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I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
Goodness knows where that leaves the lib dems!!
He did get a bit animated. One of my members challenged him on media articles that had compared him to the BNP (yes, it happened even then) and he got quite angry about it. He strongly rebutted it, explained why it was nonsense (and said UKIP reject racists, and welcomes all ethnicities) and then we moved on to the next question. He calmed down quickly afterwards.
Two other things stuck with me: (1) he said he was like a stick of Blackpool Rock. If you cut him in half through the middle, you'd see 'TORY' printed throughout the whole of his body, and (2) he had been offered a Tory safe seat several times, but had always turned it down - he said he felt (although a natural Conservative) the party had betrayed its natural supporters, took them for granted, and was no longer was representing the interests people of Britain.
Sound familiar?
I certainly don't think he's a monster; a Nick Griffin in disguise. That's lazy and inaccurate. I certainly do think he loathes the modern Tory party. He is motivated by that sense of betrayal, exacarbated by the insults he feels has been thrown his way over the years.
He struck me as quite sensitive, but would listen to those who showed him respect and shared his values. The way he's got on with Douglas Carswell and listened to some of his localism ideas is instructive in this.
There is no doubt in my mind that his prime motive he's out to cause the maximum amount of damage to he can to the Tories, so he can reclaim the influence he needs to channel true conservativism within British politics again through his party. That means increasing his vote and seat share by *whatever means he feels possible*.
Personally, I think the 2014 Euro campaign was a strategic mistake. It 'toxified' UKIP. I also think the HIV point falls into the same category. But I don't think he believes a word of it. He doesn't care.
So, he's friendly and social, but also sensitive, short-tempered, and politically naive. He is motivated by patriotism, coupled with a strong sense of personal and political betrayal. But there is something in there about trying to change British politics for the better, which he rarely talks about, as it is subsumed by his emotions.
Make of that what you will.
I'm not normally a fan of Marf but that is sensational
My preferred charities are Amnesty and Shelter.
Kent is lost to Conservatives. Also parts of Essex, Lincs and East Anglia.
UKIP could win upwards of 10, maybe 20 seats.
Those celebrating UKIP vote increases in the North, should pause a bit. Yes, it will discomfort Labour. They might lose one or two seats.
But like the Tories lost out to the SNP, the same thing will happen to the Tories in Yorks, NE and NW. Labour would still win most of the seats there and in London. But the Tories would effectively be replaced. They will gather 15% or so of the votes and under FPTP , all those votes will be wasted.
With their <10% polling, all their supporters have to be located in LD seats. So Clacton LD 1% is good, Heywood LD 5% is poor, Rochester LD 16% would be terrible.
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/Bristol-man-contracted-11-STIs-says-views-badge/story-23087675-detail/story.html
Haas had chlamydia three times, gonorrhoea twice, herpes twice, genital warts once and scabies once. Must be an incurable romantic.
Nigel Farage: Ban migrants with HIV from entering Britain
http://www.buzzfeed.com/richardhjames/nigel-farage-ban-migrants-with-hiv-from-entering-britain#33wegmg …
I'm really not sure that's a vote loser at all..
What will Labour do to try and increase its turnout?
I'm not expecting panic measures, but I doubt they'll ignore the issue completely, if only to reassure their more nervous backbenchers.
The next question is why does the Labour leadership think their turnout was low? Anything Labour do will be intended to address what they think the problem is, not what the problem actually is, and there may well be quite a gap between the two.
From what I see in Sheffield Brightside, I'd say the actual problem is that Labour have lost touch with their traditional supporters, who are a lot less socially progressive than the party currently is. Even if Labour did recognise this was a problem there's not a lot they can do about it without alienating the socially progressive wing of their voters.
However, I suspect Labour are more likely to misdiagnose the problem. They'll come up with a bunch of policies they think will get their voters turning out, but because they're out of touch with what those voters actually want, the policies will fall flat. In the worst case, they could even lose them votes.
(1) Assumption A: UKIP is mainly a Tory threat (perhaps valid up until very recently) GE2015 - UKIP vote rises from 3.1% to 11.5%. UKIP takes 65% of that increase from the Tories, 25% from Labour and 10% from Lib Dems/others. Labour firewall holds.
NET result: lots of Tory losses, probably Labour majority, but UKIP makes very few seats gains.
(2) Assumption B: UKIP hits both established parties (perhaps valid in the future) GE2015 - UKIP vote rises from 3.1% to 14%. UKIP takes 45% of that from the Tories, 35% from Labour and 20% from Lib Dems/others. A chunk of Labour voters stay at home, vote Green, SNP, UKIP, and (a few highly targetted middle class public sector voters in the marginals) for Cameron out of desperation. Lib Dems split evenly Con/Lab, remainder go UKIP or stay with Lib Dems. Labour firewall doesn't hold. The key marginals are largely held by the Tories, on lower shares of the vote.
NET result: a few Tory losses, only a few Labour gains, a very hung parliament, with UKIP, SNP, Lib Dems all holding significant chunks of MPs.
Which seems more likely?
"I didn't vote for him, I was a sceptic" - Jack Straw on Ed. "I know people say he has got panda eyes and strange lips."
Ouch.
Dave's going to have to be nice to Nigel's fruitcakes and loons.
It really is fascinating. The lib dems have some big, fat majorities. Kingston and Surbiton. Twickenham. Are these vulnerable?
In 2010 the electorate voted for tory reblel Carswell. In 2014 they voted for tory rebel Carswell. In Heywood they voted for the best available anti UKIP candidate.
We will fight UKIP on the beaches etc.
Except of course in my consiituency, which won;t be affected.
The ever-helpful Jack Straw says he knows people say Ed Miliband "has panda eyes and strange lips".
Tweet from Sun Journalist...cue for new cartoon.
And no, my son’s politics don’t always coincide with mine!
http://order-order.com/2014/10/10/jack-straw-pandas-to-milibands-critics/
Experts said the party slashed Labour’s majority in the Heywood by-election because its simplistic message can appeal to angry, gullible cretins across the political spectrum.
Its worse than that. Labour think they can say 'we hear your concerns' whilst doing the opposite.
Skeggy should be odds on now.
For their own good it might be better to win 4 or 5. I would guess Clacton plus one.
Jewish girl has joined ISIS, French intelligence official reveals: Dozens of teenagers have fled to Syria and Iraq from France to horror of families
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2787892/jewish-girl-joined-isis-french-intelligence-official-reveals-dozens-teenagers-fled-syria-iraq-france-horror-families.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline
'What will Labour do to try and increase its turnout?'
Stop banging on about the NHS when voters want to talk about immigration?
A new Lib-Lab pact emerges between Ed Miliband and Jeremy Browne
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzlLY88CUAEzZLt.jpg
I have decided to vote Tory next year in the last 3 weeks, despite strong reservations about Cameron and his party management. I just see Ed Miliband as too much of a threat to this country.
An emboldened Farage is targeting Labour's 'bigoted women', and men from the WWC.
Nice cartoon, Marf!
"...the poverty in Clacton-on-Sea is a very modern phenomenon. The rise of cheap flights diverted holidaymakers from seaside towns, and the lack of business has had several knock-on effects. The Centre For Social Justice (on whose advisory board I sit) produced a report about new phenomenon last year – a problem that effects not just Clacton-on-Sea but Blackpool, Great Yarmouth, Margate and Rhyl. They have become studies in modern poverty.
When work moves out, welfare moves in. The cost of renting a house falls without salaried workers to compete for them. What marks seaside towns out is the availability of cheap accommodation. What once attracted holidaymakers now attracts local authorities placing children in care and ex-offenders. The B&Bs that once accommodated British holidaymakers start to house welfare tenants – not ideal for landlords, but better than facing months of vacancies. This has a cluster effect; poverty attracts poverty. "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11151491/Clacton-by-election-The-Tories-cannot-fight-for-leafy-areas-and-forget-the-poor.html
http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/UserStorage/pdf/Pdf reports/Turning-the-Tide.pdf
Most are from Grant Shapps, Hague and various others.
@MichaelLCrick: Ukip have just kicked me out of their Clacton office. All I wanted was a good selection of their leaflets.
@MichaelLCrick: Tories win by-election in Clacton, take seat from Ukip. That's Essex Cty Council by-election in Brightlingsea ward, partly in Clacton seat
Wow, sort of caught up. Back when I started to read and comment on pbc (2004), I always made a point of reading every comment.
I managed to keep that up until about 2007. After that, I started to skim, but it's harder and harder these days.
Anyway - some thoughts on the rise of UKIP:
The Big Parties are just starting to accept the fact that their diagnosis and treatment of the UKIP infection was inaccurate and are trying to come up with new treatments. However, their treatment of each other (and the Lib Dems) has made a very benign environment for the insurgent Party. As Nick P mentioned earlier, the danger with the Tories and Labour each declaiming that the other is crap is that both are increasingly believed. As are they when they add that the Lib Dems are crap and irrelevant.
Negative campaigning is such a temptress - because it works for so long. In a zero-sum game, bringing your opponent down is as effective as boosting yourself, and often - given the complexities and subtleties of real life impacting upon ideological and simplistic promises - so very much easier. And, if you've successfully damned the other big party, you get the situation described in Denis Healey's famous words to the right wing of the Labour Party in 1980: "You have nowhere else to go".
As he found out with the SDP's founding, too many people , in Mike Thomas's words "have found somewhere else to go".
So, while there are wider issues fuelling the resentment that has been the first stage of the rocket that is UKIP's rise, the second stage has been that the Tories and Lib Dems have convinced voters that Labour is profligate, brainless, out of touch, untrustworthy and crap; Labour and the Lib Dems have convinced voters that the Tories are heartless, unfeeling, out of touch, untrustworthy and crap, and the Tories and Labour have convinced voters that the Lib Dems are treacherous, inconsistent, out of touch, untrustworthy and crap.
So UKIP are surfing that decades-long wave of negative campaigning. Further mixing metaphors ruthlessly: the Big Three have been enthusiastically sowing the wind for ages. It's no wonder that they're feeling the barometer plummet and now dreading that they may be about to reap the whirlwind.
Yes I was thinking about that. Aren't local authorities only using seaside towns because of the benefits cap?
I'll mention it to her. She's away this weekend so you'll have to wait till next week but depending on the news schedule I'm sure she would like to do one on Ed.
She's an equal opportunities cartoonist.
Dissatisfaction with the Big Three isn't enough to get the ball rolling, even if that dissatisfaction can turbo boost the rise. Otherwise the Greens would have reaped the harvest far more so than they have.
So what is it? It's partially that the big parties have dismissed very real concerns that voters have had, in the aim of running over the uncertain ground easier. Sean T referenced it earlier, on the globalisation and immigration front.
Globalisation makes all of us better off, it's true. But that's not evenly spread. Not in time, in location, demographics or educational level. There are local losers. Always. They may even outweigh the benefits for a while in some areas, but government intervention can help. Which makes it more of a pity when they don't intervene appropriately.
We've had the Tories boosting globalisation of capital, which has admittedly helped worldwide - but at the cost of some people. Labour have been a bit more unsure - not necessarily for the right reasons.
We've had Labour boosting globalisation of labour (immigration), which makes us better off and assuredly tends to make the immigrants better off - but at the cost of pressure on infrastructure and against low-paying workers. The Tories have been a bit more unsure - not necessarily for the right reasons.
(The Lib Dems, of course, have strong elements pro-each-side-but-anti-the-other, which might have helped them when they didn't have to make government decisions, but hinders them now).
The immigration issues have been dismissed as having an unpleasant whiff of racism - dodging the issues. And hugely exacerbated by the abdication of both parties of Government from upgrading and extending the infrastructure (housing, transport, primary schools in the right areas, doctors surgeries, etc). And discontent with local housebuilding is invariably dismissed as NIMBYism - where in many cases, while there is a NIMBY element, a lot of people are stressed about major increases on pressure on already creaking and ineffective local infrastructure.
Mr. Cooke, nice to see you on.
11:52: Jack Straw defends Ed Miliband's leadership amid reports of unease in the party. While the Labour leader may have quirks - he refers to his "panda eyes and strange lips" -
POEDWAS.
Still, the 3/1 on the Tories looks big in R & S. You absolutely have to discount the scale of Carswell's win on the grounds that it was Carswell. And Clacton was famously the most "receptive" seat in the country to the UKIP message.
The truly big question in Rochester is what the Labour party, and the Labour voters, do.
UKIP should still be favourites, but not by this much.
Only from the PB Tories.
Only on PB.
'But like the Tories lost out to the SNP, the same thing will happen to the Tories in Yorks, NE and NW.'
And if Tories vote tactically for UKIP to keep Labour out,that's Labour buggered in its heartland.
We even have a good guide for that; if houses are being rationed in a given area, there aren't enough of them to go around. The main rationing mechanism is by price.
If house prices are lower than average in an area, that's not where we need to build. We need to build them where the prices are high, very high, ridiculously high, and Jesus-Christ-I-don't-believe-it high. And we need to sort out the planning laws and processes to make that possible.
For the record, are you predicting that outcome?
For the record, are you predicting that outcome?
If you don't understand the concept of something being "priced in" then perhaps you're on the wrong site.
Actually, I might be after picking your brains on the publishing and self-publishing business at some point. I've written some books (a novella about an alternate history where UKIP entered the 2010 Election debates, followed by a full-scale novel on the aftermath, and a young-adult fantasy novel (completely nothing to do with politics). I've had a chat with a small independent publisher on the latter, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on marketing and so on.
@PickardJE: Labour MP: "As retail proposition Miliband is dreadful...even people who aren't interested in politics have an opinion on him: he's weird."
A slightly different perspective on Mr Carswell's victory from Dr Matthew Ashton, from Nottingham Trent University. He questions whether the outcome will be to "de-energise" UKIP's core supporters rather than win over new ones, because the newly elected MP's style of politics is to "give nuanced answers rather than bold projections".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29562688