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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ukip could be contesting 70 percent of the council seats up
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Ukip could be contesting 70 percent of the council seats up for election on May 2
Over the next couple of days we should see the full nomination list for the council seats that are due to be contested on May 2nd and the big focus is on how many candidates Ukip will manage to field.
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A loss to the discussion - especially so given that after dismissing UKIP for a very long time - its now a regular article subject matter on PB.
Funny ole non-aligned world.
What is going on with his incessant nannying? We can't choose to spend our own money on what we want to unless his middle-class Marxist will-changing Primrose Hill intellectual approval is stamped on it?
I'd slap him with a glove if I met him.
Warwickshire: 22 UKIP (Lab-Con-Green 62 LD 36 TUSC 22 BNP 8)
Nottinghamshire: 61 UKIP (Lab 67 Con 62 LD 51 Greens 19)
Lancashire, full slate in Chorley, Rossendale, Fylde, South Ribble, missing 1 in Wyre and Preston, 3 out of 6 in Burnley. 3 authorities missing.
Leicestershire: 42 out of 55
Norfolk: 69 out of 97
Gloucestershire: 39 out of 53
Somerset: 47 out of 55
Oxfordshire: just 5 out of 14 in Oxford, missing one in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse, full slate in West Oxfordshire and Cherwell
Northamptonshire: 44 out of 57
Wiltshire: 54 out of 98 (but Lab and LD are also at 61 and 60. 6 Tories are elected unopposed)
Northumberland: around 22 out of 67
Labour and the Liberal Democrats today launch their campaigns for the local elections on 2 May, which will be significant as one of the last major tests of the political weather ahead of the general election. In 2009, the Tories swept the board in these seats – mainly naturally right-of-centre, shire areas – so the only question a few months ago was how many seats they would lose, and whether it would be Labour or the Liberal Democrats that took the most off them.
What has since complicated those calculations has been Ukip’s dramatic emergence, which is why the leaders of all three parties will be watching to see whether Nigel Farage can sustain the momentum he generated in the Eastleigh by-election in February. The wild card of British politics is still coasting along on 17 per cent in the polls, well below the 28 per cent it won in Eastleigh but enough to inflict massive damage on the Tories unless its bubble deflates before May.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/editorial-ukips-dramatic-emergence-may-yet-throw-the-may-local-elections-wide-open-8563291.html
This is perfect.
EdM finally wakes up. For far too long any old bunch of jokers could come and set up on the high street like some ridiculous free for all. This is a much better idea.
I would like an artisan cheese shop, an independent wine merchant, a shop selling those t-shirts with the funny comments on them designed by some bloke from St. Martins’, and a Nespresso machine repair shop.
Who do I send my list to?
'How long before Ed's latest 'contributory benefits' wheeze is ruled illegal under EU law?'
At least Ed's confirmed that he will be increasing the welfare budget,since his party has been telling us for weeks that you can't live on £53 per week.
Another expensive program to be paid by taxing bankers bonus's, NI & income tax increases.
The two Ed's & their taxes will make Denis Healey look like a wimp.
As I said you convinced me to not vote blue next time with one of your throw away statements that disaffected blues have no alternative but to come back. Instead of Sir Samuel Pepys I saw your hero Louis XIV and staring from your avatar Sir Richard Nabob . ;-)
The lack of these on my High St was the reason Woolies shut down - and was replaced by ICELAND...
I am worried about Spurs having to sell Gareth Bale because we are going to blow getting a CL place again.
I am not worried that you did not understand I realised you were not seriously suggesting a physical attack on Ed Miliband. I expected that!
We are very aggressive today , last thread you were insulting Scottish culture and Scotland in general and now you are abusing SO for having an opinion other than your Tory viewpoint. Tut Tut.
Of course, I hope that disaffected blues will come back when faced with the actual choice of Miliband vs Cameron, but it's entirely up to them. I can't force people to be rational; all I can do is try to assess, for betting purposes, the extent to which they'll be irrational. Clearly at the moment a vote for UKIP (in a by-election or a local election) is a cost-free protest, but the nihilistic mood of cutting off your nose to spite your face does seem quite strong, and may well continue in 2015. That's why I'm rebalancing my investments away from the UK.
Aww - if objecting to being force fed Andy Stewart on New Year or suggesting someone is slapped with a glove is *aggressive* in your book... step outside laddie - and I'll show you a thing or two ;^ )
'EdM finally wakes up. For far too long any old bunch of jokers could come and set up on the high street like some ridiculous free for all. This is a much better idea.'
Will Ed's policy survive until this evening?
Hilariously Dan Hodges was right - doing nothing and having no policies wasn't a good idea after all.
Egg on a few "nailed on" faces round here.
Many of us who don't intend to vote Labour in GE2015 have been saying for several years that bandwaggoning a la Hague is a bad idea.
And lo, it came to pass. Labour are only an average of 10pts ahead in mid-term and in a dreadful economic state - and with votes supposedly from the Tories leaking in droves to the Kippers.
WTF does EdM need to do before he can break away - clearly not what he's been doing vs a neutered Tory HMG and LDs playing Schroedinger's Gov.
Those PB tories whining about that have had their usual amusing memory loss.
Baroness Warsi implies UKIP / BNP deal over voting (04May12)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5w4ylfQycM
It didn't just "come to pass" nor was it the result of being mid term. It was a direct result of the toxic Osbrowne's omnishambles budget as we can all clearly see here.
" The attitude of disaffected blues seems to be inchoate anger that they can't have everything they want, so they'd rather have nothing they want"
I'm torn.
I like what Gove is doing, and IDS and May on the whole - but despite my natural tendency to stick with a choice I've made [in for a penny/pound sort] - I'm getting really disappointed with Mr Cameron despite thinking he's a fairly straight and decent sort. I suspect his wife is more on my wavelength when she told him that 'society isn't the same as the State". Sage words.
Too much nannying and backsliding. If he wants to be Ken Clark then fine - but that's not what I put my X in the box for at GE2010.
I don't expect everything, quite frankly nor would I want it. What I do expect is a government which puts the economy first, which unpicks the Labour big government legacy instead of reinforcing it and which has policies for the bits of the country outside the City. How is it irrational not to vote Blue when you don't have policies for people in the rest of the state, if anything it's irrational to vote blue when you offer me nothing. As for Ed Milibogeyman he's inept not scary.
"Too much nannying and backsliding. If he wants to be Ken Clark then fine - but that's not what I put my X in the box for at GE2010."
My dear Plato, I'm surprised that it has taken this long to realise that Cammo is 'all fur coat and no knickers'. He is an empty suit, without a single worthwhile idea, ever since he was voted leader. Those same voters are now deserting the conservative party en mass.
Can it be that the Plato iceberg is now beginning to melt?
RT @ChrisRogers92: 1 of LSE's 'revolutionary socialist' delegates is staying in the 4 star Copthorne for NUS - nice if you can get it < oops
Indeed.
The Tory problem is the more momentum UKIP have, the more they feel like a serious party worthy of real allegiance rather than a hissy protest receptacle.
Assuming the next election is already lost for the Tories, they probably need to squeeze UKIP down to single figures at least to avoid a total humiliation. Perhaps that is what their recent lurch Rightwards on benefits is about, shoring up the core?
're Cameron he is the one leader more popular than his party and the preferred voter PM I believe. I don't know who you see as the better alternative centre right option.
As for unpicking the damaging bits of Labour's legacy, huge progress has been made. I won't bother listing it all again.
Dearie me, what an ugly avatar. How has everyone else changed theirs?
UKIP will hurt the Conservatives, in the County Council elections, both by taking seats from them, and by splitting the centre-right vote in some wards.
But, I think that some people exaggerate their impact on their Conservatives. They will take not just votes from people who voted Conservative, in 2009, but also people who voted Lib Dem, Labour, BNP, and Independent, as well as non-voters. They'll pick up a lot of floating Conservative voters, who might be prepared to switch to Labour and Lib Dems, in previous mid-term elections, thereby blunting the challenge of the latter two parties in some wards. In places like Cambridgehsire and Devon, I could see them winning wards that the Lib Dems might otherwise hope to pick up, and in Norfolk and Staffordshrie, winning wards that Labour might otherwise hope to pick up.
The socio-economic profile of UKIP voters is very similar to that of Labour voters. That suggests that a lot of them will have voted Labour in 1997-2005, even if lots of them switched to the Conservatives in 2010/
The Tories are the largest party in govt at the moment and have a leader that is pro EU, pro mass immigration, pro gay marriage, anti grammar school, anti low tax. Thats why their supporters are leaving them. Why would they trust him to be any different next time? He is PM now and these things are happening/not happening now!
The differences between a Labour or a Tory govt are miniscule. The difference between a Tory and UKIP govt would be massive. Thats why people are voting UKIP.
As far as Labour voters are concerned, there are a lot of working class voters who are anti posh boys like Osborne etc, but also anti mass immigration, anti gay marriage, anti benefit culture, completely anti any kind of 80s "loony lefty" nonsense.
Given that the Tories seem to be run by posh boys who don't seem to be anti anything on the second list unless they are told to be by focus groups, and labour appear to be pro all of the second list, who are the traditional working class going to vote for?
They are the segment of society who have been ignored/taken for granted by all major political parties for the last forty odd years while they curried favour with any minority they could patronise, and they have probably had enough
I could go on but you sort of know what I'm going to say. I see Cameron as something of a tragic figure, he could have done much but frittered his political capital on trivia.
They are 2/1 to win a seat AT the next GE (so would be a bit less if the bookies were arking up odds on 'any time before the end of the election'.)
I've taken the 2/1. At the very least, it is bound to shorten over the next few months.
Tony Benn was among the most pernicious and damaging politicians of the 1970s and 1980s - the harm he did to the Labour Party was immense.
I've put a sizeable amount on them taking South Shields. Realistically, their best chance is to hold a seat they take at a by-election, so it seems that taking the double digits available available in SS and others.
UKIP is doing a brilliant job filling the role the LibDems historically did at by-elections: find local issue people feel passionately about, and encourage protest voting. (Yes, yes, yes, I know Europe is important too... but I suspect the Tyne Tunnel will win them many more votes than the EU will. Of course, moving funding of the TT from users to 'general taxation' basically means moving the cost from South Shields voters to - say - voters in Richmond-upon-Thames. And if you're in South Shields, what's not to like about that?)
Actually I think Tony Blair described this quite well in his book. Paraphrasing him here, but he said that the middle class left liked to think of the working class as a monolith that would stay the chirpy hard working salt of the earth forever, not realising that they were only working class because they hadnt made enough dough to be the middle class family they aspired to be. It was a Labour politicians role to give them a leg up on the way then leave them to it, not patronise them forever.
"The self-righteous left is repulsive and utterly destructive - as can be seen most vividly in its triangulating toleration, nay indulgence, of religious reactionaries, just so long as they deliver the votes"
Which is why Ken and reactionary gay/Jew-bashing Muslims rhetoric just bends my mind completely re vote grubbing.
As Khyberman noted so well - these people are socially very conservative for cultural reasons - why are they voting Labour at all given their viewpoints are so different? He makes several good observations.
"Most ethnic minority values coincide with traditional conservative values.
The Left have done a stellar job of putting them at odds.
Most ethnic minority values coincide with traditional conservative values.
The Conservatives have done a shoddy job of tapping into this.
Most ethnic minority values coincide with traditional conservative values.
The Left have used this against minorities to great effect.
Most ethnic minority values coincide with traditional conservative values.
The Left have successfully painted them as victims. An easy sell" http://bantiblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/racism.html
If you aspire to something more - you're a sell-out, a Thatcherite, greedy, selfish, grasping or a lower form of life that cares for no one else - or horror A TOFF. I find this bizarre.
One can only aspire if you remain a Labour voter if you think the Left's ideological dogma is sacrosanct. Like comprehensive education or the NHS or whatever - its just so 1970s. What has possessed Labour to retread this failed Cuban bollox?
Today's Labour looks to me like Glasgow politics - you must die earlier, live in crap place and be disadvantaged - as otherwise you'll wake up and discover that everyone else has a better life if they don't vote Labour.
Just as in the 1970s many Labour left-wingers believed that their government was no different from the Tories, and we all know what that belief led to - splits and many years in opposition.
I suspect it's more about Cammie fearing his own backbenchers since he seemingly won't get rid of his chum Osbrowne no matter how much of a toxic liability he is. Some of those backbenchers have actually noticed that Osbrowne incompetence and the economy are the number one problem for the tory party even if others continue to be 'near perfect' in their obliviousness to it. Add to that the continuing Eurosceptic backbench and Kipper suspicion that his cast iron EU referendum pledge is little more than an easily wriggled out of sham, and sooner or later they are going to get very stroppy indeed.
It's an attempt to create a climate in which there is room for a thriving private sector.
Only so much you can do with Cable in a major economic post - and Cameron doesn't have much choice about that.
On the Isle of Wight Council UKIP have 29 candidates against 7 for the Lib Dems.
source ConHome.
I wonder if defeat in 2015 will give rise to a more right wing New Tory party? It happened (eventually) in Canada.
Just been totting up my expenses for the 2012/13 tax year and it turns out that by sheer coincidence, and with no management of the figures on my part, I recorded *exactly* 10,000 miles of business travel last year. This is actually the threshold before the mileage allowance drops to a lower rate (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/travel.htm).
I have a spreadsheet of all my trips, including the route taken, reason for going and the distance as verified by google maps. My actual mileage was slightly higher because my route-planning was less than ideal, so no problem if anyone checks the odometer!
But to claim for precisely 10,000 miles must surely arouse suspicion. Does this look too much like I am cooking the books?
That'd make an interesting thread discussion if the subsamples weren't a one-off.
http://labourlist.org/2013/04/full-employment-could-be-the-silver-bullet-for-labour/
Two points of interest in particular:
1) The final sentence is "If done right, full employment could be the silver bullet, not just for the welfare debate that Labour has manifestly failed to win, but for a better kind of economy." Note the subclause.
2) Every Labour government has left office with unemployment higher than when it entered office. If Ed Miliband is to make a persuasive commitment to full employment, he's going to have to explain why his government would be different from every other Labour government so far.
A lot will turn on how the elections go on May 2. (Is S Shields definitely on that day too?) And then the Euros. And then the not insiderable factoid of when (not if) Farage says or does something so daft that the electorate suddenly thinks 'erm...maybe not.'
Wish I could get odds on him doing so, but how would one frame the bet?
"Two points of interest in particular:
1) The final sentence is "If done right, full employment could be the silver bullet, not just for the welfare debate that Labour has manifestly failed to win, but for a better kind of economy." Note the subclause."
You're kidding?
FULL EMPLOYMENT? When was the last time that was reality - in any country bar the Soviet Union?
If there is a defeat there will be a new leader and the tory party will divide into IN and OUT
with those in favour of OUT arguing that they need a leader explicitly in favour of campaigning to be OUT while those who favour IN will want a leader who will campaign on being IN.
@JohnRentoul: "Is full employment Labour's silver bullet?" Fine #QTWTAIN & #BannedList in one http://labourlist.org/2013/04/full-employment-could-be-the-silver-bullet-for-labour/
1997 Labour promised 'no more boom and bust'
2015 Labour promise ' full employment'
What could possibly go wrong?
Full employment, of course, refers to the minimum level of unemployment that is economically possible. It doesn't mean that every single person has a job.
Though I'm sure you knew that. Didn't you?
Anyone who can't get a job gets paid to stay home.
", the abolition of long term “cyclical” unemployment "
With a stroke it was done
Labour have been caught with their socks off here - they are flailing wildly.
Employment is rising - thanks to the private sector and is higher than when Labour were booted out for being crap.
" Throughout much of Labour's term in office we were at, or close to, full employment"
So those 2.5m people were a figment of the ONS imagination?
Seriously - on the trolling stakes, you're scoring 0/10.
Give up or try a great deal harder.
The INs also have the party leadership and most of the big party funders behind them, again at this point. It may change.
[I understand your concerns because it reminds me of a time many years ago when i was doing a set of accounts of a decent sized business and the the result was zero - i.e. nil profit, nil loss. I added £42 of spurious income to avoid suspicion!]
Full employment, of course, refers to the minimum level of unemployment that is economically possible. It doesn't mean that every single person has a job.
When over 2m don't have a job and there are 3x generations of families that have no experience of working - I'd say that's not FULL EMPLOYMENT by anyone's yardstick.
It's a silly 70s nirvana that demeans those who are actually trying to make a go of it and spend 3 months on the dole between jobs.
But as to your conclusion, I completely agree.
So expect UKIP to take votes from Conservative right wingers, Labour working class and Lib Dem protesters.