There's a danger Labour will now think UKIP aren't a threat to them.
Which would be a courageous move.
They are undoubtedly a threat, but the seeming UKIP assumption that disillusioned WWC Labour voters will just walk into their arms is also being tested to destruction. UKIP needs to offer more than it does to economically left-leaning social conservatives, and that is a big challenge for the party's leadership.
It is a big challenge for the party's leadership because UKIP remains a single-issue pressure group.
It has made no effort to date to try to become an actual political party. I suspect that might have been different if Nige had won his seat and not gone off and then come back in a sulk.
But he didn't and then he did and UKIP are stuck. Poor Douglas: like marrying the pretty girl who turns out to be a bunny-boiler.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Farage seems to have become very angry. This is not a good look in any politician. Fairly or unfairly the brand has become somewhat toxified and UKIP need someone who can detoxify it. Having 13% of the electorate who love you is no good if most of the rest hate you.
You make an undeniable point, I firmly believe in what ukip stands for, perhaps the messenger needs a fresh approach.
UKIP have the fight of their life coming up with the EU referendum. They need to bring their A game as a team, and if that means a change of captain on the way, it's better to do it now and build the team around the new man or woman ahead of the big match.
Farage is losing it and needs to be kicked out before he becomes a liability to the Leave side, a side that are much better for having the likes of Dan Hannan on board.
Away from Oldham the PM's ridiculous renegotiation posturing is unravelling. He'd hoped for an early referendum but that's not going to happen, no wonder he never wanted an EU vote he knows the ramifications.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
I think they need to get away from their angry old men image. There's never going to win being just the party of the marginalised. They need to become the national voice of moderate social conservatism - and appeal to both Tory and Labour voters accordingly.
The risk is they deflate further without Farage as it's his sheer force of personality that's got them this far - it almost happened in the 2010GE with Lord Rannoch - but he's also an obstacle to them taking it any further. I also think he's past his prime, and he's become paranoid and autocratic.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
1) UKIP in second place is a powerful GOTV motivator for the party in first place.
2) Tories are reluctant to tactically vote, but former LDs still do, and will be hard to get back.
3) A strong candidate with deep local roots is better than a parachuted favourite from head office
4) Kendallite politics is not dead in the Labour party and wins elections. Indeed by replacing a far left MP with a solid Labour Centrist the vote share goes up.
5) Postal voting is here to stay. I like putting my pencil on a paper in a booth but a lot of people like voting by post, and these are often returned early.
6) UKIP are not as popular as they think they are.
Interesting point 4 as that equates to the pathetic percentage of the party Kendall represents.
I think you missed 7) Corbyn politics is popular with significant number of Labour types.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
'Shock and awful' was a deliberate, and an awful, strategy.
People might well agree with some uncomfortable home truths that are anchored in reality, but you've got to be careful how you make such points and your motives must be seen to beyond reproach.
He could have made the point on overloading the NHS from overseas in a far more reasonable way.
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
Oh god, no.
Two important concepts in the electoral system are:
*) Everyone who can vote should have the ability to vote. People should not be disenfranchised because they are legally able to vote, but momentarily unable to do so (e.g. holidays, work)
*) The ballot and electoral process should be as free and fair as possible.
Sadly, electronic voting for elections fails utterly on the latter.
There's probably room for a socially conservative party with an leftish economic bent but Ukip haven't tried to fill that gap. I meet many tribal Labour voters with that view in the NW (Mrs Duffy-type) who remain in the Labour default system. As their social views tend to come out first, it probably gave Ukip the impression they were making big gains.
They could, but these voters tend to be older and more set in their ways and it will take an earthquake or a few elections to change.
McMahon was the perfect candidate for Labour to repel the Kippers. Moderate and "one of us".
But like most of PB, I expected a much closer race.
I would like to think there is room for a radically liberal, small state, fiscally dry party but I think I have to accept that not only is UKIP not that party, but it may be no party of that alignment would get sufficient support to make any impact.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
Indeed.
I think UKIP have a great opportunity this parliament.
1) I still maintain Corbyn will lead Labour's polling into the toilet
2) The Government will become unpopular as they always do.
UKIP could me placed to benefit from the above, but it won't happen under Farage
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
Indeed.
As long as appropriate security measures are applied then voting electronically should move seamlessly into the 21st century.
Not a great night for the Can't Be Arsed Party - but they still got a stonking swing.....turnout down from 59.6% to 40.3%, so one in five voters in the constituency moved to them.
Worried about postal votes though. With them being so easy to obtain, hard to see the heady heights of 80% of voters going for Can't Be Arsed ever again...
So even the utterly speculative accusations extend to no more than 15% of the 7,000 or so postal votes or just over 1,000 of the overall votes cast.
At the last general election, in their election literature targetted to supporters Labour and the Conservatives routinely asked them to register for postal votes as they knew they made them more likely to vote. There are no restrictions on who can be given a postal vote but you must be registered individually to vote.
What will have happened is that Labour helpers made a point of calling on households where it knew that postal votes had been issued to people it had down as its supporters, found that many people in a low turnout election had not bothered to use theirs, and managed to persuade a minority of such people to use them having pointed out that they could still be used on the day. That sort of legitimate GOTV operation is quite possible in a by-election with a large number of helpers to knock on doors on polling day and good canvassing records to inform the targeting. A substantial number of postal votes being cast on the day is thus to be expected in a by-election.
The accusation that electors were persuaded to give their postal vote letters to such helpers is where it turns into fraud, no different really to any other form of personation as the postal vote ballot paper still needs to be presented by the elector in person. It is no more open to fraud than any other form of personation. The claim that Farage makes of people turning up with "bundles" of postal votes is obviously a myth as the polling clerks would not allow the votes to be cast in the absence of a different individual person presenting each ballot paper. And if there was any substantial concerted illegal attempt to approach electors to pass over their postal vote forms, there will be numerous potential witnesses who could be found to come forward to testify in a criminal prosecution. That is, there would be if this wasn't all just a load of guff by Farage to try and cover up a really poor UKIP performance in this by-election.
Was always bizarre to me why Mike thought the Libdems were recovering. They had done nothing to apologise or move on from the Clegg years and are now largely invisible.
Their Parliamentary Taxi is full of the same types who were so comfortable in coalition with the Tories as their vote to bomb Syria showed. Apparently, they also had a 3 line whip !
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
I am actually forming an opinion that Jack W may not be 104+ after all. He has some very "young" ideas.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
'Shock and awful' was a deliberate, and an awful, strategy.
People might well agree with some uncomfortable home truths that are anchored in reality, but you've got to be careful how you make such points and your motives must be seen to beyond reproach.
He could have made the point on overloading the NHS from overseas in a far more reasonable way.
His day has gone, think most of us agree on that, whoever devised that strategy should go too.
However It should be remembered by all Eurosceptics that it is mostly Farage we have to thank for the upcoming referendum, he has done more than most to force the Tories into it. Plus his regular monstering of Juncker and his ilk is great entertainment
The likes of Hannan have shown how shrewd they are by refusing the clamour to join Ukip
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Farage seems to have become very angry. This is not a good look in any politician. Fairly or unfairly the brand has become somewhat toxified and UKIP need someone who can detoxify it. Having 13% of the electorate who love you is no good if most of the rest hate you.
We've passed 'peak' Farage at the last election. It's UKIPs failure to move on from him which will mean they'll never really be a force at Westminster.
Sadly I think you are spot on.
Hopefully they keep him away from the Leave campaign.
I think you might need to ask admin to change your username!
A seat that Labour should have been 1/50 to win was won in the style of 1/50 shot
Ukip IMO shouldn't have ramped up expectations but I don't think it really means anything. People are still caught in the lie of 'it's going to be close'
If Ian Warren hasn't tweeted 'this ain't a 1/8 shot' then no one here would have got caught up in it...
There's probably room for a socially conservative party with an leftish economic bent but Ukip haven't tried to fill that gap. I meet many tribal Labour voters with that view in the NW (Mrs Duffy-type) who remain in the Labour default system. As their social views tend to come out first, it probably gave Ukip the impression they were making big gains.
They could, but these voters tend to be older and more set in their ways and it will take an earthquake or a few elections to change.
McMahon was the perfect candidate for Labour to repel the Kippers. Moderate and "one of us".
But like most of PB, I expected a much closer race.
I would like to think there is room for a radically liberal, small state, fiscally dry party but I think I have to accept that not only is UKIP not that party, but it may be no party of that alignment would get sufficient support to make any impact.
I'm afraid that's a realistic concern, Douglas Carswell fits the bill perfectly as does Hannan, Reckless and doubtless others, but I'm not sure how you could weld something together into an election winning party.
A seat that Labour should have been 1/50 to win was won in the style of 1/50 shot
Ukip IMO shouldn't have ramped up expectations but I don't think it really means anything. People are still caught in the lie of 'it's going to be close'
If Ian Warren hasn't tweeted 'this ain't a 1/8 shot' then no one here would have got caught up in it...
It makes me wonder if some people were playing a bit of a game. I don't bet regularly but I did think about backing Labour a couple of days ago purely because I thought it was all a bit OTT
UKIP undermine their core raison d'etre. Being anti-EU and wanting the UK to govern itself properly as a fully independent nation state is a wholly reasonable point of view to take - and is one taken by many on both the left and right of politics. But...this core mission seems to come wrapped in nastiness. They've probably destroyed their own mission by being such utter <unts on so many issues - usually to do with race. The 'sensible' end of their broad church must despair at the quasi BNP/skinhead/Sonderkommando end. Carswell must despair at times over some of his colleagues.
1) UKIP in second place is a powerful GOTV motivator for the party in first place.
2) Tories are reluctant to tactically vote, but former LDs still do, and will be hard to get back.
3) A strong candidate with deep local roots is better than a parachuted favourite from head office
4) Kendallite politics is not dead in the Labour party and wins elections. Indeed by replacing a far left MP with a solid Labour Centrist the vote share goes up.
5) Postal voting is here to stay. I like putting my pencil on a paper in a booth but a lot of people like voting by post, and these are often returned early.
6) UKIP are not as popular as they think they are.
Interesting point 4 as that equates to the pathetic percentage of the party Kendall represents.
I think you missed 7) Corbyn politics is popular with significant number of Labour types.
Was point #4 used to describe Kendallite politics because it closely resembles 4% Virtually any candidate could get 4%. We only know her because she put herself forward.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
Indeed.
I think UKIP have a great opportunity this parliament.
1) I still maintain Corbyn will lead Labour's polling into the toilet
2) The Government will become unpopular as they always do.
UKIP could me placed to benefit from the above, but it won't happen under Farage
There's no need for the govt to become unpopular, if Corbyn is as bad as some suggest govt popularity should rise. They will become unpopular if they don't at least try to implement their pledges. The biggest thing for me in Oldham is the way voters in general are completely turned off, all parties are to blame.
One of the terrorist gunmen who brought terror to Paris is believed to have called a number in Birmingham several times before launching the sickening attack, according to reports.
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
Indeed.
As long as appropriate security measures are applied then voting electronically should move seamlessly into the 21st century.
That's the problem: there are no 'appropriate security measures' for such systems.
And it should be remembered that are two forms of electronic voting:
1) Electronic voting from a terminal in a voting booth; 2) Electronic voting via computer or phone.
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
A hundred times NO to this one.
Ask anyone involved in databases or computer security if it's possible to conduct a free and fair election using computers and they will all say no. Even voting machines at polling stations suffer from being unable to provide proof that they have recorded votes accurately, added to the problems of training both voters and election workers in the correct use and being on the lookout for interference.
A UK general election conducted via the Internet would be big enough to attract the hacking community who like to break these things for LOLz, as well as assorted Russian and Chinese groups who like to do it for money and to undermine democracy.
With a bit of tweaking around postal votes, the system works quite well enough now.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
Good luck getting rid of Farage. Who's going to persuade him to actually resign, rather than go through a mere charade of standing down?
UKIP undermine their core raison d'etre. Being anti-EU and wanting the UK to govern itself properly as a fully independent nation state is a wholly reasonable point of view to take - and is one taken by many on both the left and right of politics. But...this core mission seems to come wrapped in nastiness. They've probably destroyed their own mission by being such utter
Mr Patrick I agree in essence but who/where are these BNP types you refer to?
It's a fallacy that kippers despair at and I'm not sure where it started or if there's any concrete evidence to support it.
UKIP need to really get a grip on some kind of expectation management.
Patrick O'Flynn's tweet made me think they'd run it bloody close.
UKIP's voter information and analysis were clearly inadequate. Add that to their inadequate campaign activities and they are not in a fit state to gain a seat at a by election.
And backseat driving. I think that's the biggest issue. I still recall poor Hague suffering from endless Thatcher interfering and to a lesser extent Clegg with Paddy.
Grandees rarely have to good grace to step off the stage. Major being a notable exception.
First of all the labour man is clearly and understandably well thought of, he seems a thoroughly decent bloke and good luck to him.
Looking at turnout the wider electorate is absolutely sick of politics, around 1 in 4 even bothered to vote, taking into account postal votes the % of people bothering to leave the house is woeful.
The result will give Corbyn a big boost, he'll have great media opportunities and his supporters will celebrate, why shouldn't they.
I'm afraid that Nigel's time has been and gone, Shane Warne talks of Monty Panesar playing the same test 25 times, the same applies to ukip right now. I like him very much and his efforts have been remarkable, but ukip need a different approach.
Who would you like to see replace him?
I've normally liked Paul Nuttall, but he was deeply unimpressive last night.
Think they've all had their moment in the sun only to slip back in the shade, Suzanne Evans and Steven Woolfe the possible exceptions.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
Good luck getting rid of Farage. Who's going to persuade him to actually resign, rather than go through a mere charade of standing down?
Was always bizarre to me why Mike thought the Libdems were recovering. They had done nothing to apologise or move on from the Clegg years and are now largely invisible.
Their Parliamentary Taxi is full of the same types who were so comfortable in coalition with the Tories as their vote to bomb Syria showed. Apparently, they also had a 3 line whip !
Which 25% of MPs ignored
75% of LD Mps voted for something opposed by 66% of LD members. This is a much wider split than Labour's over this issue.
UKIP undermine their core raison d'etre. Being anti-EU and wanting the UK to govern itself properly as a fully independent nation state is a wholly reasonable point of view to take - and is one taken by many on both the left and right of politics. But...this core mission seems to come wrapped in nastiness. They've probably destroyed their own mission by being such utter
Mr Patrick I agree in essence but who/where are these BNP types you refer to?
It's a fallacy that kippers despair at and I'm not sure where it started or if there's any concrete evidence to support it.
Did anyone check in the van that was driving around Oldham playing 'White Christmas'?
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
Indeed.
As long as appropriate security measures are applied then voting electronically should move seamlessly into the 21st century.
I think we need a secret ballot which neither postal voting nor, at present, e-voting allow. That's not to say it will never be possible.
Also, one should consider that ease of voting is relative. If people with the requisite technology can vote with the touch of a button from their lavatory then people without the required technology (say because they are poor or technophobic) will be *relatively* less likely to vote. It strikes me that Tories will tend to be wary of this change but it could very well advantage them.
Evenwel vs Abbot in the Supreme Court of the United States of America is due to be heard next week .
It will decide whether American constituency boundaries are based on population (as now) or number of voters.
A matter not without relevance to our own boundary reviews.
Not quite. Here we still have workers knocking door to door to make sure all voters are registered, in the US some states have allowed voting registration centers to be moved to explicitly make it near impossible for some parts of the potential electorate to register.
Yes, the politics of the electoral boundaries, systems and processes in the US are thoroughly rotten, but both sides just see it as part of the 'game' to be played.
We have our problems in the UK with abuses, but its not usually the parties themselves involved - although there have been a couple of high profile exceptions, these are generally exceptions.
1. You will be away on the day of the vote. (People who have jobs that involve a lot of travel, or who booked holidays not realising their local MP would die should not be disenfranchised.)
2. Medical problems that prevent you from reaching the polling station.
People should certify themselves as either 1 or 2 if they want a postal vote. Lying on a postal vote application should be a criminal offence, and the police should do spot checks. A few people getting 28 days for false declarations would seriously deter offenders.
Complete tosh.
Voting belongs to the electorate and not governments and bad losers attempting to restrict and make difficult the exercise of the franchise.
I favour all legitimate efforts to encourage greater participation in the electoral process. The fact that some individuals seek to subvert the process should not provide cover for the rotten borough election luddites.
Well said. We should be looking to introduce voting via the Internet and smartphones too.
Why? I'm against making things difficult for people to vote, but walking a few minutes or driving a short distance to vote is not difficult. If someone cannot do that for legitimate reasons, we have postal votes and proxy votes to make sure they are not disenfranchised.
If the only reason someone did not a)go to a polling station or b) use a postal or proxy vote, was they would have had to move from their computer desk to do so, then they clearly don't give a crap about voting in the first place. Or second place for that matter. Some people just don't want to participate in the process despite multiple methods to ensure if the main way to participate is problematic they can still participate. It really is not asking much of people to at least request a postal vote.
It always makes me think of '24 hours to save the NHS' and other such hyperbolic (if, presumably, passionately motivated) claims, where the proponents of how bad/great something is just goes overboard and loses its effectiveness as a message. if someone genuinely believes there are these barriers that are putting people off voting and that online voting will solve that injustice, I just cannot see it. If people are not engaged it is not because of the process of voting, it is the state of politics. You might well increase turnout, but people will be just as disengaged in actual terms.
In any case, if all we care about is getting higher turnout regardless of how engaged a person is (and they would have to be pretty effing unengaged if they would not vote at present but would if they could do so online), then we should just go with compulsory voting.
Not a great night for the Can't Be Arsed Party - but they still got a stonking swing.....turnout down from 59.6% to 40.3%, so one in five voters in the constituency moved to them.
Worried about postal votes though. With them being so easy to obtain, hard to see the heady heights of 80% of voters going for Can't Be Arsed ever again...
Possibly postal voters hung on for the Syria debate before voting, as they are entitled to do.
Not a great night for the Can't Be Arsed Party - but they still got a stonking swing.....turnout down from 59.6% to 40.3%, so one in five voters in the constituency moved to them.
Worried about postal votes though. With them being so easy to obtain, hard to see the heady heights of 80% of voters going for Can't Be Arsed ever again...
Possibly postal voters hung on for the Syria debate before voting, as they are entitled to do.
So....they wouldn't have voted Labour if the Syria debate had been lost by the Govt.? Not very likely though, is it?
If McMahon voted for Liz Kendall, doesn't that make him a Tory? Why are Labour so jubilant?
A thumping win, and it should allow Corbyn to make his mark on the party. Nuttall looked a bit upset last night. Mostly sour grapes, but Governments only bring in electoral changes that benefit them. Tony brought in the changes to PV, so it was hardly likely to help other parties.
And as tim used to regularly remark, the biggest beneficiaries of postal votes are the Tories, so Cameron is hardly minded to fix UKIP's problem.
Plus, what are UKIP going to do when postals are made much tougher, but the south Asian "community leaders" then pointedly lead a crocodile of 500 voters to the polling stations?
Local coach operators would get a boost !
no they wouldn't unless the individuals all clubbed together and hired one themselves. It's illegal to pay for transport to get other people to the polling stations.
Comments
It has made no effort to date to try to become an actual political party. I suspect that might have been different if Nige had won his seat and not gone off and then come back in a sulk.
But he didn't and then he did and UKIP are stuck. Poor Douglas: like marrying the pretty girl who turns out to be a bunny-boiler.
Farage is losing it and needs to be kicked out before he becomes a liability to the Leave side, a side that are much better for having the likes of Dan Hannan on board.
Away from Oldham the PM's ridiculous renegotiation posturing is unravelling. He'd hoped for an early referendum but that's not going to happen, no wonder he never wanted an EU vote he knows the ramifications.
The risk is they deflate further without Farage as it's his sheer force of personality that's got them this far - it almost happened in the 2010GE with Lord Rannoch - but he's also an obstacle to them taking it any further. I also think he's past his prime, and he's become paranoid and autocratic.
Diane James or Suzanne Evans.
Ukip need to become less angry, I think it was Farage's disgusting demonisation of HIV sufferers that put many people off for good.
Patrick O'Flynn's tweet made me think they'd run it bloody close.
I think you missed 7) Corbyn politics is popular with significant number of Labour types.
People might well agree with some uncomfortable home truths that are anchored in reality, but you've got to be careful how you make such points and your motives must be seen to beyond reproach.
He could have made the point on overloading the NHS from overseas in a far more reasonable way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35001277
Two important concepts in the electoral system are:
*) Everyone who can vote should have the ability to vote. People should not be disenfranchised because they are legally able to vote, but momentarily unable to do so (e.g. holidays, work)
*) The ballot and electoral process should be as free and fair as possible.
Sadly, electronic voting for elections fails utterly on the latter.
Time for this again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI
I think UKIP have a great opportunity this parliament.
1) I still maintain Corbyn will lead Labour's polling into the toilet
2) The Government will become unpopular as they always do.
UKIP could me placed to benefit from the above, but it won't happen under Farage
As long as appropriate security measures are applied then voting electronically should move seamlessly into the 21st century.
At the last general election, in their election literature targetted to supporters Labour and the Conservatives routinely asked them to register for postal votes as they knew they made them more likely to vote. There are no restrictions on who can be given a postal vote but you must be registered individually to vote.
What will have happened is that Labour helpers made a point of calling on households where it knew that postal votes had been issued to people it had down as its supporters, found that many people in a low turnout election had not bothered to use theirs, and managed to persuade a minority of such people to use them having pointed out that they could still be used on the day. That sort of legitimate GOTV operation is quite possible in a by-election with a large number of helpers to knock on doors on polling day and good canvassing records to inform the targeting. A substantial number of postal votes being cast on the day is thus to be expected in a by-election.
The accusation that electors were persuaded to give their postal vote letters to such helpers is where it turns into fraud, no different really to any other form of personation as the postal vote ballot paper still needs to be presented by the elector in person. It is no more open to fraud than any other form of personation. The claim that Farage makes of people turning up with "bundles" of postal votes is obviously a myth as the polling clerks would not allow the votes to be cast in the absence of a different individual person presenting each ballot paper. And if there was any substantial concerted illegal attempt to approach electors to pass over their postal vote forms, there will be numerous potential witnesses who could be found to come forward to testify in a criminal prosecution. That is, there would be if this wasn't all just a load of guff by Farage to try and cover up a really poor UKIP performance in this by-election.
Denmark vote against dropping their EU opt out on Justice and Home Affairs.
Not sure which side this helps in the Brexit.
https://euobserver.com/beyond-brussels/131380
Mr. Jessop, quite.
However It should be remembered by all Eurosceptics that it is mostly Farage we have to thank for the upcoming referendum, he has done more than most to force the Tories into it. Plus his regular monstering of Juncker and his ilk is great entertainment
The likes of Hannan have shown how shrewd they are by refusing the clamour to join Ukip
Ukip IMO shouldn't have ramped up expectations but I don't think it really means anything. People are still caught in the lie of 'it's going to be close'
If Ian Warren hasn't tweeted 'this ain't a 1/8 shot' then no one here would have got caught up in it...
http://www.itv.com/news/central/2015-12-04/paris-terrorist-phoned-birmingham-several-times-before-attacks/
One of the terrorist gunmen who brought terror to Paris is believed to have called a number in Birmingham several times before launching the sickening attack, according to reports.
And it should be remembered that are two forms of electronic voting:
1) Electronic voting from a terminal in a voting booth;
2) Electronic voting via computer or phone.
The first is bad enough. The second is hideous.
Ask anyone involved in databases or computer security if it's possible to conduct a free and fair election using computers and they will all say no. Even voting machines at polling stations suffer from being unable to provide proof that they have recorded votes accurately, added to the problems of training both voters and election workers in the correct use and being on the lookout for interference.
A UK general election conducted via the Internet would be big enough to attract the hacking community who like to break these things for LOLz, as well as assorted Russian and Chinese groups who like to do it for money and to undermine democracy.
With a bit of tweaking around postal votes, the system works quite well enough now.
It's a fallacy that kippers despair at and I'm not sure where it started or if there's any concrete evidence to support it.
Grandees rarely have to good grace to step off the stage. Major being a notable exception.
New Thread New Thread
Also, one should consider that ease of voting is relative. If people with the requisite technology can vote with the touch of a button from their lavatory then people without the required technology (say because they are poor or technophobic) will be *relatively* less likely to vote. It strikes me that Tories will tend to be wary of this change but it could very well advantage them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#/media/File:TheGerry-mander.jpg
If the only reason someone did not a)go to a polling station or b) use a postal or proxy vote, was they would have had to move from their computer desk to do so, then they clearly don't give a crap about voting in the first place. Or second place for that matter. Some people just don't want to participate in the process despite multiple methods to ensure if the main way to participate is problematic they can still participate. It really is not asking much of people to at least request a postal vote.
It always makes me think of '24 hours to save the NHS' and other such hyperbolic (if, presumably, passionately motivated) claims, where the proponents of how bad/great something is just goes overboard and loses its effectiveness as a message. if someone genuinely believes there are these barriers that are putting people off voting and that online voting will solve that injustice, I just cannot see it. If people are not engaged it is not because of the process of voting, it is the state of politics. You might well increase turnout, but people will be just as disengaged in actual terms.
In any case, if all we care about is getting higher turnout regardless of how engaged a person is (and they would have to be pretty effing unengaged if they would not vote at present but would if they could do so online), then we should just go with compulsory voting.
Beth Rigby
Tweeting again cos it needs 2b seen: @thetimes data team reveal #Yentob's expenses bill = £123,720 5 yrs April to 2015. £35k of it on cabs