Not like the rest at all ?

[mercia]

a labour or libdem voter in Clacton wouldn't feel any particular loyalty to Mr Carswell would they ? and yet he took many of their votes too, if I've understood the figures correctly.

[P. G. Tipps]

a labour or libdem voter in Clacton wouldn't feel any particular loyalty to Mr Carswell would they ? and yet he took many of their votes too, if I've understood the figures correctly.

I suspect some would vote Carswell and UKIP simply to oust the Tory!

The trouble is that, in England at least, UKIP seems to have replaced the Lib Dems as the new 'tactical vote' party!

[ahinton]

I suspect some would vote Carswell and UKIP simply to oust the Tory!

The trouble is that, in England at least, UKIP seems to have replaced the Lib Dems as the new 'tactical vote' party!

To the extent that voters outside Scotland will be unable to vote SNP, one might indeed argue that, at least as long as the LibDems continue to do as badly as hgas been the case for some time but, should their fortunes turn, it could well be that every party (other than minority ones such as the Greens and others) becomes a "tactical vote" party. Now that really would be interesting, especially if SNP continues to do well on its own territory.

[french frank]

It would be good to hear a reasoned analysis of the result from more of the regulars here, instead of the usual exchanges between the usual suspects on the usual lines. I thought I'd made a start.

(To mercia - the majority (?) of voters aren't 100% committed to any party. They will vote in by-elections on what seem to them to be the most immediate issues, what they are hearing about on the the news. But a sitting MP does have a headstart, as long as there's no obvious black mark against him/her).

Many of the Labour MPs who transferred to the SDP in the early wave of defections seemed to me like carpet-baggers unnerved by the apparaent unstoppability of the new party. It split the Labour Party and the interesting thing will be whether this splits the Tories: not all of them are anti-EU and anti-immigrant: what would they do if the Tories accepted UKIP as a coalition or unofficial partner in order to continue in power?

[aeolium]

But what of long term? Think of the massive swings with which the SDP started winning by-elections through the 1980s - an entirely new party doing extraordinarily well because it had some well-known faces and people were fed up with the existing parties, but by-election swings don't automatically lead to General Election seats. Then fastwind 30 years and ..? Loyalty to sitting MPs would probably surprise those who think all politicians are rogues ... the sitting MP has a headstart as well as the 'following wind' of the current UKIP bandwagon.

If you're thinking of 20-30 years hence, then I agree, perhaps UKIP's star will have burnt out by then. There may be some other realignment of parties, austerity policies may have gone etc. But in the short term, the next few years and especially the next election, there are going to be big upheavals. UKIP are likely to be taking votes, and in some cases lots of votes, from Labour, Tories, some nationalists (more Plaid than SNP) - probably not from the Libdems, though they are already losing hand over fist to Labour in the north, the Tories in the south and the SNP and Labour in Scotland.

I don't think UKIP's rise is a flash in the pan - it has been growing for years now but particularly since the crash of 2008. The twin issues of immigration and austerity policies, with wages declining in real terms over the last 6 years, are fuelling its rise. None of the three establishment parties is going to tackle either of these issues since all are pledged to continue with austerity and they can do little about immigration levels.

My prediction for the May election is that it will result in another hung parliament. I cannot see Labour winning an outright majority after a dismal year in which they have come up with no real alternative policies other than tinkering around the edges of austerity economics, and their leader is unpopular. The Tories have flatlined at around 33% for ages now, and that is not going to be enough to take them to a lead especially as the boundaries favour Labour. The Libdem vote is going to collapse and UKIP will probably replace it as the third party in terms of votes gained but FPTP will hit UKIP as it does every minority party and it may not end up with more than a handful of seats (possibly double figures). The SNP may well increase its number of seats. So whoever comes out as the largest party, but without an outright majority, will be in a nightmare situation: forced to continue with austerity policies and probably in a coalition when coalition politics are deeply unpopular with parties and public.

Then again, I might be completely wrong.....

Ed: I don't incidentally think people are voting UKIP as a tactical vote. I think they are voting for them because they are fed up with the mainstream parties and think UKIP offers a change (plus the populist, anti-immigration UKIP stance), and they will vote for them whatever result it will have on the outcome of the election in their constituency. This will make predicting the results of particular seats - and not just marginal ones - really difficult.

[ahinton]

the majority (?) of voters aren't 100% committed to any party. They will vote in by-elections on what seem to them to be the most immediate issues, what they are hearing about on the the news. But a sitting MP does have a headstart, as long as there's no obvious black mark against him/her).

I suspect that this is particularly pertinent in my own constituency in that I've heard some lifelong socialists and even UKIP supporters claim that they'll vote Consrvative next May because they'll be aiming to return a non-duplicitous politician that they feel that they can all trust to act in constituents' and others' best interests.

Many of the Labour MPs who transferred to the SDP in the early wave of defections seemed to me like carpet-baggers unnerved by the apparaent unstoppability of the new party. It split the Labour Party and the interesting thing will be whether this splits the Tories: not all of them are anti-EU and anti-immigrant: what would they do if the Tories accepted UKIP as a coalition or unofficial partner in order to continue in power?

Goodness knows! I cannot imagine the Tories and UKIP agreeing to form a coalition, not only because of the depth of their animosity towards one another but because such an arrangement will inetivably look as though the right-wingers in the Tory party will have persuaded the rest of the Tories of the superiority of their stance and that the majority party in such a coalition (the Tories) will accordingly have "moved to the right" (pace Thatcher) in order even for so risky an arranged Farage I mean marriage (where's strikethrough when you most need it?!) to be contemplated, let alone implemented.

[Flosshilde]

It would be good to hear a reasoned analysis of the result from more of the regulars here,

Who would they be?

instead of the usual exchanges between the usual suspects on the usual lines.

Unworthy of you. I think 'the regulars' here are also 'the usual suspects', who generally do give reasoned analysis - & there has been some, before your contribution.

[french frank]

Ed: I don't incidentally think people are voting UKIP as a tactical vote. I think they are voting for them because they are fed up with the mainstream parties

That is exactly why they voted SDP then.

Looking at the local govt by-election results for Sept/October 2014 (the past month):

Conwy UA Abergele Pensarn Labour Hold
Durham CC Crook Labour gain from Ind
Guildford CC Lovelace LD gain from Con
South Molton TC Ind gain by ballot after a tie from LD
Epping Forest DC Epping Hemnall LD gain from Con
Somerset CC Frome North Con gain from LD
S. Northants DC Grange Park Con double hold
Earley TC Radstock Radstock Con hold
S. Tyneside MBC Westhoe UKIP gain from Ind
Cardiff UA LLandaff N Labour Hold
Haringey LBC Woodside Lab Hold (LDs the big gainers)
Cumbria CC Windermere LD Hold
S Lakeside DC Windermere Town LD Hold
Blackpool UA Blackpool Town Con hold
Rushmoor BC West Heath UKIP hold
Chelmsford BC Bicknacre &c Con hold
Essex CC Brightlingsea Con gain from UKIP
Crawley BC Southgate Labour gain from UKIP

The bottom 5 all held yesterday. Make what you like about that. The Big Story is just one more story, not the whole story writ large.

[french frank]

Unworthy of you. I think 'the regulars' here are also 'the usual suspects', who generally do give reasoned analysis - & there has been some, before your contribution.

Just the way I see it - that some, in general, don't give reasoned analyses. Those who think they do give and have given reasoned analyses, consider yourselves excluded from the comment anyway.

[aeolium]

That is exactly why they voted SDP then.

Looking at the local govt by-election results for Sept/October 2014 (the past month)....

The bottom 5 all held yesterday. Make what you like about that. The Big Story is just one more story, not the whole story writ large.

I don't think those results are surprising. Local govt by-election results are FPTP like constituency by-elections. As I said, FPTP is not in UKIP's favour any more than it is in the Libdems' and in local terms they are starting from a low base (only 2 local councillors in England before the 2014 local elections which increased their number to 163). Because of FPTP I don't expect UKIP to win many seats in the 2015 General Election, but that does not mean their rise will not have a big influence on the destinies of other parties.

I get the impression you don't think their rise is a big issue at all, just a minor and temporary disturbance of the electoral landscape. Even though they came top in the number of votes cast in the Euro elections, IIRC the first party other than Labour or Conservatives to do so in a national election for a century. As someone who now lives with 3 UKIP district councillors on my local district council, I think it's a concern.

[ahinton]

I don't incidentally think people are voting UKIP as a tactical vote. I think they are voting for them because they are fed up with the mainstream parties

Maybe, but isn't that more or less the same thing in principle? One votes for a party either because one supports that party or because one is fed up with other ones; in the latter case, that surely constitutes "tactical voting" in the sense that all tactical voters vote as they do in the hope of ensuring that certain parties do not succeed rather than that the voter's favoured party does succeed?

[ahinton]

I don't think those results are surprising. Local govt by-election results are FPTP like constituency by-elections. As I said, FPTP is not in UKIP's favour any more than it is in the Libdems' and in local terms they are starting from a low base (only 2 local councillors in England before the 2014 local elections which increased their number to 163). Because of FPTP I don't expect UKIP to win many seats in the 2015 General Election, but that does not mean their rise will not have a big influence on the destinies of other parties.

One problem with FPTP is that those posts are goalposts, ready to be moved by and at the whim of whichever party able to grab hold of them is the most corruptly manipulative...

[french frank]

I get the impression you don't think their rise is a big issue at all, just a minor and temporary disturbance of the electoral landscape. Even though they came top in the number of votes cast in the Euro elections, IIRC the first party other than Labour or Conservatives to do so in a national election for a century. As someone who now lives with 3 UKIP district councillors on my local district council, I think it's a concern.

I see it as a significant issue, but one which for the reasons you give may - or may not - be a big issue. In those results that I gave there were some where UKIP didn't even manage to find a candidate even though they had done in the previous election.

It was only a few years ago that the BNP was winning council seats in pockets around the country (and MEPs). I feel UKIP will have a more lasting effect than that, but there's more to winning seats than putting a name on the ballot paper. The point of the by-election results, though, was to show that even with austerity the Tories can still win seats from UKIP; so can Labour; the Liberal Democrats can still win seats (and get new members, btw!). So is it a Big Issue? I really don't know. Though in the end the system stands a good chance of 'winning'.

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder if after the latest by-election results (following on from the Euro election and local election results), people are starting to take UKIP seriously as a political party and - whatever they think of their politics, Farage, etc - trying to comprehend why they are taking so many votes away from the established parties, rather than simply dismissing them as fruitcakes or kippers or any other foodstuff of choice. We have two threads currently discussing what the Libdems promised, could have done, should/shouldn't have done etc, yet it seems to me that the Libdems for whatever reasons are now a peripheral party (or will be at the coming General Election) while UKIP are very much not. There must be plenty of seats where incumbent Tory, Labour and Libdem MPs are going to be under threat from UKIP - not perhaps in London or Scotland where UKIP don't have so much of a following, but in most other parts of the country. So are people here worried? Do they have any explanations for UKIP's appeal? And what could be done to counter it? The rubbishing and jokes clearly haven't worked.

At the most superficial level, I think the main reason for UKIP's growing appeal is that they have a leader who "speaks his mind" without the usual shilly-shallying, and that the only political opposition to him coming courtesy establishment party politicians dominating all the news agendas therefore lacks credibility, regardless of whatever is pointed out as regards immigration outside the EU.

[aeolium]

Maybe, but isn't that more or less the same thing in principle? One votes for a party either because one supports that party or because one is fed up with other ones; in the latter case, that surely constitutes "tactical voting" in the sense that all tactical voters vote as they do in the hope of ensuring that certain parties do not succeed rather than that the voter's favoured party does succeed?

No, I think it's fundamentally different. In the typical tactical voting situation a voter may not vote for the party which they would, in a PR system, prefer to vote for because they don't think the party has a chance of winning under FPTP. They may as a result look at the likely contenders for first place and if one was particularly unappealing they might vote for the other to keep that party out.

But I don't think that's happening with UKIP. Their voters seem to hate the major parties equally so that they will vote for UKIP come what may. In the last Heywood and Middleton general election result, for instance, UKIP got 2.6% of the vote. A potential UKIP voter, looking at that, might think - no chance: which of the two main parties do I hate less - and vote tactically or not vote at all. But instead they vote UKIP, and UKIP polls 38.7%.