Paul Francis @PaulOnPolitics Rumours that Swale may see another UKip gain. Yes it has - Swale West. Great shock for Cllr Keith Ferrin - long standing Con #kccelection
But last seat retained by Tories - is KCC a Tory hold? IIRC they need 32 seats.
"Whatever the final break down of shares of the vote and swings, it is clearly Nigel Farage’s day. His party is dominating media coverage, effectively ramping up the idea that this is some kind of national insurgency and that a bomb has been detonated beneath the old party establishment. That makes for a day-long, free party political broadcast for UKIP – even the bits where MPs from other parties are attacking them."
I also get the feeling, now that UKIP have established themselves (in votes, if not seats) they're going to be as difficult to get rid off as herpes.
I'm assuming that that means you think they'll be here to stay, not personally being an expert in STDs. If so, I'm far from convinced that it's necessarily the case and depends very much on how things pan out.
UKIP are performing spectacularly well not because of years of toil on the ground but because of a national swing based party on what the national party is, and to a greater extent, on what they're not. This is more akin to the Greens in 1989 rather than the slow but relentless rise of the Liberals or SNP. At the moment.
This is rubbish. UKIP have been doing very well in Europe - the second most important election after the GE - for about a decade. The Greens were a flash in the pan - they came and went. UKIP have been a rising tide.
Moreover, UKIP's base in Strasbourg gives them a political heartland: they will not do badly in European elections until we have a referendum. So their continuing salience is almost assured.
But that's precisely the point: until now, UKIP has been a single-issue (or single-election) party. Today marks the point where they have jumped into the mainstream. That they will continue to do well in European elections, subject to a major change in Britain's relationship or attitude to the EU, is certain; that they will remain in the mainstream is not.
That said, and as I said in my original post, UKIP *are* here to stay unless the three parties can provide positive reasons to pull back the type of voters that voted for them in 1992 and 1997 and are no longer doing so - and are increasingly finding UKIP an attractive alternative.
KM Sittingbourne @KMSittingbourne 3m Adrian Crowther wins Sheppey for UKIP after defecting from Tories. Tory Ken Pugh comes second
That is a question worthy of a thread in its own right. IMO, the prospects of a retiring / deselected MP defecting are high - better than evens. The prospects of an MP who seeks re-election defecting are much lower, not least because UKIP said recently that they wouldn't challenge MPs who were unambiguous Better Off Out-ers. Whether these elections will cause UKIP to revise that policy is open to question. It's a choice between attempting to force sitting MPs into supporting UKIPs flagship policy and running as big a slate as possible.
If I was advising Farage, I'd make my number one political objective getting into the leaders' debates in 2015 and one strategy to doing that would be to run MPs in every constituency in the country. For all that the 'stand back for EU Independence' makes sense to a second-tier party, these elections have proven UKIPs ability to become a first-tier party and if they want to be treated like one, they need to behave like one.
KM Sittingbourne @KMSittingbourne 3m Adrian Crowther wins Sheppey for UKIP after defecting from Tories. Tory Ken Pugh comes second
If I was advising Farage, I'd make my number one political objective getting into the leaders' debates in 2015 and one strategy to doing that would be to run MPs in every constituency in the country. For all that the 'stand back for EU Independence' makes sense to a second-tier party, these elections have proven UKIPs ability to become a first-tier party and if they want to be treated like one, they need to behave like one.
One election at a time is all UKIP need to worry about. Next year is the EU Parliament elections, but also a huge crop of local election seats.
Going back to the East/West divide, it's noteable that UKIP didn't make the breakthrough in the South West that I expected. They won 5 in Cornwall, 4 in Devon, 3 in Somerset, and 1 in Dorset, and the Conservatives held all three of their councils.
Comments
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/local-elections/10035429/Local-elections-Ukip-is-winning-the-Twitter-war.html
Rumours that Swale may see another UKip gain. Yes it has - Swale West. Great shock for Cllr Keith Ferrin - long standing Con #kccelection
But last seat retained by Tories - is KCC a Tory hold? IIRC they need 32 seats.
I think you can start printing that fiver which you will owe me soon. :-)
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/local-elections-seven-early-thoughts-what-they-mean
UKIP poll boost ahead.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0An6GzfHRNpYQdEhrZ3V5a0VSRWNEM3dyNktCQm1RSlE#gid=0
That said, and as I said in my original post, UKIP *are* here to stay unless the three parties can provide positive reasons to pull back the type of voters that voted for them in 1992 and 1997 and are no longer doing so - and are increasingly finding UKIP an attractive alternative.
If I was advising Farage, I'd make my number one political objective getting into the leaders' debates in 2015 and one strategy to doing that would be to run MPs in every constituency in the country. For all that the 'stand back for EU Independence' makes sense to a second-tier party, these elections have proven UKIPs ability to become a first-tier party and if they want to be treated like one, they need to behave like one.
https://twitter.com/jameschappers/status/330283352349347840
LOL.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2010
The closer we come to 2015, the more desperate the other parties will be to appeal to UKIP's supporters.
Conservative Mike Rouse takes Ely North and East from Lib Dems #cccelection