How can such an unoriginal thinker be successful in advertising?
Have you seen any adverts recently? The advertising industry is as unoriginal, clueless, moribund and living on borrowed time as the Labour Party.
Yes, I can think of three seemingly omnipresent TV adverts at the moment on the "nervous first date" theme.
Then there's the 'they're not mates rates, they're great rates' one where the customer thinks the servitor fancies them and is giving them a good rate. I think (but am not sure) quikfit was the first. It has since been followed by at least two others. A good concept in the first instance, but utterly useless in its copyability -you can't even remember what companies have used this theme.
There's the bizarre 'singing in a car' -two car adverts at the moment this features in -no idea which cars they are for.
It doesn't surprise me because the polls suggested it was close to 40% and UKIP polled just over 40% in the Euros. If it turns out that Reckless wins Rochester on a vote share better than UKIP got in the Euros (as they did in Clacton) then it would create havoc in Westminster. For example, UKIP won every constituency in Kent except Tunbridge Wells in the Euros and most of them by more than 5 points and half of them by 15 points or more .
On what turnout? And how many of them were using the Euros to have a voting holiday?
Bold man that uses the Euros as a template for the General....
Qualifying criteria for debates should be based on past performance, the question is what should be included in that past record.
Some take the view that only previous GE results should count as these are the only truly comparable situations. While that argument has merit, I disagree. Past GE performance should have added weight but performance in interim elections - local, Euro, PCC, by-elections and so on - and also in polling over a reasonable period, should also count. Unless there was an extremely complex formula, that implies more of a judgement call but then such a judgement could be backed up with polling as to what the public though would be fair coverage.
As an aside, if the Greens past record is anything to go by, they won't stand everywhere. They federation of Green Parties (the Scottish and NI ones are entirely independent of that covering England and Wales), put up 334 candidates between them: only just over half. Irrespective of their one elected MP, they're not in the same division as UKIP, never mind the Lib Dems, Labour or Tories.
Then we will have to agree to disagree then. The use of performance is just a convenient excuse to protect the Westminster closed shop. The general election debates should not be about sustaining that closed shop of increasingly defective establishment parties.
Our democracy should not be so controlled by the whims of the Prime Minister and Leader Of HM Opposition. Election debates should be about informing the electorate of the options on offer!
As for the Greens if they do not put up sufficient candidates (and I'd accept they need to put up 475 candidates (or 75%) or more) then I agree they should be excluded but if they do put up sufficient candidates then they should be included end of story.
If you base entry criteria solely on the number of candidates, then you encourage rich men to easily buy their way in. James Goldsmith would have had a place in 1997 on that basis, as would the Yogic Fliers in 1992 (which might have been fun but wouldn't have been terribly instructive in determining which party and leader was best placed to govern the country).
I would suggest four criteria, to which roughly equal weight should be given:
1. Number of candidates fielded 2. Performance at the last equivalent election, and perhaps ones previous to that, if relevant. 3. Performance in elections since the last equivalent election i.e. locals, Euro, PCC etc. 4. Current and recent opinion polling.
That ought to sort the rich men on an ego trip from the genuine breakthrough parties.
Nearly everyone underestimates the LibDems. They will lose MP's but I doubt it will be the wipe-out some here predict.
Anyone fancy a tenner that the LibDems will have at least 4 times as many MPs as UKIP come May 8th?!
Ill have an EVEN tenner with you.. I get the tie (ie 32/8 I win)
You're on! It's Peter the Punter who arbitrates these things, I think? So I say the LibDems will have 4 times as many MPs +1 as UKIP following the May 2015 General Election. £10 bet, even stakes.
Luke1983, that read like something out of a student A level politics textbook. This will appear more rude than I mean it to be (I've got things to do) but I really can't be bothered ...
1.If the 2:3:5 format for the debates is chosen, would the LDs be in the 3 or the 5?. Anything more than 3 is rather unwieldy, difficult to control fairly on a time basis and probably reveals very little except tribalism in a one hour programme. Have not included SNP or PC in any of those debates as they would not have sufficient GB candidates.
2. OGH claims that Europe is not a priority according to the polls but in the electorate's mind it one and the same linked with the ECHR.
Wonder if any party will take a fresh approach to the EU like Ireland and Spain. Both use EU money as they wish and ignore EU rules (France does the same) for infrastructure etc whilst the UK has numerous committees and employees ensuring that all EU directions are followed to the nearest semicolon and so has wasted a lot of the money on non-productive bureaucracy.
In Spain this year, watched illegal African beach traders have their goods confiscated and destroyed and put on a boat to be returned to N Africa - no resort to the ECHR there!
3. The UK has had and welcomed many immigrants for centuries who blended with the population and accepted British rule of law. (King John and others did expel the Jews, but that was because he owed them too much money). Now we have immigrants who in the main do not want to integrate and wish to import their own laws and culture and not accept the rule of British law. It is made worse when one political party (for political reasons) is willing by inaction to allow this state of affairs to grow and gain a foothold, contrary to the wishes of the native population.
Why would Cameron want to debate with Farage on TV? He has already seen what happened to Nick Clegg in the EU debates.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
Luke1983 actually that was a bit rude, so very quickly: the centre is defined by economics: the economic freedom of individuals and markets balanced by societal values. To the extreme left and right you have different forms of control: statist intervention through taxation or idealogical control.
In the early days Thatcher took the centre, with her laissez-faire economics under people like Keith Joseph (inspired by Milton Friedman). She talked the housewife's purse, the loaf of bread price. She counted the coppers, demonstrating that looking after the weekly shop was the micro version of the nation's macro-economics. To do this she had to slay the controlling ideologues of the unions who held this country to ransom under Heath and turned us into the 'sick man of Europe.' It wasn't until Maggie won her third term in 1987 that she really began to lose it: with the poll tax being the anathema to all she had proclaimed in 1979 (heck, she even quoted St Francis of Assisi on victory morning May 4th 1979).
Blair got all this and, devoid of almost any original thinking, simply kept it going controlling the centre with a more caring heart. In fact, the rich got more rich under 'call me Tony' than under Maggie.
The centre is where you win power in Britain: economic and fiscal common sense balanced by a social conscience.
p.s. I would never describe the LibDems as centrist. They are far too quirky and in many ways more left-wing than Labour … or at least until Miliband.
Thanks for your more comprehensive response, don't worry I was not offended -I certainly argue strongly enough here; it would be hypocritical to be annoyed at someone giving me a mild dressing down!
However, I feel your explanation makes my point for me. If there is some sort of permanent 'cosmic' centre, an equilibrium between right and left (and I'm not agreeing that there is), then the point is that like in the 1970's, there is a left wing, large state, uncontrolled immigration, politically correct political consensus alive today that has moved far off 'the centre' and therefore is leaving 'the centre' for another party to conquer.
Even the shadow cabinet believes in pulling the wool over voters eyes:
"One shadow cabinet member said “the free movement of labour is, as a phrase, a disaster, and we need to move to fair movement of labour at least as a language to describe our policies.”
So it's not about actually changing policy. Just changing language. Positively Orwellian.
The LD's greatest trump card is not that they have fifty-something MPs, but that they are in government. To deny a big government party an opportunity to defend its record in a debate should be unacceptable to the authorities. It's not like, say, the Greens who are just criticising government policy from another angle that's no more objectively valid than UKIP or the English Democrats.
The Labour MP Diane Abbott warned the party not to shift tack on immigration. “A helter-skelter rush to the right on race, immigration and welfare will not work."
Except what did Cameron say about immigration before the last election?
The other day the Mail showed a picture of a British man who had tweeted himself holding up the decapitated head of a female Kurdish fighter in Kobane with some joke beneath it.
The mail claimed this appalling person was raised and educated in Britain and chose to flout all the advantages that brings in favor of becoming some type of ghastly grinning savage butcher.
Now I ask you, is that an immigration problem? And how would stopping polish plumbers coming here solve it??
Right and left have never been about purely economics, although it might suit some people to frame it that way. The original right and left was about whether or not you were a monarchist or a constitutionalist in the French National Assembly of 1789.
I don't agree about them becoming less likely, because despite all the downsides as a device, the media pressure will be enormous for a bit of blood sport. And speaking with my Tory hat on, our guy is a crack shot compared to yours.
I think a four/five-way plus a Future PM's debate would be one option. That gives all Parties with seats in Parly a shot at winning hearts and minds - and removes the historical advantage Cleggers had. I can't see a logical reason to give him a place at the top table, if Faggers is polling twice as highly.
On your point of *all ganging up on him* - I can see that working in favour of the politically disaffected > feeling they're being kicked in the mush again by the Establishment. How to address Faggers consistencies without going too far will be a delight to watch. Last time, it was Clegg's own manifesto that got a bit of limelight. IIRC quite a few projecting voters weren't happy to discover he was keen on the EU, votes for prisoners, amnesty and a few other things.
The logical reason is that we have a system based around winning MPs, and the LDs are going to have more of them after the election than UKIP.
I'd bet on the Lib Dems being there, given the decisions made thus far. Plus I think OFCOM prefers results to polling.
How many of the politically disaffected are going to watch the debates?
In terms of Westminster results, these are the respective UKIP and Lib Dems by-election placings since 2010:
Why would Cameron want to debate with Farage on TV? He has already seen what happened to Nick Clegg in the EU debates.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
He can certainly refuse, would be interesting to see if the media would empty chair him.
Tristram Hunt is for me one of the worst examples of Pulling Up The Ladder Behind Me.
I don't care about his background or if he really does have Octavian as a middle name, but it's that he's all over the place on education - the one thing that made him successful. He's even worse than Tony Benn IMO - driving round in his Bentley with a Vote Labour bumper sticker.
I was really surprised that Mr Cameron zeroed in on him so personally. I got the overwhelming impression that he felt Mr Hunt was the ultimate Luvvie traitor > denying the opportunities he'd had to everyone else on the altar of ideology. Oh and the recipient of a safe-seat parachute too.
Mr Hunt personifies what I dislike about post-New Labour.
Some labour marginals are a bit deceptive because there is a large Lib dem vote. In other words in some constituencies there is a very big left of centre majority that UKIP will find impossible to beat.
Some labour constituencies are not like that. There is a relatively small lib dem vote, and a split but quite significant right wing/ protest vote.
Rosie Winterton's Doncaster central is a prime example.
I'm liking Stoke. Just the sort of place Labour has taken its WWC for granted for ever. Stoke South in particular, but if you want a real shocker for 2015, how about posh boy Tristram Hunt, with his majority of 5,000. Now, what was Andrew Pierce saying about shadow Ministers with 5,00 majorities panicking?
Davies would certainly help (though as he wasn't announced as a candidate despite UKIP's conference being in the town, I suspect that won't happen), but it's still possible all the same.
Point of order, Mr. Chairman, but King John (1199-1216) did not expel the Jews, though he did levy huge taxes upon them. The Edict of Expulsion was made in 1290 by Edward I (TSE's hero).
As a fine point of interest it was the ghastly regicide and dictator, Cromwell, who invited Jews to return to England in 1655.
Brian Binley MP, the treasurer of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs, said the Tories should now make discreet approaches to Ukip about the possibility of an electoral pact with the Eurosceptic party.
He said: “You don’t want to do it openly but I would say 'we are both centre right parties, you have been more successful at getting those people who feel let down’.
Mr Binley said that “nobody buys” the argument that a vote for Mr Farage is a vote for Mr Miliband. “It is absolutely bloody nonsense,” he said.
That's the main argument against UKIP collapsing then. It's pretty pathetic that the Tories can mount an argument against UKIP on actual policy. It's a clear acknowledgment that they know their voters think UKIP are right.
How can such an unoriginal thinker be successful in advertising?
Have you seen any adverts recently? The advertising industry is as unoriginal, clueless, moribund and living on borrowed time as the Labour Party.
Yes, I can think of three seemingly omnipresent TV adverts at the moment on the "nervous first date" theme.
Then there's the 'they're not mates rates, they're great rates' one where the customer thinks the servitor fancies them and is giving them a good rate. I think (but am not sure) quikfit was the first. It has since been followed by at least two others. A good concept in the first instance, but utterly useless in its copyability -you can't even remember what companies have used this theme.
There's the bizarre 'singing in a car' -two car adverts at the moment this features in -no idea which cars they are for.
One was pretty good - as an advert for Prague!
Haha exactly. There's a brilliant book on this subject by Al & Laura Ries -they argue that like paintings, horses and carriages, sun dials etc., which have lost their original purpose and become 'ornamental', most (not all) advertising is now purely something that companies 'do', like buying Picassos for the boardroom, and doesn't actually sell stuff. Thankfully for the advertising industry, most companies haven't worked this out yet.
Except what did Cameron say about immigration before the last election?
The other day the Mail showed a picture of a British man who had tweeted himself holding up the decapitated head of a female Kurdish fighter in Kobane with some joke beneath it.
The mail claimed this appalling person was raised and educated in Britain and chose to flout all the advantages that brings in favor of becoming some type of ghastly grinning savage butcher.
Now I ask you, is that an immigration problem? And how would stopping polish plumbers coming here solve it??
Well let's see.
If you stop a massive wave of people coming willy nilly in to the country, then in an economy which is creating jobs the labour market starts to tighten.
As it tightens two things happen wages rise and employers are forced to upskill their workforces since you can no longer rely on trained graduates from E Europe coming in and covering gaps in our education system.
As wages rise and people upskill they get richer. Richer people move in to "nicer" areas more quickly and raise their expectations of life. So ghettoisation starts to erode as people integrate with those around them and people have a greater stake in their country and are hence less likely to see the appeal of nihilism.
Naturally this doesn't guarantee that nuttters won't charge off and do weird stuff but it does reduce the probability.
That's my thinking about the Greenies. IIRC It's the same argument used to defeat Salmond > if you aren't standing in the majority of seats - you aren't in the game.
A very reasonable article and as a UKIP voter I would say David is one of the few commentators on UKIP who seems to be able to keep his emotions in check and talk objectively about them. However much as I do not question his observations here they are predicated on the idea that qualification for the election debates should be based on past performance yet at the same time he highlights the paradox of the Libdems whose past performance dictates they should be included but whose present rating dictate they shouldn't. Similarly the UKIP paradox provides the opposite scenario where past performance would exclude them but current ratings would include them.
All this though indicates that the qualifying criteria is based on performance and by its very nature creates a closed shop that in reality is very hard to break into. However surely from the voters perspective it is not how the parties are doing that is important but what are the choices for Government, ALL the choices.
snip
After all, if we were selecting using prior performance criteria which candidates should appear in the Presidential Primary debates in 2007 would Obama have been given a spot? The debates should be about informing the voters about the serious candidates not about allowing the established parties to peddle their wares in some sanitised version of PMQ's.
Qualifying criteria for debates should be based on past performance, the question is what should be included in that past record.
Some take the view that only previous GE results should count as these are the only truly comparable situations. While that argument has merit, I disagree. Past GE performance should have added weight but performance in interim elections - local, Euro, PCC, by-elections and so on - and also in polling over a reasonable period, should also count. Unless there was an extremely complex formula, that implies more of a judgement call but then such a judgement could be backed up with polling as to what the public though would be fair coverage.
As an aside, if the Greens past record is anything to go by, they won't stand everywhere. They federation of Green Parties (the Scottish and NI ones are entirely independent of that covering England and Wales), put up 334 candidates between them: only just over half. Irrespective of their one elected MP, they're not in the same division as UKIP, never mind the Lib Dems, Labour or Tories.
I don't agree about them becoming less likely, because despite all the downsides as a device, the media pressure will be enormous for a bit of blood sport. And speaking with my Tory hat on, our guy is a crack shot compared to yours.
I think a four/five-way plus a Future PM's debate would be one option. That gives all Parties with seats in Parly a shot at winning hearts and minds - and removes the historical advantage Cleggers had. I can't see a logical reason to give him a place at the top table, if Faggers is polling twice as highly.
On your point of *all ganging up on him* - I can see that working in favour of the politically disaffected > feeling they're being kicked in the mush again by the Establishment. How to address Faggers consistencies without going too far will be a delight to watch. Last time, it was Clegg's own manifesto that got a bit of limelight. IIRC quite a few projecting voters weren't happy to discover he was keen on the EU, votes for prisoners, amnesty and a few other things.
The logical reason is that we have a system based around winning MPs, and the LDs are going to have more of them after the election than UKIP.
I'd bet on the Lib Dems being there, given the decisions made thus far. Plus I think OFCOM prefers results to polling.
How many of the politically disaffected are going to watch the debates?
In terms of Westminster results, these are the respective UKIP and Lib Dems by-election placings since 2010:
Controlling immigration from Europe is missing the point, to my mind, and won;t win that many votes.
Its immigration from non-EU countries that people are most worried about, and complain about most. Immigration from Africa and countries where Islam predominates.
Boris admitted today that thousands of potential terrorists are being monitored by security forces.
Are they Europeans? bet they aren't.
Personally the Terrorism issue is not the primary issue that concerns me when it comes to considering Immigration. It is the uncontrolled nature of European immigration that is the primary issue. It undermines any medium term planning undertaken by government because they have an insufficiently clear view of how many people they will be serving.
As for terrorism, as Iraq and Syria has proven we have plenty of home grown terrorists. So do other European nations. How many of those being watched are British? As the IRA. ETA and Bader Meinhof have proved Europe is perfectly capable of creating dangerous terrorist groups within its borders. We have controls on Non EU immigration we do not on European Immigration and we know through the likes of Sangat that the rest of Europe has porous borders. If there is a risk from terrorism it will involve Europe in one way or another.
Immigration policy should not be designed on the basis of whatever the current terrorist threat is. It should be designed to facilitate good government and within that be designed to provide a first level of vetting of all immigrants against the threat of any terrorism.
UKIP are doing as well as the Lib Dems in by-elections. They will probably do worse at the general election. (If you want to use general national popularity or second-place finishes as your barometer, then change your voting system to something that doesn't treat them as irrelevant.)
I don't agree about them becoming less likely, because despite all the downsides as a device, the media pressure will be enormous for a bit of blood sport. And speaking with my Tory hat on, our guy is a crack shot compared to yours.
I think a four/five-way plus a Future PM's debate would be one option. That gives all Parties with seats in Parly a shot at winning hearts and minds - and removes the historical advantage Cleggers had. I can't see a logical reason to give him a place at the top table, if Faggers is polling twice as highly.
On your point of *all ganging up on him* - I can see that working in favour of the politically disaffected > feeling they're being kicked in the mush again by the Establishment. How to address Faggers consistencies without going too far will be a delight to watch. Last time, it was Clegg's own manifesto that got a bit of limelight. IIRC quite a few projecting voters weren't happy to discover he was keen on the EU, votes for prisoners, amnesty and a few other things.
The logical reason is that we have a system based around winning MPs, and the LDs are going to have more of them after the election than UKIP.
I'd bet on the Lib Dems being there, given the decisions made thus far. Plus I think OFCOM prefers results to polling.
How many of the politically disaffected are going to watch the debates?
In terms of Westminster results, these are the respective UKIP and Lib Dems by-election placings since 2010:
Even the shadow cabinet believes in pulling the wool over voters eyes:
"One shadow cabinet member said “the free movement of labour is, as a phrase, a disaster, and we need to move to fair movement of labour at least as a language to describe our policies.”
So it's not about actually changing policy. Just changing language. Positively Orwellian.
Emily Thornberry?
She was on Newsnight spouting that claptrap through gritted teeth last night.
Thing that strikes me about that video of Miliband is the fakery: the rythmic clapping of the ordinary people who came to the town hall of their own will to greet the new MP, the smile in Miliband's voice, his learnt mannerisms. It's as obviously orchestrated and fake as media stunts in the USSR or North Korea. Compare that with the spontaneity of the media scrum interviews in Clacton.
The problem the tories have is that UKIP have nothing to gain from a pact with the Tories and everything to lose by having one.
Plus any future party having a pact or coalition of any sort with the tories is only going to do so with a very long spoon, if at all, after the way the Libdems have been treated by them for doing the decent thing for the country
Except what did Cameron say about immigration before the last election?
The other day the Mail showed a picture of a British man who had tweeted himself holding up the decapitated head of a female Kurdish fighter in Kobane with some joke beneath it.
The mail claimed this appalling person was raised and educated in Britain and chose to flout all the advantages that brings in favor of becoming some type of ghastly grinning savage butcher.
Now I ask you, is that an immigration problem? And how would stopping polish plumbers coming here solve it??
Also, the Tories can promise all the aims they want. Given their record, we need a concrete plan to believe them:
Net Immigration, March 2010: 252,000 Net Immigration, March 2014: 243,000
As an aside, if the Greens past record is anything to go by, they won't stand everywhere. They federation of Green Parties (the Scottish and NI ones are entirely independent of that covering England and Wales), put up 334 candidates between them: only just over half. Irrespective of their one elected MP, they're not in the same division as UKIP, never mind the Lib Dems, Labour or Tories.
The significance of the Greens is, not what seats they will win (probably nil) but the damage they will do to the chances of individual Libdems outpolling the overall score and holding their seats.
If Libdems are reduced to 5 seats rather than 30 they will have the Greens to thank for syphoning off the beard and sandal brigade.
That's my thinking about the Greenies. IIRC It's the same argument used to defeat Salmond > if you aren't standing in the majority of seats - you aren't in the game.
A very reasonable article and as a UKIP voter I would say David is one of the few commentators on UKIP who seems to be able to keep his emotions in check and talk objectively about them. However much as I do not question his observations here they are predicated on the idea that qualification for the election debates should be based on past performance yet at the same time he highlights the paradox of the Libdems whose past performance dictates they should be included but whose present rating dictate they shouldn't. Similarly the UKIP paradox provides the opposite scenario where past performance would exclude them but current ratings would include them.
All this though indicates that the qualifying criteria is based on performance and by its very nature creates a closed shop that in reality is very hard to break into. However surely from the voters perspective it is not how the parties are doing that is important but what are the choices for Government, ALL the choices.
snip
After all, if we were selecting using prior performance criteria which candidates should appear in the Presidential Primary debates in 2007 would Obama have been given a spot? The debates should be about informing the voters about the serious candidates not about allowing the established parties to peddle their wares in some sanitised version of PMQ's.
Qualifying criteria for debates should be based on past performance, the question is what should be included in that past record.
Some take the view that only previous GE results should count as these are the only truly comparable situations. While that argument has merit, I disagree. Past GE performance should have added weight but performance in interim elections - local, Euro, PCC, by-elections and so on - and also in polling over a reasonable period, should also count. Unless there was an extremely complex formula, that implies more of a judgement call but then such a judgement could be backed up with polling as to what the public though would be fair coverage.
As an aside, if the Greens past record is anything to go by, they won't stand everywhere. They federation of Green Parties (the Scottish and NI ones are entirely independent of that covering England and Wales), put up 334 candidates between them: only just over half. Irrespective of their one elected MP, they're not in the same division as UKIP, never mind the Lib Dems, Labour or Tories.
But the Greens did put up candidates in the majority of seats (just).
Qualifying criteria for debates should be based on past performance, the question is what should be included in that past record.
Some take the view that only previous GE results should count as these are the only truly comparable situations. While that argument has merit, I disagree. Past GE performance should have added weight but performance in interim elections - local, Euro, PCC, by-elections and so on - and also in polling over a reasonable period, should also count. Unless there was an extremely complex formula, that implies more of a judgement call but then such a judgement could be backed up with polling as to what the public though would be fair coverage.
As an aside, if the Greens past record is anything to go by, they won't stand everywhere. They federation of Green Parties (the Scottish and NI ones are entirely independent of that covering England and Wales), put up 334 candidates between them: only just over half. Irrespective of their one elected MP, they're not in the same division as UKIP, never mind the Lib Dems, Labour or Tories.
Greens will have more GE candidates this time. Maybe 3/4 as I understand things. Other than polling they are easily the equal of UKIP (1 MP, 100-odd local council seats, have run a couple or so of councils e.g. Oxford, Brighton, Stroud), 3 MEPs, and that's just England.
The Greens are no-where near the equal of UKIP.
Yes, they have one MP each but that's it. Even in 2010, UKIP won 920k votes, against the various Greens' 285k, and while the Greens may have increased their support since then, UKIP's has soared a good deal further. UKIP is highly likely to stand in the vast majority of English and Welsh seats, and probably a fair few Scottish ones too (I wouldn't be overly surprised if they try to contest the lot), so even three-quarters would leave the Greens trailing.
As for election results, there are 19 Green county councillors, against 135 for UKIP; on unitary authorities, UKIP leads 57 to 38; on London boroughs, by 12 to 4; on Metro-authorities, by 38 to 30; and on District councils by 125 to 67. In Scotland there are 14 Greens and no Kippers while Wales has a solitary UKIP and no Greens. Bear in mind that the vast majority of UKIPs councillors were elected in the last half-cycle and it demonstrates further the disparity.
As for MEPs, well, the Greens did beat the Lib Dems but UKIP beat everybody.
The simple fact is that the Greens have been a minor party since the late 1980s and are still there. UKIP, by contrast, are aiming for the big league and are not far off it.
The greens are a problem only for the Libdems as they threaten the chances of their MPs keeping their seats by syphoning off the beard and sandals brigade and handing the seat to the tories.
Except what did Cameron say about immigration before the last election?
The other day the Mail showed a picture of a British man who had tweeted himself holding up the decapitated head of a female Kurdish fighter in Kobane with some joke beneath it.
The mail claimed this appalling person was raised and educated in Britain and chose to flout all the advantages that brings in favor of becoming some type of ghastly grinning savage butcher.
Now I ask you, is that an immigration problem? And how would stopping polish plumbers coming here solve it??
Also, the Tories can promise all the aims they want. Given their record, we need a concrete plan to believe them:
Net Immigration, March 2010: 252,000 Net Immigration, March 2014: 243,000
Just to put those numbers into context, the population of Birmingham is a shade over 1 million - the same as the legal population increase under Cameron's term as PM (God knows how many illegals have gotten through the system in the same period).
Aside form Cameron's clearly broken promise on immigration from 2010, those numbers have a bearing on everything else from economic growth to welfare expenditure to NHS costs etc..
Quick dip on comment whilst working on something else:
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Aldershot Bognor & Littlehampton Bournemouth West Cambourne & Redruth Chatham & Aylseford Coventry NW East Surrey Eltham Gill & Rain Harlow Hereford & S Herefordshire Lads are 50s Horsham IoW Luton North N Swindon Norwich N NW Cambs Redditch Reigate S Cambs Sittingbourne & Sheppey Stratford on Avon Wolverhampton SE
Blimey! If UKIP got all constituences on your 3 lists UKIP would be in government, one way or another.
I am doing an each way small bet at Newmarket today , horses for anyone interested , as ever bet at your own risk.
Top Tug 15:10 Newmarket at 10/1 Nearly Caught 15:50 Newmarket at 14/1 ( Cesarewitch) Enobled 17:40 Newmarket at 6/1
Thanks for that, Mr. G., if the wife gets back with the car in time for me to get to the bookies I think I shall follow you in for small stakes, maybe even do a triple.
Does anyone know why 25,000 people came here in the last year with "no reason stated"? Surely we know what reason there is by the visa they have? Or are these people illegal immigrants getting in under our 20 year amnesty system?
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably people returning home.
What polls do we expect over the weekend.I read on PB that there were two Scottish voting intention polls due and no doubt some of the Sundays will contain the latest UK polls? Imagine that any bounce from the Lib Dem conference will be punctured by the UKIP balloon.
I am doing an each way small bet at Newmarket today , horses for anyone interested , as ever bet at your own risk.
Top Tug 15:10 Newmarket at 10/1 Nearly Caught 15:50 Newmarket at 14/1 ( Cesarewitch) Enobled 17:40 Newmarket at 6/1
Thanks for that, Mr. G., if the wife gets back with the car in time for me to get to the bookies I think I shall follow you in for small stakes, maybe even do a triple.
Hurst , yes I just did a small each way patent, at those prices if it was to come up it would still be good payout.
A 17% fall. And it's on the increase again in the last three months.
I am aware of the general state of play
I was arguing against the argument that the poorly controlled immigration from outside the EU (which at least has a control system in place) is a much bigger consideration than the uncontrolled immigration from inside the EU (baring in mind the nations in the pipeline for EU membership).
Non EU Immigration can be adjusted and reduced. EU immigration cannot be controlled currently (and the major parties seem to have no real intention of doing so).
Does anyone know why 25,000 people came here in the last year with "no reason stated"? Surely we know what reason there is by the visa they have? Or are these people illegal immigrants getting in under our 20 year amnesty system?
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably people returning home.
Isn't this a voluntary survey? If so people may not want to say any more to the researchers. Also a lot of life decisions like this don't fit neatly into one little box, so maybe they're using that category for "multiple / none of the above / it's complicated".
Controlling immigration from Europe is missing the point, to my mind, and won;t win that many votes.
Its immigration from non-EU countries that people are most worried about, and complain about most. Immigration from Africa and countries where Islam predominates.
Boris admitted today that thousands of potential terrorists are being monitored by security forces.
Are they Europeans? bet they aren't.
Non-EU immigrants are overwhelmingly non-white with a big Muslim contingent. Why do you think no one is allowed to talk about it.
When the issue of immigration is raised, the politicos address it by wittering on about EU freedom of movement. They ignore the elephant in the room.
Does anyone know why 25,000 people came here in the last year with "no reason stated"? Surely we know what reason there is by the visa they have? Or are these people illegal immigrants getting in under our 20 year amnesty system?
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably people returning home.
Isn't this a voluntary survey? If so people may not want to say any more to the researchers. Also a lot of life decisions like this don't fit neatly into one little box, so maybe they're using that category for "multiple / none of the above / it's complicated".
I would have thought the government could compute this stuff from visas. If you have a spousal visa or dependent visa, you're here for family reasons. If you're here with a work permit, you're here for work reasons. I suppose they could entirely be EU citizens.
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
Quick dip on comment whilst working on something else:
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Vote Nigel, get Dave …?
I don´t remember Baxter being particularly accurate either in 2005 or 2010. Not sure why it is considered the holy grail.
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
I think, if the polls are similar to how they are now, it should be Miliband, Clegg, Cameron & Farage to for half an hour with Farage and Clegg leaving it to the realistic contenders for PM for the second half
They are the four parties that might either be in government as a Coalition or get 15% of the vote, and the latter are the only two who can be PM
Does anyone know why 25,000 people came here in the last year with "no reason stated"? Surely we know what reason there is by the visa they have? Or are these people illegal immigrants getting in under our 20 year amnesty system?
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably people returning home.
Isn't this a voluntary survey? If so people may not want to say any more to the researchers. Also a lot of life decisions like this don't fit neatly into one little box, so maybe they're using that category for "multiple / none of the above / it's complicated".
I would have thought the government could compute this stuff from visas. If you have a spousal visa or dependent visa, you're here for family reasons. If you're here with a work permit, you're here for work reasons. I suppose they could entirely be EU citizens.
They'll have visa numbers but they'll be a subset of this survey, and they may not be trivial to correlate.
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
Except that with those rules, you'd exclude the Lib Dems, who may again be in a position to form a coalition based on current constituency-specific polls and by-elections in LD-held seats (local and the one Westminster one), which runs counter to your point (c). (You'd also exclude the SNP, even if they were poised to take, say, 50 seats).
It'd also be highly controversial as to whether or not UKIP were included as their average polling over the last 6 months with YouGov, ICM, Populus and Mori has them below 15%, while their scores with Opinium, ComRes, Survation and Ashcroft has them above. Which companies do you include and what weighting do you give them?
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
I think, if the polls are similar to how they are now, it should be Miliband, Clegg, Cameron & Farage to for half an hour with Farage and Clegg leaving it to the realistic contenders for PM for the second half
They are the four parties that might either be in government as a Coalition or get 15% of the vote, and the latter are the only two who can be PM
I would agree to your addendum as long as other parties are allowed a right of reply during the head to head debate if either leader decides to drag their policies into it. Not really fair handing someone a chance to lambast a party who cannot reply
Quick dip on comment whilst working on something else:
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Vote Nigel, get Dave …?
I don´t remember Baxter being particularly accurate either in 2005 or 2010. Not sure why it is considered the holy grail.
Basically because nobody can accurately predict in which direction it will be wrong, and if you're going to be wrong anyway you might as well pick a nice simple, objective way to be wrong rather than putting together a bunch of sophisticated clevers and tweaking them every time.
Also I don't think it was all that bad, given the uncertainties involved.
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
I agree with much of what you say. I only disagree on the 15% threshold because if a party is relatively unknown (and they get very little coverage if they are not in Westminster) then it is difficult to attain those sort of consistent polling levels. For example if the debates were decided today only Labour and the Conservatives would likely qualify. If you are going to have a threshold it must be much lower and I would tend to say you shouldn't need to be one.
If a party is intent on putting up sufficient candidates (with all the cost that incurs) to technically give them a chance of winning a majority then that should be sufficient and if they bomb in the debates and spoil their chances of improving their position then tough. On the other hand as we saw with the Libdems the debates can promote a party significantly.
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
Except that with those rules, you'd exclude the Lib Dems, who may again be in a position to form a coalition based on current constituency-specific polls and by-elections in LD-held seats (local and the one Westminster one), which runs counter to your point (c). (You'd also exclude the SNP, even if they were poised to take, say, 50 seats).
It'd also be highly controversial as to whether or not UKIP were included as their average polling over the last 6 months with YouGov, ICM, Populus and Mori has them below 15%, while their scores with Opinium, ComRes, Survation and Ashcroft has them above. Which companies do you include and what weighting do you give them?
The 15% figure was plucked out of thin air, that figure can be set at a different value if we think it works better. I would like to see that value however set by a panel of citizens selected in the same way as a jury initally rather than leave it in the hands of politicians or their placemen in ofcom. Likewise the basket of pollsters used
I agree with much of what you say. I only disagree on the 15% threshold because if a party is relatively unknown (and they get very little coverage if they are not in Westminster) then it is difficult to attain those sort of consistent polling levels. For example if the debates were decided today only Labour and the Conservatives would likely qualify. If you are going to have a threshold it must be much lower and I would tend to say you shouldn't need to be one.
If a party is intent on putting up sufficient candidates (with all the cost that incurs) to technically give them a chance of winning a majority then that should be sufficient and if they bomb in the debates and spoil their chances of improving their position then tough. On the other hand as we saw with the Libdems the debates can promote a party significantly.
I answered another poster on the topic of 15% and pollsters used.
As to having a limit the reason to do that I think is to exclude people buying their way into the debate. It is also their to restrict the debate to a manageable number I suspect once you get more than 4 then the debate will generate more heat than light. I agree however it is arbitrary but my belief is that the limit needs to be there for practicality
For me where David Cameron has failed primarily is in the field of non EU immigration. He could have controlled it.
He didn't.
In practical terms - how? He didn't have the Westminster votes to get measures through against LibDems who would open the borders - and Labour, who did.
The day after.......and the media has got Miliband firmly in its sights:
Despite protestations of public loyalty from senior Labour figures, behind the scenes even shadow cabinet members who still believe in Ed Miliband (and they are rapidly decreasing in number) are pressing for a change in style and direction.
They know Miliband neither looks nor sounds the part of the Leader of the Opposition, let alone Prime Minister-in-waiting.
With six months to the election, there is pressure from those shadow ministers for senior MPs and trade union leaders to see Miliband in private and persuade him to make way for a caretaker leader like Alan Johnson, former home secretary, because there is no mechanism to force a leadership ballot so close to an election.
The debates need a better format. Get them all on "Question Time", retire Dimblebore, and have Bercow conduct the proceedings. It may not enhance the debate, but it would be worth watching?
For me where David Cameron has failed primarily is in the field of non EU immigration. He could have controlled it.
He didn't.
In practical terms - how? He didn't have the Westminster votes to get measures through against LibDems who would open the borders - and Labour, who did.
The lib dem excuse is often trotted out by conservatives. Here is my view
Cameron must have known the problems he would have with the lib dems on many fronts.
He had two choices go into Coalition or not. If he had not labour would have stitched together a coalition and it would probably have fallen apart in a short time at which time he could have asked the people of the country for a mandate to pursue his "principles" what point is it being in power if you can't do what you said you would to get people to endorse you?
If we believe Cameron to be sincere in his 2010 manifesto then in my view he sacrificed to many of his pledges for the chance to swan in and out of number 10
Quick dip on comment whilst working on something else:
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Vote Nigel, get Dave …?
I don´t remember Baxter being particularly accurate either in 2005 or 2010. Not sure why it is considered the holy grail.
Basically because nobody can accurately predict in which direction it will be wrong, and if you're going to be wrong anyway you might as well pick a nice simple, objective way to be wrong rather than putting together a bunch of sophisticated clevers and tweaking them every time.
Also I don't think it was all that bad, given the uncertainties involved.
The problem is that whilst Electoral Calculus creaked away with LibDem tactical voting it has now blown a fuse completely with UKIP. At best you can check an overall UKIP box but you cannot get any tactical swings, and yet that's the very thing that is most likely: local tactical UKIP voting. Bung in 22% UKIP national share of the vote and it will still tell you they would have no MPs. Sorry but that's plain daft. Even off 15% or so national share I reckon they could have a few MPs. I can't see Carswell losing his seat in May. Can anyone else? With the nuances of UKIP taking core Labour votes in Labour heartlands the permutations are considerable.
I'd be interested to know if anyone has produced, or is working on, something more tailored to actual UK demographics?
On the subject of the thread header here is my two pennies worth
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
This all seems to be very fair and logical. It's obvious that we're looking forward to the next election, not the last, so it would be absurd to have UKIP excluded based on the state of play five years ago. It's also absurd to judge it based on the inequities of the results via our current FPTP system. There's no good reason to exclude Farage. It's just that Cameron is frit.
Looking at the `Next UKIP leader` market think Diane James 5/1 is a good bet.She is an attractive female with a background in healthcare and business which ticks the boxes of what UKIP should be looking for
For me where David Cameron has failed primarily is in the field of non EU immigration. He could have controlled it.
He didn't.
In practical terms - how? He didn't have the Westminster votes to get measures through against LibDems who would open the borders - and Labour, who did.
The lib dem excuse is often trotted out by conservatives. Here is my view
Cameron must have known the problems he would have with the lib dems on many fronts.
He had two choices go into Coalition or not. If he had not labour would have stitched together a coalition and it would probably have fallen apart in a short time at which time he could have asked the people of the country for a mandate to pursue his "principles" what point is it being in power if you can't do what you said you would to get people to endorse you?
If we believe Cameron to be sincere in his 2010 manifesto then in my view he sacrificed to many of his pledges for the chance to swan in and out of number 10
Cameron is a coalition Prime Minister. He had one overriding challenge - fix the economy. He chose a path that prevened Labour from doing any more damage, but he wasn't given the votes to fix some of the bigger underlying causes for our nation's various ills. The votes of 50,000 Kippers could have given us Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. But we are where we are. He has done what he could with the cards he was dealt.
That those same Kippers who prevented him from getting a working majority are the loudest critics of his inability to tackle these issues is just one of the ironies of politics. And they will be along again, shortly, saying "nothing to do with us, guv...."
No, it's any MP's call. There are precedents for parties spinning out the process for one of their own MPs (without any complications about dfection) and other parties threatrning to move the writ themselves. Gove can tell his members to vote it down if he wants.
Dennis the Menace, 1989, seems to be a precedent, and a piece of mischief:
---------------------- As moving a writ for a byelection takes priority over all other business, it is sometimes used as a tactic by MPs wishing to talk out another subject. In January 1989, Dennis Skinner moved the writ for the Richmond (Yorkshire) by-election and spoke for over three hours; his action prevented Ann Widdecombe from moving a motion to grant extra time to her attempt to restrict abortion laws --------------------
Now it wouId be huge fun if UKIP won BoIsover and sent to dinosaur to the museum where he beIongs.
I agree with much of what you say. I only disagree on the 15% threshold because if a party is relatively unknown (and they get very little coverage if they are not in Westminster) then it is difficult to attain those sort of consistent polling levels. For example if the debates were decided today only Labour and the Conservatives would likely qualify. If you are going to have a threshold it must be much lower and I would tend to say you shouldn't need to be one.
If a party is intent on putting up sufficient candidates (with all the cost that incurs) to technically give them a chance of winning a majority then that should be sufficient and if they bomb in the debates and spoil their chances of improving their position then tough. On the other hand as we saw with the Libdems the debates can promote a party significantly.
I answered another poster on the topic of 15% and pollsters used.
As to having a limit the reason to do that I think is to exclude people buying their way into the debate. It is also their to restrict the debate to a manageable number I suspect once you get more than 4 then the debate will generate more heat than light. I agree however it is arbitrary but my belief is that the limit needs to be there for practicality
Surely all the parties are buying their way in (and the parties with the highest turnover are the established parties), in a sense by paying the deposit for the necessary numbers of candidates to qualify for these debates? As polling is greatly influenced by public exposure and public exposure is heavily influenced by funding isn't the setting of a polling threshold just as much a demonstration of financial ability as entering enough candidates to qualify for the debates and therefore double accounting?
The reality is unless we are going down the road of public financing of political parties (and we know what the view of that is) we cannot get away from the buying into the election consideration? Therefore to me that argument doesn't really stand up.
As for manageable numbers surely if the US TV stations can manage debates of 5, 6, 7, 8 candidates surely we can too?
Lord Ashcroft on his polls in Clacton (accurate) and Heywood (miles out) - his conclusion 'people knew what they were going to do with Carswell, but formed their opinion over the campaign in Heywood:
No, it's any MP's call. There are precedents for parties spinning out the process for one of their own MPs (without any complications about dfection) and other parties threatrning to move the writ themselves. Gove can tell his members to vote it down if he wants.
Dennis the Menace, 1989, seems to be a precedent, and a piece of mischief:
---------------------- As moving a writ for a byelection takes priority over all other business, it is sometimes used as a tactic by MPs wishing to talk out another subject. In January 1989, Dennis Skinner moved the writ for the Richmond (Yorkshire) by-election and spoke for over three hours; his action prevented Ann Widdecombe from moving a motion to grant extra time to her attempt to restrict abortion laws --------------------
Now it wouId be huge fun if UKIP won BoIsover and sent to dinosaur to the museum where he beIongs.
I can see UKIP doing very well in that band of seats running through say Ashfield, Bolsover, Amber Valley, Chesterfield, Rotherham...
As I understand it UKIP immigration policy is non discriminatory in terms of place of origin unlike the policies of the establishment parties.
It does not differentiate immigrants whatsoever based on where they come from. It will implement an Australian based points system and set quotas that will reduce net immigration into this country to 50,000 net per year. Any changes in such a figure would no doubt be for debate once such a system had been established.
Quick dip on comment whilst working on something else:
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Vote Nigel, get Dave …?
I don´t remember Baxter being particularly accurate either in 2005 or 2010. Not sure why it is considered the holy grail.
Basically because nobody can accurately predict in which direction it will be wrong, and if you're going to be wrong anyway you might as well pick a nice simple, objective way to be wrong rather than putting together a bunch of sophisticated clevers and tweaking them every time.
Also I don't think it was all that bad, given the uncertainties involved.
The problem is that whilst Electoral Calculus creaked away with LibDem tactical voting it has now blown a fuse completely with UKIP. At best you can check an overall UKIP box but you cannot get any tactical swings, and yet that's the very thing that is most likely: local tactical UKIP voting. Bung in 22% UKIP national share of the vote and it will still tell you they would have no MPs. Sorry but that's plain daft. Even off 15% or so national share I reckon they could have a few MPs. I can't see Carswell losing his seat in May. Can anyone else? With the nuances of UKIP taking core Labour votes in Labour heartlands the permutations are considerable.
I'd be interested to know if anyone has produced, or is working on, something more tailored to actual UK demographics?
The nonsense of using electoral calculus and coming out with "UKIP 0" has been going on here for ages... I always wondered why people could be bothered when it was so markedly wrong... it was only for trolling I guess, but it just made them look silly.
I guess if they are consistent they should still use it now. It doesn't matter that UKIP have an MP, the method is still as wrong as it was before, and will stay say "UKIP 0"
Lord Ashcroft on his polls in Clacton (accurate) and Heywood (miles out) - his conclusion 'people knew what they were going to do with Carswell, but formed their opinion over the campaign in Heywood:
His margin of error at Heywood & M was 17% and in both polls he overstated Labour's share of the vote. This has been the constant retort of Conservative Central Office and now they have been proved right.
Ashcroft's polls are useless on the very thing that matters most in the majority of his surveys: Labour's share of the vote.
I'm personally glad we can consign him to the waste bin and stick to proper pollsters. The man has been punching above his weight for far too long. He's a political has-been.
Looking at the `Next UKIP leader` market think Diane James 5/1 is a good bet.She is an attractive female with a background in healthcare and business which ticks the boxes of what UKIP should be looking for
What some YouTube videos of her.
The ones from the Eastleigh by-election, she comes over well. Others, not so good.
Looking at the `Next UKIP leader` market think Diane James 5/1 is a good bet.She is an attractive female with a background in healthcare and business which ticks the boxes of what UKIP should be looking for
What some YouTube videos of her.
The ones from the Eastleigh by-election, she comes over well. Others, not so good.
Lord Ashcroft on his polls in Clacton (accurate) and Heywood (miles out) - his conclusion 'people knew what they were going to do with Carswell, but formed their opinion over the campaign in Heywood:
His margin of error at Heywood & M was 17% and in both polls he overstated Labour's share of the vote. This has been the constant retort of Conservative Central Office and now they have been proved right.
Ashcroft's polls are useless on the very thing that matters most in the majority of his surveys: Labour's share of the vote.
I'm personally glad we can consign him to the waste bin and stick to proper pollsters. The man has been punching above his weight for far too long. He's a political has-been.
Survation's poll for H&M was also 17 points out. It overstated the Labour share by 9 points and understated UKIP by 8 points also. That would suggest something else was going on in H&M
Ashcroft's Clacton poll was taken over a month before the actual election. Its perfectly feasible for there to have been significant shifts in the vote as a result of the campaign. To drop 5 points in a seat such as Clacton over such a campaign (I'm sure UKIP would take credit for it for example) does not seem unreasonable.
Lord Ashcroft on his polls in Clacton (accurate) and Heywood (miles out) - his conclusion 'people knew what they were going to do with Carswell, but formed their opinion over the campaign in Heywood:
I'm personally glad we can consign him to the waste bin and stick to proper pollsters. The man has been punching above his weight for far too long. He's a political has-been.
I hear he speaks very highly of you too....
I think Ashcroft is performing a sterling service in conducting his polls - and like all good pollsters is keen to learn.
In my view, shooting the messenger is rarely a wise course....
Why would Cameron want to debate with Farage on TV? He has already seen what happened to Nick Clegg in the EU debates.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
Does UKIP advocate leaving the EEA? If not, leaving the EU will have zero effect on EU migration
Lord Ashcroft on his polls in Clacton (accurate) and Heywood (miles out) - his conclusion 'people knew what they were going to do with Carswell, but formed their opinion over the campaign in Heywood:
Controlling immigration from Europe is missing the point, to my mind, and won;t win that many votes.
Its immigration from non-EU countries that people are most worried about, and complain about most. Immigration from Africa and countries where Islam predominates.
Boris admitted today that thousands of potential terrorists are being monitored by security forces.
Are they Europeans? bet they aren't.
Non-EU immigrants are overwhelmingly non-white with a big Muslim contingent. Why do you think no one is allowed to talk about it.
When the issue of immigration is raised, the politicos address it by wittering on about EU freedom of movement. They ignore the elephant in the room.
EU immigration is relevant to the debate, because it's an element that we don't control. It doesn't matter whether they are 'Europeans', once they get into the EU, they are free to come here.
You've really missed the point. Every poll overstated Labour's share of the vote. Ashcroft was particularly far out in Labour's heartlands. We have endured thread after thread about how Labour was doing better in the marginals due to Ashcroft polling which, it now transpires, is bilge.
The reason I suggest you're missing the point is that it's UKIP who could be most aggrieved at his rubbish polling in H&M (not the Tories). If UKIP had known they were that close they could conceivably have gone on a blitz over the final week and landed it.
It would be more accurate to pin a tail on a donkey blindfold, following several bottles of SeanT Shiraz and a few 360 degree turns than it would be to trust Lord Ashcroft polling. If ICM is the Gold standard, Ashcroft is Poundland.
Why would Cameron want to debate with Farage on TV? He has already seen what happened to Nick Clegg in the EU debates.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
Does UKIP advocate leaving the EEA? If not, leaving the EU will have zero effect on EU migration
And if they do, where do they plan to accommodate the 2 million Brits who will have to come home from Europe?
Why would Cameron want to debate with Farage on TV? He has already seen what happened to Nick Clegg in the EU debates.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
Does UKIP advocate leaving the EEA? If not, leaving the EU will have zero effect on EU migration
Yes.
From the UKIP website
"– UKIP would not seek to remain in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) or European Economic Area (EEA) while those treaties maintain a principle of free movement of labour, which prevents the UK managing its own borders."
Looking at the `Next UKIP leader` market think Diane James 5/1 is a good bet.She is an attractive female with a background in healthcare and business which ticks the boxes of what UKIP should be looking for
What some YouTube videos of her.
The ones from the Eastleigh by-election, she comes over well. Others, not so good.
Tim Aker the value bet for me
I can't see any of them challenging Mr Farage.
How would a UKIP leadership contest work? Is it one member one vote?
Comments
Bold man that uses the Euros as a template for the General....
I would suggest four criteria, to which roughly equal weight should be given:
1. Number of candidates fielded
2. Performance at the last equivalent election, and perhaps ones previous to that, if relevant.
3. Performance in elections since the last equivalent election i.e. locals, Euro, PCC etc.
4. Current and recent opinion polling.
That ought to sort the rich men on an ego trip from the genuine breakthrough parties.
1.If the 2:3:5 format for the debates is chosen, would the LDs be in the 3 or the 5?. Anything more than 3 is rather unwieldy, difficult to control fairly on a time basis and probably reveals very little except tribalism in a one hour programme. Have not included SNP or PC in any of those debates as they would not have sufficient GB candidates.
2. OGH claims that Europe is not a priority according to the polls but in the electorate's mind it one and the same linked with the ECHR.
Wonder if any party will take a fresh approach to the EU like Ireland and Spain. Both use EU money as they wish and ignore EU rules (France does the same) for infrastructure etc whilst the UK has numerous committees and employees ensuring that all EU directions are followed to the nearest semicolon and so has wasted a lot of the money on non-productive bureaucracy.
In Spain this year, watched illegal African beach traders have their goods confiscated and destroyed and put on a boat to be returned to N Africa - no resort to the ECHR there!
3. The UK has had and welcomed many immigrants for centuries who blended with the population and accepted British rule of law. (King John and others did expel the Jews, but that was because he owed them too much money). Now we have immigrants who in the main do not want to integrate and wish to import their own laws and culture and not accept the rule of British law. It is made worse when one political party (for political reasons) is willing by inaction to allow this state of affairs to grow and gain a foothold, contrary to the wishes of the native population.
Rightly or wrongly immigration is a top issue for voters. Neither Cameron nor other parties have a solution to uncontrolled immigration from the EU in the way that Farage does with EU exit.
In any TV debate Farage just has to keep repeating that the only way to control immigration from the EU is to exit the EU. This is a simple message which every voter will get. The other parties have no answer to this issue and arguments about other important issues are far more subtle and don't cut through to the public - even MPs don't understand the difference between the deficit and the debt or the scale of the debt.
So either Cameron comes up with a new policy to control immigration from the EU or he will have to refuse to have a party leader debate with Farage included.
Whatever OFCOM or the BBC say, Cameron can refuse to join a party leader debate and find an excuse to use to do so.
However, I feel your explanation makes my point for me. If there is some sort of permanent 'cosmic' centre, an equilibrium between right and left (and I'm not agreeing that there is), then the point is that like in the 1970's, there is a left wing, large state, uncontrolled immigration, politically correct political consensus alive today that has moved far off 'the centre' and therefore is leaving 'the centre' for another party to conquer.
"One shadow cabinet member said “the free movement of labour is, as a phrase, a disaster, and we need to move to fair movement of labour at least as a language to describe our policies.”
So it's not about actually changing policy. Just changing language. Positively Orwellian.
Says the racist in good standing with the party.
The other day the Mail showed a picture of a British man who had tweeted himself holding up the decapitated head of a female Kurdish fighter in Kobane with some joke beneath it.
The mail claimed this appalling person was raised and educated in Britain and chose to flout all the advantages that brings in favor of becoming some type of ghastly grinning savage butcher.
Now I ask you, is that an immigration problem? And how would stopping polish plumbers coming here solve it??
Right and left have never been about purely economics, although it might suit some people to frame it that way. The original right and left was about whether or not you were a monarchist or a constitutionalist in the French National Assembly of 1789.
By far the greatest threat to our livelihood and culture comes not from Europe but some Islamist related terrorism.
Just today, Boris admitted thousands are being tracked by the security services. Some of them British citizens, probably.
How is restricting movement from Europe going to stop that? Do we face a threat from Lithuanian crop pickers?
I don't care about his background or if he really does have Octavian as a middle name, but it's that he's all over the place on education - the one thing that made him successful. He's even worse than Tony Benn IMO - driving round in his Bentley with a Vote Labour bumper sticker.
I was really surprised that Mr Cameron zeroed in on him so personally. I got the overwhelming impression that he felt Mr Hunt was the ultimate Luvvie traitor > denying the opportunities he'd had to everyone else on the altar of ideology. Oh and the recipient of a safe-seat parachute too.
Mr Hunt personifies what I dislike about post-New Labour.
http://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2014/05/17/how-labour-could-win-next-year-without-ed-becoming-pm/
Davies would certainly help (though as he wasn't announced as a candidate despite UKIP's conference being in the town, I suspect that won't happen), but it's still possible all the same.
Point of order, Mr. Chairman, but King John (1199-1216) did not expel the Jews, though he did levy huge taxes upon them. The Edict of Expulsion was made in 1290 by Edward I (TSE's hero).
As a fine point of interest it was the ghastly regicide and dictator, Cromwell, who invited Jews to return to England in 1655.
He said: “You don’t want to do it openly but I would say 'we are both centre right parties, you have been more successful at getting those people who feel let down’.
Mr Binley said that “nobody buys” the argument that a vote for Mr Farage is a vote for Mr Miliband. “It is absolutely bloody nonsense,” he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11155570/David-Cameron-to-unveil-EU-immigration-crackdown-following-Ukip-victory.html
That's the main argument against UKIP collapsing then. It's pretty pathetic that the Tories can mount an argument against UKIP on actual policy. It's a clear acknowledgment that they know their voters think UKIP are right.
If you stop a massive wave of people coming willy nilly in to the country, then in an economy which is creating jobs the labour market starts to tighten.
As it tightens two things happen wages rise and employers are forced to upskill their workforces since you can no longer rely on trained graduates from E Europe coming in and covering gaps in our education system.
As wages rise and people upskill they get richer. Richer people move in to "nicer" areas more quickly and raise their expectations of life. So ghettoisation starts to erode as people integrate with those around them and people have a greater stake in their country and are hence less likely to see the appeal of nihilism.
Naturally this doesn't guarantee that nuttters won't charge off and do weird stuff but it does reduce the probability.
As for terrorism, as Iraq and Syria has proven we have plenty of home grown terrorists. So do other European nations. How many of those being watched are British? As the IRA. ETA and Bader Meinhof have proved Europe is perfectly capable of creating dangerous terrorist groups within its borders. We have controls on Non EU immigration we do not on European Immigration and we know through the likes of Sangat that the rest of Europe has porous borders. If there is a risk from terrorism it will involve Europe in one way or another.
Immigration policy should not be designed on the basis of whatever the current terrorist threat is. It should be designed to facilitate good government and within that be designed to provide a first level of vetting of all immigrants against the threat of any terrorism.
She was on Newsnight spouting that claptrap through gritted teeth last night.
I get Going Through The Motions feelings from that video.
Plus any future party having a pact or coalition of any sort with the tories is only going to do so with a very long spoon, if at all, after the way the Libdems have been treated by them for doing the decent thing for the country
Net Immigration, March 2010: 252,000
Net Immigration, March 2014: 243,000
The significance of the Greens is, not what seats they will win (probably nil) but the damage they will do to the chances of individual Libdems outpolling the overall score and holding their seats.
If Libdems are reduced to 5 seats rather than 30 they will have the Greens to thank for syphoning off the beard and sandal brigade.
For me where David Cameron has failed primarily is in the field of non EU immigration. He could have controlled it.
He didn't.
Net Immigration, March 2014: 243,000
When you drill down into the numbers, most of that is non-EU immigration isn;t it?
Isn;t that what we should be concentrating on first? After all, we have a full say in that.
The latest immigration figures show that net migration from outside the EU continues to fall and is now at the lowest level since 1998.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/non-eu-migration-continues-to-fall
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Moldova that it must take account of Russia's interests before developing closer trade ties with the EU.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29571108
The more you feed the crocodile, the hungrier he gets.
Aside form Cameron's clearly broken promise on immigration from 2010, those numbers have a bearing on everything else from economic growth to welfare expenditure to NHS costs etc..
And most of that fall is due to emigration falling rather than stopping people coming here.
Top Tug 15:10 Newmarket at 10/1
Nearly Caught 15:50 Newmarket at 14/1 ( Cesarewitch)
Enobled 17:40 Newmarket at 6/1
March 2010: 311,000
March 2014: 265,000
A 17% fall. And it's on the increase again in the last three months.
Baxter's Electoral Calculus, which was already shaking at the foundations, is currently redundant. Unless he can get it fixed properly to show UKIP variables (and not the checkbox) it's currently pretty worthless. The only real use it has is to demonstrate that under FPTP a UKIP vote is a wasted vote.
If UKIP do take a small but significant chunk out of core Labour there's a ready-made Conservative landslide off about 37% of the vote …
Vote Nigel, get Dave …?
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/latest-immigration-statistics
EDIT: Thinking about it, it's probably people returning home.
Imagine that any bounce from the Lib Dem conference will be punctured by the UKIP balloon.
I was arguing against the argument that the poorly controlled immigration from outside the EU (which at least has a control system in place) is a much bigger consideration than the uncontrolled immigration from inside the EU (baring in mind the nations in the pipeline for EU membership).
Non EU Immigration can be adjusted and reduced. EU immigration cannot be controlled currently (and the major parties seem to have no real intention of doing so).
Non-EU immigrants are overwhelmingly non-white with a big Muslim contingent.
Why do you think no one is allowed to talk about it.
When the issue of immigration is raised, the politicos address it by wittering on about EU freedom of movement. They ignore the elephant in the room.
Then perhaps we need to restrict the movement of Muslims?
I presume these terror suspects are not Quakers.
The rules should be simple and I don't see why others are claiming its complicated
I would put the following rules in
1) You are standing in enough seats to give you a parliamentary majority
2) Measured over a basket of polls (ICM,Yougov etc) you have been polling at 15% or more in the 6 months leading up to the decision on who to include.
I do not believe past performance is relevant as we are electing the next government not the last one. Indeed we have seen in our lifetimes parties go from a party of government to a mere handful of members (Canada springs to mind) in a single election
What do I base this on?
a) The purpose of the debates is to enable voters to hear and consider their votes based upon discussions of policy from the parties that may well afflict their lives for the next 5 years
b) The decision on who to include should be transparent, easy to understand with no arcane formulas calculated behind the scenes and immune to political tampering
c) But lib dems and UKIP won't form a government nor have any chance of a majority you cry? True currently but they may well be in a coalition and then there views become relevant.
As an ordinary voter in the street (and impartial as I dislike all parties equally currently) I fail to see why it needs to be more complicated and most suggested complications of the system strangely seems to benefit the party favoured by the suggestor
I don´t remember Baxter being particularly accurate either in 2005 or 2010. Not sure why it is considered the holy grail.
They are the four parties that might either be in government as a Coalition or get 15% of the vote, and the latter are the only two who can be PM
It'd also be highly controversial as to whether or not UKIP were included as their average polling over the last 6 months with YouGov, ICM, Populus and Mori has them below 15%, while their scores with Opinium, ComRes, Survation and Ashcroft has them above. Which companies do you include and what weighting do you give them?
Also I don't think it was all that bad, given the uncertainties involved.
If a party is intent on putting up sufficient candidates (with all the cost that incurs) to technically give them a chance of winning a majority then that should be sufficient and if they bomb in the debates and spoil their chances of improving their position then tough. On the other hand as we saw with the Libdems the debates can promote a party significantly.
As to having a limit the reason to do that I think is to exclude people buying their way into the debate. It is also their to restrict the debate to a manageable number I suspect once you get more than 4 then the debate will generate more heat than light. I agree however it is arbitrary but my belief is that the limit needs to be there for practicality
Labour are shackled to Milliband - oh dear never mind.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29581058
It may not enhance the debate, but it would be worth watching?
Cameron must have known the problems he would have with the lib dems on many fronts.
He had two choices go into Coalition or not. If he had not labour would have stitched together a coalition and it would probably have fallen apart in a short time at which time he could have asked the people of the country for a mandate to pursue his "principles" what point is it being in power if you can't do what you said you would to get people to endorse you?
If we believe Cameron to be sincere in his 2010 manifesto then in my view he sacrificed to many of his pledges for the chance to swan in and out of number 10
I'd be interested to know if anyone has produced, or is working on, something more tailored to actual UK demographics?
UKIP voter rings radio phone in about UKIP policies can not name one.
I think UKIP should stay away from a discussion with James O`Brien.
That those same Kippers who prevented him from getting a working majority are the loudest critics of his inability to tackle these issues is just one of the ironies of politics. And they will be along again, shortly, saying "nothing to do with us, guv...."
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As moving a writ for a byelection takes priority over all other business, it is sometimes used as a tactic by MPs wishing to talk out another subject. In January 1989, Dennis Skinner moved the writ for the Richmond (Yorkshire) by-election and spoke for over three hours; his action prevented Ann Widdecombe from moving a motion to grant extra time to her attempt to restrict abortion laws
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Now it wouId be huge fun if UKIP won BoIsover and sent to dinosaur to the museum where he beIongs.
The reality is unless we are going down the road of public financing of political parties (and we know what the view of that is) we cannot get away from the buying into the election consideration? Therefore to me that argument doesn't really stand up.
As for manageable numbers surely if the US TV stations can manage debates of 5, 6, 7, 8 candidates surely we can too?
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/10/lord-ashcroft-the-by-election-that-shows-why-polls-are-not-predictions.html
It does not differentiate immigrants whatsoever based on where they come from. It will implement an Australian based points system and set quotas that will reduce net immigration into this country to 50,000 net per year. Any changes in such a figure would no doubt be for debate once such a system had been established.
They are a bit slow putting up betting markets, but will sometimes stir themselves when prodded.
I guess if they are consistent they should still use it now. It doesn't matter that UKIP have an MP, the method is still as wrong as it was before, and will stay say "UKIP 0"
Ashcroft's polls are useless on the very thing that matters most in the majority of his surveys: Labour's share of the vote.
I'm personally glad we can consign him to the waste bin and stick to proper pollsters. The man has been punching above his weight for far too long. He's a political has-been.
50% return.
The ones from the Eastleigh by-election, she comes over well. Others, not so good.
Sees PB Tories attacking the polls
Wonders when they will learn.
Ashcroft's Clacton poll was taken over a month before the actual election. Its perfectly feasible for there to have been significant shifts in the vote as a result of the campaign. To drop 5 points in a seat such as Clacton over such a campaign (I'm sure UKIP would take credit for it for example) does not seem unreasonable.
http://survation.com/new-polling-for-the-heywood-middleton-byelection-survation-for-the-sun-data-tables/
If you want to slag off Ashcroft's polls I think you will need to do find more 'evidence' than you have there!
I think Ashcroft is performing a sterling service in conducting his polls - and like all good pollsters is keen to learn.
In my view, shooting the messenger is rarely a wise course....
The reason I suggest you're missing the point is that it's UKIP who could be most aggrieved at his rubbish polling in H&M (not the Tories). If UKIP had known they were that close they could conceivably have gone on a blitz over the final week and landed it.
It would be more accurate to pin a tail on a donkey blindfold, following several bottles of SeanT Shiraz and a few 360 degree turns than it would be to trust Lord Ashcroft polling. If ICM is the Gold standard, Ashcroft is Poundland.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/should-we-fear-the-gospel-according-to-douglas-carswell-7834920.html
From the UKIP website
"– UKIP would not seek to remain in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) or European Economic Area (EEA) while those treaties maintain a principle of free movement of labour, which prevents the UK managing its own borders."
How would a UKIP leadership contest work? Is it one member one vote?