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Post 02 Oct 2014, 11:52 am

We are nearly at the end of the annual party conferences (for any Americans watching, the party conferences are like the national conventions except that they are more about agreeing policy platforms than about showboating).

Labour's was low key, which seems odd for a party ahead in the polls and looking likely to at least be the largest party in May. Miliband went for a 'conversational' speech with no autocue, but this led to him omitting (perhaps deliberately, perhaps not) part concerning the fiscal deficit and immigration.

UKIP held theirs in good spirits with a couple of Tory MPs defecting before and during, a rallying call to take on Labour in the North and the usual slightly odd policy platform.

The Tories had theirs overshadowed somewhat by their errant former MPs (and spent perhaps a bit too much time making digs at them individually), but also had some popular/populist policy promises to make: clamping down on the free speech of 'extremists', freezing welfare payments, tax cuts.

The Lib Dems have theirs next (usually they go first, but didn't want to clash with the Scottish devolution referendum). Not sure what that will be like - so far they seem to be doing their best to put a brave face against mass unpopularity and to attack both the Opposition and their own coalition partners.

Are these an indication of the election campaigns to come?

Will the byelections over the next few weeks have an impact? They are:

Heywood & Middleton (9 Oct): Labour-held, up due to the passing of Jim Dobbin. The Tories are second and the Lib Dems were just behind in 3rd last time. However, UKIP are making inroads and clearly using issues like Rotherham and the death of Lee Rigby to attract white working-class (and middle-class) voters who may be worried about immigration and Muslims. The Lib Dem vote will probably collapse, while a fairly large vote for the BNP will probably transfer to UKIP. However, last time a seat in Greater Manchester was contested - Sale & Wythenshaw, following the death of Paul Goggins, who I knew back in 1997 when I lived there and worked on his campaign - UKIP said they would be in with a chance of winning and despite coming second were miles behind.

Clacton (9 Oct): Tory held, but the incumbent has defected to UKIP and chosen to resign his seat to stand for them. Douglas Carswell seems to have local popularity, and is riding high in the polls. The Tories appear to have given up much hope. Labour may have been in a position to benefit from a split in the right wing vote, but I suspect will be squeezed.

Rochester & Strood (date not set): Also Tory held, and also because the sitting MP has flipped to UKIP and stood down to fight the seat under new colours*. Mark Reckless (which may be a case of nominative determinism) may have a harder fight to win, and the Tories are throwing far more at the seat (and more mud at Reckless).

If UKIP win one (Clacton being most likely), then it would be a breakthrough for them, but perhaps one that does not exceed expectations. They are after all three, which would represent a major upset.

[* despite this happening twice in short succession, it's actually pretty rare for a sitting MP who changes party to stand down and fight the seat straight away. Usually they have remained in place until the next General Election, and sometimes found an alternative seat. One exception is Dick Taverne, Labour MP who resigned from the party in 1973 as he was pro-Europe and the local party was anti. He formed a new party, "Democratic Labour" and won the byelection, and even held the seat in the following spring's General Election, before losing in the October 1974 re-run]
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Post 02 Oct 2014, 1:05 pm

Miliband's speech was a disaster. I don't really buy the whole "I forgot to talk about immigration and the deficit" thing really. How could he forget to talk about the issues which probably rank among the top 3 or 4 issues for the electorate while spending so long talking about a (presumably fictitious) conversation he had on Hampstead Heath with a man called Gareth ? If he had anything meaningful to say about these issues then surely he'd have said them. The whole thing was a complete car crash.

That said, it won't really matter very much because nobody was paying attention anyway. Labour's fortunes are going to be determined not by what Miliband says in a speech 8 months out from the election but by how many people ultimately vote UKIP and where those voters are drawn from. Here I think Labour are on firmer ground. It's true that UKIP are drawing protest votes from both main parties, but they're taking more from the Tories and the sort of places they're drawing support from Labour are the kind of seats where they weigh the Labour vote instead of counting it. It's very unlikely that UKIP can really damage Labour, but it could be disastrous for the Tories if Cameron can't tempt enough of them back.

What could be interesting though is what happens in Scotland. By all accounts the SNP have added about 60000 members since the failure of the Yes campaign. You have to assume that most of these will be former Labour voters. Could we see Labour losing a swathe of formerly rock-solid seats in Scotland to the SNP ? If so it may offset some of the gains they look set to make in the English marginals and may end up costing them a majority.

As for the byelections, I'd expect Carswell will romp home but Labour will hold Middleton and the Tories will probably defeat Mark Reckless in Rochester. I tend to think that Reckless really didn't want to have to resign his seat, but the precedent set by Carswell forced him into it. Carswell had spent years cultivating his local party though, and so a huge number of them made the jump with him. He also had a big local profile (not to mention a big national profile through his column in the Telegraph and his longstanding membership of the awkward squad, which gave him a lot of TV exposure). I doubt many people even know who Mark Reckless is, including a lot of his own constituents. The Tories all kind of like Carswell and didn't want to campaign against him, but they'll all be fired up to give Reckless a good kicking. If he wins it'll be by the skin of his teeth, and he'll lose again in May.
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Post 02 Oct 2014, 1:30 pm

Sassenach wrote:Miliband's speech was a disaster. I don't really buy the whole "I forgot to talk about immigration and the deficit" thing really. How could he forget to talk about the issues which probably rank among the top 3 or 4 issues for the electorate while spending so long talking about a (presumably fictitious) conversation he had on Hampstead Heath with a man called Gareth ? If he had anything meaningful to say about these issues then surely he'd have said them. The whole thing was a complete car crash.

That said, it won't really matter very much because nobody was paying attention anyway.
Indeed, the polls suggest that Labour's policies are popular (even among Tory voters) when presented neutrally, and Labour are a bit further ahead than they were a few months ago.

Labour's fortunes are going to be determined not by what Miliband says in a speech 8 months out from the election but by how many people ultimately vote UKIP and where those voters are drawn from. Here I think Labour are on firmer ground. It's true that UKIP are drawing protest votes from both main parties, but they're taking more from the Tories and the sort of places they're drawing support from Labour are the kind of seats where they weigh the Labour vote instead of counting it. It's very unlikely that UKIP can really damage Labour, but it could be disastrous for the Tories if Cameron can't tempt enough of them back.
I think there are several kinds of UKIP voter:

1) Disgruntled Tories. Seems to be the largest group, and potentially can be won back, but these seem to be the people who regard Cameron and the modernisers as too wet. Some are in a huff about Gay Marriage. Others don't trust the referendum pledge (and they don't want an improved deal, they want out completely).
2) Disgruntled Labour. The 'white working class, resentful of immigrants' being the stereotype, if not the reality. Some may be turned off of they bother to look at UKIP's policies outside the EU and immigration.
3) Anti-everyone voters. A large number of people don't vote. Many of these because they don't like any of the established parties. Some of these are more attracted to the far right than to the centre-right, and so will turn out for the BNP, UKIP etc. Because they often live in areas where another party dominates, they can be mistaken for that party's support. But analysing actual returns show a lot of previous non-voters have turned out when insurgents stand and do well
4) Floating voters. Some may dismiss these as indecisive, and fickle, and sometimes they make some odd switches. But there is a tranch of voters who move around. They used to more often switch between Labour and the Tories, or between them and the Liberals/SDP/Lib Dems. I think there are a load who would have voted Tory before 1992, Labour 1997-2005, Lib Dem 2005/2010, and are going to vote UKIP in 2015. Why? I don't really know

What could be interesting though is what happens in Scotland. By all accounts the SNP have added about 60000 members since the failure of the Yes campaign. You have to assume that most of these will be former Labour voters. Could we see Labour losing a swathe of formerly rock-solid seats in Scotland to the SNP ? If so it may offset some of the gains they look set to make in the English marginals and may end up costing them a majority.
And perhaps we will see the end of the stupid "Labour needs Scotland for a majority" rubbish that people believe despite it only being true twice in history.

On the other hand, it looks a lot like sour grapes from the Nationalists, who I saw promising dire consequences for Labour over the vote, especially as the polls stopped going towards Yes when GB and others intervened. I wonder if it really is sustainable when it comes to ordinary voters in May, considering who would run the UK (as opposed to Scotland). But I do think the SNP will make gains.

As for the byelections, I'd expect Carswell will romp home but Labour will hold Middleton and the Tories will probably defeat Mark Reckless in Rochester. I tend to think that Reckless really didn't want to have to resign his seat, but the precedent set by Carswell forced him into it. Carswell had spent years cultivating his local party though, and so a huge number of them made the jump with him. He also had a big local profile (not to mention a big national profile through his column in the Telegraph and his longstanding membership of the awkward squad, which gave him a lot of TV exposure). I doubt many people even know who Mark Reckless is, including a lot of his own constituents. The Tories all kind of like Carswell and didn't want to campaign against him, but they'll all be fired up to give Reckless a good kicking. If he wins it'll be by the skin of his teeth, and he'll lose again in May.
I tend to agree with your assessments on the byelections. If that does end up being the outcome, it will be interesting to see where UKIP end up even if they don't win.

And if the Tories do throw a lot in Rochester and still lose to Reckless, then regardless of whether he can hold the seat in May, all bets are off for the GE as a whole.
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Post 02 Oct 2014, 2:07 pm

Indeed, the polls suggest that Labour's policies are popular (even among Tory voters) when presented neutrally, and Labour are a bit further ahead than they were a few months ago.


There are massive weaknesses in the few policies that Labour has come out with so far, but on a superficial level they're likely to be popular while people are not stopping to think through whether price controls and mansion taxes are really a sensible idea.

But of course they're not presented neutrally, they're presented by Balls and Miliband. This is a major problem for Labour because their leadership is totally lacking in either credibility or gravitas. In hindsight it's a shame for Labour that Gordon Brown couldn't have stuck around for a year or so to oversee a proper reflection in the party. They might then have avoided being bounced into such a disastrous choice of leader through lack of options. Even at the time there was a much better candidate mind you. David Miliband would be miles ahead at this point in the electoral cycle, given everything that has happened. Labour may beleading in the polls but it's a very small lead that under normal circumstances would need to be much bigger for them to be confident of winning next year. They're lucky that the UKIP factor means that it isn't normal circumstances. I still think the 35% strategy is remarkably short-sighted though.

I think there are several kinds of UKIP voter:

1) Disgruntled Tories. Seems to be the largest group, and potentially can be won back, but these seem to be the people who regard Cameron and the modernisers as too wet. Some are in a huff about Gay Marriage. Others don't trust the referendum pledge (and they don't want an improved deal, they want out completely).
2) Disgruntled Labour. The 'white working class, resentful of immigrants' being the stereotype, if not the reality. Some may be turned off of they bother to look at UKIP's policies outside the EU and immigration.


I'm not sure to what extent traditional Labour or Tory voters are really motivated by policy. I think it's more a case that they've traditionally identified with their tribe but feel that the leadership of the party have changed, becoming more wishy-washy and metropolitan and abandoning them. As such, I don't know whether Tory pledges on Europe or Labour highlighting of some of UKIP's more right wing agenda will have much effect. I may be wrong though, chances are that a lot of UKIP support will evaporate next year.

3) Anti-everyone voters. A large number of people don't vote. Many of these because they don't like any of the established parties. Some of these are more attracted to the far right than to the centre-right, and so will turn out for the BNP, UKIP etc. Because they often live in areas where another party dominates, they can be mistaken for that party's support. But analysing actual returns show a lot of previous non-voters have turned out when insurgents stand and do well
4) Floating voters. Some may dismiss these as indecisive, and fickle, and sometimes they make some odd switches. But there is a tranch of voters who move around. They used to more often switch between Labour and the Tories, or between them and the Liberals/SDP/Lib Dems. I think there are a load who would have voted Tory before 1992, Labour 1997-2005, Lib Dem 2005/2010, and are going to vote UKIP in 2015. Why? I don't really know


These two groups seem to be growing all the time, especially the anti-everyone voters (who are probably the biggest contingent of UKIP support actually). They tend to be flaky though, so we'll have to wait and see how much influence they'll have. The tribalists can at least be counted on to turn out and vote.

And perhaps we will see the end of the stupid "Labour needs Scotland for a majority" rubbish that people believe despite it only being true twice in history.


Perhaps, although I don't think many people are really saying that as such. It's highlighted at the moment mostly because the polls are forecasting that Labour really will rely on Scotland for a majority next year, and because of the recent referendum.

On the other hand, it looks a lot like sour grapes from the Nationalists, who I saw promising dire consequences for Labour over the vote, especially as the polls stopped going towards Yes when GB and others intervened. I wonder if it really is sustainable when it comes to ordinary voters in May, considering who would run the UK (as opposed to Scotland). But I do think the SNP will make gains.


You're probably right. In fact what could conceivably happen is that the SNP might even lose a seat or two to the Tories if their relentless targeting of old Labour voters in Glasgow causes them to lose the Tartan Tory vote in the Borders and Edinburgh suburbs. Now that would really be interesting...

And if the Tories do throw a lot in Rochester and still lose to Reckless, then regardless of whether he can hold the seat in May, all bets are off for the GE as a whole.


His timing has been quite clever. Chances are that Carswell will win and he can hope to ride a wave of publicity in the aftermath of that. We'll see though. For some reason Carswell has managed to come across as being a genuinely honourable man (possibly because he is) whereas there's an air of cynicism and shiftiness about Mark Reckless that will make it hard for him in the by-election. How many people are going to be motivated to come out and vote for him ? It seems likely that the genuine Tory voters are going to be a lot more motivated for this one than the casual UKIP protest voters. Personally I think he's going to lose.
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Post 03 Oct 2014, 10:08 am

The latest poll was interesting. The first lead for the Tories since 2012 I believe (or it might just be the first lead with that polling company, I forget). Also an all-time low for the Lib Dems of just 6%.

Now obviously it's incredibly stupid to read much into one poll. The long term average has been a Labour lead of 3-4% for ages now and I daresay Labour will retake a small lead in coming polls. It is interesting though. Dan Hodges in the Telegraph made an interesting observation about it. Hodges does talk a lot of crap and his entire career seems to have been built around pursuing some kind of creepy vendetta against Ed Miliband, but nevertheless he does have a point I think. Labour's vote has been steady now around that all-important 35% figure for a while now, but they benefit a lot from disaffected Lib Dem voters. The Tories have also been stuck around 31-33% for a long time but they've suffered a lot of defections to UKIP during their term in office. UKIP polled 4% in 2010 and the Lib Dems polled about 21%. Do we really expect them both to stay around about their current level when we come to the general election next year ? It does seem likely that the Lib Dems will manage to claw back a few percentage points at least, which would come disproportionately from Labour, while UKIP will probably shed a few percentage points, which will flow disproportionately to the Tories. It's also the case that governments usually do a bit better in the election than their polling figures from a few months out would suggest. As such lkabour really need to be much further ahead than they are.

Or do they ? What Hodges says make logical sense but British politics hasn't really been following logical patterns lately.
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Post 03 Oct 2014, 11:05 am

Sassenach wrote:The latest poll was interesting. The first lead for the Tories since 2012 I believe (or it might just be the first lead with that polling company, I forget). Also an all-time low for the Lib Dems of just 6%.

Now obviously it's incredibly stupid to read much into one poll. The long term average has been a Labour lead of 3-4% for ages now and I daresay Labour will retake a small lead in coming polls. It is interesting though
It's the first YouGov poll with a Tory lead for that long, but there have been the occasional tied polls (and one or two of those would have been a 1 point lead but for rounding, which I know because, yes, I have been looking at them almost obsessively). Labour have up till that had a lead of about 5 on average, with a 7 the day before, and both that and a 1 point Tory lead are within the margin of error of a 3 point Labour lead.

There have been other polls in the last year from other companies that have had the Tories ahead (by 1 at the most I think). Ipsos MORI had a Tory lead of 1 in early September. Populus had two Tory leads in August.

Conference poll boosts do happen, and Cameron has had them before. And they have dissipated. I suspect that even though it is expected by people paying attention, a UKIP win for Carswell next week would put an end to it. Of course, the recent headlines on the ECHR may also give the Tories a boost (even if the likes of Clarke and Grieve are saying the policy is poorly thought out and potentially dangerous)

Dan Hodges in the Telegraph made an interesting observation about it. Hodges does talk a lot of crap and his entire career seems to have been built around pursuing some kind of creepy vendetta against Ed Miliband, but nevertheless he does have a point I think.
He is a very odd man. I'm not sure it's just Ed M - the fact of who his mum is may be a factor as well.

Labour's vote has been steady now around that all-important 35% figure for a while now, but they benefit a lot from disaffected Lib Dem voters. The Tories have also been stuck around 31-33% for a long time but they've suffered a lot of defections to UKIP during their term in office. UKIP polled 4% in 2010 and the Lib Dems polled about 21%. Do we really expect them both to stay around about their current level when we come to the general election next year ? It does seem likely that the Lib Dems will manage to claw back a few percentage points at least, which would come disproportionately from Labour, while UKIP will probably shed a few percentage points, which will flow disproportionately to the Tories. It's also the case that governments usually do a bit better in the election than their polling figures from a few months out would suggest. As such lkabour really need to be much further ahead than they are.

Or do they ? What Hodges says make logical sense but British politics hasn't really been following logical patterns lately.
Well, yes. there are some 'folk myths' about. One is that Labour need to be about 10 ahead now to win because of unwind. However, the nearer we get to the campaign, the less true that is - often during the actual campaigns the polls narrow, so if the Tories have not cut the gap in the next few months it looks bad for them. The other is that people will go back to how they voted in the past election. This is less and less true every time. A lot of Lib Dem voters were not true supporters and have no real loyalty to them (many in 2005 and 2010 were left wingers who felt the LDs were to the left of Labour and given the coalition are now disabused of such a notion). Some of those will go to the Greens (or to nationalist parties in Scotland/Wales), but I suspect that many of those who are saying Labour now are not as soft as it is hoped that they are. The other 'rule' is that governing parties lose vote share after a first full term, which has rarely been tested with coalitions in the UK - indeed the trend in the 1920s was that coalitions tended to reward the dominant party, which was the Tories then (1922, and 1935), as now.

The coalition itself, the emergence of UKIP, the continuing decline of the two-party dominance, the possible SNP surge in Scotland... all mean that conventional wisdom and appeals to past 'rules' may not apply any more.

Also, there is interest in the detail of sub-polling. Lord Ashcroft's polling has looked at marginal seats, which are the real battleground. It looks like Labour is doing well in those, and also that the Lib Dems are resilient where they are holding against the Tories (which is kind of what I expect to be the case).

Any Labour supporter who remembers 1992 will be cautious, and I definitely remember it as I was 17 and thought we had done enough to win across the country and in my local seat only to be disappointed. So even though we are still ahead in the polls on average and the underlying stats look good, I am by no means going to call it.

But I would say that it does not look at the moment as if the Tories can get an overall majority.
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Post 03 Oct 2014, 11:58 am

I'm not at all confident either. The first election I can properly remember taking a serious interest in was 1997*. This was understandable since it happened towards the end of my first year at university where I was part of a very small group of just twenty students on the most elitist course for political obsessives in the whole country (run by a man who would be elevated to the Lords a couple of years later). I called it right of course from a long way out (who didn't ?) and I've been confident about every election since, and right every time. This one is much harder to call though. As it stands I think it'll be another hung parliament, but I couldn't say who I think will end up being the biggest party. By rights it should be Labour, but I honestly think the Miliband factor will loom larger in the mind of the electorate the closer we get to polling day and I do think that will have an impact. The man is a liability.

* I did actually stand as a candidate in my school's mock election in 1992. Would you believe that I stood as a Lib Dem ? I picked them because when they got everybody together at the start of the process and asked us all to pick a party that we wanted to be part of the group for, nobody was picking the LDs. Myself and a couple of my mates opted for them as some kind of entryist clique, except we were actually all of the members of the local party in this case. The turning point of my glorious triumph in the general election of 1992 came when we filmed a party political broadcast using Dan's dad's video camera and talked the head into letting us play it at the end of assembly one morning. Instantly my standing in the polls rocketed and I ended up romping to victory. The electorate is a fickle beast.

He is a very odd man. I'm not sure it's just Ed M - the fact of who his mum is may be a factor as well.


I agree that he's weird, but for some reason I regularly like to read his stuff. I like the fact that he nailed his colours to the mast in predicting the outcome of the election ages ago, something which nobody else has even done now. It's probably a silly thing to do but it was brave, and he could easily prove to be right.

I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out for the Tories before too much longer. It's been odd to watch this gradual political transformation happening over such a long time, and to witness the personal animus which has in large part driven it. I can see why the Telegraph keep him on even though all their readers seem to hate him.
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Post 03 Oct 2014, 1:46 pm

Sassenach wrote:I'm not at all confident either. The first election I can properly remember taking a serious interest in was 1997*. This was understandable since it happened towards the end of my first year at university where I was part of a very small group of just twenty students on the most elitist course for political obsessives in the whole country (run by a man who would be elevated to the Lords a couple of years later). I called it right of course from a long way out (who didn't ?) and I've been confident about every election since, and right every time. This one is much harder to call though. As it stands I think it'll be another hung parliament, but I couldn't say who I think will end up being the biggest party. By rights it should be Labour, but I honestly think the Miliband factor will loom larger in the mind of the electorate the closer we get to polling day and I do think that will have an impact. The man is a liability.
Perhaps. It may be that personal attacks against him do not carry as much weight - his image is already 'priced in', and he is generally underestimated. I understand that Cameron did not want to do pre-election debates, and I can see why - he did poorly compared to Clegg in 2010, and underdogs tend to do well in them.

* I did actually stand as a candidate in my school's mock election in 1992. Would you believe that I stood as a Lib Dem ? I picked them because when they got everybody together at the start of the process and asked us all to pick a party that we wanted to be part of the group for, nobody was picking the LDs. Myself and a couple of my mates opted for them as some kind of entryist clique, except we were actually all of the members of the local party in this case. The turning point of my glorious triumph in the general election of 1992 came when we filmed a party political broadcast using Dan's dad's video camera and talked the head into letting us play it at the end of assembly one morning. Instantly my standing in the polls rocketed and I ended up romping to victory. The electorate is a fickle beast.
In my 6th form college at the same time, I was 'campaign manager' for the Labour candidate (I wanted to stand, but as he was in the politics A level and I wasn't, he got first dibs). Given this was in Horsham, one of the safest Tory seats in the country, we stood no chance. It was good fun arguing about the Falklands and taxes with people though. I remember my form tutor, a Mathematics teacher, completely misunderstanding how income tax works, and despising all taxes despite them paying her wages. fun times.

He is a very odd man. I'm not sure it's just Ed M - the fact of who his mum is may be a factor as well.


I agree that he's weird, but for some reason I regularly like to read his stuff. I like the fact that he nailed his colours to the mast in predicting the outcome of the election ages ago, something which nobody else has even done now. It's probably a silly thing to do but it was brave, and he could easily prove to be right.
"Silly"? I don't know. I doubt he'll lost much if he turns out to be completely wrong. I think even criticism or ribbing would be water off a duck's back.

I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out for the Tories before too much longer. It's been odd to watch this gradual political transformation happening over such a long time, and to witness the personal animus which has in large part driven it. I can see why the Telegraph keep him on even though all their readers seem to hate him.
The Telegraph has a history of employing eccentrics and one-track-minders who glory in defying convention or tilting at windmills (in Delingpole's case almost literally). It's in line with the whole Blimpy, grumpy old conservative who can't understand the modern world image of the brand. I used to buy it for the puzzles on Sunday.

I think the big surprise would be him not coming out as a Tory soon. The maintenance of the idea that he is still Labour is wearing pretty thin to be honest.
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Post 03 Oct 2014, 2:53 pm

Perhaps. It may be that personal attacks against him do not carry as much weight - his image is already 'priced in', and he is generally underestimated. I understand that Cameron did not want to do pre-election debates, and I can see why - he did poorly compared to Clegg in 2010, and underdogs tend to do well in them.


Any reluctance is more likely to result from a fear that it would be hard to exclude UKIP from the debates. Yes, they have no MPs (or at best will only have 2 MPs come May), but they're polling almost triple the Lib Dems numbers and there's no way they could cut Clegg out of it (they both may yet need him). The last thing Cameron needs is a head to head debate with Nigel Farage.

In my 6th form college at the same time, I was 'campaign manager' for the Labour candidate (I wanted to stand, but as he was in the politics A level and I wasn't, he got first dibs). Given this was in Horsham, one of the safest Tory seats in the country, we stood no chance. It was good fun arguing about the Falklands and taxes with people though. I remember my form tutor, a Mathematics teacher, completely misunderstanding how income tax works, and despising all taxes despite them paying her wages. fun times.


My school was in a rock solid Tory area as well (Patrick McLoughlin's seat, formerly Matthew Parris'). They ran votes for each year of the school and mine was the only non-Tory win from the six, and I only won because I made everybody laugh. I wasn't even a Lib Dem !

The Telegraph has a history of employing eccentrics and one-track-minders who glory in defying convention or tilting at windmills (in Delingpole's case almost literally). It's in line with the whole Blimpy, grumpy old conservative who can't understand the modern world image of the brand. I used to buy it for the puzzles on Sunday.


I read it online, but I'd never buy it. I like to read the Telegraph and the Guardian, to give me a good idea of what the nutters are thinking at either end of the spectrum. My Dad, who's the archetypal working class Tory, buys the Express every day except Sunday, when he gets the Sunday Telegraph. I'm not quite sure why though because he seems to think everybody who writes for it except Christopher Booker is some kind of pseudo-socialist. Worked a lathe in a machine tools factory all his life, never owned his own home, far stronger working class credentials than almost everybody in the PLP and yet farther to the right than Bill Cash on most things.
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Post 04 Oct 2014, 6:21 am

Well, yes, the Working Class Tory has been a thing since the emergence of the One Nation stane when Disraeli was about. Even some senior Union reps I know are Tories, which I suppose does balance out the Trots but I do wonder at the cognitive dissonance.

I accept that many working class people think the Tories are on their side, and certainly on social policy there is often common ground. And I would love to see more people from working class backgrounds in Parliament (of course while many of the PLP are from.the university-politics route it doesn't mean they aren't from a family that is more WC.
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Post 04 Oct 2014, 7:36 am

My old man is an interesting case study actually. He switched to voting UKIP quite a while ago. For him getting out of the EU is the most important issue of them all, by a long way, although he's naturally very anti-immigration as well (in a non-racist way to be fair to him). He doesn't trust Cameron in the slightest. I suspect he'll end up voting Tory in May though, in spite of his views. Voting UKIP can never get that referendum he's so desperate for. When push comes to shove there's a lot of Tory switchers in UKIP who will make the same decision.
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Post 05 Oct 2014, 11:20 am

Sassenach wrote:My old man is an interesting case study actually. He switched to voting UKIP quite a while ago. For him getting out of the EU is the most important issue of them all, by a long way, although he's naturally very anti-immigration as well (in a non-racist way to be fair to him). He doesn't trust Cameron in the slightest. I suspect he'll end up voting Tory in May though, in spite of his views. Voting UKIP can never get that referendum he's so desperate for. When push comes to shove there's a lot of Tory switchers in UKIP who will make the same decision.
Well, I think the Tories are banking on it, but there are two issues:

1) It depends on whether they actually trust that the Tories will hold a referendum if they do win. Referendums have been promised before, and majickally disappeared.
2) It also depends on whether things change - if UKIP look like they can win a few seats, and the outcome is more likely to be Labour as the largest party, then why vote Tory, when there's a chance of altering the balance of power

It would also be interesting to know what kind of seat your dad lives is. Who holds it now and who came second, by how much?
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Post 05 Oct 2014, 12:13 pm

He lives in Derbyshire West (I think they might have renamed it Derbyshire Dales now actually, and changed the boundaries a bit), which Patrick McLaughlin won in 2010 with a majority of over 13000. It's a very affluent seat covering most of the Peak District and full of hideously expensive but incredibly beautiful little villages full of wealthy retirees. My family don't really fit the normal demographic of course. Dad was born there and he's always been a manual worker.

I saw him this afternoon actually and asked him about his voting intentions. He said that he still plans to stick with UKIP, but he did admit that if he were living in a marginal seat he'd probably have to grudgingly go back to the Tories. As it is he can vote however he pleases and it won't change the outcome.
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Post 06 Oct 2014, 11:16 am

Sassenach wrote:He lives in Derbyshire West (I think they might have renamed it Derbyshire Dales now actually, and changed the boundaries a bit), which Patrick McLaughlin won in 2010 with a majority of over 13000. It's a very affluent seat covering most of the Peak District and full of hideously expensive but incredibly beautiful little villages full of wealthy retirees. My family don't really fit the normal demographic of course. Dad was born there and he's always been a manual worker.
Yes, I expect it won't make much difference looking at the 2010 election figures. Lib Dems will collapse, Labour would expect to be second but a long way back.

A guy I know is from that area (his surname is Greatorex which is apparently very local). He describes it as very Tory (and being gay, he found it just a little difficult).

I saw him this afternoon actually and asked him about his voting intentions. He said that he still plans to stick with UKIP, but he did admit that if he were living in a marginal seat he'd probably have to grudgingly go back to the Tories. As it is he can vote however he pleases and it won't change the outcome.
Hmm. It does sound as if UKIP are not that soft - if people would only vote Tory tactically and 'grudgingly', rather than enthusiastically returning to the fold
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Post 06 Oct 2014, 11:46 am

Possibly, but my point was that Dad really wants that EU referendum. He doesn't necessarily trust Cameron to actually deliver it but he knows that a Tory government next year is the only chance he has. There are likely to be a lot of Tory switchers faced with the same conundrum, although quite what proportion of current UKIP support is actually motivated by Europe is debatable I suppose.

My old man doesn't consider himself to be a Tory anymore. Or rather, he doesn't consider Cameron and the current Conservative Party to still be Tories. We're talking about a man who describes the Daily Express as 'the voice of Britain', and only half in jest. My guess is that maybe 30-40% of Kippers are like my Dad (elderly, curmudgeonly, very right wing and hugely concerned about the EU). A lot of those I'd say are likely to lend their vote to the Tories in the end, even if they won't currently admit it. What the rest of the Kippers will do is much harder to predict.