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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The challenge for UKIP now is to succeed under First Past the Post
Final figures show that UKIP won 3.8% of council seats on May 22 – down from 6.2% on 2013.
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FPTP will probably help Lab and Lib more than any other parties.
So why would they get rid of a system that benefits them.
We got 48% of the seats on 36% of the votes.
Put the Greens and Kippers in a locked room with a selection of baseball bats and half-bricks, and let nature take its course.
They will get more vote % than seat % at the next GE, no matter how badly they do.
They'd probably need to get under 5% of the vote for their seat return to become proportional.
Executive summary: it ain't gonna happen.
But it still helps the Conservatives, just Labour more so.
That said, our Tory friends do need educating in the dynamics of FPP so an act of mercy from the demigod TSE.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27625117
Gloucestershire Old Spot Pigs 15,000 feet.
Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak 23s
So publication of iraq inquiry report could (at last) be this year
Would be interesting to see where the balance lies. I suspect UKIP's position for GE2015 would be vastly improved. Not sure about the others.
11 seats on 14% of vote
SDP-Liberal Alliance 1983 election
23 seats on 25% of vote
SDP-Liberal Alliance 1987 election
22 seats on 23%
LibDems 1992 election
20 seats on 18%
LibDems 1997 election
46 seats on 17%
LibDems 2001 election
52 seats on 18%
LibDems 2005 election
62 seats on 22%
LibDems 2010 election
57 seats on 23%
One thinks of votes for women, devolution and the expansion of postal voting as innovations from the left all of which resulted in splendid peripateiea.
"Mike wrote this thread. "
You mean I have just wasted 20 minutes looking for obscure pop references? ;-)
Hopi Sen @hopisen 29m
Once more with feeling: Buffy refs are de rigeur if writing about Labour, right @EmmaBurnell_? http://wp.me/p1Vf1s-1DA also ft @georgeeaton
"Firstly why on earth would Labour, of all parties, want to do that? "
Because, after losing a huge midterm polling lead, Ed would have to fall on his sword
"Secondly, how on earth would a coalition get this proposal through parliament given the inevitably large group of Labour rebels who would vote with the Tories to stop it?"
I don't think many Labour rebels would do it if it would collapse the government.
"Thirdly, as RobD points out, it would be hard to do without a referendum, and who on earth is going to persuade the good British public of the merits of some new-fangled continental voting system which will guarantee not only eternal coalitions, but eternal coalitions containing Nick Clegg?"
Proportional representation is popular in polls, and easy to justify in simple, fairness terms.
"Fourthly, if an already unpopular government (which it most certainly would be, given the pressures on public finances) wanted to make itself even more unpopular, then holding a second referendum on voting reform within a few years would be a jolly sure-fire way of doing so."
I don't think it would matter a jot to their popularity.
"And fifthly - how on earth would they justify this but not an EU referendum?"
They couldn't really, but that never stopped governments.
Do we have any detail on the Chilcott deal? Given Blair managed to fortunately escape any bad press with expenses due to their accidental shredding I'm sure he'd be reluctant to volunteer any correspondence that would prove damaging to his otherwise spotless reputation.
The interesting thing with 1983 is that the Liberal half of the pantomime horse got 13.9% and 17 seats the SDP 11.5% and 6. So roughly equal contributions in votes but the Libs contributing nearly 3x the seats of the SDP. I think UKIP has a twofold problem firstly the fact that everyone knows they will struggle to get seats will encourage people to shift their vote to where it counts. This will account for a drop in share and will make it harder to get a seat.
I'm particularly interested in the comparison between An Independence From Europe and We Demand A Referendum Now, which strike me as very similar parties, yet one has been accused of attempting to dupe UKIP voters while the other has passed unnoticed.
Ouch: US economy contracted at annualised rate of 1% in Q1.
It was the Tories that fabricated all the evidence you see.
They are blaming it on the weather, Obama follows George O?
English Democrats have longed existed, so their votes are their own.
BNP - Are again their own voters, this is the bunch that think only the BNP are the only racist party in the UK, and Farage is a bit metropolitan poncey-boots gaylord.
We Demand A Referendum Now - Is also led by an ex splitter UKIP MEP, so like Mike Nattrass' mob, mostly personal votes.
UKIP have missed a trick here (sorry couldn't resist).
More tellingly still, if you look at what seats UKIP might target, there are almost literally no plausible candidates. After seeing what happened in Morley and Outwood last time thoughtful kippers (there must be some) will think twice before playing the fool.
UKIP's one GE achievement to date has been to get Ed Balls re-elected. Between the knowledge of ghastly consequences like that, and the prospect of Miliband versus the prospect of a referendum, and the fact that the distance to travel back to the Tories is short, I expect that their retention will be much the same as before, i.e. 18%, maybe 20% of what they polled last week.
It will improve only to the extent that UKIP's BNP and ex-Labour WWC supporters don't have anywhere much else to go.
So about 5%.
And the American figures didn't take it into account, does that make it more true? Or less?
It's called, Workers Of The World Ukip at:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2014/05/workers-of-world-ukip.html
If your premise is people being excited and impulsive / jittery - as you would expect from people who haven't voted for years or those who've voted Lab/Con all their lives - then you'd be looking for impulsive visual triggers that made people mark their cross without fully engaging brain and only realising after they did it e.g.
"UK Independence Now" or "UK EPP"
My 2005 Labour vote was an anti-Labour vote.
This was always the fallacy of the left's claim that Fatcha shouldn't have had a majority because 56% "voted against" her. On that basis 72% voted against Labour and 76% voted against the Alliance in eg 1983, so she still had an overwhelming claim.
True, but finishing above the LDs should definitely be a massive target for UKIP too; it will help to delegitimise any coalition and (eventually; I agree there's no appetite right now) foster support for PR.
This was, I freely admit, a bit of an eye opener for me but that sample did not support your assessment.
My assesment came from someone who works for the Prostitutes and Escorts trade union.
A coalition of the 2nd and 4th parties.
I can see the headlines now.
You should have voted Green.
They tried further to the left than Lab but can't go there again so I am intrigued to see what they do and how they position themselves next.
The Daily Mail wouldn't just write headlines, they'd start a campaign of (mild) civil disobedience.
" I am intrigued to see what they do and how they position themselves next."
Not bent over with their clothing round their ankles might be an improvement?
Using the figures from table 2 of the latest Lord Ashcroft poll, showing how current voting intention relates to past voting intention, I have applied** the changes to the Newark vote totals, which gives the following prediction for the by-election.
Conservative 45.2% (-8.7)
Labour 26.5% (+4.2)
UKIP 21.2% (+17.4)
Liberal Democrats 7.1% (-12.9)
So if Labour do end up coming third in Newark then it suggests that they are underperforming their already mediocre opinion poll scores.
** I've assumed that don't knows will not vote, that UKIP retain 10% of their 2010 vote, and I've neglected to calculate the numbers for the Greens and Others because I can't be bothered and it does not effect the relative positions of the other four parties - though the splits in the opinion poll do currently suggest that the Greens could run the Lib Dems close for fourth place.
I have no idea how to do that though !
UKIP would be disappointed. I'd imagine the Lib Dems would be glad to save their deposit !
I can only give you my experience from 1987 viz a viz stocks. The market only really dropped when everybody gave up on predicting that it would drop.
Nobody's been bullish about stocks for years so of course they've gone up. It's when everybody starts getting bullish that we can safely say the markets reached the top
Look at the UK housing market. People have been predicting its demise for decades only to look incredibly stupid. Now its rise is just assumed - a sure fire indicator it'll start to fall.
e.g. ask how many houses like this there are
http://www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/news/local-news/update-men-from-dewsbury-and-heckmondwike-jailed-for-human-trafficking-1-6615353
because if there were 10s of thousands of them then doing something about it would take a big chunk out of a lot of problems
- housing shortage
- employment
- welfare fraud
- tax
- crime
Charming bunch.
I say that as something I believe, a belief shared by many ex and present LibDem voters.
Quite an ask that.
Liberal/Alliance/LibDems electoral performance since 1979. pic.twitter.com/BpexFKU1lZ
I think the purpose of an election is to choose a candidate or series of candidates not merely to endorse the choice of a back room cabal. I dislike the fact that the person at the top of the most popular lists can be entirely useless and indolent and still get in whilst those at the bottom can be cracking and work hard but stand not a hope in hell.
And why should the result be decided by how many candidates each party decides to put on the ballot? A bit random, that. Give me d'Hondt (preceded by FPTP primaries to decide the candidate order) any day.
So you prefer d'Hondt to STV. Great. I'm not one for endless debates on voting systems myself. But the idea that d'Hondt is just fine while STV is "nonsense on stilts" is silly.
** For example, the turnout implied by this method is greater than 56%, but like you I would expect it to be under 50% - for comparison the turnout in Corby was 44.8%.
This would be a great improvement over the likes of Lord Oakeshott.