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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » There’s no dispute – the night belongs to UKIP
Friday's @thetimes #Clacton by-election special edition: The history man: Ukip win gives party first MP pic.twitter.com/tJJNRi8t9V
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Happy Birthday for yesterday Prime Minister!
(tsk, tsk, tsk)
And night all!
The guy who put £2,500 on Labour at 1/50 in Heywood & Middleton must have had palpitations.
It remains to be seen if this is anything other than ephemeral. We've been here many times before: 1973 (Lincoln), 1990 (Eastbourne) and 1993 (Newbury and Christchurch) particularly stand out.
The biggest surprise was in Heywood and Middleton, but again we need to see how this pans out at the General Election.
It is too soon to say anything has changed long term.
01.48: Labour are claiming that Heywood and Middleton is a good result because the Labour voteshare increased.
However, it is increased from 40.1% in 2010 to 40.9%. That is not a big increase, and certainly not when you factor in the smaller turnout (we got almost 7,000 fewer votes) and the very small majority (down from 5,971 to 617). All in all, it is a very worrying result for us.
01.46: John Mann MP’s tweets might be worth catching up with this evening. “If Ed Miliband does not broaden the Labour coalition to better include Working class opinion then we cannot win a majority government” seems to be reflected in what ex-Labour voters say.
01.37: At 22.17 I said that a margin of 20 points over UKIP would be good for Labour, and under 10 points would be bad. We won with a margin of 2.1%.
http://labourlist.org/2014/10/heywood-middleton-and-clacton-by-elections-liveblog/
Tories:
Clacton
Ashcroft: understated 0.6
Survation: Understated 4.6
Heywood
Ashcroft: overstated 3.7
Survation: overstated 0.7
UKIP
Clacton
Ashcroft: understated 3.7
Survation: Overstated 4.3
Heywood
Ashcroft: understated 10.7
Survation: understated 7.7
Labour
Clacton
Ashcroft: overstated 4.8
Survation: Overstated 1.8
Heywood
Ashcroft: overstated 6.1
Survation: overstated 9.1
Lincoln - showed you could fight your party in a by-election and win; Taverne is viewed by some as the real father of the SDP.
Eastbourne - the "dead-parrot", asterisk-in-the-polls LibDems peck out Thatcher's eyes; she was deposed the following month.
Newbury and Christchurch - the unheard-of swings to the LibDems showed the earth really was moving under the Tories, presaging their landslide defeat and the LDs' great success in 1997.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11152627/Ukip-urges-MPs-to-defect-en-masse-without-by-elections.html
One reading of this might be that UKIP aren't finding any potential defectors who are sufficiently confident of holding their seats at a by-election.
These results signal the slow death of the Labour Party, but short term they'll help them win a majority.
Rod, I was just thinking about the long-term success of the respective parties following allegedly seismic by-elections. I'm not sure this necessarily presages that much, but only time will tell. Fortunately we will know in seven months.
Those who don't first take their chance in a by-election will almost certainly be crushed in the general election.
So in the next few hours and days there will be much hyperbole about the impact of this by-election. But what we will not know for a while is whether Clacton will mark a real sea-change in politics or another pyrrhic protest that will ebb with the tide.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29562579
@paulwaugh: In fact maybe it was the postal vote (66% turnout) wot won it for Lab in Heywood. If UKIP had been more organised...
The Current Vote: 2010 Vote Ratio implies:
Labour 33.1 Conservative 30.7.
Looks like Ed needs a new strategy for Labours General election campaign. 35% core vote strategy holed below the waterline.
Looks like Opinion Pollsters need a new strategy for the General election campaign, as C2,D&Es who have not voted for years turn out wholesale for UKIP under their radar & hole their methodology under the waterline.
And I'm loving every minute of it.
OGH is right to be circumspect. The proof of the pudding will be on May 8th.
31 weeks until the General Election. It's a hell of a long time.
I see the Survation underestimate effect on the Tories was in evidence again at Clacton, but not at Heywood.
Interesting re: Rochester. I sense UKIP will bag it, but the margin could be much tighter.
That's a damning indictment of how out of touch Milliband is. He seems incapable of believing that the issues he thinks are important aren't always the ones that normal people worry about. Dont get me wrong, the NHS is important, but it ain't the only thing.
Congratulations to Carswell. He will add a lot to UKIP in terms of intellectual coherence. His is not the rugby club on tour.
Did anyone see the Clacton turnout %?
Rochester is going to be huge. If the Tories are to have any chance of a majority in 2015 I think they need to take it. If they don't the bandwagon for UKIP will be powerful enough to do them enormous damage and result in the loss of a large slew of seats not just to UKIP (a few) but also to Labour (more) as the right wing vote splits.
Rochester is going to be the by election of this Parliament.
The same disillusionment with Westminster, the establishment and the main stream parties that was such a powerful element of the Scottish referendum vote is now manifesting itself in other ways. I would say the desperate search for simplistic solutions and nostrums to defeat the complexities of the modern world and the sense of powerless it engenders goes on. UKIP supporters presumably see it slightly differently!
The Conservatives should be able to talk enough sense on immigration, although their record may say otherwise. I agree that the LibDems and Labour are going to be very weak on it.
In May, assuming an Ebola-free country, with the sun warming people's faces once more will immigration feel so important? In so far as it relates to economic well-being, maybe.
- Immigration is big and isn't going away
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/10/heywood-and-how-labour-nearly-lost-it
- Labour's awesome Get-Out-The-Vote operation isn't awesome (there were hints of that in Scotland)
- The pollsters have a problem
(HT to Chestnut on the last thread)
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussion/comment/430368/#Comment_430368
Democracy is failing and, as it does, is trying to renew itself. Voters are unwilling to accept how powerless the State is to protect them from the storms raging about them and seek solace from those who think the world's problems can be solved with a series of simple bullet points. Those in power are powerless and those threatening the current order grow stronger by the day.
Vote Conservative get Ed Miliband as Prime Minister
Vote Conservative get Ed Miliband as Prime Minister
How many PB Tories will now support tactical voting for UKIP in Labour constituencies ?
Just need to wise up Conservative voters to the concept of tactical voting.
Snap snap snap.
85% of Scots turned out to vote last month. If that isn't showing democracy to be in rude health I don't know what is?
I do agree that we face some pretty serious global problems, but some of those are pitted directly against democracy (e.g. ISIL). We've been here before and the result was victory for freedom. I have faith that it's the one abiding driving force integral in human memetics: the desire to be free.
Lost by 600 votes. Bugger, I was on a small fortune.
What if we get, say: Tory 280, Lab 289, Lib Dem 27, UKIP 9, SNP 10, DUP 8 + others 27?
What an unpredictable parliament that might be.
I don't, so I won't. (Unless they had an excellent local candidate, not that it would make much difference in my seat)
They did so because they have lost all faith in Westminster, in fact they positively despise it and all it represents.
As you rightly point out the majority voted otherwise and sanity prevailed but it was closer than it ought to have been. What I think we are seeing is not something apocalyptic now but a strong trend against authority. This is an inevitable consequence of the recession. In the 1930s the US had Huey Long who would have been a real danger to FDR if he had not been killed and of course the various fascist movements in Europe.
I don't believe that the majority of UKIP voters have any idea what their policies are. That is really not the point. The point is that they are willing to talk about peoples' concerns and fears in a way the mainstream parties don't. The article in the Guardian referred to down thread was spot on (not something I write very often.)
' In three visits to the area over the last two weeks, almost all the voters I spoke to began each conversation by saying, unprompted, that they were concerned about immigration – the electrician complaining about wages being undercut by eastern European workers, the parents unable to get their offspring into local primary schools because immigrant children were taking up scarce places, the patients waiting for a GP appointment in a waiting room filled with foreign chatter. '
One of my first comments at PB was on an old Sean Fear Friday Column back in 2008. I mentioned in it that Labour's northern wwc vote was very vulnerable because of immigration and for the reasons described above.
In EdM had ever listened to any of his constituents he might understand this but EdM has the Labour version of the Matthew Parris mentality.
I'll predict now that immigration of Eastern European Roma is also going to be a big issue - they are as popular in the places they've migrated to in Britain as they are in their own countries.
Heywood was. Had UKIP won it it really would have been an earthquake.
Labour thought they had a silver bullet (wittering on about the NHS), now it seems that was a mud bullet.
Ignoring the economy and immigration will not work. On both they don´t have a narrative. On the second they risk alienating their imported vote bank. Problem is, it also alienates their far larger wwc constituency. As Labour hate this constituency I expect silence. MIllipede is proud of his party´s record on immigration. I am sure he is. As are other bien pensants. Problem is, no one else is.
And: people no longer think the State can fix their grief. If UKIP want one more populist policy, it must surely be the legalisation of firearms.
Educated middle class voters do fairly well out of the former (job opportunities and lower cost of living) and don't tend to be heavily effected by immigration; they will move out of problem areas whilst lauding the diversity it adds in culture/cuisine (that they can enjoy in their leisure time, before withdrawing) and the cheap cleaning/catering staff it offers them and enhances their lives.
So the latter are more happy supporting established parties fighting over the centre ground.
Overnight, UK Politics has been turned upside down.
Clacton shows that the "UKIP miles ahead" poll was correct. The message now to any Tory with a majority less than 5 figures is that UKIP can do you major damage. In don't think it guarantees the kippers swathes of seats, but splitting the right's vote in Tory marginals will help Labour.
Heywood shows the level of anger in "safe" Labour seats. Rochdale is where I grew up so I'm pretty familiar with the western "townships" as the council charmingly term them. I believed Labour would win and did, but it was bloody close. We even grew our % share vs 2010, but UKIP won the voters lost to Labour in generations past, and its this ability to connect to the dispossessed and disinterested that is their secret weapon. I'd suggested that UKIP would damage Labour majorities and not win more than in Tory seats (where I expect them to win a lot more) and this backs that up. Either Labour make more of an effort to connect to our former core vote or the night of 7/8 May will be a long shift....
One final point. For the final time you CANNOT compare polls now - in the UKIP era - to polls from previous election cycles before the UKIP era. The electoral world has changed massively.
This does not mean that immigrants have stolen the jobs of British workers. They haven't, if only because no British worker would work for £7 a week and a stinking mattress in a room shared with three or four others. The gangmasters break any law that doesn't suit them, the State looks the other way (by simply not employing enough inspectors), and all those of us who eat fruit or vegetables collude in their malpractice. It's how capitalism works in the real world.
Need criteria that are fairly defined - there's a reasonable case for including the Greens as well - but I'd look at a combination of #MPs, % in polls and #seats contested nationwide.
For the "PM candidate" debate these criteria should be much higher (eg on poll shares let's say an average of 10% over the last 6 months for the general debate and an average of 25% for the PM debate)
Also interesting that Labour performed badly in both final results compared to the polls - in Clacton by up to 5% and in Heywood by up to 10%.
But it's hardly interesting that Carswell won - most Ukip friendly seat in the country and an MP with a good connection with his voters...
What's very hard to predict is the impact on the polls. There surely has to be a UKIP bump in the next few days. Might we see a poll where they come second?
Con 2010 VI retention down 4pts- all to UKIP.
LAB 2010 VI retention up 4pts, mainly from UKIP.
LDs get a minor bounce as more of LD2010 VI vote LD than LAB.
In secondaries, Cons mainly widen gaps over LAB.
However, are polls able to predict what will happen at the ballot box?
Labour and the Cons each have 100 seats with majorities of less than 6,000.
Wide opportunities for any party with momentum.
Most tory supporters are not adversely affected by immigration for the reasons you say but both communities are now also shrouded in fear engendered by those lunatics in ISIL, Ebola and the perception that defending ourselves from Islamic terrorism is bringing us dangerously near to a police state with more jobsworths ordering us around and regulating us at every turn.
It is a heady mix. If the economy continues to improve here it will lose some of its fizz but where the economy is not improving, as with the EZ, the rage will continue to build.
Clacton - expected result, plus Carswell is one of the few MPs I've had personal contact with and he's a solidly decent person.
The other result would have been genuinely explosive stuff.
For the rest of us, I think an important message is that just pressing the negative button isn't enough any more. The danger is that if Tories say Labour is terrible and Labour says the Tories are terrible, the voters will conclude that we're both right.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/10/douglas-carswells-clacton-victory-speech-ukip-must-stand-for-all-britons
Useful to consider the Tea party in considering where UKIP could go next. Big difference is that the Tea party remains embedded in GOP and faces, in Obama, a popular left leading opponent.
I think they/we(?) already may have done.
There's also a good point in a Guardian article in the second to last paragraph. I get the feeling that some in the government and many in opposition only hear what they want to hear.
The PPEocrachy see nothing wrong with this because they are personally gaining (that people they despise are losing out makes it even more satisfying to them) and because they are ever more disinclined to leave their metropolitan comfort zones.
EdM's anecdotes of 'ordinary people who live in Dartmouth Park', the Matthew Parris article and holding party conferences in metropolitan mini-mes rather than seaside resorts are examples of this mentality.
Neither result is surprising, though the closeness of the result in Heywood & Middleton certainly is.
And the same is true for Heywood. Close second is enough for an earthquake. The establishment parties have debated themselves into a corner across Europe and people want revolution. And here the facekf revolution is a millionaire ex stockbroker.....
Watch UKIP go now. You want momentum? You want your opponents on the run and disorientated?
I would start thinking of why Rochester is not interesting next month.
"I agree. The last government were desperate to have GDP growth, no matter what. Immigration was good for GDP growth ergo it was a good thing. The effect on their own supporters was a secondary consideration. "
Immigration's influence on economic growth was only part of the reason they desired it:
"But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural. I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
The economics was just their political cover. The main reasons are (a) that they preferred multiculturalism to British culture as a matter of ideology, and (b) they would shift the demographics of the electorate so much that conservatives couldn't compete any more with calls for tradition.
I wonder if we may start to see some serious tactical voting emerge on the right. In Labour 'safe' seats where Dave stands frankly no chance anyway it may now seeem highly attractive to Tory voters to lend UKIP their vote.
At least it proves the adage 'The worst Labour poll is the correct one'.
UKIP have another close but no cigar moment.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/why-britain-is-poorer-than-any-us-state-other-than-mississippi/
But that doesn't matter.
When it seems like its the 1% against the 99% the 99% are going to include people who would traditionally be thought of as privileged.
The best thing for Farage is that he is kept out of the debates - he can play the oppressed martyr, 'the PPE boys are talking to themselves, while we the people are kept out etc etc'.
But what is also true is:
This government is desperate to have GDP growth, no matter what. Immigration is good for GDP growth ergo it is a good thing. The effect on their own supporters is a secondary consideration.