I just think he needs a break, he has taken the fight to the establishment for 20 years now, has done a superb job but looks weary, which is no surprise. He could be just as effective if someone like Woolfe, Nuttall or Evans took over with appearances on QT, Newsnight etc
He should step out of the limelight for a period, recharge his batteries then come back for the good fight.
Why should it be such hard work? It's hardly much of an effort for Farage to take the fight to the estasblishment. He's firmly rooted at the heart of it.
Strangely enough I posted last week that Ian Hislop is now part of the establishment he has taken the piss out of for so long.
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
I just think he needs a break, he has taken the fight to the establishment for 20 years now, has done a superb job but looks weary, which is no surprise. He could be just as effective if someone like Woolfe, Nuttall or Evans took over with appearances on QT, Newsnight etc
He should step out of the limelight for a period, recharge his batteries then come back for the good fight.
Woolfe could take UKIP on past where it is presently imo.
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
Would be odd for the Tory Chairman to lose his job after they get back in with an unexpected majority, wouldn't it?
(Though how much of the campaign organisation was genuinely down to Shapps I wouldn't like to say!)
Not particularly, given the story that came out about him in the election. The suspicion that he may have been anonymously attacking his colleagues would potentially be seriously career-limiting
I just think he needs a break, he has taken the fight to the establishment for 20 years now, has done a superb job but looks weary, which is no surprise. He could be just as effective if someone like Woolfe, Nuttall or Evans took over with appearances on QT, Newsnight etc
He should step out of the limelight for a period, recharge his batteries then come back for the good fight.
Why should it be such hard work? It's hardly much of an effort for Farage to take the fight to the estasblishment. He's firmly rooted at the heart of it.
Strangely enough I posted last week that Ian Hislop is now part of the establishment he has taken the piss out of for so long.
Hislop has ALWAYS been part of the Establishment. You don't become Editor of Private Eye (especially at a very young age) unless you are. His father was self-made but Hislop was very much a man of the Establishment and followed the Private School to Oxbridge to Job based on connections.
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
I rather think that this is people who don't like Farage finding reasons to pile on. He said he would resign. He submitted his resignation. It was not accepted. He did all that honour dictates, and he is now doing what his party is asking.
I am not a Kipper, don't really know Farage except through the distorting filter of PB, but c'mon. The man did what he said.
And whether people who dislike UKIP and Farage disapprove is neither here nor there - you'd probably never be target voters for the party so why should they care what you think?
David Miliband has shown a lack of class. He has said what everyone else is now saying, but he would have gained much more respect if he had simply said that he was proud of what his brother had tried to achieve in the face of the severest personal attacks and that he was sorry that he had not succeeded, and simply left it at that.
My GE Betting Stake 4461.62 Return 1759.03 Profit -2682.59 ROI -60%
Last weeks football betting Stake 68409.59 Return 74595.91 Profit 6186.32 ROI 9%
How can you even compare the glorious intellectual flights of fancy, daring dashes on hunches, and hopeless belief backing that is the glorious art of political betting with the downbeat, mindless, and frankly subhuman pursuit of football! Go and stand in a corner immediately!
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
So even though it is worse for UKIP, he should resign to keep other parties supporters happy? OK
Farage the best man for the job and has got the job
Great news for Ukip, bad news for everyone else.. Hence the anger from other party followers
Happy Monday!
....
There are plenty of people who could take on the job of leading an out campaign both inside UKIP and out. ...
Just as importantly there is a basic problem with UKIP's current position on post exit status. We need to have a position that we will move to EEA/EFTA membership at least in the short term. This would greatly reassure business and would give the public a clear picture of what a post Brexit relationship with Europe would look like. As long as UKIP hold a position that we will not join EFTA then we are going to struggle to persuade voters that Brexit is the right move.
I agree with everything except the logic of EEA/EFTA. If you do that then why bother leaving the EU in the first place, you still have to follow most of the rules but don't get a say in writing them. That's the worst of all worlds.
The main reason UKIP say we should leave is to stop the free movement of people. Free movement extends to the EEA/EFTA too and not just the EU. In which case that argument is lost.
And this is another reason Out will lose. There are too many different views on "what happens next" that become impossible to reconcile.
Correct. If we leave the political part of the EU and join (or stay in the EEA) then this is the trade deal that would be on offer. And in terms of the single market it would not change where we are now.
Ignoring the fact that the single market is only one ever decreasing part of what the EU is about. I know you love to spread these myths about Flightpath but no matter how many times you write these things they are still basically bollocks.
I just think he needs a break, he has taken the fight to the establishment for 20 years now, has done a superb job but looks weary, which is no surprise. He could be just as effective if someone like Woolfe, Nuttall or Evans took over with appearances on QT, Newsnight etc
He should step out of the limelight for a period, recharge his batteries then come back for the good fight.
Why should it be such hard work? It's hardly much of an effort for Farage to take the fight to the estasblishment. He's firmly rooted at the heart of it.
Strangely enough I posted last week that Ian Hislop is now part of the establishment he has taken the piss out of for so long.
Hislop has ALWAYS been part of the Establishment. You don't become Editor of Private Eye (especially at a very young age) unless you are. His father was self-made but Hislop was very much a man of the Establishment and followed the Private School to Oxbridge to Job based on connections.
Dair, I'm contemplating wandering down to the Co-op and getting a bottle of their dry cider.
Trying not to drink Monday to Thursday but it's a really nice evening and I'm weakening!
36 of the SNP's 56 seats were won with more than 50% of the vote Biggest win - Dundee East 61.91% (I got on this at 2/5) Smallest vote share - Edinburgh South 33.79% Smallest vote share to win a seat - Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk 36.6% (They lost Orkeny & Shetland and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale with a higher percentage of the vote. The SNP got less than 40% in only 5 seats.
The Cybernits are still in meltdown mode trying to rejig the numbers every which way, to try and cling on to some form of success:
I think the fact that they were able to only hold onto 3 seats by relying on tactical voting is a sad indictment of how low the 3 "mainstream parties" have fallen.
Jill Stephenson and the rest of the cyberunionist thugs are just hilarious.
Most of them are doing the "multiply the turnout by the vote share" to claim SNP not legitimate representatives due to only getting 35.5% of the vote.
Quite ironic when the Tory Government only got 36.8% and that turns into 24.3%.
I feel sorry for the poor souls who try and point out facts like this to Jill, they just get shouted down, she certainly deserves the title of the Cybernat Slayer.
Shouldn't a slayer occasionally, like, slay. Or at least win the odd battle/argument.
The title Dockside Hooker for the Cybernats might be more accurate.
My wife had the misfortune of stumbling into this twitter feed and was met by a tsunami of derision by the eclectic mix of Tories, Loyalists, UKippers and right wing MSM who seem to inhabit this twitter feed. After a few days she just gave up.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
Farage the best man for the job and has got the job
Great news for Ukip, bad news for everyone else.. Hence the anger from other party followers
Happy Monday!
I don't see any anger, more incredulity and laughter. In an "Ed is Crap" kind of way.
We PB Tories kept saying "Ed is Crap" - because he was. In the same way Farage is past his Best Before date. If UKIP had any credibility then "thank you for your service" would have been the reaction to Farage's reaction.
I agree with Richard, BOO is supposed to be bigger than one man. Is there nobody else that could have taken on the job? Just makes him and the party a joke. Something to point and laugh at now that Ed is Crap has gone.
Farage staying as UKIP leader is a disaster for BOO. Can anyone really imagine what a BOO campaign will look like? The other disaster for UKIP is that with Farage they remain tarred with the racist brush. Its Farage which has taken them down that route. They may be happy with it; well fine.
Its funny really - I always say that changing leader is fraught with danger, it requires careful thought. UKIP have changed their leader, without any careful thought at all - to the same leader and hey presto they have set off on a totally wrong track.
My GE Betting Stake 4461.62 Return 1759.03 Profit -2682.59 ROI -60%
Last weeks football betting Stake 68409.59 Return 74595.91 Profit 6186.32 ROI 9%
How can you even compare the glorious intellectual flights of fancy, daring dashes on hunches, and hopeless belief backing that is the glorious art of political betting with the downbeat, mindless, and frankly subhuman pursuit of football! Go and stand in a corner immediately!
Isam, what particular football markets do you bet on?
I agree with everything except the logic of EEA/EFTA. If you do that then why bother leaving the EU in the first place, you still have to follow most of the rules but don't get a say in writing them. That's the worst of all worlds.
The main reason UKIP say we should leave is to stop the free movement of people. Free movement extends to the EEA/EFTA too and not just the EU. In which case that argument is lost.
And this is another reason Out will lose. There are too many different views on "what happens next" that become impossible to reconcile.
Not so. There is a huge difference between EFTA and EU membership - one reason why the Norwegians and Icelandics are so opposed to EU membership.
The actual membership cost is much lower, the burden of regulation is a fraction of what we currently endure, CAP and CFP membership are excluded, political interference and the move towards political union is ended. And of course EFTA has much better trade links with the rest of the world than the EU.
The free movement of people is indeed an issue but countries like Norway are able to have controls to right to settlement (as opposed to just right to work) that are not available to EU countries. Not least the requirement to learn Norwegian.
I'm not saying there's no material difference but those are all very technical differences. The ability to end the free movement of people is a very crystal clear change - while still having free movement but somewhat different is unclear. It makes it harder to give a compelling message as to why we should change. Plus the In campaign would make hay over the fact that if we went out (but into EFTA) we'd still have to obey rules the EU wrote but had no say over their writing. Referendums are typically won by the status quo if they can create fear and the arguments over that just write themselves.
Again not true. A month or so ago I posted a link to a paper produced by EFTA over exactly what say they have over EU/EFTA regulations starting with proposing and continuing all the way through the drafting process. Whilst they may not have the final vote, they do have a huge amount of input into the creation of regulation.
And of course the amount of regulation and law that actually applies to EFTA compared to the the amount that applies solely to the EU is very small.
David Miliband has shown a lack of class. He has said what everyone else is now saying, but he would have gained much more respect if he had simply said that he was proud of what his brother had tried to achieve in the face of the severest personal attacks and that he was sorry that he had not succeeded, and simply left it at that.
Indeed, and it's very sad to see quite honestly. - obviously not ready to rebuild those bridges.
The Out campaign would be mad to be led by Farage. It needs to bind together Conservative, Labour, Scots and English. They probably won't win anyway, but just being UKIP writ large will limit their prospects. Don't ask me who would be the best leader as I'm not intending to vote Out unless DC is completely stonewalled, which I can't see happening. The Outer I do admire, however, is Hannan, though he's probably not well known enough.
Dan Hannan, Frank Field, Kate Hoey. All good choices from politics.
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
So even though it is worse for UKIP, he should resign to keep other parties supporters happy? OK
Anyway, he did resign, but they didn't accept it
Everyone's happy!
Though he made clear in his "resignation speech" that he didn't want to go.
Either way I'm amused that 12%, no new seats and only one of the defectors is considered a win now. Before the election we were being told that the vote share would at least be high teens and there would be a number of seats. Looks like both expectations were undershot. Rather than rewriting history to make that look like a success a reflection on what went wrong seems more credible if the party was intending to be serious.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
As SLAB's 15 Holyrood constituency MSPs can no doubt easily predict their fate, the infighting for regional list spots is going to be brutal, particularly if Murphy and some of the SLAB losers want to get into the mix, I think I read somewhere that Blair McDougall has aspirations as well. I would agree that stripping out the tactical voters SLAB's core support level is heading to around the low 20s.
The other battle which is no doubt underway is the fight for H of L seats, no doubt the MSM will soon start whinging about the Scottish invasion of the H of L.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
Dair, I am not sure it is a sense of entitlement. He clearly accepts that the electorate has spoken. He does not understand their choice. His contempt for nationalism shines through, and I suspect this is blinding him to understanding why the electorate would chose nationalism over the policies offered by Labour. But at least he wants to ask the voters why.
My wife had the misfortune of stumbling into this twitter feed and was met by a tsunami of derision by the eclectic mix of Tories, Loyalists, UKippers and right wing MSM who seem to inhabit this twitter feed. After a few days she just gave up.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
Speaking of Wings, one of the questions on Football he had on his panelbase poll was whether Rangers were Ranger or a new club. Given the lack of any mention, I think we can assume that the results did not go the way he hoped for,
PhilipThompson Farage won the elections, Salmond won the elections end of conversation. UKIP's victory in the Euro elections was the first time either the Tories or Labour had failed to win a national UK election since 1918. The European elections were also pure PR, the Holyrood elections were constituency top up. Farage of course became an MEP
The Out campaign would be mad to be led by Farage. It needs to bind together Conservative, Labour, Scots and English. They probably won't win anyway, but just being UKIP writ large will limit their prospects. Don't ask me who would be the best leader as I'm not intending to vote Out unless DC is completely stonewalled, which I can't see happening. The Outer I do admire, however, is Hannan, though he's probably not well known enough.
Dan Hannan, Frank Field, Kate Hoey. All good choices from politics.
They make the out logic very credibly. Even I as a Tory europhile respect all three tremendously. Frank Field has to be the most respectable MP Labour has.
David Miliband has shown a lack of class. He has said what everyone else is now saying, but he would have gained much more respect if he had simply said that he was proud of what his brother had tried to achieve in the face of the severest personal attacks and that he was sorry that he had not succeeded, and simply left it at that.
Indeed, and it's very sad to see quite honestly. - obviously not ready to rebuild those bridges.
Seeing as today is the day the bank account turned, I've stuck a donation to the site.
Calum, matched it for your Justgiving site too.
Many thanks Pulpstar, much appreciated. I've also given Mike a slice of my winnings, as without this site we'd be lost. I think the bookies need to keep a closer eye on what we're all up to - Holyrood 2016 - I can hardly wait !!
The Out campaign would be mad to be led by Farage. It needs to bind together Conservative, Labour, Scots and English. They probably won't win anyway, but just being UKIP writ large will limit their prospects. Don't ask me who would be the best leader as I'm not intending to vote Out unless DC is completely stonewalled, which I can't see happening. The Outer I do admire, however, is Hannan, though he's probably not well known enough.
Dan Hannan, Frank Field, Kate Hoey. All good choices from politics.
The EU referendum is far too important to let bad choices of opinion leaders cloud the issue. I wonder if there's merit in appointing leaders of the two sides? Something like Hague against and Clegg for. I know Hague isn't terribly eurosceptic, but his job would be to marshal their forces - and he's a very honest man.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
As SLAB's 15 Holyrood constituency MSPs can no doubt easily predict their fate, the infighting for regional list spots is going to be brutal, particularly if Murphy and some of the SLAB losers want to get into the mix, I think I read somewhere that Blair McDougall has aspirations as well. I would agree that stripping out the tactical voters SLAB's core support level is heading to around the low 20s.
The other battle which is no doubt underway is the fight for H of L seats, no doubt the MSM will soon start whinging about the Scottish invasion of the H of L.
If Murphy does survive (and gets No 1 on glasgow) and McDougal gets on the ticket, No 1 on Mid Scotland and Fife? Kezia will be No 1 in Edinburgh and Marra No 1 in Dundee, I expect).
Those are the only four that can REALLY be sure of getting in.
SeanF Indeed, but the EU referendum is obviously potentially as good a marketing event for UKIP as the Scottish independence referendum was for the SNP, like the SNP their best result would probably be a reasonably close defeat, a big In vote would obviously set back their campaign, an Out vote would effectively mean they had no reason to exist
I do not see any comparison. As for the reason for its existence - it is making that up as it goes along. It currently has debased the purpose of its original founders.
Alan Sked wanted UKIP to be a think tank that won about 1% of the vote. Now, it's a party of 50,000 members, with 500 councillors, and four million voters. It's obviously a very different animal.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
Dair, I am not sure it is a sense of entitlement. He clearly accepts that the electorate has spoken. He does not understand their choice. His contempt for nationalism shines through, and I suspect this is blinding him to understanding why the electorate would chose nationalism over the policies offered by Labour. But at least he wants to ask the voters why.
I really don't think that nationalism has been a choice in attracting much of the more recent SNP voters (since 2007).
Competent government has been. The attraction to nationalism has built from that. If people believe and have faith in politicians to deliver competent government they are more readily willing to believe other policies. the growth in support for Independence is driven by the SNP getting things right at Holyrood.
If you have two goups claiming Independence will be better./worse for Scotland because "reasons", you tend to believe the ones who deliver well and build a new Forth Bridge on time and under budget and a new billion pound hospital on time and under budget, not the shower who were responsible for Edinburgh Trams and the Scottish Parliament building.
36 of the SNP's 56 seats were won with more than 50% of the vote Biggest win - Dundee East 61.91% (I got on this at 2/5) Smallest vote share - Edinburgh South 33.79% Smallest vote share to win a seat - Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk 36.6% (They lost Orkeny & Shetland and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale with a higher percentage of the vote. The SNP got less than 40% in only 5 seats.
The Cybernits are still in meltdown mode trying to rejig the numbers every which way, to try and cling on to some form of success:
I think the fact that they were able to only hold onto 3 seats by relying on tactical voting is a sad indictment of how low the 3 "mainstream parties" have fallen.
Jill Stephenson and the rest of the cyberunionist thugs are just hilarious.
Most of them are doing the "multiply the turnout by the vote share" to claim SNP not legitimate representatives due to only getting 35.5% of the vote.
Quite ironic when the Tory Government only got 36.8% and that turns into 24.3%.
I feel sorry for the poor souls who try and point out facts like this to Jill, they just get shouted down, she certainly deserves the title of the Cybernat Slayer.
Shouldn't a slayer occasionally, like, slay. Or at least win the odd battle/argument.
The title Dockside Hooker for the Cybernats might be more accurate.
My wife had the misfortune of stumbling into this twitter feed and was met by a tsunami of derision by the eclectic mix of Tories, Loyalists, UKippers and right wing MSM who seem to inhabit this twitter feed. After a few days she just gave up.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
PB.com has changed IT platform at least three times. I'd say the long term posters on here are comfortably nudging 100k posts.
Farage the best man for the job and has got the job
Great news for Ukip, bad news for everyone else.. Hence the anger from other party followers
Happy Monday!
....
There are plenty of people who could take on the job of leading an out campaign both inside UKIP and out. ...
Just as importantly there is a basic problem with UKIP's current position on post exit status. We need to have a position that we will move to EEA/EFTA membership at least in the short term. This would greatly reassure business and would give the public a clear picture of what a post Brexit relationship with Europe would look like. As long as UKIP hold a position that we will not join EFTA then we are going to struggle to persuade voters that Brexit is the right move.
I agree with everything except the logic of EEA/EFTA. If you do that then why bother leaving the EU in the first place, you still have to follow most of the rules but don't get a say in writing them. That's the worst of all worlds.
The main reason UKIP say we should leave is to stop the free movement of people. Free movement extends to the EEA/EFTA too and not just the EU. In which case that argument is lost.
And this is another reason Out will lose. There are too many different views on "what happens next" that become impossible to reconcile.
Correct. If we leave the political part of the EU and join (or stay in the EEA) then this is the trade deal that would be on offer. And in terms of the single market it would not change where we are now.
Ignoring the fact that the single market is only one ever decreasing part of what the EU is about. I know you love to spread these myths about Flightpath but no matter how many times you write these things they are still basically bollocks.
Cobblers to your bollocks. ! Cameron has plainly said we do not want to be part of any ever closer union. 'Not want'. Given the Euro and Eurozone, that is the way the EU is going. We have to negotiate around that. 'That' being the non single market - the closer financial and political union. Being in the EEA is one option, but really as far as the single market and movement of labour it will not make much difference to us compared to now. But you come close to grasping the point. The EU is there even without us. A changing EU. It is not going to go away. Even the Euro, much to my amazement is not going to go away. We need renegotiation, we need a referendum. Inevitably there will be much hysteria on the way. Clearly it has started now.
Oh and by the way you should be thanking UKIP. Without them taking all those votes off Labour we would have Miliband in No 10 now. The won you the election.
I remember being told repeatedly by kippers that if the Tories lost due to their voters going purple, it wouldn't be UKIP's fault. Now they want credit for the blues winning? Really?
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
Dair, I am not sure it is a sense of entitlement. He clearly accepts that the electorate has spoken. He does not understand their choice. His contempt for nationalism shines through, and I suspect this is blinding him to understanding why the electorate would chose nationalism over the policies offered by Labour. But at least he wants to ask the voters why.
I really don't think that nationalism has been a choice in attracting much of the more recent SNP voters (since 2007).
Competent government has been. The attraction to nationalism has built from that. If people believe and have faith in politicians to deliver competent government they are more readily willing to believe other policies. the growth in support for Independence is driven by the SNP getting things right at Holyrood.
If you have two goups claiming Independence will be better./worse for Scotland because "reasons", you tend to believe the ones who deliver well and build a new Forth Bridge on time and under budget and a new billion pound hospital on time and under budget, not the shower who were responsible for Edinburgh Trams and the Scottish Parliament building.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
Interesting. You'd have thought he realised the jig was up when Labour lost control of Midlothian Council a few years back and when he came within less than a percentage point of losing to the SNP in a recent byelection. I mean, Midlothian?! It used to be a place to weigh the Labour vote in the colliery weighbridge ...
On checking back, it was Unionist up to 1955 (or rather the rough equivalent was). But I hadn't known that Tom Wintringham the guerrilla warfare and Home Guard chappie, came close to winning a wartime by election against a Unionist.
PhilipThompson Farage won the elections, Salmond won the elections end of conversation. UKIP's victory in the Euro elections was the first time either the Tories or Labour had failed to win a national UK election since 1918. The European elections were also pure PR, the Holyrood elections were constituency top up. Farage of course became an MEP
MalcG Agree entirely
Either you are being deliberately disingenuous or are very silly.
2011 Salmond won a healthy majority. 69/129 seats on nearly half the vote. 2014 Farage won less than a third. 24/73 seats on just over a quarter of the vote.
To equate these as being the same is ignorance. You can say end of conversation I'd you want but you're denying reality that the two scenarios simply are not comparable.
Think if all the PBers that were going to vote Ukip under a new leader but now will have to stick with their old party! #missedopportunity
For all the stick Farage is getting for being reinstated at the behest of the money men )and I think he should stay out) I have seen little criticism of Ed Balls alleged grubby attempt to get back in.
If he had won Thanet South by 1 vote and UKIP had got 8% you would have been happy for him to stay?
Basically unless Carswell wanted the job, it was going to be a non MP, so Farage's reason for stepping down (not being in Westminster) was bogus.. as it stands he is the best man for the job, and he is in he job
Rejoice!
The issue is one of credibility. He set a condition he'd resign by if he failed - and he failed. If he'd won South Thanet by 1 vote then that would have been a success not a failure.
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
So even though it is worse for UKIP, he should resign to keep other parties supporters happy? OK
Anyway, he did resign, but they didn't accept it
Everyone's happy!
So if I resign from my job and my boss does not accept it, then I have to stay? As I said down thread he thought he was a certainty to win. After his loss he said he was a man of his word. Does resigning for 4 days mean he has kept his word?
PhilipThompson The Out campaign, like the Yes campaign, are both populist campaigns driven by working and lower middle class voters which start behind in the polls and then get closer come referendum day. The AV referendum was a campaign driven by the metropolitan elite and the liberal upper middle classes which started ahead in the polls and managed to lose, a totally different story
Farage and Carswell are metropolitan not working or lower class. Might have had a bigger chance of being viewed as working class if Farage went.
AV started ahead and still lost. EU Out is starting behind and planning on loss it seems. That isn't a recipe for success.
Polling on EU membership fluctuates. If the UK is compelled by the EU to accept thousands of asylum seekers, who would bet on In retaining a narrow lead?
Dair, I am not sure it is a sense of entitlement. He clearly accepts that the electorate has spoken. He does not understand their choice. His contempt for nationalism shines through, and I suspect this is blinding him to understanding why the electorate would chose nationalism over the policies offered by Labour. But at least he wants to ask the voters why.
He says he wants to ask the voters why, but that's undermined a bit by the fact that, about two paragraphs earlier, he's already pronounced why: people are morons taken in by vacuous slogans and wouldn't listen to SLAB and their wonderful policies which would have built an Eden on earth.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
As SLAB's 15 Holyrood constituency MSPs can no doubt easily predict their fate, the infighting for regional list spots is going to be brutal, particularly if Murphy and some of the SLAB losers want to get into the mix, I think I read somewhere that Blair McDougall has aspirations as well. I would agree that stripping out the tactical voters SLAB's core support level is heading to around the low 20s.
The other battle which is no doubt underway is the fight for H of L seats, no doubt the MSM will soon start whinging about the Scottish invasion of the H of L.
Anent the latter invasion: only by Labour and LDs - not the SNP, at least on current policy. Which will really rub it in for those of a certain viewpoint.
The Out campaign would be mad to be led by Farage. It needs to bind together Conservative, Labour, Scots and English. They probably won't win anyway, but just being UKIP writ large will limit their prospects. Don't ask me who would be the best leader as I'm not intending to vote Out unless DC is completely stonewalled, which I can't see happening. The Outer I do admire, however, is Hannan, though he's probably not well known enough.
Dan Hannan, Frank Field, Kate Hoey. All good choices from politics.
The EU referendum is far too important to let bad choices of opinion leaders cloud the issue. I wonder if there's merit in appointing leaders of the two sides? Something like Hague against and Clegg for. I know Hague isn't terribly eurosceptic, but his job would be to marshal their forces - and he's a very honest man.
I'm not sure Hague would be on the out side. I suspect he's more likely to be ok with being in a reformed EU.
Hague was right to keep us out of the euro. Mission accomplished. That isn't the same as BOO.
SeanF Indeed, but the EU referendum is obviously potentially as good a marketing event for UKIP as the Scottish independence referendum was for the SNP, like the SNP their best result would probably be a reasonably close defeat, a big In vote would obviously set back their campaign, an Out vote would effectively mean they had no reason to exist
I do not see any comparison. As for the reason for its existence - it is making that up as it goes along. It currently has debased the purpose of its original founders.
Alan Sked wanted UKIP to be a think tank that won about 1% of the vote. Now, it's a party of 50,000 members, with 500 councillors, and four million voters. It's obviously a very different animal.
Don't take this the wrong way, but it's a bit like a right wing Green party right now ^^;
PhilipThompson The Out campaign, like the Yes campaign, are both populist campaigns driven by working and lower middle class voters which start behind in the polls and then get closer come referendum day. The AV referendum was a campaign driven by the metropolitan elite and the liberal upper middle classes which started ahead in the polls and managed to lose, a totally different story
Farage and Carswell are metropolitan not working or lower class. Might have had a bigger chance of being viewed as working class if Farage went.
AV started ahead and still lost. EU Out is starting behind and planning on loss it seems. That isn't a recipe for success.
Polling on EU membership fluctuates. If the UK is compelled by the EU to accept thousands of asylum seekers, who would bet on In retaining a narrow lead?
I agree. But it's not going to happen. We have an opt out on asylum and it'd be suicide for Cameron not to use it.
If for some reason he does something silly then of course all bets are off.
What is it with those who have nothing to do with the party, who seem to think they have some insight into what is good for the party. If we had taken any notice of the advice, analysis, predictions from what appears to be our crystal ball gazing betters, we wouldn't be sitting on 13 % of the vote and a second position across a large tranche of the country.
We would have reached UKIP peak every week since 2010, UKIP peak at every set of elections, UKIP peak at every smear, in fact we would have hung up our kippers for good probably a 1000 times if anybody in UKIP had taken the opinions seriously.
The NEC of UKIP were right to reject NIgel's resignation, if the telephone calls, texts and emails they have had with activists and branches is sayiong anything close to that in my small area of UKIP, appalled at the decision of Nigel to stand down, then they had no choice but to try and convince him to reconsider. The party does not look stupid at all apart from those who wish it ill, it would have been stupidity on a monumental scale to allow the most repected and loyal politician in this country to leave politics.
Mike give it a rest on UKIP, you have been wrpong about them for years, and I have no doubt you will be wrong again, I( would have thought you would be mopre concerned with worrying about the future of the LibDems, now they really have reached LibDem peak.
NIgel Farage should not have stood down, he had no reason to stand down, the membership support him to the hilt, and if we appear flaky, then you already think that anyway, so what's changed.
Every day is apparently a disaster for UKIP. Yet, somehow the party won 4m votes, and gained another 175 councillors.
The Out campaign would be mad to be led by Farage. It needs to bind together Conservative, Labour, Scots and English. They probably won't win anyway, but just being UKIP writ large will limit their prospects. Don't ask me who would be the best leader as I'm not intending to vote Out unless DC is completely stonewalled, which I can't see happening. The Outer I do admire, however, is Hannan, though he's probably not well known enough.
Dan Hannan, Frank Field, Kate Hoey. All good choices from politics.
The EU referendum is far too important to let bad choices of opinion leaders cloud the issue. I wonder if there's merit in appointing leaders of the two sides? Something like Hague against and Clegg for. I know Hague isn't terribly eurosceptic, but his job would be to marshal their forces - and he's a very honest man.
I'm not sure Hague would be on the out side. I suspect he's more likely to be ok with being in a reformed EU.
Hague was right to keep us out of the euro. Mission accomplished. That isn't the same as BOO.
My point was that the question deserved some serious heavyweight leaders - Hague and Clegg is the best I could come up with, and Hague would be an advocate rather than a believer.
36 of the SNP's 56 seats were won with more than 50% of the vote Biggest win - Dundee East 61.91% (I got on this at 2/5) Smallest vote share - Edinburgh South 33.79% Smallest vote share to win a seat - Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk 36.6% (They lost Orkeny & Shetland and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale with a higher percentage of the vote. The SNP got less than 40% in only 5 seats.
The Cybernits are still in meltdown mode trying to rejig the numbers every which way, to try and cling on to some form of success:
I think the fact that they were able to only hold onto 3 seats by relying on tactical voting is a sad indictment of how low the 3 "mainstream parties" have fallen.
Jill Stephenson and the rest of the cyberunionist thugs are just hilarious.
Most of them are doing the "multiply the turnout by the vote share" to claim SNP not legitimate representatives due to only getting 35.5% of the vote.
Quite ironic when the Tory Government only got 36.8% and that turns into 24.3%.
I feel sorry for the poor souls who try and point out facts like this to Jill, they just get shouted down, she certainly deserves the title of the Cybernat Slayer.
Shouldn't a slayer occasionally, like, slay. Or at least win the odd battle/argument.
The title Dockside Hooker for the Cybernats might be more accurate.
My wife had the misfortune of stumbling into this twitter feed and was met by a tsunami of derision by the eclectic mix of Tories, Loyalists, UKippers and right wing MSM who seem to inhabit this twitter feed. After a few days she just gave up.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
PB.com has changed IT platform at least three times. I'd say the long term posters on here are comfortably nudging 100k posts.
Just reading comments from Tim Farron on the BBC news website. He says the Tories fought their election campaign negatively based on fear.
Bloody hypocrite, did he not hear or himself participate in the Tory "baby-eaters, cuts and poverty" scare stories the Lib Dems put about on a daily basis, including from the Leader of the party who presumably was still harbouring hopes of getting back into bed with Cameron et al in Coalition V2.0?
Or is that guff not "fear" because it was, in their leftie minds, actually true?
SeanF Indeed, but the EU referendum is obviously potentially as good a marketing event for UKIP as the Scottish independence referendum was for the SNP, like the SNP their best result would probably be a reasonably close defeat, a big In vote would obviously set back their campaign, an Out vote would effectively mean they had no reason to exist
I do not see any comparison. As for the reason for its existence - it is making that up as it goes along. It currently has debased the purpose of its original founders.
Alan Sked wanted UKIP to be a think tank that won about 1% of the vote. Now, it's a party of 50,000 members, with 500 councillors, and four million voters. It's obviously a very different animal.
Don't take this the wrong way, but it's a bit like a right wing Green party right now ^^;
Both desperately shafted under FPTP.
Certainly. You have to work your way up, ward by ward, constituency by constituency.
Baroness Stowell listed as a full member of the Cabinet and then listed again as a Minister not officially in the Cabinet but still attending Cabinet meetings.
Have standards now fallen so much that literally nobody does a sense check for even one minute on any data / information they prepare to check that it's actually correct?
Philip Thompson In the Euro elections the Anti EU vote was divided, many, if not most, Tories would vote Out (the Tories won 23% so the Tory and UKIP vote combined was 49%). In the Holyrood elections Salmond had the pro independence vote largely to himself apart from a few Greens (the Greens won 4% so the SNP and Green combined vote was 48%)
One thing that may have puzzled voters in Middle England is the left's obsession with "food banks". Many people will have been asking themselves why people need to go to food banks when they receive relatively generous welfare benefit payments.
Just reading comments from Tim Farron on the BBC news website. He says the Tories fought their election campaign negatively based on fear.
Bloody hypocrite, did he not hear or himself participate in the Tory "baby-eaters, cuts and poverty" scare stories the Lib Dems put about on a daily basis, including from the Leader of the party who presumably was still harbouring hopes of getting back into bed with Cameron et al in Coalition V2.0?
Or is that guff not "fear" because it was, in their leftie minds, actually true?
Thanks for that - bit of a reality check. Just laid all the short prices on him becoming leader.
What is it with those who have nothing to do with the party, who seem to think they have some insight into what is good for the party. If we had taken any notice of the advice, analysis, predictions from what appears to be our crystal ball gazing betters, we wouldn't be sitting on 13 % of the vote and a second position across a large tranche of the country.
We would have reached UKIP peak every week since 2010, UKIP peak at every set of elections, UKIP peak at every smear, in fact we would have hung up our kippers for good probably a 1000 times if anybody in UKIP had taken the opinions seriously.
The NEC of UKIP were right to reject NIgel's resignation, if the telephone calls, texts and emails they have had with activists and branches is sayiong anything close to that in my small area of UKIP, appalled at the decision of Nigel to stand down, then they had no choice but to try and convince him to reconsider. The party does not look stupid at all apart from those who wish it ill, it would have been stupidity on a monumental scale to allow the most repected and loyal politician in this country to leave politics.
Mike give it a rest on UKIP, you have been wrpong about them for years, and I have no doubt you will be wrong again, I( would have thought you would be mopre concerned with worrying about the future of the LibDems, now they really have reached LibDem peak.
NIgel Farage should not have stood down, he had no reason to stand down, the membership support him to the hilt, and if we appear flaky, then you already think that anyway, so what's changed.
Every day is apparently a disaster for UKIP. Yet, somehow the party won 4m votes, and gained another 175 councillors.
4 million votes and 1 seat is a disaster compared to what we were being told UKIP would get.
As the new Lib Dems protest party they got a rather poor return.
Baroness Stowell listed as a full member of the Cabinet and then listed again as a Minister not officially in the Cabinet but still attending Cabinet meetings.
Have standards now fallen so much that literally nobody does a sense check for even one minute on any data / information they prepare to check that it's actually correct?
Just reading comments from Tim Farron on the BBC news website. He says the Tories fought their election campaign negatively based on fear.
Bloody hypocrite, did he not hear or himself participate in the Tory "baby-eaters, cuts and poverty" scare stories the Lib Dems put about on a daily basis, including from the Leader of the party who presumably was still harbouring hopes of getting back into bed with Cameron et al in Coalition V2.0?
Or is that guff not "fear" because it was, in their leftie minds, actually true?
Yes, the Conservative campaign was negative. And, yes, it worked. There's nothing wrong with negative campaigning if it taps into genuine public fears. The idea of a minority Labour government held to ransom by the SNP really worried Middle England and Wales.
Claims that the Tories would destroy the NHS are a good example of negative campaigning that failed, because they weren't plausible.
The losing SLAB/SLID candidates still seem to be in a state of shock, I think many of them were expecting some swingback and extensive tactical voting to save them, just shows you shouldn't believe everything you read in the MSM !! - One of the losing SLAB candidates was in the Scotsman today:
The sense of entitlement oozes from every work Kenny Young says is just beyond belief. I hope this sort of approach typifies Labour for the next year. It will ensure their utter demise in 2016. With the infighting, the clamour for the top list spot, the back-stabbing and the smearing, sticking with this failed attitude and sense of entitlement could take them well below 20% and that means in at least three regions they won't even get a List MSP.
As SLAB's 15 Holyrood constituency MSPs can no doubt easily predict their fate, the infighting for regional list spots is going to be brutal, particularly if Murphy and some of the SLAB losers want to get into the mix, I think I read somewhere that Blair McDougall has aspirations as well. I would agree that stripping out the tactical voters SLAB's core support level is heading to around the low 20s.
The other battle which is no doubt underway is the fight for H of L seats, no doubt the MSM will soon start whinging about the Scottish invasion of the H of L.
If Murphy does survive (and gets No 1 on glasgow) and McDougal gets on the ticket, No 1 on Mid Scotland and Fife? Kezia will be No 1 in Edinburgh and Marra No 1 in Dundee, I expect).
Those are the only four that can REALLY be sure of getting in.
You're over-estimating Labour core support.
Their list vote in 2011 was 26.31%
When I say low 20's that's where the constituency vote is headed. I'd agree that the regional list vote could indeed drop below 20%, unfortunately for SLAB the regional split on their vote could be quiet brutal to their chances under the AMS system. I don't think SLAB SLID and SCUP have focused on how painful Holyrood 2016 get as they get caught in a SNP, Greens and UKIP pincer movement for regional seats.
What is it with those who have nothing to do with the party, who seem to think they have some insight into what is good for the party. If we had taken any notice of the advice, analysis, predictions from what appears to be our crystal ball gazing betters, we wouldn't be sitting on 13 % of the vote and a second position across a large tranche of the country.
We would have reached UKIP peak every week since 2010, UKIP peak at every set of elections, UKIP peak at every smear, in fact we would have hung up our kippers for good probably a 1000 times if anybody in UKIP had taken the opinions seriously.
The NEC of UKIP were right to reject NIgel's resignation, if the telephone calls, texts and emails they have had with activists and branches is sayiong anything close to that in my small area of UKIP, appalled at the decision of Nigel to stand down, then they had no choice but to try and convince him to reconsider. The party does not look stupid at all apart from those who wish it ill, it would have been stupidity on a monumental scale to allow the most repected and loyal politician in this country to leave politics.
Mike give it a rest on UKIP, you have been wrpong about them for years, and I have no doubt you will be wrong again, I( would have thought you would be mopre concerned with worrying about the future of the LibDems, now they really have reached LibDem peak.
NIgel Farage should not have stood down, he had no reason to stand down, the membership support him to the hilt, and if we appear flaky, then you already think that anyway, so what's changed.
Every day is apparently a disaster for UKIP. Yet, somehow the party won 4m votes, and gained another 175 councillors.
4 million votes and 1 seat is a disaster compared to what we were being told UKIP would get.
As the new Lib Dems protest party they got a rather poor return.
I thought they'd win 4 seats. But, I always thought 11-13% was the likely vote share. Nobody goes from being a fringe party to forming the government in one election.
It's clear that Cameron is trying to do three things with his reshuffle:
(1) Continue the modernisation pitch, by promoting strong female and ethnic minority Conservative talent and thus diversifying the look and feel of his government (2) Bring the Right on board (3) Cement George Osborne's position
So far, he seems to have done a pretty good job on all three counts.
Baroness Stowell listed as a full member of the Cabinet and then listed again as a Minister not officially in the Cabinet but still attending Cabinet meetings.
Have standards now fallen so much that literally nobody does a sense check for even one minute on any data / information they prepare to check that it's actually correct?
Yes, the Conservative campaign was negative. And, yes, it worked. There's nothing wrong with negative campaigning if it taps into genuine public fears. The idea of a minority Labour government held to ransom by the SNP really worried Middle England and Wales.
Claims that the Tories would destroy the NHS are a good example of negative campaigning that failed, because they weren't plausible.
The shrieks of sanctimonous anguish from the LibDems are particularly hilarious. This is the party which tried to decapitate Michael Howard in what can only be described as an act of personal malice, and which based nearly all of its electoral success in the last four elections on the pithy slogan 'Only the LibDems can keep out the Tories here' (or in some cases 'keep out Labour here').
This time round they wanted 'differentiation'. Well, they got it.
One thing that may have puzzled voters in Middle England is the left's obsession with "food banks". Many people will have been asking themselves why people need to go to food banks when they receive relatively generous welfare benefit payments.
I'm fine if people aren't experts on food banks, after all most people have plenty of their own worries to deal with. But food banks are used by people who have had their benefits sanctioned. I think you actually have to prove it in many cases.
It's clear that Cameron is trying to do three things with his reshuffle:
(1) Continue the modernisation pitch, by promoting strong female and ethnic minority Conservative talent and thus diversifying the look and feel of his government (2) Bring the Right on board (3) Cement George Osborne's position
So far, he seems to have done a pretty good job on all three counts.
If (4) Sack Grant Shapps is on the list he gets even more credit.
Yes, the Conservative campaign was negative. And, yes, it worked. There's nothing wrong with negative campaigning if it taps into genuine public fears. The idea of a minority Labour government held to ransom by the SNP really worried Middle England and Wales.
Claims that the Tories would destroy the NHS are a good example of negative campaigning that failed, because they weren't plausible.
The shrieks of sanctimonous anguish from the LibDems are particularly hilarious. This is the party which tried to decapitate Michael Howard in what can only be described as an act of personal malice, and which based nearly all of its electoral success in the last four elections on the pithy slogan 'Only the LibDems can keep out the Tories here' (or in some cases 'keep out Labour here').
This time round they wanted 'differentiation'. Well, they got it.
They gained their seats dishonourably, via anti-politics, and then [mostly] lost them with honour, via the coalition.
Yes, the Conservative campaign was negative. And, yes, it worked. There's nothing wrong with negative campaigning if it taps into genuine public fears. The idea of a minority Labour government held to ransom by the SNP really worried Middle England and Wales.
Claims that the Tories would destroy the NHS are a good example of negative campaigning that failed, because they weren't plausible.
The shrieks of sanctimonous anguish from the LibDems are particularly hilarious. This is the party which tried to decapitate Michael Howard in what can only be described as an act of personal malice, and which based nearly all of its electoral success in the last four elections on the pithy slogan 'Only the LibDems can keep out the Tories here' (or in some cases 'keep out Labour here').
This time round they wanted 'differentiation'. Well, they got it.
Howard fought a revolting election campaign and it's only a pity the Lib Dems didn't win the seat. Do you think Howard should have been returned uncontested?
David Miliband has shown a lack of class. He has said what everyone else is now saying, but he would have gained much more respect if he had simply said that he was proud of what his brother had tried to achieve in the face of the severest personal attacks and that he was sorry that he had not succeeded, and simply left it at that.
Correct. One does get the impression there might not be much love lost there.
I'm sure one day, as brothers, they will reconcile. But it might take a few more years.
36 of the SNP's 56 seats were won with more than 50% of the vote Biggest win - Dundee East 61.91% (I got on this at 2/5) Smallest vote share - Edinburgh South 33.79% Smallest vote share to win a seat - Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk 36.6% (They lost Orkeny & Shetland and Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale with a higher percentage of the vote. The SNP got less than 40% in only 5 seats.
The Cybernits are still in meltdown mode trying to rejig the numbers every which way, to try and cling on to some form of success:
I think the fact that they were able to only hold onto 3 seats by relying on tactical voting is a sad indictment of how low the 3 "mainstream parties" have fallen.
Jill Stephenson and the rest of the cyberunionist thugs are just hilarious.
Most of them are doing the "multiply the turnout by the vote share" to claim SNP not legitimate representatives due to only getting 35.5% of the vote.
Quite ironic when the Tory Government only got 36.8% and that turns into 24.3%.
I feel sorry for the poor souls who try and point out facts like this to Jill, they just get shouted down, she certainly deserves the title of the Cybernat Slayer.
Shouldn't a slayer occasionally, like, slay. Or at least win the odd battle/argument.
The title Dockside Hooker for the Cybernats might be more accurate.
My wife had the misfortune of stumbling into this twitter feed and was met by a tsunami of derision by the eclectic mix of Tories, Loyalists, UKippers and right wing MSM who seem to inhabit this twitter feed. After a few days she just gave up.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
PB.com has changed IT platform at least three times. I'd say the long term posters on here are comfortably nudging 100k posts.
I stand corrected !!
When I was first posting it was a text only system, then it was Disqus and everyone freaked out, then we started on Vanilla. At one point we had a Like Button, it was rubbish
Howard fought a revolting election campaign and it's only a pity the Lib Dems didn't win the seat. Do you think Howard should have been returned uncontested?
No, I believe that political parties are free to campaign as they feel best. My point is that it's a bit rich of the LibDems, of all parties, to accuse anyone else of negative campaigning.
Cobblers to your bollocks. ! Cameron has plainly said we do not want to be part of any ever closer union. 'Not want'. Given the Euro and Eurozone, that is the way the EU is going. We have to negotiate around that. 'That' being the non single market - the closer financial and political union. Being in the EEA is one option, but really as far as the single market and movement of labour it will not make much difference to us compared to now. But you come close to grasping the point. The EU is there even without us. A changing EU. It is not going to go away. Even the Euro, much to my amazement is not going to go away. We need renegotiation, we need a referendum. Inevitably there will be much hysteria on the way. Clearly it has started now.
So you accept what I said then. The Single Market is only one small part of the EU and we would be far better off out and just part of the EEA trading bloc. Only Europhiles like yourself are still trying to convince us there would be no difference between the two.
And as to negotiation it was always going to be and always will be bollocks. Right now Cameron is going on about repealing the HRA - which would mean leaving the ECHR. Which is funny given that the EU as a whole is currently in the latter stages of joining the ECHR in its own right which will just bring us straight back to where we are now.
Farage the best man for the job and has got the job
Great news for Ukip, bad news for everyone else.. Hence the anger from other party followers
Happy Monday!
I don't see any anger, more incredulity and laughter. In an "Ed is Crap" kind of way.
We PB Tories kept saying "Ed is Crap" - because he was. In the same way Farage is past his Best Before date. If UKIP had any credibility then "thank you for your service" would have been the reaction to Farage's reaction.
I agree with Richard, BOO is supposed to be bigger than one man. Is there nobody else that could have taken on the job? Just makes him and the party a joke. Something to point and laugh at now that Ed is Crap has gone.
Farage staying as UKIP leader is a disaster for BOO. Can anyone really imagine what a BOO campaign will look like? The other disaster for UKIP is that with Farage they remain tarred with the racist brush. Its Farage which has taken them down that route. They may be happy with it; well fine.
Its funny really - I always say that changing leader is fraught with danger, it requires careful thought. UKIP have changed their leader, without any careful thought at all - to the same leader and hey presto they have set off on a totally wrong track.
OK totally anecdotal from North lancs/South Cumbria. On the rare occasions I drift into political discussions with people I mix with, DC is OK, but a bit too wet, Ed was, well nice but useless, but always Farage was met with a torrent of abuse, he is very divisive, and toxic to many voters. Promising to resign, and then reneging, consigns him to lying politician status.
Just out of interest, are any of you keen to see some maps of the result? I'm planning to do a Green v UKIP and Con v Lab ones in a bit (w/ gradient , e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20, 30%+ lead each a different colour). Does anyone have any special requests/ suggestions?
One thing that may have puzzled voters in Middle England is the left's obsession with "food banks". Many people will have been asking themselves why people need to go to food banks when they receive relatively generous welfare benefit payments.
Generally because of sanctions which operate on a 'gotcha' system. Miss a signing on appointment because you had a job interview? Goodbye benefits. Brother dies and funeral is on danger day as job centre appointment? Too bad.
It's clear that Cameron is trying to do three things with his reshuffle:
(1) Continue the modernisation pitch, by promoting strong female and ethnic minority Conservative talent and thus diversifying the look and feel of his government (2) Bring the Right on board (3) Cement George Osborne's position
So far, he seems to have done a pretty good job on all three counts.
And in the process drive fairness and social awareness ultimately taking any space a labour party will want to claim as its own. As long as DC takes immediate control of the agenda by the time labour have anything like a credible story they will be too late. Indeed the internal discord in labour between left and right could well be leading to a comprehensive split and the dissolution of labour as we know it
Just out of interest, are any of you keen to see some maps of the result? I'm planning to do a Green v UKIP and Con v Lab ones (w/ gradient , e.g. 5, 10, 15, 20, 30%+ each a different colour). Does anyone have any special requests?
Green seats where the Tories beat Labour by less than the Greens got, same for a UKIP either way. In other words, in which seats were the two smaller parties decisive
Farage the best man for the job and has got the job
Great news for Ukip, bad news for everyone else.. Hence the anger from other party followers
Happy Monday!
I don't see any anger, more incredulity and laughter. In an "Ed is Crap" kind of way.
We PB Tories kept saying "Ed is Crap" - because he was. In the same way Farage is past his Best Before date. If UKIP had any credibility then "thank you for your service" would have been the reaction to Farage's reaction.
I agree with Richard, BOO is supposed to be bigger than one man. Is there nobody else that could have taken on the job? Just makes him and the party a joke. Something to point and laugh at now that Ed is Crap has gone.
Farage staying as UKIP leader is a disaster for BOO. Can anyone really imagine what a BOO campaign will look like? The other disaster for UKIP is that with Farage they remain tarred with the racist brush. Its Farage which has taken them down that route. They may be happy with it; well fine.
Its funny really - I always say that changing leader is fraught with danger, it requires careful thought. UKIP have changed their leader, without any careful thought at all - to the same leader and hey presto they have set off on a totally wrong track.
OK totally anecdotal from North lancs/South Cumbria. On the rare occasions I drift into political discussions with people I mix with, DC is OK, but a bit too wet, Ed was, well nice but useless, but always Farage was met with a torrent of abuse, he is very divisive, and toxic to many voters. Promising to resign, and then reneging, consigns him to lying politician status.
Equally anecdotally, most people I mix with admire Farage, but were worried UKIP would split the right wing vote, and let Labour in.
When I say low 20's that's where the constituency vote is headed. I'd agree that the regional list vote could indeed drop below 20%, unfortunately for SLAB the regional split on their vote could be quiet brutal to their chances under the AMS system. I don't think SLAB SLID and SCUP have focused on how painful Holyrood 2016 get as they get caught in a SNP, Greens and UKIP pincer movement for regional seats.
From memory, the per seat requirement on the Scottish List works out about 8.5% per seat.
If SLAB score 15% on the List nationally then in the HIghlands and North East they could be below 8.5% and get no seats.. They will struggle to get three seats in Glasgow, West and Central, two is almost certain. They will get 1 seat in Lothian, Mid and Fife, Lothian, South.
One thing that may have puzzled voters in Middle England is the left's obsession with "food banks". Many people will have been asking themselves why people need to go to food banks when they receive relatively generous welfare benefit payments.
I would like to see an objective non-partisan analysis of food banks, their growth and who uses them. And why.
I recognise the Left's answer is "welfare cuts", but I think there might be more to it than that.
@ShippersUnbound: Explaining Shapps move. Senior Tory: "The campaign was run by Crosby, Textor & Gilbert reporting to Cameron & Osborne, paid for by Feldman."
Just reading comments from Tim Farron on the BBC news website. He says the Tories fought their election campaign negatively based on fear.
Bloody hypocrite, did he not hear or himself participate in the Tory "baby-eaters, cuts and poverty" scare stories the Lib Dems put about on a daily basis, including from the Leader of the party who presumably was still harbouring hopes of getting back into bed with Cameron et al in Coalition V2.0?
Or is that guff not "fear" because it was, in their leftie minds, actually true?
The Lib Dems aren't your little friends any more, you have no friends now, you are all alone in the splendid isolation of majority government.
Calum Many Scottish Tories will vote Labour at Holyrood with their first vote and Tory on the list to try and stop Sturgeon getting another majority and potentially another referendum. At Holyrood the battle will be Labour v SNP, not Labour v Tory as it was at Westminster, outside of the more Tory borders
One thing that may have puzzled voters in Middle England is the left's obsession with "food banks". Many people will have been asking themselves why people need to go to food banks when they receive relatively generous welfare benefit payments.
I would like to see an objective non-partisan analysis of food banks, their growth and who uses them. And why.
I recognise the Left's answer is "welfare cuts", but I think there might be more to it than that.
I have to agree, I once went to a place in Dittisham,the most unlikely place ever to see a food bank, but there it was, albeit with just one tin of beans. I think the locals thought it their duty to set up a food bank, so they did.
Of Labour's chosen 106 targets, 35 swung to Labour, 71 swung away from the party. Of the 35 that swung to them, 22 were swings from Con to Lab, 13 were swings from LD to Lab. Of the 35, 8 were in London.
It won't cost UKIP any existing votes because his supporters love him, he's the best man to lead UKIP into the EU referendum and without him UKIP would be screwed.
It's clear that Cameron is trying to do three things with his reshuffle:
(1) Continue the modernisation pitch, by promoting strong female and ethnic minority Conservative talent and thus diversifying the look and feel of his government (2) Bring the Right on board (3) Cement George Osborne's position
So far, he seems to have done a pretty good job on all three counts.
And in the process drive fairness and social awareness ultimately taking any space a labour party will want to claim as its own. As long as DC takes immediate control of the agenda by the time labour have anything like a credible story they will be too late. Indeed the internal discord in labour between left and right could well be leading to a comprehensive split and the dissolution of labour as we know it
Yes. The biggest problem the Conservatives have is that they are seen as heartless and uncaring about social injustice. T
The good news is that the parliamentary party recognises this, and how their opponents use it to damage them.
If Cameron can (at least) neutralise this caricature of them by the Left amongst most floating voters (a big if) then a similar victory in GE2020 is perfectly possible.
I decided that as much as I had earned my holidays. As much as I wanted to spend the summer fishing, walking, and of course, in the European Parliament where all hell is currently breaking loose – that I owed it to the party that got me here.
He talks as if being in the limelight is some kind of chore for him.
PhilipThompson The Out campaign, like the Yes campaign, are both populist campaigns driven by working and lower middle class voters which start behind in the polls and then get closer come referendum day. The AV referendum was a campaign driven by the metropolitan elite and the liberal upper middle classes which started ahead in the polls and managed to lose, a totally different story
Farage and Carswell are metropolitan not working or lower class. Might have had a bigger chance of being viewed as working class if Farage went.
AV started ahead and still lost. EU Out is starting behind and planning on loss it seems. That isn't a recipe for success.
Polling on EU membership fluctuates. If the UK is compelled by the EU to accept thousands of asylum seekers, who would bet on In retaining a narrow lead?
I agree. But it's not going to happen. We have an opt out on asylum and it'd be suicide for Cameron not to use it.
If for some reason he does something silly then of course all bets are off.
Actually I don't think in this case we do. The current directive covering asylum is 604/2013. This sets out the process for dealing with asylum seekers and who should take responsibility for them. If you go and look at the regulation you will find:
"(41) In accordance with Article 3 and Article 4a(1) of Protocol No 21 on the position of the United Kingdom and Ireland in respect of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, annexed to the TEU and to the TFEU, those Member States have notified their wish to take part in the adoption and application of this Regulation."
Calum Many Scottish Tories will vote Labour at Holyrood with their first vote and Tory on the list to try and stop Sturgeon getting another majority and potentially another referendum. At Holyrood the battle will be Labour v SNP, not Labour v Tory as it was at Westminster, outside of the more Tory borders
Calum will have his view, but surely it would make far, far more sense for Tories to vote for real Blue Tories in Holyrood with its partly proportional voting system. You're more likely to get a real Tory there than voting Tory in the Westminster election. And there was not much tactical voting in the latter this year.
Another reason to ca canny is what SLAB might do. It might even declare UDI from London and become a fully fledged pro-indy party in the Keir Hardie tradition.
Comments
The mistake was saying he'd resign if he didn't win in the first place. But once said, he should honour his pledges.
'He's an absolute gift to Labour.'
In terms of showing them how you win an election?
I am not a Kipper, don't really know Farage except through the distorting filter of PB, but c'mon. The man did what he said.
And whether people who dislike UKIP and Farage disapprove is neither here nor there - you'd probably never be target voters for the party so why should they care what you think?
Anyway, he did resign, but they didn't accept it
Everyone's happy!
Trying not to drink Monday to Thursday but it's a really nice evening and I'm weakening!
Calum, matched it for your Justgiving site too.
I notice that both her and the Wings chap have just passed the 105,000 tweets mark, makes even the most prolific posters on this site look like a bunch of lightweights.
The other disaster for UKIP is that with Farage they remain tarred with the racist brush. Its Farage which has taken them down that route. They may be happy with it; well fine.
Its funny really - I always say that changing leader is fraught with danger, it requires careful thought. UKIP have changed their leader, without any careful thought at all - to the same leader and hey presto they have set off on a totally wrong track.
I mostly back horses these days.
And of course the amount of regulation and law that actually applies to EFTA compared to the the amount that applies solely to the EU is very small.
Either way I'm amused that 12%, no new seats and only one of the defectors is considered a win now. Before the election we were being told that the vote share would at least be high teens and there would be a number of seats. Looks like both expectations were undershot. Rather than rewriting history to make that look like a success a reflection on what went wrong seems more credible if the party was intending to be serious.
The other battle which is no doubt underway is the fight for H of L seats, no doubt the MSM will soon start whinging about the Scottish invasion of the H of L.
MalcG Agree entirely
Those are the only four that can REALLY be sure of getting in.
You're over-estimating Labour core support.
Their list vote in 2011 was 26.31%
Competent government has been. The attraction to nationalism has built from that. If people believe and have faith in politicians to deliver competent government they are more readily willing to believe other policies. the growth in support for Independence is driven by the SNP getting things right at Holyrood.
If you have two goups claiming Independence will be better./worse for Scotland because "reasons", you tend to believe the ones who deliver well and build a new Forth Bridge on time and under budget and a new billion pound hospital on time and under budget, not the shower who were responsible for Edinburgh Trams and the Scottish Parliament building.
Cameron has plainly said we do not want to be part of any ever closer union. 'Not want'. Given the Euro and Eurozone, that is the way the EU is going. We have to negotiate around that. 'That' being the non single market - the closer financial and political union.
Being in the EEA is one option, but really as far as the single market and movement of labour it will not make much difference to us compared to now.
But you come close to grasping the point. The EU is there even without us. A changing EU. It is not going to go away. Even the Euro, much to my amazement is not going to go away. We need renegotiation, we need a referendum.
Inevitably there will be much hysteria on the way. Clearly it has started now.
On checking back, it was Unionist up to 1955 (or rather the rough equivalent was). But I hadn't known that Tom Wintringham the guerrilla warfare and Home Guard chappie, came close to winning a wartime by election against a Unionist.
2011 Salmond won a healthy majority. 69/129 seats on nearly half the vote.
2014 Farage won less than a third. 24/73 seats on just over a quarter of the vote.
To equate these as being the same is ignorance. You can say end of conversation I'd you want but you're denying reality that the two scenarios simply are not comparable.
As I said down thread he thought he was a certainty to win. After his loss he said he was a man of his word. Does resigning for 4 days mean he has kept his word?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2010/09/ed_miliband_0
Hague was right to keep us out of the euro. Mission accomplished. That isn't the same as BOO.
Both desperately shafted under FPTP.
If for some reason he does something silly then of course all bets are off.
Bloody hypocrite, did he not hear or himself participate in the Tory "baby-eaters, cuts and poverty" scare stories the Lib Dems put about on a daily basis, including from the Leader of the party who presumably was still harbouring hopes of getting back into bed with Cameron et al in Coalition V2.0?
Or is that guff not "fear" because it was, in their leftie minds, actually true?
Baroness Stowell listed as a full member of the Cabinet and then listed again as a Minister not officially in the Cabinet but still attending Cabinet meetings.
Have standards now fallen so much that literally nobody does a sense check for even one minute on any data / information they prepare to check that it's actually correct?
Not even No 10 Downing Street?
Totally and utterly hopeless.
https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers
It'd seem to be free money.
As the new Lib Dems protest party they got a rather poor return.
Claims that the Tories would destroy the NHS are a good example of negative campaigning that failed, because they weren't plausible.
(1) Continue the modernisation pitch, by promoting strong female and ethnic minority Conservative talent and thus diversifying the look and feel of his government
(2) Bring the Right on board
(3) Cement George Osborne's position
So far, he seems to have done a pretty good job on all three counts.
This time round they wanted 'differentiation'. Well, they got it.
After seeing David Millibands comments on the campaign and having a brother it really brings home to me the human tragedy of Ed's ambition.
David Cameron @David_Cameron 1m1 minute ago
Grant Shapps is the Minister of State at the Department for International Development.
Demotion, no?
I remember when you used to say you would tell it like it was rather than spin.
I'm sure one day, as brothers, they will reconcile. But it might take a few more years.
At one point we had a Like Button, it was rubbish
And as to negotiation it was always going to be and always will be bollocks. Right now Cameron is going on about repealing the HRA - which would mean leaving the ECHR. Which is funny given that the EU as a whole is currently in the latter stages of joining the ECHR in its own right which will just bring us straight back to where we are now.
On the rare occasions I drift into political discussions with people I mix with, DC is OK, but a bit too wet, Ed was, well nice but useless, but always Farage was met with a torrent of abuse, he is very divisive, and toxic to many voters.
Promising to resign, and then reneging, consigns him to lying politician status.
(They will be this quality: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/2015UKElectionMap.svg)
In other words, in which seats were the two smaller parties decisive
If SLAB score 15% on the List nationally then in the HIghlands and North East they could be below 8.5% and get no seats.. They will struggle to get three seats in Glasgow, West and Central, two is almost certain. They will get 1 seat in Lothian, Mid and Fife, Lothian, South.
I'm making that 10 seats as the floor. From 33.
I recognise the Left's answer is "welfare cuts", but I think there might be more to it than that.
I think the locals thought it their duty to set up a food bank, so they did.
Of Labour's chosen 106 targets, 35 swung to Labour, 71 swung away from the party. Of the 35 that swung to them, 22 were swings from Con to Lab, 13 were swings from LD to Lab. Of the 35, 8 were in London.
It won't cost UKIP any existing votes because his supporters love him, he's the best man to lead UKIP into the EU referendum and without him UKIP would be screwed.
The good news is that the parliamentary party recognises this, and how their opponents use it to damage them.
If Cameron can (at least) neutralise this caricature of them by the Left amongst most floating voters (a big if) then a similar victory in GE2020 is perfectly possible.
"(41) In accordance with Article 3 and Article 4a(1) of Protocol No 21 on the position of the United Kingdom and Ireland in respect of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, annexed to the TEU and to the TFEU, those Member States have notified their wish to take part in the adoption and application of this Regulation."
Denmark has an opt out. We do not.
Another reason to ca canny is what SLAB might do. It might even declare UDI from London and become a fully fledged pro-indy party in the Keir Hardie tradition.