The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing?
If the numbers had workled out the LDs would have gone in coalition with labour and the non socialist tendency in them would have left. Thats what you get with a party of protest that then has to make some choices. With a UKIP party comprised as is suggested then it too would fall apart following thre first choice it had to make.
....Just a quick question why aren't most of you millionaires by now, after all there have been some cracking betting odds over recent years for laying the house on UKIP, which should have been seen as money for old rope to such apparent fonts of all knowledge on the thought processes of the UKIP voter. Let me answer the question for most of you, it didn't happen because few of you came anywhere close to seeing the rise of UKIP or its consolidation, in fact most of you have been making betting decisions influenced by sentiment, continuing to bet on the old donkeys well past their best, but they made a lot of money for you as 2yr olds. Mug punting at its finest!! ....
My best political bet winner this year is the UKIP bet I made almost 2 years ago which won £800+ on 9/1 odds, for UKIP winning the Euros. The stake was the max that the betting site would allow. I also think that UKIP at GE2015 are the biggest danger to us not having a referendum on Europe within the next 5 years.
No, the biggest danger to a referendum on Europe is cameron himself, who will renege on his promise - forced by UKIP in the first place - of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. Only UKIP MP's in parliament will bring about referendum on the EU, whoever is made PM in 2015.
Cameron and Hague only reneged on their woolly promise "not to let matters lie" after the change was ratified. The Coalition provided a further opportunity (for Cameron and Hague) to kick the EC question into long grass, but it was the massive back bench rebellions that forced Cameron to make a real precise promise of a referendum. 20+ UKIP MPs in parliament might be able to influence a referendum but the most optimistic professional pollsters are forecasting less than 10 UKIP MPs. There are no attractive odds out there worth staking cash on UKIP holding real influence after the GE. The only way UKIP are likely to influence a referendum at GE 2015 is actually to stop one happening by assisting Milliband to win the GE.
It's still vote ukip and get Miliband. At the last election it was calculated by some that the Tories lost 20 seats owing to kipper voting. 2015 will be worse for the Tories. Farage has claimed he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. Be careful what you wish for. Just imagine, Miliband as PM forever!
Oh my dear @perdix, scare mongering is alive and well, as the fear of UKIP increases. And why that fear? Because it is a new and fresh force in British politics and all the established parties fear something new and fresh that can and will damage their own prospects of power.
Later today I will publish my bi monthly forecast of how many likely UKIP candidates are likely to capture seats in the 2015 GE.
My offer of up to £1000 at Evens to any credit-worthy punter who thinks Cameron would renege on his referendum pledge remains open. The terms are: Assuming a Conservative majority in 2015, I win if there is a referendum by the end of 2017, I lose if there isn't. Bet void if no Conservative majority. I'm even prepared to take the risk that there could be a tiny majority in 2015 but the the government could collapse before being able to bring in the referendum. Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer. You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.
Well done Richard. Not one kipper has the cojones to back their endless accusations of mendacity with a simple bet. Not even £1.
Mr. K, disagree. Let's assume you're right about Cameron. Can you really see the Conservative backbenchers letting him get away with that? He'll either have to provide a referendum or be axed and replaced with someone who will.
Hi Morris. Yes, unfortunately I can see exactly that. Conservative backbenchers are a very wooly lot and every time Cammo has pulled a rabbit out of the hat those conservative backbenchers have subsided and let him get away with it. Most of those conservative backbenchers are worrying for their seats; those that are not, are resigning at the GE and most of those are eurosceptic.
Even the famous 22 committee is a shadow of it's former self. The Tories are a fading party and if they have over 90,000 members by the GE, I'd be surprised.
Only UKIP MP's in parliament will bring about referendum on the EU, whoever is made PM in 2015.
Even you cant be expecting a UKIP majority next year...
Don't be silly and obtuse. I mean the UKIP MP's in parliament will keep a referendum before the public eye.
Like the green MP for Brighton has converted us all to mung beans and solar powered wigwams ? Vote Kipper get Ed and no referendum - simple choice.
Great point about the Greens and all their influence..... Meanwhile in Europe UKIP MEPs rarely vote and have the worst attendance record of the UK parties. So why would they turn up much in the HoC?
My offer of up to £1000 at Evens to any credit-worthy punter who thinks Cameron would renege on his referendum pledge remains open. The terms are: Assuming a Conservative majority in 2015, I win if there is a referendum by the end of 2017, I lose if there isn't. Bet void if no Conservative majority. I'm even prepared to take the risk that there could be a tiny majority in 2015 but the the government could collapse before being able to bring in the referendum.
Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer.
You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
My offer of up to £1000 at Evens to any credit-worthy punter who thinks Cameron would renege on his referendum pledge remains open. The terms are: Assuming a Conservative majority in 2015, I win if there is a referendum by the end of 2017, I lose if there isn't. Bet void if no Conservative majority. I'm even prepared to take the risk that there could be a tiny majority in 2015 but the the government could collapse before being able to bring in the referendum.
Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer.
You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.
RN - Good to see you engaging or attempting to engage in political bets again ..... you seem to have been very quiet on this front since the last GE, which is a pity since your shrewd judgement has proved highly profitable for PBers in the past.
@Morris_Dancer 'Farage is too busy admiring the view in the mirror to focus on the raison d'etre of UKIP.' Why would he want to get off the Brussels gravy train?
A referendum on Europe would end the gravy train for about >50 UKIP folk.
Only UKIP MP's in parliament will bring about referendum on the EU, whoever is made PM in 2015.
Even you cant be expecting a UKIP majority next year...
Don't be silly and obtuse. I mean the UKIP MP's in parliament will keep a referendum before the public eye.
Your best window for obtaining more than 0 UKIP MPs has already been and gone, I'm afraid (it was probably around 2005).
The only remaining shot at an In/Out referendum is Dave's 2017 pledge. Nothing similar is on offer from anyone else who can actually deliver it. Therefore, if you want this at all, you have to vote Conservative.
You may imagine that somehow you'll get enough UKIP MPs that you'll be able to force a referendum. But you'd be wrong - any 2015 result that produces UKIP MPs will do so by lowering the Conservative seat tally, in which case there will be a Labour majority or Labour-LD anti-referendum government.
Furthermore, if the election result is anything other than a Conservative majority, then the referendum window closes for ever. By 2020, the children of the first Labour-sponsored immigration wave will be old enough to vote. 25% of under-5s are Muslim, I gather, so by 2025, there will be a huge and growing bloc of second-generation, first-time voting immigrants.
Not only will they never, ever support UKIP; they will never, ever support a party that appears to offer anything to UKIP, either. It will be poison to appear to accommodate such views in a mainstream party by 2025 or even 2020.
So the Conservative offer of a referendum will not be renewed post-2015 if they are not returned with a majority. It's the last time they can risk offering this. By the time of the 2020 campaign, looking ahead to who's going to vote in 2025, it will be too risky.
If you want to ensure you never get a referendum, by all means go ahead and vote UKIP, but don't then bellyache about how it's all Cameron's fault.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing?
If the numbers had workled out the LDs would have gone in coalition with labour and the non socialist tendency in them would have left. Thats what you get with a party of protest that then has to make some choices. With a UKIP party comprised as is suggested then it too would fall apart following thre first choice it had to make.
The LDs have a real opportunity to create a new party. It is the opportunity that the Kippers are angling for in 15-20 years time. From NOTA => Power.
But as you say they don't stand for anything at the moment so they would be murdered if the GE was tomorrow. Fortunately it is in a few months time and if they want to grow up to be a real third force (from a borderline fourth one now) they need to come out with a carefully defined set of policies, not fantasy la-la wishes as of old but fully costed as much as possible and bold in their approach to each area - health, defence, economy, education, etc.
They can then give it the "restraining influence on nasty majority Cons" together with "more pragmatic than no money left Lab".
They really do have the opportunity to forge a new party but it will take some hugely nuanced work by party strategists.
mr Nabavi says... ''Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer. You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.''
I totally agree with you. Only with a Conservative govt will we get a referendum. UKIP when faced with this are reduced to standing on their heads and reciting the alphabet backwards. As with a number of things their claims abour Cameron and the referendum is a pretence. They may as well stand on one leg and sing 'la la la la'.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
RN - Good to see you engaging or attempting to engage in political bets again ..... you seem to have been very quiet on this front since the last GE, which is a pity since your shrewd judgement has proved highly profitable for PBers in the past.
Thanks for the kind words. I've posted various betting suggestions when I've seen opportunities. I expect there will be more scope as the election approaches.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
Strange, I have always thought that the guiding principle behind UKIP was that the UK would be better off out of the European Union, the UK should in fact regain its independence. There is a sort of clue in the Party's name.
If the point of UKIP was as a sort of pressure group to obtain an referendum then probably it should now stop political campaigning and advice its members to join the Conservative effort.
My offer of up to £1000 at Evens to any credit-worthy punter who thinks Cameron would renege on his referendum pledge remains open. The terms are: Assuming a Conservative majority in 2015, I win if there is a referendum by the end of 2017, I lose if there isn't. Bet void if no Conservative majority. I'm even prepared to take the risk that there could be a tiny majority in 2015 but the the government could collapse before being able to bring in the referendum.
Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer.
You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.
Yep.
1/ UKIP do not want a referendum, because they'd lose. 2/ They imagine they could win one at some other date. 3/ Demographics mean neither a referendum nor a UKIP win can ever happen after some date in the future, which IMHO lies somewhere between 2020 and 2025.
You used a good analogy of a submarine the other day for the UK economy, with Labour denying that it is even submerged and wanting to dive it deeper. Expanding on that, UKIP is a faction aboard the submarine that is ranting about the sleeping arrangements, but has no view on what to do with the submarine.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
Strange, I have always thought that the guiding principle behind UKIP was that the UK would be better off out of the European Union, the UK should in fact regain its independence. There is a sort of clue in the Party's name.
If the point of UKIP was as a sort of pressure group to obtain an referendum then probably it should now stop political campaigning and advice its members to join the Conservative effort.
I also think Mr Farage would quite like to be a cabinet minister.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I stand corrected. Maybe I recalled a regional number - 25% looks low versus what one observes in any London school playground.
Nonetheless, at some point the effects of Labour's efforts to alter election demographics must bear fruit. As well as the first generation there'll soon be a second, and at that point, the opportunity to vote to limit immigration becomes a dead letter.
UKIP has one narrow window of opportunity to obtain what it wants, but not being very smart it's unclear its supporters understand this.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
I don't think so. UKIP has taken on a life of its own. It has found a fairly dirty furrow to plough. It realises there is profit to be had in its dog whistles. Who needs power (who needs principles) when you have the gravy train.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing?
If the numbers had workled out the LDs would have gone in coalition with labour and the non socialist tendency in them would have left. Thats what you get with a party of protest that then has to make some choices. With a UKIP party comprised as is suggested then it too would fall apart following thre first choice it had to make.
The LDs have a real opportunity to create a new party. It is the opportunity that the Kippers are angling for in 15-20 years time. From NOTA => Power.
But as you say they don't stand for anything at the moment so they would be murdered if the GE was tomorrow. Fortunately it is in a few months time and if they want to grow up to be a real third force (from a borderline fourth one now) they need to come out with a carefully defined set of policies, not fantasy la-la wishes as of old but fully costed as much as possible and bold in their approach to each area - health, defence, economy, education, etc.
They can then give it the "restraining influence on nasty majority Cons" together with "more pragmatic than no money left Lab".
They really do have the opportunity to forge a new party but it will take some hugely nuanced work by party strategists.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
I don't think so. UKIP has taken on a life of its own. It has found a fairly dirty furrow to plough. It realises there is profit to be had in its dog whistles. Who needs power (who needs principles) when you have the gravy train.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
My experience is they have a phase of that in their late teens and early 20s and then stop.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
Bind james Bond ... ''If you want to ensure you never get a referendum, by all means go ahead and vote UKIP, but don't then bellyache about how it's all Cameron's fault. ''
Your complete post makes total sense. So why do they say what they say?
All the anti Cameron bellyaching by UKIP apologists on the web (as opposed to the voters they hope to attract) exposes their (it has to be said) prejudice and ignorance. These UKIPers really want an end to conservatism to be replaced by a nice cosy extreme rightwingism. Quite how this fits with attracting Labour voters is a mystery to me. The fact that this desire to destroy the conservative party will gift the country to labour is either lost on them or is irrelevant. UKIP moan on about the EU but they are more interested in their peculiar brand of extreme right wing purity. The EU is becoming ever more distant as a reason for existence.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
My experience is they have a phase of that in their late teens and early 20s and then stop.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
It would be interesting to know the number for older Muslims. Do we know what proportion of Muslims go to Mosques?
" There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario."
I would imagine that a referendum would have to be written into the Coalition Agreement otherwise Cameron would have trouble getting it past his parliamentary party. In those circumstances the Lib Dems would probably go along with it as they will know that they will be able to join Cameron in campaigning to stay in.
As for the negotiations, I doubt there will be any on anything of real substance whether Cameron has a majority or is head of a coalition. My guess is that Cameron is going to try for a Wilson - renegotiate on some trivial issues, declare victory and assume having all the "great and good" lined up on the stay-in side will send the vote his way.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
I have plenty of experience with muslims, having fought in 3 wars against them. If you could read the original arabic of what they write (like I do) and not the phoney translations, you will find out what they think of christian Englishmen and their women. But live in your dream world.
Only UKIP MP's in parliament will bring about referendum on the EU, whoever is made PM in 2015.
Even you cant be expecting a UKIP majority next year...
Don't be silly and obtuse. I mean the UKIP MP's in parliament will keep a referendum before the public eye.
Your best window for obtaining more than 0 UKIP MPs has already been and gone, I'm afraid (it was probably around 2005).
The only remaining shot at an In/Out referendum is Dave's 2017 pledge. Nothing similar is on offer from anyone else who can actually deliver it. Therefore, if you want this at all, you have to vote Conservative.
You may imagine that somehow you'll get enough UKIP MPs that you'll be able to force a referendum. But you'd be wrong - any 2015 result that produces UKIP MPs will do so by lowering the Conservative seat tally, in which case there will be a Labour majority or Labour-LD anti-referendum government.
Furthermore, if the election result is anything other than a Conservative majority, then the referendum window closes for ever. By 2020, the children of the first Labour-sponsored immigration wave will be old enough to vote. 25% of under-5s are Muslim, I gather, so by 2025, there will be a huge and growing bloc of second-generation, first-time voting immigrants.
Not only will they never, ever support UKIP; they will never, ever support a party that appears to offer anything to UKIP, either. It will be poison to appear to accommodate such views in a mainstream party by 2025 or even 2020.
So the Conservative offer of a referendum will not be renewed post-2015 if they are not returned with a majority. It's the last time they can risk offering this. By the time of the 2020 campaign, looking ahead to who's going to vote in 2025, it will be too risky.
If you want to ensure you never get a referendum, by all means go ahead and vote UKIP, but don't then bellyache about how it's all Cameron's fault.
23% of under 5's in England and Wales are from ethnic minorities, including a large number of mixed-race children. There are white Muslims, but very few. We don't really know what their voting preferences will be in 20 years time.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
My experience is they have a phase of that in their late teens and early 20s and then stop.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
It would be interesting to know the number for older Muslims. Do we know what proportion of Muslims go to Mosques?
IIRC, about 40% of Muslims attend mosques at least once a week.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
Indeed Jack. A big reason why the LDs would be foolish to promise a referendum before next May is that it could take away a key bargaining point should there be discussions on Coalition 2.0
If such negotiations do take place then then most of the LDs points would be about the structure of the coalition not policy.
For such negotiations to take place the Tories are likely to have a sizeable lead on votes if not on seats.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
I should think the Lib Dems would trade the referendum for PR in local government. Paradoxically, that would provide a huge boost to UKIP in local elections, albeit, it would place a ceiling on their support in any one authority.
MikeK says .... ''of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. ''
No - this in turn is a lie. The promise before the 2009 EU elections was quite clear and made at a time when the treaty was not ratified and there was a possibility of a GE before it was ratified.
I find MikeK's remark quite disgusting. UKIP claim they are different but peddle the same misrepresentation they accuse others of. The harsh fact is that there was no majority on parliament after 2010 to push through a referendum anyway.
The other real world fact which UKIP chose to ignore is that the Conservative party is broadly Eurosceptic now and widely open to a referendum. Plus on numerous occasions Cameron has cogently put forward the reasons why renegotiation is necessary.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
I have plenty of experience with muslims, having fought in 3 wars against them. If you could read the original arabic of what they write (like I do) and not the phoney translations, you will find out what they think of christian Englishmen and their women. But live in your dream world.
Do you really want to know what I think of Christian men and women? I'll give you a clue, I married one.
And well done for a linking to a noted hate website earlier on
Here's what they say about their logo
Our logo, the Trojan Pig of Islam, is indicative of the trojan invasion of Islam into the entire Western world. This is a Sunni effort to spread and reestablish the Caliphate worldwide. Feel free to use our Trojan Pig logo but please do mention that it comes from The Muslim Issue.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I stand corrected. Maybe I recalled a regional number - 25% looks low versus what one observes in any London school playground.
Nonetheless, at some point the effects of Labour's efforts to alter election demographics must bear fruit. As well as the first generation there'll soon be a second, and at that point, the opportunity to vote to limit immigration becomes a dead letter.
UKIP has one narrow window of opportunity to obtain what it wants, but not being very smart it's unclear its supporters understand this.
Mr Bond, your analysis of the demographics of the UK is interesting. If you are correct, is not the logical conclusion that it will be impossible for the UK to ever have a right of centre government after about 2020?
For those who think that ethnic minorities don’t/won’t support UKIP or Kipper-type policies I would suggest you look no further than the family of Priti Patel MP (Con).
MikeK says .... ''of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. ''
No - this in turn is a lie. The promise before the 2009 EU elections was quite clear and made at a time when the treaty was not ratified and there was a possibility of a GE before it was ratified.
I find MikeK's remark quite disgusting. UKIP claim they are different but peddle the same misrepresentation they accuse others of. The harsh fact is that there was no majority on parliament after 2010 to push through a referendum anyway.
The other real world fact which UKIP chose to ignore is that the Conservative party is broadly Eurosceptic now and widely open to a referendum. Plus on numerous occasions Cameron has cogently put forward the reasons why renegotiation is necessary.
Thats why all Tory MEPs go along with the herd and vote for ever stronger EU.
MikeK says .... ''of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. ''
No - this in turn is a lie. The promise before the 2009 EU elections was quite clear and made at a time when the treaty was not ratified and there was a possibility of a GE before it was ratified.
I find MikeK's remark quite disgusting. UKIP claim they are different but peddle the same misrepresentation they accuse others of. The harsh fact is that there was no majority on parliament after 2010 to push through a referendum anyway.
The other real world fact which UKIP chose to ignore is that the Conservative party is broadly Eurosceptic now and widely open to a referendum. Plus on numerous occasions Cameron has cogently put forward the reasons why renegotiation is necessary.
To be fair, Cameron's promise of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was pretty misleading. It's not just UKIP supporters who'll argue that.
I heard on the radio that two million young workers are living at home with their parents mainly because they can't afford to move out to rent, much less buy, a property.
That is the reason the tories are going nowhere. If you were working hard and living in your parents home, with no prospect of branching out on your own, you might be prepared to give Ed Miliband's rotten corporatism a whirl. What have you got to lose?
Unless the tories can offer this huge tranche of potential tory voters a way into popular capitalism, they will not win and they will not deserve to.
Trouble is, there is nothing George Osborne can do about it. He has no money for giveaways. He can't help people by cutting income tax or stamp duty or fuel duty or vat, because he needs and wants the money to feed a state still endemically addicted to spending.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
I should think the Lib Dems would trade the referendum for PR in local government. Paradoxically, that would provide a huge boost to UKIP in local elections, albeit, it would place a ceiling on their support in any one authority.
Arguably the referendum legislation is already on the books. Its just having the will to use it. Why would the LDs want PR in local govt which would allow loads of minority parties and undermine their established presence (OK I know they have lost seats but I do not see how this would get them back)
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
I have plenty of experience with muslims, having fought in 3 wars against them. If you could read the original arabic of what they write (like I do) and not the phoney translations, you will find out what they think of christian Englishmen and their women. But live in your dream world.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
I don't think so. UKIP has taken on a life of its own. It has found a fairly dirty furrow to plough. It realises there is profit to be had in its dog whistles. Who needs power (who needs principles) when you have the gravy train.
The BBC version of reality isn't true.
Personally I would close down the BBC. But I fail to see its relevance here.
On topic, I think this poll must be an outlier. Most polls show UKIP supporters favouring a Conservative over Labour government by about 70-30%.
Don't think so. The numbers are not too different from the last Ashcroft CON-LAB marginals poll published in May. Also the sample size is huge based on the aggregate of 14 separate constituency polls of 1,000 each.
In the marginals, I'd suggest, there's been a tighter squeeze already.
On topic, I think this poll must be an outlier. Most polls show UKIP supporters favouring a Conservative over Labour government by about 70-30%.
The sample size is too big for the result to be that many standard deviations from the 70-30 split, the demographic makeup of the marginals polled must simply be non representative of the population as a whole. Or more likely you are looking at a slightly different question. Or both...
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
I should think the Lib Dems would trade the referendum for PR in local government. Paradoxically, that would provide a huge boost to UKIP in local elections, albeit, it would place a ceiling on their support in any one authority.
Arguably the referendum legislation is already on the books. Its just having the will to use it. Why would the LDs want PR in local govt which would allow loads of minority parties and undermine their established presence (OK I know they have lost seats but I do not see how this would get them back)
It's a long-standing wish of the Lib Dems. It would cost them control of very few councils, now, but would give them much greater opportunities to participate in the running of councils, as part of local coalitions.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
My experience is they have a phase of that in their late teens and early 20s and then stop.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
It would be interesting to know the number for older Muslims. Do we know what proportion of Muslims go to Mosques?
IIRC, about 40% of Muslims attend mosques at least once a week.
MikeK says .... ''of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. ''
No - this in turn is a lie. The promise before the 2009 EU elections was quite clear and made at a time when the treaty was not ratified and there was a possibility of a GE before it was ratified.
I find MikeK's remark quite disgusting. UKIP claim they are different but peddle the same misrepresentation they accuse others of. The harsh fact is that there was no majority on parliament after 2010 to push through a referendum anyway.
The other real world fact which UKIP chose to ignore is that the Conservative party is broadly Eurosceptic now and widely open to a referendum. Plus on numerous occasions Cameron has cogently put forward the reasons why renegotiation is necessary.
To be fair, Cameron's promise of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was pretty misleading. It's not just UKIP supporters who'll argue that.
Cameron's promise of a referendum on Lisbon was unintentionally misleading. He should have qualified his promise that it would held if the treaty was not ratified when he became PM. He thought an election was imminent but Brown bottled out. You should know that to hold a referendum on a ratified treaty would have no legal effect. There are insufficient votes in parliament abrogate the treaty. Kipper sympathisers are in denial about this to try to make a political point.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
I have plenty of experience with muslims, having fought in 3 wars against them. If you could read the original arabic of what they write (like I do) and not the phoney translations, you will find out what they think of christian Englishmen and their women. But live in your dream world.
Do you really want to know what I think of Christian men and women? I'll give you a clue, I married one.
And well done for a linking to a noted hate website earlier on
Here's what they say about their logo
Our logo, the Trojan Pig of Islam, is indicative of the trojan invasion of Islam into the entire Western world. This is a Sunni effort to spread and reestablish the Caliphate worldwide. Feel free to use our Trojan Pig logo but please do mention that it comes from The Muslim Issue.
On topic, I think this poll must be an outlier. Most polls show UKIP supporters favouring a Conservative over Labour government by about 70-30%.
Don't think so. The numbers are not too different from the last Ashcroft CON-LAB marginals poll published in May. Also the sample size is huge based on the aggregate of 14 separate constituency polls of 1,000 each.
In the marginals, I'd suggest, there's been a tighter squeeze already.
In that case then, it must just be ex-Conservatives in safe Conservative seats who skew the overall numbers.
If Lord Ashcroft's numbers are correct, then all the angst that's generated about UKIP depriving the Conservatives of seats is pointless.
On topic, I think this poll must be an outlier. Most polls show UKIP supporters favouring a Conservative over Labour government by about 70-30%.
Don't think so. The numbers are not too different from the last Ashcroft CON-LAB marginals poll published in May. Also the sample size is huge based on the aggregate of 14 separate constituency polls of 1,000 each.
In the marginals, I'd suggest, there's been a tighter squeeze already.
It is the only explanation that makes sense, the 23% UKIP recieved in the recent poll from TNS was it? was an outlier - this can't be. It is too big, the probability of the marginals being a 70-30 split right now to produce this sample would be infinitesimally small from a 14,000 sample size or so.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
Indeed Jack. A big reason why the LDs would be foolish to promise a referendum before next May is that it could take away a key bargaining point should there be discussions on Coalition 2.0
If such negotiations do take place then then most of the LDs points would be about the structure of the coalition not policy.
For such negotiations to take place the Tories are likely to have a sizeable lead on votes if not on seats.
The latest ARSE is 341 Con/LibDem seats 309+32.
A smaller yet comfortable majority of 32.
I'm not sure I agree about the LibDems not being concerned about policy rather than process. I think the other way round. They must be able to point to policy achievements in the next government as in this one.
BTW .... have you decided to place the Smithson quill against the LibDem GE candidate or are you wavering as a RedLiberal or a Torquoise Tory ??
I heard on the radio that two million young workers are living at home with their parents mainly because they can't afford to move out to rent, much less buy, a property.
That is the reason the tories are going nowhere. If you were working hard and living in your parents home, with no prospect of branching out on your own, you might be prepared to give Ed Miliband's rotten corporatism a whirl. What have you got to lose?
Unless the tories can offer this huge tranche of potential tory voters a way into popular capitalism, they will not win and they will not deserve to.
Trouble is, there is nothing George Osborne can do about it. He has no money for giveaways. He can't help people by cutting income tax or stamp duty or fuel duty or vat, because he needs and wants the money to feed a state still endemically addicted to spending.
Mr. Taffy's, maybe Osborne should have thought about that in 2010. Like Blair in 1997 I think there was then the opportunity to remodel the state. I think the public knew and accepted we were in the shit and would have accepted serious change as long as it were done fairly (all in it together). Osborne bottled it though, went for the safe option of the salami-slice approach, and now the opportunity is lost.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
I should think the Lib Dems would trade the referendum for PR in local government. Paradoxically, that would provide a huge boost to UKIP in local elections, albeit, it would place a ceiling on their support in any one authority.
Indeed.
We'd also see the demise of many of the one party rotten councils that infest our local political climate.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
My experience is they have a phase of that in their late teens and early 20s and then stop.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
It would be interesting to know the number for older Muslims. Do we know what proportion of Muslims go to Mosques?
IIRC, about 40% of Muslims attend mosques at least once a week.
I heard on the radio that two million young workers are living at home with their parents mainly because they can't afford to move out to rent, much less buy, a property.
That is the reason the tories are going nowhere. If you were working hard and living in your parents home, with no prospect of branching out on your own, you might be prepared to give Ed Miliband's rotten corporatism a whirl. What have you got to lose?
Unless the tories can offer this huge tranche of potential tory voters a way into popular capitalism, they will not win and they will not deserve to.
Trouble is, there is nothing George Osborne can do about it. He has no money for giveaways. He can't help people by cutting income tax or stamp duty or fuel duty or vat, because he needs and wants the money to feed a state still endemically addicted to spending.
While I don’t agree with some of your comments about Labour, Mr Taffy’s you’re right about the problems of those low in the economic pile. Prices have risen and are rising, but wages haven’t, especially for the young, and consequently, for a large number of people the slogan that “we’re all in this together” is hollow. This is especially true when people see a small selection of people doing very well, and, dare I say it wealthy foreigners buying into all sorts of British enterprises.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
Indeed Jack. A big reason why the LDs would be foolish to promise a referendum before next May is that it could take away a key bargaining point should there be discussions on Coalition 2.0
If such negotiations do take place then then most of the LDs points would be about the structure of the coalition not policy.
For such negotiations to take place the Tories are likely to have a sizeable lead on votes if not on seats.
The latest ARSE is 341 Con/LibDem seats 309+32.
A smaller yet comfortable majority of 32.
I'm not sure I agree about the LibDems not being concerned about policy rather than process. I think the other way round. They must be able to point to policy achievements in the next government as in this one.
BTW .... have you decided to place the Smithson quill against the LibDem GE candidate or are you wavering as a RedLiberal or a Torquoise Tory ??
If your ARSE is right, Big John Owls is going to be in alot of trouble with Mrs Owls.
''Osborne bottled it though, went for the safe option of the salami-slice approach, and now the opportunity is lost.''
That has long been my view and I'm not sure I buy the argument a sharp decrease in spending early in the government would have resulted in a much sharper slowdown. And even if it did, so f8cking what. We have to pay our way.
At the beginning of his tenure Osborne was spraying around 5% increases in benefits, for example. Even Tim was howling about the amounts Osborne was spending on welfare.
Osborne was hampered by having the lib dems to contend with, of course, but I still think he is mainly the author of his own downfall.
What odds would you offer for a straight EU referendum by the end of 2017 ? (Not contingent on anything else)
Quite hard to assess. There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
Quite so.
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
Indeed Jack. A big reason why the LDs would be foolish to promise a referendum before next May is that it could take away a key bargaining point should there be discussions on Coalition 2.0
If such negotiations do take place then then most of the LDs points would be about the structure of the coalition not policy.
For such negotiations to take place the Tories are likely to have a sizeable lead on votes if not on seats.
The latest ARSE is 341 Con/LibDem seats 309+32.
A smaller yet comfortable majority of 32.
I'm not sure I agree about the LibDems not being concerned about policy rather than process. I think the other way round. They must be able to point to policy achievements in the next government as in this one.
BTW .... have you decided to place the Smithson quill against the LibDem GE candidate or are you wavering as a RedLiberal or a Torquoise Tory ??
If your ARSE is right, Big John Owls is going to be in alot of trouble with Mrs Owls.
Sadly I can't account for the twitterings of the bird brained.
Is not an election-winning strategy. We might wish it otherwise but in the words of that master of geo-political analysis when assessing the Great British Public:
I was just looking at the YouGov supplementary questions on the economy/cuts. It's interesting to see that poll after poll, the UKIP current VI figures track much closer to Labour than to the Con 2010 vote.
Economically the current UKIP voters/supporters are to the left of the party leadership, at election time something will have to give and Farrage is going to have to roll out populist nationalism as his economic policy or lose the current bunch of Labourite working class supporters back to Labour, which IMO make up more than half the current support.
If UKIP go down this route, and allying themselves with the leftist M5S party of Italy is the first step in that direction, it could drive a lot of the Thatcherite conservatives who bang on more about Europe and free trade (the Richard Tyndall's of the party) back to the Tories. I don't know if they could stomach renationalisation of trains, energy and water as part of their party's policy as it goes against their instincts.
UKIP are in a very weird position right now, the have drawn support from across the spectrum, but they can't be all things to all men come election time. Farrage and the rest of the party leadership will need to decide which support they want to keep, the old Conservatives or the old Labour side, there are no policies outside of immigration on which both sides agree. Economically these supporters are diametrically opposed and UKIP will need to choose. Farrage seems smart so I think he will go for the populist nationalism and use renationalisation as a method to keep the old Labour supporters and to attack the EU which has horrible double standards in this area.
That decision could add 3-4% to the Tory VI as the small-c conservatives peel off back to the Tories leaving just the ones who hate Cameron/Osborne in the UKIP fold.
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
I'd like to know how you can justify such a sweeping statement as fact @rcs1000?
The clue is in the "in my experience". What's your experience with Muslims, MikeK?
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
I have plenty of experience with muslims, having fought in 3 wars against them. If you could read the original arabic of what they write (like I do) and not the phoney translations, you will find out what they think of christian Englishmen and their women. But live in your dream world.
Do you really want to know what I think of Christian men and women? I'll give you a clue, I married one.
And well done for a linking to a noted hate website earlier on
Here's what they say about their logo
Our logo, the Trojan Pig of Islam, is indicative of the trojan invasion of Islam into the entire Western world. This is a Sunni effort to spread and reestablish the Caliphate worldwide. Feel free to use our Trojan Pig logo but please do mention that it comes from The Muslim Issue.
The line could cut two ways: frighten blue kippers back to the Conservatives make red kippers feel more comfortable
Either works for the Conservatives, and both would be very helpful.
But how do red and blue 'kippers' live together? What kind of party is UKIP? How much traction is there for a Party of the Prejudiced?
Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour they turned out to be be pale blue.
"Lib Dems managed it for years, light blue in the south and rural areas, lefties in the cities. It was only once they finally had to do something that they got rumbled, fortunately for Labour "
......So at its heart then UKIP is hypocritical? Like the LDs they stand for nothing? .....
UKIP used to stand for one principle. An in/out referendum on Europe. Today however they want to stop the one main party promising that by 2017. So yes they are becoming hypocritical. Of course there is still a little time for them to recover their principles.
I don't think so. UKIP has taken on a life of its own. It has found a fairly dirty furrow to plough. It realises there is profit to be had in its dog whistles. Who needs power (who needs principles) when you have the gravy train.
The BBC version of reality isn't true.
Personally I would close down the BBC. But I fail to see its relevance here.
That's the point. You not knowing what is different between the BBC's filtered version of the truth and the actual truth is why you don't see the relevance.
I heard on the radio that two million young workers are living at home with their parents mainly because they can't afford to move out to rent, much less buy, a property.
That is the reason the tories are going nowhere. If you were working hard and living in your parents home, with no prospect of branching out on your own, you might be prepared to give Ed Miliband's rotten corporatism a whirl. What have you got to lose?
This is related to the problem of student debt and, for that matter, youth unemployment going back to the 80s, and also despair at "dole scroungers" and so on. Put simply, for many people, life is no longer fair. These people have played by the rules, worked hard at school, steered clear of gangs and drugs, passed their exams and got their qualifications, and yet "the system" has kicked them in the teeth leaving them with no immediate prospects and a lot of debt. And none of the main parties even notice because each party has lost touch with its own supporters.
Mr. Taffy's, maybe Osborne should have thought about that in 2010. Like Blair in 1997 I think there was then the opportunity to remodel the state. I think the public knew and accepted we were in the shit and would have accepted serious change as long as it were done fairly (all in it together)..
No, I don't think the public had, in general, accepted it. That's why so many of them latched on to the LibDems, as a way of fudging things.
".... I say it wealthy foreigners buying into all sorts of British enterprises."
That is called inward investment, Mr. Cole, and is, apparently, a jolly good thing, all our major politicians and political parties seem to want to see as much of it as possible. If a foreign company buys a British one that is inward investment and good. If they then strip out the intellectual property rights, shut down the UK operation to move production off-shore then no politician wants to talk about it.
Mr. Taffys, the inter-generational aspect of politics will get larger and larger, I feel. Pensions, national debt (which is really adults deciding they want the goodies and their children to have the bill) and so on will stoke up resentment towards the prosperous and even moderately well to-do greybeards.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
".... I say it wealthy foreigners buying into all sorts of British enterprises."
That is called inward investment, Mr. Cole, and is, apparently, a jolly good thing, all our major politicians and political parties seem to want to see as much of it as possible. If a foreign company buys a British one that is inward investment and good. If they then strip out the intellectual property rights, shut down the UK operation to move production off-shore then no politician wants to talk about it.
".... I say it wealthy foreigners buying into all sorts of British enterprises."
This is simple maths. This country runs a significant trade and balance of payments deficit.
If we don't like selling Selfridges to the Chinese or Jaguar to the Indians or half of London to the Qataris and the Russians or AstraZeneca to the Americans etc - then we'd better learn to balance our imports and our exports.
Mr. Taffys, the inter-generational aspect of politics will get larger and larger, I feel. Pensions, national debt (which is really adults deciding they want the goodies and their children to have the bill) and so on will stoke up resentment towards the prosperous and even moderately well to-do greybeards.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
A male born in the UK in 1945 had a life expectancy of 63 years. A male born in 2001 had a life expectancy of 75. A male or female born today has a life expectancy of over 80 years (World Bank and UK Statistics Agency figures.)
If the state pension age had risen in line with life expectancy, people would not be able to claim a state pension until they are about 82 years old.
".... I say it wealthy foreigners buying into all sorts of British enterprises."
This is simple maths. This country runs a significant trade and balance of payments deficit.
If we don't like selling Selfridges to the Chinese or Jaguar to the Indians or half of London to the Qataris and the Russians or AstraZeneca to the Americans etc - then we'd better learn to balance our imports and our exports.
The quote you use was from Mr. Cole and not my words, but I agree with your point. For years I have quietly being going on about the need to focus on increasing prosperity and the balance of trade rather than the silly fixation with raw GDP.
Mr. Taffys, the inter-generational aspect of politics will get larger and larger, I feel. Pensions, national debt (which is really adults deciding they want the goodies and their children to have the bill) and so on will stoke up resentment towards the prosperous and even moderately well to-do greybeards.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
A male born in the UK in 1945 had a life expectancy of 63 years. A male born in 2001 had a life expectancy of 75. A male or female born today has a life expectancy of over 80 years (World Bank and UK Statistics Agency figures.)
If the state pension age had risen in line with life expectancy, people would not be able to claim a state pension until they are about 82 years old.
Life expectancy estimates are normally based on no advancement in medical care. (Though naturally someone born today is forecast to receive 2014 care for all their life, unlike someone born in say 1945 whose care improved during their life.) The rationale is that it's too hard to predict, and shifting predictions about future care would obfusciate the other steady but slow improvement.
Indeed, Mr. Pulpstar. I recall hearing somewhere that Bismarck set the pension age at the level he did on the basis the majority would be dead before reaching it.
Now we've regularly got 20-30 year retirements. It's unaffordable, especially with terrible, prolonged and expensive diseases like Alzheimer's.
On topic.Mike may be correct and my anecdotal conversations support that but can anyone be really confident about basing this on a poll which has shown a concerning volatility?It may be that there is,in fact,enormous volatility amongst the electorate and it is only Lord Ashcroft is picking up.I'm not convinced this really helps clear the fog. There is an inner nationalist in all of us and Labour's policy on rail appeals on the basis that if the Dutch,German and French governments can run UK railways why can't the UK government run UK railways?On this,and other matters,Labour can bring some who flirted with Ukip back home again.
Mr. Taffys, the inter-generational aspect of politics will get larger and larger, I feel. Pensions, national debt (which is really adults deciding they want the goodies and their children to have the bill) and so on will stoke up resentment towards the prosperous and even moderately well to-do greybeards.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
A male born in the UK in 1945 had a life expectancy of 63 years. A male born in 2001 had a life expectancy of 75. A male or female born today has a life expectancy of over 80 years (World Bank and UK Statistics Agency figures.)
If the state pension age had risen in line with life expectancy, people would not be able to claim a state pension until they are about 82 years old.
Life expectancy estimates are normally based on no advancement in medical care. (Though naturally someone born today is forecast to receive 2014 care for all their life, unlike someone born in say 1945 whose care improved during their life.) The rationale is that it's too hard to predict, and shifting predictions about future care would obfusciate the other steady but slow improvement.
Indeed, Mr. Pulpstar. I recall hearing somewhere that Bismarck set the pension age at the level he did on the basis the majority would be dead before reaching it.
Now we've regularly got 20-30 year retirements. It's unaffordable, especially with terrible, prolonged and expensive diseases like Alzheimer's.
They should set the pension age at about 15 years lower than the medium life expectancy per occupation (some have physically harder jobs that lower their life expectancy).
On topic.Mike may be correct and my anecdotal conversations support that but can anyone be really confident about basing this on a poll which has shown a concerning volatility?It may be that there is,in fact,enormous volatility amongst the electorate and it is only Lord Ashcroft is picking up.I'm not convinced this really helps clear the fog. There is an inner nationalist in all of us and Labour's policy on rail appeals on the basis that if the Dutch,German and French governments can run UK railways why can't the UK government run UK railways?On this,and other matters,Labour can bring some who flirted with Ukip back home again.
Hmm no - look at his vote shares for the parties and run an average through. It fits with Labour ~ 3.5% ahead.
His effective sample size is alot smaller than say a Yougov on an individual poll. If his mthodology is fundamntally better then the shares will be bouncing around the correct means but his small sample size will introduce higher standard deviations - regardless of the accuracy of his methodology.
Mr. Taffys, the inter-generational aspect of politics will get larger and larger, I feel. Pensions, national debt (which is really adults deciding they want the goodies and their children to have the bill) and so on will stoke up resentment towards the prosperous and even moderately well to-do greybeards.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
A male born in the UK in 1945 had a life expectancy of 63 years. A male born in 2001 had a life expectancy of 75. A male or female born today has a life expectancy of over 80 years (World Bank and UK Statistics Agency figures.)
If the state pension age had risen in line with life expectancy, people would not be able to claim a state pension until they are about 82 years old.
Life expectancy estimates are normally based on no advancement in medical care. (Though naturally someone born today is forecast to receive 2014 care for all their life, unlike someone born in say 1945 whose care improved during their life.) The rationale is that it's too hard to predict, and shifting predictions about future care would obfusciate the other steady but slow improvement.
That introduces upside risk, not downside.
I didn't mean to suggest otherwise - just thought it was worth mentioning.
I wonder about the politics of resolving our trade balance. Some obvious ideas like getting fracking, more tourists, boosting small business/entrepreneurs, support for the City, buy British, etc seem more naturally Tory.
I know Redward has no policies about anything much particularly - but is the vacuum that little bit harder on this important but rarely discussed area?
Indeed, Mr. Pulpstar. I recall hearing somewhere that Bismarck set the pension age at the level he did on the basis the majority would be dead before reaching it.
Now we've regularly got 20-30 year retirements. It's unaffordable, especially with terrible, prolonged and expensive diseases like Alzheimer's.
The solution Mr D is not to increase pension age but to slash the duty on booze and fags, reverse the smoking ban and slap big taxes on gymnasiums. People will die younger, but their diseases will be short and relatively cheap to cope with and the incidence of Alzheimers will drop like a paralysed falcon. Pensions crisis and health crisis solved in one bold movement.
Imagine if 48% of christians in Britain went to the church once a week, most of them would still be open instead of been turned to flats (or even casinos).
Comments
Vote Kipper get Ed and no referendum - simple choice.
If the numbers had workled out the LDs would have gone in coalition with labour and the non socialist tendency in them would have left. Thats what you get with a party of protest that then has to make some choices. With a UKIP party comprised as is suggested then it too would fall apart following thre first choice it had to make.
Even the famous 22 committee is a shadow of it's former self. The Tories are a fading party and if they have over 90,000 members by the GE, I'd be surprised.
Meanwhile in Europe UKIP MEPs rarely vote and have the worst attendance record of the UK parties. So why would they turn up much in the HoC?
The only remaining shot at an In/Out referendum is Dave's 2017 pledge. Nothing similar is on offer from anyone else who can actually deliver it. Therefore, if you want this at all, you have to vote Conservative.
You may imagine that somehow you'll get enough UKIP MPs that you'll be able to force a referendum. But you'd be wrong - any 2015 result that produces UKIP MPs will do so by lowering the Conservative seat tally, in which case there will be a Labour majority or Labour-LD anti-referendum government.
Furthermore, if the election result is anything other than a Conservative majority, then the referendum window closes for ever. By 2020, the children of the first Labour-sponsored immigration wave will be old enough to vote. 25% of under-5s are Muslim, I gather, so by 2025, there will be a huge and growing bloc of second-generation, first-time voting immigrants.
Not only will they never, ever support UKIP; they will never, ever support a party that appears to offer anything to UKIP, either. It will be poison to appear to accommodate such views in a mainstream party by 2025 or even 2020.
So the Conservative offer of a referendum will not be renewed post-2015 if they are not returned with a majority. It's the last time they can risk offering this. By the time of the 2020 campaign, looking ahead to who's going to vote in 2025, it will be too risky.
If you want to ensure you never get a referendum, by all means go ahead and vote UKIP, but don't then bellyache about how it's all Cameron's fault.
But as you say they don't stand for anything at the moment so they would be murdered if the GE was tomorrow. Fortunately it is in a few months time and if they want to grow up to be a real third force (from a borderline fourth one now) they need to come out with a carefully defined set of policies, not fantasy la-la wishes as of old but fully costed as much as possible and bold in their approach to each area - health, defence, economy, education, etc.
They can then give it the "restraining influence on nasty majority Cons" together with "more pragmatic than no money left Lab".
They really do have the opportunity to forge a new party but it will take some hugely nuanced work by party strategists.
Guido: "Ruffley should arguably be leaving Parliament immediately". A by-election would certainly be interesting. http://order-order.com/2014/07/29/ruffley-resignation-raises-recall-row/ …
''Oddly, despite the fact that the Kippers keep saying that Cameron will break his pledge, not a single one has taken up my generous offer.
You may, I think, draw the obvious conclusion.''
I totally agree with you. Only with a Conservative govt will we get a referendum. UKIP when faced with this are reduced to standing on their heads and reciting the alphabet backwards. As with a number of things their claims abour Cameron and the referendum is a pretence. They may as well stand on one leg and sing 'la la la la'.
Overall, William Hills 11/4 on a referendum in the next parliament doesn't look too far out.
[If the purpose of your question is to tease out why I'm only offering Evens, it's because the Kippers are so adamant!]
But I would also point out that one is really saying that 9.1% of children under 5 are born to Muslim parents. From my experience at a 60% Asian immigrant comprehensive, I can assure you that a majority of these will be on the "titularly Muslim, but drink alcohol and don't even know where the local Mosque us" to "don't give a shit about religion" to "of course God does't exist" spectrum,
NE Hampshire: Ranil Jayawardena (Basingstoke Cllr)
http://www.tellranil.com/
Tonbridge and Malling: Thomas Tugendhat (former Army officer)
http://www.tomtugendhat.org.uk/
Mid Worcestershire: Nigel Huddleston (2010 Luton South candidate)
http://www.nigelhuddleston.com/
Croydon South: Chris Philp (2010 Hampstead and Kilburn candidate)
http://chrisphilp.co.uk/
Cardiff North: Craig Williams (Cardiff Cllr, stood in Cardiff South by-election, in Cardiff West assembly seat)
http://www.craig-williams.org.uk/
Wealden: Nusrat Ghani (2010 candidate in Ladywood, a fav favourite of Conservative shortlisting process)
http://www.conservatives.com/OurTeam/Prospective_Parliamentary_Candidates/Ghani_Nusrat.aspx
SE Cambridgeshire: Lucy Frazer (QC, Deputy Chair of Hampstead and Kilburn Conservative Association)
http://www.lucyfrazer.org.uk/
Northampton South: David Mackintosh ( Leader of Northampton Borough Council)
http://www.davidmackintosh.org.uk/
South Ribble: Seema Kennedy (St Albans Cllr)
http://www.seemakennedy.co.uk/
South Thanet: Craig Mackinlay (Midway Cllr, 2012 PCC candidate in Kent, former UKIP leader)
http://www.craigmackinlay.com/
North West Hampshire: Kit Malthouse (London Deputy Mayor)
http://kitmalthouse.com/
Erewash: Maggie Throup (2005 candidate in Colne Valley, 2010 in Solihull)
http://www.maggiethroup.com/
Cannock Chase: Amanda Milling (Cllr in Rossendale)
Louth and Horncastle: Victoria Atkins (2012 PCC candidate in Gloucestershire, shortlisted for 100 seats, daughter of Sir Robert Atkins)
http://www.victoriaatkins.org.uk/
South Suffolk: James Cartlidge (local Cllr, 2005 candidate in Lewisham Deptford)
http://www.jamescartlidge.com/
Thirsk and Malton: Kevin Hollinrake ( estate agent from York)
Coming up...
Hove
Hertsmere
Uxbridge
Havant
Bexhill and Battle
Ricmond
South Cambridgeshire
North Warwickshire
Bury St Edmunds
If the point of UKIP was as a sort of pressure group to obtain an referendum then probably it should now stop political campaigning and advice its members to join the Conservative effort.
1/ UKIP do not want a referendum, because they'd lose.
2/ They imagine they could win one at some other date.
3/ Demographics mean neither a referendum nor a UKIP win can ever happen after some date in the future, which IMHO lies somewhere between 2020 and 2025.
You used a good analogy of a submarine the other day for the UK economy, with Labour denying that it is even submerged and wanting to dive it deeper. Expanding on that, UKIP is a faction aboard the submarine that is ranting about the sleeping arrangements, but has no view on what to do with the submarine.
ChrisWynThom @ChrisWynThom 20m
UK Labour Party: "We will introduce state funded Islamic schools in 2015" http://fb.me/2O8ngjn8p
Nonetheless, at some point the effects of Labour's efforts to alter election demographics must bear fruit. As well as the first generation there'll soon be a second, and at that point, the opportunity to vote to limit immigration becomes a dead letter.
UKIP has one narrow window of opportunity to obtain what it wants, but not being very smart it's unclear its supporters understand this.
As far as facts go, I believe that more than 60% of self identified 18-25 year Muslims drink alcohol. (Not that different to the proportion of self identified Jews that eat pepperoni, I suspect).
Should the numbers indicate another Con/LibDem Coalition then the yellow peril will use the referendum as a bargaining chip and cash it in. Sensible pragmatic Coalition politics.
IIRC most suicide bombers in the West (including the 9/11 hijackers had that profile).
Theodore Dalrymple wrote a good article on it based on prison conversations where he said jihadism was almost a penance for slack behavior as a teen.
''If you want to ensure you never get a referendum, by all means go ahead and vote UKIP, but don't then bellyache about how it's all Cameron's fault. ''
Your complete post makes total sense. So why do they say what they say?
All the anti Cameron bellyaching by UKIP apologists on the web (as opposed to the voters they hope to attract) exposes their (it has to be said) prejudice and ignorance. These UKIPers really want an end to conservatism to be replaced by a nice cosy extreme rightwingism. Quite how this fits with attracting Labour voters is a mystery to me.
The fact that this desire to destroy the conservative party will gift the country to labour is either lost on them or is irrelevant. UKIP moan on about the EU but they are more interested in their peculiar brand of extreme right wing purity. The EU is becoming ever more distant as a reason for existence.
" There could still be a referendum if we get another Conservative-led coalition with the LibDems - contrary to what some people think, my view is that the LibDems would go along with this, the bigger obstacle for them being the nature of the renegotiations. If there's a minority Conservative government, then I wouldn't rule out a referendum completely, although it would be tricky to do any meaningful renegotiation in that scenario."
I would imagine that a referendum would have to be written into the Coalition Agreement otherwise Cameron would have trouble getting it past his parliamentary party. In those circumstances the Lib Dems would probably go along with it as they will know that they will be able to join Cameron in campaigning to stay in.
As for the negotiations, I doubt there will be any on anything of real substance whether Cameron has a majority or is head of a coalition. My guess is that Cameron is going to try for a Wilson - renegotiate on some trivial issues, declare victory and assume having all the "great and good" lined up on the stay-in side will send the vote his way.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_4_suicide_bombers.html
If such negotiations do take place then then most of the LDs points would be about the structure of the coalition not policy.
For such negotiations to take place the Tories are likely to have a sizeable lead on votes if not on seats.
''of a referendum, as he has reneged and lied about almost every specific promise he has ever made. ''
No - this in turn is a lie. The promise before the 2009 EU elections was quite clear and made at a time when the treaty was not ratified and there was a possibility of a GE before it was ratified.
I find MikeK's remark quite disgusting. UKIP claim they are different but peddle the same misrepresentation they accuse others of.
The harsh fact is that there was no majority on parliament after 2010 to push through a referendum anyway.
The other real world fact which UKIP chose to ignore is that the Conservative party is broadly Eurosceptic now and widely open to a referendum.
Plus on numerous occasions Cameron has cogently put forward the reasons why renegotiation is necessary.
And well done for a linking to a noted hate website earlier on
Here's what they say about their logo
Our logo, the Trojan Pig of Islam, is indicative of the trojan invasion of Islam into the entire Western world. This is a Sunni effort to spread and reestablish the Caliphate worldwide. Feel free to use our Trojan Pig logo but please do mention that it comes from The Muslim Issue.
http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/about/
Now just imagine your reaction, if someone called Israel the Trojan Pig of Judaism, I know what your reaction would be.
I bet you must be proud, you're doing nothing but convince right minded people that Dave was right about UKIP.
That is the reason the tories are going nowhere. If you were working hard and living in your parents home, with no prospect of branching out on your own, you might be prepared to give Ed Miliband's rotten corporatism a whirl. What have you got to lose?
Unless the tories can offer this huge tranche of potential tory voters a way into popular capitalism, they will not win and they will not deserve to.
Trouble is, there is nothing George Osborne can do about it. He has no money for giveaways. He can't help people by cutting income tax or stamp duty or fuel duty or vat, because he needs and wants the money to feed a state still endemically addicted to spending.
In the marginals, I'd suggest, there's been a tighter squeeze already.
Weekly Mosque attendance is around 300,000, which would suggest that the number is a little more than 10% (assuming 2.5m Muslims). According to a BRIN survey (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2010/facing-the-axe-diocese-of-bradford-in-the-headlights/) of Muslims in Bradford, they got 25% of Muslims going to Mosque once a week.
There are around 1,500 mosques in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom). If there was 40% attendance (with the bulk) being for Friday prayers, then that would be more than 1,000 people attending, which is clearly a very high number given than the charities commission (http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/media/92365/fscumosque.pdf) has half of mosques having fewer than 300 attendees.
For a festival like Eid, the numbers may approach 40%.
But weekly attendance is probably in the 10-20% range.
If Lord Ashcroft's numbers are correct, then all the angst that's generated about UKIP depriving the Conservatives of seats is pointless.
A smaller yet comfortable majority of 32.
I'm not sure I agree about the LibDems not being concerned about policy rather than process. I think the other way round. They must be able to point to policy achievements in the next government as in this one.
BTW .... have you decided to place the Smithson quill against the LibDem GE candidate or are you wavering as a RedLiberal or a Torquoise Tory ??
We'd also see the demise of many of the one party rotten councils that infest our local political climate.
Where does the 300,000 figure come from?
That has long been my view and I'm not sure I buy the argument a sharp decrease in spending early in the government would have resulted in a much sharper slowdown. And even if it did, so f8cking what. We have to pay our way.
At the beginning of his tenure Osborne was spraying around 5% increases in benefits, for example. Even Tim was howling about the amounts Osborne was spending on welfare.
Osborne was hampered by having the lib dems to contend with, of course, but I still think he is mainly the author of his own downfall.
You Can't Handle The Truth.
Economically the current UKIP voters/supporters are to the left of the party leadership, at election time something will have to give and Farrage is going to have to roll out populist nationalism as his economic policy or lose the current bunch of Labourite working class supporters back to Labour, which IMO make up more than half the current support.
If UKIP go down this route, and allying themselves with the leftist M5S party of Italy is the first step in that direction, it could drive a lot of the Thatcherite conservatives who bang on more about Europe and free trade (the Richard Tyndall's of the party) back to the Tories. I don't know if they could stomach renationalisation of trains, energy and water as part of their party's policy as it goes against their instincts.
UKIP are in a very weird position right now, the have drawn support from across the spectrum, but they can't be all things to all men come election time. Farrage and the rest of the party leadership will need to decide which support they want to keep, the old Conservatives or the old Labour side, there are no policies outside of immigration on which both sides agree. Economically these supporters are diametrically opposed and UKIP will need to choose. Farrage seems smart so I think he will go for the populist nationalism and use renationalisation as a method to keep the old Labour supporters and to attack the EU which has horrible double standards in this area.
That decision could add 3-4% to the Tory VI as the small-c conservatives peel off back to the Tories leaving just the ones who hate Cameron/Osborne in the UKIP fold.
I just pointed out you're a linker to a noted hate/anti-Islam website.
That speaks volumes about you, and needs no further comment from me.
That is called inward investment, Mr. Cole, and is, apparently, a jolly good thing, all our major politicians and political parties seem to want to see as much of it as possible. If a foreign company buys a British one that is inward investment and good. If they then strip out the intellectual property rights, shut down the UK operation to move production off-shore then no politician wants to talk about it.
And if they ever get around to paying off their own debt, there are the country's vast debts to start worrying about.
Demographics and the ruination of pensions (especially in the private sector) make it all but inevitable.
Isn't there a significant male/female split on going to the mosque?
Some (regional/cultural?)) groups say women should pray at home but I don't know what the score is here.
http://islamqa.info/en/983
If we don't like selling Selfridges to the Chinese or Jaguar to the Indians or half of London to the Qataris and the Russians or AstraZeneca to the Americans etc - then we'd better learn to balance our imports and our exports.
A male born in the UK in 1945 had a life expectancy of 63 years. A male born in 2001 had a life expectancy of 75. A male or female born today has a life expectancy of over 80 years (World Bank and UK Statistics Agency figures.)
If the state pension age had risen in line with life expectancy, people would not be able to claim a state pension until they are about 82 years old.
Now we've regularly got 20-30 year retirements. It's unaffordable, especially with terrible, prolonged and expensive diseases like Alzheimer's.
There is an inner nationalist in all of us and Labour's policy on rail appeals on the basis that if the Dutch,German and French governments can run UK railways why can't the UK government run UK railways?On this,and other matters,Labour can bring some who flirted with Ukip back home again.
His effective sample size is alot smaller than say a Yougov on an individual poll. If his mthodology is fundamntally better then the shares will be bouncing around the correct means but his small sample size will introduce higher standard deviations - regardless of the accuracy of his methodology.
I know Redward has no policies about anything much particularly - but is the vacuum that little bit harder on this important but rarely discussed area?