Farage Ltd and Similar Watch

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

As SLA said the other day, I cannot fathom why anyone would vote for UKIP in a local election. I can just about understand, but not agree with, voting for them in the European elections - after all, their case in that respect is very clear, so if you can look past their awful attendance record, very dubious voting record, dodgy unaudited expense claims, various character flaws and rampant xenophobia, if on balance you want the UK to leave the EU then voting for them makes some sense. But in local elections? To run your council? They've been on a Trappist monk vow of revealing exactly no domestic policy for this whole campaign. Congratulations, you have voted someone in who refuses to tell you what they plan to do. What a good idea that is.

Exactly this.

I don't know if it's stupidity, naivety or just good old fashioned bigotry that's led to so mant votes for them in the local elections but why would you vote for someone when you have no idea what they would do for your council?

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Yes - I think Labour have a lot of work to do. Neither of the big two parties has had a good night. Looking at the Lib Dem results I could see them getting badly smashed up in the general election, and frankly that is all that Nick Clegg deserves.

 

[NorwayFB]

This UKIP party reminds me of a Norwegian party started in 1973 by Anders Lange.It was initially called 'Anders Langes parti til sterk nedsettelse av skatter,avgifter og offentlige inngrep'.Roughly translated to Anders Langes party towards big reductions of taxes,fees and government interference...basically a protest party for many years and other politicians and voters called their voters,and the party rednecks,losers,idiots and so on.

In 2013...40 years later they were voted into government for the first time,alongside our Conservative party.

Obviously they've streamlined their politics et cetera but they're still considered rednecks,losers,idiots and so on.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

40 years you say? Hope it takes UKIP twice that time so I am well out of here.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

Count for my ward (Oxley) done. Labour hold, and fucking UKIP second. Christ alive.

 

[Lord Knows]

Are there a large percentage of people within the UK who feel unrepresented by the usual political parties so vote for what seems another option? Desperation in play.

 

[Deleted Cyber]

you were lucky to have choice! I had tory, labour or liberal in local elections only. For Europe I had a ballot paper made by Andrex and inscribed with virtually every extremist political view point I have ever seen! Still if idiots get elected to Europe its less impact on us here running services. Ho hum.

 

[Lord Knows]

Tory Michael Fabricant calls for Coalition to be broken up and for Tories to govern as a minority.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

First sensible thing Fabricunt has said in years.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Coalition politics and first past the post just don't mix. We either deal with minority governments if necessary on FPTP, or change to PR and embrace coalitions as the norm. Not this shit hybrid.

 

[Lord Knows]

It does look like we could be in for another hung parliament next year, which would leave the Libdems again having a say for the next few years.

 

[Premier Quality]

100% right, Trev!
Ed, like Gordon Brown, is a decent bloke with true conviction, but today's 'consumers' want sound-bites and smiles (as well as bull$#@!). Let's hope Labour win the next General Election or it's curtains if you're old, young, a parent and/or anything other than stinking rich or criminal!

Thats absolutely brilliant!!! Mental, obviously, but very very funny.

 

[croxdenabbey]

Thats absolutely brilliant!!! Mental, obviously, but very very funny.

Funny?
The Tories are a disgusting bunch of human excrement, particularly the working-class variety. Is that funny? I have a pathological hate of the Conservative Party and nothing will ever change that.
Even funnier is the way that thousands of people have cast their votes for a party with no real, tangible policies. It's quite scary, besides being funny.
There's a large section of the British public that have become completely disenfranchised from politics and have turned to this 'one trick pony' as a 'protest'.
It's not Nazi Germany, but it's a rather nasty reminder of what the uneducated, tabloid-reading masses can be capable of.
In the next General Election, we'll be back to the two-party system and who knows what we'll end up with, at this stage. Hopefully not a Boris-led 'gung ho' Tory Government.

 

[Premier Quality]

It's not Nazi Germany, but it's a rather nasty reminder of what the uneducated, tabloid-reading masses can be capable of.

Outrageous how Democracy works isn't it? People love it when its produces governments they want, and hate it when it doesn't go their way.

 

[Tredman]

i would imagine if the local elections were not held at the same time as the european then the UKIP vote woudl have been much lower.

Sadly a lot of people vote for parties rather than policies & ethos - the divisive nature of UKIP's campaigning will have attracted a good amount of support from people, some of these will have been unable to differentiate between local issues and european issues

 

[jd1981]

Agree with the above a lot of people support political parties like they are football teams and don't really bother in Looking at the policies of each party, I have voted for both labour and conservative in different elections on the basis that I have preffered one or the others policy at the time.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Outrageous how Democracy works isn't it? People love it when its produces governments they want, and hate it when it doesn't go their way.

Democracy done badly is not a good thing. Cf George W Bush's stolen election win. In the UK it's infuriating that David Cameron can fail to win an election and still get to railroad everything he wants through as if he did, all because the supine leaders of one party decided to completely fuck over their millions of voters. And it's an appalling state of affairs that people feel so disengaged from the mainstream parties and their approach that they feel compelled to cast votes for an openly policyless bunch of braying bar room bores.

Or do you not feel we should be concerned by that? Should we just shrug and say "that's democracy"? I don't.

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

I still have no idea how Cameron didn't win that election outright. It was an open-goal miss of Ronnie Rosenthal standards. Saying that, he is getting his policy through. Clearly a lot of people don't like it, but it is happening. As DW points out - you can thank Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and a few others for that outcome. To the average Lib-Dem voter a coalition with the Conservative party is like selling your soul to the devil, and I rather doubt those voters will easily forgive the move. There are going to a lot fewer Lib-Dem MPs this time next year.

My issue with today's result is not that it has given the Conservatives a bloody nose (as a working class Conservative I deeply resent Croxden's generalist comment above btw), nor that it has seen Labour not do as well as they could and should have done. Those are issues for Messrs Cameron and Miliband to consider over the next year and try and address. My issue is that there is such bland sameness about the parties now that Farage and company stand out. On ONE issue. And voter apathy with the others nets him a big protest vote. I would almost welcome about ten minutes of real UKIP power*, just so that it could never happen again as those voting for them would see what a fatuous, policy-free bunch of buffoons they actually are.

*As long as I am in the Caribbean during that particular ten minutes.

 

[croxdenabbey]

Unfortunately, it seems to be largely based on image and personalities, these days. The young, in particular don't seem to have the inclination to 'dissect' policies, ideologies and issues, preferring sound-bites and generalisms. We have, unfortunately become very 'American', attitudinally. The lack of ideological difference between the two main parties does not help. The Thatcher years moved the whole agenda well to the right of even the 'one nation' Tories like Macmillan and Heath. Had Macmillan popped back in 2000, I'm sure he would have been shocked at the right-wing policies of Blair. Personally, I would like the Labour Party to be what it should be, a true socialist party and stop trying to be Tories with a conscience.

 

[Johnny75]

So would I. They'd never get elected again. As to your comment on working class conservatives, it's truly classless and abhorrent and stinks of hypocrisy when you ply your trade in an autocratic nation. You're better off overseas where you can peddle your simplistic ideology to a variety of oligarchs.