Is it time that we took a closer look at UKIP?

First topic message reminder :

The UKIP vote in Eastleigh rose from 3.6% in 2010 to 27.8% in the by-election on Thursday. It may have been because the party is mopping up the mid-term protest votes which traditionally went to the Liberal Democrats before they climbed into bed with the devil in May 2010. It may be because many people – wrongly - feel that the three main parties in Westminster are “all the same”, a feeling which the Tories have helped to create by transferring so much real power from democratic accountability to unelected and unaccountable corporations as they privatise everything on which they can lay their grubby hands. What I don’t believe is that this bubble of support for UKIP is because of the party’s reactionary, right-wing policies, which aim to take us back to the 1950s.

The one policy which everyone associates with UKIP is withdrawal from the EU. UKIP has claimed that by leaving the EU, the UK would save over £45 million a day plus £60 billion a year, conveniently ignoring any EU rebates and regional grants. I’m not sure where it gets those figures from, since the Treasury says that the UK paid £8.9 billion into EU budget in 2010/11 (out of £706 billion of public spending). The European Commission puts the UK's net contribution at £5.85 billion.

The EU is the UK's main trading partner, accounting for 52% of our total trade in goods and services; if Britain went for a clean break from the EU, its exports would be subject to EU export tariffs. Millions of jobs could be lost as global manufacturers move to low-cost countries within the EU, and Britain's foreign-owned car industry might well shift into the EU. However, withdrawal from the EU was the issue which UKIP exploited and which put it on the political map. With his half-baked promise of a referendum at some point in the future, the idiotic Cameron has increased UKIP’s credibility by showing that he’s afraid of it.

Cameron also said that UKIP is “full of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", and perhaps on that last point he could now be right. The Eastleigh by-election showed that UKIP is appealing to racists, causing one person on Twitter to refer to it as “the BNP for the Notting Hill set”. UKIP may be more subtle than the BNP, but it wants to freeze immigration, pandering to the Alf Garnetts who see all foreigners as problems, and has even thrown in the contentious claim that “multiculturalism has split our society”.

In December 2011, the UK had 88,179 people in prison, more per head of the population than any other country in Europe, yet UKIP wants to double the number of prison places. UKIP says that the £2 billion cost of building new prisons is negligible compared to the cost of crime, but it hasn’t factored in the cost of keeping prisoners in jail, which amounts to at least £40,000 a year for each of them. Yet UKIP would refuse to accept European Arrest Warrants, which could well mean delays for the UK in extraditing suspects from other European countries.

The NHS would be no safer with UKIP than it’s been with the Tories, since the party believes that “other models are worth considering to see whether lessons can be learned from abroad”. On education, UKIP wants to bring back grammar schools, so that we can once again tell about 80% of eleven-year-olds that they’re failures, while at the same time giving parents education vouchers, which would be a way of subsidising private school fees.

The cornerstone of UKIP’s tax policies is to roll the employee national insurance and basic rate income tax into a flat rate of income tax of 31%. There would be no higher rate tax, since UKIP perpetuates the Tory lie that the 50% income tax rate cost the economy money; it hasn’t, it has brought in £2.7 billion a year. UKIP’s policy would be a massive tax cut for the rich, far bigger than the one that’s being introduced by the Tories in April. Even greater inequality would be created by abolishing national insurance for employers.

UKIP policies, like so many Tory ones, amount to an attack on our rights. UKIP would put an end to most legislation regarding matters such as weekly working hours, holidays, overtime, redundancy and sick pay, while leaving it up to each employer to decide whether to offer parental leave. It says it would also scrap most ‘equality and discrimination’ legislation.

If you need any more reasons not to vote for UKIP, it denies climate change and would make increased defence spending “a clear priority, even in these difficult times”. It opposes equal marriage, would hold a referendum in each county on ending the hunting ban and would allow smoking in allocated rooms in public houses, clubs and hotels. It’s no wonder that UKIP has been likened to “the political wing of a Home Counties golf club”.

You may not like the EU, and you may think that after 38 years it’s time to hold another referendum on our membership. However, before you vote for a party that makes that its flagship policy, look a little more closely at what else you would be voting for at the same time.

Sources used:-

http://www.ukip.org/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20448450

If/When that happens, Red, would the Lib-Dems swallow the tiny scrap of integrity remaining to them and renew their coalition pact anyway?

Hi there Guys n' Gals....

I have been quietly reading all of the debate on Farage and his UKIP opportunists and I have come to the conclusion that while there is any kind of immigration discussion going on in Britain this mob are going to sadly draw people to them that are NOT core racists or xenophobes.

Once we have a government in charge that will take up the "immigration" flag and run with it, ( that will not be a Tory party of course ), UKIP are going to wither on the vine.

All they are doing at the moment - as a few others have already said - is to split the Tory vote and to draw disaffected Tories to their throng. Once this major cause has been taken out of their hands there will be little reason for UKIP to exist any longer.

At best they are a party of "protest" ( against a lot of things but for very few, if any ), and once this is agreed about them then the rightist Tories in their midst will stray away to the BNP, where they belong, and the centre-ground members will see no reason to stay in a one-horse party that will NEVER acquire any power worth mentioning.

Regards....

Papaumau.

This is the problem Papa and Rock.....Our main parties do not listen to the people...and by people I mean your everyday working and middle class folk. Having concerns on immigration is not a race issue, it's an economic and social issue

Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party

“The truth is that the public were ahead of us in seeing some of the
problems caused by the rapid pace of migration, especially from the expanded
EU and they were ahead of us in seeing some of the costs of migration as a
whole. First, rapid changes in population led to pressures on scarce
resources such as housing and schools. Second, there were problems with the
pace of change in some of our communities. Third the pressure on our
economy … there was a direct effect on wages, especially in lower skilled jobs.
Even where there has not been illegality, there has sometimes been an
immediate and direct effect on wages. We were too slow to realise that”

I simply do not believe politicians were surprised by the wages effect of immigration on unskilled jobs, the bottom line is they PLANNED IT, it was good for the economy. This country employed a million Poles over a decade and in this same decade, 1.3 million people remained unemployed for 10 years or more.
This was their solution, and they knew this huge surplus of cheap labor would keep unskilled wages low.

American governments turned a blind eye to 30 million illegal Mexicans for pure commercial reasons, and we did the same with EU immigrants.

The housing shortage in this country is not a recent thing, where did they expect the Poles to live ?

This thread is specifically about UKIP and its far-right policies. As I made clear in the opening post, there’s much more to UKIP than just being anti-EU and anti-immigrant. Do you want a party whose leader associates with white supremacists and misogynists? Do you want rich and poor to be paying the same single rate of income tax and all employment rights scrapped? Do you want more spending on defence, twice as many people in prison, smoking in pubs allowed, foxhunting legalised, education vouchers to subsidise private schools, and grammar schools restored, so that we can tell 80% of 11-year-olds that they’re failures?

If you just want to discuss the merits or otherwise of immigration, please do so here:-
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t119-should-immigration-always-be-perceived-as-a-problem

oftenwrong wrote:If/When that happens, Red, would the Lib-Dems swallow the tiny scrap of integrity remaining to them and renew their coalition pact anyway?

OW the Lib-Dems have not and never have had ONE SCRAP of INTEGRITY, if they had they would not have given up there party beliefs for crumbs of power from the Tories.

Where do I sign up Ivan, sounds like a party that wants to British interests first to me.

tlttf wrote:Where do I sign up Ivan, sounds like a party that wants to British interests first to me.

Once a Tory always a Tory, so I take it tittf you believe that people that earn £200.00 a week and those earning £1,000 per week should pay the same rate of tax which according to UKIP that will be set at 31% ??

tlttf. If you bother to read the opening post of this thread (it might be too long for you, but it isn't 'illegal' under our house rules), you will find that it contains a link to the UKIP website, where you can join the party.

I trust you will be very happy with all the racists, misogynists and friends of people who approve of the mass murderer Anders Breivik. I guess water does find its own level.

Once a Tory always a Tory, so I take it tittf you believe that people that earn £200.00 a week and those earning £1,000 per week should pay the same rate of tax which according to UKIP that will be set at 31% ??.

Why not Redflag...Are you jealous that the person on £1,000 a week is more successful than you are. Maybe he or she works five times as hard in a job that is 5 times more skilled and took 5 times longer to train for...Envy is an evil thing Red

blueturando. Greed is an evil thing. I hope you're not seriously trying to suggest that there is an automatic correlation between income level and how hard somebody works? I can't believe even you could be that stupid.

If and when this thread gets locked, it won't be because anyone has "lost the argument" to your superior intellect (in your dreams), it will be because people like you refuse to stick to the topic - is it time that we took a closer look at UKIP?

Greed is not evil, humans are evil.

I may be wrong, but I thought that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ had religious derivations, coming from the words ‘god’ and ‘devil’. Perhaps Tosh has strayed from his usual habitat on the religious board and got lost. Or maybe that’s too much to hope for….

However, don’t you just love it when an arrogant halfwit purports to know what ‘British interests’ are? Is that the interest of the only family which has been feeding off our benefit system for generations, the in-bred dysfunctional mob known as the Windsors? Or is that the interest of the distantly related Old Etonian, Bullingdon Club gang of hooray-henries educated beyond their intelligence? Or is it the interest of all those workers who would lose their employment rights if UKIP had a sniff of power? The people who would have no health and safety protection and become as vulnerable as all those poor sods in Bangladesh, making cheap clothes for Primark and Matalan?

Anyone with half a brain would know that there is no such thing as “the British interest”. There is the interest of the bosses, who want to make as much profit as possible, which conflicts with the interest of the workers, who want the best standard of living they can get. There is the interest of the landlord, who wants to charge as much rent as he can get away with, and the interest of the tenant, who wants to pay as little as necessary. There is the interest of the rich man, who doesn’t use any public services and so doesn’t wish to contribute towards them, and the interest of the poor man, who has no alternative but to rely on them. Are you beginning to get the picture?

"Are you jealous that the person on £1,000 a week is more successful than you are...."

Always encouraging to see that someone without an American Express Card, nevertheless likes to keep the door open ....

Why not Redflag...Are you jealous that the person on £1,000 a week is more successful than you are. Maybe he or she works five times as hard in a job that is 5 times more skilled and took 5 times longer to train for...Envy is an evil thing Red

Interesting concepts.....
Someone being able to work 5 times harder.....
Someone 5 times more skilled.......
Someone it took 5 times longer to train.......

How do any of these relate to 'investment' bankers or stock brokers? Surely theirs is mainly down to luck while being able to bet large sums of other peoples money..

Remember all those 'Barrow' boys who moved into the stock exchange back in the 'loads o money' 1980's...what training did they have?

Or those who joined daddy's old regiment for a couple of years before joining daddy's old city firm........

Hasn't Jo Johnson just got a job with one of his big brothers old school chum(p)s?

blueturando wrote:

Once a Tory always a Tory, so I take it tittf you believe that people that earn £200.00 a week and those earning £1,000 per week should pay the same rate of tax which according to UKIP that will be set at 31% ??.

Why not Redflag...Are you jealous that the person on £1,000 a week is more successful than you are. Maybe he or she works five times as hard in a job that is 5 times more skilled and took 5 times longer to train for...Envy is an evil thing Red

You are wrong there blue the reason for the difference in a persons weekly/monthly wage is there EMPLOYER not because the person earning more per week/month is working harder. The person earning £1,000 per week is more than likely working ( I say this very lightly) in the banking sector not earning it or working more hours or harder than the next person but cheating and lying, need I remind you of the Casino banking and crash of 2007/08 and the Libor scandal of 2010 that is when it came to light, and it is quite possible it had been going on for a lot longer than that. So according to you it does not matter how you earn huge wages CHEAT LIE or ROB as long as you earn big bucks, there willll be a lot less prisoners now because we will have to let the bank robbers and white collar fraud criminals out

In February, Marta Andreasen became the third MEP to quit UKIP in two years amid rows about policies, personalities and far-right allegiances.

Ms Andreasen claims that UKIP tells lies to stir up fear of immigrants. She says Nigel Farage is personally to blame for failing to vet candidates with far-right links.

Farage is pleased that his grotty party is winning the support of people who had previously voted for the BNP.

People who vote for UKIP have the same blinkered views as those who supported Mosley in the 1930s and those who were seduced in Germany and Italy by the far-right during another period of austerity. Sadly, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exmep-marta-andreasen-claims-ukip-peddles-lies-as--highprofile-tory-mp-priti-patels-father-announces-he-is-standing-for-election-8598205.html

The same thing is happening now for the local elections Ivan candidates pulling out or Farage having to take their UKIP membership away, any idea how many it is up to date Ivan?

Whether todays results for UKIP are protest votes or not, I think the rest of the parties do need to look at themselves what are they not giving the voting public, IMHO not listening something I have noticed Ed Miliband has started to do since becoming leader of the Labour party, but doubt that Cameron will listen to the people that he is hammering with bedroom tax cuts to working tax credits and rises in Council tax, plus if you have not got a Tory or Lib-Dem council your councillors budget will have been cut to the bone whereas if your have got a tory or Lib-Dems there councils have only had the MINIMUM cut in council budget.

I think the two biggest topics are "Immigration" and the "EU" and all parties will have to face this Head on and not kick it into the long grass which has been the norm for all parties, maybe this is the wake up call that tells the parties "We are not going to put up with the Lies before general election then do what you want after being voted in.

In the early 1980s, the SDP was formed and made an alliance with the Liberal Party. The combined parties soon started winning by-elections and were coming first in opinion polls. The Tory government was unpopular, and Labour had been in power only a few years earlier. This new alliance mopped up most of the protest votes against the main parties, and David Steel got so carried away that he told delegates at a conference to “return to your constituencies and prepare for government”. In the 1983 general election, the SDP won six seats.

Does it all sound familiar? The Tories and Lib Dems are in power now and Labour was until three years ago. The protest votes now go to UKIP, which is getting big ideas about its future, even though it has yet to come close to winning a by-election. Yes, it will doubtless do well in the 2014 EU elections (just as the Green Party did in 1989), only, as Nick Robinson predicted this morning, to probably end up with no MPs under our first-past-the-post system in the 2015 general election. That’s when people will be voting for a new government, not making a protest. The choice will be whether you want more of the Tories or a Labour government. The Lib Dems have already become an irrelevance, and when UKIP’s crackpot policies – which would involve big tax cuts for the rich but a massive increase in government spending – are given proper scrutiny, that party will be able to join them in the dustbin of history.

When the full results of yesterday's local government Polls are known, it may be possible to guess the outcome of a General Election which is still two years away.

What will electors in 2015 make of a choice between three right-wing contenders and one Socialist Party?

What a fabulous day for British Politics!!!!

Rightly the electorate are rejecting the political merry go round that is Labour and Conservative and I take my hat off to Nigel Farage and UKIP for understanding that the voters want plain speaking and decisive policies on the EU and immigration....not the political fudge speak the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems force upon us at every interview or political programme.

Redflag is right and all the 3 main parties had better wake up and get their acts together, but I don't agree that Miliband is listening to the electorate and I dont belive Cameron and Clegg are either.

The more these parties and various TV personalities tell us that we are racist for having concerns and wanting control on immigration levels, the more you will p*ss off the electorate, who in many areas are struggling to find jobs, have seen their wage levels drop due to a low skilled immigration influx and are pushed further down the social housing list.

Politicians and the weathly do not have to suffer any of the negative immigration issues and until they climb down from their ivory towers and deal with the realities of the man and women on the street, then I am afraid they will continue to hemorage votes towards UKIP.

This is not a left or right issue, but very genuine concerns from everyday people.

What will electors in 2015 make of a choice between three right-wing contenders and one Socialist Party?.

When voting a majority of the electorate dont even contemplate Left or Right, but what that party stands for and do their policies work for them. To rest on your left or right laurels would be a serious mistake

blueturando wrote:

What will electors in 2015 make of a choice between three right-wing contenders and one Socialist Party?.

When voting a majority of the electorate do even contemplate Left or Right, but what that party stands for and do their policies work for them. To rest on your left or right laurels would be a serious mistake

You seem to forget you or anybody else do not know how the economy will be behaving on the run up to the general election unless you have a crystal ball? and if its anything like it is now it will be Ukip that will take the place of the Tory party, reason there will be more people homeless or up to there necks in rent arrears having to use more and more of the food banks, and unemployment will still more than likely be very high. While they have seen those earning £150,000 and upwards getting 5p tax breaks when by earnings alone do not need it and those companies getting cuts on there company profits and then on top of that they are hiding there profits in off shore accounts while the rest of us are being SQUEEZED for evey last penny leaving the normal man/women with even less of there earnings in there pockets to pay there houselhold bills.

Redflag.......Unfortunately for you and the Labour Party a good many voters are not fooled by the argument you stick to in your post above. I know you only see what you want to see, but let me run this past just one more time and maybe it will sink in....

The argument for the top rate tax cut is a false one as it is 5% higher than when Labour were in government and still borrowing money. I agree with you on Corporation tax, but once again this has been going on for years under both Labour and Tory governments. As a Labour party member you should be putting presure on your own party to change the law regarding this.
Unemployment is at record levels right across the EU and that would not change anytime soon no matter who was in government, if you don't believe me then take a look at French unemployment figures rising sharply under a socialist government.

Red its time to take the blinkers off and start to see whats going on with our privately educated, power hungry career politicians who basically have few ideas and no conviction

I know you will remain loyal to Labour no matter what, but its time people like you called on your party to make the changes needed to move the party and the country forward. You have to start asking questions or....and please believe me when I say this, if Labour gain power in 2015 it will be more of the same policies with some good ole fashioned spin thrown in and we will find ourselves in the same position we have found ourselves in since 2008.

If UKIP do nothing else other than make the big 3 sit up and take notice of what the electorate are saying and start to change policy to reflect this, then that would be a success in my eyes

Wow! A mid-term election produces 24% Protest Vote against the incumbent administration.

Hold the Front Page!

Oh! Hang on, the Voters did that in 1945, at the end of the 1950s, mid- 1970s, early 1990s, in 2007 and now again in 2013.

Anyone spotted the trend?

blueturando wrote:Redflag.......Unfortunately for you and the Labour Party a good many voters are not fooled by the argument you stick to in your post above. I know you only see what you want to see, but let me run this past just one more time and maybe it will sink in....

The argument for the top rate tax cut is a false one as it is 5% higher than when Labour were in government and still borrowing money. I agree with you on Corporation tax, but once again this has been going on for years under both Labour and Tory governments. As a Labour party member you should be putting presure on your own party to change the law regarding this.
Unemployment is at record levels right across the EU and that would not change anytime soon no matter who was in government, if you don't believe me then take a look at French unemployment figures rising sharply under a socialist government.

Red its time to take the blinkers off and start to see whats going on with our privately educated, power hungry career politicians who basically have few ideas and no conviction

I know you will remain loyal to Labour no matter what, but its time people like you called on your party to make the changes needed to move the party and the country forward. You have to start asking questions or....and please believe me when I say this, if Labour gain power in 2015 it will be more of the same policies with some good ole fashioned spin thrown in and we will find ourselves in the same position we have found ourselves in since 2008.

If UKIP do nothing else other than make the big 3 sit up and take notice of what the electorate are saying and start to change policy to reflect this, then that would be a success in my eyes

So what you are saying blue is that Ed Miliband needs to act like Tony Blair did in 1997 and keep the Thatcherite policies going when he gets into power in 2015 ? as for unemployment being high right across the EU that goes with a big thank you to the EU and there Austerity scheme, which has not worked as we have all seen HERE and in the EU, though during the 80s I remember it being said by Thatcher Unemployment was a price worth paying the only thing wrong with that is she the cats grandmother was not the one paying the price not any of her kind.

As for the privately educated career minded politicains the entire UK see that with only Eton educated or members of the BULLINGDON CLUB need apply for jobs at No10 Downing street, the majority of Labour MPs have worked out in the real world Alan Johnston (Postman) John Prescott ( steward on cruise liners) Dan Jarvis (in armed forces) Dennis Skinner (down the pits), whereas Tory MPs came from family money or had there own business or worked in the City (banking).

The only thing that UKIP have said is the EU and trying to scare people about people from the EU coming here in there hordes to take the jobs and live of the tax payer of the UK, Farage said 7 Million last night it was up to 29 Million, not forgetting Farage was at one time a Tory party member and worked in the City as a Banker I think that says it all.

Tony Blair might not have been everyones cup of tea but when things where good in the country EVERYBODY benefitted not just the chosen few like it is right now for all there is no growth no jobs the ELITE are getting richer while the normal working man/women is getting squeezed so hard its bringing tears to there eyes, and those tears will turn to anger blue I see a general strike on the HORIZON people will only take so much and then its KICK BACK TIME.

As for the EU and the euro I do not think that either will still be in place within the next 5-10 years, reason it was set-up for and to benefit the German economy only, that is why in some places it has not worked and people are suffering because the country leaders where sucked in to believing this would be good for all concerned.
BS by Eunice221,

THE UK PUBLIC ARE BEING MILKED FOR ALL THEY'RE WORTH BY THE TORIES

Red...First of all I love the cartoon, excellent !!!!...and I mean that

Secondly I am not calling for a return to Blairite or Thatcherite policies...I and many other people are calling for a drastic change in direction and drastic change in our politicians...what that entails is up for discussion, but if the council elections have shown us one thing, then that is many, many people ususally vote for the main three parties are fed up with the status quo.

You can go on until the cows come home about the Bullingdon club ect...and I agree with you. The problem you have is that Labour are no different and you have continued to show undieing loyalty to these middle to upper class, rich career obsessives...The very people you purport to hate.

Red...Just because they wear a red rosette is does not make them working class, less posh, less rich or less out of touch

UKIP: the victory of the ruling class

From an article by Chris Dillow:-

"In a protest against an out-of-touch political class, some of the British public has voted for a party led by someone whose class background is indistinguishable from Cameron's or Clegg's. In this respect, UKIP's success demonstrates not the weakness of the ruling class, but the exact opposite - its complete victory.

UKIP is not an anti-establishment party. For example, the demand for tougher border controls is a call for an increase in the power of the state. Hostility to gay marriage is fundamentally anti-liberty, as it asserts the power of the state to intervene in private relationships. A flat tax would be a big tax cut for the rich. UKIP's policies do not challenge the power of capital over worker.

It's in this sense that the ruling class has triumphed. The discontent that people might reasonably feel against bankers, capitalists and managerialists has been diverted into a hostility towards immigrants and the three main parties, and to the benefit of yet another party with a managerialist and pro-capitalist ideology. In this way, even ‘protest’ votes help sustain existing class and power structures."

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/ukip-victory-ruling-class

Ed Miliband needs to challenge the UKIP surge

From an article by Carl Packman:-

"Underneath, UKIP is not really every thing to every man. They are a party with a plan. They are the heirs to Thatcher (apparently). UKIP is a conservative libertarian party (note not a libertarian conservative party) that have a knack for saying what some of us want to hear.

Just look at their economic plans: cut taxes (yeah, right on, why should we keep paying government ministers to take first class on trains when we haven’t had a pay rise in years?); spend more on pensioners (yeah, right on, why should my pension money be squandered when all these politicians have second houses, spending our money on dry rot?); leave the EU (yeah, right on, who are all these EU mandarins anyway?); pay down our national debt (yeah, right on, how has borrowing ever helped anything?).

They, as a party, make no sense; they don’t want the impossible, but the incompatible. However they tap into popular sentiment very effectively. The left needs to learn how to do this again, but it needs to do this without losing its soul. The rise of UKIP will probably mean, for the Tories, a shift to the populist right. That’s their look-out. Labour must look at the rise of UKIP and remind themselves of the need to also tap into popular sentiment, but challenge it where necessary. That’s where they will gain respect."

http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/05/ed-miliband-needs-to-challenge-the-ukip-surge/

blueturando wrote:Red...First of all I love the cartoon, excellent !!!!...and I mean that

Secondly I am not calling for a return to Blairite or Thatcherite policies...I and many other people are calling for a drastic change in direction and drastic change in our politicians...what that entails is up for discussion, but if the council elections have shown us one thing, then that is many, many people ususally vote for the main three parties are fed up with the status quo.

You can go on until the cows come home about the Bullingdon club ect...and I agree with you. The problem you have is that Labour are no different and you have continued to show undieing loyalty to these middle to upper class, rich career obsessives...The very people you purport to hate.

Red...Just because they wear a red rosette is does not make them working class, less posh, less rich or less out of touch

I am glad you liked my cartoon blue I thought it very apt for the sentiments of the words within the post, you may not be calling for a return to Blairite or Thatcherite policies but what is ACTUALLY happening is the low paid and the people that have been sacked from there jobs due to the cuts from this gov't, are being TOLD you will pay the money back that we borrowed to bail out the banks. What would have been fair for all is for the banks to put there bonuses into a pot to pay the interest charges of the money borrowed to bail them out since it was the banks FAULT they needed bailed out. Not the people that ARE paying for it so the quicker this gov't gets that through its thick scull they will suffer at the ballot box whether it be local by-elections or come May 2015 general election.

As for the Bullingdon club or the posh boys of the Tory party you tell me who out of this lot have had a REAL JOB I'm talking miner electrician plumber bricklayer these are real jobs which gives an insight to real life, because most of this gov't have onlky worked in the City bankers or have there own business where all they have had to do is paper work while the people they have employed done the hard work and earned the bosses profit, and do not try and tell me the Labour party has no normal people that have had REAL jobs before going into the H.O.C as an MP (not as many as the tory party blue before you come back on this one)

Ivan wrote:UKIP: the victory of the ruling class

From an article by Chris Dillow:-

"In a protest against an out-of-touch political class, some of the British public has voted for a party led by someone whose class background is indistinguishable from Cameron's or Clegg's. In this respect, UKIP's success demonstrates not the weakness of the ruling class, but the exact opposite - its complete victory.

UKIP is not an anti-establishment party. For example, the demand for tougher border controls is a call for an increase in the power of the state. Hostility to gay marriage is fundamentally anti-liberty, as it asserts the power of the state to intervene in private relationships. A flat tax would be a big tax cut for the rich. UKIP's policies do not challenge the power of capital over worker.

It's in this sense that the ruling class has triumphed. The discontent that people might reasonably feel against bankers, capitalists and managerialists has been diverted into a hostility towards immigrants and the three main parties, and to the benefit of yet another party with a managerialist and pro-capitalist ideology. In this way, even ‘protest’ votes help sustain existing class and power structures."
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/ukip-victory-ruling-class

[/b]

The truth has came out before the ink is dry on there win into council seats for the UKIP councillors, today they have admitted they would join in coalition with the Tories if Cameron was not there leader, so what does this really say about the UKIP party what I have always said on this forum UKIP is nothing more than a SECOND HAND TORY
party. I would like to know what the people that voted for UKIP now feel about voting for them more so the people that would normally vote Labour to find out all they got is that the party they voted for is willling to go into coalition with Tory

A "Protest Vote" is only to be expected half-way through a Government's term in office, and plenty of us saw an opportunity to throw a few tomatoes at the Ruling Class without fear of changing the course of World History. In the (very) unlikely event of an identical voting pattern at the next General Election, UKIP would still not get any seats at Westminster.

It may even prove beneficial if the same people who voted UKIP last Thursday should then decide to take a real interest in the election of MEPs next year - which is far more important to Mr Farage than having the Wendover Halton and Stoke Mandeville seat on Buckingham County Council.

I think that this present "protest vote" is unusual as it is not like the ones that have gone before.

What I mean by that is that nowhere previously has there been a party that is in such a strategic position as UKIP are this time round.

The Tories, and to a much lesser extent, the Labour and the Liberal Democrats, are seeing a great lot of their previous supporters bleeding away to the UKIP platform, and this is terrifying the hell out of them.

The Tories especially are seeing many previously right-wingers and xenophobes in their party jumping over to the UKIP ship simple because they do not have the policies in place that these rebels want to see in their own party. This must inevitably force the Tories to move even further to the right so that they can encourage these ship-jumpers to jump back.

This should/could have the effect of losing a lot of of their more-moderate supporters to the centre-ground and into the waiting arms of Ed Miliband's Labour refuge.

The Tories - I am glad to say - are in a very unenviable position because of this situation as their voting base is being torn right down the centre.

At least I hope so.

Regards....

Papaumau.

Papaumau wrote:-
I think that this present "protest vote" is unusual as it is not like the ones that have gone before.....What I mean by that is that nowhere previously has there been a party that is in such a strategic position as UKIP are this time round....The Tories, and to a much lesser extent, the Labour and the Liberal Democrats, are seeing a great lot of their previous supporters bleeding away to the UKIP platform, and this is terrifying the hell out of them.

The Green Party mopped up 15% of the vote in the EU elections of 1989, although it took them until 2010 to get their first MP at Westminster. (Incidentally, the Greens still have more councillors than UKIP but don’t seem to get a fraction of the publicity, especially from the blatantly right-wing BBC.) When the Liberals and the SDP were the parties of protest, they won parliamentary by-elections. UKIP hasn’t won any by-elections, and their second place in South Shields was a long way behind the Labour winner. And let’s not forget that UKIP still runs no councils.

Labour did not lose any council seats to UKIP but gained 291 new councillors, which the BBC described as “disappointing”. (UKIP gained 140 councillors and apparently that’s “spectacular”.) I don’t think Labour has any need to be frightened of UKIP splitting the right-wing vote, but it might be worth putting the spotlight on their nasty and often cranky policies. How many people who go to work want to lose all their employment rights? How many of the lower paid want to pay the same rate of income tax as the richest people in the land? How many UK citizens want to pay for a 40% increase in the defence budget and to keep twice as many people in prison? Labour supporters must show up this quasi-fascist party for what it is.

To win seats at Westminster, parties need pockets of support. I suppose it’s just possible that UKIP could win one or two seats in Lincolnshire or Norfolk in 2015, but it’s not likely to have any real influence. I expect it to disappear back into the sewer, just as Pauline Hanson’s ‘One Nation’ party did in Australia. By emphasising the party’s anti-immigration stance, Farage has virtually put the BNP out of business and attracted many of its supporters to UKIP.

I’m afraid the UKIP supporters I’ve encountered on Twitter have mainly been nasty and thick oiks peddling mindless drivel such as “Farage will give us our country back”, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Farage is just another public school toff who worked in the City. His recent dinner with Rupert Murdoch (which was supposed to be secret) shows how he will kowtow to big corporations just as much as his political cousins on the Tory front bench.

You have to hand it to that chap Farage : in hinting that a coalition with the Tories might be a starter ( see Pease Pottage Club News notes, incidentally!) provided that they ditch Cameron , he has used his present high-profile position to poke the PM firmly in the eye and provoked the possibile start of a Commons Tea Room chattering episode about a leadership challenge amongst worried Tory MPs. What a great piece of strategy!

That said the prospect of a Tory / UKIP coalition is a nightmare scenario for the nation, in whatever form it takes . It is like a woman trying to keep her virginity by working in a brothel.

The Tories , being the type they are, would gladly sacrifice Cameron - or any leader -to maintain power. Equally, they would happily stab Farage in the back when they have finished with his assistance, just as they will with Clegg ( and serve the little wretch right). The moral of the tale is that it does not pay to trust a Tory in any way whatsoever, and that Farage may have his fun for a while, but will enjoy the full force of some Tory 'gratitude' eventually. Fun, watching it though....

Great comments Ivan and Phil !

About Farage....

This guy is working very hard to look like an ordinary bloke as he puffs on his fags and swills his pints, but I think that while he is a dangerous, clever and charismatic person, these skills are going to be wasted as the leader of a right-wing party of protest that is full of ex-Tories and ex-BNP members and that is going to implode once the Tories really try to steal his clothes.

Whenever I see him on the telly I cannot resist the thought that he looks a bit like a spiv in his astrakhan coat and his leather-trimmed collars, but this image hides a very shrewd individual that does not care who he takes his power-base from.

Mind you, as has been said above, it is good to see him using his sleekit brain to try to oust Cameron from the Tory leadership.

Long may he reign as he is doing more harm to the Tories than any other person has done in the past, and it is also true that even if he and his party does gather a large share of the available vote - as has also been said above - it is going to be very unlikely if he will ever put many of his members into important seats anywhere.

Oh and I am already looking forward to the 2015 general election with glee and with not a little salivation.

Regards....

Papaumau.

Part of an entertaining article by Charlie Brooker for ‘The Guardian’:-

“Behold the rise of UKIP: an Alan Partridge thought experiment that has broken out of the lab and infected millions. Yes, millions. I've just read that UKIP have utterly triumphed in the local elections, and are now in full control of the government, the police, the NHS and the armed forces. Nigel Farage is scheduled to be coronated at Westminster Abbey tomorrow afternoon live on BBC1, complete with Dimbleby commentary and Red Arrow fly-past.

Speaking of flight, in line with official UKIP policy, anti-aircraft guns are already in operation outside Gatwick and Heathrow, blasting all incoming planes out of the sky in case they contain Bulgarian immigrants, Romanian immigrants, asylum seekers, halal butchers, gay spouses, Capricorns, or people on an unfamiliar mobile phone tariff we don't like the sound of. UKIP's total victory has transformed the electoral landscape for ever, from a world of three-party politics to a single-party dominion set to last 500,000 years. Also, it's now legal to smoke in creches.

Well, nearly. Here's what happened: UKIP won a load of council seats…..One UKIP candidate apparently made a Nazi salute in a Facebook snap – although the accused claimed the image was taken out of context, and that he was actually reaching for a friend's mobile phone when the shutter clicked, freezing him for ever in a pose that failed to accurately represent his political views. The same thing happened repeatedly to Hitler, who was often caught out by photographers while innocently trying to point at flocks of starlings with all five fingers at once.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/05/nigel-farage-succeed-politics-charlie-brooker

Ridicule can fracture the Coalition, frustrate the snake-oil salesman Farage, and expose the self-serving Posh Boys for what they are.

Laughter will succeed where breast-beating might not.

oftenwrong wrote:Ridicule can fracture the Coalition, frustrate the snake-oil salesman Farage, and expose the self-serving Posh Boys for what they are.

Laughter will succeed where breast-beating might not.

Some in the Tory party would be much happier to be in coalition with UKIP as they are further to the right than the Tories, so I wonder if will cause more strife between the L/Ds and the Tories.