David Cameron must make EU referendum promise more 'believable', Tory MPs urge
Gawd. Talk about missing the point.
It's not particularly about Europe. It's about a rag-bag assortment of often unconnected and incoherent irritations with the modern world. Everything from Bah Bah White Sheep and (I'm not making this up) Muslim immigrant cats, to gay marriage.
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
David Cameron must make EU referendum promise more 'believable', Tory MPs urge
It's not particularly about Europe. It's about a rag-bag assortment of often unconnected and incoherent irritations with the modern world. Everything from Bah Bah White Sheep and (I'm not making this up) Muslim immigrant cats, to gay marriage.
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
Markit Economics @MarkitEconomics UK Services PMI at 52.9 in April, up from 52.4 in March. Fastest increase in activity for eight months. PR here bit.ly/111biIc
When you add the UKIP + Tory numbers, what we are seeing is a rejection of Ed Miliband and a mid-term lurch to the right.
There are none so blind today as those on the Left...
Tough economic times make people focus on their own pockets, and favour right wing govts. While times of prosperity people feel more generous..
So the conservatives win in 2010, 1992, 1979, 1950, 1930's; Labour wins in2001, 2005, 1997, 1964 etc
UKIP are re setting the political centre, and all three parties need to worry, perhaps SNP too as a right wing govt in Westminster would hinder their regionalism plans, perhaps pushing them to true seperatism.
Not entirely true, if a CON majority looks likely that is good news for the SNP 'Oot' campaign.
It probably would increase the out vote; but it would also make it much harder for Scotland to keep a common defence, central banking and foreign policy. Out may have to mean out, rather than the Devo max that the SNP currently seems to want.
LOL! That's a bloody hilarious clip of Farage, Roger.
He's not ignorant though. Rude, yes, but a long way from ignorant. And personally I don't mind a bit of well articulated rudeness. The only really objectionable bit was the snide remark about Belgium, which was borderline racist. The poor bloke can't help where he was born. But otherwise it was a wonderful rant.
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
You do if you're the incompetent fops or inept tory councillors.
Motion from Lincolnshire Conservatives calling for EU referendum presented in Brussels
A motion from Lincolnshire Conservatives calling for a referendum on EU membership has been presented in Brussels.
County council leader Martin Hill is writing to David Cameron, calling for a national poll Britain's membership of the European Union in 2014.
Eek what's suddenly happened to the blog? It's now oldest first
Nah, looks newest first to me!
It's all changed for me. Comment box at the bottom, comments paged, menu bar at the top. Don't understand what's going on.
Are you in the right bit? There is a page behind the main page which is supposed to show your own comments (I think) but has a different layout from the main page. Try going back to the main page.
How much more evidence do you need that the more the mainstream Right dance to the UKIP tune, the more UKIP benefit?
As I said earlier, however, this split vote is great news for Labour, so by all means carry on if you really want to see Ed in Downing Street with a majority.
Really amusing listening to Hughes on the beeb extolling the virtues of FPTP as it keeps the LD's in councillors!
And in 2015, it will be FPTP that allows the LibDemers to hang on to 40-odd seats, thanks to splitting the right wing vote between UKIP and the Conservatives.
It is amusingly ironic.
Remember, only the Liberal Democrats can come THIRD under first past the post.
:-)
I can easily foresee a situation in 2015 where the LDs get 12-14% (as in 1997), and get 40 seats. It would be a classic case of FPTP working in their favour.
It took the left 15 years to work out how to tactically vote; I wonder how long in will take the right.
I think an interesting thing about the locals is that they are far less tactical than a GE say. For instance my ballot paper gave me two choices, so after about 2 minutes of dithering I ticked a UKIP box and then after a further 5 minutes I decided just about to pick one of the random Conservatives.
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
Morning all. I see UKIP have done as well as or even better than predicted, although it looks as though the worst forecasts of Tory losses in terms of Councils won't happen. The UKIP gains are (as predicted) spread out, and they are taking seats off all and sundry, which mitigates the damage for the Conservatives once you adjust for the fact that they started from such a huge dominance in these councils.
As with Eastleigh, the significance of South Shields seems to be that Labour are not picking up the anti-coalition votes they should be picking up. Instead UKIP are grabbing the disgruntled. Of course, South Shields is a very different seat from Eastleigh, but for Labour to actually lose vote share, mid-term, when there was a 14% LibDem 2010 vote share disappearing into the void, was remarkable. UKIP did pretty much as I expected (I predicted 25%), but Labour did rather worse on 50.4% (I was expecting over 55%). The Tory vote held up better than I thought it would - I thought they might be close to losing their deposit. That must mean that a substantial chunk of the South Shields UKIP vote came from Labour as well as from the LibDems, although of course on much reduced turnout.
As for the wider significance: this is being exaggerated. The UKIP vote is mainly a simple protest vote - which in previous parliaments would have been picked up by the main opposition and by the LibDems. It is incoherent and self-contradictory, so is unlikely to survive closer scrutiny. Many of the new UKIP councillors will find it tough going. Still, we can expect UKIP to continue doing well for the next year or so, and especially in the European elections next year, before falling back as people focus on real choices.
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
In what sense are UKIP an extremist party?
An IN/OUT referendum has the support of a majority of the country. 'Out' is the most popular view.
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick 2m UKIP's success in end may not be about getting MPs, MEPs or cllrs, but pulling the whole of British politics towards them, which happening
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
In what sense are UKIP an extremist party?
An IN/OUT referendum has the support of a majority of the country. 'Out' is the most popular view.
Those who oppose a referendum are the extremists.
There will be a referendum.
But this isn't even about Europe anymore. The UKIP vote is not really about Europe. It has finally become Veritas, only without Robert Kilroy-Silk.
"For sure, Ukip is no Golden Dawn and Mr Farage no dangerous rabble-rouser. Even so, his party's performance invites comparison with the progress made by Marine Le Pen's Front National in France."
"But there is one lesson to be taken from these results that eclipses all others. The talk of a great progressive realignment, beloved by so many on the Left, is for the birds.
The British electorate is moving decisively to the Right. Yes, we’ll see lots of clever articles written over the coming days about how the traditional distinctions between Left and Right no longer matter. How politics isn’t linear.
It’s a smokescreen. Nigel Farage is leader of a hard-Right party. Not necessarily extreme. But a party that pushes the boundary of respectable Right-wing politics to its limits. And as we’ve seen over the past week, at times crosses it."
"Labour and the Lib Dems, frankly, aren’t in the game. They are becoming mere spectators to the great Tory family feud. We are not witnessing a progressive realignment, but a conservative one. It is the Right, not the Left, that now holds the cards"
@ianbirrell In #Lincolnshire, #Tory-led county council took vote on #EU referendum, so made #EU local election issue. #UKIP benefited.
Ha ha. And Shapps has been banging on about the EU all over the media.
Banging on primarily because Cammie fears his own backbench MPs reaction not UKIP. Problem being he conspicuously failed to answer questions about the Boris/100 tory MPs demands for referendum legislation because he knows it just isn't going to happen. So posturing is all he has to offer them. I don't think it's going to be enough this time but we shall see. There are none so gullible as Eurosceptic tory MPs as Cammie has repeatedly proved.
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
well as the old saying goes we'll stun you with our ingratitude.
I think the point you're missing is that out in the regions most people see London as a bit of an aberration. The banks you quote for instance, well in truth most of us were more than happy when they were boring old building societies, they did a job, they'd done it well for over a century and we got affordable housing. If they'd stuck to the old model they wouldn't have gone bust and they'd still be there, so there wouldn't have been a bailout in the first place.
But in London land we had the whines of the corporatists and the prospects of quick buck gains and advisors queuing up for fees. I'd say as a nation we are worse off since the boring old Halifax became a retail hypermarket with no capital base. But that's more to do with the city pressure for "returns" to boost bonuses. Frankly most of its bollox and just results in 25 year grads getting huge amounts of someone else's cash before it all goes pear shaped since the returns they demand quite often aren't sustainable. Certainly some City businesses add value so let's not go overboard but in many cases we just have an overegged salary structure which adds little to the wellbeing of the country.
"Why don;t you tell us again about your views on women in the workplace? "
I don't really have any. Most of my experiences have been good. My first two bosses were women. Both famous photographers one who regularly shot for Vogue the other who specialized in shooting celebs. With the first I went all over the globe shooting for Vogue Italia MM USA French Vogue etc and we had a really good few years. Subsequently I've probably worked with more women than men and have no preference. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at?
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
The plural of anecdote is not data. I'm sure as we raise taxes higher some people will leave. But the question is how many. Large number of academic studies has shown its actually very few until you get to seriously high tax rates (70%+). Most rich people have friends, family, children in school etc that keep them where they are. You'd have to have a pretty skewed values systems to put getting even more money above such things when you're already very rich.
Personally, I have a philosophical opposition to taking more than half of anyone's income, but this "the rich will all leave" argument massively overplays the evidence. It's another example of how wealthy metropolitan people, like most groups in society, have their own set of cultural opinions that they all believe is true because they all talk to each other, regardless of the evidence. They think they're above such group think but they're really not.
I'm off to my count, hoping to see some fellow UKIP candidates celebrate a win.
UKIP benefits from the protest votes, of course it does. A PM can get away with being dull, if he is seen to be competent (JM in 1992). But he will be hammered by an opposition which seems to be exciting and 'safe' (TB 1997). 'Star quality' works even when the actuality is much poorer (TB, 2001, 2005). None of the main parties is lead by anyone who is even close to having the X-factor...except Farage.
Why should the UKIP vote 'unravel' when their budget is subject to forensic analysis? Our main policy is BOO. We have some some populist policies like being anti-gay marriage, anti-HS2, and anti-wind farms: big picture 'froth'. In principle, we are a small govt party.
The best our opponents seem to be able to do is either: to try to unpick some policy detail, or to make fun of quotes from a very small number of our less capable candidates.
The only council UKIP controlled before May 2nd, Ramsey, is so well run that none of our opponents wants to mention it.
"Still, we can expect UKIP to continue doing well for the next year or so, and especially in the European elections next year, before falling back as people focus on real choices."
Richard-UKIP may well fall back but their core vote will have increased again-and that core vote seems to be coming from ALL 3 main parties. How this will play out in a FPTP election in 2015 is the real issue.
Upto now it would appear that the Conservatives have suffered the most-in the future that may not be the case.
Will it make Labour's task harder or easier to the key Midland Marginals??
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
Sorry rcs, are you saying the SE is the only place where people start up businesses ? it isn't. I'd say quite simply a lot of the people I know who have businesses can also leave but they don't, mostly because this is home and they put up with the crap.
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
The plural of anecdote is not data. I'm sure as we raise taxes higher some people will leave. But the question is how many. Large number of academic studies has shown its actually very few until you get to seriously high tax rates (70%+). Most rich people have friends, family, children in school etc that keep them where they are. You'd have to have a pretty skewed values systems to put getting even more money above such things when you're already very rich.
Personally, I have a philosophical opposition to taking more than half of anyone's income, but this "the rich will all leave" argument massively overplays the evidence. It's another example of how wealthy metropolitan people, like most groups in society, have their own set of cultural opinions that they all believe is true because they all talk to each other, regardless of the evidence. They think they're above such group think but they're really not.
Socrates: yes, you're right. I guess the point I was making is that the top third of income tax payers are not all from 'The City'. Let's not forget financial services is only 8.9% of UK GDP, so it will be hard for it to be much more than that as a percentage of incomes. (And financial services includes hundreds of thousands of people who are lowly paid employees of retail banks.)
The longer-term point I'm making is that you want your country to attract and retain talent. Russia lost out because Sergey Brin didn't start Google there. And the - much despised on here - urban elite are the people who started the businesses and who pay the taxes. And they are the people who will be welcomed all around the world, should they choose to leave.
The good news - for the country - is that (as you say) it takes a lot for talented people to leave. However, in the longer-term it will happen if they are made to feel unwelcome.
Just picked this up from the Graun - apologies if already posted.
The BBC has just released some figures showing how the share of the vote has gone up in key wards. These are provisional figures, of course, because most results are not in.
Here are the figures for wards won by the Conservatives in 2009.
Ukip: up 21
Labour: up 6
Conservatives: down 10
Lib Dems: down 12
Here are the figures for wards won by Labour in 2009.
Ukip: up 15
Labour: up 13
Conservatives: down 10
Lib Dems: down 11
And here are the figures for wards won by the Lib Dems in 2009.
Ukip: up 16
Labour: up 6
Conservatives: down 8
Lib Dems: down 12
Quick read seems to suggest Labour and UKIP strengthening lots in Labour holds... seems very unlikely that would threaten many seats if replicated in GE given the respective starting points. Conservatives being monstered by UKIP in own seats raising the likelihood of Labour slipping through the middle or outright Kipper wins...similar story in LD seats.
Without getting into whether or not the country is really going further to the right, these kinds of trends plus FPTP would get it a pretty substantial majority government of the "left" party.
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick 2m UKIP's success in end may not be about getting MPs, MEPs or cllrs, but pulling the whole of British politics towards them, which happening
Excellent.....
Has he? What policies do you expect to see changed in light of UKIP doing well at the locals?
Perhaps you are new to damage limitation from parties after getting a beating but they always lay the platitudes on thick about "listening and learning" "not ignoring the voter" and other trite banalities.
Indeed the tories have already quickly moved on from that five minute handwringing to spinning that 2015 will be about choosing between little Ed and Cammie.
They even have a point about the UKIP vote almost certainly not being anything like the voteshare seen today or in the polls come the election. Thing is, it doesn't need to be. If it's even just a bit bigger than the 2010 3.1% then a great many tory marginals are in all sorts of trouble. Curtice was predicting a 6-8% voteshare for UKIP off the back of the Rallings and Thrasher projections. I think he might be tempted to move that up a bit now.
I was struck to by that - it seemed like low hanging Kipper fruit to me - that they got so many is a surprise, but that it was Lincolnshire - not so much.
I see that the effort to name UKIP as Poujadists or Tea Partiers and make it stick has already started. Well it won't work tim and EdmundinTokyo. UKIP is here to stay, under it's own name, philosophy and policies.
To be fair to Edmund, he made a bad comparison and now he's taking it back, because he's one of the intellectually honest, decent-minded posters on here. That's quite a difference to the smearing scumbags who have deliberately linked UKIP and its supporters to Hitler and "pouring bile on immigrants" on this thread. These people are just trolls and I think the decent posters need to stop responding to them. Hopefully that would reduce their incentive to post and we could get a higher proportion from the Edmunds, the Southams and the Sean Fears of this world instead.
The USA Tea Party are fiscal conservatives. No shame to be compared to them.
No they're not. They were prepared get the world's largest economy to default on bills already run up rather than raise any revenue, and fought tooth and nail for the unfunded Bush tax cuts. What the hell is fiscally conservative about that?
Miss Plato, as well as other differences a very important one between the rise of UKIP and when the BNP were doing better politically is that all three major parties have the same issue. Labour are, rightly, blamed for our financial plight, and letting immigration rip.
The Coalition is seen as too soft by the right, and the left are disappointed in the Lib Dems.
All three parties are led by millionaires with semi-identical backgrounds, which include a near (or actual) total career in politics. There's also a cosy consensus (which people bang on about as if a consensus is a good thing, whereas in reality consensus in a democracy means the electorate lose the ability to make an alternative choice) regarding climate change and policies which will hike the costs in a very difficult fashion for ordinary folk (but which party leaders will barely notice) and the EU, which a very large proportion of people wish to leave.
The only stand-out part of the three parties on those issues are the Conservative backbenchers, most prominently on the EU.
Today reminds me of GK Chesterton's poem, The Secret People - who now have spoken.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget; For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet. There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully, There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we. There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise. There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes; You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet: Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.
We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet, Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street. It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first, Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst. It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best. But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
Brilliant. Absolutely perfect for this morning. Well done.
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
Sorry rcs, are you saying the SE is the only place where people start up businesses ? it isn't. I'd say quite simply a lot of the people I know who have businesses can also leave but they don't, mostly because this is home and they put up with the crap.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the third of taxes paid by the 'elite' are not all City people. And I'm saying that these people (whether they live in Cheshire, Chester-le-Steet, or Kensington) would be welcome all over the world.
I'm off to my count, hoping to see some fellow UKIP candidates celebrate a win.
UKIP benefits from the protest votes, of course it does. A PM can get away with being dull, if he is seen to be competent (JM in 1992). But he will be hammered by an opposition which seems to be exciting and 'safe' (TB 1997). 'Star quality' works even when the actuality is much poorer (TB, 2001, 2005). None of the main parties is lead by anyone who is even close to having the X-factor...except Farage.
Why should the UKIP vote 'unravel' when their budget is subject to forensic analysis? Our main policy is BOO. We have some some populist policies like being anti-gay marriage, anti-HS2, and anti-wind farms: big picture 'froth'. In principle, we are a small govt party.
The best our opponents seem to be able to do is either: to try to unpick some policy detail, or to make fun of quotes from a very small number of our less capable candidates.
The only council UKIP controlled before May 2nd, Ramsey, is so well run that none of our opponents wants to mention it.
Good luck, David.
As you know, I am not a Kipper but on this occasion I can happily say all power to your elbow.
On topic, Curtice is wrong - or at least, he is missing the deeper point. It is not UKIP that is the greatest threat to the party system; it is the coalition.
The coalition has simultaneously emasculated the Tory right (and to a degree, centre), and has prevented the Lib Dems from acting as a party of opposition, no matter how hard they sometimes try to wear both hats. At a time when Labour is still tainted by its own period of office (and, I might add, from a leader who does not inspire the kind of confidence that, say, Blair did in the mid-90s), that leaves a massive gap in the line-up and politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. UKIP are perfectly placed to fill the void.
Had they not done so, we might have seen a different outcome with, say, the English Democrats, BNP and Green parties each picking up mid-to-high single figures as they independently attracted parts of the coalition that UKIP has either put together or seen fall into its lap, depending on your view. But something would have happened.
I see that the effort to name UKIP as Poujadists or Tea Partiers and make it stick has already started. Well it won't work tim and EdmundinTokyo. UKIP is here to stay, under it's own name, philosophy and policies.
To be fair to Edmund, he made a bad comparison and now he's taking it back, because he's one of the intellectually honest, decent-minded posters on here. That's quite a difference to the smearing scumbags who have deliberately linked UKIP and its supporters to Hitler and "pouring bile on immigrants" on this thread. These people are just trolls and I think the decent posters need to stop responding to them. Hopefully that would reduce their incentive to post and we could get a higher proportion from the Edmunds, the Southams and the Sean Fears of this world instead.
The USA Tea Party are fiscal conservatives. No shame to be compared to them.
No they're not. They were prepared get the world's largest economy to default on bills already run up rather than raise any revenue, and fought tooth and nail for the unfunded Bush tax cuts. What the hell is fiscally conservative about that?
I'm clicking 'Like', even though it doesn't exist on here any more :-)
Addendum: of course, Curtice is also wrong in that the greatest threat to the party system since WWII (i.e. starting after 1945) was the rise of the Liberals in the first place. We wouldn't be where we are now had it not been for the slow collapse of the two-party system.
"On the BBC, Hugh Edwards reads a Tweet from Tory Vice Chairman Michael Fabricant, which says: "Let us now be polite to UKIP and their supporters."
"Oh we don't want that, oh no." Ken Clarke, who branded the party as clowns, gave Ukip three per cent alone, he adds.
Fabricant adds: "Life cannot go on as normal for all 3 main parties unless they have no ambition for 2015. I hope there will be some serious research about exactly WHAT message UKIP voters are giving: none-of-the-above or specific issues.""
"In recent months and weeks, this party has made a number of statements and allegations about the United Kingdom Independent Party. We have suggested that Ukip was a collection of clowns, a party largely made up of fruitcakes, racists and other undesireables. We have suggested that a vote for Ukip denoted either a defective mind or an incoherent and childish anger at the world. In the light of new information recently received, we now realise that those statements were wholly without merit or foundation and we withdraw them with immediate effect and undertake never to repeat them. Far from being a bunch of swivel-eyed nut-jobs, we now acknowledge that Ukip and its adherents are expressing legitimate concerns about various important aspects of public policy. Further, we undertake to listen to those concerns and act on them with speed and vigour. We appreciate the distress and offence that that our earlier statements may have caused, and we apologise for them unreservedly. Sorry."
Except I'd replace 'new information' with 'losing a shed loads of votes to UKIP'
Here are the figures for wards won by the Conservatives in 2009.
Ukip: up 21
Labour: up 6
Conservatives: down 10
Lib Dems: down 12
Here are the figures for wards won by Labour in 2009.
Ukip: up 15
Labour: up 13
Conservatives: down 10
Lib Dems: down 11
And here are the figures for wards won by the Lib Dems in 2009.
Ukip: up 16
Labour: up 6
Conservatives: down 8
Lib Dems: down 12
Looks like One Nation Ukip with Labour barely picking themselves up from the floor.
We'll see if they continue that way though.
I know what you mean, but in terms of the raw numbers it's hard to see if as "UKIP taking votes from all 3 main parties". In all scenarios, both UKIP and Labour are taking votes from Con and LD, with UKIP taking a higher proportion than Labour. Of course this is semantics and you can argue different models of who takes what from whom; but the net effect is that it's very unlikely for Labour to lose any seats to Con or LD due to the UKIP effect, and it's very likely for Labour to win many seats from Con and LD. It's how Labour get a big majority without (as you put it) picking themselves up from the floor - an outcome that would be pretty bad for politics as a whole, even if one is a strong Labour supporter.
London, like many capital cities is atypical of the rest of the country. Certainly at present it is a focus for many globally-minded business people (two of which are my sons) who are ambitious and prepared to go where the opportunities are. It is true that they can be driven away by over-high and seemingly unfairly targeted taxation. Also over-regulation that is both business and personal is a deterrent to stay in the UK.
However, to a large degree they are insulated from the many of the concerns of the C2DEers who are currently supporting UKIP.
Talking with these global business-people, I find that few are either Labour or LibDem supporters but do tend to UKIP or anyone who will allow them to progress without undue interference to both their personal and business lives.
It's not the same without the buttons. This isn't a LibDem "I'm taking my toys home" thing, is it?
I LOL at some of your posts last night re Emma Double-Barrel - absolutely spot on! I wanted to press Like lots of times.
Aye, lass ... sumtimes afta aave had a glass or two, aah start muckin abowt a bit. Issint the same ower here on the north bank, since they closed wor guana works .... Place dussint smell the same ....
From a LD activist from Hampshire: "The second Kipper decieded that he didn't want to be a councillor so he didn't want a recount that might make him one. I think he woould have won should there have been a recount, relatively comfortably (the whole count was a shambles including two boxes of postal votes being forgotton about until they cound't get the ballot papers to tally!)."
BBC News (UK) @BBCNews Lib Dem vote down 13 points in wards where they won more than 45% in 2009. Three seats lost to UKIP in Eastleigh - analyst Prof Curtice
Do I detect a whiff of panic amongst the urban elite?
I think I do...
Of course, worth remembering that us urban elite can always upsticks and move. Us urban elite only stay because we like the country, its traditions, and its history of democracy and the rule of law. In the late 1970s, people rightly worried about 'brain drain'. Let's not forget, those urban elite are the guys who pay the taxes.
The funny bit, of course, is that UKIP (in its 2010 incarnation) used to be loved by large chunks of te urban elite. The libertarian anti-EUers (and I choose this phrase over anti-Europeans), who are the traditional UKIP supporters liked Farage because he was the Rothman smoking City-boy who wanted to reduce regulation.
But UKIP seems to be swinging away from that: it is in danger of becoming a protectionist, high regulation entity. (Which is, of course, where the votes are.) But it is also a profoundly negative message. It's the message of managed decline, that people can be protected from competition from abroad. And it's a chimera.
And, of course, it won't be us urban elite with our ability to move to the US or Singapore or Hong Kong or Australia that suffer - it will be the people who voted for cutting us off from the rest of the world.
yeah, I'm just not getting lots of stories of Switzerland or Australia being overtaken by UK bankers.
1. for all your internationalism, a lot of you only speak english so you're stuck in anglo land and the other countries don't want you that much 2. if you had all left in 2000 would we be any worse off ? ( no banking crisis ) 3. the tax argument is only becuause of salaries which many would argue are artifically inflated or transfer payments from the regions
I've no wish to see loads of people leave but maybe you need to assess what the true risk is. The thing about London is it's a lot of bravado and swagger but people will call your bluff out here in the sticks.
The top 1% of tax-payers pay a third of all income tax, and a greater share of capital gains tax. (And their companies will dominate corporate gains tax too.)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
Also, I think you over-estimate the importance of 'The City'. The UK is full of entreupreners. At my daughter's school in leafy Hampstead, there are more people that started businesses, than City people (although there is no shortage of City people, of course). So, there's on parent who started one of the world's largest SAP consultant staffing businesses. His company supplies people to companies all around the world. There's nothing to keep him in the UK.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
Sorry rcs, are you saying the SE is the only place where people start up businesses ? it isn't. I'd say quite simply a lot of the people I know who have businesses can also leave but they don't, mostly because this is home and they put up with the crap.
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the third of taxes paid by the 'elite' are not all City people. And I'm saying that these people (whether they live in Cheshire, Chester-le-Steet, or Kensington) would be welcome all over the world.
Well perhaps not in Hollande's France :-)
However on your wider point I agree that the over taxing of salaries is wrong like Socrates I think anything over 50% is morally wrong ( and that includes NI ). However I think we have arrived here because many aspects of the Western model don't work any more or don't work the way their supposed to. I put it down to the world opening up post 1989 and our thinking hasn't caught up. So looking at my BuildSoc example I'd say we would be better off having lower return businesses employing lots of people than a few "high return" businesses employing a few. The market purists would freak at that but for a country unless we're going to get rid of a chunk of our population then the only place the money is going to come from is the few high salary earners. So really we need to look again at how we run the country and maybe slaughter a few sacred cows.
"In recent months and weeks, this party has made a number of statements and allegations about the United Kingdom Independent Party. We have suggested that Ukip was a collection of clowns, a party largely made up of fruitcakes, racists and other undesireables. We have suggested that a vote for Ukip denoted either a defective mind or an incoherent and childish anger at the world. In the light of new information recently received, we now realise that those statements were wholly without merit or foundation and we withdraw them with immediate effect and undertake never to repeat them. Far from being a bunch of swivel-eyed nut-jobs, we now acknowledge that Ukip and its adherents are expressing legitimate concerns about various important aspects of public policy. Further, we undertake to listen to those concerns and act on them with speed and vigour. We appreciate the distress and offence that that our earlier statements may have caused, and we apologise for them unreservedly. Sorry."
Except I'd replace 'new information' with 'losing a shed loads of votes to UKIP'
There are some good results in here for Labour, particularly zeroed in on targets they need in the South.
Big, big worries for the Tories, who have lost ground in the North and probably the Midlands too.
UKIP will be an irrelevance by the next election, but if they're not, then they're a Tory problem.
UKIP will have more councillors now who as Mike reminds us are the 'footsoldiers' of local electoral organisation. That increases their chances of a Westminster MP or two. I hope
I know what you mean, but in terms of the raw numbers it's hard to see if as "UKIP taking votes from all 3 main parties". In all scenarios, both UKIP and Labour are taking votes from Con and LD, with UKIP taking a higher proportion than Labour. Of course this is semantics and you can argue different models of who takes what from whom; but the net effect is that it's very unlikely for Labour to lose any seats to Con or LD due to the UKIP effect, and it's very likely for Labour to win many seats from Con and LD. It's how Labour get a big majority without (as you put it) picking themselves up from the floor - an outcome that would be pretty bad for politics as a whole, even if one is a strong Labour supporter.
I expect those figures will look better for Labour before the day is out, unless we see Ukip outperforming Labour in the rest of the Midlands (like Lincs). If you're talking about Westminster seats then yeah as things stand Labour will pick up quite a few marginals, although talk of a majority of any size is impossible in my opinion. And we are now almost exactly 2 years until the general election, a lot can still happen...
"In recent months and weeks, this party has made a number of statements and allegations about the United Kingdom Independent Party. We have suggested that Ukip was a collection of clowns, a party largely made up of fruitcakes, racists and other undesireables. We have suggested that a vote for Ukip denoted either a defective mind or an incoherent and childish anger at the world. In the light of new information recently received, we now realise that those statements were wholly without merit or foundation and we withdraw them with immediate effect and undertake never to repeat them. Far from being a bunch of swivel-eyed nut-jobs, we now acknowledge that Ukip and its adherents are expressing legitimate concerns about various important aspects of public policy. Further, we undertake to listen to those concerns and act on them with speed and vigour. We appreciate the distress and offence that that our earlier statements may have caused, and we apologise for them unreservedly. Sorry."
Except I'd replace 'new information' with 'losing a shed loads of votes to UKIP'
"Either way, there’s no escaping that Ukip has exploited the anger of a great many people. They’re angry at the slow pace of reform coming from the Coalition, its prioritising of social liberalism over social justice, its failure to cut taxes for the middle class, its ring-fenced foreign aid budget and its poor economic record. The perpetually furious could have turned to Labour, but memories are long of how they spent all the money in the Noughties, and contempt is deep for Mr Miliband’s student union style of politics. Many voters have reached the conclusion that the philosophical division between the parties is so narrow, that incompetence is so ubiquitous, that the personalities are so uniformly unreal that there really is no difference between the three main parties. Under those circumstances, why not vote for the anarchist fringe? Put a bit of stick about, as Francis Urquhart would say.
And then there’s the personality factor. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are all of a type: middle class, white, male, middle aged, middle-of-the-road, posh, suited and largely lacking in real world experience. By contrast, all the scandals surrounding Ukip this week only confirmed its accidental authenticity – its refusal or inability to be anything other than crude, rude and painfully honest. It is also fun. Humour is very important in Anglosphere politics. For the English, wit is the way that we communicate fury, intelligence and love. There's something funny, and thus irresistible, about Farage with a cigarette in hand, hat on head, charming the voters with his market banter.
1021: Polling expert Professor John Curtice has been number-crunching UKIP's performances. He tells the BBC its share of the vote was 27% in Essex and 25% in Hampshire. In Lincolnshire it was 24%. The party took 22% of votes in Dorset, 20% in Somerset and 16% in Gloucestershire.
London, like many capital cities is atypical of the rest of the country. Certainly at present it is a focus for many globally-minded business people (two of which are my sons) who are ambitious and prepared to go where the opportunities are. It is true that they can be driven away by over-high and seemingly unfairly targeted taxation. Also over-regulation that is both business and personal is a deterrent to stay in the UK.
However, to a large degree they are insulated from the many of the concerns of the C2DEers who are currently supporting UKIP.
Talking with these global business-people, I find that few are either Labour or LibDem supporters but do tend to UKIP or anyone who will allow them to progress without undue interference to both their personal and business lives.
@Financier: these people are *old* UKIP voters. As I said down-thread, they liked anti-regulation, vaguely libertarian, pro-globalisation UKIP.
I'm not so sure they're keen on pro-regulation, pull-the-drawbridge-up, anti-globalisation, anti-gay-marriage, UKIP.
(Edit, somehow I'd written 'Europe' instead of 'UKIP' at the end of the last sentence.)
Comments
Gawd. Talk about missing the point.
It's not particularly about Europe. It's about a rag-bag assortment of often unconnected and incoherent irritations with the modern world. Everything from Bah Bah White Sheep and (I'm not making this up) Muslim immigrant cats, to gay marriage.
You surely don't take the fight to a (let's be honest) fairly extremist party by highlighting their hobby horses one by one and admitting they've got a point.
:-)
Bashing the rich is great. Until the rich leave, and you pay the bill.
Also: let's not forget, the British government bailed out Northern Rock (a UK mortgage bank), HBOS (a UK retail bank), and RBS (a UK retail bank). How much was spent on bailing out investment bankers, again?
UK Services PMI at 52.9 in April, up from 52.4 in March. Fastest increase in activity for eight months. PR here bit.ly/111biIc
He's not ignorant though. Rude, yes, but a long way from ignorant. And personally I don't mind a bit of well articulated rudeness. The only really objectionable bit was the snide remark about Belgium, which was borderline racist. The poor bloke can't help where he was born. But otherwise it was a wonderful rant.
How much more evidence do you need that the more the mainstream Right dance to the UKIP tune, the more UKIP benefit?
As I said earlier, however, this split vote is great news for Labour, so by all means carry on if you really want to see Ed in Downing Street with a majority.
Vos Savant game theory it was not.
Another guy runs a large computer distribution business he started at university. His business is mostly in the UK, so he'd probably want to stay... but then again, his business would be massively adversely affected by the Starkey-desire to impose tariffs on imports. He's got a nice house in Cap Ferrat. Maybe he'll look to stay there.
Yet another parent started an on-line poker business. There's nothing that keeps him and his taxes in the UK other than the fact that he likes it here.
As with Eastleigh, the significance of South Shields seems to be that Labour are not picking up the anti-coalition votes they should be picking up. Instead UKIP are grabbing the disgruntled. Of course, South Shields is a very different seat from Eastleigh, but for Labour to actually lose vote share, mid-term, when there was a 14% LibDem 2010 vote share disappearing into the void, was remarkable. UKIP did pretty much as I expected (I predicted 25%), but Labour did rather worse on 50.4% (I was expecting over 55%). The Tory vote held up better than I thought it would - I thought they might be close to losing their deposit. That must mean that a substantial chunk of the South Shields UKIP vote came from Labour as well as from the LibDems, although of course on much reduced turnout.
As for the wider significance: this is being exaggerated. The UKIP vote is mainly a simple protest vote - which in previous parliaments would have been picked up by the main opposition and by the LibDems. It is incoherent and self-contradictory, so is unlikely to survive closer scrutiny. Many of the new UKIP councillors will find it tough going. Still, we can expect UKIP to continue doing well for the next year or so, and especially in the European elections next year, before falling back as people focus on real choices.
LD 576
Con 559
Lab 268
Green 258
An IN/OUT referendum has the support of a majority of the country. 'Out' is the most popular view.
Those who oppose a referendum are the extremists.
Does it still have a strong student population?
Michael Crick @MichaelLCrick 2m
UKIP's success in end may not be about getting MPs, MEPs or cllrs, but pulling the whole of British politics towards them, which happening
Excellent.....
But this isn't even about Europe anymore. The UKIP vote is not really about Europe. It has finally become Veritas, only without Robert Kilroy-Silk.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/maryriddell/100215145/we-should-all-be-frightened-of-nigel-farages-vision-of-britain-as-a-fortified-olde-englande-theme-park/
"For sure, Ukip is no Golden Dawn and Mr Farage no dangerous rabble-rouser. Even so, his party's performance invites comparison with the progress made by Marine Le Pen's Front National in France."
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100215160/ukips-local-election-surge-whatever-happened-to-the-great-progressive-realignment/
"But there is one lesson to be taken from these results that eclipses all others. The talk of a great progressive realignment, beloved by so many on the Left, is for the birds.
The British electorate is moving decisively to the Right. Yes, we’ll see lots of clever articles written over the coming days about how the traditional distinctions between Left and Right no longer matter. How politics isn’t linear.
It’s a smokescreen. Nigel Farage is leader of a hard-Right party. Not necessarily extreme. But a party that pushes the boundary of respectable Right-wing politics to its limits. And as we’ve seen over the past week, at times crosses it."
"Labour and the Lib Dems, frankly, aren’t in the game. They are becoming mere spectators to the great Tory family feud.
We are not witnessing a progressive realignment, but a conservative one. It is the Right, not the Left, that now holds the cards"
Ha ha.
And Shapps has been banging on about the EU all over the media.
Banging on primarily because Cammie fears his own backbench MPs reaction not UKIP.
Problem being he conspicuously failed to answer questions about the Boris/100 tory MPs demands for referendum legislation because he knows it just isn't going to happen. So posturing is all he has to offer them. I don't think it's going to be enough this time but we shall see. There are none so gullible as Eurosceptic tory MPs as Cammie has repeatedly proved.
I think the point you're missing is that out in the regions most people see London as a bit of an aberration. The banks you quote for instance, well in truth most of us were more than happy when they were boring old building societies, they did a job, they'd done it well for over a century and we got affordable housing. If they'd stuck to the old model they wouldn't have gone bust and they'd still be there, so there wouldn't have been a bailout in the first place.
But in London land we had the whines of the corporatists and the prospects of quick buck gains and advisors queuing up for fees. I'd say as a nation we are worse off since the boring old Halifax became a retail hypermarket with no capital base. But that's more to do with the city pressure for "returns" to boost bonuses. Frankly most of its bollox and just results in 25 year grads getting huge amounts of someone else's cash before it all goes pear shaped since the returns they demand quite often aren't sustainable. Certainly some City businesses add value so let's not go overboard but in many cases we just have an overegged salary structure which adds little to the wellbeing of the country.
"Why don;t you tell us again about your views on women in the workplace? "
I don't really have any. Most of my experiences have been good. My first two bosses were women. Both famous photographers one who regularly shot for Vogue the other who specialized in shooting celebs. With the first I went all over the globe shooting for Vogue Italia MM USA French Vogue etc and we had a really good few years. Subsequently I've probably worked with more women than men and have no preference. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at?
Personally, I have a philosophical opposition to taking more than half of anyone's income, but this "the rich will all leave" argument massively overplays the evidence. It's another example of how wealthy metropolitan people, like most groups in society, have their own set of cultural opinions that they all believe is true because they all talk to each other, regardless of the evidence. They think they're above such group think but they're really not.
UKIP benefits from the protest votes, of course it does. A PM can get away with being dull, if he is seen to be competent (JM in 1992). But he will be hammered by an opposition which seems to be exciting and 'safe' (TB 1997). 'Star quality' works even when the actuality is much poorer (TB, 2001, 2005). None of the main parties is lead by anyone who is even close to having the X-factor...except Farage.
Why should the UKIP vote 'unravel' when their budget is subject to forensic analysis? Our main policy is BOO. We have some some populist policies like being anti-gay marriage, anti-HS2, and anti-wind farms: big picture 'froth'. In principle, we are a small govt party.
The best our opponents seem to be able to do is either: to try to unpick some policy detail, or to make fun of quotes from a very small number of our less capable candidates.
The only council UKIP controlled before May 2nd, Ramsey, is so well run that none of our opponents wants to mention it.
Richard-UKIP may well fall back but their core vote will have increased again-and that core vote seems to be coming from ALL 3 main parties. How this will play out in a FPTP election in 2015 is the real issue.
Upto now it would appear that the Conservatives have suffered the most-in the future that may not be the case.
Will it make Labour's task harder or easier to the key Midland Marginals??
The UK is moving to the right...not to the left.
Now THAT should worry Miliband. Even if it's going to destroy Cameron as well.
I'd say quite simply a lot of the people I know who have businesses can also leave but they don't, mostly because this is home and they put up with the crap.
Not really all that surprising, the people spoke ages ago but no one except UKIP were listening...
Maybe we should ignore the people and let the statisticians and academics choose, they know best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QYCTDXq56w
The longer-term point I'm making is that you want your country to attract and retain talent. Russia lost out because Sergey Brin didn't start Google there. And the - much despised on here - urban elite are the people who started the businesses and who pay the taxes. And they are the people who will be welcomed all around the world, should they choose to leave.
The good news - for the country - is that (as you say) it takes a lot for talented people to leave. However, in the longer-term it will happen if they are made to feel unwelcome.
0954:
Without getting into whether or not the country is really going further to the right, these kinds of trends plus FPTP would get it a pretty substantial majority government of the "left" party.
What policies do you expect to see changed in light of UKIP doing well at the locals?
Perhaps you are new to damage limitation from parties after getting a beating but they always lay the platitudes on thick about "listening and learning" "not ignoring the voter" and other trite banalities.
Indeed the tories have already quickly moved on from that five minute handwringing to spinning that 2015 will be about choosing between little Ed and Cammie.
They even have a point about the UKIP vote almost certainly not being anything like the voteshare seen today or in the polls come the election. Thing is, it doesn't need to be. If it's even just a bit bigger than the 2010 3.1% then a great many tory marginals are in all sorts of trouble. Curtice was predicting a 6-8% voteshare for UKIP off the back of the Rallings and Thrasher projections. I think he might be tempted to move that up a bit now.
I was struck to by that - it seemed like low hanging Kipper fruit to me - that they got so many is a surprise, but that it was Lincolnshire - not so much.
As you know, I am not a Kipper but on this occasion I can happily say all power to your elbow.
Your analysis is spot on.
"Why not join the Twitter campaign run by the dispossessed slagging Mike off."
I can imagine! Is this the "get a life" brigade?
The coalition has simultaneously emasculated the Tory right (and to a degree, centre), and has prevented the Lib Dems from acting as a party of opposition, no matter how hard they sometimes try to wear both hats. At a time when Labour is still tainted by its own period of office (and, I might add, from a leader who does not inspire the kind of confidence that, say, Blair did in the mid-90s), that leaves a massive gap in the line-up and politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. UKIP are perfectly placed to fill the void.
Had they not done so, we might have seen a different outcome with, say, the English Democrats, BNP and Green parties each picking up mid-to-high single figures as they independently attracted parts of the coalition that UKIP has either put together or seen fall into its lap, depending on your view. But something would have happened.
"Nigel Farage has declared Ukip is the third party"
Country bumpkin ( Norfolk/Durham/Rural Hungary and Ulster ) AntiFrank poses as a London chauvanist.
PaddyPower now make it 3/1 for UKIP to win a Westminster by election in this term
Looks like One Nation Ukip with Labour barely picking themselves up from the floor.
We'll see if they continue that way though.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2100345/Londons-taxes-prop-rest-UK-One-pound-earned-capital-funds-rest-country.html
The interest on the entire national debt this year will cost about £46.5billion.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/9944649/Budget-2013-Interest-payments-on-national-debt-to-eclipse-combined-budget-for-schools-and-police.html
You'd soon find out who was subsidising whom.
LOL ;^ )
"On the BBC, Hugh Edwards reads a Tweet from Tory Vice Chairman Michael Fabricant, which says: "Let us now be polite to UKIP and their supporters."
"Oh we don't want that, oh no." Ken Clarke, who branded the party as clowns, gave Ukip three per cent alone, he adds.
Fabricant adds: "Life cannot go on as normal for all 3 main parties unless they have no ambition for 2015. I hope there will be some serious research about exactly WHAT message UKIP voters are giving: none-of-the-above or specific issues.""
"In recent months and weeks, this party has made a number of statements and allegations about the United Kingdom Independent Party. We have suggested that Ukip was a collection of clowns, a party largely made up of fruitcakes, racists and other undesireables. We have suggested that a vote for Ukip denoted either a defective mind or an incoherent and childish anger at the world.
In the light of new information recently received, we now realise that those statements were wholly without merit or foundation and we withdraw them with immediate effect and undertake never to repeat them. Far from being a bunch of swivel-eyed nut-jobs, we now acknowledge that Ukip and its adherents are expressing legitimate concerns about various important aspects of public policy. Further, we undertake to listen to those concerns and act on them with speed and vigour.
We appreciate the distress and offence that that our earlier statements may have caused, and we apologise for them unreservedly. Sorry."
Except I'd replace 'new information' with 'losing a shed loads of votes to UKIP'
@rcs1000
London, like many capital cities is atypical of the rest of the country. Certainly at present it is a focus for many globally-minded business people (two of which are my sons) who are ambitious and prepared to go where the opportunities are. It is true that they can be driven away by over-high and seemingly unfairly targeted taxation. Also over-regulation that is both business and personal is a deterrent to stay in the UK.
However, to a large degree they are insulated from the many of the concerns of the C2DEers who are currently supporting UKIP.
Talking with these global business-people, I find that few are either Labour or LibDem supporters but do tend to UKIP or anyone who will allow them to progress without undue interference to both their personal and business lives.
"The second Kipper decieded that he didn't want to be a councillor so he didn't want a recount that might make him one. I think he woould have won should there have been a recount, relatively comfortably (the whole count was a shambles including two boxes of postal votes being forgotton about until they cound't get the ballot papers to tally!)."
'UKIP may well gain more seats than Labour. Clearly EdM doesn't cut the mustard as opposition leader and people are looking elsewhere.'
Don't know about that ,but Ed's One Nation malarkey has gone down like a cold bowl of sick so far in the south.
Lib Dem vote down 13 points in wards where they won more than 45% in 2009. Three seats lost to UKIP in Eastleigh - analyst Prof Curtice
Big, big worries for the Tories, who have lost ground in the North and probably the Midlands too.
UKIP will be an irrelevance by the next election, but if they're not, then they're a Tory problem.
However on your wider point I agree that the over taxing of salaries is wrong like Socrates I think anything over 50% is morally wrong ( and that includes NI ). However I think we have arrived here because many aspects of the Western model don't work any more or don't work the way their supposed to. I put it down to the world opening up post 1989 and our thinking hasn't caught up. So looking at my BuildSoc example I'd say we would be better off having lower return businesses employing lots of people than a few "high return" businesses employing a few. The market purists would freak at that but for a country unless we're going to get rid of a chunk of our population then the only place the money is going to come from is the few high salary earners. So really we need to look again at how we run the country and maybe slaughter a few sacred cows.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100215130/ukip-an-apology/
https://twitter.com/search?q=#bccvote&src=hash
LD scrape Clifton by 17 votes. Greens gain Bishopston.
LD... Con... Lab... UKIP... BNP...
4.4%... 6.2%... 54.3%... 25.0%... 3.0%...
962.8... 1355.7...11924.8... 5482.2...652.4...
South Shields by-election result in full:
Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour): 12,493 (50.51%, -1.51%)
Richard Elvin (UK Independence Party): 5,988 (24.21%)
Karen Allen (Conservative): 2,857 (11.55%, -10.04%)
Ahmed Khan (Independent): 1,331 (5.38%)
Phil Brown (Independent Socialist): 750 (3.03%)
Lady Dorothy MacBeth Brookes (BNP): 711 (2.87%, -3.65%)
Hugh Annand (Liberal Democrat): 352 (1.42%, -12.79%)
Howling Laud Hope (The Official Monster Raving Loony Party): 197 (0.80%)
Thomas Darwood (Independent): 57 (0.23%)
Can she claim for an an interpreter on expenses?
Can we have the money for your education back my web-toed friend ? :-)
Arrgh - Done myself up.. like a kipper xD
Labour official: "We've done OK. Mediocre at best. Avoided disaster".
Ed's been upgraded from 'crap' to 'mediocre at best'....
"Either way, there’s no escaping that Ukip has exploited the anger of a great many people. They’re angry at the slow pace of reform coming from the Coalition, its prioritising of social liberalism over social justice, its failure to cut taxes for the middle class, its ring-fenced foreign aid budget and its poor economic record. The perpetually furious could have turned to Labour, but memories are long of how they spent all the money in the Noughties, and contempt is deep for Mr Miliband’s student union style of politics. Many voters have reached the conclusion that the philosophical division between the parties is so narrow, that incompetence is so ubiquitous, that the personalities are so uniformly unreal that there really is no difference between the three main parties. Under those circumstances, why not vote for the anarchist fringe? Put a bit of stick about, as Francis Urquhart would say.
And then there’s the personality factor. Cameron, Clegg and Miliband are all of a type: middle class, white, male, middle aged, middle-of-the-road, posh, suited and largely lacking in real world experience. By contrast, all the scandals surrounding Ukip this week only confirmed its accidental authenticity – its refusal or inability to be anything other than crude, rude and painfully honest. It is also fun. Humour is very important in Anglosphere politics. For the English, wit is the way that we communicate fury, intelligence and love. There's something funny, and thus irresistible, about Farage with a cigarette in hand, hat on head, charming the voters with his market banter.
Yesterday, people voted Ukip partly out anger and partly for a laugh. It’s a very British revolution... http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100215169/ukip-is-a-very-british-revolution/
BenM , haven't you noticed that UKIP is hoovering up the Old Labour vote ?
I'm not so sure they're keen on pro-regulation, pull-the-drawbridge-up, anti-globalisation, anti-gay-marriage, UKIP.
(Edit, somehow I'd written 'Europe' instead of 'UKIP' at the end of the last sentence.)
PP offer 12/1 against UKIP winning Eastleigh at the next GE. Imo, it should be 5/2.
You can also get 2/1 with Ladbrokes against UKIP winning any seat at the GE. Personally I think 4/6 would be more like it.
There are other opportunities too if you like to scour around. I suspect they won't last the day out.