Will UKIP win its first seat in parliament tonight?

matt_fsr said:
Saw Farage being interviewed on BBC this morning, and in all honesty - I was impressed. For one reason really.

The man, a politician, actually *ANSWERED* questions! :eek:

When asked a direct question to give a number of Tory MP's who were considering defecting to UKIP, he said "No" - and then explained it was a private conversation between MP's and himself.

I honestly cannot actually remember the last time a politician said that word! There's clips of mainstream party leaders being asked direct questions, and weasel-wording their way out of them 5, 6, 7 times by the likes of Paxman etc, and here is a man who will say "No" as a question answer.

That, mark my words, will win him votes.
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I agree to some extent but that question is in his favour to not answer. He could have gone two ways 'No then explaned or No i refuse to answer the question. Anything else would be showing your hand. Not sure why that is too refreshing.

If it were how are you gonna fund the NHS? Oh we are thinking of raising taxes by 2%, that would be an utterly balls out respectable answer that is usually avoided and utterly noncommittal.
 
Hades said:
Many people voting UKIP are doing so exactly because of the NHS, education and economy.
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Underinvestment, and poor management of the education and NHS are to blame for the issues mostly. Immigration is being used as a scapegoat and currently UKIP are lapping that up.

cheesyboy said:
I see your point: NHS waiting lists would a be a heck of a lot longer if it weren't for its immigrant workforce.

BTW:
Why do we blame immigration for those things?
Why don't we blame insufficient investment in the services? 50 years of low-build policies designed to keep house prices rising (it's a vote winner), tax cuts, and school closures. How are we letting these aspects off the hook to point our finger at immigrants? Are you just falling for the spin?
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It is easy to point at those who are 'a bit foreign' and blame them for all that ails the UK. People are swallowing UKIP's spin like it is honey.
 
scorza said:
I bet that comedian is Stewart Lee or some other unfunny metropolitan intellectual who is stealing a living.
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I like the way you use the term intellectual to describe him like it's a bad thing.

cheesyboy said:
In practical terms, the Left needs to do more to simplify its ideals into something that can appeal to the less intelligent. After all, they are the ones who would likely see the most benefit from the Left's socially progressive policies.
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It's both amusing & correct.
 
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Total votes for the two elections:

UKIP: 32,129
Labour :15,590
Conservatives: 12,205
LibDems: 1,940
Greens: 668 (no candidate in Heywood election)

Meaning that UKIP had more votes than Labour, Conservatives, and Liberal Democrats, combined.

Thats one hell of a result.
 
labour are picking a new leader soon i bet, saw milipede this morning on the news and as has been said above wouldnt answer the question but just congratulate the person who JUST won with 612 votes.

as for clegg i cant see him last past the election either, the guys just another middle class politician who will sign or say anything to get a vote.

just hope labour dont win here locally next year as the current conservative mp has actually been very active when it comes to local matters, which compared to the previous labour mp was a welcome change.
 
Hades said:
Because immigration affects how quickly you get seen or treated on the NHS, whether you can get your kids into your preferred school and how much your job pays and how much your mortgage or rent is. Many people voting UKIP are doing so exactly because of the NHS, education and economy.
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Very true. You better watch out or they will start calling you names or you're a racist :)
 
To be honest, the Heywood result, albeit a defeat for UKIP, was the most remarkable of the two. A heck of a swing from Labour there.

I don't much like UKIP, and feel their policies and PR is cynically geared up to appeal to morons, but it's exciting to see such a shake-up, I have to admit. Hopefully will give cause for some introspection among all parties.
 
LordSplodge said:
It is easy to point at those who are 'a bit foreign' and blame them for all that ails the UK. People are swallowing UKIP's spin like it is honey.
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I actually don't think it's UKIP's spin that creates the issue. They're just cashing in on the sentiment stoked up by the right leaning press and Tory government policy.

UKIP are simply a symptom arising from the main parties' preference, and the public's appetite, for shifting blame for the country's ills onto foreigners
 
elmarko said:
I like the way you use the term intellectual to describe him like it's a bad thing.

It's both amusing & correct.
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When people use their intellectual capability to sneer at those that appear to be less intelligent then I can see why it can be used as a pejorative.
 
cheesyboy said:
BTW:
Why do we blame immigration for those things?
Why don't we blame insufficient investment in the services? 50 years of low-build policies designed to keep house prices rising (it's a vote winner), tax cuts, and school closures. How are we letting these aspects off the hook to point our finger at immigrants? Are you just falling for the spin?
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It's the old "other" principle. We perceive that which is different as being threatening, it's a reasonable defence mechanism but also one which is open to abuse.

If we're wary about people who are from different cultures, speak a different language, wear different clothes, pray to a different God, then it's easy for an official to come along and say "Look at all these people who are different to you, if they weren't here then we'd have more money to spend on people like you". They're an easy scape goat because the mild prejudice towards that which is different is already hard wired into us.

It's also easier for people to grasp a "the others did it" concept. If you go to your average voter and try to explain funding gaps, aging infrastructure, changes in demography etc you're going to find it much harder to put across than showing two graphs which imply a correlation between immigration and falling standards. "Look, over the last ten years immigration has been going up, and living standards have been going down! Post hoc, ergo propter hoc? Never heard of it guv"

In warfare it would be considered divide and conquer, in politics it's just blame management.
 
I'm rather pleased that the Tories got a hiding in Clacton, and Labour only just pipped UKIP in Heywood.

We really have had enough of out-of-touch politicians with no experience of life in the real world, who answer solely to the party whips and ignore their electorate. I do hope it panics them into actually listening to the voters for a change.
 
wozzizname said:
I'm rather pleased that the Tories got a hiding in Clacton, and Labour only just pipped UKIP in Heywood.

We really have had enough of out-of-touch politicians with no experience of life in the real world, who answer solely to the party whips and ignore their electorate. I do hope it panics them into actually listening to the voters for a change.
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the labour candidate in heywood is a nurse of many years BUT she's not local and is a union rep. she was a labour councillor about 20 miles up the road from heywood so probably more local than most mp's but still the local labour party was over ruled by the main party and forced to take their candidate hence half of them have walked if the rumours are true.

so its more of the same yet again to a point. maybe if labour had used a local candidate they would have had more than 612 votes over ukip.
 
When the borders are closed, including for the EU, who do you think UKIP will blame for the UK's problems? Haven't we learned anything from history?
 
I for one welcome our new ConKipper overlords.

It does seem we are heading for a UKIP/Conservative coalition next May.
I wonder if the Tories will make Farage the Figurehead leader in a belief they can control him.

Edit: It seems the bookies agree. Just heard on the radio Ladbrokes have slashed the odds on UKIP being part of a coalition government.
 
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Redz said:
I for one welcome our new ConKipper overlords.

It does seem we are heading for a UKIP/Conservative coalition next May.
I wonder if the Tories will make Farage the Figurehead leader in a belief they can control him.

Edit: It seems the bookies agree. Just heard on the radio Ladbrokes have slashed the odds on UKIP being part of a coalition government.
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Or a Lab/Lib coalition...it could go either way with our FPTP system
 
Zethor said:
When the borders are closed, including for the EU, who do you think UKIP will blame for the UK's problems? Haven't we learned anything from history?
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What problems do you talk about? I know of none before we joined the common market.

In fact we did the same trading with other countries in Europe as we do now.
 
deuse said:
What problems do you talk about? I know of none before we joined the common market.

In fact we did the same trading with other countries in Europe as we do now.
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Exactly, you and many UKIP supporters share the delusional belief that the UK has no problems, other than foreigners.
 
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