UKIP

[~~~]

I'm starting to get the impression UKIP have ran out of steam. would be shocked if they have anything more than 3 MPs

[FuzzyAffro]

They were always going to expose themselves as idiots in the scrutiny of a GE campaign. UKIP always have been an irrelevance and will be gone in a few years. Think Tea Party in the USA.

[Thumper]

I'm paying little attention to what England does this GE, excepting that the Tories get a workable majority, but I'll be out in the street dancing if Farage fails, especially if he subsequently resigns. That and Bradford West.

[Pete's Frontier]

They were always going to expose themselves as idiots in the scrutiny of a GE campaign. UKIP always have been an irrelevance and will be gone in a few years. Think Tea Party in the USA.

Fiscal responsibility has to be at the heart of whoever is elected. You can argue about eu and continued mass immigration, as UKIP valiantly do, but budgets are going to have to be trimmed. Anything else is beyond idiocy.

[git-intae-thum]

Fiscal responsibility has to be at the heart of whoever is elected. You can argue about eu and continued mass immigration, as UKIP valiantly do, but budgets are going to have to be trimmed. Anything else is beyond idiocy.

Sigh....yet another economically illiterate buffoon who thinks he is espousing the values of the right wing because "budgets are going to have to be trimmed."

This a simpleton attitude (fed for consumption to the likes of the Daily Mail/ Telegraph reader) to the way the macro economic system works in a mixed economy. Keynesian theory, the established doctrine, for over 80 years is clear on govts requirement to spend at times of crisis.

Here are the basics for UKippers and other dullard "its all em foriegners fault" types.

If the consumers in a nation state are impoverished (which austerity will increasingly cause) then very quickly without consumer spend power, the whole economy starts to suffer. By cutting back and trimming budgets this effectively means jobs and incomes go. This then creates poverty, leading to demand for goods and services dropping. This has a multiplying effect. Subsequently then and most worrying it occassions a fall in tax revenue (both business and personal), and the impoverishing the nation state.

This is all obviously barring the 0.1% super wealthy (Nigels mates) who do not pay tax or use any public services. Indeed they may become wealthier due to the increasing cheap labour supply and the private sector taking up essential roles govt has abandoned, giving them an oligarch type role over citizens.

Then again this would mean Nigel achieving his election promise of stopping health tourists. There would no longer be an NHS for them to use.

[Mr Bairn]

I'm starting to get the impression UKIP have ran out of steam. would be shocked if they have anything more than 3 MPs

Peaked too early. They'll keeo the two seats they have and Farage will get Thanet. That's it.

[Pete's Frontier]

50% polled say no free treatment for health tourists. DM readers are so damn on the money.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3026939/Half-Britons-Farage-HIV-Poll-finds-50-agree-immigrants-not-immediately-receive-free-treatment-arrive-UK.html

[Elixir]

Watching UKIP fail miserably will be absolutely hilarious, all while the SNP utterly romp home.

[Gaz]

Peaked too early. They'll keeo the two seats they have and Farage will get Thanet. That's it.

He might not even get Thanet. He's polling 1% behind the Conservatives there, or at least he was yesterday.

[bob the tank]

Polls show the Tory in front of Nige in Thanet. Meltdown imminent......

[Thumper]

Polls show the Tory in front of Nige in Thanet. Meltdown imminent......

It's within the margin of error. It would be a catastrophe for the BBC if Farage were to lose here, so I fully expect them to step up to the plate for him.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

I can't think of a better election scenario than the SNP utterly demolishing labour. Curran, Sarwar, Murphy and Farage all being punted as well would be beyond glorious.

[WaffenThinMint]

The Tory candidate for Hull West has defected to UKIP - leaving the Tories four days to get a new candidate, new nomination papers collected, filled and signed, and printing new leaflets with the new candidate on them at hideous expense to the local branch.

[Gaz]

The Tory candidate for Hull West has defected to UKIP - leaving the Tories four days to get a new candidate, new nomination papers collected, filled and signed, and printing new leaflets with the new candidate on them at hideous expense to the local branch.

It's a reasonably safe Labour seat. I can't imagine them going all-out to try and win it.

[Thumper]

It's a reasonably safe Labour seat. I can't imagine them going all-out to try and win it.

Nonetheless, it's bad enough that the Tories can't win any seats north of Berwick without failing to even stand a candidate in seats in northern England.

[Sooky]

Apparently he was sacked by the Tories last week, so not the defection that UKIP are making it out to be.

[strichener]

Apparently he was sacked by the Tories last week, so not the defection that UKIP are making it out to be.

That's twice the Tory's have stated this recently. On both occasions, only after the defection.

Edited April 6, 2015 by strichener

[WaffenThinMint]

Apparently he was sacked by the Tories last week, so not the defection that UKIP are making it out to be.

There's certainly a lot more to this story than the Tories are admitting.

Look no further than the guy's own website - he's not even got around to updating it yet & removing all the pro-Tory propaganda on it, hardly the sign of someone that was sacked by the Tories a week ago, or that this was in any way a long planned defection.

Also the Tories story that he was suspended last week over a row regarding selections isn't true - he was suspended last year and was not only reinstated, but chosen to be their PPC (source: Hull Daily Mail).

The story gets even more interesting as another Tory councillor jumped ship to UKIP four days ago, Mick Burchill, who had got in as a Tory in a by-election only last year largely backed by the local residents associations currently doing battle with the council over builders wanting to stick some more little boxes on green belt land (a carbon copy of the reason MP Mark Reckless fell out with his local Tory association & defected to UKIP).

Another four Tory councillors in the area - Nick Evans, Lena Slater, Geraldine Mathieson and Josie Ros Jump - have also fallen out with the party since the year started and resigned, all with the same story of bullying and intimidation by council leader Stephen Parnaby - who was deselected along with a host of others back in 2010 on similar charges of doing whatever he liked against residents wishes, only for them all to be forcibly reinstated by Tory central office.

This story may have a lot more mileage yet.

[Mr Bairn]

Farage will probably win Thanet on a personal vote.

I actually hope he does. Farage, Salmond and Galloway all in parliament would be meaty.

[pandarilla]

Another four Tory councillors in the area - Nick Evans, Lena Slater, Geraldine Mathieson and Josie Ros Jump - have also fallen out with the party since the year started and resigned, all with the same story of bullying and intimidation by council leader Stephen Parnaby - who was deselected along with a host of others back in 2010 on similar charges of doing whatever he liked against residents wishes, only for them all to be forcibly reinstated by Tory central office.

This story may have a lot more mileage yet.

Surely Josie ros Jump has to be the next to defect...