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Six years is a long time in politics!
Posted in Lib Dems | No Comments
ICM finds support for UKIP down to ZERO percent
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
What are the implications of the collapse of the anti-EU party?
On June 10th 2004 in the last European elections, UKIP received 2.7 million votes and gained twelve seats in the European Parliament. Their national vote share of just under 17% put them in third place ahead of the Lib Dems and all the talk was of the party doing terrible damage to Michael Howard Conservatives in the ensuing general election.
When that vote came, just eleven months later, the party received a paltry 618,000 votes which amounted to less than 2.4% of the national vote. It did not win any Westminster seats although it’s argued that the performances of their candidates in key marginals cost the Tories a clutch of seats.
Earlier in 2007 the party was making the headlines again when two former Conservative Lords defected. Lords Pearson and Willoughby de Broke said they felt Cameron’s Conservative Party was not producing policy to support their beliefs.
Today, Julian Glover in the Guardian reports that in the latest poll published this morning UKIP did not register at all. Not a single respondent said the party would be their choice.
UKIP, like other smaller parties, is suffering from the increasing polarisation of big party politics. The question is whether this will have an impact on the number of seats changing hands and if so how should punters factor this in? For the UKIP element does not figure in the standard seat predictors except in so far as a part of the decline in support might mean switching to other parties.
We saw in the ICM marginals poll on the weekend that Gord called off the election that the Tories were doing well in the key seats. In that survey five people said they would vote UKIP.
All this is why in my commons seat spread betting I’m now assuming that the Tories will do a little better than the Baxter and Wells seat predictors suggest. When you have £100 a seat positions the odd five gains or losses either way can make a big difference.
Meanwhile on the Betfair general election “most seats” market the Tories have moved into the favourite slot once again.
Mike Smithson
That was three weeks after Gordon election U-turn and it did look as though the other parties were marginalised.
It turned out to be a pretty good prediction given UKIP's failure even to get close to winning a seat at GE2010.
GE2015 could be very different
Then we had Osborne's 2012 budget which totally changed the narrative. It was that, I'd argue, when the Tories ceased to appear competent thus paving the way for Farage
Osbo simply didn't prepare and handled the 45% tax rate appallingly.
There have been 9 polls since the budget. UKIP average = 13%; and 30 polls since the Eastleigh by-election with a UKIP average of 12.5%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
LOL - title race may be over but relegation battle is going to be incredibly exciting - 9 teams in serious danger!
Don't panic!
The Lib Dems would be placed in an impossible situation.
Depeche Mode are on the Jonathan Ross show this evening.
The most interesting event of the day for me was Animal Kingdom's brilliant win in the Dubai World Cup. He's due to come to Ascot for the Queen Anne and it's a huge regret he wasn't here to take on Frankel. As it is, he looks a real prospect.
Then we had Shea Shea in the Sprint. I only wish his connections would come to Ascot to take on Black Caviar in the KIng's Stand.
This is why Ascot in June is so much better than Cheltenham in March - it's a fascinating global meeting, not just a competition between Messrs Henderson, Mullins and Nicholls.
It's not over keen on Democracy either.
Nonsense, Mr. Eagles. You are talking about a party that proposed a measure, that was contained in their own manifesto, to Parliament, voted for it and then voted against it being implemented. For a party with such high principles it will be no problem leaping into coalition with Labour.
Ah I see, OK I'll stream it live on my lap top then.
If the Conservatives win more votes than Labour, then the question will be whether the Coalition of 2010-15 will be renewed. There will be some claim that the electorate has vindicated the Coalition and therefore the question will be whether Cameron/Clegg can strike a second deal for 2015-20 on what basis.
As a Lib Dem member and supporter, I think there is a level of Parliamentary representation at which the Party will be able to get involved with the next Government, arithmetic notwithstanding. A parliamentary party of say 35-40 MPs would be viable enough, in my view, to enter into Coalition negotiations with a Conservative grouping of say 290-300 MPs.
Less than 30 seats and my guess is the party will want to crawl away and lick its wounds in opposition. In any case, as someone said earlier, the likelihood of a Parliament with NOM decreases as the LD MP total decreases.
None of this will matter if Labour marches through the Conservative marginals and into power as 1997 showed or is within a fingertip (say less than 10 seats) of power.
The more interesting question is whether, IF they win a wafer-thin majority (say less than 10 seats), the Conservatives will seek a second Coalition to provide Parliamentary security and a defence against by-election defeats and defections.
British Summer Time begins this weekend, which means for the next seven months, the clocks on your cookers and microwaves will be wrong.
Dave Gahan still sounds just like a Basildon boy!
Blimey has Martin Gore had a bit of work???
Enjoy The Silence is one of my fav songs, I only have the Violator album mind you
Stodge - I guess the other problem for the Lib Dems might be, if the Tories get the most votes but Labour gets the most seats.
Sam if you wanna laugh, have a look at my CD collection - partial, only got Depeche Mode/Vince Clarke/Alan Wilder stuff listed at the moment -
http://www.discogs.com/collection?user=Sunil_&sort=artist,asc
The Lib Dems would be placed in an impossible situation.
No they wouldn't; they would plump for labour before you could say millipede.
If 2015 produces for example Labour 295 seats, Conservatives 285 seats, Liberal Democrats 37, Nick should still talk to David Cameron first as the leader of the party with the largest number of votes and presumably if that were to fail, the option to talk to Labour would exist if Labour wanted it.
I can't imagine that IF talks with the Liberal Democrats failed, Cameron would carry on. It would essentially be February 1974 Mark 2.
You are very loyal to the bands you like! It's like a rock family tree!
Quite liked that new DM song
Seeing as its nighthawks not politics, has there ever been an openly gay song sung explicitly to someone of the same sex that couldn't be interpreted as Hetero?
Racking my brains I can think of only Sunny by Morrissey...George Michaels Older album was all about, and dedicated to, his boyfriend, but none of the songs could be exclusively male to make iirc
Don't try and dress it up as some point of high principle.
You could try asking yourself why he did what we did on that May afternoon instead of throwing around ludicrous assertions.
Chose the Tories - why are they different / finally alienate all those lefties who gave them the benefit of the doubt after 2010
Chose Labour - perfidious/inconsistent (how can they switch on economic policy so quickly?) risks alienating the Orange Bookers who have stuck with them through the Coalition. Only interested in power for themselves.
Chose neither - unfit for government / can't make serious decisions in the interest of the country.
The LibDems want the best deal that they can get for themselves. It would be idiotic for them not to negotiate with the two bidders to maximise the proportion of their manifesto that gets implemented / maximise their role in government. The "talk to the party with the most votes first" is a good answer for the media - it sounds good, but is basically meaningless.
In May 2010, Cameron wanted power, with a secure majority (and, possibly but unproven, to give himself a bulwark against his right flank).
That said, I would have thought that if there's a significant drop in LibDem seat numbers, they might prefer a time in opposition, if necessary giving the largest party confidence and supply. If the current coalition has lost a fair number of seats, they'd be unlikely to carry on regardless. This was IMO the real reason why Labour only made a half-hearted attempt to cobble a coalition together after 2010 - the bottom line was that we'd lost and the electorate (rightly, I'm afraid) felt we needed a period out of office to recharge batteries. That already seems true of both Government parties today.
The real problem comes with a much reduced party and as I said, at 30 MPs or fewer, I suspect the Party couldn't see itself as a player in a formal Coalition and we'd be looking at some form of "Supply & Confidence" basis at best though I strongly suspect that if either Labour or Conservatives were within 15 seats of a majority, they'd either go it alone or look for allies elsewhere.
Can't think of one directly, but I always like to point out that Never Let Me Down Again by the Mode (1987) has the lyric
"Promises me I'm as safe as houses/As long as I remember who's wearing the trousers"
Nikita by Elton John is also always a laugh if you remember that Nikita is a bloke's name in Russia!
The interesting scenario would be IF in 2015, the Conservatives ruled out a second Coalition but a minority Labour Government with LD support was an option. Would Labour, having made only a small advance from a low base, feel "ready" to go back into Government ?
What Labour say in public about the possibility of co-operation flies in the face of what I suspect happens behind the scenes. Channels of communication exist between Labour and the LDs (they always have) and that seems to surprise some on here. The public rhetoric is one thing - the private words are probably much more conciliatory and pave the ground for the possibility of a more convivial post-election climate between the parties than existed in 2010.
Neither team has the name on the shirt, which is full of sponsors logos etc.
The leicester team is denoted by deep blue on the score box on the screen, but are in fact wearing white shirts with pale blue stripes.
The Northampton team are denoted as green in said box, but are wearing black shirts with green stripes.
- or it could be the other way round.
65 are Conservative held , 36 Labour , 20 Lib Dem , 3 Green and 2 others .
In my opinion, they've paid a price for going into coalition, but I wouldn't like to speculate on whether that price has proven, or will prove, worth paying. I can't say that I would have done differently in 2010 and I suspect power will prove as attractive in 2015. (I believe that the Liberal Democrats will do better than expected [i.e. a modest fall only] in 2015 and so this all helps.)
Surely, in a situation where it's their choice to make, the Lib Dems should go for the party that offers them most of their manifesto?
If they were looking to their electoral fortunes alone they should force a minority administration or grand coalition.
I wonder how many of the electorate will feel the same?
http://www.wahlrecht.de/news/2013/2013031501.html
The reason is that the top-up seats may be cheaper, so if you do well enough to get a list seat you may end up worse off.
Last night Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the all party home affairs committee, said the leak showed the Met should be stripped of its role in investigating the Mitchell case.
"Reach out and touch faith"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNd4eocq2K0
Not tbat happy - the video doesn't work in the US :-(
I seem to remember PB Tories were incredulous when I quoted that at the time.
Try this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNcPjPgbR5M
It sounds like a bad Bay City Rollers song.....
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/peterborough-police-smash-biggest-child-sex-1794787
http://www.lflus.com/
'Detectives fear those numbers could easily reach more than 100 in a case potentially bigger than the Rochdale grooming scandal.'
Another day another city and potentially even worse than before,if that's possible.
I don't think I'm going to reach the threshold somehow.
Nearly 900,000 people who were on incapacity benefit dropped their claim to the payments rather than undergo a tough medical test, latest government figures show."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9963012/900000-choose-to-come-off-sickness-benefit-ahead-of-tests.html
That means that, by 2020, the EU and UK will be so comprehensive screwed, that it will take the rest of this century to get back into balance.
2012/3 Welfare bill = £207 billion pa
Excessive Govt spending over a sensible level; = £200 billion pa.
Go figure, as they say in the US of A.