A Place to Stand

    Assuming that the LibDems lost people to Labour who were naturally Labour voters who voted LD to keep out the Tories (the normal phenomenon across southern England) Labour must, in turn have haemorrhaged the same number of people to UKIP.

    Thus UKIP have picked up votes from every part of the LabConDem cartel.

    The Pseudo-Liberals dropped from 46% to 32%. The only kept the seat because it is now a 3 way marginal. During the BBC coverage last night Paul Nuttall was in the studio but got very little chance to speak - Andrew neil spent to vast majority of time speaking to the Labour, Tory spokesmen, ie the 3rd and 4th parties. It was so egregious that on one occasion when Paul spoke his voice was very quiet for several seconds - it was clear the BBC had turned off his microphone, a tactic I have heard of before but one they have always denied doing.

   However he did get to say that the postal votes (17,000 sent out and returned before the campaign was under way) had split 40/30/30 for the LDs. That means 1,700 excess LD votes. Thus neck and neck in terms of votes cast on the day. Paddy Ashdown was also quoted as having said that if the campaign had lasted another week the trend would have given it to UKIP so the LDs were right to make it the shortest possible campaign.

I put this comment on John Redwood in response to his blaming UKIP for being splitters, which he has unusually chosen to censor.

"Cameron broke the "cast iron" previous promise of an EU referendum.

Cameron gratuitously insulted UKIP voters.

Cameron would clearly prefer a Labour government to one which was sceptical of the EU, CAGW & unlimited immigration

UKIP have obviously picked up votes from all parties. Even if the leaders were insane enough to offer their support to the current Tories it must be obvious that those voters would not go.

If the Conservative membership want to avoid splitting the vote it is time to act.

The Conservatives support an openly corrupt electoral system which disenfranchises voters for small parties (in this case the Conservatives). This was an immoral argument, but an effective one when they were the majority but, using only that, rather than trying to argue against UKIP policies, leaves you morally bankrupt when you are the minority."

I also put this on Delingpole in reply to his listing of the reasons not to vote Tory.

"I would make the vital things much earlier.



That all but 3 MPs (all Tories but still only 3) voted for Miliband's insane Climate Change Act, which is costing us at least $800 BILLION aa well as putting us in recession.


Cameron breaking his "cast iron" earlier promise of an EU referendum.


There are a large number of other policies on which UKIP is superior to the Tories - indeed almost all of them * - but these are issues on which, even without UKIP, the Tories would have proved they are unfit for government.


* I note that both Boris and Toby Young were calling on those who prefer UKIP in Eastleigh to vote Tory anyway to prevent splitting the vote. Even when true it is an immoral argument since the Tories support this corrupt unrepresentative electoral system and are thus blackmailing voters. However in this instance both owe the voters a public apology and acknowledgement that if they don't want splitting they will now advise even Tories to vote UKIP.


It is noticeable that neither they nor anybody else has felt able to tell people to vote Tory because their policies are better than UKIP's thereby giving away any moral argument for their party."
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  I also have a new article on ThinkScotland on adding vitamin D to staple foods in Scotland. Please put comments there.

http://www.thinkscotland.org/thinkpolitics/articles.html?read_full=11979&article=www.thinkscotland.org

  It mainly consists of stuff here before but I have added this politically incorrect bit of evolutionary promotion of Scotsmen.

"It is somewhat politically incorrect to point out that evolving in an area with a particular evolutionary cost cannot have entirely failed to have some effect. If most of Scotland's evolutionary heritage comes from people who, over the last 10,000 years, were particularly stressed on such issues we would be expected to be evolved to be slightly tougher than other nations, slightly more able to carry on in situations of stress and depression and also slightly more subject to sunburn if our peely wally skin is exposed to more equatorial sunlight. I don't think anybody would dispute the last. Even today the go-getting Scotsman is recognised as a cliche worldwide and cliches only become such if there is something to create them.

UPDATE John Redwood has put up this post saying that while he sometimes eliminates posts because they make assertions of fact that hr does not know to be factual and not libelous he does not remove them merely because he disagrees. I  have resubmited a new version of my post.