The big 3 parties 3500 seats, UKIP 157...

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Its bizarre UKIP are getting the low socio economic vote yet are the most right wing of all the parties. Most of the UKIP protest vote know little about what they are about. Their NHS policy would scared 95% of the pop for a start..

It's not that bizarre. Lots of these people have right wing views on lots of things but have voted labour because that is who they vote for and who their family have voted for over the last 70 years.

That is why UKIP are an issue for all of the parties, not just the Tories.

 

[thisistips]

please explain?

UKIP and Tories both want to repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and halt the protection it affords us all. This protection reins in the excesses of the state. It's then a short jump to the introduction of new legislation that limits personal freedoms where we have no other protection, or recourse. This is not about jingoistic deporting barmy imams and afghan hijackers, but about protecting all of us and our basic rights. In these times where we fear terrorists and have made our personal data highly accessible, we need more safeguards not fewer.

 

[thisistips]

Based on prejudice, where are the manufacturing jobs in this country like we used to have years ago? Why are we not exporting more?. These are the questions we should all be asking. That should be the push and nothing else.

Our economy now exists on creating more and more service industry jobs, for example building more supermarkets to feed more and more people that come in to this country. Its a bullshit economy that goes absolutely nowhere. It just goes around in circles and nobody gets richer in the process only the people who own the supermarkets at the top, wages remain the same because generally they don't need to pay more than they have too and why should they when they now have a steady stream of cheap labour.

That's quite a concisely depressing view, but I have to say I fear you are right, at least for significant portions of the workforce this is the new reality. And it ain't pretty. What's the alternative in a global economy where it makes financial sense to move t-shirts from Vietnam to the uk rather than make them here? Find our competitive advantages and make the most of them probably.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Based on prejudice, where are the manufacturing jobs in this country like we used to have years ago? Why are we not exporting more?. These are the questions we should all be asking. That should be the push and nothing else.

Our economy now exists on creating more and more service industry jobs, for example building more supermarkets to feed more and more people that come in to this country. Its a bullshit economy that goes absolutely nowhere. It just goes around in circles and nobody gets richer in the process only the people who own the supermarkets at the top, wages remain the same because generally they don't need to pay more than they have too and why should they when they now have a steady stream of cheap labour.

Do you actually have any idea of what makes up the service side of our economy? Doesn't sound like you do

As an advanced economy a large scale return to manufacturing isn't really viable. Some high end manufacturing yes eg cars but we can't compete with china and other places at the low end.

Were a knowledge economy now so we can make far more money from exporting our services.

 

[lawros left foot]

You have no idea. Do you read the Daily Mail by any chance?

What have I no idea about? And I wouldn't have the mail in my home, a right wing comi

 

[Seagull on the wing]

Mine too. Plus goodbye BBC, goodbye human rights and a head rushed blind leap into being outsiders in Europe, based on prejudice not common sense. It'll be worse than under Thatcher. The Tories would have to moderate UKIP! We might even have the ignominy of seeing a newly independent Scotland able to divert outside investment jobs that we are currently able to attract, because we're stable, relatively business friendly and speak good English, to sites north of the border. US, Chinese, Japanese companies might like the new lack of labour protection that would occur, but you don't invest in plant and infrastructure with people that are outsiders.

Human rights bill will be replaced with a BRITISH bill of human rights in order to stop unelected lawyers in the EU interferring in British government laws

 

[Seagull on the wing]

Just who are these people that see over the Bill of Human Rights...did you elect any of them in? Most aren't even Judges but Lawyers.
Just what gives them the right to tell our elected government that we cannot deport known terrorist...are you happy with that,that our government must give crimminals the right to vote. As far as I'm concerned if you commit a crime against society you give up your rights as well as your freedom.

 

[Machiavelli]

The BBC's projected national share of the vote suggests UKIP would have scored 17% in a Britain-wide election.

Labour would have got 31% of the vote, ahead of Conservatives on 29% with the Liberal Democrats on 13%.

Becoming the third party in the UK is hardly tinpot. Especially when they have said all along they wanted the EU election success as their bullseye.

Honestly this hatred for that party is making me CHEER THEM ON and I voted GREEN.

I also voted Green and I agree with you that calling UKIP tinpot is hardly going to discourage their bulging support. But, there is a terrible ineptitude in translating this bulging support into seats. This is in likelihood because they haven't got enough people who are actually doing any work, anywhere. By this, I mean that one of the reasons why the Greens do well in Brighton & Hove is that they have a load of members and supporters who actually canvass voters. This is unpaid political work, by people who feel they need to devote that time and energy in order to get their desired political outcome. I'd be surprised if UKIP have more members in the entire country that are prepared to do the kind of work that the Greens do in B&H. This is in part because their members and supporters are less committed, but also because as soon as they go canvassing in anything other than 'home' territory they'll be subjected to people pointing out to these phantom canvassers that the world has moved on and they need to recognise that, and that they're narrow, insular and miserable or perhaps even ignorant, racist, homophobic, sexist, ...

 

[Machiavelli]

As an aside, can Fuhrer Farage stand as an MP, if he is already an MEP?

He can. He's done it before, and lost, so has chickened out of doing so more recently. Caroline Lucas did it, when she won Pavilion in 2010, leading to the second candidate on the Greens list (Keith Taylor) becoming the MEP.

 

[thisistips]

Human rights bill will be replaced with a BRITISH bill of human rights in order to stop unelected lawyers in the EU interferring in British government laws

Look at history. Tory manifesto 1979, cast iron promise of a bill of rights, never delivered, despite the power and time to do so. They reneged on the promise. Human rights are universal, not national, and they need to be protected above national governments, because state abuses of power are often the problem. Lead person drafting the original charter was British. First country to ratify Britain. Name three rights protected under the European charter that shouldn't be protected. Add to it by all means, but we scrap it at our peril. And they will scrap it, add you'll be less safe as a result.

 

[Soulman]

Despite all the hype UKIP are still tin-pot. Come next year we're be saying, What happened to UKIP?

To get a sense of how far Mr Farage’s party has come, consider this. In the 2010 General Election, Ukip won just 3 per cent of the vote.

It does not have a single MP, its last election manifesto was wildly incoherent and, with the exception of the ebullient Mr Farage, its representatives are utterly obscure.

Yet for the second consecutive year, Ukip has won around a fifth of the national vote.

Defying all the predictions, it has gained more than 150 council seats. In Essex, it denied the Tories victory in Basildon, Castle Point and Southend.

And in Rotherham, supposedly a working-class Labour bastion, its candidates averaged a whopping 47 per cent of the vote.

By any standards this represents a political earthquake.

The really extraordinary thing is that this has been the achievement of one man.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

He can. He's done it before, and lost, so has chickened out of doing so more recently. Caroline Lucas did it, when she won Pavilion in 2010, leading to the second candidate on the Greens list (Keith Taylor) becoming the MEP.

Oh dear ...... how is deciding that as he had no association with the area that he would have stood in and so not standing chickening out ? Many of the Green councillors on our council are bussed in politicians - no real connection to B&H. One even buggered off to Africa rather than represent the people that voted for her in good faith. Both Alex Phillips and Kitcat seem keen to get out of B&H local politics by standing as MEPs - nice loyal councillors ! I guess given Kitcat thinks he should be paid a hefty wage to be the leader of the council might indicate why being an MEP is so attractive to him.

To somehow build the Greens as some whiter than white party is extremely misleading.

 

[thisistips]

Human rights bill will be replaced with a BRITISH bill of human rights in order to stop unelected lawyers in the EU interferring in British government laws

If your only objection is the extradition of barmy imams and hijackers, as I mentioned above, then you will throw a lot away for the tiny percentage of daily mail headline worthy stupid exceptions that the law throws up. Go on, chuck out all the protection you get for that. Watch in awe as the Tories and UKIP put back all those protections with a far superior British Bill of Rights that is better than the combined nations can deliver After all British people do need a different kind of human right to others. I'm sure you won't be let down.

 

[Soulman]

Oh dear ...... how is deciding that as he had no association with the area that he would have stood in and so not standing chickening out ? Many of the Green councillors on our council are bussed in politicians - no real connection to B&H. One even buggered off to Africa rather than represent the people that voted for her in good faith. Both Alex Phillips and Kitcat seem keen to get out of B&H local politics by standing as MEPs - nice loyal councillors ! I guess given Kitcat thinks he should be paid a hefty wage to be the leader of the council might indicate why being an MEP is so attractive to him.

To somehow build the Greens as some whiter than white party is extremely misleading.

I thought Lucas spent most of her time living in her place in Strasbourg.

 

[Machiavelli]

Based on prejudice, where are the manufacturing jobs in this country like we used to have years ago? Why are we not exporting more?. These are the questions we should all be asking. That should be the push and nothing else.

Our economy now exists on creating more and more service industry jobs, for example building more supermarkets to feed more and more people that come in to this country. Its a bullshit economy that goes absolutely nowhere. It just goes around in circles and nobody gets richer in the process only the people who own the supermarkets at the top, wages remain the same because generally they don't need to pay more than they have too and why should they when they now have a steady stream of cheap labour.

Your analysis of the economy is well articulated and not too far off my position. I've tried to engage you on this question several times before, but you just wimp out, so here's hoping that such terminology might provoke you this time:
Your analysis of the economy is a million miles away from UKIP's. They're bankrolled by precisely the kinds of people who are getting richer (yet their support tends to come from the poor), and their economic policies will be merely to encourage the financial sector, and privatise what remains of the public sector, thereby creating more extremes in wealth and income inequality alongside employment (and wider) insecurities. Where will their poor supporters turn to once that's inflicted on them?

 

[Machiavelli]

Oh dear ...... how is deciding that as he had no association with the area that he would have stood in and so not standing chickening out ? Many of the Green councillors on our council are bussed in politicians - no real connection to B&H. One even buggered off to Africa rather than represent the people that voted for her in good faith. Both Alex Phillips and Kitcat seem keen to get out of B&H local politics by standing as MEPs - nice loyal councillors ! I guess given Kitcat thinks he should be paid a hefty wage to be the leader of the council might indicate why being an MEP is so attractive to him.

To somehow build the Greens as some whiter than white party is extremely misleading.

Not again Westdene. You've claimed that I've portrayed the Greens as a whiter than white party, can you illustrate to me where this has been done (beyond in your active and erroneous imagination)?
I like you, but you seem incapable of engaging in logic. You just mouth off. And the mouthing off you've engaged in in that post could equally be directed towards Farage in the byelections and electoral seats he's been bussed in to in the past.
And to repeat another point I've made, we have plenty of historical examples of right-wing populism (this is an accurate portrayal of UKIP) around the world, and they aren't pretty.

 

[Machiavelli]

I thought Lucas spent most of her time living in her place in Strasbourg.

You thought wrong. She lives in Brighton, and spends most of her time there. I saw her just two days ago. She was telling in Elm Grove. I would like to point out that she was the only representative from any of the political parties doing so. Perhaps they were all holidaying in their second homes in Sompting.

 

[GT49er]

Honestly this hatred for that party is making me CHEER THEM ON and I voted GREEN.

Absolutely this (except the bit about voting Green!)

 

[Czechmate]

Despite all the hype UKIP are still tin-pot. Come next year we're be saying, What happened to UKIP?

Hopefully yes , then it means we are out of the EU COOL !!! But more realistically I would give it 3-4 years .

 

[ofco8]

Its bizarre UKIP are getting the low socio economic vote yet are the most right wing of all the parties. Most of the UKIP protest vote know little about what they are about. Their NHS policy would scared 95% of the pop for a start..

Don't be so condescending. I am as much interested in politics as anyone but I made a protest vote. All the main parties are so out of touch with the majority of the electorate so need reminding that some of us are telling them to change their outlook and policies.