Scarily impressive result. But scary photos on the BBC news of most involved.
Just goes to show the old adage that orally, content is only 10% of the message. On that basis, UKIP can get away with spouting garbage and no one minds. The alex salmond trick.
All three parties need to work out how to tackle this quickly.
Shapps must be feeling rather silly this morning.
Nice one Ninfan! You can't beat a few FACTS eh? 😉
What colourful hyperbolic language would you use for the UKIP win/Tory defeat then ?
Entirely expected, sitting governments hardly ever win by-elections, and the tories lost to someone who is even more tory than Maggie Thatcher and Norman Tebbits secret love child!
In case anybody was wondering exactly what UKIP have in mind (I know this thread is supposed to be about worrying about the Labour Pains but, well, who cares? Seriously.):
[url= http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/opinions/exclusive-what-will-ukips-election-2015-manifesto-look-like ]Prospect[/url]
EDIT: UKIP "We want to change this country". Margaret Thatcher: "We will change the soul of this country".
The only vague bit of sense comes from tax policy!!
The status quo seems to be in the intensive care ward.
Are we bothered?
@ninfan - a most excellent post !
JY I will accept that for you this result wasn't a wake up call. As I said it's going to be an interesting 7 months, lets see what the Labour response is over the next few weeks
There's going to be awful lot of confused tactical voting next GE, isn't there.
AV suddenly looks more useful as a tool for letting people vote for who they want, rather than whoever is supposed to be the main challenger against a Party/MP they don't want.
The question is… will people vote Tory to stop UKIP? I very much doubt it. They will probably vote for Labour to stop UKIP though… so Labour have far less to fear than the Tories. Maybe.
Dave must have his head in his hands this morning, reading those figures from Clacton
UKIP - 21,113 votes
Tory - 8,709 votes
Thats an absolute arse-kicking!! By anyones standards. And all the media were predicting a close contest. Shows how much they know. The Tories were all saying, only last week, that Rochester will be different, and that it'll be a safe Tory victory. They must be absolutely bricking it now!! Mark Reckless must be feeling quietly confident
I'd imagine its panic stations this morning in the Tory whips office, as they try and figure out who's going to jump next. If Rochester does go to UKIP next month, the floodgates could open with Tory MPs looking at defending slim majorities. I reckon Nigel will be getting a good few phone calls today asking for a quiet chat, somewhere private.
@binners - where the media predicting a close contest in Clacton ? I thought it would be a UKIP landslide. Have a look at the Fabian Society piece, it outlines 5 seats the Tories could lose, likewise there are a similar number of Labour seats at risk.
[i]However the possibility of a ukip/ con coalition and a disastrous exit from the EU looms large, for us and the EU and that would spell a m CH worse recession than the 2008 crash caused.[/i]
It would only mean a referendum....which once the full facts became obvious would mean we would almost certainly stick with it with revised terms with Brussels.
I reckon Nigel will be getting a good few phone calls today asking for a quiet chat, somewhere private.
This.
UKIP - 21,113 votes
Tory - 8,709 votes
You have to hand it to Nige.....he's putting his money where his mouth is!
We've seen protest voting in mid-term elections before, is it only me who notices that the mainstream parties ignore it. Or are a section of the voters going to take a **** them attitude at the next GE. Dave's 'fruitcakes and loonies' hasn't been forgotten. The Tory 'Vote UKIP, get Labour' deserves a response of [i]that's why you should be listening now[/i]. In Scotland Dave spoke of the electorate giving the Tories a kicking. They've been doing that for twenty years, why had he just noticed?
Labour are likely to lose voters to the SNP in Scotland. UKIP will split the vote in England. We live in interesting times. More protest votes in a GE will be a surprise for some: I think it's going to happen.
Has anyone noticed what's happening in Wales? Are PC getting more support?
Those saying that it was expected that Carswell would win therefore less of a big deal is bollocks. The Tory and Lib Dem vote collapsed in key Tory seat 8 months from a general election that is catastrophic for them.
Ninfan on your numbers you got to remember that we are in a 4 party system at the moment not 3 meaning reduced vote share for all old parties should be expected. Yet Labour increased its vote.
And all this is because the main parties are fighting over the centre and not listening to the people.
The moment when that woman who was dismissed as a Bigot by GB was a seminal point in history!
Thats an absolute arse-kicking!! By anyones standards. And all the media were predicting a close contest. Shows how much they know. The Tories were all saying, only last week, that Rochester will be different, and that it'll be a safe Tory victory. They must be absolutely bricking it now!! Mark Reckless must be feeling quietly confident
Although not a usual election scenario as the sitting MP changed party, so he has inertia on his side. Again extrapolating this unusual situation to a GE is a bit of a leap of faith.
Don't overestimate this. The election will ultimately be fought on the economy. Labour's real nightmare is if the economy keeps surprising on the upside. The Tory nightmare is if the rapidly approaching European recession drags UK down with it in 2015. There will spurious arguments about wages/living costs with UK's dreadful productivity record being swept under the carpet in the process - facts, who needs 'em? Europe will be the second issue for two reasons - the region will be in crisis again and we will be debating what role we want to play. CMD and UKIP will play their trump cards there and despite being false ones (at least the UKIP one) they will win a few tricks.
Of the three party leaders, which ones will be in place in 12 months time?
[i]I reckon Nigel will be getting a good few phone calls today asking for a quiet chat, somewhere private. [/i]
I think one of them might be from a very worried Dave, hoping to begin the groundwork for a coalition.
[i]Maggie Thatcher and Norman Tebbits secret love child![/i]
Is this a real person ninfan, or a figment of your imagination? 😯
You're right thm. Looks like we'll be back to Eurozone Crisis, the Sequel. Part... erm... what is it now? How many bailouts so far? Expect more as Europe tips back into full blown recession. Again. So it'll be interesting having a GE with the European Central Bank pouring yet more billions into the bottomless money pit that is the still-bawked Eurozone economy.
As a backdrop, that'll surely be an absolute gift to Farage. A still unreformed Euro going tits up yet again, thanks to more head-in-the-sand economics from Brussels. He must be rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect.
Though it won't be leaving many other people with anything to smile about
You have already admitted that you were surprised to discover that until recently the Green Party had considerably more councilors than UKIP.
Ernie - I am used to having my words taken out of context on here, but actually I was saying the exact opposite, I was surprised that UKIP had so many Councillors and had overtaken the Greens. I then denied saying what you suggest above in my next post. I have known for some time how many Councillors the Greens have and how they had been successful at this level as they have concentrated their resources more narrowly.
You said the Greens suffered a media blackout, the Question Time figures suggests they get coverage so this is an exaggeration. If you changed what you say to the following, I would agree with it:
The media clearly [b]mostly [/b]ignores Green Party related news and focuses [b]much more[/b] heavily on all UKIP related news.
But again to batter the point home, this can be justified, in my view, as the Greens have not achieved national cut through. I think I have had to make the same point five times, my guess is that you disagree. I am unlikely to change your mind, and vice versa. The arguments have been made so it probably pointless to continue - on that we can agree.
THE LABOUR PARTY VOTE INCREASED
Well if you're going to put it like that:
2010: 18,499
2014: 11,633
What's more, as has been pointed out already the party in power usually gets a kicking in by-elections and recover for the next GE. There's actually another very handy recent by-election to compare with, Wythenshawe and Sale East - only about 10 miles away, held just over 6 months ago, Labour increased their share of the vote by 11.2%. Is there a good reason they couldn't have expected a similar performance here?
What's more Labour increasing their share of the vote is pretty irrelevant if they lose the seat to UKIP - something they came very close to here, despite that not being predicted. The original suggestion is that Labour should be worried by UKIP, and if they aren't after this then they're really daft - it doesn't matter where the UKIP votes are coming from if they get enough votes to beat them. That's something they need to be worried about.
(you'll note there was no Tory party content in this post - this isn't about them)
Unfortunately Binners you are correct in terms of the gift for Farrage. The slowdown in Germany reported this week is very concerning. The French will be going way off piste and Southern European unrest will continue.
How long will the Germans be behind Ru sanctions after the hit they took this week?
Sadly the EUs debate will be lower in the gutter than the Scottish independence one. The thing will be - leave facts out of it.
It will be funny watching GO spouting austerity works too, especially when ironically the Tories have been among the most fiscally loose government in the developed world since they crisis. The gap between perception and reality grows even wider!!!
There'll be twitching hoops in both big parties this morning.
The conservatives had the bad night they expected, with the votes following the man and not the party in Clacton as expected. Their share of votes in an unwinnable seat in a solid red area also collapsed.
For Labour their clusterf***up of a leader has to deal with the fact that what should be a solid red area had 52% of voters going for a right of centre party after 4 years of austerity-light, with a conservative government in power. A smidgen more tactical voting by a handful of conservatives would have seen the seat fall to the UKIP that apparently is not a threat to a party that has taken its core voters for granted for far too long. The knives were out for "Student Grant" Ed before last night. However they spin the result - "we increased our share of the vote compared to the apocalypse of 2010, didn't we do well ?" - there will be more knives out by the weekend. Is there anyone waiting in the wings that will be able to take over this close to a general election and rise above the tide of poison that would be released by an act of regicide and unite the party in 7 months. Can I suggest Ed Balls? His boyfriend Yvette ? Harriet Harperson ?
Labour is not being complacent over UKIP Labour will work hard to show disaffected voters why Labour is the right choice.
All of you who are saying this is a disaster for Labour and are ignoring what happened in Clacton remind me of Iraq information minister Comical Ai
Of the three party leaders, which ones will be in place in 12 months time?
Ed has to go. He's unelectable. The Thatcher years when a hated PM was put against Neil Kinnock and Micheal Foot are a case in point. They need a new leader. Now.
Cleggy is a dead man walking. Tutition Fees will hang around his neck forever.
Cameron has been quietly confident for the last few years. Not now.
Farage with his beer-and-fags matey man-of-the-people manifesto is a real danger to the usual suspects.
They need to wake up and see what's coming.
I had no idea where Clacton was so looked it up. I doubt this will last long in the wiki:
On 9th October 2014, it was the first town to elect a nationalist candidate for UKIP to parliament, which makes it the most racist town in England<re> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29549414</ref>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacton-on-Sea
Let's just imagine that UKIP does well in the next General Election and ends up with 30-40 seats. The Tories fail to get a majority and to form a government need to form a collation with UKIP and do so. UKIP would suffer in the same ways as the LibDems have done, since in effect they would be unable to implement any of their policies, although to be fair to UKIP they have sod all policies.
In the UK we are not accustomed to collation governments, but if the vote keeps splintering then this will become the norm. Is this good? It means that small parties can a greater influence than their vote, no one can deliver their manifesto since it will all be a compromise. In which case why are we beating up the LibDems for doing something that will become the norm.
Sadly this view of the future shows that the nutters from UKIP will drag the country further rightward and inward facing.
[quote=fr0sty125 said]Labour is not being complacent over UKIP Labour will work hard to show disaffected voters why Labour is the right choice.
remind me of Iraq information minister Comical Ai
Oh the ironing etc.
The Thatcher years when a hated PM was put against Neil Kinnock and Micheal Foot
Clearly, not by enough voters to lose...
Labour is not being complacent over UKIP Labour will work hard to show disaffected voters why Labour is the right choice.
...and now for the tractor production statistics.
THE LABOUR PARTY VOTE INCREASED
The other thing being missed in all this pro labour cherry picking is that before Labour had no credibile challenger in this type of seat. The Torys and Lib Dems split the challenge but neither had a hope of getting close to Labour.
UKIP have managed to unite a credible band of desperate voters who have got within a wisker of ousting Labour in a previously safe seat.
UKIP have managed to be all things to all people hence their ability to challenge the Tories in their safe seats and Labour in theirs.
For the low income working poor they are promising to curb imigration and raise tax thresholds, this addresses the two things these people are most concerned about, cheap foreign labour suppressing wages and "taking their jobs" and the increasing cost of living outstripping wage increase.
For the Tory voting NIMBYS they are out Torying the Torys with their "I'm alright guv" attitude.
They are the Leb Dems without the shackles of a namby pamby liberal outlook and therefore apeal to people disolusioned by the two main parties but unwilling to vote liberal due to their narrow appeal.
They are political opertunists unburdened by the need to have coherent policies that would actually work in power so can just play to the crowd. A coalition would be the best way to get rid of them as their polices get chewed up and spat out and their poularity would dive, just like the Lib Dems.
Labour is not being complacent over UKIP Labour will work hard to show disaffected voters why Labour is the right choice.
Has Ed Miliband joined the forum?
A UKIP/Tory coalition could result in leaving the EU, and the parties combining to form a new party, or alliance of parties, that stays in power for a generation. Don't assume that coalition would destroy UKIP… they may have a long game that is about reframing right wing politics in the UK, or more precisely England. Having ex-Tory MPs helps make this future possible. The next coalition could be VERY different to the current beast.
Any road up, whatever happens, it's not bringing the Republic any nearer. 🙁
A UKIP/Tory coalition
Would be a truly terrifying concept, it would make the Republican Party look quite moderate.
OK. I'll ask. Why is that "terrifying" exactly?
The moment when that woman who was dismissed as a Bigot by GB was a seminal point in history!
She was a bigot. What's the problem?
Labour is not being complacent over UKIP Labour will work hard to show disaffected voters why Labour is the right choice.
And those multiple reasons to get excited about, and vote labour would be......?
Erm......
You may not of noticed but in Dwayne Dibley's towering masterpiece of a conference speech only a couple of weeks ago, he offered the grand sum of **** all reasons to even consider voting labour. Other than 'vote for us. we're not the Tories. Well... not officially'
And as a result of that, he yesterday presided over a massive majority in a nailed-on safe labour seat reduced to 600 by a bunch of rabid right wing nut jobs. Way to go Ed. You muppet!!!
It actually makes me really bloody angry that in the face of the most right wing, self-serving government this country has ever seen, with working peoples living standards falling year on year, we have an 'opposition' that is so utterly clueless and devoid of ideas, that it can't even land a blow on Dave and his gang of chums. Its pathetic!!!
UKIP / Tory coalition. Can imagine the Tories in 5 years time bleating how they've curbed the worst excesses of the UKIP manifesto promises.. 🙂
That leads me to think they are more of a problem for the Tories than Labour...Tory fanboys clutching at straws to try and deflect from the hell of beating you took last night with another one to come.
TBH you're coming across as a Labour fanboy whose first instinct is whataboutery. Every woman and her dog knows that UKIP is bad news for the Tories. There is no-one who is denying they're a bigger problem for the Tories than for Labour - but there are plenty who are denying that UKIP is also very bad news for Labour.
They are political opertunists unburdened by the need to have coherent policies that would actually work in power so can just play to the crowd
Well I read the Guardian article somebody linked to earler. Aside from the fact the numbers probably don't add up, it seemed as coherent as any other party to me.
Why are UKIPs policies any less likely to work than the policies of any of the major parties?
She was a bigot. What's the problem?
Yup, I thought Brown's mistake was not sticking to his guns.
“Only a vote for Labour stops the Tories”
“Only a vote for the Tories stops Labour”
This empty politics isn't a surprise.
Encouraging positive voting, with positive politics, is pointless when most people have to vote to “stop” the main party they dislike most.
Still, we rejected even a modest change to the voting system, so ultimately, it's our fault.