I fear."
Worryingly enough, I sort of feel the same, and I suspect, so do many others.
What's the cure? Politicians clean up their act? That won't happen.
Farage and Ukip are implicated in a massive financial scandal? That could do it, but not much else.
But if that happened, the ruling groups of UKIP councillors would very quickly fall apart, fall out with each other, be exposed as nincompoops and fruitcakes, have contradictory and unrealistic policies, and would make a complete mess of running councils. All of this would be exposed with glee abandon by the newspapers. UKIP would not be able to maintain its support at a high level.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/sheffield-mp-says-she-will-step-down-at-election-1-6396037
Apologies if other have posted it.
The country's always changed. Are UKIP going to put the UK in aspic?
We all should be a little more open minded about what others are experiencing. And may I suggest that 'others' includes immigrants, asylum seekers, women, men, natives, the poor, the rich, the employed, the unemployed, the able-bodied, the disabled, foreigners ... in fact, everyone.
I suggest that the people against gay marriage should be a little more open-minded about people who are gay. See? Your words work well there.
But you really need to read up on persecution if you think that Europe is persecuting us.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25894312
Cue for moves of assets, and falling income tax revenues. Posturing nonsense.
A bigger issue is that UKIP doesn't yet have a particularly fixed political philosophy. It contains supporters (such as Paul Mid Beds) who believe in erecting trade barriers with every country on earth based on their relative wage rates. And it contains supporters (such as Richard Tyndall or Socrates) who see the EU as an obstacle to us returning to our free trade roots with all of the world. It contains social conservatives who want to ban the burkha and gay marriage, and libertarians who oppose both these.
For that reason, and the fact that UKIP members have not had the multi decade experiences of working with each other, one can expect any UKIP council to have a difficult experience of power.