Newark By Election - UKIP UP 22.1% Tories Down 8.9%

                               2010                             %                                   Now                        %
Conservative       27,590                         53.9                               17,431                     45
UKIP                    1,954                           3.8                                10.028                     25.9
Labour                11,438                         22.3                                 6,842                      17.7
Bagley/Hospital                                                                              1,891                        4.9
Green                                                                                              1,057                        2.7
LibDem               10,246                         20.0                                1,004                        2.6
Ors combined                                                                                    454                        1.2

==============================================

      I find this a very interesting result. I wish I knew how the polling by stations had gone because then I would be making more than an educated guess which votes went from whom to whom (but then if I did I would probably have to keep it quiet out of party loyalty).

The LibDem vote collapsed losing 90% by numbers or 7/8ths by proportion (proportion is the more important - there is nothing unusual about by elections having lower turnouts because the national media isn't hammering home that there is an election today). This is way below any fall to the party's "minimum core vote" (usually assumed about half of it). The LibDem fall closely parallels UKIP's rise but I think it would be unwise to assume we picked up more than a minority of their votes. Probably most of the Green and hospital campaign votes were ex-LDs but that still means more than half went elsewhere. This article on Conservative Home suggests that a lot of them went Tory to keep us out, as did a lot of Labour ones. The BBC Radio 5 reporter also said "I met a number of Labour voters who said they are voting Tory to keep UKIP out" which is quite remarkable.

       Nonetheless, however they went this is a catastrophic result for the LDs. After a couple of weeks of "4 party politics" we may be back to a 3 party system without the LDs. Any result remotely of this order would put ALL the LDs out of Parliament. I suspect the lost LD votes split 4 ways to Tories, Labour, UKIP & the others.

A disaster  for Labour too. A 4.6% fall in their proportion is not going to get Miliband the PMship. He must expect, as the party not in government, to be polling better, during any by election, where people feel free to protest, than he will at the general election. This happens to every party. Labour won this seat in 1997 and have placed 2nd at other times. To be knocked into 3rd place is about as bad as it could be. I suspect Labour's missing 4.6% (if, say, 1/4 of the LDs went to them they would have picked up about 4.3% and thus lost 8.9%). That some of their members voted for Tory to keep out UKIP and others UKIP to beat the Tories does not suggest any enthusiasm whatsoever for his party.

       UKIP. Well we didn't take it but overthrowing a 16,000 majority when your previous vote was 2,000 isn't as easy as it sounds ;-)  We didn't come as close as we expected and that is important. We mainly lost because the Tory vote held up. Had 4,000 more of them (only 1/7th of their previous vote) voted UKIP we would have won.

       Roger Helmer had written of the enthusiasm he found on the doorstep - sometimes people are polite when they haven't yet made up their minds. The other thing is that there was a decent turnout for 2 independents (though not for the last 5). That means that though the contempt for the traditional parties is overwhelming, UKIP has not yet sealed the deal.

     I suspect, in particular, that the smear campaigns by the government media has hurt us. But it is a problem. If a significant number of actual LabConDem voters agree that "there is no difference between them" and decide they like that, we could have a problem. For that I believe we have to have a positive policy platform that will make the large majority of all parties make us their preferred alternative. We are likely to be the contender in most constituencies across the country (as the LDs used to be) and if we can persuade 3rd and 4th placing parties that we are much better than the probable winner we can sweep the country. If they unite to keep the previous winner in we won't - and British politics will lose all semblance of pluralistic democracy.


     But you can't complain about a 22.1% swing to you.

The Tories have reason for satisfaction. They won and not just by scraping in. Nonetheless an 8.9% swing against is hardly something to celebrate. This won't get Cameron his majority. This was the 44th safest tory seat so to have lost it would have been beyond catastrophic. Beyond that it looks very much like they did lose far more Tory votes than appears and filled them up with 4.3% from the LDs and 4.4% (half of 8.9%) from Labour. 8.7% of their votes are on loan and without them - that's 3.700. That didn't actually keep them in but it does explain why Nigel Farage expected it to be closer. And losing those votes (or actually not having them because they never did) would ensure electoral defeat.

    Another point here is that, at least according to Conservative Home, the Tories pulled out all the stops and ran a very heavy campaign. 150 MPs visiting. Cameron visiting 4 times - absolutely unprecedented for a sitting PM. And it worked. And Labour and the LDs, who both historically have reputations for being able to put feet on the ground, didn't come close to matching them. The old parties have hollowed themselves out because members have no actual influence on the party. I suspect this applies to the Tories too but they just pulled out every card they had. The article itself makes a point of the importance of members on the ground and I agree.

UPDATE
Nigel Farage on the subject - the immense (& expensive) Tory campaign here cannot be matched anywhere during a general election. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/480656/FARAGE-ON-FRIDAY-Ukip-boss-says-next-target-is-2015-general-election-Commons-breakthrough

UKIP Victory Across Britain as well as Scotland

   "There is no substitute for victory" according to General Douglas MacArthur and UKIP don't need a substitute.

   We came a clear 1st in the UK election:

   "UKIP won 27.5% of the vote and had 24 MEPs elected. Labour, on 25.4%, has narrowly beat the Tories into third place while the Lib Dems lost all but one of their seats and came sixth behind the Greens."

    So we may expect to see the Tories cease demanding free marketeers support them for fear of "splitting" the vote, indeed in theory they should start telling their supporters to vote UKIP everywhere where they came 3rd and while I don't expect them too, the voters are smart enough to work that out for themselves.

     While it was not the 100% wipe out for the LibDems some had predicted it is close enough - they were beaten by the Greens.

     Eurosceptic parties also did well across the continent.

    The Scottish vote is also a victory:

"The SNP won 386,193 votes on the night - almost 29% - with Labour coming second, on 346,377 votes (25.9%).

In third place was the Conservatives, with 230,569 votes (17.2%), followed by UKIP on 139,687 (10.4%).....

The Scottish Greens hailed their "best ever result", after winning 107,805 votes (8%), while the Liberal Democrats got a total of 95,076 votes (7%)."

   That is very bad for the SNP, particularly with the referendum coming up. It looks like a lot of SNP who would be Tories elsewhere decided to vote unionist. It is good for the Tories who were well ahead of us, though UKIP thrashed them elsewhere - I suspect this is not so much an increase in approval for them as a decrease elsewhere.

    Though we got our seat and are now the 4th party in Scotland, it was by a very thin margin. I strongly suspect that the votes going to the Tories not us (& more) was entirely because of the disgusting, dishonest and wholly corrupt campaign run by the BBC to call us "racist".

     In theory, and law, now that we have just over 1/3rd of the vote of the SNP the BBC will be obliged to give 1/3rd as much airtime to UKIP members as to Salmond, Sturgeon and co. In practice you would have to believe we live in a free democracy to expect that law to be enforced. However we can expect an almost infinite amount more coverage (ie some) and even some making up for 2 decades of censorship.

    10.4% in an EU election suggests a somewhat lower Holyrood vote, though, since Holyrood is under a PR system, not the squeezing out that happens in Westminster elections. To be a major party at Holyrood we have to have positive Scottish policies to put forward. I am convinced that the Scottish people only need some serious policy alternatives to the present "left of the UK Labour party consensus" that all 5 Holyrood parties share. I hope to keep on suggesting some.

    The Greens beating the LDs is also a humiliation for them, though it was achieved more by the latter increasing their vote - another sign more of dissatisfaction with the main party alternatives, I think, than approval of the Green enthusiasm for recession, blackouts and pensioner freezing.

EU Election Day - 7 Out Of 10 Scots support UKIP Policies But The BBC Keep Lying

   This morning I did my stint outside Hillhead Primary. When I turned up I was the only person there. One voter accused me of being a racist & shortly came back with a bundle of anti-UKIP posters. In due course he was replaced by a woman, whom I assume he had phoned up. She confirmed she was an SWP member so while this is rudeness and loudmouthism it clearly does not represent general opinion (see under). Later she was joined by a Green however it was amazing to see that, during one of the 2 periods of greatest voting activity, none of the serious parties had any presence. Labour used to have an organisation that could swamp any event in Glasgow. This suggests that the hollowing out of political parties has gone further than they will admit and I suspect that official membership figures (which show UKIP still marginally smaller than the LDs) depend on them still listing bas members people who left, or died a decade ago.

     Voting has been slow.

    I initially set up outside the polling station door rather than outside the school gate, we and the other parties had done during all the last elections. When I moved to the gate for higher visibility I left my trolley of posters and leaflets. In due course the SWP woman complained to the officials that this was inside the grounds. I said I was perfectly willing to move if that was the decision but pointed out that this was contrary to previous practice and wished for their assurance that the rule would be maintained and apply to everyone. I got that assurance and we will see.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seven out of ten Scots 'back Ukip policy on immigration'

 

Magnus Gardham

Political Editor

Wednesday 21 May 2014

UKIP policies to curb immigration, cut overseas aid and crack down on benefits claimants are backed by a majority of Scots, a surprise new poll suggests, despite the repeated failure of Nigel Farage's anti-EU party to make a breakthrough north of the Border.

UKIP policies to curb immigration, cut overseas aid and crack down on benefits claimants are backed by a majority of Scots, a surprise new poll suggests, despite the repeated failure of Nigel Farage's anti-EU party to make a breakthrough north of the Border.

 

Custom byline text: 

Magnus Gardham Political Editor

The survey shows nearly seven out of 10 Scots back stricter immigration controls, a key pledge in Ukip's manifesto for tomorrow's European elections.
Just over half want international aid budgets to be cut, while six out of 10 people say benefits should only be available to those who have lived in the UK for at least five years.

 
This Herald article was pointed out to me. Bear in mind that the Herald hate us, having run a campaign against us and even censored readers letters to exclude us so that figure cannot be an overestimate.

Yet the "balanced the law says so" BBC and the rest of the media have been running an unrelenting campaign of smears and lies against us in a manner no honestly impartial or democratic media could.

And we may expect them to continue lying and censoring to "educate the public" to accept only what Scotland's monolithic political elite want them to get. 

As an example of deliberate lying the BBC chose to report on a series of newspaper articles all alleged to be against UKIP. Peter Hitchens, who wrote one of them pointed out that his actually supported UKIP strongly, albeit with a couple of caveats which was all the BBC reported. The BBC have acknowledged their untruth and intend to apologise publicly.
------------------------------------------------------
EVENING UPDATE

Just back from manning the polling station from 6 to 10. Some things worth mentioning.

1 - Yet again there was nobody from any of the main parties. The Greens had someone up till 8 but that was it. I remember, back when I was a LibDem, the Labour party owned Glasgow and when, for any election, they could overman anywhere & the other parties put up a coverage most tomes and places. Now they all leave a major poling station unsupported all day. There may be something tactical to this since it is a less important election to them than us, but even at its worst they should be using it as a training exercise for next year. It can only mean the collapse in membership of these 4 parties is massive.

2 - The attack - that is overstating it but I was accosted, in a veryin your face manner, by a young woman & 3 male friends for having that morning responded in kind to a verbal attack by her friend & her. Her friend being Green councillor Martha Wardrop. Allegedly, from her experience in such things, she knew that the law did not allow me to respond so. I invited her to make a  complaint to the counting officer and they went off to do so. When they came back they had clearly been told that there were no special rules requiring UKIP members to defer to even such exalted persons as Green councillors because she lost the heid and tore down a poster I had. I wouldn't have responded even had there not been 4 of them and as attacks go it was hardly serious. Still.

I reported it to the counting officer just for the record but that was it. I would like to make it clear that these people were completely different from the Green guy handing out leaflets when I got there and the girl who replaced him - both of them were not merely civil but pleasant. However it does show that when we scratch the surface of politics, particularly on the far "left" there are quite a lot of people for whom the principles of democracy and even free speech are quite alien.

[A couple of days ago a UKIP group was barracked in Shettleston, by the SWP (including one who explained the locals didn't want us, in an American accent) and the police had to lift some]

3 -The "racism" lie. I did meet a fair number of people who said "no way and vehemently denounced UKIP as "racist". They had 3 things in common - they could not provide any evidence for it and  didn't care - they were, without exception, white (it is a heavily Asian area and they politely took leaflets and one family made it clear they had voted for us, and probably wouldn't have if I hadn't been present and the other parties absent - they were, insofar as it is possible to tell, middle class.

Few of them were willing to say they liked the EU and didn't want a referendum or give any other coherent reason for, under no circumstances, even listening to what we said, so the "racism" lie has clearly hurt us. The BBC liars have a lot to answer for, having clearly subverted a democratic election. If a little pressure from the Sun "wot won it" was enough to swing 2-3%, as both sides claim, the censorship, slanting smearing and direct lying by the state owned broadcaster, reaching far more people and with a far stronger emotional effect, should have cost us 20-30% of the vote.

Not saying we won't win, just saying that without a totalitarian media monopoly UKIP would sweep the board. I don't think this could be easily denied even by those who don't want us to do so, indeed that Herald poll mentioned above suggests I am understating & we would get something close to 70% even in Scotland with "balanced" broadcasters.

What the Election Leaflets Say

    I got 4 election leaflets through the door. Obviously the UKIP one was perfect in every way. As for the others:

Labour  "We have no limit on our ambition for Scotland and we want no Scot to have a limit on their's"  and "Labour will build a moral economy where the national wealth is used for the benefit of all" and promises growth with "a rising standard of living". Who can be against any of that except that if equality of outcome is enforced to ensure nobody has a below average income, then nobody can have the ambition to have a higher than average one and if we have that much state control of economic outcomes we can't have the free market incentives needed for growth. So this is just cynically promising everything to everybody, knowing it is impossible. We have to make choices. I think we should choose growth because that maximises the benefit for everybody. Labour are perfectly entitled to say they prefer total equality to being better off but it is dishonest to treat us like children and promise to maximise both.

      Of course they support the EU but the only reason they can come up with for doing so is that we benefit from the British, partial, rebate!

       And they promise more foreign "aid" and to be "global leaders in tackling climate change" which is dishonestly portrayed as making money rather than destroying it.

Tories
 List a number of things they have done for us. Including to have cut Labour's deficit by 1/3rd, omitting that they promised to end it in this parliament. But most interestingly is "We've taken all the action we can under the current EU agreements to fix our immigration system". They promised at the last election to cut immigration to "10s not hundreds of thousands" which is actually a tougher promise than UKIP's to reduce it to 50,000. Of course they broke it and immigration is still well above 200,000 but the EU regulations were in place when they made the promise. This is thus a public admission that their promise was a deliberate lie - that it was  always impossible to carry out their promise while in the EU.

Greens
. It is all about nationalisation, forcing us to eat "local food", and "creating thousands of jobs in green industries" (this is a cynical lie as they know perfectly well that each subsidised "green" destroys 3.7 real jobs).

     In an accompanying "newspaper" they attack the SNP for pouring insufficient billions into windmill subsidy and define the catstrophic global warming we are supposed to be experiencing as "the defining issue of our age". On that we agree. Catastrophic warming is not happening, indeed there has been no warming, of any sort, for 19 years - it is a totalitarian lie designed to give the political elite more power and more of our money (as they all provably know or it would not be necessary to suppress discussion). It does indeed define all the parties promoting this lie.

     Sorry I didn't get anything from the SNP and LibDems.

EU Election Hustings

   I went to the hustings run by the Glasgow Skeptics last night. Not nearly as exciting as last time but that's ok. Speakers were

Jamie Gardner for the Tories - fairly young and clearly thinks about and can discuss policies.

Cat Styler for Labour - intro speech concentrated on promising her party's police is "jobs, jobs, jobs" but reticent about saying how, except for more windmill subsidies (which she knows perfectly well destroy 3.7 jobs for every one created). Normal Labour bull.

David Coburn, UKIP - when, in the intro, he spoke about how disgraceful it is Scotland's education system is being allowed to fail, you could see he meant it.

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik, SNP - she is good looking and projects well. She put the SNP case, which was really about independence capably.

Maggie Chapman, Green - none of the wit, or even understanding of what they are saying, that Patrick Harvie has.

George Lyon, LibDem - also made his speech on jobs; also named renewables subsidies alone, as the way to produce them; also knows this is a lie.
---------------------------------
With that many we did not get through many questions. One about CAGW which all the other parties agreed was the most dangerous problem facing humanity. David was conciliatory on the issue whereas I would have pointed out that there has been no warming since about 1995 and the whole thing is a fraud.

There was also discussion on nuclear power in which Labour, Tory and LibDem all said they now support nuclear. Since this was part of why I was expelled from the LDs that seems improbable and in fact what they all mean by "support" is that they won't absolutely ban it so long as the cost is increased 50 fold by government parasitism; it isn't going to be working till they are long out of office; and they still get to support windmills with vast amounts of cash, including profits of nuclear. David spoke in favour of current nuclear until we have fusion, which I suspect is a long time off.

And the EU & Scotland's membership where lines were drawn as expected. The Tory scored a hit saying that an separate Scotland would lose the UK share of the rebate and have to put VAT on books and newspapers and that he doubted even the SNP would deny that - and Tasmina kept silent.

And there was the inevitable one about UKIP's "racist" wanting limits on immigration, which gave an excuse for everybody to gang up, though the Tory said no other party would support unlimited immigration, to be immediately contradicted by the Green, who said her party does (I know they hate the British people but what does she think hundreds of millions of immigrants would do to the environment). In fact Mr Gardner was wrong and thinking about it overnight this is what I think should be the definitive UKIP answer:

      UKIP's immigration policy is to limit it to 50,000 a year, which is the same as every British government until the Messiah of Socialism, Tony Blair took power. Anybody who says UKIP is racist must either be on record as saying every single British government up to Saint Tony's reign is racist or owe us a public apology. The Tories official promise at the last election was to cut immigration to "10s of thousands" which averages lower than our promise. The difference is that they knew at the time that this was a lie. As long as we are in the EU we cannot control immigration and all the parties know it, and promises to do so are false. If the difference between UKIP and all the other parties is that we mean our promises, I don't see that as something to apologise for.

       I would also like the other parties to say what, if our 50,000 limit is "racist" what precise limit on immigration they, should the EU ever allow, they would want? At least the greens have the honesty to say they want unlimited immigration, though they do not explain how our NHS would hold up when 6,000 million people across the world would have the right to come and use it. Immigration is a serious issue and deserves honest answers.
------------------------------------------------------------
        Then to the bar. I would like to acknowledge 2 things about the "Skeptics". Firstly that comparing this to the Brian's Big "Debate" hustings on Friday, in which everybody interrupted everybody and sounded like cats in a sack, this was conducted firmly and politely. Secondly I have suggested before that I believed the "Skeptics" were a government funded fakecharity - I don't now think this is so. I wish they were willing to allow the entry of scepticism about catastrophic global warming and think it is wrong to use the title and claim openmindedness while they won't even look at the evidence, but appear to have reached that, entirely wrong, decision without payment.

       Finally I would like to mention something George Lyons said - that this was the largest EU election hustings he had attended. My estimate about 70. 

UKIP 35% Labour 24% Tory 20% Green 7% LD 6% Overall

Comres has now released yet another poll for The Independent on Sunday on the European elections voting intention. --- These figures are weighted against voting intention – those highly likely to actually go out and vote.


     Still not doing so well in Scotland where we are neck and neck with the Tories

Labour 31%, UKIP 15% - Labour Losing, UKIP Winning

       Other polls have similar though not quite as bad for Labour, result.
YouGov/Sun – CON 35%, LAB 36%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 14%
Populus – CON 35%, LAB 36%, LDEM 8%, UKIP 13%
Ashcroft – CON 34%, LAB 32%, LDEM 9%, UKIP 15%
ICM/Guardian – CON 33%, LAB 31%, LDEM 13%, UKIP 15%


       One might think, looking at UKIP's 15% that should be worrying but I am very pleased with this.

       Labour's vote is falling. As the economy "recovers" (still only half world average growth despite it being fuelled by an artificial house cost boom) and equally, as we get nearer the fateful moment of an election, where being against the government really could put the other rascals in, we can only expect the Labour vote to fall.

      At 31% Labour cannot reasonably be expected to produce a majority.  Their policy seems to have been to hope for 35% and thus over 50% of seats but at 31% almost any parlay of votes leaves them in a minority.

       Because of our corrupt electoral system the Tories won't either. Indeed on the shares in the chart Labour will be the larger party - Tories 284, Labour 307, LDs 31, UKIP nil according to Electoral Calculus

      On the face of it that looks bad for UKIP. But -

    It spikes the Tories greatest, argument against us. Indeed the only one they have been using. The "if you vote UKIP you will put in Labour" one. Labour aren't going to be in. The people, including their core voters, have recognised how crap they are.

    For my lifetime  few people have voted Labour because they want Labour but because they fear getting the Tories. Equally, probably more than equally, few vote Tory because they like their policies but because the fear Labour's.

    Now the Tories don't have to fear Labour - and I am quite certain that even most Tory party activists would rather have UKIP's policies than their own party's (mass immigration, EU membership & gay marriage).

   And Labour voters are also free - to vote against a party who have nothing but contempt for their voters, and secretly promoted mass immigration to replace them.

    We are very close to a tipping point. Suppose UKIP picked up 6% from each of these parties.

    We get Tories 200, Labour 223, LibDems 12 UKIP 186 MPs

    Now this takes no account for targeting of winnable seats which UKIP is doing for the first time so almost certainly understates the UKIP and LibDim votes but you get the picture.

     Another regular factor in elections has been a swing to the LDs during the campaign because they got little TV coverage at other times, but they could not be denied coverage during actual election campaigns. This, obviously, applies in spades to UKIP.

    History also shows that Tory voters have less tribal loyalty to their party than Labour which is why elections against a Tory government have generally been more successful for the LDs than ones against Labour. Disaffected Labour just stayed home.

    And the EU elections

    So a 6% reduction for each of these parties - to UKIP seems not merely possible but quite likely.

    Lets have a bit of fun and try 7% on 36% of the vote: Conservative 127, Labour 172, LD 7, UKIP 316 MPs - 10 short of a technical majority but easily able to negotiate one with Ulster if nobody else.

   

I Went And Saw Farage Yesterday

    Last night I was at a UKIP rally in Edinburgh.

     Misty (Arthur Thackery current chairman) confirmed that polling shows us on 12-18% which is enough for 1 MSP and within striking distance of 2. Well ahead of the Tories and far ahead of LDs and Greens. That went down well.

       Nigel encouragingly said that in parts of southeast England he expects UKIP to take more than  50%  of the vote. That the political class are terrified of us because they know they have no serious counter arguments to us.

        In Scotland the official Better Together campaign (which actively excluded UKIP)  are so Europhile that they simply will not mention that a separate Scotland would only get EU membership term far more expensive than we have as part of the UK. He also suggested that a good UKIP showing in Scotland will put pressure on the SNP to say they would allow us to have a vote on EU membership, which they are currently set against.

         He made an amusing but serious comparison between alcohol and nationalism - they make you feel better in moderate amounts but can be ugly when overdone.

         He predicted eurosceptics would do well not just in Britain but across all of northern Europe and Scotlands ruling political consensus is out of touch with the people.

         On the matter of the media accusation that UKIP is a one man band (the BBC in particular, for years, refused to have anybody else on QT and then use this line) he said that this clearly untrue but for us to win at a general election we have to be seen to have a wide ranging and competent Shadow Cabinet and that this is "one of his most important jobs".

         We are "on the verge of the most extraordinary breakthrough in British politics for 100 years.

===============================

        Unfortunately most of the media coverage has gone on a remarkably unquestioning and factually non-truthful reporting of the demonstration outside.

        Interestingly Misty told us of how he had gone to Radical Independence's public meeting organising the demo outside, without announcing himself, and heard how the organisers "led" the meeting to reject suggestions of wishy washy pseudo liberal demo handing out "foods from around the world"; or any involvement from No supporters to concentrate on chanting and being intimidating. He described this, I think correctly, as Indy-Fascism and pointed out that our First Minister and Justice Minister, among others, have always refused to even mouth any objection to their thugery.

   Certainly had anybody rioted against the SNP or any of their PC activists or Rangers fans against Celtic ones (though probably not vice versa, they would have been immediately arrested. That isn't a guess - this Christian preacher arrested purely for exercising what used to be the right of free speech, did not approach the nicest of the RI thugs in violence. It didn't even get coverage in the obedient Scots media.

     Attributed to Churchill but Huey Long got there first "The fascists of the future will be called anti-fascists"

     And that the reason for their demo was not because any of them believe the multiple and conflicting things they accuse UKIP of, but because we are winning.

     As we were leaving and being followed by 2 very young girls one bearing the anti-fascist poster referred to below where Fascist was spelt with an H. He turned to the other and asked why they opposed UKIP - "Because you're anti-gay". In fact he is not merely gay but clearly so to anybody who reads body language. Our candidate is too. She went silent when informed.

     This was symptomatic of the entire pseudo-left today - not only were they demonstrating under a large variety of causes, many of them such as gay rights and the IRA, which have no connection either to each other or to UKIP, but they are overwhelmingly ignorant of the principles they are supposed to believe in and to what the word fascism actually means (and fairly ignorant of the real world too). "Left" has become a portmanteau label for those who have not thought through their beliefs and want somebody to give them some out of a box.

     I have sent this letter to the Scotsman who will doubtless censor it in their normal way:

Sir,

       Having attended the Scottish UKIP meeting with Nigel Farage may I point out a susstantial factual error in your report of the event. Rather than a "couple of dozen" of us there were around 100. Granted this was probably less than the total of protestors but one must remember that they were drawn from, by their own admission, diverse viewpoints.

 

         From hooded and masked thugs at the, back of the crowd, to those waving IRA flags, SWP promoters of totally unlimited immigration, windfarmists, and various strands of gays including one young woman holding up a poster about her genitalia and another denouncing fascism, but spelling I with an H. The only common factors seemed to be their opposition to democracy and free speech and their commitment to the SNP's "Independence in Europe" (indeed at the meeting organising this spontaneous demo a few No campaigner supporters were made ostentatiously unwelcome.

 

        It is arguable that UKIP represent the views of the average Scot and perhaps even the average Scotsman reader rather better than these assorted totalitarians do. Which is why, despite almost total censorship of debate of our actual policies by the state broadcasting corporation and most of our media we are getting 12-18% here in polling for the EU election and the assorted thugs of the Yes campaign are reduced to protesting against Scots rights to vote for who they want.

 

      It is unfortunate that your newspaper decided to falsify its report in a manner designed to support what are, at least by Mussolini's definition of the word, fascists.

 

 PS  If you decide not to publish this one either I must formally ask for your evidence that the meeting I attended was attended by only "a couple of dozen"

---------------------------------------------

 

An interesting sidenote - LibDem leader Willie Rennie, of whom I have said previously, is reported as having said Salmond should "call off the dogs" over Nigel's visit. That is a remarkable piece of phraseology (and an unusual acknowledgement of liberal free speech principles which would have been more convincing a year ago). Rennie works in Holyrood as part of our ruling "consensus" and certainly knows a lot more about the back corridors of power than I do and if he says Salmond's relationship to RI is a master to his dog I am inclined to believe him.

 

Going To See Nigel Farage In Edinburgh Tonight

   Both Herald and Scotsman report on their front pages that Nigel Farage is going to be in Edinburgh today; that "Radical Independence" demonstrators are likely to appear, as they did in their Fascist attack on him last year; and that "right wing groups" are going to defend him.

   I and a number from Glasgow branch will be there. I don't believe the papers about "right wing groups" unless right wing means anybody who believes in free speech and democratic elections.

    I have put up this comment on the Herald's article. The Herald have a long record of censoring anybody from UKIP. I doubt if they will let this stand. If they do I will report it here. If not, not. (Actually they censored it before I had completed this article)

-----------------------------------------------

"If the Radical independence thugs are shouting racist and murderous slogans they are racist. Admittedly many of RI's thugs were SWP members bussed in from Liverpool so they were false racists, tying to play to what they believed to be Scots racism, but using racism, whether falsely or not, is racist.

Note that the only people who fell for this SWP scam was Alex Salmond & the SNP, who, in publicly supporting the racists and denigrating the victims, demonstrated that he is personally unfit for any role in any democratic state and that his "independent in Europe" regime would be an uncomfortable place for anybody with an independent mind.

The Radical Independence Fascists, appropriately, remain an honoured part of the Yes campaign."

PS Just been listening to BBC Brian's Big "Debate" in which a gratuitous attack was launched on UKIP. Brian, being an honest sort, intervened to say that it was improper to attack a party which is being censored from the "debate". Just joking - of course he didn't.

UKIP Polling Suggests Photo Finish With Conservatives - Will BBC Still Censor If We Are Scotland's 3rd Party?

    I'm ripping off Mike Haseler's UKIP blog today because his article about a poll on how UKIP are doing in the Scottish EU election is important:

....the blog What Scotland thinks. This shows UKIP with the following levels in recent opinion polls:

Jan 24th:	4%
Mar 21st:	6%
Apr 7th:	7%
Apr 16th:	10%

This does not suggest UKIP will get anywhere near 18% and even 12% would be stretching it. However it does show that the UKIP vote has been rising fairly linearly by about 2% a month. As such these figures suggests the best estimate of the final percentage is around 11-13% in the Euro elections.
Where are the votes coming from?
Looking at the figures from What Scotland thinks, as shown below the swing appears to be from the Green party and SNP. This is difficult to explain. Both the Greens and SNP are strongly pro-Euro-shacked-independence & strongly pro-wind. It would therefore appear unlikely that voters would switch directly to anti-Europe, anti-wind UKIP. It would seem more likely that UKIP are picking up Tory, Labour and perhaps Lib Dem votes whilst their places are being filled by those defecting from the SNP & green voters.
So what does this mean for the election
Based on the last poll on 16th April, the result will be as follows:

Party	Result	Change from 2009
SNP:	3 MEPs	(+1)
Lab:	2 MEPs	-
Tory:	1 MEP	-
Lib Dem:	0 MEPs	(-1)
UKIP, Greens & others:	None	-

However, as the Tories only scrape in to get the last allocated MEP place with their 11% whilst UKIP was at 10%, if UKIP continue to rise by just another 1% or the Tories drop the same, then the result will be as follows

Party	Result	Change from 2009
SNP:	3 MEPs	(+1)
Lab:	2 MEPs	-
Lib Dem:	0 MEPs	(-1)
UKIP:	1 MEP	(+1)
Greens, & others:	None	-

And I see the Scotsman have come to the same conclusion.
####################################################

    That gives us everything to play for. The Greens and LibDems are nowhere. On the trend it looks more likely than not that we will pip the Tories to a seat. Not nearly as good as in the rest of the UK where we are running 38% or 36% against Labour's 27%, but unprecedented for Scotland where the Beeboids censor UKIP constantly.

    If the Tories cannot pick up 1 EU seat here (& only 1 Westminster seat) what do they exist for? Their spin machine has been concentrating for the last 2 years, not on telling people they have more sensible policies than ours, that issue has long been given away, bit simply that you mustn't split the vote.

    So what is the Tory party for if it is simply splitting the free market vote? Who would vote for them on that basis? Will this mean the melt down of the party - well yes, the only question is how quickly and will Ruth Davidson still be leading something calling itself the Conservatives by the next Holyrood election. OK getting a bit ahead of myself since we haven't yet beaten them, but....

    The other option is that this will bring the big guns of the state owned BBC to bear on us. That could get nasty - smears, lies and desperation. However the BBC have been so monolithic in their censorship of any mention of UKIP in Scotland [according to these polls we have about 30% as much support as the SNP so with SNP spokesmen on at least 3 times a day on their various programmes UKIP Scotland should have somebody daily - rather than twice a year] so it would be very obvious if they shifted from censorship to smears just a few days before the election.

Wythenshawe By Election - UKIP 2nd, Tories 3rd, LDs 4th

Mike Kane (Labour): 13,261  58%

John Bickley (UKIP): 4,301  18.5%

Reverend Daniel Critchlow (Conservatives): 3,479  15%

Mary Di Mauro (Lib Dem): 1,176  5%

Nigel Woodcock (Green Party): 748  3%

Eddy O'Sullivan (BNP): 708  3%

Captain Chaplington-Smythe (Monster Raving Loony): 288 1.2%

Turnout: 28%

   Obviously that is a remarkably good result for UKIP. It strongly suggests that across the North of England (and points north) UKIP are the opposition and the Tories the "splitters". Their entire propaganda against UKIP has been, not that there is anything they can criticise in our policies, but that we are slotting the anti-Labour vote. Presumably, not being a complete hypocrite, Mr Cameron will now advise those north of the Wash, not to split the vote and thus to vote UKIP apparently not.

   This is how Electoral Calculus had previously said this seat should go at a general election

10,412

17,988

9,106

3,245

40,752

Tory      Labour  LD    Others Total

     Actually that would not have made it a marginal for the Tories but at 7,500 difference, it is not a no-hoper either. At the beginning of the campaign Tories were ahead of UKIP
 
    The by election turnout was poor but then it normally is at by elections, particularly when the result is expected not to be close.

    It also looks like a good result for Labour (they got 58% when the equivalent in 2010 was 44%)  but there are 2 major reasons, one ethically dubious and the other worse, why this is not so.

   The ethically dubious one is that, as with almost all other  by elections recently, they went  for the shortest possible campaign (presumably also an influence for a low turnout). That means the voters don't get a true political debate, which is particularly damaging for UKIP since we are censored from the "legally balanced" BBC

   The worse one is that 40%, yes 40% of votes cast were by postal ballots (9,200). Even when they are carried out honestly postal ballots favour established political machines, who have the likes of our Fascist friend O'Hare from yesterday's post to set them up. At the best it also means that these votes were cast 3 days into the campaign.

   But most seriously, the words of the judge in the Birmingham Vote Fraud trial cannot be ignored particularly in present circumstances. He said that the evidence was "overwhelming", that " There are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated", that "Frauds of this magnitude require a considerable degree of organisation and manpower, not to mention supervision and co-ordination. It would be unthinkable for them to be the work of a few hothead activists", & of Prescott's reforms which made fraud possible on this scale that this was "positive assistance to fraud "...... "Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands".

Richard Mawrey QC, sitting as an electoral commissioner in Birmingham, found evidence of fraud in last year's city council elections that would "disgrace a banana republic". The elections, where several Labour candidates bucked the trend to win, were dogged by claims of intimidation, bribery, "vote-buying', impersonation and even the creation of a "vote-forging factory".

      The Labour cabinet was subsequently widely described as having considered making the system more secure but decided against it because they would lose votes. The Tories and LibDems (as shown in Eastleigh) also have long established political machines and aren't all that much more interested in stopping fraud than Labour. Originally postal votes were only available to those who were provably incapacitated and there was no corruption problem.

     Postal votes will not be nearly as important during general elections because the political machines are spread much thinner and also because there will be a longer and genuine campaign. We cannot know exactly how many of these votes went to which parties. If all of them had been Labour their ballot box vote would have been 4,000, putting them just behind UKIP but, attractive though that is, I don't think it can be so.

     In a previous case where Labour got 49% of the votes they got over 70% of postal votes. With 58% in this case that implies they got about 80% of postal votes which would take their polling booth vote down to 5,800 (though UKIP may have had a few postal votes too).

 Labour still won. But they cannot take much heart because had it been a general election, as it will soon, it would have been much closer. And had it been conducted as honestly as elections used to be, closer still.

====================
* For those Beeboids who prefer picking up politically incorrect phrases by UKIP members to broadcasting any actual discussion of real political issues I would point out that the description of our electoral system as "would disgrace a banana republic" was not mine but the judge's.