State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[MrGongGong]

The UKIP are now clearly the true party of the British the working class.

Come off it
YOU know there are more than TWO possibilities

to pretend that Farage isn't speaking for a considerable number of people , working and middle class, seems to be flying in the face of the facts.

Sadly this seems to be the case
BUT having popular support doesn't make one right or the best worst option

Appealing to peoples fear of the other and encouraging anger and hatred doesn't seem the way to create a more peaceful and ethical world.

[MrGongGong]

UKIP's current success could also be due in some part to the modern ethos of 'political correctness'

Give us a REAL example of what you mean by this ?

[Beef Oven!]

Appealing to peoples fear of the other and encouraging anger and hatred doesn't seem the way to create a more peaceful and ethical world.

You sure you don't like Zimmerman?

[visualnickmos]

Frankly, I can't understand these MPs (especially Government Ministers!) behaving like overgrown school kids and doing all this silly 'tweeting' in the first place!

I think you've hit the nail well and truly on the head, in those few words. It sums up the whole damn shooting match. Increasingly stupid behaviour over the years by the 'main' parties has now come back to bite them hard, in the form of the ultra-right pushing their way in.

[Beef Oven!]

Emily was quite correct in thinking that the display of nationalism she tweeted was not everyday white working-class behaviour, though it was very foolish of her to tweet about it in the middle of an election, especially this one.

She doesn't think she was right. If she was, then she's resigned over self-inflicted political correctness.

[Beef Oven!]

I think you've hit the nail well and truly on the head, in those few words. It sums up the whole damn shooting match. Increasingly stupid behaviour over the years by the 'main' parties has now come back to bite them hard, in the form of the ultra-right pushing their way in.

The UKIP aren't ultra-right, stop trying to scare us.

[ahinton]

Yeah, a flash in the pan. Bi-elections don't mean nuffink to a general election. Hugh Muir isn't being a professional arrogant when he tells us that Rochester and Strood UKIP votes are immoral - no, course he aint.

No, not a flash in the pan; I did not and do not say that. Yes, by-elections have a habit of springing far more surprises and changes than general ones do but, again, I did not and do not suggest that they "mean nuffink". I cannot comment on Hugh Muir, but it has to be said that, when a standing MP stands down by reason of defection and then is put up at the resulting by-election as a candidate for the paty to which he/she's defected, the likelihood is that a substantial proportion of his/her existing following will change party loyalties in a way that might not occur had the defecting MP merely stood down to be replaced by another candidate representing the same party.

The UKIP will fade away after their TWO seats.

I didn't and do not say that, either; indeed, I wrote of that party that "I have little doubt that, next May, they'll acquire more". That means "more than the current tally of two", in case of doubt.

The real point here is that the SNP will be (along with the UKIP) the cause of the demise of Labour in the coming general election.

Whilst there's undoubtedly some truth in that, I do not believe that SNP's fate will be compromised by UKIP as will that of the Conservative and Labour parties (and the LibDems as well if they've not already consigned themselves to oblivion without even the assistance of UKIP). What I think SNP and UKIP will each do, however, is destabilise the Westminsted governmental machine by drawing support from other parties to the extent of making any majority government unelectable; if a position is reached at which Tory, Labour and LibDems have votes taken away from them by UKIP and SNP ups its game, the end result might well be one in which no two parties could even form a majority coalition such as we have now and if some of the "others" (UKIP, Greens &c.) manage to win a few seats as well, the waters will become muddier still.

[visualnickmos]

The UKIP aren't ultra-right, stop trying to scare us.

Me, trying to scare you!?

Have you really analysed what their policies are?

Have you looked at some of the parties from Europe that they are aligned with in the European Parliament?

You really have been taken in, big time!

...and if they are not ultra-right, as you claim they are not, how do you explain the fact that they carry so many attributes of the ultra-right?

[Beef Oven!]

No, not a flash in the pan; I did not and do not say that. Yes, by-elections have a habit of springing far more surprises and changes than general ones do but, again, I did not and do not suggest that they "mean nuffink". I cannot comment on Hugh Muir, but it has to be said that, when a standing MP stands down by reason of defection and then is put up at the resulting by-election as a candidate for the paty to which he/she's defected, the likelihood is that a substantial proportion of his/her existing following will change party loyalties in a way that might not occur had the defecting MP merely stood down to be replaced by another candidate representing the same party.


I didn't and do not say that, either; indeed, I wrote of that party that "I have little doubt that, next May, they'll acquire more". That means "more than the current tally of two", in case of doubt.


Whilst there's undoubtedly some truth in that, I do not believe that SNP's fate will be compromised by UKIP as will that of the Conservative and Labour parties (and the LibDems as well if they've not already consigned themselves to oblivion without even the assistance of UKIP). What I think SNP and UKIP will each do, however, is destabilise the Westminsted governmental machine by drawing support from other parties to the extent of making any majority government unelectable; if a position is reached at which Tory, Labour and LibDems have votes taken away from them by UKIP and SNP ups its game, the end result might well be one in which no two parties could even form a majority coalition such as we have now and if some of the "others" (UKIP, Greens &c.) manage to win a few seats as well, the waters will become muddier still.

Thank you.

[ahinton]

Do you not think that, faced with the prospect of the tories returning to power, the Scottish labour heartland will return in big numbers, (big enough to return most of their MPs) to Labour?

I do indeed think that this is very likely and have already indicated as much.

as for the UKIP effect, two questions:
1. where can they actually get MPs elected? old Lib Dem areas like the West Country? the odd 3/4 way marginal?
2. How many seats are there where a swing to UKIP will deprive one of the labour/tories/libdems of a seat, and hand it to their big rivals?
UKIP must have some hard thoughts about this?

That's a hard one to answer with any certainty but, to 1., I rather think that there's more likelihood of UKIP success in eastern England than in the south west of that country and, to 2., I'd be inclined to think "not so very many", except in constituencies whose MPs already have very larbe majorities.

[ahinton]

If you seriously think that the white working class regularly hang large St George flags out of their windows when there isn't a football international going on, you are far less in touch with the white working class than you like to think!

Quite - and, in any case, the omnipresent wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George) informs us that
Many Patronages of Saint George exist around the world, including: Georgia, England, Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Sardinia, Serbia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Russia and Syria, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Botoşani, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Timișoara, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg im Breisgau, Kragujevac, Kumanovo, Ljubljana, Pérouges, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lydda, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow and Victoria, as well as of the Scout Movement[4] and a wide range of professions, organizations, and disease sufferers including leprosy, plague, herpes and syphilis.
"Hooray for Harry, England, Georgia, Egypt, Bulgaria, Aragon, Catalonia, Romania, Ethiopia, Greece, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Sardinia, Serbia, Macedonia, Ukraine, Russia and Syria, as well as the cities of Genoa, Amersfoort, Beirut, Botoşani, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Timișoara, Fakiha, Bteghrine, Cáceres, Ferrara, Freiburg im Breisgau, Kragujevac, Kumanovo, Ljubljana, Pérouges, Pomorie, Preston, Qormi, Rio de Janeiro, Lydda, Lviv, Barcelona, Moscow, Victoria and St. George" just doesn't have quite that same ring about it, n'est-ce pas?...

[jean]

She doesn't think she was right. If she was, then she's resigned over self-inflicted political correctness.

She was right, and she and I both know it, even if you don't.

She had to resign because it was necessary, in the circumstances, for a display of extreme nationalism possibly with racist undertones to be assumed to be everyday white working class behaviour.

This is actually an insult to the white working class.

[amateur51]

The UKIP aren't ultra-right, stop trying to scare us.

The Whisky, Shaving and Label correspondent speaks ... :winkything:

[Beef Oven!]

Me, trying to scare you!?

Scare us.

Have you really analysed what their policies are?

Yes, and they are a combination of classical liberal and right wing conservatism.

Have you looked at some of the parties from Europe that they are aligned with in the European Parliament?

The UKIP are aligned with no parties from Europe. All the knobs in the EU elitist boys club are receiving millions of pounds of funding for their political fetishes. A long smouldering plot to deny the Freedom and Direct Democracy group of the funding everyone else gets, left it with no other option other than to co-opt a legitimate MEP onto the group who had previously made some ill-advised comments (now rehabilitated like Emily Thornberry will be). Marxists do it all the time. No big deal, get over it.

You really have been taken in, big time!

And I will probably vote for them in the general election.

[ahinton]

The UKIP aren't ultra-right, stop trying to scare us.

Well, what are they, then? The problem that UKIP appears (at least to me) to present to most people who aren't among their supporters is that the only policies for which its declared that it stands are about (a) cutting immigration and free movement of people and (b) cessation of UK's EU membership without holding a referendum on it; there's so little evidence of what they would do if in government (which, as I've pointed out before, it's leader says is not going to happen) on so many other vital issues and the only matters upon which most of them shout loudly (some very loudly indeed) are strongly suggestive of spendid-isolationist right-wing bias.

Yes, UKIP's success such as it has been to date (just two MPs) is undoubtedly - and even helpfully - indicative of increasing public disenchantment with Westmonster, but I submit that it has no monopoly on the representation of that discontent because there are many people of all parties and none who are getting fed up with the ways and workings of Westmonster.