"TSE, Richard Nabavi, Flightpath, Scott P, Marquee Mark, Stark Dawning, Plato, Fitalass, can you hear me? Fitalass, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
Voters treat by-elections like a holiday fling.
UKIP is not someone you want to spend the rest of your life with though....
Less than a 3K majority, Ouch, bye bye Reckless at the next GE..... Cameron and the Conservatives were right to throw the kitchen sink at this by-election. Its coming home at the next GE.
"TSE, Richard Nabavi, Flightpath, Scott P, Marquee Mark, Stark Dawning, Plato, Fitalass, can you hear me? Fitalass, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
If the Conservatives can't win when they are throwing the kitchen sink at a contest, why do you think they can win in a general election contest when they're focusing on defending seats they have yet to lose?
I will second that TGOHF, I suspect that Conservative supporters will cheer his seat loss at the May 2015 GE even louder than some did the demise of Chris Patten back in 1992.
Less than a 3K majority, Ouch, bye bye Reckless at the next GE..... Cameron and the Conservatives were right to throw the kitchen sink at this by-election. Its coming home at the next GE.
"TSE, Richard Nabavi, Flightpath, Scott P, Marquee Mark, Stark Dawning, Plato, Fitalass, can you hear me? Fitalass, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
If the Conservatives can't win when they are throwing the kitchen sink at a contest, why do you think they can win in a general election contest when they're focusing on defending seats they have yet to lose?
Because in May 2015, people are voting for the next government, not the next headline.
I think if the Tories continue with this candidate, Reckless is slight favourite to hold on. They need to select someone a bit more articulate.
Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ 3m3 minutes ago Kelly Tolhurst talking about fighting until May 2015. I wonder how many Conservatives think that fielding the same candidate is a good idea.
The Traitorous Pig-Dog Party have their second MP.
Until May. Under 3,000 majority won't be enough to hang on, but he will suck up a lot of UKIP resources vainly trying to get back in.
Are you assuming the Conservatives are going to be popular in May?
As a potential party of government, they are going to be more popular than any other party with a realistic chance of seizing power
So you think they'll finish ahead of Labour? Fine. That still leaves UKIP in first place.
You really think UKIP will win the UK-wide popular vote in May? You really are deluded
? No. But I think they'll win in Rochester.
Time will tell, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Reckless does not have the personal vote and he won't have the intense media interest. He certainly won't have the undivided attention of his party. He will have to work very hard - and there are many who share the view that he has not done well enough this time round to ensure future success.
Yet again polls over-estimate Labour and under-estimate Conservatives. Isn't it time we had a thread to consider why this keeps happening. It's looking like the elephant in the room.
Potential defectors wont be impressed by that margin.
Unless they take into account the fact that it's the 271st best seat for UKIP in the country. John Baron's constituency, for example, might be a lot higher up the list.
The Traitorous Pig-Dog Party have their second MP.
Until May. Under 3,000 majority won't be enough to hang on, but he will suck up a lot of UKIP resources vainly trying to get back in.
Are you assuming the Conservatives are going to be popular in May?
As a potential party of government, they are going to be more popular than any other party with a realistic chance of seizing power
So you think they'll finish ahead of Labour? Fine. That still leaves UKIP in first place.
You really think UKIP will win the UK-wide popular vote in May? You really are deluded
? No. But I think they'll win in Rochester.
Time will tell, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Reckless does not have the personal vote and he won't have the intense media interest. He certainly won't have the undivided attention of his party. He will have to work very hard - and there are many who share the view that he has not done well enough this time round to ensure future success.
Mr Reckless is in place, he's now been chosen as MP there twice.
The only other contender there appears to be the Conservatives, and they'll have better prospects (and defences) to focus on in a general election campaign.
An important win for the Kippers. With the result clear from the start, they garnered enough DNVs from last time to win comfortably. And these people may vote again in May.
Ashcroft the new Gold standard. Pretty close I'd say. All within 2 most within 1
Given how near to the election it was - Ashcroft was no better than the rest. Pollsters under-estimating Conservatives in the Euros,, the locals and here. There's a pattern emerging.
UKIP 42.63% Con 35.25% Lab 16.97% Green 4.28% LD 0.88%
All 4 polls underestimated Con and 3 overestimated Kipper.
That suggests a superior GOTV operation by the Conservatives.
Anti Kipper tactical voting - again.
If you look at the two more recent polls, they got Lab and LD pretty much right.
They underestimated Con and overestimated UKIP by about the same amount. Is that because Kippers switched back to Con? Or Con had the better GOTV? Or the UKIP vote was always a bit soft? Or something else? Or a combination of these things?
It's a better result for the Conservatives than I expected (and also for Labour) but not by very much.
It's a worse result from UKIP than I expected, but again not by very much.
Should be fun at DDs tomorrow, but I don't expect anybody will be popping any champagne corks, on any side. Hope to see a few of you there.
The Greens did well for a constituency of this type. Maybe because they had a better than average candidate.
I suspect that finishing behind the Greens will have LDHQ biting their nails.
The Greens are just 40 candidates behind the LDs in terms of people selected to fight constituencies at the next general election. Another indication of where the momentum is at the moment.
Yet again polls over-estimate Labour and under-estimate Conservatives. Isn't it time we had a thread to consider why this keeps happening. It's looking like the elephant in the room.
Got to hand it to Ashcroft: that was good polling. 3% under for the Tories but not too shabby from him.
A good win by Reckless, but the initial reaction doesn't seem that euphoric and he nearly lost his nerve in the last 36 hours. I'll be very surprised if he retains the seat on May 7th.
Despite the occasional pumped up kipper comment below I think they know this is more squeaky bum than seismic: remember Reckless was the incumbent MP in a by election.
I am now confident UKIP will poll considerably less than 15% nationally in the General Election.
That being said, a sub 3,000 majority leaves it wide open for May. If Ashcroft is right, and I have no reason to doubt his poll, it will be very close next year.
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
"It would be nice for once to see the Statesmanlike Farage. Instead of the gurning prat that invariably gets wheeled out..."
Not a fan then?
I'm sure Ukip would have taken this result at any time. We now know that their vote will turn out despite the "chucking the kitchen sink at it" by the Tories.
Feel slightly sorry for Emily T. A bonkers tweet but being sacked for letting the mask slip a little. PC gone mad?
Reckless probably reduced his majority by a thousand or so with his misjudged comments about Eastern European immigrants, since it probably encouraged tactical voting against him.
"Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, has just told the BBC’s This Week that Emily Thornberry was not the kind of person to sneer at someone living in an ordinary house. He said he did not know much about the story, but that he did not think it was a resignation issue. She “comes from a very poor background”, he said. She was brought up in a council house."
The point is she wasn't sneering at an 'ordinary person'. Ordinary people don't have three giant flags draped over their house of any sort. The person was saying 'look at me' which Emily Thornberry did by tweeting a snap. If she was fired it's definitely time for Ed to go. Seriously
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
But doesn't a record low result feed the 'LD is a wasted vote' bugbear?
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
But doesn't a record low result feed the 'LD is a wasted vote' bugbear?
Not really. The LD vote has always been a wasted voted, except where they have MPs...
Same for all parties, under nutty FPTP. A majority of all voters wasted their vote in 2010.
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
But doesn't a record low result feed the 'LD is a wasted vote' bugbear?
Not in seats where the sitting MP is a LibDem, presumably.
Look: the LibDems are going to lose between 40% and 80% of their MPs at the General Election. That is certain. If we assume they get - say - 10% of the vote in the UK, then they need to get a lot of sub 3% vote shares if they want to retain even 20 MPs.
Getting really bad vote shares in places that don't matter to them is a necessity if they wish to retain a presence in parliament.
Of course, would they rather be on 15 or 20% in the polls and challenging in by-elections? Yes.
But that isn't really an option. They're marooned sub 10%, so they need to concentrate that 1-in-10 really well.
Reckless probably reduced his majority by a thousand or so with his misjudged comments about Eastern European immigrants, since it probably encouraged tactical voting against him.
What was misjudged about them? Deporting people who come to the end of their immigration status and don't qualify for another category happens all the time. Often because of circumstances beyond their control: their company closing down or their university losing its sponsorship status. Reckless' comments were actually emphasising how there would be special dispensation of an extra visa to allow EU immigrants to get their affairs in order.
What we saw was just the massive distortions of LibLabCon and the media that's in their pocket.
"It would be nice for once to see the Statesmanlike Farage. Instead of the gurning prat that invariably gets wheeled out..."
Not a fan then?
I'm sure Ukip would have taken this result at any time. We now know that their vote will turn out despite the "chucking the kitchen sink at it" by the Tories.
Feel slightly sorry for Emily T. A bonkers tweet but being sacked for letting the mask slip a little. PC gone mad?
I agree. Thornberry was really unpleasantly snobbish, but it wasn't a resigning offence. I think what has happened here is that Miliband knows he has a weakness here, due to how much anti-English policy is in his platform, she she caught the flack for exposing it.
It's difficult for any of us partisans to post an honest, objective, assessment. However here's a try:
UKIP and Reckless will be very pleased, but not euphoric. It's a good win, but not a triumphant one. Conservatives will be disappointed but not despondent. The UKIP margin at 7% was closer than many commentators, and all pollsters, forecast. Labour supporters ought to be wondering why they didn't fight it. LibDems will be worried I think. It's not going to be pretty on May 7th at this rate. Greens will be very pleased. I think we underestimate them on May 7th at our peril, not for seat wins but for taking radical left voters from both Labour and more importantly LibDems
Now personally: in terms of May 7th I'm more, not less, confident of a Conservative outright win. There are two main reasons: 1. this was much tighter than UKIP wanted 2. The LibDem slide will deliver a number of seats to the Conservatives.
"It would be nice for once to see the Statesmanlike Farage. Instead of the gurning prat that invariably gets wheeled out..."
Not a fan then?
I'm sure Ukip would have taken this result at any time. We now know that their vote will turn out despite the "chucking the kitchen sink at it" by the Tories.
Feel slightly sorry for Emily T. A bonkers tweet but being sacked for letting the mask slip a little. PC gone mad?
I agree. Thornberry was really unpleasantly snobbish, but it wasn't a resigning offence. I think what has happened here is that Miliband knows he has a weakness here, due to how much anti-English policy is in his platform, she she caught the flack for exposing it.
Less than a 3K majority, Ouch, bye bye Reckless at the next GE..... Cameron and the Conservatives were right to throw the kitchen sink at this by-election. Its coming home at the next GE.
"TSE, Richard Nabavi, Flightpath, Scott P, Marquee Mark, Stark Dawning, Plato, Fitalass, can you hear me? Fitalass, I have a message for you in the middle of the election campaign. I have a message for you: Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!"
I doubt the Tories will be able to spare dozens of cabinet minister visits at the next election. You lot threw the kitchen sink at the place, in a constituency that's not well suited to UKIP, and still lost by seven points.
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
But doesn't a record low result feed the 'LD is a wasted vote' bugbear?
Not in seats where the sitting MP is a LibDem, presumably.
Look: the LibDems are going to lose between 40% and 80% of their MPs at the General Election. That is certain. If we assume they get - say - 10% of the vote in the UK, then they need to get a lot of sub 3% vote shares if they want to retain even 20 MPs.
Getting really bad vote shares in places that don't matter to them is a necessity if they wish to retain a presence in parliament.
Of course, would they rather be on 15 or 20% in the polls and challenging in by-elections? Yes.
But that isn't really an option. They're marooned sub 10%, so they need to concentrate that 1-in-10 really well.
I'm fine with the bad result is good notion. But a record bad result is a headline, and persuading people that a LD vote isn't a wasted vote is/has been a problem for them, as it is for UKIP/Greens etc.
Reckless probably reduced his majority by a thousand or so with his misjudged comments about Eastern European immigrants, since it probably encouraged tactical voting against him.
What was misjudged about them? Deporting people who come to the end of their immigration status and don't qualify for another category happens all the time. Often because of circumstances beyond their control: their company closing down or their university losing its sponsorship status. Reckless' comments were actually emphasising how there would be special dispensation of an extra visa to allow EU immigrants to get their affairs in order.
What we saw was just the massive distortions of LibLabCon and the media that's in their pocket.
Misjudged in terms of saying something very controversial just before polling day.
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
But doesn't a record low result feed the 'LD is a wasted vote' bugbear?
Not in seats where the sitting MP is a LibDem, presumably.
Look: the LibDems are going to lose between 40% and 80% of their MPs at the General Election. That is certain. If we assume they get - say - 10% of the vote in the UK, then they need to get a lot of sub 3% vote shares if they want to retain even 20 MPs.
Getting really bad vote shares in places that don't matter to them is a necessity if they wish to retain a presence in parliament.
Of course, would they rather be on 15 or 20% in the polls and challenging in by-elections? Yes.
But that isn't really an option. They're marooned sub 10%, so they need to concentrate that 1-in-10 really well.
I'm fine with the awful result is good notion. But a record bad result is a headline, and persuading people that a LD vote isn't a wasted vote is/has been a problem for them, as it is for UKIP/Greens etc.
I get your point, I just think that people vote on the local circumstances. We both know that outside Watford (allegedly) and Cambourne (hypothetically), the LibDems are not challenging for any new seats. For them, it is all about persuading people in the 40-odd seats that might stay LibDem to vote for them.
And people in those seats are going to see two headlines tomorrow "UKIP win!" and "Labour are idiots!". I doubt one in a thousand people will see and register that the LibDems got less than 1%. And for people in Kingston or Twickenham, they know their MP is a LibDem, so I doubt even than one in a thousand people are unlikely to be swayed.
I've stated on here my view that - should the LibDems stay at current levels in the polls - then they'll be down to half a dozen seats. But my more realistic guesstimate is 10-12% in the polls in May next year, and 25 seats.
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Keep telling yourself that Socrates but a sitting MP in a by election: this was much tighter than they thought.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
Keep telling yourself that Socrates but a sitting MP in a by election: this was much tighter than they thought.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
Of course it was tighter than they hoped, but even if the incumbency factor was ten points, there's still a couple hundred seats they could be competitive in. It won't happen in 2015, but the election beyond that could well see 50+ UKIP MPs.
It's obvious for all to see that there are going to be two big right-of-centre parties long term in the UK, and that's been obvious for a while. The Tories need to stop being so stupid about smearing their future coalition partners. Legitimate debate is one thing, but by twisting people's words to make them look racist, they're just going to make it harder for themselves to forge a coalition with them.
If the Lib Dem voters had voted tactically for the Green candidate then the Greens would have saved their deposit - only the Greens can save their deposit here! Don't waste your vote on the Lib Dems!
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
They were outrageous remarks. What they say in effect is that someone who came to this country with one status - ie, with the right of permanent of abode - can retrospectively have that status changed and then be potentially deported without having done anything wrong. Presumably, the Pole would also have to register the fact that he is a foreigner with the authorities so that they can then monitor him. Do you really think that is acceptable?
Postal voting at around 25% of votes cast no doubt was used to save Conservative blushes, and explains the narrower win than anticipated. Greens on 4% confirms the second surging vote. The rest are in total collapse between them landing only half the vote. If I was a sitting MP from any party, I'd be tempted to jump now and secure selection as a UKIP candidate.
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
I think it would be quite weird to experience a media that didn't make absurd distortions. I don't agree with UKIP on immigration, but this sort of fantasy scandal which makes any sort of debate impossible is, well, tiresome at the least.
Keep telling yourself that Socrates but a sitting MP in a by election: this was much tighter than they thought.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
It's obvious for all to see that there are going to be two big right-of-centre parties long term in the UK, and that's been obvious for a while.
Sorry but I think that's nonsense.
There will continue to be room for two main parties, one slightly left and the other slightly right. The one who wins the centre wins power.
In the wings will be other parties but they will continue to be what they have always been since WW2: part-time actors.
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
They were outrageous remarks. What they say in effect is that someone who came to this country with one status - ie, with the right of permanent of abode - can retrospectively have that status changed and then be potentially deported without having done anything wrong. Presumably, the Pole would also have to register the fact that he is a foreigner with the authorities so that they can then monitor him. Do you really think that is acceptable?
The status they came with was the right to live here on the condition that the UK stays in the EU. That's equivalent to people coming here with the status that they have the right to live here as long as their university or employer maintains sponsorship status. Or as long as they remain in work etc.
There is nothing "permanent" in any of the treaties about it. If they want that certainty of permanence they should apply for indefinite leave to remain like any other immigrant. In any case, UKIP would give them permanence if they've been here seven years upon the point of exit (probably three years away). If you've come here in the last four years, you know full well the UK's membership is up for debate.
A byelection that the Tories threw the kitchen sink at. and still lost. Come the general election they will have a lot of other seats to fight and the left wing tactical votes they managed to attract are unlikely to prop up a conservative government at a general election.
Canada awaits you over the next decade rotten to the core Tories, a few years of Ed would be as price well worth paying to see this.
Keep telling yourself that Socrates but a sitting MP in a by election: this was much tighter than they thought.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
It's obvious for all to see that there are going to be two big right-of-centre parties long term in the UK, and that's been obvious for a while.
Sorry but I think that's nonsense.
There will continue to be room for two main parties, one slightly left and the other slightly right. The one who wins the centre wins power.
In the wings will be other parties but they will continue to be what they have always been since WW2: part-time actors.
"This hasn't happened in the recent past, so it won't ever happen."
Remind me to never invest money with you. After all, US house prices have never dropped nationwide, right?
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
They were outrageous remarks. What they say in effect is that someone who came to this country with one status - ie, with the right of permanent of abode - can retrospectively have that status changed and then be potentially deported without having done anything wrong. Presumably, the Pole would also have to register the fact that he is a foreigner with the authorities so that they can then monitor him. Do you really think that is acceptable?
The status they came with was the right to live here on the condition that the UK stays in the EU. That's equivalent to people coming here with the status that they have the right to live here as long as their university or employer maintains sponsorship status. Or as long as they remain in work etc.
There is nothing "permanent" in any of the treaties about it. If they want that certainty of permanence they should apply for indefinite leave to remain like any other immigrant. In any case, UKIP would give them permanence if they've been here seven years upon the point of exit (probably three years away). If you've come here in the last four years, you know full well the UK's membership is up for debate.
Where does it say anywhere in UK law that the status of EU immigrants is dependent on the UK remaining in the EU?
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?” “I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.” “If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?” “People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
They were outrageous remarks. What they say in effect is that someone who came to this country with one status - ie, with the right of permanent of abode - can retrospectively have that status changed and then be potentially deported without having done anything wrong. Presumably, the Pole would also have to register the fact that he is a foreigner with the authorities so that they can then monitor him. Do you really think that is acceptable?
The status they came with was the right to live here on the condition that the UK stays in the EU. That's equivalent to people coming here with the status that they have the right to live here as long as their university or employer maintains sponsorship status. Or as long as they remain in work etc.
There is nothing "permanent" in any of the treaties about it. If they want that certainty of permanence they should apply for indefinite leave to remain like any other immigrant. In any case, UKIP would give them permanence if they've been here seven years upon the point of exit (probably three years away). If you've come here in the last four years, you know full well the UK's membership is up for debate.
Where does it say anywhere in UK law that the status of EU immigrants is dependent on the UK remaining in the EU?
In the bit where settlement (i.e. indefinite leave to remain) is defined: "
"Settling means you can stay in the UK without any time restrictions"
In fact, in the EU immigration bit on the Gov.UK website, it explicitly says you need to apply for a card to get permanent residence. Therefore people that don't meet the criteria don't have a right to it:
I'm fine with the awful result is good notion. But a record bad result is a headline, and persuading people that a LD vote isn't a wasted vote is/has been a problem for them, as it is for UKIP/Greens etc.
I get your point, I just think that people vote on the local circumstances. We both know that outside Watford (allegedly) and Cambourne (hypothetically), the LibDems are not challenging for any new seats. For them, it is all about persuading people in the 40-odd seats that might stay LibDem to vote for them.
And people in those seats are going to see two headlines tomorrow "UKIP win!" and "Labour are idiots!". I doubt one in a thousand people will see and register that the LibDems got less than 1%. And for people in Kingston or Twickenham, they know their MP is a LibDem, so I doubt even than one in a thousand people are unlikely to be swayed.
I've stated on here my view that - should the LibDems stay at current levels in the polls - then they'll be down to half a dozen seats. But my more realistic guesstimate is 10-12% in the polls in May next year, and 25 seats.
Suppose that the Greens were to get close to the Lib Dems in national vote share in GE2015. [I don't think they will do, but just for the sake of argument]. It's obvious which of the two parties will end up with more seats on roughly the same vote share.
People have tried to model the decline in Lib Dem votes/seats with various assumptions, and the key one for trying to convert national vote share into seats is a realistic lower bound for votes in seats where a vote for the Lib Dems is a stubborn vote made on principle. I think people on here have talked about figures of 3% and 1.5%. The difference between 1.5% and the 0.8% for the Lib Dems in Rochester and Strood is about 400 votes per seat, or about 80,000 votes nationwide that might be concentrated from the 200 most hopeless seats for the Lib Dems to the ones where they are incumbent (if we assume the same national vote share for the Lib Dems under different scenarios for how concentrated their vote will be).
That could be an extra ~2,000 votes in each of the 40 seats they are most likely to hold at GE2015. That could make a big difference to the number of Lib Dem MPs who squeeze home.
PS - congratulations to the Libdems on getting 0.9% of the vote (not hard to see where the Libservative party got their votes from), with 349 votes, about a fifth of the votes the Green Party got, but more than twice as many as Hairy Norm, the Loony Candidate.
Someone will no doubt be along to explain how the Libdems can still win 35 seats due to incumbency factors
Keep telling yourself that Socrates but a sitting MP in a by election: this was much tighter than they thought.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
It's obvious for all to see that there are going to be two big right-of-centre parties long term in the UK, and that's been obvious for a while.
Sorry but I think that's nonsense.
There will continue to be room for two main parties, one slightly left and the other slightly right. The one who wins the centre wins power.
In the wings will be other parties but they will continue to be what they have always been since WW2: part-time actors.
Remind me to never invest money with you.
I'm racking my brains but I don't think I've ever lost money on a political bet, but you go with your hunch buddy if that helps you feel good.
However, you're right about the point that past performance is no indicator of the future. Things could change, the political landscape might alter. But to be honest, I don't see the evidence for it. That's not an ostrich mentality, I literally don't see it. When I chat to people I don't feel it. And before you suggest I live in a bubble, I really don't but that's another story. And I don't think this by election is seismic. If UKIP had serious pretentions it should have been. It ought to have sent a political earthquake through Westminster. The single digit lead just doesn't.
"Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, has just told the BBC’s This Week that Emily Thornberry was not the kind of person to sneer at someone living in an ordinary house. He said he did not know much about the story, but that he did not think it was a resignation issue. She “comes from a very poor background”, he said. She was brought up in a council house."
The point is she wasn't sneering at an 'ordinary person'. Ordinary people don't have three giant flags draped over their house of any sort. The person was saying 'look at me' which Emily Thornberry did by tweeting a snap. If she was fired it's definitely time for Ed to go. Seriously
The resignation does appear to be out of proportion to the offence - did she jump (fed up with Ed?) or was she pushed? And while she can come over as a bit of a snobby know it all she was clearly one of Ed's sharper front benchers.
Interesting Rochester result - along with the delights of watching UKIP supporters predicting 15%+ wins now professing themselves content with less than half that.
I'm racking my brains but I don't think I've ever lost money on a political bet, but you go with your hunch buddy if that helps you feel good.
However, you're right about the point that past performance is no indicator of the future. Things could change, the political landscape might alter. But to be honest, I don't see the evidence for it. That's not an ostrich mentality, I literally don't see it. When I chat to people I don't feel it. And before you suggest I live in a bubble, I really don't but that's another story. And I really don't think this by election is seismic. If UKIP had serious pretentions it should have been. It ought to have sent a political earthquake through Westminster. The single digit lead just doesn't.
This election won't be seismic. 2020 could be. It all depends on whether the main parties continue the way they're going or change course.
Postal voting at around 25% of votes cast no doubt was used to save Conservative blushes,
Although you have absolutely zilch evidence for that claim.
Postal voting has often been reported as having dubious controls. Ignore information freely available if you wish. Truth is never pure or unadulterated, and nice people prefer refined and nicely packaged illusion, I do appreciate.
Comments
UKIP is not someone you want to spend the rest of your life with though....
Con 35.25%
Lab 16.97%
Green 4.28%
LD 0.88%
Lab 40.07%
UKIP 19.21
Con 19.20
LD 9.17
Respect 3.86
Grn 1.69
BNP 1.51
Others 5.29
Matthew Goodwin @GoodwinMJ 3m3 minutes ago
Kelly Tolhurst talking about fighting until May 2015. I wonder how many Conservatives think that fielding the same candidate is a good idea.
Labour muppet thinks there have been boundary changes in the seat since 2010...
No. But I think they'll win in Rochester.
Labour + LibDems 18%
Whither the Left in Kent?
Mark Reckless (UKIP) 16,867 (42.10%)
Kelly Tolhurst (C) 13,947 (34.81%, -14.39%)
Naushabah Khan (Lab) 6,713 (16.76%, -11.70%)
Clive Gregory (Green) 1,692 (4.22%, +2.69%)
Geoff Juby (LD) 349 (0.87%, -15.39%)
Hairy Knorm Davidson (Loony) 151 (0.38%)
Stephen Goldsbrough (Ind) 69 (0.17%)
Nick Long (PBP) 69 (0.17%)
Jayda Fransen (Britain 1st) 56 (0.14%)
Mike Barker (Ind) 54 (0.13%)
Charlotte Rose (Ind) 43 (0.11%)
Dave Osborn (Pat Soc) 33 (0.08%)
Christopher Challis (Ind) 22 (0.05%)
UKIP maj 2,920 (7.29%)
Electorate 79,163; Turnout 40,065 (50.61%, -14.32%)
UKIP's number 271 seat: 7% winning margin.
The only other contender there appears to be the Conservatives, and they'll have better prospects (and defences) to focus on in a general election campaign.
Next May, UKIP will have two MPs - Farage and Carswell. UKIP will indeed be the big story on election night - but as the dog that didn't bark.
Lab -12%
LD -15%
And to think, I got so much shit from the kippers on here for daring to suggest their winning margin would be under 10%, maybe as low as 5%...
Emotional that it wasn't enough of a margin to entice other defectors?
Or just pissed?
It would be nice for once to see the Statesmanlike Farage. Instead of the gurning prat that invariably gets wheeled out...
They underestimated Con and overestimated UKIP by about the same amount. Is that because Kippers switched back to Con? Or Con had the better GOTV? Or the UKIP vote was always a bit soft? Or something else? Or a combination of these things?
It's a better result for the Conservatives than I expected (and also for Labour) but not by very much.
It's a worse result from UKIP than I expected, but again not by very much.
Should be fun at DDs tomorrow, but I don't expect anybody will be popping any champagne corks, on any side. Hope to see a few of you there.
Nite nite.
With that - back to Zzzzzzzzzzzzz......
Puts us all to shame. Nite.
A good win by Reckless, but the initial reaction doesn't seem that euphoric and he nearly lost his nerve in the last 36 hours. I'll be very surprised if he retains the seat on May 7th.
Despite the occasional pumped up kipper comment below I think they know this is more squeaky bum than seismic: remember Reckless was the incumbent MP in a by election.
I am now confident UKIP will poll considerably less than 15% nationally in the General Election.
That being said, a sub 3,000 majority leaves it wide open for May. If Ashcroft is right, and I have no reason to doubt his poll, it will be very close next year.
Bizarrely, the LibDems will be happy. Why? Because their only chance of getting more than about 20 MPs is if they get knocked down to 1% or so in a large number of seats. How ironic that the biggest critics of FPTP are the ones most likely to benefit from in 2015.
"It would be nice for once to see the Statesmanlike Farage. Instead of the gurning prat that invariably gets wheeled out..."
Not a fan then?
I'm sure Ukip would have taken this result at any time. We now know that their vote will turn out despite the "chucking the kitchen sink at it" by the Tories.
Feel slightly sorry for Emily T. A bonkers tweet but being sacked for letting the mask slip a little. PC gone mad?
The point is she wasn't sneering at an 'ordinary person'. Ordinary people don't have three giant flags draped over their house of any sort. The person was saying 'look at me' which Emily Thornberry did by tweeting a snap. If she was fired it's definitely time for Ed to go. Seriously
Same for all parties, under nutty FPTP. A majority of all voters wasted their vote in 2010.
"@GoodwinMJ
I disagree with Kellner. I have no idea how you can look at a Ukip win in the 271st most Ukip-friendly seat and say "running out of steam".
https://mobile.twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/tweets
Look: the LibDems are going to lose between 40% and 80% of their MPs at the General Election. That is certain. If we assume they get - say - 10% of the vote in the UK, then they need to get a lot of sub 3% vote shares if they want to retain even 20 MPs.
Getting really bad vote shares in places that don't matter to them is a necessity if they wish to retain a presence in parliament.
Of course, would they rather be on 15 or 20% in the polls and challenging in by-elections? Yes.
But that isn't really an option. They're marooned sub 10%, so they need to concentrate that 1-in-10 really well.
What we saw was just the massive distortions of LibLabCon and the media that's in their pocket.
UKIP and Reckless will be very pleased, but not euphoric. It's a good win, but not a triumphant one.
Conservatives will be disappointed but not despondent. The UKIP margin at 7% was closer than many commentators, and all pollsters, forecast.
Labour supporters ought to be wondering why they didn't fight it.
LibDems will be worried I think. It's not going to be pretty on May 7th at this rate.
Greens will be very pleased. I think we underestimate them on May 7th at our peril, not for seat wins but for taking radical left voters from both Labour and more importantly LibDems
Now personally: in terms of May 7th I'm more, not less, confident of a Conservative outright win. There are two main reasons: 1. this was much tighter than UKIP wanted 2. The LibDem slide will deliver a number of seats to the Conservatives.
twitter.com/LiamTheBrewer/status/535497246767607809
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30098018
If UKIP can win here, they can win anywhere.
And people in those seats are going to see two headlines tomorrow "UKIP win!" and "Labour are idiots!". I doubt one in a thousand people will see and register that the LibDems got less than 1%. And for people in Kingston or Twickenham, they know their MP is a LibDem, so I doubt even than one in a thousand people are unlikely to be swayed.
I've stated on here my view that - should the LibDems stay at current levels in the polls - then they'll be down to half a dozen seats. But my more realistic guesstimate is 10-12% in the polls in May next year, and 25 seats.
http://www.medway.gov.uk/thecouncilanddemocracy/elections.aspx
Mr Reckless, who defected from the Tories after claiming only Ukip can control migration, was challenged in a television debate as to what would happen to a Polish plumber living in Rochester who no longer had the right to work in Britain.
“Would he be able to stay? Would he have to go back?”
“I think in the near term we'd have to have a transitional period, and I think we should probably allow people who are currently here to have a work permit at least for a fixed period.”
“If there's a Polish plumber who, for instance, has got a house, has got a family, has got kids at the local school, are you going to deport him and his family?”
“People who have been here a long time and integrated in that way I think we'd want to look sympathetically at.”
Those were his 'inflammatory' remarks.
UKIP's winning margin looks like it halved from their private polling at the start of the campaign to the actual result. 7% was tighter than they hoped.
It's obvious for all to see that there are going to be two big right-of-centre parties long term in the UK, and that's been obvious for a while. The Tories need to stop being so stupid about smearing their future coalition partners. Legitimate debate is one thing, but by twisting people's words to make them look racist, they're just going to make it harder for themselves to forge a coalition with them.
There will continue to be room for two main parties, one slightly left and the other slightly right. The one who wins the centre wins power.
In the wings will be other parties but they will continue to be what they have always been since WW2: part-time actors.
There is nothing "permanent" in any of the treaties about it. If they want that certainty of permanence they should apply for indefinite leave to remain like any other immigrant. In any case, UKIP would give them permanence if they've been here seven years upon the point of exit (probably three years away). If you've come here in the last four years, you know full well the UK's membership is up for debate.
A byelection that the Tories threw the kitchen sink at. and still lost. Come the general election they will have a lot of other seats to fight and the left wing tactical votes they managed to attract are unlikely to prop up a conservative government at a general election.
Canada awaits you over the next decade rotten to the core Tories, a few years of Ed would be as price well worth paying to see this.
Remind me to never invest money with you. After all, US house prices have never dropped nationwide, right?
"Settling means you can stay in the UK without any time restrictions"
https://www.gov.uk/settle-in-the-uk
Where does it say anywhere in UK law that the status of EU immigrants is indefinite?
In fact, in the EU immigration bit on the Gov.UK website, it explicitly says you need to apply for a card to get permanent residence. Therefore people that don't meet the criteria don't have a right to it:
https://www.gov.uk/eea-registration-certificate
People have tried to model the decline in Lib Dem votes/seats with various assumptions, and the key one for trying to convert national vote share into seats is a realistic lower bound for votes in seats where a vote for the Lib Dems is a stubborn vote made on principle. I think people on here have talked about figures of 3% and 1.5%. The difference between 1.5% and the 0.8% for the Lib Dems in Rochester and Strood is about 400 votes per seat, or about 80,000 votes nationwide that might be concentrated from the 200 most hopeless seats for the Lib Dems to the ones where they are incumbent (if we assume the same national vote share for the Lib Dems under different scenarios for how concentrated their vote will be).
That could be an extra ~2,000 votes in each of the 40 seats they are most likely to hold at GE2015. That could make a big difference to the number of Lib Dem MPs who squeeze home.
Someone will no doubt be along to explain how the Libdems can still win 35 seats due to incumbency factors
However, you're right about the point that past performance is no indicator of the future. Things could change, the political landscape might alter. But to be honest, I don't see the evidence for it. That's not an ostrich mentality, I literally don't see it. When I chat to people I don't feel it. And before you suggest I live in a bubble, I really don't but that's another story. And I don't think this by election is seismic. If UKIP had serious pretentions it should have been. It ought to have sent a political earthquake through Westminster. The single digit lead just doesn't.
Interesting Rochester result - along with the delights of watching UKIP supporters predicting 15%+ wins now professing themselves content with less than half that.