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.
You don't come across as a very happy chappy. I'd have thought with your by election win this morning of all days you ought to be cheerful rather than continuing to mope, whinge and whine?
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.
Yes yes I get that. It's just that you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it was postal votes that boosted the Tory share. Or were you at the count?
For all we know the postal votes might have boosted UKIP, especially as the race got tighter.
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
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:
You can apply for a registration certificate if you’re a citizen of a European Economic Area (EEA) country and want to prove your right to live in the UK.
You don’t need a registration certificate, but it can: make it easier to claim certain benefits and services be used to support a family member’s application for an EEA family permit or residence card
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.
I actually think we're going to be more of a two-party nation in 2020. Most of the issues that are fuelling the mid-term UKIP 15% are really non-issues. The Conservatives will win outright next year and be the party of government. Labour will sack EdM and replace him with someone decent. With few LibDem MPs and almost no UKIP ones, the House of Commons is going to look an awful lot like a two party place again.
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.
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:
You can apply for a registration certificate if you’re a citizen of a European Economic Area (EEA) country and want to prove your right to live in the UK.
You don’t need a registration certificate, but it can: make it easier to claim certain benefits and services be used to support a family member’s application for an EEA family permit or residence card
You're trying to claim that people without a permanent residence card have the right of permanent residence whatever happens. Unless EU immigrants apply for it, they do not have an actual immigration status. They are merely travelling about a common travel area freely. If the borders of that common travel area change, they do not have the right to be outside them. It's not difficult.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
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.
I see the loons got up early today - must be frustrating to get such an under-whelming result. Some of us remember proper by-election landslides and what happened at the subsequent GE.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
That pretty much sums the whole thing up. I was dreading today to be honest, but I'm still breathing. It was all a bit underwhelming in the end: not so much a champagne morning for UKIP as slightly flat prosecco.
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.
In the 2010 GE UNS v 2005 was a very accurate predictor of Lib Dems seat numbers.I dont see why the same should not apply to 2015.The key will therefore be the LD share v Con ,Lab and SNP come election day 2015.
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.
Take 1959 as a comparison. In that general election there were just 49 candidates from parties other than the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Nationalists. At GE2010 the number of "Other" candidates had risen to 1,829 in England alone.
Similarly, the share of the vote received by these parties has risen from 0.6% in 1959 to 8.2% in 2010 (again England-only for 2010).
The average number of candidates per seat in 1959 was less than three, but was over six (England-only) for 2010.
What part of this seismic change in the electoral landscape have you missed?
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Looking at the fundamentals, this is a very good result for UKIP. The lead is narrower than Lord Ashcroft predicted, and that poll is particularly important because it found that Mark Reckless would lose his seat at the general election. Whether or not that's true, it will weigh in the minds of other possible defectors.
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.
I see the loons got up early today - must be frustrating to get such an under-whelming result. Some of us remember proper by-election landslides and what happened at the subsequent GE.
The big difference between UKIP and the SDP is that UKIP voters are so distinctive; they form an identifiable interest group. This means their vote is much more likely to hold, especially in seats more favourable than Rochester.
Look up the Treaty of Rome, Article 45 TFEU (ex 39 and 48). It clearly says the right of free movement and to stay is within "member states".
Totally missing the point I think. Even Farage realised it.
Reckless was made to sound bad by the way the media phrased things. If you watch the interviews of both Farage and Reckless in response, they got out of by phrasing things in a different way. Nobody has refuted anything. If you're an EU citizen that hasn't been here long enough, and you haven't qualified for any other status, then you should return home. Quite right too: if you can't prove a job with a £20,500 salary then you're not bringing much to this country.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
" When the Official Monster Raving Loony Party - whose candidate spent most of the night handing out bananas in a funny hat - gets almost half as many votes as you, it is somewhat harder to claim you're a long-term "party of government"."
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
People only use the words "end of", because they know they can't respond very well to the counter-argument that's about to come.
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.
I see the loons got up early today - must be frustrating to get such an under-whelming result. Some of us remember proper by-election landslides and what happened at the subsequent GE.
The big difference between UKIP and the SDP is that UKIP voters are so distinctive; they form an identifiable interest group. This means their vote is much more likely to hold, especially in seats more favourable than Rochester.
No they don't - they form the classic nota group always strong in hard economic times. I agree they could win a couple of seats next time - I doubt if Rochester will be one of them.
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.
Take 1959 as a comparison. In that general election there were just 49 candidates from parties other than the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Nationalists. At GE2010 the number of "Other" candidates had risen to 1,829 in England alone.
Similarly, the share of the vote received by these parties has risen from 0.6% in 1959 to 8.2% in 2010 (again England-only for 2010).
The average number of candidates per seat in 1959 was less than three, but was over six (England-only) for 2010.
What part of this seismic change in the electoral landscape have you missed?
You've picked two points to demonstrate your thesis: 1. number of candidates and 2. aggregate vote share for other parties. You picked 1959 to suit your meme as it's the best possible date from 60 years.
No.1 doesn't entirely work as an argument. There are lots of reasons for a rise in candidates standing, the most important of which is the media presence. Many people stand for parliament because the modest £500 deposit brings with it a good mailshot and publicity. No.2 is okay as an argument in an AV system and it's true that the total vote share of the two main parties has been falling, although it's now back knocking on 70% again in the polls.
However, all of this is moot. We have a first past the post system and there is little in the current polling to suggest to me that my post was erroneous. The next House of Commons is going to look an awful lot like a two-party place.
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.
I see the loons got up early today - must be frustrating to get such an under-whelming result. Some of us remember proper by-election landslides and what happened at the subsequent GE.
The big difference between UKIP and the SDP is that UKIP voters are so distinctive; they form an identifiable interest group. This means their vote is much more likely to hold, especially in seats more favourable than Rochester.
I thought the 2013 UKIP vote sticking in May 2014, despite a month long anti-UKIP assault from the national media, was pretty impressive.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
And they expected to win by nearer 10000 than 2000.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
And they expected to win by nearer 10000 than 2000.
You seem to be confusing published polls, with UKIP.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
People only use the words "end of", because they know they can't respond very well to the counter-argument that's about to come.
You're generally rather silly on here but even worse before your cornflakes. Did you see Farage on Sky this morning? He was clearly underwhelmed and rushing off to the pub for anaesthesia.
Last post from me for the morning: if UKIP really want to be taken seriously then they urgently have to stop the bullshitting. It really doesn't become them as an attractive alternative to be guilty of so much dissemination, spin and trolling. We saw a terrible example with the non-defection fiasco in Bristol, but they've still been doing it this by election. I know all parties are guilty of it, but that's not the point. UKIP have set out their stall as being different from the Westminster crowd. At times they're worse.
"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.
And the PB award for brass neck goes to...
Considering the bluster from Cameron, Boris, Shapps, TSE, etc. at the time of defection and the sheer expense of the primary and push-polling, not to mention the sheer number of visits from Tory MPs including the PM himself, I think Tories such as yourself should be a little more circumspect before criticising overconfidence.
Norman Smith on R4 on Thornbury - Miliband had her "surgically excised" because of fear her tweet reinforced London Labour's contempt for traditional supporters - Grauniad also seems to think she was "sacked"
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
And they expected to win by nearer 10000 than 2000.
You seem to be confusing published polls, with UKIP.
You seem to be confusing a mid-term by-election with the real thing.
"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.
And the PB award for brass neck goes to...
Considering the bluster from Cameron, Boris, Shapps, TSE, etc. at the time of defection and the sheer expense of the primary and push-polling, not to mention the sheer number of visits from Tory MPs including the PM himself, I think Tories such as yourself should be a little more circumspect before criticising overconfidence.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
And they expected to win by nearer 10000 than 2000.
You seem to be confusing published polls, with UKIP.
You seem to be confusing a mid-term by-election with the real thing.
The Conservatives threw everything they could at this election campaign. They lost.
I predicted 9%, and said last night it would be tighter than people thought. I guess 7% kind of counts on that score!
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
It wasn't supposed to be a rearguard action. It was planned to be an unstoppable Conservative Party steamroller.
Whatever - governments lose by-elections often by huge majorities. Then they win them back in the real election. UKIP have managed expectations badly here. End of.
What expectations? They fought a by-election and won it.
And they expected to win by nearer 10000 than 2000.
And the Tories were expecting what?
To put the Pig Dog to the slaughter, which they utterly failed to do.
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.
I see the loons got up early today - must be frustrating to get such an under-whelming result. Some of us remember proper by-election landslides and what happened at the subsequent GE.
The big difference between UKIP and the SDP is that UKIP voters are so distinctive; they form an identifiable interest group. This means their vote is much more likely to hold, especially in seats more favourable than Rochester.
The SDP results were generally much more impressive than this one (Carswell is different). Also they were achieved by candidates who weren't sitting MPs. Surely nobody would dispute that Carswell had a large personal vote and I suspect that Reckless has one too. I suspect that the Tories will win this back next May but that Clacton will stay UKIP.
"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.
And the PB award for brass neck goes to...
Considering the bluster from Cameron, Boris, Shapps, TSE, etc. at the time of defection and the sheer expense of the primary and push-polling, not to mention the sheer number of visits from Tory MPs including the PM himself, I think Tories such as yourself should be a little more circumspect before criticising overconfidence.
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.
Yes yes I get that. It's just that you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that it was postal votes that boosted the Tory share. Or were you at the count?
For all we know the postal votes might have boosted UKIP, especially as the race got tighter.
Phew! Just for a minute I thought you believed the results were an accurate assessment of the intentions of the voters, Audreyanne. Elections tend to be a combination of that plus the effects of manipulation. These can vary in their effect, but are usually made use of to protect those who meet with the approval of the military industrial complex - Blair in times gone by, now Cameron. By agreeing to fight every war, he's got the full support of the system. Rackless and UKIP are a minor threat to their hegemony, but sufficient to justify a little tampering here and there. I can't see manipulation being used to hurt Cameron at tis point.
The election usually brings the result favoured by the high cabal that controls from the shadows. They like wars, and politicians who vote for war.
Comments
Smile, just for once?
For all we know the postal votes might have boosted UKIP, especially as the race got tighter.
You can apply for a registration certificate if you’re a citizen of a European Economic Area (EEA) country and want to prove your right to live in the UK.
You don’t need a registration certificate, but it can:
make it easier to claim certain benefits and services
be used to support a family member’s application for an EEA family permit or residence card
Not a terrible rearguard action by the Conservatives. Cameron should be safe, for now. And it looks like Reckless we need to fight to retain his seat at GE2015.
Look up the Treaty of Rome, Article 45 TFEU (ex 39 and 48). It clearly says the right of free movement and to stay is within "member states".
Take 1959 as a comparison. In that general election there were just 49 candidates from parties other than the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Nationalists. At GE2010 the number of "Other" candidates had risen to 1,829 in England alone.
Similarly, the share of the vote received by these parties has risen from 0.6% in 1959 to 8.2% in 2010 (again England-only for 2010).
The average number of candidates per seat in 1959 was less than three, but was over six (England-only) for 2010.
What part of this seismic change in the electoral landscape have you missed?
Ouch
No.1 doesn't entirely work as an argument. There are lots of reasons for a rise in candidates standing, the most important of which is the media presence. Many people stand for parliament because the modest £500 deposit brings with it a good mailshot and publicity.
No.2 is okay as an argument in an AV system and it's true that the total vote share of the two main parties has been falling, although it's now back knocking on 70% again in the polls.
However, all of this is moot. We have a first past the post system and there is little in the current polling to suggest to me that my post was erroneous. The next House of Commons is going to look an awful lot like a two-party place.
Considering the bluster from Cameron, Boris, Shapps, TSE, etc. at the time of defection and the sheer expense of the primary and push-polling, not to mention the sheer number of visits from Tory MPs including the PM himself, I think Tories such as yourself should be a little more circumspect before criticising overconfidence.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/20/emily-thornberry-resigns-rochester-tweet-labour-shadow-cabinet
Dartmouth Park Oxford educated Ed sacks council house raised, comprehensive school educated gal.....
In May 2015 they'll lose again.
To put the Pig Dog to the slaughter, which they utterly failed to do.
I suspect that the Tories will win this back next May but that Clacton will stay UKIP.
Phew! Just for a minute I thought you believed the results were an accurate assessment of the intentions of the voters, Audreyanne. Elections tend to be a combination of that plus the effects of manipulation. These can vary in their effect, but are usually made use of to protect those who meet with the approval of the military industrial complex - Blair in times gone by, now Cameron. By agreeing to fight every war, he's got the full support of the system. Rackless and UKIP are a minor threat to their hegemony, but sufficient to justify a little tampering here and there. I can't see manipulation being used to hurt Cameron at tis point.
The election usually brings the result favoured by the high cabal that controls from the shadows. They like wars, and politicians who vote for war.