28 thoughts on “UKIP’s threat to Labour”

  2. If the very positive response to UKIP Cllr`s by locals is anything to go by then Labour has a serious fight on its hands to retain the Rotherham parliamentary seat.

    You would have thought the party would have selected a credible election agent, one with a track record of winning and one without a conviction for assault, not forgetting the Times news paper articles.

    What does it say about Ms Champion and the company she keeps?

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    • The conviction was for affray, which is a more serious offence than assault, and what about his conviction for selling cigarettes to children. Ms Champion probably thought if he’s good enough to be chosen as deputy leader of the council and vice-chair of SY Police and Crime Panel then they can’t be any doubts about his probity!

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  3. The ‘Independent’ article certainly gives lie to the left’s cry that UKIP voters are “ex Tories and BNP members”. Rotherham and Doncaster voters showed just how much support the Labour party has lost in its former heartlands. The biggest problems facing Miliband and Cameron in the 2015 GE focus not just on Britain’s relationship with Europe and the EU but how well they connect with Mr.and Mrs.Joe and Josephine Public.
    Whether UKIP can have a bigger impact on the outcome of the election remains to be seen however both party leaders ignore the ‘UKIP effect’ at their peril.

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  4. Surely we should focus on the bigger picture, to vote UKIP would reinstall the Tories whose policies in restructuring the NHS have been a disaster for waiting lists and lack of investment.
    Disenchantment in local politics should not be used to re-elect our real enemy who have devastated the north in favour of the south.

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    • “to vote UKIP would reinstall the Tories”
      I disagree. The opinion polls show the Labour party with a small percentage lead.
      http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/
      and UKIP votes will probably split the Tory vote more than the Labour vote.
      You have not provided any evidence to validate your assertion that voting UKIP means a Tory government. On the contrary a large UKIP vote will possibly help Miliband sleepwalk into Number 10.

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  5. As Colin indicates, it’s hard to tell what the impact of UKIP voters will be on which party is in power after the 2015 election. There is almost no recent precedent of a “new” party entering parliament (other than that of the Greens).

    UKIP will most probably direct their efforts and money toward a few potentially winnable constituencies and aim, as a minimum, to get Farage into Parliament.

    A Labour government is currently the most likely outcome of the 2015 election, but http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/ only tells part of the story.
    This gives the context: http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/Analysis_UKIP.html

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  6. I think RR has it right.

    My view is come the General Election reasons for voting often change – and therefore voting intentions. Parties of all hues may see votes switch. Events at the time (2015) will dictate this. Many things can alter and there’s a lot of events and debates to come. We will see how it all pans out cometh the hour.

    It won’t be plain sailing for Labour in Rotherham but I think they will win. UKIP will do well but it’s going to take positive campaigning to shift more ground. The negative tends to switch off opinion at ‘The Biggie’. (The same applies to all parties by the way – that wasn’t a dig at any party)

    In the other ‘Rotherham seats’ I think Labour won’t exactly ‘walk it’ like they usually do but the majorities will be bigger than some think. A fact born out by talking to several people (personally and in particularly on other social media sites) who saw the article elsewhere and seemed to say ,’we’ll will vote Labour I – don’t want the tories” I know it was but a ‘straw poll’ (20 or so) but I found it very telling. Not fair on other parties if repeated in larger numbers maybe (including UKIP) but at General Elections the battle for national power is between the big two in most peoples minds. (Though not all- and rightly so)

    One factor the article in the ‘Independent’ ( I read it directly) fails to take note of in full is if UKIP are seen to make Any kind of electoral pact with the tories at any level in any way (even local ones or a local one) this will have a negative affect for UKIP in Labour’s northern heartlands – which generally (but there are exceptions) dislike the tories with conviction. (Rightly so in my opinion). If this happens – and I am not saying it will – this will be highlighted by Labour – and the battle cry of ‘vote UKIP get the tories’ will ring throughout the North, the Midlands and elsewhere. The same may happen in the South East should Labour do deals with UKIP too. (Unlikely)

    Now I am not saying these pacts will materialize. Just what I think will happen if they do,. But at least Caven said on Rothpol many months ago that if UKIP did make a deal with the tories in any shape or form he would not tolerate it and would resign. So that won’t happen here. But I hope you sort of get the drift of what I am trying to say.

    One other thing the survey seems to also miss is the effect of voting intentions in the marginals. Labour have a good lead at present there over the tories, Libs and UKIP. This may or may not change. But one thing;s for sure – It’s not the committed voter that decides elections – it’s the swing voter. Labour’s lead in these constituencies is larger than national polls. If this remains so I see a Labour majority of over 40 at least.

    The one thing I want to see is the back of this ConDem shambles. I dislike their policies and attitude to all but the rich intensely. I just hope that happens..Indeed I (know?) think it will.

    Still it’s interesting times we live in – far to austere for the poor and working person in my opinion – though not the bankers.

    SKT xxxx

    PS; as for views expressed on Rothpol – like mine they tend to take a committed stance. Most people don’t tend to be interested in party politics or the detail of politics until elections. (for most at ‘non election time’ even mailshots / leaflets tend to be binned straight away – far too boring for most and rightly so) However, Rothpol does give an insight in to the thinking of parties and I am grateful for all contributions as always – whether I agree or not – they tend to enlighten in many ways.

    All the best

    SKT xxxx.

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  7. Jane Collins standing in Rotherham central, I think that is goodbye to Sarah Champion. Hopefully Kevin Barron will be displaced as well.

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  8. UKIP is Real threat to Labour in the North,I hope I am wrong but the obsession with leaving the EU and the discontent about immigration and the pressure it puts on communities seems to chime with a lot of labour voters, I also hope that labour voters have seen through the demonisation of the people who rely on benefits by focussing on the minority stories of abuse churned out by the Tory media including the BBC,whilst ignoring the suffering and hardship inflicted by the bedroom tax and cleverly ignoring the real injustices of inequality and bankers greed which could rebalance their view.

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  9. “ignoring the real injustices of inequality and bankers greed”
    Which happened under the last unlamented Labour government overseen by Gordon McDoom who could’nt balance a beachball let alone our national economy.

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  10. I too was not enamoured by Gordon Browns chancellorship, both Tory and Labour were dependant on the income brought in by casino banking when times were good,however Mrs Thatcher initially deregulated the banks ,the current Tory led government pretend to be serious about regulation but shun the suggested regulation from the EU and prefer to continue with the status quo,labour should have regulated the banks during their three terms,the recession was global .
    With all it’s faults labour still holds the moral high ground over the nasty party,the Tories have not won an election since 1992 and at least Gordon tried to protect vulnerable people,whilst embracing
    a banking system that was heading for disaster, however the majority of economists did not foresee the sequence of events ,if you are happy with Mr Osborne vote Conservative.

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    • Thank you!
      Yes it was Thatcher’s deregulation of much of the City of London (not just the banks) that was at the root of the problem along with the partial repeal of Glass-Seigal in the US.
      By being so lax in allowing southern European countries to join the euro, the European Commission just added to added to the poisonous dish.
      When Lehman Brothers was allowed to go under in the US, the whole house of cards began to tumble down.
      rr

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      • But when confronted about Labour’s culpability in the of house of cards falling down Brown always points the finger at the US with sub-prime and all that. It’s their failure to accept any blame that gets people angry. Just as people are angry that they have refused to accept any blame for the biggest influx of immigrants in this country’s history. They trot out the line that they are sorry they got the numbers wrong, when all the “evidence” shows it was a deliberate, but undeclared policy, for which they should never be forgiven!

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      • Mal,
        Have you read The Blunders of our Governments (Anthony King & Ivor Crewe) ? You should, it is a fine book and it exposes all Brown’s screw-ups. Yet on the banking crisis, it says:
        “The 2008 banking crisis, in terms of its scale and impact, was of a different order of magnitude. Along with the governments of other countries, the governments of the UK had undoubtedly been guilty over many years of regulating the country’s banks in an excessively casual manner. However, once the full force of the banking crisis had been let loose, the British government and Britain’s then prime minister, Gordon Brown, were extraordinarily successful in organising a swift and effective response. In September 2008 the United States Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank allowed one of America’s oldest and most prestigious banks, Lehman Brothers, to collapse. Officials on both sides of the Atlantic feared that that bank’s collapse might precipitate the collapse of other major banking institutions, conceivably of the world’s entire banking system. Hank Paulson, the American Treasury secretary, dithered. Gordon Brown acted. Even his most vociferous critics, of whom there were many, applauded his performance. He quickly decided that, if several major British banks were not to go the way of Lehman Brothers, they needed to be massively recapitalised and that the only way of achieving that end was to inject them with vast amounts of public money. Within weeks, he and his chancellor, Alistair Darling, announced that £37 billion of taxpayers’ money would be pumped into the UK banks most at risk: Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS. The British government’s bail-out ensured that those three UK banks could and probably would survive. It also-galvanised the American government into action. Brown briefed Paulson and President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, finally persuading them that such a bail-out was feasible and worth the attendant risks. A New York Times columnist wrote a few days later: “The Brown government has shown itself willing to think clearly about the financial crisis, and act quickly on its conclusions. And this combination of clarity and incisiveness hasn’t been matched by any other Western government, least of all our own.”
        The bailed-out British banks did survive. Whatever his previous role may have been in failing to forestall the banking crisis, Brown’s actions in this instance were a triumphant success. They rivalled his earlier success as chancellor in keeping Britain out of the eurozone.” ”
        rr

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  11. Yes, I get it you are an apologist for him! Yes the man’s a genius selling off our gold at rock bottom prices and the master stoke of the 75p pension increase, the bigoted woman comment slur on a “Labour party member “ for daring to question why eastern Europeans were flooding into Rochdale, The abolition of the 10p rate of tax and his failure to save for a rainy day. The people who worked closely with him said he was a deeply flawed man who would go into rages and throw thing across the room. His belief that it was his birthright to be PM that led to all the feuding and back stabbing with Blair! He was the most totally unfit person to be Prime Minister since Alec Douglas Hume!
    I suggest you read “Gordon Brown” by Tom Bower and you will not have such an over rated opinion of him.

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    • You misunderstand.
      I agree with pretty well everything you say, and would add Tax Credits to the list of his failures, along with stripping the BoE of its banking supervision responsibilities – both caused by his flawed personality. I can assure you that King and Crewe are far more critical of him than Bower is.
      I will however defend Brown for his role in the Banking Crisis.

      … and on the Gold Sale, neither of us know the full facts,
      When the sale took place, I was amazed that anyone could be so idiotic. UK was not the first country to drastically reduce it’s Gold holdings and the techniques for doing it without perceptibly moving the market were well understood by all major Central Banks.

      Recently variations on this explanation began to gain a lot of interest:
      http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/thomaspascoe/100018367/revealed-why-gordon-brown-sold-britains-gold-at-a-knock-down-price/ .
      It’s quite plausible that something like this did happen.

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      • Sorry if I misunderstood you RR, but after we waited and waited for 18 years for a Labour government and then finished up with Blair and Brown it really does make me puke when any one defends them!

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      • Mal,
        No problem,
        … but could you maybe remember to turn aside when you’re puking, it spattered all over my computer screen.
        rr

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  12. The Labour party has got more to worry about than the threat from UKIP.
    Large number of negative comments about Labour policies here:

    Miliband has failed to connect with ‘Mondeo Man/Worcester Woman’ according to the comments.

    The link was re blogged by part time councillor Dalton.

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      • @rr
        I’m not very good with links via Twitter but…………………….if you click on ’83 retweets’ you will be taken to the article.
        I copied and pasted the https// link into my post and ended up with what has been published. Sorry.

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