Last night’s leaders debate marked the introduction of Leanne Wood, and her party Plaid Cymru, to the British mainstream political audience. Plaid received 165,394 votes in the 2010 General Election, fewer than the DUP (168,216) and Sinn Féin (171,942). Leanne Wood unashamedly played to the audience at home throughout the debate, and it is very likely that her party will receive a boost in the Welsh opinion polls in the aftermath. But, from Labour’s perspective, there was another party leader …
Last night, during the party leader’s debate on TV, Nigel Farage was told that he should be ashamed of himself when he sort of said that people with HIV/AIDS come to the UK to get free treatment. But, of course, that’s just a part of his party’s xenophobic, keep the others out message. Firstly, his figures aren’t quite accurate. Secondly, the ‘foreigners’ refers to people born abroad. It’s not clear how long these people have been in the UK; and …
Ofcom have ruled that there is not sufficient evidence to designate TUV as a ‘major party’ in Northern Ireland and hence Jim Allister’s party are not automatically eligible to two Party Election Broadcasts on UTV in the run up to May’s General Election. Back in January I blogged about the consultation which asked whether UKIP, Green Party and TUV should be rebadged as ‘major parties’. Today’s statement from Ofcom [in detail] comes to the common sense conclusion: After carefully accessing …
According to the analysts at firstpasthepost.net, who have analysed bookmaker’s odds for each seat in the upcoming General Election, there are seventeen constituencies where UKIP have a 25% or greater chance of winning election to the House of Commons. These include the two seats that they are defending; Clacton, and Rochester and Strood. Also on the list are a number of seats in Kent and Essex, including the seat Nigel Farage is targeting of Thanet South, as well as a …
It was all over social media last night. The fictional drama produced by Channel 4 speculating about what a possible UKIP government would be like within its first 100 days. There was always going to be some risk this close to an election doing a drama on a party which is rising in the polls and typically uses things like this to its advantage. Before the show even aired Ofcom had received 20 complaints about the show and whilst the …
Well we have just three months to go until Election Day. Candidates and parties will be launching their campaigns for the Westminster election and will be attempting to set the tone for the campaign to come. Yet, despite this being a golden opportunity for you to set out your stall amongst the party faithful many parties either don’t invest in these types of events or just do them badly. Being the public service that we are here on Slugger I …
Tonight our esteemed elected representatives in the Northern Ireland Assembly are due to debate driving licences. Good news – I hear you cry – at last some action may be taken to address the disparity in the cost of driving licences between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Last week there was much consternation when it was revealed that learner drivers in Northern Ireland pay nearly twice the price for a provisional licence compared to elsewhere in the UK – £62.50 …
UPDATED The defection of MEP Amjad Bashir from UKIP to the Conservative Party took an amazing new twist this afternoon when George Galloway’s Respect Party claimed on their website that Bashir was selected as the Respect candidate in Bradford Moor for the May 2012 council elections but was deselected “after local residents raised serious concerns about his fitness to stand.” He subsequently left Respect, joined UKIP and was placed second on the UKIP list of candidates for the Yorkshire and …
CON 252, LAB 231, SNP 52, LD 41, UKIP 38, DUP 9, GRN 9, PC 8, SF 6, SDLP 2, Independent 1, Speaker 1 Required for majority: 322 (CON 70 short, LAB 91 short) The upcoming UK General Election has been called “the most unpredictable for almost a century”. There are several reasons for this; the rise of UKIP, the Greens, and the SNP, the collapse of the Liberal Democrats, who nevertheless seem to maintain highly localized popularity in areas where they have sitting MPs, and the fact that Labour and the Conservatives are going in to the election essentially on level pegging. …
The more cynical political analyst might conclude there were two Monster raving loony parties standing in the Rochester and Strood byelection this week that resulted in the return to Westminster of Mark Reckless, UKIP’s second MP and a former Conservative. Standing on a ticket that was principally anti-immigration and anti-Europe – and Reckless got into deserved trouble for suggesting at the hustings that legitimate migrants from Europe and elsewhere would be sent home after staying a “fixed period”, not the …
Slowly the dust is beginning to settle on UKIP’s latest by-election victory. This one could be analysed as more or less important than the last one dependent on a number of factors. Rochester and Strood was a considerably less attractive target seat for UKIP than Clacton on Sea. It has much less of the older, poorer, white, “left behind” demographic which has been previously identified as the classic UKIP voter. Furthermore it seemed that Mark Reckless is not as popular …
This week a messianic nationalist party of still dubious respectability came within 600 by-election votes of cementing beyond doubt its credentials as the main electoral threat to the senior coalition partner.
Born and live in London, brought up in Dublin, roots in East Belfast. Occasional blogging at mckinney.me and far more frequent tweets at twitter.com/mckinneytweets.
Okay, so what to say about UKIP’s performance last night. Let me gloss over the Clacton byelection where since, despite Douglas Carswell’s claim for it to be him ‘recalling himself’ it was in fact was a UKIP hold rather than a gain from the Tories. The Heywood fight was much more interesting politically. First, the issue for Labour was more to do with the turnout rather than the fact they nearly lost. Spelling that out: 35% means that 65% of …
Over in New York, Gerry Adams has just issued a statement on the current impasse over welfare cuts in the Assembly (as reported by Liam Clarke). According to the report, Sinn Féin will let the Assembly fall and trigger an election rather than implement the cuts and Gerry Adams said: “It isn’t that we want an election but if some of the parties in the North are going to follow this agenda, then let them bring it on to the …
The calculation amongst those closest to David Cameron has been that the UKIP blip will blow over. The loss of the right winger Douglas Carswell (who true to his own strong democratic principles has resigned his Clacton seat to fight it as a UKIPer) must be worrying. #454284724 / gettyimages.com Carswell, as well as a parliamentary asset (Ladbrokes are quoting 1/3 on for him to retain his seat) is also an considered intellectual and serious thinker on national politics and …
For all its detractors (and I don’t count myself as the greatest fan of its ‘Brixit’ policy) UKIP does something most mainstream parties in Britain are struggling with. They connect with the ordinary man (and I suspect it is mostly men, to be honest) in the street, and they speak in a language they understand. They may get dismissed as saloon bar politicians, but in England they know how to put on a show with a sense of drama that …
The local elections in England provide a fascinating glimpse into the way that newspapers interact with electoral politics. Take a look at today’s the front pages; “The Savaging of Red Ed” says the Mail. “Surge by UKIP throws Labour into poll crisis” says the Telegraph. UKIP’s share of the vote actually fell this year. We can argue about how this is partly due to a feeble UKIP performance in London (London wasn’t polled last year) but even then, this is …
The GB local election results have now been decided: Using first past the post makes the counting process so much simpler. The BBC has a round up of the results here. Essentially it seems that Labour did well but not well enough; the Conservatives did badly but not so badly as to be a disaster; the Liberal Democrats did disastrously but it was not a catastrophe. UKIP on the other hand did very well but it was not an earthquake. …
Further to my piece about the European Free Alliance (SNP / Plaid) claiming 70% of our daily lives are governed by rules from the EU a video on Vimeo has European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding claiming 75% of laws originate from the EU. Elected MEPs cannot initiate legislation, propose legislation or even repeal legislation. All that is done by the unelected EU Commission. — Roger Da Costa (@rog_ukip) May 21, 2014 The choice is clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtAligq_Vc KilsallyIT Technical Manager …
UKIP on their way to an unprecedented victory in the European elections… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
