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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The revolt of the Shires: Cameron’s last warning
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The revolt of the Shires: Cameron’s last warning
Thursday’s elections represented a resounding raspberry to all three main parties. Indeed, they reinforced that even talking of three main parties is an anachronism.
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To address all the concerns of UKIP voters will win some over (not all as many simply won't believe it/care) but will cost some existing supporters and cost the opportunity of swing voters from the other main parties.
It is overly simplistic to add the support of one party to another as the people supporting each were attracted to different things and you can't convincingly be both without incurring a cost.
The current situation is incredibly complicated and there are no easy answers.
1. The EU referendum, that's popular with a majority of the country.
2. Stricter immigration controls, this is actually conservative party, and coalition government policy. Perhaps even some special measure to extend transition controls on Romania and Bulgaria.
The BBC have a nice map of showing the density of elected UKIP councillors.
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67403000/jpg/_67403985_ukip_map_624.jpg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22382098
If the former, they need to stand their ground against UKIP and hope the voters come home in 2015. There's no point in humming UKIP's tunes in the meantime; People who like the tune will just listen to the real thing.
If the latter, maybe they should stop faffing around with making half-promises about referendums and renegotiations and advocate leaving the EU. Then they could compete with UKIP on immigration and human rights and everything else.
"Adam Afriyie, touted as a Conservative leadership hopeful, said: “There is no getting away from this ... people are just fed up with the political class and, I have to say, so am I to a certain degree"
@Alanbrooke.
"This guy should get a vacuous pillock award"
Massive competition for it at the moment. Ed and Nick's interview with Martha (I missed Cameron's) will take some beating.
Poor Tories! Most of them have dreamt of these policies and now they know if they'd chosen a fruitcake as leader all this could have been theirs.
Perhaps there's still a chance for Liam Fox to lead a grand coalition of the right.
UKIP are not yet serious contenders for power. They absolutely are, however, redefining where the centre ground of British politics is. And it's moving away from your lot. I don't think Dave or the Tories will benefit as the right is now split. But already there is talk of winning back the angry English voter, of possible electoral pacts in a post-Dave world, of reuniting the right - and it's only two nanoseconds after the local elections. The right will not stay split forever. And, as SeanT pointed out, the vote was pretty much lefties 1/3, righties 2/3 yesterday.
So what will they do when debates start, or people ..... or the Press ..... start asking their County Councillor about something in their area
Margaret Thatcher and John Major both won from the centre-right not the right. If David Cameron can show by early 2015 that the economy is definitely improving he will probably win the 2015 GE. Whether that will be a majority government, far too many ifs and buts can nudge that one way or the other.
From a personal point of view, the fate of 59 Scottish seats is far more interesting. Should Scotland vote Yes next year then arguably there should be no Scottish seats up for grabs in 2015 so Labour immediately loses 40 MPs. If Scotland votes No, will the SNP support have largely disappeared by 2015 and if so where will there votes go, especially outside industrial Scotland.
Golly - what an amazing rollercoaster of a day yesterday was - haven't enjoyed an election so much in ages.
As a centre-righty, I'm very pleased with the results - Labour only scraped in at Notts, Derbyshire was always going to return home - and the Tories retained 15 or 16 councils on the day. The Kippers did remarkably well and even if half their vote was protest - it marks a desire for more rightish thinking, even if I believe much of it to be wishful nonsense.
The LDs had an abysmal day - again. Simon Hughes who is usually very good was uncharacteristiclly tetchy, and it was left to Tim Farron to eat several helpings of humble pie. He does it very well - but it's not really what he came into politics to do...
More than anything - the giant raspberry the voters blew at the Big Three will give them all a shock and a kick up the arse. And this is long overdue.
I can't help feeling that Farage is a bit of a Ken Clarke figure but from the anti-EU end of the telescope. Ken was in his younger days able to stand outside the Establishment straitjacket, wear Hush Puppies, smoke and drink, look like an unmade bed, be jolly and say almost anything unhindered - and voters loved his *realness*.
And I now live in a Tory/Kipper ward - I'm amazed.
Cameron also should stop the stunts and posturing and get on with Governing the country. Chasing after Guardian readers is a futile exercise. They won't vote Conservative in a month of Sundays.
Above all do as much as possible to turn the economy around. Aim to at least get it on an improving trajctory before 2015. He should consider if George the right person to be presenting economic policy? Maybe a more voter friendly person is needed here,
Yes it was a lot more fun than I expected. I heard Tim Farron saying that UKIP were now the none of the above party and that they were now a party of government. He sounded wistful.
I've long held the view, which I think Mike does, that to win power you need to win the centre ground. This was the Blair thesis, aped by Cameron. But how far is this really true? What evidence do we have for it?
With Tony Blair, following on from the groundwork laid by Neil Kinnock and John Smith, there was a massive shift of Labour to the centre. That process removed the 'need' for the SDP because Labour effectively became a social democratic party. We should remember that prior to this from 1979 to c 1987 the two main parties were much more polarised. Thatcher gained power on a pretty right-wing, monetarist, individualist agenda against an opposition that was, quite frankly, loopy. It's difficult to imagine today just how left-wing Michael Foot was compared to today's British politics.
And so the thesis has held sway, including on this forum, that to win power you need to hold the centre. I've believed it.
But, and it's a massive caveat, this is predicated on the fact that Blair moved the left into the centre. It has actually NEVER been tried and tested the other way. In fact, when Cameron attempted it with the Conservative Party he singularly failed to win power outright when he had an open goal in front of him.
The rise of UKIP may, actually, suggest that many have got this all wrong. This country, like the U.S., may instead be basically a predominantly right of centre voting core, albeit with some social conscience. What matters are issues like right-to-buy, right to be British and proud of it, anti-meddling from outside these shores, anti high taxation. Of course we will say things to pollsters: not one of those interviewed in Boston Lincs yesterday would admit that immigration was a factor, apart from the Lithuanian chap who helpfully said there are too many immigrants in this country.
So I'm not sure any longer about this centre-ground thesis. That might be right for Labour, but who said it's how the Conservatives or UKIP win power? There's no proof of it at all. In fact, if you look back at the greatest success stories of the Conservatives at the ballot box I don't see a Thatcher agenda that even remotely resembles that of the present incumbent of No.10 Downing Street.
And that's why I think Nigel Farage may have a golden opportunity in front of him to seize the initiative and change the face of British politics.
"The prospect of a Tory-Ukip coalition is no longer theoretical. A blue-purple pact – which I think this blog may have been the first to propose – is now at least a mathematical possibility in Cambridgeshire, East Sussex, Gloucestershire and Lincolnshire...
What, after all, are the great differences of principle between the Conservatives and Ukip? Both parties want tax cuts, powers back from Brussels and an end to the human rights charade that keeps Abu Qatada in Britain. Both want academic selection, welfare reform and the decentralisation of power. Both want an In/Out referendum and, if the polls are to be believed, 72 per cent of Conservative voters and 84 per cent of party members would vote to leave the EU in such a referendum.
The main difference is that Ukip, being out of office, can make its demands in a rather more Platonic form. Bring back grammar schools, for example, is a simple, clear, popular line. But where would a binary education system, based on a national eleven-plus exam, leave the free schools? Such are the complexities of office.
In much the same way, Ukip calls for more spending on the Armed Forces, a doubling of prison places, a balanced budget, and across-the-board tax cuts. Great. You'd be hard-pushed to find a single Conservative who would disagree with any of these things. The trouble is that you can't do all of them at once...
...Ukip's support is starting to become geographically concentrated. Its base is clearly now in the counties of Cromwell's Eastern Association...
The case for a Tory-Ukip pact makes sense in terms of both policy and politics. The trouble has to do with personality and with prickliness. When I first urged my party to make an approach to Ukip, I was told by all the clever people who do polling that it would never get above six per cent. Now, I am afraid the problem might be the other way around. Ukip will peak at the 2014 Euro-elections, and then decline. This, rationally, is the time for that party to settle from a position of strength. But good luck telling that to jubilant activists in the wake of an election success.
Six months ago, I mournfully predicted that the two parties would fail to get their act together, because of all the petty considerations that held up Canada's Unite the Right movement for a decade... I hope I'm wrong. We have a once-in-a-generation chance to get a vote on leaving the EU. How badly it would reflect on all concerned if that opportunity were lost because of personal rivalries.
Apparently the UN is going to debate a ban on killer robots:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123728-United-Nations-To-Debate-Ban-on-Killer-Robots
Whilst a bit sci-fi, it's actually a very good topic for debate. I was playing Worms Armageddon (rediscovered) the other day, and the save file was just 16kb (less than 1% the smallest Skyrim save file). The astonishing and continuous rise in computing power means that robots used in warfare (whether support roles, such as the DARPA dog, [see video below] or combat roles) will only become more commonplace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNZPRsrwumQ
"“Their right isn’t like our left. They believe they can win from the right in a way Labour could never do from the left and they are correct in that.”
http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/viewer.html?doc=202593-doc27
"...The economy continues to flirt with recession. The cuts are biting. Controversial reforms are being driven through in health and education.
In circumstances like these the official opposition should be weighing the votes, not counting them. That’s especially true given that the traditional third party – the Liberal Democrats – are effectively handcuffed, like a convict, to the Government.
Instead, Mr Miliband can only watch forlornly as Nigel Farage loads ballot box after ballot box on to UKIP’s electoral bandwagon.
Labour is in denial. It has seen opinion poll leads averaging only single figures, yet convinced itself that they signpost the New Jerusalem. It has read leadership survey after leadership survey showing Mr Miliband’s personal ratings plummeting, and said: ‘People just need to get to know him a bit more.’
And on Thursday Labour was pushed aside as the voters rushed to wave and cheer at UKIP’s travelling circus. The response? ‘We did OK.’
To an extent that’s right. Apart from the total absence of a rational strategy, strong leadership or coherent policy platform, Labour is doing OK. In the same way that if you jump from a plane without a parachute you’ll do OK until you reach the ground...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2319221/DAN-HODGES-Red-Ed-marches-left-just-voters-moving-right.html#ixzz2SJ4GuiVK
"England is becoming four nations (maybe 5): North, South, East, West and, perhaps, London."
That is to simplistic take the largest county in England for example Yorkshire.
North Yorkshire strongly Conservative except for the City of York strongly now Labour.
South Yorkshire predominately Labour.
West Yorkshire mainly Labour.
East York Yorkshire (Humberside ) Hull Labour country areas Beverley for example Conservative.
The split in England is between cities towns countryside and the real battle the suburbs.
Two images from BBC coverage firstly Tory, Hughes, Creagh, all sitting together opposite Farrage.
Con, Lab and Lib Dem sitting in the BBC studio with Edwards and Robinson - UKIP guy on screen outside.
BBC 24 was a bit better, but the coverage so poor that it was hard to pick out anything they did well. Given how important these elections are, one would think they'd take it more seriously - but I just don't feel they care about them.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3739329.ece
I'm not sure we're really aware yet of quite what's happening under our feet ...
Edwards is tedious. Andrew Neil should be anchoring such programmes.
"Exactly, as we noted yesterday - the coastal towns in particular have proven very fertile territory - in ESx, only Hastings saw Labour wins and frankly its been a dumping ground for DSS/asylum seekers/drug addicts for the last 15yrs or more that its not very surprising."
A typically moronic comment. Is the site going to have this crap wall to wall from you from now on? I prefer it when you just copy and paste all day.
Overall County results aren't necessarily helpful. In Kent, for example, UKIP won a string of divisions in the Thames Estuary and Thanet, while doing much less well inland.
"...Expect more such talk in the days ahead, suggestions that Conservatives should "listen" by doing more robust things on immigration, welfare and the rest.
But no Conservative has yet explained the inconvenient fact that robust things like Mr Cameron's promise of that referendum earlier this year – acknowledged by aides as a huge and risky change in his position – have made not the slightest difference to Ukip support.
The difficult truth is that some voters no longer believe that voting Conservative leads to Conservative outcomes. Likewise, some voters no longer think that the best way to register opposition to the Government of the day is to vote for Labour, the Official Opposition.
Hence the creeping fear at Westminster that Ukip will not blow over, that its rise indicates a new rift in the political landscape that is too deep to be filled solely by new policies and promises: a fundamental crisis of confidence.
And if that is so, the professional politicians of Britain established parties have an almighty task ahead of them. Trust is easily lost, but perilously hard to regain." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/local-elections/10036765/Local-election-analysis-Is-Ukip-a-passing-storm-or-a-major-earthquake.html
Also, I just read that apparently a football organisation has asked for its money back after they booked Reginald D Hunter, he performed, and they were seemingly shocked that he used a term considered racist as part of his act.
That's like booking a dalek and complaining when he exterminates the front row.
He drains the life out of everything he presents - I'd rather watch Eammon Holmes - he at least has some sparkle and isn't afraid to say his bit. Andrew Neil would've made mince meat of the guests yesterday - it was like watching bored husbands arguing at a wedding over old Cup Final results.
The irony of course is that it is the embrace of globalisation by the right (especially), subsequently aped by the left, that has created the conditions for UKIP to thrive. The flight of manufacturing jobs, sale of our service providers to foreign countries, growth of corporations that can outcompete small enterprise, kids left with Mc jobs etc. The kippers problem is that really they are the Farage party (Who else has his charisma and political nous?) and he is come under increasing pressure to offer positive solutions and not just pretend that if we leave Europe everything will sort itself out.
The political geography is subtle, the 2 UKIP councilors elected yesterday both defected from Conservatives in March, so perhaps had some incumbency factor. In the areas that swing elections here, and in Notts, Derbys, Warwickshire, UKIPers did not do much other than harm the Tories.
In the East and South, safe seats that could develop into Tory/UKIP battlegrounds, opening a second front, but the Election will be won or lost in places like Loughborough and Coalville, and parties should think carefully as to how to win round support to their cause. Loughborough is increasingly a University town, with secondary high value businesses, and Coalville is much more a distribution center based on motorways and East Midlands airport than old pit villages.
The Tories with their tuition fees, and environmental taxes will have an uphill task in both places, of their own making, LibDems too.
Those taking part in the debate really should play some COD first. I think it would help their deliberations.
Robots don't suffer panic, shell shock, or a desire for revenge, but they also lack human intuition and the ability to adapt easily to new and unforeseen situations.
Ha, I've never played COD. I'm not an FPS sort of chap.
Indeed it will, David - and you can still get 11/10 with PP, or evens with Ladbrokes.
Fill your boots, PBers. I make it a 1/3 chance.
It was a stupid comment of Dave's about fruitcakes and closet racists, but not without a germ of truth.
Saw this and thought of you - Ninja Lemurs
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02551/potd_lemur_2551283k.jpg
What were the results in the Eastleigh County seats?
Con 280 .. Labour 285 .. LibDem 45 .. SNP 10 .. Ukip 5 .. PC 3 .. Respect 1 .. Green 1 .. Ind 1 .. Speaker 1 .. NI 18
Have you collected your wagered kiss from MikeL ??
If not have you decided on "French" or Glasgow" ??
Traditionally Labour did well in parts of these places but have now disintegrated leaving a political vacuum.
Perhaps the most impressive UKIP result was in the Boston area, which Labour nearly won in 1997 and 2001 and where an independent group controlled the council upto 2011.
UKIP picked up a lot of this working class vote.
In the south-west the Conservatives and LibDems still remain strong and politically virile because of their constant electoral battles.
Thus making it harder for UKIP to break through at a local level.
War robots do have interesting potential, they should be able to infiltrate and ambush quite easily, but the problem must be in battlefield intelligence and target acquisition. This is the problem with both drones and conventional air strikes, when they bomb afghan weddings.
I can see potential for infantry units to deploy war-bots as part of combined operations, once a firefight has started.
"...many people feel that there is no one speaking for them and dealing with the things that really matter to them.
It is that section of the electorate who embraced Margaret Thatcher and embraced Tony Blair. It is a vote which says ‘a plague on all your houses’, It is soft and it swings all over the place."
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2013/05/jackie-doyle-price-mp-the-way-to-fight-ukip-is-to-knock-on-doors-not-knock-each-other.html
And as we saw back in 2009, the BNP attracted a lot of people who felt that if they were going to be name-called as racists for being worried about immigration - what did they have to lose by voting BNP anyway. It's a dangerous game - grievances always come to the surface eventually. An astute politician would have recognised this - not brushed it under the rug and allowed it to fester.
UKIP's breakthrough was predictable in the context of a coalition government having failed to convince and a weak and discredited opposition party. The votes have to go somewhere (to the extent they don't just remain unexercised) and UKIP offered the only home for a safe and effective protest vote against the Government and the broader political class.
The danger for the big 3 political parties now lies in panic on the one hand and complacency on the other. I expect Labour will succumb to complacency, the Lib Dems to panic and the Tories to both. Paradoxically, each party's response to the UKIP threat is likely only to reinforce it.
The most significant "known unknown" in UK politics is how the coalition will separate between now and the next election and accordingly how the Lib Dems will position themselves at the next general election. By joining the Government, the Lib Dems have sacrificed their entitlement to anti-Government protest votes, neglected the centre left and acquired some of the support-sapping baggage of power. The emergence of UKIP as a genuine fourth power, and the consolidation of that power in next year's Euros, is likely to increase calls for the Lib Dems to break from the coalition earlier than planned and distance itself with strident attacks in the Conservatives, in an attempt to win back lost support. I think this would be very damaging for both coalition parties and a dreadful mistake, but it is a mistake that is now more likely to be made.
Labour look almost certain to continue naval gazing, believing that the emergence of UKIP and other electoral dynamics will work to its benefit in 2015. That will probably be the case, but is also the single most likely cause of UKIP remaining a serious electoral force at the 2015 general election. In many ways Labour 2013 reminds me of Conservatives 1999-2005: beaten, rudderless, bereft of ideas, energy and quality, out of touch and irrelevant. The difference is there was no chance of the Conservatives being elected then; there is every chance Labour will be.
The Tory leadership will oscillate between complacency and panic. On the one hand they will take great comfort from Labour's failure to capture the anti-government vote and continuing ineptitude, believe that swing back and a recovering economy will come to their aid and that the UKIP protest will burn brightly and briefly before the Kippers return home in time for the vote that matters. This will encourage complacency. On the other hand the Tory right and media will be emboldened and will press hard. There will be serious questions raised about, if not challenges to, Cameron's leadership. He will be lucky to survive the next 12 months without offering a serious concession to the right, which may well take the form of bringing forward the referendum on Europe or, as mooted, at least tabling the enabling legislation. The former would be real hail Mary, a panicked response that might spike UKIP's guns but a huge political gamble. The latter would be a huge mistake, keeping UKIP high on the political agenda and playing to UKIP's strength by giving them scope to contrast their policy of an immediate referendum and BOO with the Tories' more nuanced/confused offering.
In the meantime the right leaning media needs to consider how much further it will take its UKIP flirtation. It's been a fun time, a bit of rough after years of unfulfilling relationships with establishment types. And boy if they keep it up they'll get their man all het up and he might just dance to the Mail's tune or ship out and be replaced by a more masculine model. But sooner or later the papers are going to have to end the flirtation or take it one step further. And I think the media's inclination to destroy that which they build up will ultimately prevail. But here's the rub: the media are part of the establishment too, if they turn on UKIP who is to say that the electorate will care...
You must remember Huw is Welsh - slow and sonorus and full of words, but of little wit.
Some of these new councillors will turn out to be excellent but others ( as with some Lib Dems back in the 1990's ) will fall short of the mark . We can expect a number of byelections in 6 to 12 months time as some of these new councillors find that it is not what they expected .
It will be interesting to see if the first of these is the UKIP winner in Shalford Surrey as the new UKIP councillor was planning on emigrating to China in the next few months .
May the 4th be with you
Bear in mind what their revised task now is - to cling on to enough of the incumbent / tactical vote, particularly against Tory challenges, to secure a decent seat return in 2015.
The results showed they are doing that.
Plato is right. Hastings is not the only dying coastal resort that has been used as a dumping ground by other councils for their less attractive citizens.
As a piece of technology I find it fascinating. It takes place in real time, never requires buffering and seems to cope with the copper wires and other rubbish that slows our internet down. The graphics are not the most complex but still pretty good and the interactivity is astonishing.
If a childrens' toy can do this the opportunities for remotely controlled warfare must already be fairly endless.
You seem to spend a lot of time watching / listening to the BBC given how dreadful you think it is. Dial stuck?
Anyway, surely everyone was in "WTF does not compute" mode yesterday?
Have you ever seen MikeK? I mean, I don't wish to be rude, but an oil painting he ain't.
Now if it had been you, Young Jack....
I don't think any of the Big Three are *getting it* and Kippers aren't grown up enough to be worth a serious GE vote but a local councillor? Well, that's just a bit of fun...
What UKIP policies can actually be achieved at a council level - can Boston and Skegness unilaterally leave the EU? And if they dont achieve anything will they reelected in 2017?
The proposed VAT cut will again cause hassle to shopkeepers and suck in imports, while pushing up borrowing. Far better to cut fuel taxes, and carbon taxes, so as to reduce peoples domestic bills this way, and make committing to work affordable. Cheap flights would also go down well with hard working families.
Economic growth and manufacturing thrive on cheap energy, whether Victorian Britain or post war USA. The Shale gas revolution has the potential to get the world out of its economic doldrums. It would require a major dumping of environmental targets.
I am pro-europe, and would vote to stay in the EU, but the dumping of green taxes is about the only UKIP policy that appeals to me.
Problem is on that one I just might agree!
I've recently taken to listening to LBC and their presenters are brilliant compared with R5 - they take no nonsense from their callers or guests - I'd say they best Stephen Nolan who IMO is the most talented of the BBC crop in years.
WRT to the Surrey councillor emigrating, that sounds the sort of timescale that might enable a by-election to be held at the same time as next year's locals, which apart from the opportunity it gives the other parties to organise, would benefit UKIP from the bigger election and avoiding the 'unnecessary poll' accusation.
The short-term impact may be modest for the reasons you give - a lot of these people will turn out to be ineffective at worst, or embarrassing at best. But long-term there will be a Darwinian process where the people who know what they're doing, and who care about winning, are going to end up digging in while the rest get weeded out. That should also feed into pockets of increasingly motivated, competent people gradually entrenching themselves in Westminster seats, until sooner or later they start winning them.
Lets look at this weeks PMI which are supposedly so magnificient
Manufacturing 49.8
Construction 49.4
Services 52.9
Compare them with those of March 2011:
Manufacturing 57.1
Construction 56.4
Services 57.1
Or those of January 2012
Manufacturing 52.1
Construction 51.4
Services 56.0
Or those of March 2012
Manufacturing 52.1
Construction 56.7
Services 55.3
Or those of August 2012
Manufacturing 49.5
Construction 49.0
Services 53.7
Doesn't suggest we're about to enter a new economic golden age does it ?
And we're still living over £100bn beyond our means so I'm not sure there is anything for Labour to ruin 'again'.
What I can predict with confidence though for the next two years is continuing government borrowing, a continual trade deficit, earnings increases for most being below inflation, an increasing wealth divide and more economic migrants.
I suspect those UKIP voters aren't going to be impressed by that.
Even if, no especially if, the media continues to boast about rising London house prices.
"And what of UKIP? This has been an extremely successful week; one of their best ever up along with beating Labour in the 2009 European elections or nearly winning Eastleigh. Yet it perhaps could have been better still."
I suppose one could say that UKIP could have done better, but only after the fact and with hindsight. Just two weeks ago I, and many in UKIP thought that getting up to 50 seats would be a tremendous breakthrough. The median was that 40± would be ok. This was also the what most of PB thought too.
It was only during the last 7 days before the elections that thoughts began to drift to higher possibilities. This was, after all, an all out effort by as yet a small party, which has/had only the flimsiest of bases in some areas of where the candidates were standing. Now will be the time to build the UKIP Party Machine and if you go to UKIP's web page you will notice that they have started a membership drive.
ALL ARE WELCOME