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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Westminster Big Three: zen-like serenity or zombies in action?
Time was when you could be reasonably sure that a party struggling in the polls would lead inevitably to speculation about its leader’s position. The media would talk about it, backbench MPs would talk about it and cabinet or shadow cabinet members would let their friends talk about it. What is remarkable about the last few years is that despite unprecedented combined unpopularity of both lea…
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I don't know. The three "main" parties are indeed in a terrible state. All 3 phone leaders have negative ratings and yet there is no panic - well not in public at least.
Tony Blair: Miliband has failed to connect with voters and is doomed to election defeat
The former Prime Minister has apparently told long-standing political allies that the under-fire Labour leader 'cannot beat' David Cameron in next year's vote
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11187285/Tony-Blair-Miliband-has-failed-to-connect-with-voters-and-is-doomed-to-election-defeat.html
And I see Johann Lamont has joined the list of Sindyref casualties (who she? - ed.)
Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party was heading for crisis on Friday night after Johann Lamont, the leader of the party in Scotland, sensationally resigned – claiming that he had undermined her.
Ms Lamont, a mother of two and former teacher, has been Scottish Labour leader for three years, but decided she’d “had enough”, according to colleagues last night after discovering that Mr Miliband had sacked Ian Price, her general secretary, without telling her.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11187324/Johann-Lamont-to-resign-as-Scottish-Labour-leader.html
Even if UKIP stayed on 17% and got 15 MPs - and got the balance of power, and managed to get a referendum on the EU, and got a majority to get out - what then? The group of self-bombastic and grumpy rentagobs comprising the UKIP parliamentary party would then fall apart with petty squabbling and infighting about all of the issues on which they don't all agree - i.e. everything except immigration and the EU.
So they would all lose their seats next time, voters would return to the two main parties, and "normal" politics would resume.
This looks to me to be perhaps the likeliest 2015 outcome. There is a fair chance Milipede would then drive Labour off an electoral cliff as he attempts the impossible : 5y of deficit reduction by the Labour Party.
Some years ago there was another fine DavidH threader on the electoral consequences of CON/LAB/BNP/LIB 25/25/25/25. Different principle actors in 2020 of course but similar chaotic outcomes look possible.
What was exceptional was the post-war period when a lot of the time the combination of FPTP and top-down media made it hard for other parties to get traction. That's gone, and it's hard to see FPTP lasting since it will create some deeply bonkers outcomes, although it's also not obvious what the exact mechanism will be to get rid of it...
There was Labour broadcast on C4 the other day where a Labour candidate was saying in effect “what a nice person I am, I’ll protect the NHS & childcare”! And that may be OK for a candidate in the very short-term, but where’s the long term thinking? The Tories seem to be in a position of saying "we’ll have a referendum in 2017, and after that we’ll see!"
As for LD’s, I agree, it’s amazing. Again, I’ve commented before that it’s like a slow-motion Charge of the Light Brigade; “stormed at with shot and shell, while horse and hero fell, onward they thundered”! At least they’ve stuck to their Green agenda and the big rows seem to have been over "thought police" issues.
Someone in their inner circle needs to pull a rabbit out of their hat.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2807297/Your-horror-stories-Labour-s-NHS-shambles-Mail-s-devastating-expose-Welsh-NHS-asked-readers-experiences-shocking-feared.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490
So, really, the main parties aren't doing 'badly.' Under our system there's no real moral reason why a party cannot govern the country on 35%, and there certainly isn't an electoral one.
If people are just a bit miffed with the two main parties then it makes sense that people come out and register a protest in by-elections and council seats, and then fade back to the main parties at the GE.
If on the other hand you think people are just plumb dog mad and sick to the back teeth with the bullshit being spread by the main parties, or worse, think that the main parties no longer represent their views, the opposite is true, they would probably think that sending messages in the locals and by-elections is pointless because the main parties just tell you they are "listening" and then carry on as if nothing happened. In this case you would expect people to turn out more at the GE to change things, rather than just sending messages.
I think the whole idea of "sending messages" in the locals and by-elections is rapidly approaching its sell-by date, people are starting to realise that they can send all the messages they want, but no one is taking those messages seriously.
The problem with this approach is that to-day half the electorate are right-wing, a third identify with neither left nor right and only one in six are left of centre in the sense politicians of a generation ago would have understood the term.
This is because the precondition for parties divided by economic interests is ethnic homogeneity. And this we no longer have, nor are we going to recover it any time soon - voting to leave the EU will make people feel better for a week-end and then they will notice that none of the "immigrants" have gone "home".
The typical white voter in the shires is a (more or less) vicious racist - and, for the avoidance of doubt, I would no more live in shire England than I would poke out my eyes with a sharp stick. It is racism which will provide the motor of political division in England henceforward.
'and put in some Healeyite chancellor that puts up taxes enormously, drives businesses and entrepreneurs offshore, gets a huge scare from the bond markets, and then calls in the IMF ?'
Every indication so far is that it will be back to the 70's with Ed, so a Healey style Chancellor will be par for the course.
'The typical white voter in the shires is a (more or less) vicious racist'
Evidence or you just enjoy smearing millions of voters?
An interesting take.
Many people prefer like-minded people and that is the racism which you dislike. It is also the racism you espouse .... " I would no more live in shire England than I would poke out my eyes with a sharp stick."
In Lincolnshire, the newcomers are white and Christian but they talk a foreign language, Hence some animosity (although the reasons are also competition for jobs, housing, schools and GP services),
These shire people .... they be furriners.
UKIP certainly might fail in the future, or they might find new strength. Who knows?
If I were to say that in order to be racist it is first necessary to be white, you would have a point, Indigo. But I am hardly likely to say that. I am white myself.
Apologies. I've just realised you were being sarcastic to make your point. Indeed, hypocrisy is the mark of the Elite.
@Indigo: "It depends how angry you think people are. "
People are not just angry but are contemptuous of politicians, not just at Westminster but at all levels and especially at council level.
At Westminster they blame politicians for allowing the UK to get into this economic/immigration/housing/employment/benefits/EU/ECHR mess and not being able to solve those problems. They are fed up with finding out about the lies of Blair and of others coming to light and the gross inefficiency resulting from the collusion of MPs, AMs etc with the civil services in hiding errors and mistakes and the sheer waste of money.
At council level, they are fed up with being treated with contempt by self-serving councillors and council staff. When budgets are cut, then always the first reaction is to cut services whilst at the same time protecting better salaries and pensions than most of the council tax payers can ever dream about. They are tired of being fined for putting rubbish in the wrong bin or out on the wrong day, being fined for taking children on a term-time holiday etc. At the same time councils seem to be so thick from the neck up that they are unable to think of ways of do things better and more economically.
At police level they are tired of police doing the easy stuff like speeding and avoiding the difficult stuff like sorting out the crime-ridden areas and the drug barons and child grooming gangs.
They are even more appalled at the collusion of councils and police in not executing the law fairly among all people but for political reasons have ignored criminal activity by sectors of the population.
Health care is over-managed by the wrong people and is failing due to this policy. Our education standards continue to decline on a global level with the potential for serious unemployment in the decades to come. Energy has been ignored for decades but is more costly due to Green theory.
In fact it has now come down to the public sector versus the population as often seen in totalitarian or communist regimes. If you belong to the favoured sector you will be looked after, if not ....
Most of our politicians are clueless about how to improve matters and much policy is driven by idealists but not practicalists. The people are fed up and want solutions and will follow those who offer realistic solutions.
Remember both Hitler and Mussolini brought in effective solutions and made people's lives better for a time - they just stayed in power too long.
Have I read this out of all context ?
"We asked a representative cross-section of 100 MPs about Ukip’s chances in 2015, and the response suggests talk of petrified Members running scared of the purple army is pretty wide of the mark. Just 5% of MPs think Ukip will pick up more than five seats, while more than two thirds believe Farage’s party will pick up just two or fewer."
http://www.politicshome.com/uk/article/107021/the_knowledge_are_mps_running_scared_of_ukip?_.html
The Tories and Labour no doubt assume that UKIP will fall back at some stage. They are probably right, to an extent. FPTP is the big two's saving grace. Never mind the harm it does to the country.
No party, including UKIP, has any credible answers to the stagnating or falling living standards so many people across the UK are experiencing. For the moment that means disengagement and disillusion. At some stage, though, it will turn to real anger.
Last days of the Raj at the top of the public sector.
Another example would be sexuality. Heterosexuality is (almost certainly) necessary to the survival of the human race. It also means that there is a good deal more violence endured by women than there would be if the sexes kept to themselves, and homosexuality were the normal, or indeed only legal sexual orientation. It is impossible to believe in cute little grandchildren without also in the same breath giving tacit approval to violence against women.
Most of us, faced with these dilemmas, throw away logic and rely instead on the comfort of "common sense" (a.k.a. my prejudices are better than yours, so there!).
Do any of us think that any of our political parties would last five minutes if voters behaved in an adult fashion?
However the Tory's didn't lose last time because of any perception of "nastiness" they lost because they no-longer seemed competent. I think the man in the street is actually prepared to put up with quite a lot of "nastiness" and when in the secrecy of the polling booth even a certain amount of "extremism" if he or she thinks they are going to get someone that does something about the things that are important to them.
You can extend this to our International views. We know how civilised people behave - it's what we do. We are also against groups like ISIL who wish to force their abhorrent views on others, and against "Imperialism" where the "superior" nations colonised others and made them behave in a different way.
Yet we will condemn the way other nations run their affairs. Russia is homophobic, Pakistan is corrupt, Iran is misogynist. The West is the keeper of the true faith and no other can be accepted. ISIL believe we are corrupt and as they know best (as we do), we must be forced to accept their version. Don't they know that only the West really knows what real morality is?
Wonderful news that Johann frae Pollock has grown a pair, resigned and blasted Ed Milibland in the Daily Record, the Scottish Labour Party's daily comic book. The SNP will be laughing all the way to the ballot box in West, Central Scotland.
So it's OK to ignore 65% of the electorate. At what percentage does it become immoral to govern, 25%, 20%? I'm assuming that you would be against a dictatorship so there must be a low percentage value and which it becomes immoral. You usually make reasoned arguments, so I'm looking forward to your answer to this.
I have speculated in the past about whether any paper(s) will endorse UKIP and if so, which and when. While such endorsements usually carry little weight of their own, they do matter in terms of editorial policy about which stories are covered and how, and in UKIP's case, it would also matter because a first endorsement would be another step on the road to major party status; it would provide credibility with the rest of the media (more so were that endorsement to come from the Mail than the Express, it has to be said). The converse is also true, if they can't pick up an endorsement, it'll act as a drag on how the rest of the media see them.
Yes its a protest vote, but not against the Tories for being too soft on Yerp, or on Labour for ignoring the WWC. Its against all of us for following the same agenda. What is that agenda? Globalisation and immigration to suppress wages and make people poorer, removing real democracy to leave a veneer where there's choice all saying the same, turning society into something uncomfortable, spending oceans of cash running up vast debts yet leaving services smashed and people feeling poorer.
Its not Farage or UKIP policies they are voting for. Its that Farage highlights all they are angry about so they will vote for him as the only one who gets it. Their lack of effective policies isn't an issue - they think the rest of us don't have effective policies either.
I hope this is the last election we will fight under FPTP. I expect Labour to have a working majority next May, and won't be at all surprised if we achieve this on 32% of the vote. I want us in power, but its not democracy. Nor were the Blair and Thatcher landslides, Major receiving the highest ever popular vote and a small majority etc etc. Now that we truly have a multiparty system where punters have finally woken up to the subversion of democracy, its time for a voting system fit for purpose. And if that means an end to governments with large majorities then so be it. People only hate coalitions because the LibDems crossed the floor. Have a couple ofarties on left and right and this problem goes away.
Cons 25-30%
Lab 25-30%
UKIP 20-25%
Greens 8-10%
Libdems 6-8%
Is my current prediction. Most likely a Con maj. Govt.
I think Wales also is finding recruitment difficult, hence vacant posts for doctors and nurses. It is not just about money, it is about being able to do a decent job that allows self respect.
But UKIP is going to save the NHS apparently, nothing to worry about...
If UKIP do blow their chance - and there's every possibility that a new and untried party will make the gaffes that lead them to do so - that won't take away the resentment and disillusionment; it just means it will need a different outlet.
As was noted earlier, the super-rich already have this. The rest of us are merely consumed with envy.
The real wealth creators - the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the innovators - are the people we should be focusing on relentlessly, incentivising and rewarding. They deserve everything they get.
Can it change? Yes. Will it? Probably not for a long time. But make no mistake, the anger at what people see and experience is growing. My main point being it's not just overpaid civil servants that get people's goat. It's an overpaid, over-protected elite full stop. And that includes private sector leaders on multi-million pound packages just as much as it does the CEOs of county councils earning £200,000 a year.
If Labour did coups, this would be Betsygate. Of course, they don't.
However by any reasonable definition people in the shires are in the vast majority not racist. They don't care what colour you are, even if you were purple, as long as you don't set out to force a different culture down their throat.
It is not racist to want to associate with people who share your values and not want to associate with people who do not share your values.
It is racist to not want to associate with people who do share your values but are a different colour.
We have had immigrants for centuries, many eastenders are part african heritage as a significant black population in East London in Elizabethan times vanished due to integration and intermarrying.
What is new, is that the left encouraged recent immigrants to define themselves by the differences in their culture and fostered a sense of greviance as part of a Gramascian plan to undermine western Christian culture and foster the chaos in society needed for "the revolution".
Actually, many of the commonwealth immigrants share the British values of the shires (one reason they came here in the first place) and not an insignificant number will be voting UKIP and I well recall the support from people of other faiths when Loony Lambeth Council unsuccessfully tried to ban the public crib on Streatham Common in the 1980s on the grounds it was offensive to non Christians (in reality it was only offensive to Lambeth councillors atheist values).
Arguably the biggest division at the moment, and the one driving UKIP's rise is on social factors, with Con, Lab and LD all being socially liberal to a greater or lesser extent, and UKIP being socially conservative.
As both the Tories and Labour have socially conservative wings, what this means is that UKIP can tailor their economic policies to target whichever major party looks the weaker without affecting their core messages, which remain Europe and social conservatism, both of which cut across economic divisions. At the moment, they're playing it both ways, which is a dangerous game as it inevitably produces contradictions, but as with the Lib Dems in the past, that doesn't matter unless you're the one left holding the parcel when the music stops - and they won't be this time.
If UKIP eventually achieve their ultimate goals (directly or indirectly) they wont have any reason to exist anyway. And I don't think they would really care.
But anyway, personally, I think the ultimate aim of Mr Farage is to do a 'Canada'. It would benefit UKIP (and the Greens) the most if Milliband got into government and became incredibly unpopular, more than he is at the moment.
"You read that right, folks – Johann’s quitting her job because she doesn’t want her affairs being run by London. If only there’d recently been some sort of way of putting a guaranteed and permanent stop to that, eh?"
http://wingsoverscotland.com/you-just-cant-make-this-stuff-up/#more-62550
Only a month, too, since she was telling the Record that no way was she quitting, but instead would be next First Minister, as Wings points out.
Wonder who'll get the position now? I just can't guess with any reliability, but one point is that all Scottish MPs as well as MSPs and members etc are supposedly under the authority of the leader of the Scottish Labour Party (which doesn't really exist, it seems, but never mind). What I'm not clear about is whether there is any actual requirement for the leader of the Labour contingent in the Scottish Parliament and the SLAB leader to be one and the same. That is going to be important if for instance a certain MP were to be parachuted in without the minor detail of a MSP seat.
Tory: 23%
Labour: 23.5%
Third Party 50.5%
No, not UKIP of course, the Lib/SDP Alliance, Gallup, Dec '81.
We've been here before, only more so.
Mass immigration of economic migrants makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Until a politician wakes up, admits this and does what is necessary To tackle the problem, they are just putting a plaster on a broken leg
Eastern European plumbers and electricians work for less money, but that just means their employers profit margin increases.. The customer doesn't get a discount.
So things cost more, but people are paid less, or the same if they're lucky... Meanwhile the profits for the bosses are so much bigger than the fall in wages of the workers they help increase GDP and the pro mass immigration politicians use this to justify the policy
Obviously the result of the policy is the reason why the Labour Party was formed in the first place. That the Labour Party are it's staunchest defenders is why a lot of people feel betrayed and are voting for someone else.
The social liberalism of all three main parties has left a huge hole in the political field which UKIP are filling.
I maintain that it was gay marriage that has been the trigger for UKIPs recent surge, because it unequivocally demonstrated that the Conservatives are now as socially liberal as Labour have been since the sixties.
Thus a huge slew of voters, who, sometimes with gritted teeth, voted Conservative to keep Labour out because they felt that Labours social values would undermine the fabric of society, have departed from the Conservative party to UKIP.
One shock to the main parties will be the number of immigrants who vote UKIP as they share those socially conservative values.
Two possibilities.
1) We're genuinely in a new era of multi (5+) party politics, with a rough 65/35 Big Two/Rest split.
2) The Grn/SNP/UKIP/Other surge is a flash in the pan, and things will get back to "normal" soon enough.
Either way, the Big Two are doing just fine.
Under that regime no one with any world class ability would come to these shores to conduct business, and anyone born here with any sense of ambition would leave, it would be like the brain drain in the 70s only an order of magnitude worse. We would be a third world country inside a generation. Not to mention it would be against European law so you would have to leave the EU first!
If UKIP eventually achieve their ultimate goals (directly or indirectly) they wont have any reason to exist anyway. And I don't think they would really care.
But anyway, personally, I think the ultimate aim of Mr Farage is to do a 'Canada'. It would benefit UKIP (and the Greens) the most if Milliband got into government and became incredibly unpopular, more than he is at the moment.
Mr Farage might act like a bit of a wide boy geezer, but he is not stupid and knows who his target group is and is doing an amazing job in taking a pickaxe to British politics. Like him or hate him (there is no middle ground there) he is here to stay for a while.
The problem is our main party leaders are too scared of being hated. Yes, they are hated now by many people, but not for the right reasons. Conviction politicians know they are going to be hated and ridiculed by lots of people, but to balance that out they know they are going to be loved by lots of people too.
Hovering around the centre in a rudderless fashion just annoys everyone.
The Tories, being the political wing of the Establishment (Big Business, rightwing media moguls etc) clearly face the greater challenge to modernise, or they will be in big trouble long term.
"Johann Lamont has quit as leader of the Scottish Labour Party after accusing the UK party leadership of treating Scotland as a "branch office" "
This surely writes the SNP's General Election attack for them. If Salmond does decide to stand, presumably in Gordon, an SNP landslide in Scotland no longer seems the stuff of fantasy to me.
I agree though that identity politics are here and here to stay. Just look at the US where, despite their best efforts not to, the Republicans continue to increase their share of the white vote.http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/gop-demographic-crisis-is-still-getting-worse.html
The whole debate about what constitutes fair democracy is interesting. I used to be rather anti coalitions but this was has changed my mind. I think history will judge it as a huge success, and Cameron and Clegg have done a pretty good job considering.
Falsely scapegoating immigrants in a deliberate attempt to create a smokescreen over the failures of the Rightwing Establishment (of which UKIP is a part) will only get you so far.
That said, I think a Tory majority on those number is highly unlikely as it'd have to mean Tory gains in seats on a net swing to Labour. Even allowing for gains from the Lib Dems, I don't see how that can plausibly happen.
But that's not enough to excuse or allow a non-policy on migration. I get told about people in all white areas raising migration as a concern as if we can dismiss them as bonkers - can't people have a wider concern for their society than just their immediate area?
However, as people have come to realise, unchecked migration wasn't a Labour policy, it's an establishment policy. The Tories talked tough about migration, tried to position it as party political but have been as wilfully ineffective as we were. Because you cant control migration in a single market. Its that simple.
The reasons I have outlined are why labour are losing votes to Ukip
Not for the first time recently, I find myself in almost complete disagreement with David.
Far from proclaiming the fall of the three-party monopoly on power, the central argument is that we haven't yet broken the Conservative-Labour duopoly. Last time, the two parties won over 560 of the 650 seats on offer. Even at their respective recent nadirs (1997 for the Conservatives and 1983 for Labour in terms of seats) both won over 150 seats and Labour hasn't won fewer than 200 at any election since 1945.
The illusion of collapse in voting shares is just that - the country is made up of defined areas of Conservative strength, defined areas of Labour strength and a few pockets of LD strength. Even if both main parties are at 30%, vast numbers of seats will still be Labour or Conservative. UKIP's hope next year is to create its own pockets of strength because if all they do is pile up 15-20% in seat after seat Farage will be able to do the "we have won no seats but a great victory" speech before sliding into obscurity.
The duopoly won't be broken by UKIP or by the LDs in isolation - it could be broken by PR or by the schism of one of the two main parties which is how we got the SDP which couldn't get the critical mass to make it happen. IF UKIP persuaded 100 Conservative MP and 100 Labour MPs to defect and then held the seats, that would do it too but I can't see that happening.
As for all the "angry" people who used to vote LD and now vote UKIP - there don't seem to be enough of them to make a difference so they shout and rant on forums like this and elsewhere because, basically, that's all they have. We're forced to listen but that's all - ultimately the tribal loyalists who will turn out for Bob Neill in Bromley & Chislehurst and Stephen Timms in East Ham run the show.
My problem is that the policy you defend makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. The immigrants are pawns in the game. They are just units of labour to the left wing establishment and usefully they can be used as a moral shield when people rumble what's really going on
It really is absurd that we have come to the point where labour inflict policies on the people they were set up to protect that ruin their lives, then stigmatise them for mentioning it.
I grew up in the shires, and my experience is entirely contrary.
They are wary of all outsiders - regardless of race or colour of their skin - but once accepted they are a full member of the community
Labour were meant to be the party that put the working class first. Allowing cheap labour to undercut wages and reduce living standards while simultaneously making the employers richer is the equivalent of Ukip rejoining the EU in 2120
"wouldn't he be better standing in a Glasgow seat, with the aim of putting boosters under the SNP's hopes of harnessing those Yes voters there?"
Salmond is probably the only senior politician in Scotland who might seriously consider doing such a thing. I cite as evidence that he returned to Holyrood by contesting a seat where his party had come third in the previous election. On balance, however, I think that he will not for at least the reasons below:
* Although Glasgow voted "Yes", many appear to have done so on the basis that a vote for independence was expressly not a vote for Alex Salmond.
* A lot more effort might be required to win in Glasgow than in Gordon which might prove a distraction from the main campaign
* It might be viewed negatively in much of the rest of Scotland, where Salmond garners some support for his party by it not being dominated by Glasgow. It would certainly be easily portrayed as such with Sturgeon also being Glasgow based.
I still don't feel able to rule it out completely, though it is the third point that is the most important to me.
But I take JPJ2's points.
'People are not just angry but are contemptuous of politicians, not just at Westminster but at all levels and especially at council level.
At Westminster they blame politicians for allowing the UK to get into this economic/immigration/housing/employment/benefits/EU/ECHR mess and not being able to solve those problems. They are fed up with finding out about the lies of Blair and of others coming to light and the gross inefficiency resulting from the collusion of MPs, AMs etc with the civil services in hiding errors and mistakes and the sheer waste of money.
At council level, they are fed up with being treated with contempt by self-serving councillors and council staff. When budgets are cut, then always the first reaction is to cut services whilst at the same time protecting better salaries and pensions than most of the council tax payers can ever dream about. They are tired of being fined for putting rubbish in the wrong bin or out on the wrong day, being fined for taking children on a term-time holiday etc. At the same time councils seem to be so thick from the neck up that they are unable to think of ways of do things better and more economically.
At police level they are tired of police doing the easy stuff like speeding and avoiding the difficult stuff like sorting out the crime-ridden areas and the drug barons and child grooming gangs.
They are even more appalled at the collusion of councils and police in not executing the law fairly among all people but for political reasons have ignored criminal activity by sectors of the population.
Health care is over-managed by the wrong people and is failing due to this policy. Our education standards continue to decline on a global level with the potential for serious unemployment in the decades to come. Energy has been ignored for decades but is more costly due to Green theory.
In fact it has now come down to the public sector versus the population as often seen in totalitarian or communist regimes. If you belong to the favoured sector you will be looked after, if not ....
Most of our politicians are clueless about how to improve matters and much policy is driven by idealists but not practicalists. The people are fed up and want solutions and will follow those who offer realistic solutions.
Remember both Hitler and Mussolini brought in effective solutions and made people's lives better for a time - they just stayed in power too long.'
LIKE
An excellent synopsis.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/wisbech-immigration-politicians-david-cameron-ukip-eu-exit
"This year I visited Wisbech – where a third of the 30,000 population is now estimated to be from overseas – and what was happening there spoke loud truths about why free movement has become so politicised. For all that recently arrived families have started to settle, and their children are acquiring new, hybrid identities, there are still glaring problems. Young men from eastern Europe often live four or five to a room, and work impossibly long hours; with echoes of Europe’s macroeconomic asymmetries, the local labour market is divided between insufficient jobs that be can be done by people with families and mortgages, and a surfeit of opportunities for those who will work whenever they are required for a relative pittance.
This creates endless tension. There have also been inevitable problems surrounding how far schools and doctors’ surgeries have been stretched. Is anyone surprised? Moreover, even if such places represent socioeconomic extremes, similar problems surface whenever large-scale migration fuses with the more precarious parts of the economy. In modern Britain, this obviously happens often, and the under-reported consequences of austerity have hardly helped.
What passes for the modern left tends to be far too blase about all this. Perhaps those who reduce people’s worries and fears to mere bigotry should go back to first principles, and consider whether, in such laissez-faire conditions, free movement has been of most benefit to capital or labour. They might also think about the dread spectacle of people from upscale London postcodes passing judgment on people who experience large-scale migration as something real."
You should not confuse me with someone who is going to vote Labour next year.
The rise of Ukip has its roots in the long-term trend of increasing dissatisfaction with the main parties and the shorter-term factor of the loss of the Liberal Democrats as a repository for protest votes. All three of the traditional "main" parties are now judged as part of the same governing class, and none appear capable of appealing to the ever-growing group of disaffected voters. The Conservatives could not in 2010, and Labour if anything seem to be doing a worse job, despite the implosion in Lib Dem support. If you'd have believed in 2010 that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would ship 20 points between them at this point in the parliament, you'd no doubt have thought Labour would be secure in the low-mid 40s. The fact that they are some ten points adrift of that mark and struggling to retain a lead in the polls demonstrates the scale of their failure to date.
Still, it's all to play for in 2015. The decisive factor will be how the disaffected groups behave. Which will hold their nose and return to their former home? Which will register their disaffection by simply staying at home? And which will turnout for the parties they now say they support? My sense is that the Ukip vote will be more resilient than, for example, the Green vote, which may assist Labour, but that the Lib Dems will find a way to win back some of the support lost to Labour, which could offset the different behaviour of Ukip and Green supporters.
The Rochester by-election could prove to be decisive (I think the betting markets are currently underestimating the risk of a post buy-election Tory meltdown), but assuming the Tories survive it (that is to say, either they win or they lose but don't fracture further (latter more likely)) I believe the most important development in the next few months will be the yellow swan - the Lib Dems' strategy for departing government and positioning at the next election. We more or less know what each of the Tories, Labour and Ukip will offer at the next election. We don't yet know what Liberal Democrats will offer, or whether they can recapture much of the support they appear to have lost.