4039 days ago
Well anything is possible. The uber talented chanteuse Ms Cheryl Cole could be walking down my street right now to ask me out for a hot date. Frankly that is more likely than Labour losing a seat that has never been anything but Labour. But miracles can happen. Hang on… there is someone at the door.
Pizza delivery. Wrong address. Not Cheryl. Drat.
The results last time were Labour 52%, Tory 22%, Lib Dems 14%, BNP 7%, others (not including UKIP 5%). Following Rotherham and the national trends my assumptions would be:
Various others including the BNP and the Lib Dems get 10% between them. The Lib Dems will come somewhere between 5th and 8th on another night of abject humiliation for Nick Clegg. The BNP will not achieve much. At least Clegg’s memory these days seems to be so poor when it comes to hearing painful news (Rennard, Huhne, Hancock) that he will soon be able to forget about leading his party to another electoral caning.
The Tory vote will slump. Call Me Dave has done his utmost to piss off traditional Tories (I am amazed that there were so many in South Shields, wherever it is, last time) and voters will tactically switch to the best placed party that might just run Labour close, i.e. UKIP. The Tories will get 10% of the vote ( + or – 3%). I suspect the – is more likely than the + - it will be a dire night for Call Me Dave as May 2nd also sees local elections in which the Tories will get thrashed. There will be stacks of very angry ex Tory councillors on May 3rd.
And so on the face of it, if the Labour vote held steady then that would see UKIP on 30% and Labour on 52%. But….
South Shields looks to be the sort of grim Northern shit hole that Labour takes for granted. Its voters there are working class and one suspects that their views on immigration, Europe and a range of other issues are not exactly the sort aired by Ed Miliband and his pals at Islington dinner parties. Besides which this by election is caused by Dave Miliband pissing off to New York to earn loads of wonga. Talk about treating your poor constituents with contempt. That makes the circumstances a touch unusual.
And so my guess is that there will be some shift from Labour to UKIP (as there was in Rotherham and Eastleigh) and also from Labour to “not voting at all as you are all wankers.”
UKIP has nothing to lose here. If it gets 30% and comes second (from nowhere) that is a triumph. But I have a sneaking feeling that it could do rather better than that. It is currently 17-1 to win and I am tempted to have a tiny flutter. Anything is possible. Hang on... is that the doorbell I hear ringing again?
4068 days ago
The Lib Dems held on but UKIP was surging. A couple more days and UKIP would have snatched it. In the end it was wasted Tory votes that let the Lib Dems in as Call Me Dave’s party came third in what is his 40th target seat. Labour was always irrelevant here, its own disaster is not an issue.
The Lib Dems will be greatly relieved to have held onto what should be one of their safest seats albeit in very tough circumstances: Chris Huhne off to do porridge and the current sex scandal. For now Clegg hangs on but if he is shown to have lied about his knowledge in the sex pest cover up he may still face the chop. This is not the start of a Lib Dem recovery, Rennardgate may well still drag that party to Thorpe style lows.
UKIP is now coming second in both leafy southern towns like Eastleigh but also GMSH’s like Rotherham. There is a growing disgust with the entire political class and UKIP is the big winner from that. All the established parties should be worried but they are so arrogant and out of touch that the corrupt establishment will not change tack.
But the big losers right now are the Tories. As long as Call Me Dave stays as Tory leader it is only a matter of time before UKIP gains an MP. For the Tories are in trouble.
4068 days ago
I have just seen pictures of the Wicked Witch canvassing with the Argie loving Labour candidate in Eastleigh. The dreadful duo went to a local hospital, presumably on the assumption that invalids were about the only folks who would not run away screaming. Surely it is a breach of their basic human rights to have Mrs Blair sitting by their bedside grinning and wittering on about wicked Tory cuts?
For the avoidance of doubt, if I am in hospital with a terminal condition and it is revealed that the Wicked Witch is planning a visit please treat this as my living will: please cease all treatment at once.
4069 days ago
The Tories seem to be admitting that they may come third in the Eastleigh contest. It looks as if the sex pest party will win but UKIP is coming up on the rails fast. Whatever happens Labour will come a dismal 4th with the presence of the Wicked Witch Cherie Blair on the campaign trail yesterday only adding to the woes of its Argie loving candidate. So how will be the BBC report the results?
1. If UKIP wins then it will be “ extremist far right party wins on a disastrous night for the Tories/Lib Dems.” It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated but the voter’s rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that he is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
2. If the Lib Dems win and UKIP are second it will be “extremist far right party surges on a disastrous night for the Tories.” It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated, and the Lib Dems were always going to win what is their safest seat but the voter’s rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that he is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
3. If the Tories win and UKIP are second it will be “extremist far right party surges on a disastrous night for the Lib Dems who pay the price of supporting hugely unpopular Tory cuts. It will then ignore UKIP totally and dismiss its poll numbers as a freak result but quote Ed Milliband as saying Labour was always going to get obliterated, and given how the Lib Dems are racked by sex scandals are on 8% in the National Polls that the Tories did not win by more is very bad news for them too. This is a rejection of wicked Con Dem austerity shows that Milliband is on track to be the next PM – a great night for Labour. The BBC will report that both Call Me Dave and Nick Clegg face leadership challenges.
4070 days ago
One or two of the good folks seem like they are reading a script but you can’t really disagree with their conclusions.
It is not as entertaining as hearing Nick Clegg get utterly trashed on LBC This Moring – you can listen again if you missed it HERE.
But anyway, good luck to Diane James of UKIP tomorow, if only to give the established political classes a good hard kick in the goolies.
4073 days ago
The Lib Dems are still likely to win Eastleigh. If they do not, given that every councillor there is a Lib Dem and it is a Lib Dem seat then Nick Clegg is in deep trouble. It may well be that the cover-up over the Lord Rennard sex scandal is only a secondary worry although that will get very nasty as well. But at 11/2 UKIP is now worth a flutter. Think the unthinkable: UKIP might just win the by-election caused by Chris Huhne’s imminent fast track to prison.
A Populus poll shows Lib Dem 33%, Con 28% UKIP 21% ( but surging). However that assumes that undecided voters are reallocated on the basis of how the seat voted at the last General Election. That was a whole different ball game. Without that fiddle it is 31 (sex pest party), 26% ( hopeless party of Government), 25% UKIP.
Labour are on the low to mid teens and since the Labour candidate ( the one who supported the Argies in 1982 and wanted the IRA to kill Thatcher) is a prize loon, his vote could well slide far further. Labour voters in Eastleigh are not bourgeois Islington lefties who think the UKIP are unspeakably horrid but traditional working class voters who believe in hard work and have no truck with the EU, unrestricted Romanian immigration etc. They really should vote UKIP anyway and if they see UKIP as a chance to kick the wicked coalition in the goolies they may well switch. No: they are switching it is just a matter of how many more come over in the final few days.
If UKIP can pick up a few more percentage points from Labour ( and it is gaining support from all three parties) then life gets very interesting. It is hard to see the Lib Dem vote hardening in the final few days as the sex scandal widens and deepens and nothing the hopeless Government does these days does anything to attract those who should be core Tory voters. If it is anything the Tory party is meant to be the one that gets the economy right. And on Friday the UK lost its AAA rating as the credit agencies finally twigged that UK public finances are a mess and that things are not getting better.
A separate Survation phone poll has it as: Con 33, Lib Dem 29, UKIP 21, Lab 13 but again if you do not do the reallocation fiddle UKIP is up on 25 with this time the sex pests in second on 26, and the Tories on 29. The same arguments apply here. It is abundantly clear that this contest is a three way battle. Labour support is slipping steadily ( all to UKIP) and Nigel Farage et al must also think that in the next few days they can also pick up Lib Dems and Tories as well.
It will not change the world, but a UKIP win would be disastrous news for both Call Me Dave ( giving credibility to a party which believes in the sort of things the Tory party once believed in) and also for Clegg in that if the safest Lib Dem seat in England is lost what hope does his party have of avoiding electoral wipe-out in 2015.
At 11/2 it is worth a flutter. It might just happen.
And as I noted before, a UKIP vote is in fact the ONLY sane and honourable vote in Eastleigh. .
4080 days ago
I am not a UKIP member nor can my support be taken for granted – generally I despise all politicians and which they would just stop introducing laws and go away. And with that caveat I approach the looming by –election in Eastleigh with the conclusion that the ONLY sane and the ONLY honest vote is for UKIP.
The election is caused by liar and criminal Chris Huhne (Lib Dem) having to stand down because he is almost certainly heading for prison. In terms of Government and policy it will change nothing. We will still be ruled by this wretched Tory Lib Dem coalition and Labour will still be offering a principle free crackpot populist opposition. And as such an Eastleigh resident can vote with a clear conscience and on principle.
I start with why each of the candidates from the main three parties does not deserve to win a single vote before turning to UKIP.
4093 days ago
Windfarm and general all round global warming nutter and Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne has for months protested his innocence on the charge of perverting the course of justice – that is to say getting his ex wife to take speeding points for him. Today he has pleaded guilty in Court. So Huhne is not only a liar but will very shortly be a convicted criminal too and, fingers crossed, heading off to gaol. Given that during his period of procrastination and lies he has continued to claim MP’s expenses might this multi millionaire now be required to pay them back? I doubt it. Does he get an MP’s normal payoff? I expect so.
And now we face a by-election in Eastleigh, formerly a Tory/Lib Dem marginal. It is hard not to see the Lib Dem vote collapsing given that they are nationally hated and the circumstances of the contest. In that part of the world Labour is about as popular as the late Jimmy Saville and so UKIP will be licking its lips. There is no threat of “letting Labour in” by voting UKIP in this one-off contest. One imagines that the traditional Tories of Eastleigh are not exactly enthused by the tone of Call Me Dave’s conservatism. And so this may be the day. The odds have to be on a result of Conservative, UKIP, Lib Dem, Labour and then the assorted loons, but you never know. I would imagine that round at UKIP headquarters the excitement is tangible.
