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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herdson on Saturday: We might have passed peak UKIP?
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » David Herdson on Saturday: We might have passed peak UKIP?
Politics can be a contradictory old business. In many ways, UKIP has been the Party of the Year for the second year running. The SNP might dispute that but the reality is that the SNP lost their big vote in September while UKIP won theirs in May, becoming only the third party since WWI to win a national election.
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Have some food and drink some water.
Didn't order any food at the pub. Didn't feel like any at the station. Hungry when I got back home, but nothing in the fridge or freezer. And by then all the takeaways had closed.
Cue giving up and going straight to bed, hoping I'd feel better in the morning.
I don't.
Think you are more hoping this is the case than proving it.
All parties ride multiple horses. Arguably the Tories are in the worse position. On the one hand trying to hang on to moderate "compassionate conservatives", whilst on the other hand appealing to the Monday club types increasingly flirting with UKIP. It's the most incoherent position of all the parties.
To me it just sounds like people who dont like them are trying to avoid reality in order to feel more comfortable.
Apparently they 'peaked' 2 years ago. Then they 'peaked' a year ago. Then they 'peaked' in May....
Funny how the 'peaks' seem to appear when an election looms, ie when it really counts. Funny how these 'peaks' seem to be getting higher and higher too.
NewOld poll from Stockton South on Sky News:UKIP 18% up 3
Con 39% no change
Lab 37% down 1
LibDems 3% down 12
Survation.
If Reckless had stayed Tory, and faced a Kipper challenger what might the result have been in 2015?
Jack sadly no curly wurlies but lots of bounty bars at the ready.
Swiss Bob that was the Survation poll released earlier in the week which got its own thread.
UKIP has got to learn to stop whingeing.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/07/16/public-support-nuclear-weapons/
Carswell looked extremely uncomfortable sitting opposite his former team mates at yesterdays NHS debate.
It's not really about policy yet, and where it is - on the EU and immigration - there's good synergy.
On all other matters, the ex-Tory MPs are too busy enjoying the liberation of defection to think about it, and are happy to adopt whatever position they need to ensconce themselves, whilst UKIP voters are too angry to care.
There is an interesting point here though. Conventional wisdom is that small parties, with limited resources, cannot replicate by-election success at the general election.
This might be true.
However, it assumes that the smaller party will target a wide range of seats. I imagine with UKIP this will could be the case and (despite the hype) they might run a "hold two"-"win two" campaign.
If that is true, it's just possible that the Tories will find it hard to regain the seat in May. They have 50 seats to defend and hope to gain 40 more.
The Russian navy would park off the Firth of Moray and sit there as a malevolent shadow over the British Govt.
Accusing someone of desperation over that comment is rather strange, now if UKIP lost then yes he would be whingeing, but they didn't. They won.
Stay well.
The Russians are and have been a real threat since the end of WWII, and before if you believe the British Establishment has been penetrated for nearly eighty years, which it has. They have never stopped.
SPIN have just accepted 2 X £200/seat bets from me (no beard) on their GE 2015 seats market.
So that is one place all you pundits can 'get on'. Congratulatios to them.
A senior Labour source said: "Everybody said that Rochester would be the turning point and suddenly everyone would be focusing on Cameron and his problems with Ukip. But despite the Tories losing to Farage, everybody is still talking about Ed Miliband and Emily Thornberry. It’s a disaster."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11247184/Ed-Milibands-leadership-in-turmoil-after-Rochester-and-Strood-by-election-disaster.html
On what basis must UKIP peak? You're simply assuming that they must follow a mountain shaped trajectory of up then down rather than treating them like any other party who can move either up or down from their current position at any given time.
Ta ta, for now.
General elections MATTER though. Are people really going to trust Nigel's Neo-Nasty Party with a vote that determines how their Government is run? How their life is run? Colour me skeptical...
The Russians off Moray would be more deterred by having some planes on the UK carriers, and IS could be taken out by cruise missiles much more effectively than 256 MIRV Trident warheads.
UKIP has been around 20 years and gradually built up a party organisation, with the MPs now coming on stream to a party with 40,000 members. The SDP also made the mistake of forming an alliance with the Liberals putting off a lot of soft Labour voters.
The contradictions of Liberalism and Social Democracy have I think been one of the reason for the fall in Libdem support since the coalition.
Prior to 1914 and certainly 1906 the Liberals were in many ways what we now identify as one nation conservatives, with the Tories a luddite defender of land and aristocracy. It was the Tories genius after the rise of Labour and the universal franchise to absorb much of the Liberal vote. Unfortunately for both parties Cameron went too far and has caused the split betwen High and Low tories that really would have been expected when the universal franchise appeared but was avoided by tory cunning and fear of socialism 100 years ago.
PS - I'm a professional now with professional qualifications but for many years I was a white van driver.
In America there has been arguments that the democrats should try to represent the southern confederate flag pick-up truck voters.
However Obama did not win that way.
Or as now with his new extensive reshaping of the nation’s immigration system seems to be far away from the so called white trash vote agenda.
It will give you a little chirp up and won't kick start your stomach or rest of your body into something unpleasant. Then have another one. Then a banana or something similarly bland. That'll stop you feeling so spaced out.
I used to get evil hangovers [it took me two days to recover from Charlie's wedding to Di] - then somehow I crossed the plonk barrier and very rarely get them or helicopters. And never ill no matter how much is glugged.
Good luck and my sympathies. Oh - and if you've a sore head - drink lots and lots of water. I don't know how it works - but it will somehow wash out the pounding/karate chopped neck.
Yes good point Mr Morris but the principle behind the nukes was they were never meant to be used just enforce mutually assured destruction should one side decide to let one loose. The thing with the present threat from Iran and the Caliphates ( also N Korea) is they do not buy into MAD in fact they welcome death and martydom in various forms. They have to all intents and purposes eliminated the principle and the fear of of MAD as a concern.
At that point then the nukes are just an expensive commodity really.....
Edit. And the Indians, Japanese and S Koreans.
I think UKIP will fall back * a bit* by the GE. I'm looking at a vote share of 11/13%. I'd be hopeful the party could win about 6 seats, and make big councillor gains in Thanet, Great Yarmouth, Rotherham, Tendring, Medway, Thurrock, Boston etc.
(This is not a prescription to be taken regularly, but suits occasional lazy mornings after the night before. It is when you can drink 5 pints and feel no ill effects that you are drinking too much)
So why do I think they've hit peak? To list a few,
1. Because of the way the media reacted, which was not consistent with a party on the rise but of one which had failed to meet expectations.
2. Because there won't be any more significant elections between now and May, as parliamentary vacancies are likely to be left open until the dissolution, and without those elections, UKIP will find it hard to keep up the momentum.
3. Because it's hard for small parties to keep their vote share, never mind add to it, when voters are asked to take an electoral decision about who governs and who represents them, which has to work against parties without a meaningful track record in general elections.
4. Because the nature of the broadcasting rules will favour the status quo, and UKIP hasn't done enough to be given equivalent status to the Tories and Labour.
5. Because as I've said, they're riding two very different horses and I don't think that under the scrutiny of an election, that's easily sustainable - and UKIP is a party without a corporate experience of operating under that kind of pressure.
6. Because they've dropped off in the polls and I can't see what's likely to push them back up again.
That's not to say that they won't make gains. They're coming off a base from 2010/11 so even a decline from the summer and autumn of this year will still see them go forward in net terms but that, as I said, is consolidating their position in the second division, not pushing for promotion to the first.
Where would that leave us next May?
I certainly don't want the Tories to interrupt Labour handing swag bags of votes to the Kippers, it's most amusing. The gulf between LHQ and the WWC is getting like the Rift Valley.
And the demise of Ms Smugberry is a red-letter day for me. I can't bear her on any level - the most annoying politician by a mile and a voice for silent movies.
Scotland:
Trident Replacement: 16
Cheaper Deterrent: 35
No Nukes: 40
So a majority in Scotland are still in favour of a nuclear deterrent......
If IS were to attack us, would we nuke Raqqa? Alleppo? Mosul? Kobane?
Whoever is responsible for Labours media strategy and dealing with these situations should be sacked. Alastair Campbell would never have allowed one picture on Twitter to become a story.
8 years is long enough for any leader.
Cameron like Blair before him should think about that.
Ukip won in Rochester because the Labour Party now represents only the public sector elite, according to Mark Reckless......
He declared: ‘The radical tradition, which has stood and spoken for the working class, has found a new home in Ukip.
‘As Labour represents those comfortable at the top of the public sector, it is not Ed Miliband, but Ukip that represents the concerns of most working men and women.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2844887/
Will this have any impact in Labour heartlands that rely on public sector employment like the NE and S Wales?
It is the Israelis that are under a realistic threat of having Tel Aviv nuked by the Iranians,India by Pakistan and Japan and S Korea by N Korea.
Fairly certain Thornberry must be at least the 100th Labour MP you've described as unbearable and most annoying.
Think on this Plato; UKIP are hurting Labour, but as yet they're not losing seats to them. Your beloveds are.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30157507
Newly-elected UKIP MP Mark Reckless has accused party leader Nigel Farage of a policy U-turn over EU migration.
In an interview with the Times, the Rochester and Strood MP says: "The policy changed on Wednesday and I'm a bit sore about how I came out of that."
While not trying to pretend that the UK is a great power why If the UK is such an unimportant player on the world stage do they even bother laughing at us?
Edit I spent some time in China. No one laughed, quite the contrary, everyone wanted to talk.
Did Farage campaign much for Reckless, or is there a divide growing there?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
Labour must be in absolute complete , utter despair at this outcome. Just when they could have given their rivals a really good kicking they manage to turn the tables on themselves 100%.
The term "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" really doesn't even begin to sum up the situation.
In any case, at least you have now set out some reasons for this rather than taking it as read.
1. I'm entirely unclear what relation there is between media perspectives and the UKIP actual and prospective vote - they're quite different demographics.
2. Fair, but again based on the idea that UKIP are still so small and irrelevant they will automatically be squeezed without gimmicks to provide a boost. Perhaps true, but definately begging the question.
3. As per 2. There's a reasonable debate to be had on how much of this is already priced in to voting intentions. Some assume most will come flooding back; others have actually met UKIP voters. UKIP clearly aren't going to win swathes of seats, but the idea that if they poll in double figures nationally, win 3-10 seats and set themselves up in 2nd place in many others, that will have constituted peaking is a false narrative which ignores the long term possibilities.
4. Fair in so far as it goes, but as per 3 I can't see this as an insurmountable barrier to establishing the sort of bridgehead which represents real success in this electoral cycle.
5. This is no more true of UKIP than any other party. The Tories tie themselves in enough knots making incompetant passes at their ex-voters whilst trying not to outrage the 15,000 Guardian readers who vote for them.
6. Again, begging the question - this only makes sense if you start from your conclusion that they are a perfect body in flight waiting for gravity to win.
They are happy just to be hangers on, a completely talentless set of muppets.
I cannot think of any Scottish Tory that I could say was a decent person who had any interest whatsoever in Scotland, they are that bad.
I have nothing useful to add. I don't think anyone else has either.
Not a Thornberry fan. Patronising and smug, and shan't be missed, but the manner of her departure is not great. To an extent, Labour have been hoist by their petard, given the shrieking over-reaction to UKIP having a policy not in the little Guardian book of permissible opinions included nonsense like 'euracism'.
You can't shriek like a banshee then complain the neighbours are being too loud.
Why not get smart and vote UKIP, much like Labour voters have had to vote Lib Dem in many previously safe southern conservative seats.
Can`t some non Conservative members explain this to conservative voters.