YouGov gives the BNP 7%
April 21st, 2006
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But is this just the YouGov “magnifier” working again?
In a poll that will send shock waves throughout British politics a YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph today puts support for the British National Party up from just above zero to seven per cent.
In echoes of the internet pollster’s surveys in May 2004 showing a huge surge for UKIP ahead of the Euro elections YouGov has the following shares with changes on last month: CON 33%(-3), LAB 35%(-1), LD17%(-1), BNP 7%. Unlike other pollsters YouGov does not usually factor in the likelihood of respondents voting.
When assessing the poll bear in mind that a key weighting calculation that YouGov usually uses is based on the newspapers that those surveyed say they read. In its last published poll this worked out at: SUN/STAR 21.9%: EXPRESS/MAIL 16%: MIRROR/RECORD 16%: FT/TIMES/TELEGRAPH 9.5%: GUARDIAN/INDEPENDENT 4%
Normally YouGov gets many more Guardian and Indy readers taking part so their views are scaled back considerably. Sun and Star participants, on the other hand, are usually in short supply so, for example, their voting intentions last month were magnified by more than a third.
In March 2005 I suggested that those PB.C users who are on the YouGov panel could boost their influence and get invited to take part in more surveys if they told the firm they were Sun regulars. This led to me being banned by the firm’s boss, Peter Kellner.
The poll follows, of course, the great media focus on the BNP in the past week or so with the comments by Margaret Hodge and the report from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust which was, in fact, based on surveys carried out two years ago.
These poll findings could not have come at a worst time for the main parties which are in the final fortnight of their campaigning in this year’s local elections because they will give the BNP a bit more credibility.
It is worth recalling how YouGov was first to pick up the move to UKIP two years ago though in the end the pollster produced what were inflated projections. In its final poll which included a large proportion of respondents who had voted by post already YouGov had: CON 26: LAB 24: UKIP 21: LD 13 GRN 6. In fact the
Euro election shares were CON 26.7: LAB 22.6: UKIP 16.1: LD 14.9: GRN 6.3.
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So in 2004 YouGov over-stated UKIP by nearly a third - which was not a good performance for the firm.
It was suggested after those elections that the way YouGov carries out its surveys can have the effect of magnifying trends. Is that happening with YouGov’s BNP at the moment?
My predictions
Mike Smithson
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We should not underestimate the threat that the BNP represent, the sort of people that are at the top there and their objectives and their campaigning methods.
This is a major moment for the BNP. It is the moment when they can present themselves as a credible mainstream protest party and hide their extremism from view.
That 7% would even admit they would vote for the this party makes me wonder if a conspiracy of silence is at play in that figure.
My posting on UKpollingreport
THE BNP CONSPIRACY PLOT
Congratulations to Margaret Hodge.
I assume this is the result Lady Hodge was looking for.
She must be very pleased with herself.
Labour have regained their lead in this latest Yougov poll.
How very strange indeed that a Government Minister chose to hand the BNP all that good publicity just a few weeks before local elections?
Why did she do this?
Was it to frighten disgruntled Labour voters into coming out on May 4th?
It was obvious her comments to the media would boost the BNP vote. So why did she say it?
Hodge stated that 8 out of 10 working class families in her consituency would consider voting BNP.
Imagine what the BNP leaflets are going to say in every constituency where they are standing (not just in Barking). Maybe they will produce a Lib Dem style bar chart!
This gives the BNP the best publicity since, well since they were formed.
It gives them a fantastic launchpad for their campaign (although I hate using a word like fantastic when I am talking about a party based on bigotry).
Although Hodge was talking about her experience of knocking on doors, her statements were just prior to the release of a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
That report was co-authored by a Labour MP, the member for Dagenham, neighbour to Patricia Hodge in Barking (the report focuses on those constituencies).
Conventional wisdom is that a rise in BNP will hit poorest Labour areas most.
But that is typically on a very low turnout.
How many Labour voters can be scared into going out to vote to keep the BNP out?
Hodge’s 8 out of 10 figure does not suggest the poorest areas only are tempted by the BNP.
The Rowntree report states that the BNP have “entered the mainstream of London politics” and that there is a “strong correlation between BNP and UKIP support.”
The report talks about the “interchangable” support between BNP and UKIP.
Conditions are ripe the report claims for a “perfect storm” for the BNP.
BNP claim they are doing increasingly well in middle class Conservative areas. A look at the BNP website shows how they are trying to exploit Cameron’s shift to the left.
The Yougov poll confirms that a big rise in the BNP will hit the Conservatives more than Labour.
So we have the BNP being promoted and given millions of free publicity by a Labour Minister and then a Labour assisted report also boosting the BNP.
It is a boost that could arguably help UKIP as well, a few weeks before the local elections, UKIP who have a new strategy of acting as spoilers in Tory marginals.
Then we have the Chameleon Party Political Broadcast by a party led by the bluest Labour leader in history.
The Chameleon campaign seems to try to show that Cameron isn’t truly on the right at all, but actually a lefty, green liberal in the clothes of a right.
It seems that Labour are trying to point to a void on the right.
A void that I suggest Labour are attempting to fill by talking up the prospects of the BNP.
The reason for this I suggest is to force Cameron away from from the centre.
Labour are so terrified of Cameron moving to the centre and taking from the left by going green, that they are trying to force him to retreat to the left.
With a rise in the BNP vote and Labour regaining a poll lead, all the talk in the Tory Party will be about Cameron and his softer, nicer, green, liberal approach.
The Tebbits will come back out of the woodwork, insisting that the party spends its time talking about immigration and Europe.
The talk will be about Cameron’s leadership and his position. Factions will argue about the direction of the party.
All due to the rise in the BNP vote. And with a rise of the BNP, threatening to take more from the right than left, I suggest New Labour are delighted at this new Yougov poll.
Frank Field in today’s Telegraph states with regards to the BNP that that: “Next time round - and at the local elections on May 4 -many have found a party they can vote for.”
Frank Field has given the BNP a perfect quote to put on their literature. Why has he done this? Why would any Labour MP hand the BNP such a good tagline? How many millions of BNP leaflets will Frank Field’s own words appear on?
Maybe none, if more comments like that flood out from Labour MPs who have such kind words for the BNP to use.
I believe the Labour Party have planned a very underhand campaign to boost the BNP in order to damage Cameron.
We know the party that gave us the dodgy dossiers cannot be trusted as far as we could throw them.
If I am wrong and all these events have conspired through a series of gaffes, what a shame it happened in the middle of the local election campaign.
Without even discussing Labour policies, it is clear that either by design or accident Labour are responsible for aiding the sudden surge in BNP support.
To me, it is clear it is by design.
But many BNP voters in the North East would previously voted Labour!! This strategy will work in the short term but will put the final nail in Labour’s coffin and permanently damage them in England in the same way as Tories backed SNP in Scotland (hoping to split Labour’s vote). It didn’t work there so it won’t work in England. Labour are idiots if they think promoting BNP will split the Tory vote!!
The BNP offer both Old Labour style Socialism and Conservative style nationalism, many people find this attractive and the BNP support a full blown English Parliament!!!
Anyone who doesn’t think that the BNP can take large numbers of middle class votes may like to check out the following results from a neighbouring ward to mine:
Baildon (2002)
LD 2399, Con 1942, Lab 405, Grn 192
Baildon (2003)
LD 2365, Con 1207, BNP 842, Lab 564, Grn 143.
I am worried about the BNP and unlike many on here, I believe that Labour might just be waking up and smelling the coffee. But the proof of that pudding will be whether they do something serious about it, like repealing the Human Rights Act, or whatever it’s called.
“I am worried about the BNP and unlike many on here, I believe that Labour might just be waking up and smelling the coffee. But the proof of that pudding will be whether they do something serious about it, like repealing the Human Rights Act, or whatever it’s called. ”
So your answer is sacrificing Human Rights?
Then considering it incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights principles, his repeal would just make the Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights busy.
Presumably it would make it quieter. I can’t see how the BNP can possibly get 7% as they hardly stand anywhere (mainly I suspect as they can’t get the candidates or the 10 names). However I would expect them to average more than 7% where they do field candidates.
“Labour, which always has problems getting its vote out, will probably perform better.”
The media exposition of the BNP threat could help to bring out other parties’ supporters in some areas. For ex in Barking, some wards contested by BNP have no Libdem candidates. LD voters could have stayed at home, now maybe they could go out and vote (assuming they don’t like BNP)
Part of the answer is a government financed large scale social housing building programme to quickly bump up the supply of affordable housing and put a cap on house price rises.
6 - I would guess their candidates will average well above 7%, maybe 20-25%.
5. It’s a needless piece of legislation, which generally does little good and on occasion does tremendous harm by the extremely broad way in which the rights are defined. There are enough cases now for it to be clear that the law is not operating as it was intended to (or, for that matter, as the European Convention was intended to), and if it cannot be amended to deal with this - and I suspect it can’t for the reason you give - should be repealed. It has in my opinion done more than pretty much anything else to undermine confidence in the political class. It also politicises the courts in a way that has also served to undermine them and gives the impression that rights are granted by the will of parliament.
On a lighter note, happy birthday ma’am.
Obviously a worrying poll for all non-racists. The BNP takes voters from all parties (Labour because they’re mostly working-class, Tories because they’d thought them the best anti-immigrant bet, LibDems because they chose them to protest before). Many are former Labour voters but voted Tory in 2005, because the Tories were banging on about immigration.
I think Margaret Hodge’s comments are bound to have prompted some latent BNP supporters to tick that box in the poll, if only because expressing a view to a poll is really the mildest form of protest ‘vote’ that exists. “Let’s shake people up a bit, I’ll say I’ll vote BNP”. Some won’t actually do it, and of course many won’t have a BNP candidate. In fairness, though, we should note that Margaret Hodge has been proved at least partly right: if the poll is accurate, then it may well be that most voters in Barking would *consider* voting BNP (which is what she said, IIRC). I doubt if she’s actually created support that didn’t already exist - none of us sre so persuasive that we can quadruple a party’s vote with a single remark.
Who are BNP voters? My impression is that about half are mainly anti-refugee (and these come from all classes), and others are simply angry (and these are predominantly working-class, people who feel marginalised and neglected for various reasons). In other circumstances the second group would cheerfully vote Communist or anything that they thought would get our attention - we’ve seen similar patterns in Germany and France.
Less obviously startling but possibly of more long-term significance is that the other parties are basically back to their General Election level. Let’s assume that half the BNP vote is a temporary blip and the actual figures are 35/37/18. That means that all that has happened since the GE is a bit of polarisation at the expense of the LDs (which isn’t unusual between elections). I don’t think even the most fervent Tory would argue that publicity for Labour has been wonderful and coverage of the Tories terrible in the last 6 months, so - leaving aside the BNP issue for a moment - it’s a bit startling that the Tories are apparently making no progress whatever. Yes, this is a partisan comment, but objectively true, no? That said (now that Ben has switched I am reclaiming the phrase for Labour!), if it’s true that BNP voters would mostly otherwise go Tory, then the Tories should do a bit better in May as there aren’t that many BNP candidates.
10. Anyway, it was just one example - Ian’s comment provides another on social housing (and as a director of a social housing trust, I do know exactly what he means).
The Labour Party’s response to the Cherie Hair story emphasises just how out of touch it can seem - £7000+ for a month’s hairdressing! It’s more than I’ve spent on haircuts in my lifetime, and probably that would go for the better part of the male population of the country.
Right. Off to work now.
As somebody who has done a lot of campaigning for the Lib Dems I know the biggest problem is persuading people you can win. So Labour’s strategy of talking up the BNP is absolutley bonkers…
For many people the main issue is addressing Labour’s open immigration policy. Nobody wants to have their home given away. The island is crowded and Labour wish to make it more crowded. The 7/7 bombings seem to indicate future security issues. I blame Labour.
I voted BNP locally (to send a message) and Conservative Nationally (to halt the open immigration). It is nothing to do with racism. My parents are Indian.
OT…..Dave the Chameleon is taking on a life of its own:
http://www.backingblair.co.uk/dave/
The run up to these local elections has been most peculiar with both Nulab giving free publicity to BNP and Dave the chameleon and NuConLib’s DC giving free publicity to UKIP . What has happened to these parties putting forward their own policies ? BNP are going to poll well in some areas and better than they would have done thanks to Hodge but will still win very few if any seats . As I have said on here before though , BNP could still in the future prosper by going after the large number of working class smokers who feel alienated by the three major parties telling them that they are no longer able to go down the pub for a drink karoke and smoke .
The Yougov poll also continues it’s clear trend of understating Lib Dem support compared to other pollsters . Time will tell which is correct here .
Ian Kershaw’s comment from “Hitler: Hubris” seems increasingly apt. “There are times - they mark the danger point for a political system - when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing.”
re 11. Nick - I agree with you final paragraph - the Tories are not doing as well as would be expected. But you must compare with the pollster’s final General election survey carried out on the same basis - not the actual result. Then Labour enjoyed a 6 point lead before likelihood to vote was factored in. Today the gap is two points.
At a Westminster level, the BNP are a bigger threat to Labour than the Tories. In the seats they made big efforts in last year, in the NW and W Yorks, they mostly took votes from Labour (although there were exceptions like Keighley). Thus Labour’s talking them up is a very high risk strategy that could cost them half a dozen seats next time.
I view this poll with great scepticism - mostly because I doubt many people of the demographic background that characterises the core of BNP support would actually take part in such a poll. So like Mike, I suspect some serious statistical distortion is at work here.
An interesting point is that in the Keighley byelection for Bradford Council the other week is that although the BNP vote went up slightly (around 2%) they lost the seat. The Liberal Democrat vote was only around 5%. The key point is how many Lib Dem voters voted Labour that day to ensure that the BNP did not win in their ward. Many be this pattern will of voting for which ever of the democratic parties is best to stop the BNP will emerge on 4th May!!!
According to research BNP support tends to peak among skilled workers - not well educated, but not stupid by any means. Yougov take considerable trouble to ensure that such people are well represented on its panel. So, I think this result is quite plausible, if hopefully temporary.
The BNP would need to win about 75% per candidate to win 7% nationwide on May 4th, and of course they won’t do so. But it does look as though they will poll well.
So Fred are you arguing that the real level of potential BNP support is far higher… in line with Rowntree?
120 that would certainly limit their seat gains, but probably lead to an increased vote per candidate. Rallings and Thrasher put it well in the LGC when they said that the BNP have now built up so much momentum in some areas that it requires tactical voting to stop them.
Can anyone give a good report on the party leaders bit of Newsnight last night? I’ve always thought Frank Luntz pretty good in general. The previous night I thought he did a shoddy job though by his standards by using conference speeches - which are atypical of how voters see party leaders (or anyone else in the party).
Unsurprisingly the Yougov poll today has huge numbers of don’t knows on a lot of the questions (e.g. best PM) - which with an unpopular PM but two unknown (to the electorate) new leaders is unsurprising.
13 - There is no Labour strategy of ‘talking up’ the BNP. The only evidence for this is Margaret Hodge making a stupid off-the-cuff comment.
122. Jon - in certain areas, yes. I could certainly see them winning 15-20% in seats in the areas I mentioned. But outside these areas - in which racial tensions and industrial decline coincide - I think their appeal is very limited.
What absolute nonsense. Not least because it is presumably impossible for BNP to get anything like 7% in the locals due to small number of candidates they have standing. I am looking forward to seeing some real election results on May 4th which should mean everyone taking these meaningless polls with a pinch of salt.
In Burnley, I am hoping that BNP support will continue to ebb away - it was here that their momentum started, it will hopefully be here that they start to slip off the radar screen. The convictions for violence, and the silence in the council chamber, from some of their elected councillors has not exactly endeared them. They are not even contesting the Tory ward where I come from and which was the first to elect a BNP councillor in 2002. (Though we have gained a Lib Dem candidate, which is novel…)
Jon @ 22:
The Rowntree report asked about whether people might possibly *ever* consider voting BNP, the YouGov one asked how they would vote tomorrow, so it’s not comparing like with like. The YouGov poll did ask a question about whether people would ever consider voting BNP - 24% of people did. (While this seems to be in line with the JRRT report, it is actually a rise. JRRT found 24% of people saying they might consider voting BNP in London, with a lower level elsewhere. YouGov found it across the country.
128. Anthony - is there a regional breakdown available, please?
Interesting post Printz, even though it probably isnt true.
19. Agreed. If you look down the list of the highest BNP vote shares at the 2005 General Election it looks to me as if almost every single seat is a Labour seat. Surely this must suggest that the BNP takes more otherwise Labour than Conservative votes.
The BNP poll figure is very worrying and the fact it’s growth seems to come from more of the Tories than Labour does not supprise me. The “New Tories” have left their right wing anti-imigration supporters feeling out of place. Because of the extra publicity the BNP they feel justified to protest against their own party by voting for the far right.
I also remind you of a by-elecion in Hemel Hempstead last month. Lab -4%, Con -12%, LD +4%, NF +7%, Others +5% (NF & Others did not stand last time)
Fred @ 29 - not yet, maybe later today, maybe Monday.
I do fear that the BNP could fulfil the role of UKIP during the last European elections, and severely hamper Tory attempts to cast results in a positive light (due mainly to the fact that the results won’t be as positive as some would have thought several months before). Although losing votes to the BNP in council elections, much like losing votes to UKIP in 2004, is not a fair representation of how the Tories are doing against Labour (because these votes never translate into general election votes), it does give Labour spin doctors much more ammunition with which to attack the probably limited Tory gains.
23: Sean, I notice you are about — where can one find a run down of the council elections last night if I can’t wait for monday and your excellent summary?
Anatole @ 34. I don’t know if they are standing in enough wards (and more to the point, standing in enough Conservative target wards) to have the same effect as UKIP did in 2004.
Thank you. The Guardian will probably have the results on their website about mid-day.
Basically, there was one Conservative loss to the Lib Dems and one Conservative gain from them.
31. I tend to think the GE figures are a more reliable guide to where BNP support comes from than either the Yougov poll or an isolated byelection in Hemel Hempstead. That said, we are to some extent flying blind on this issue - the BNP targeted its resources at the GE in areas it thought it could do well, where it had traditionally picked up support. Perhaps they would have got lots of votes in Tunbridge Wells too, though I doubt it.
The other critical question is how high the ceiling is on the amount of working class support they can take from Labour. Looking abroad, for example to Austria, far right groupings have been able to eat a long way into the working class support base of traditional socialist parties. But there was a native fascist tradition, even if submerged, to draw on there.
In the UK there isn’t, and this must severely limit their potential growth - but in certain areas I think local circumstances could allow their support to expand considerably further. Racial tension-industrial decline-social dislocation-out of touch champagne socialist government…it’s a potentially potent cocktail.
36 - If, as is very likely, the BNP are not standing in enough wards, surely by definition that will mean they will poll no where near 7% of the national share of the vote. If that happens then I’m afraid to say, but won’t YouGov’s reputation be damaged?
32: Thats a long standing thesis that I’ve heard on these pages before — basically when the Tories move towards the centre the far right pops up (I stress I am not finding any fault with the Tories). I seem to remember someone pointing out that it happened in the early eighties with the NF.
This time I think its been complicated by Labours policy of massively boosting legal immigration WITHOUT making a case for it to either the public or parliment. I happen to agree with that policy, but there is no excuse for not presenting it openly.
31 - not true. It maybe suggests that where the Tories have no hope, voters who would otherwise vote Tory will vote BNP.
Good point Anthony. If one looks at the Tory targets in London, Hammermsith has one BNP candidate; Bexley has five, but those won’t be enough to stop the Tories winning control; Croydon has two; Merton has two; Hillingdon has none.
Among Conservative-controlled councils, neither Barnet, nor Enfield (surprisingly) have BNP candidates. Redbridge has three; Havering has two. Havering also has a bunch of candidates from an organisation called Third Way, which was an offshoot of the National Front. Havering’s Conservative councillors have done their damnedest to destroy their chances in this election, and I think that’s the one borough where radical right candidates could perform strongly at Conservative expense.
Barking and Dagenham has 13 BNP candidates (and 17 UKIP) but 41 Labour councillors to only 3 for the Conservatives.
The BNP are no significant threat to Conservative gains this year.
UKIP are no significant threat to Conservative gains this year.
Why? Over 4,000 seats up for grabs, UKIP & BNP fielding 300-400 candidates each.
Most of UKIP’s real target seats are strong Labour areas where the Conservatives do nothing. Why? Because those are the seats where UKIP are organised (Hartlepool, Barking&Dagenham, Dudley, various seats in the NW, etc) and are putting together a proper campaign.
The BNP tend to fight ‘working-class Labour’ areas. These are also areas that the Tories could never hope to gain.
Where’s the threat to the Tories? Both UKIP and the BNP are a bigger threat to Labour this year - and if Margaret Hodge doesn’t recognise that, she has problems.
Barking & Dagenham could see Labour take huge losses - UKIP reckon they’ll take at least 3 seats, possibly more. The BNP seem to think they have a chance in every ward they’re contesting.
39 - I wouldn’t have thought so. People who are interested enough in these things to actually watch the performance of particular pollster are also switched on enough to know (a) the difference between voting intention at Westminster and at local elections and (b) that a party only standing in a few seats can’t possibly win.
Probably the best read on the contours of BNP support comes from the 2004 elections where the results were published nationwide. I think there’s some fallacious reasoning going on in some of the posts above. Even if one accepts that the BNP vote is substantially ex-Labour (which is a dubious proposition), it is not necessarily a loss to Labour in a given election. If people are ex-Labour and tempted to support the BNP, they are probably so disaffected that if they didn’t vote BNP they would abstain or vote for another anti-Labour party.
I’ve seen two by-election results: Pangbourne in West Berkshire a Conservative hold in a safe seat http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=855 although the turnout looks up on the 2003 election.
The other is a Lib Dem gain from Con on a rather large swing in Warminster, West Wiltshire http://www.westwiltshire.gov.uk/index/news/news-article.htm?newsid=17080
40. Puzzled by that historical reference; by the early 1980s the NF was already finished - its heyday was the early/mid-1970s. Arguably you might say the miserable state of the Conservatives in that period did help them though.
41. Stonch - unfortunately for that theory, if you look at the actual results in places like Dewsbury, Halifax, Colne Valley etc. at the GE you will find a) these were far from hopeless seats for the Tories and b) it appears it was mostly Labour votes that migrated to the BNP-the Tory vote often held up well. There are now perhaps half a dozen Labour seats that could be delivered to the Conservatives by a relatively small further shift of Labour votes to the BNP. I can think of no Tory seats that are at risk from the BNP.
I’m surprised no-ones mentioned Blair’s support for more muslim and church schools as a factor. Often people in poorer areas will assume that ‘others’, be they immigrants, refugees or non-whites, are getting “all the help” when they find it so hard to get help themselves.
It is ridiculously difficult to get a council house these days [eg a friend of mine had to ask the hospital to stay a few more nights because she didn't have anywhere to go to after she'd given birth] and the private rental market is a disgrace with little to no tenancy rights and deposits frequently vanishing into thin air.
It’s all too easy to assume that this is due to the “others” getting all the council houses, etc, when the option of actually building more social housing is more politically incorrect in our current political landscape than persecuting asylum seekers [compare and contrast Labour and Tory policies and behaviour on both of these things].
It really wouldn’t do to challenge the buy-to-let market by providing more social housing, for example. After all, how else are the middle classes going to afford their comfortable early retirements whilst the rest of the country is forced to work on and on and on…
I can’t honestly blame people for voting BNP when the political debate in this country is so narrow.
39 - It won’t reflect too badly on YouGov as, unlike the UKIP poll Mike referred to, the question in this poll was general election related. Nobody expects May’s result to be the same as a general election result - even those who believe the YouGov figures are about right know the Lib Dems will do better than the poll and Labour worse in the locals - I suspect Kellner would agree with that too. And the BNP won’t get 7% because they haven’t enough candidates. But if the BNP pick up say 25% on average in seats they are contesting (you have to assume they are contesting their most promising seats) then the warning in the opinion poll will be broadly confirmed even if that only translates to 2-3% of the national votes total.
45 - Not really that dubious when you look at a lot of their policies.
46: I’m probably misremembering — I have no direct memory (too young). I’m trying to remember where I read it now, I thought it was on here but perhaps it was elsewhere. The point was that the lack of a strong voice in mainstream power on immigration in general leads to a rise in the far right. Curious that if this observation is correct how it can tied in with the actual people who vote being more likely to be ex-Labour supporters…?
45. Lewis I find the reasoning in that post very difficult to follow.
Re: #50 - It’s because blaming the immigrants is an alternative to blaming the rich as an explanation for poor people to explain their [relatively poor] lot in life. The tabloid press do a good job of promoting one explanation over the other…
49. Because a lot of working class Labour voters are not great enthusiasts for the multi-cultural society - especially those who are directly affected by mass immigration via competition at the bottom end of the jobs market and for social services and social housing.
Whilst canvassing this week I encountered a man who had a long moan about the Council selling council houses. He clearly had no understanding of the market and felt all housing problems were due to governments not providing everyone with housing. I was about to put him down as Labour when he revealed he was going to vote for “the National Front”. After pointing out that the “National Front” are no longer a legitimate party, I said that him voting for the BNP (assuming that’s what he meant) would be “an extremely bad idea”; bizarrely he then agreed but said “something has to happen”. I said that maybe it does, but the BNP are certainly not the answer. Strangely, he then agreed again. I’m not alone in thinking that the publicity given to the BNP is the cause of confused types like this man considering voting for them. Margaret Hodge has essentially given them a free advertisement of “Disillusioned with Labour? Vote BNP - everyone else is”.
By Chris Mead, PA Elections Editor
Tories and Liberal Democrats took council seats off each other in the latest by-elections, two weeks ahead of the crucial May 4 main contests.
Lib Dems’ David Lovell scored a shock win in Conservatives’ Warminster East stronghold at West Wiltshire District.
In another strong west country performance for the party, candidate Alvin Horsfall polled nearly two thirds of the votes to take a former independent seat at Keyford in Somerset’s Mendip District.
But in a further surprise result, Tory Edward Moseley scored a huge swing to gain from Liberal Democrats at Winster and South Darley, Derbyshire Dales District.
Conservatives kept control at West Berkshire Council when they easily defended the Pangbourne seat.
Analysis of seven comparable wards suggests a projected 10.9% nationwide lead for Tories over Labour which would give them hundreds of gains if repeated next month.
However most of this week’s results, like those so far this year, involve Conservative and Liberal Democrat parts of the country.
The votes movement this week in the only two wards where Labour was previously in contention suggested a much smaller Tory margin.
Analysis based on six wards fought both times by the three major parties suggests a line-up of C 39.6%, Lab 27.4%, Lib Dem 26.5%.
RESULTS
Arun District - Rustington West: C 769, Lib Dem 581, Ukip 277, Lab 115. (May 2003 - Three seats C 1009, 1005, 974, Lib Dem 726, 649, 595, Ukip 431, Lab 222). C hold. Swing 2% C to Lib Dem.
Buckinghamshire County - Rymead, Tylers Green and Loudwater: C 1277, Lib Dem 596, Lab 221. (May 2005 - Two seats C 2908, 2781, Lib Dem 1875, 1612, Lab 1350, 1303). C hold. Swing 6.9% Lib Dem to C.
Derbyshire Dales District - Winster and South Darley: C 316, Lib Dem 281, Lab 178. (May 2003 - Lib Dem 400, C 128, Lab 91). C gain from Lib Dem. Swing 24.2% Lib Dem to C.
Mendip District - Frome Keyford: Lib Dem 487, Lab 128, C 104, Ukip 51. (May 2003 - Two seats Lib Dem 323, Ind 271, Lib Dem 261, Lab 239, 228, C 213, 210, Green 170). Lib Dem gain from Ind. Swing 20.8% Lab to Lib Dem.
South Derbyshire District - Swadlincote: Lab 565, C 356. (May 2003 - Three seats Lab 637, 617, 536, C 335, 328, 297, Ind 280). Lab hold. Swing 0.3% Lab to C.
West Berkshire Council - Pangbourne: C 725, Lib Dem 151, Lab 96. (May 2003 - C 591, Lib Dem 127, Lab 79). C hold. Swing 0.4% Lib Dem to C.
West Wiltshire Council - Warminster East: Lib Dem 777, C 736, No description 121, Ind 120. (May 2003 - Three seats C 1311, 1235, 1019, Lib Dem 479, 377, Green 282, No description 246). Lib Dem gain from C. Swing 18.8% C to Lib Dem.
Wycombe District - Tylers Green and Loudwater: C 888, Lib Dem 387, Lab 75. (May 2003 - Three seats C 1047, 979, 895, Lib Dem 465, Ind 410, Lib Dem 385, 325, Lab 230; May 5 2005 by-election - C 2172, Lib Dem 1092, Lab 748). C hold. Swing 4% Lib Dem to C.
:: The contest at Wythall South, Bromsgrove on April 6 was a Tory gain from Ratepayers and Residents.
Local byelections results.
Confortable Tory win in safe seats in Buckinghamshire CC and Wycombe DC:
http://www.wycombe.gov.uk/news.asp?step=4&contentID=368
I dont think the BNP polling is a major shock, that they will make small gains has been a common subject of discussion on Sean fears local election roundup.
A number of people on this thread have made insightfull points about why polling 7% in a you gov poll does not mean 7% of councils or councillors will go BNP etc
If anything I’d say that this is the media talking up the BNP because they are an exciting bogey man for us all to get wound up about.
As many have already said what about Respect, Ukip and the Greens ? all of which are electorally in one way or another more significant despite not polling 7%.
52: Agree, I was brought up in an area like that in the North East (though thankfully not BNP country, I hope it stays that way), but that wasn’t what I musing on. I was more meaning that the relationship between the vote shares between Lab/Con/BNP must be difficult to predict if both observations are correct.
In my experience the BNP largely take anti-Labour votes in Labour areas, but their voters can come from, and end up, literally anywhere.
The one area I cam accross them they thankfully never got properly stuck in (otherwise things could have seriously got bad). It was a poor, mainly white, area with a refugee centre. Labour had lost it to the Lib Dems after years of inactivity, however the natives were starting to get restless with the Lib Dems (who were nice, middle-class and gay).
The core of the BNP activity was a large extended family, largely petty criminal/small-business who had initially been involved in the Lib Dems, before providing the Socialist Alliance candidate and activists and then settling up in the BNP.
Thankfully the BNP high command decided to concentrate their resources in other areas in the region (where they have had moderate success).
There are some direct Labour-BNP switchers, but not in my experience many. BNP voters come, on council estates, from the stubborn 15-20% who vote tory or ‘you’re all crooks’ non-voters.
Since Cameron has seemingly abandoned ‘identity’ (race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, nationality…) politics, there does seem an openning for someone to aggressively campaign on those issues.
However it should be bourne in mind that Cameron has abandoned ‘identity’ politics because it didn’t work - Labour has managed to hold on to its core vote extremely effectively, and held the line in 2001 and 2005 against very hard-nosed campaigns on these issues.
There is a very interesting letter on the BNP from Norman Tebbit in the Telegraph. He is not my favourite politician but well worth a read.
58: Thanks - that’s interesting to read.
A back of the envelope calculation on the West Yorkshire election results in 2005 shows that in the constituencies where the BNP saved its deposit, the Conservative vote dropped on average 3.9% and Labour’s by 6.6%, a swing of about 1.4%. The comparable averages for seats where the BNP didn’t stand or lost its deposit were Con -0.9%, Lab -5.2%, swing 2.2%.
Although the You Gov poll shows both con and lib dem interest dipping the poll does not tell us much about the outcome when voters have to choose between Lib dem and conservative .Eg across large swathes of southwest london where BNP is not present and labour is very weak . I have heard that the lib dem vote is looking rather soft in these areas - in many cases they have run the council for years and are being judged as the incumbent which is always difficult particularly with council tax so high . No great swing to conservatives but the previous desire to vote against the conservatives has gone - do any polls indicate whether this is correct or how larger the trend might be
I don’t think saying people who vote for the BNP are somehow ‘confused’ and are ‘protest’ voters really helps the situation at all. It just sounds like another excuse for shrugging your shoulders and not dealing with the problems which is feeding the problem.
What’s happened with the BNP is quite surprising because what the research which came out this week and what Hodge said in reference to her Barking seat show is strong support for the BNP translating into potential seats for the BNP in London. When the BNP started gaining council seats, one of the few areas where the BNP didn’t make progress or very much progress was London (certainly not much progress in a decade).
It might purely by chance but Labour’s decreasing popularity in London is perhaps the biggest factor in the rise of the BNP vote. I remember talking to a friend once (a northern by chance) who said he could never vote tory in his life, his parents voted labour, his grandparents, in fact his grandfather was a labour party member and an ex councilor for them! I asked him what he felt about immigration instantly he said he didn’t like it and it would be perhaps an issue which might change his vote to tory, but he didn’t seem very warm to the idea.
In effect if you offer a party which isn’t tory but which resembles labour in social aspects (i.e. we stick up for the disadvantaged poor/working classes) those voters will go not to the tories but BNP. It shouldnt be surprising, Tony Blair isn’t someone a hard working person will relate to, with his 3.5 million pound mortgage and rich friends. Of course as the BNP is a racist party which wants an all white Britain it attracts not necessarily all racist voters but voters who are attracted to the social aspects, since it seems to be a fact that most voters usually are prepared to ignore a few things they dislike about a party and concentrate on the things they like.
The decline of Labour fortunes and no doubt what will happen on election night is a rather large fall in Labour support in London will translate into a bonanza for Tories, Lib Dems and the BNP (strange bedfellows). I don’t think immigration is the sole issue which has upset these traditional ‘core’ labour voters, of course it is on top of their grievences, but these people are mostly directly affected by housing (which they think is unfair distributed), treatment by government, feeling of being ignored/taken for granted, crime (the poor are disprortinately affected by crime, the rich can always insulate themselves from it, after all, what is the use of money if you can’t?) and no doubt other issues too.
Clearly the BNP won’t get 7% in these locals, but would the headlines by if the BNP where to crop a harvest of 30 to 50 councilors? It may not happen but I can imagine headlines such as ‘BNP Triple Councilors’ or ‘BNP Shock Wins’ in London. Don’t forget though, as ever, sensationalising headlines sells papers, but Labour really needs to do more to explain how it’s policies benefit the disadvantage poor/working class, David Cameron may say he will do more for them, but he can’t win these voters (certainly not yet, and certainly not the majority) but Labour can…not sure if Blair can….!
59 - That is a pretty silly letter from Tebbit. You could count on the fingers of no hands the number of people who vote BNP because of their policy on nationalising lifeboats for goodness sake. People call the BNP “right wing” because they are at one end of the authoritarian-libertarian axis - nobody really gives a stuff where they are on the free trade-protectionist or collectivist-economic liberal scales. The fact that left/right labels are rather misleading is one Tebbit should probably have picked up on some years ago. The fact is that the BNP are on what is commonly described as the extreme right on the only axis which their potential voters are really bothered about.
Luke M,
Yes, there’s a lot in that. In the fifteen London constituencies with the fewest professional/managerial workers, Labour lost 50,000 votes at the last election. The vote for radical right parties rose by 17,000 in those seats, Respect won 16,000, the Greens picked up another 4,700, the Lib Dems 8,600, and the Tories another 2000.
The other factor is the way that the Labour party is portraying Respect as being a communal party. It’s almost as though the Labour politicians would rather the white working class voted for the BNP than for Respect.
BTW for those who haven’t seen this (I haven’t been on the website for a while and therefore don’t know whether this has been brought up), it is a useful “independent” analysis of local election outcomes:
http://www.londoncommunications.co.uk/media/intelligence/downloads/May06electionPredict.pdf
The Marquis of Lothian, aka Michael Ancram, having spent more time with his other eleven peerages has decided that Conservative policy on Iraq isn’t worth a candle and the British Armed Forces should retire from Iraq with “dignity” or cut and run as I call it !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4929180.stm
re 66 interesting report i had not seen this
I think they could be right about Kingston - it would be quite a swing from lib to con - but not impossible from what i hear
55 - You see, I told you those results were foregone conclusions, Andrea! Both with very good swings in our favour as well.
Excellent result in the Derbyshire Dales too.
2jamie: Actually the Government’s immigration policy has been both debated and defended in Parliament, and there was a flurry of press coverage a while back when the Tories (under Michael Howard IIRC) said they accepted the case for immigration, and papers like the Mail fell into line and said yeah, well, it was asylum that they were worried about. There is now no major policy difference that I know of between the major parties on immgration, as opposed to asylum, and no doubt some BNP voters are responding to that, though I think the Tories would lose more than they gained if they reverted.
I do agree that the case for a reasonably generous asylum policy (more generous than we actually have!) is rarely argued - the argument tends to be fought on the basis of ‘Are the figures high or low?’ with the implication of ‘the lower the better’. When individual horrific cases of people being sent back to their deaths then arise, everyone says ‘how terrible’ but the link to how fierce the asylum tests are is rarely made.
Lewis at 45: yes, exactly. It’s possible for a BNP supporter both to be an ex-Labour voter (though mostly pre-2005) and unlikely to vote Labour in the absence of the BNP. Their position is essentially “I’m alienated and fed up and I’ll vote for the most anti-establishment candidate I can find.” The racist governor George Wallace in the USA used to ask people to vote for him to “Send ‘em a message!” It’s the same idea.
Its quite noticable the lack of coverage this poll is getting in the news today, eclipsed by the Queen reaching 80, Ancram and the battle for the environment it would seem. I agree with Mike’s predictions for the implications of this, but only if it gets sufficient coverage in the media over the next few days.
If the UKIP or maybe even the BNP had stood in the ward I am currently fighting as a Conservative candidate my chances of winning would be drastically reduced this year IMO. Thankfully (for me) it’s a straight Lib Dem / Conservative battle with Labour a distance third.
I feel long term the situation will ease somewhat, but while our centre ground policies are being brought to the fore people are forgetting the core ‘right of centre policies’ that haven’t changed a great deal but are not as clear as they normally would be at election time.
Someone earlier was claiming UKIP are no threat to the Tories on 4th May… I think this is rather wishful. UKIP may not gain many but they can certainly cost a few. I will post the thoughts of the Tory leader in Exeter on 5th May if someone reminds me.
I’ve long thought that in terms of campaigning & socio-economic appeal, if not necessarily (all) policy, the BNP most closely overlap this mob - supposedly of the hard left:
http://www.iwca.info/
If the BNP were to put up candidates in Blackbird Leys, I suspect support for the IWCA would collapse.
63 James You may be missing the point that Tebbit is making? The BNP bang on about immigration and nationality and that strikes a chord with those people at the bottom of the heap who feel the social and economic pressure from the incomers. But if that is coupled with what sounds like Old Labour Clause 4 rhetoric then it has added attraction to those old Labour voters who are fed up with the metrocentric PCness from Nulab.
The figures above at 60 that Lewis Baston has posted seem to suggest that the attraction is mainly to Labour voters and less to Tory ones.
If the wobbling Tories are attracted by the nationalism and law enforcement headline, are the Labour voters even more attracted by the socialistic sub text. That economic authoritarianism may well appear to offer protection from all those pressures these voters are feeling.
71. That the BNP could pick up a significant share of the vote where they are standing this year would not surprise me. What is surprising and has already been remarked on is that it’s picked up by computer-owning YouGov members. However, as I commented this morning, BNP support is not just limited to the poor white working class, although this does form the bulk of its vote.
The criticism of Margaret Hodge is in my opinion misplaced. Most BNP voters will have never heard of her, and will not have seen her comment. The BNP don’t work in the traditional political circus - partly becase they want to differentiate themselves and partly because they’ve justifiably been denied an entry ticket. Therefore, their support exists independently, therefore it is not being caused by issues being discussed within the normal traditional sphere. The fact that this poll is not big news should not make a huge amount of difference as those who might vote BNP would not notice if it was the lead on Today.
is this a town council byelection?
http://www.bnp.org.uk/reg_showarticle.php?contentID=852
76. I think that you are right, in that this poll will have a marginal impact on the BNP vote. What I do think is if this does hit the headlines then the other parties, especially Labour, will find it easier to get their vote out in areas where the BNP are challenging, as Mike suggested in his piece.
If, however, this does not hit the headlines then Labour (and the other parties) won’t be able to galvinise support against the BNP. The effect being that; the less coverage this poll gets, the more seats the BNP might win (IMO).
My reckoning - as I tried to suggest in the intro - is that there will be a big differential between the raw BNP support figures in the survey and those that come out of YouGov’s weighting formula. I guess that they’ll a much lower level than 7% on the raw data.
Also YouGov does not discriminate between voters and non-voters - so many in the 7% probably won’t have BNP candidates or would not be voting anyway.
In last week’s Scottish poll we had raw figures for the Tories of 251 and for Labour of 297. After the weightings had been applied YouGov put Labour on 30% with the Tories on 14%.
We have yet to see how that was worked out - but it does show what can happen.
75 - Tebbit’s point is to criticise the Telegraph for persisting in calling the BNP “extreme right wing” and he asks at the conclusion of his letter “what is extreme right wing about the BNP?” Whilst accepting that left/right labels are often misleading I would have thought it is perfectly obvious why they are described as extreme right wing even by the Telegraph, a right wing paper. Quite simply they are on what is commonly described as the “far right” of the libertarian-authoritarian axis. And for BNP voters it is that axis that matters. It is just silly for Tebbit to comb through the BNP manifesto to pluck out “left wing” economic policies which very few people who consider voting BNP know or care about.
Facinating debate. I suppose the real worry for the tories is if this is the BNP filling ground perceived to be vacated on the right. That would suggest that any ground gained in the centre could be lost on the right.
However all the evidence quoted here so far suggests that BNP votes are primarily ex labour. Thats certainly the case in Leeds
74 - IWCA is strongest in the Oxford City Council, so would you expect BNP doing well in Oxford, were there not IWCA?
Except for the Muslim vote, I would think that BNP voters are closest to the RESPECT voters.
The 2 million pound donor to the LibDems has just been arrested for fraud. H/T Iain Dale.
http://www.iaindale.blogspot.com/
AOL (unscientific) poll:
Who will you vote for at the local elections?
BNP 36%
Labour 16%
Conservative 25%
Liberal Democrats 8%
Ukip 3%
None of the above 5%
Won’t be voting 7%
Total Votes: 706
Yeah right.
Can we forget about the BNP? The electorate certainly will.
80 - The libertarian/authoritarian axis is nothing to do with left and right, that thinking is muddled. Authoritarianism (and I should know, always coming out on questionnaires as the total opposite) is both left *and* right, as is libertarianism, the left/right axis depends on other factors and is totally separate.
In the case of the BNP Tebbit is actually correct for once, the policies they have are to attract the statist/protectionist vote as opposed to the free market vote.
70: Nick — I’ll have to take your word for it on Parliment, it is difficult to extract any quantatitive data from the parlimentary website but the central message that more immigration is needed and was not disseminated to the general public until immediatly prior to the 2005 GE (when it became apparent that the Tories would fight on it).
“There is now no major policy difference that I know of between the major parties on immgration”. True, but only because of the conjoining of the policies in the run-up to the 2005 election. There was a significant difference for the 8 years prior to that.
87. Apologies for tangled english. That didn’t come out right.
NickP, I agree with you that the vote for the BNP is in some ways just a cry of pain from a seriously disenchanted electorate. The people feel that the elite doesn’t understand their concerns about multiculturalism, or is at least too scared to voice them, for fear of being thought ‘racist’. I think many people in Europe vote for Le Pen and the late Fortuyn, etc, for the same reason. I don’t think these voters actually agree with the BNP on detailed policy; I doubt they are even aware of those policies.
But we should also remember the special circumstances in the UK in the run up to this poll - the absurd persecution of Nick Griffin in court, merely for saying what millions of people think, that Islam is a seriously deficient religion. I said on this website, at the time of his court case, that it was a stupid show-trial, got up by the liberal Left, and new Labour; I said it would only lead to a huge increase in the BNP vote. It doesn’t please me to be proved right.
But you are wrong, NickP, on immigration. Labour tripled - TRIPLED - immigration when it came to power in 1997. Somehow you forgot to mention that you planned this, in your manifesto. Oops. Now your mendacity comes back to haunt you, with a surge in support for the Far Right. Well done.
83 - This would be the same Michael Brown, who according to The Independent withdrew funding from ‘muppets’?
According to the Office of National Statistics, seanT (which the anti-migration organisation Migrationwatch uses as its source), migration to the UK (which seems to include both immigration in its usual sense and asylum) rose from 326K to 582K between 1997 and 2004, the last year shown. What is the source of your belief that the number has tripled? Or, since you felt the need to shout, “TRIPLED”?
See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intermig1005.pdf
Personally I don’t have an issue with an increase in inflow of 256,000 on a population of 60 million, especially as over 300,000 people leave each year. Increased international migration in both directions is a long-term trend, but the problems that arise are greater for areas like the former GDR where more people of working age are leaving than coming in.
2jamie is right that the Tories were, until 2005, against this modest 0.5%/year net rise. As I understand it, they are no longer against it (nor am I).
Re: #87 and others on Tebbit and the left-right axis.
My History teacher explained it thus [when talking about Stalinism and Fascism]. He claimed that the left-right axis is part of a circle, whereby if you wen too far to the left [or the right] you would eventually reach a new middle ground that combined extreme ideological nationalism [a right-wing trait] with extreme state-control of the economy [a left-wing trait], whilst jettisoning the other traits of the free market economy [right-wing] and internationalism [left-wing].
I suppose that would make the more acceptable middle ground be free-market internationalist.
But yes there is a reason why the Nazis were called “National Socialists” and why Stalin put so much emphasis on “Socialism in one country”, as the two ideologies were very similar in many respects.
Does the BNP do better in council wards if there is not a candidate from each of the main parties standing?
91. Nick Palmer - the figures you quote are gross. Table 1 in the link you provide shows that if we are talking about net immigration, SeanT has actually underestimated the increase from 1997 to 2004. Net immigration was 47k in 1997, and 223k in 2004. If we exclude British citizens from this, as I think we rightly should, net immigration was 107k in 1997, 342k in 2004…a tripling…
93 Chris D. Under FPTP the BNP tend to do better the larger number of mainstream candidates stand as they split the vote and allow the fascists to emerge through the middle.
Re: 83 - This is, despite Iain’s efforts, a bit of a non-story. Brown made his view about the LDs abundantly clear in the Independent a couple of weeks ago. Whether or not we should or shouldn’t have taken his money - I don’t know. I don’t have the full facts so I can only reserve judgement. I gather the money was repaid and rightly so.
The YouGov poll is of course of far greater significance and it’s encouraging to see so many people on this Forum not just looking at how it affects their Party but looking at the “bigger picture”. I live in Newham and we have no BNP or UKIP candidates standing this time. If, however, the BNP did well in Barking & Dagenham, I have no doubt we will see BNP candidates in 2010.
The BNP have tapped into a series of complex and not always coherent set of fears, ignorance and distorted perceptions (often from the tabloid media). It is a potent cocktail of discontent that has coalesced around immigration in all its forms. I don’t believe simply tightening and re-tightening the immigration laws will make any difference. For many of those contemplating the BNP, one immigrant is one too many and the damage has already been done. The sound of bolts locking doors with horses galloping over the horizon may yet be heard on May 5th if the BNP do well.
Yet, democrats fighting the BNP have one huge ally - the BNP themselves. Their record of local Government in Burnley and elsewhere has been exposed as mediocre and it may well be that once elected, BNP Councillors may realise how little the average Opposition Councillor can achieve. That is in itself a damning indictment of what I’ve seen referred to as “democratic centralism” which successive Conservative and Labour Governments have pursued with vigour. The re-vitalisation of local democracy through the proper re-patriation of powers, responsibilities and above all monies is, and will be seen to be after May 5th, a priority.
Even that isn’t enough - the perception that “they” (the immigrants and asylum-seekers) are getting a better deal than “us” needs to be challenged at every turn. I don’t believe that to be generally true though I accept isolated incidents hint at what appears to be an unfair situation though I also think the tabloid media spares no expense in exaggerating and manipulating the facts to serve a largely anti-immigration agenda. Councils and Councillors need to be far more responsive to residents’ needs and be much more open about the decision-making process. Local Councillors and the local media need to communicate more with residents - not just when an issue works to partisan advantage.
None of this will happen overnight - it may be that those of us in the mainstream parties (indeed all parties) need to re-define how we behave toward each other and the electorate first. Perhaps somewhere like this is a good place to start
95. Jack, and in terms of votes BNP gets (not the final standing)? do they perform better with many candidates from other parties or with just few of them?
89. Immigration has increased under Labour since 1997 for the simple reason that the economy was such a basket-case under the Tories (3 million unemployed, 15% interest rates etc.) that no-one sensible wanted to live here.
BY ELECTION RESULTS 20TH APRIL 2006
Bucks CC, Rymead, Tylers Green & Loudwater
Con 1277 (61.0 +13.6)
LD Trevor Snaith 596 (28.5 –2.1)
Lab 221 (10.5 –11.5)
Majority 681. Turnout 20.5. Con hold. Last fought 2005.
West Berks UA, Pangbourne
Con 725 (74.6 +0.4)
LD Steve Bown 151 (15.5 –0.4)
Lab 96 (9.9 0.0)
Majority 574. Turnout 45.1. Con hold. Last fought 2003.
Derbyshire Dales DC, Winster & South Darley
Con 316 (40.8 +20.1)
LD George Edwards 281 (36.2 –28.4)
Lab 178 (23.0 +8.3)
Majority 35. Con gain LD. Last fought 2003.
Arun DC, Rustington West
Con 769 (44.1 +1.8)
LD Andrew Lauretani 581 (33.4 +3.0)
UKIP 277 (15.9 –2.1)
Lab 115 (6.6 –2.7)
Majority 188. Turnout 26.75. Con hold. Last fought 2003.
Mendip DC, Frome Keyford
LD Alvin Horsfall 487 (63.2 +36.6)
Lab 128 (16.6 –3.1)
Con 104 (13.5 –4.0)
UKIP 51 (6.6 +6.6)
Ind [0.0 –22.3]
Green [0.0 –14.0]
Majority 359. Turnout 20.0. LD gain Ind. Last fought 2003.
South Derbyshire DC, Swadlincote
Lab 565 (61.3 +10.4)
Con 356 (38.7 +11.9)
Ind [0.0 –22.4]
Majority 209. Turnout 17.2. Lab hold. Last fought 2003.
West Wiltshire DC, Warminster East
LD 777 David Lovell (44.3 +23.6)
Con 736 (42.0 –14.6)
Ind 1 121 (6.9 –3.7)
Ind 2 120 (6.8 +6.8)
Green [0.0 –12.2]
Majority 41. Turnout 28.58. LD gain Con. Last fought 2003.
Wycombe DC, Tylers Green & Loudwater
Con 888 (65.8 +17.1)
LD Ian Forbes 387 (28.7 +7.1)
Lab 75 (5.6 –5.1)
Ind [0.0 –19.1]
Majority 501. Turnout 21.58. Con hold. Last fought 2003.
Even that isn’t enough - the perception that “they” (the immigrants and asylum-seekers) are getting a better deal than “us” needs to be challenged at every turn.”
It depends whose perspective you look at it from, as Frank Field points out today. Many people look at the welfare state as a giant social insurance scheme - ie you pay money in through rent, rates and taxes, and draw money out at various points in your life. In fact, most benefits (and housing) are allocated on the basis of need. And because refugees are generally poorer than the native population, and some immigrants have larger families, their needs are greater, and so they get more.
OT. Italian Update.
Today Corte of Cassazione (Court of Cassation in English? Boh!) officially allocated the seats at the House of Deputies (or Chamber of Deputies…I don’t know which is the best translation). Here’s the official result:
Ulivo 220 seats
Communist Refoundation 41 seats
Rosa nel Pugno (Rose in the Fist) 18 seats
Italian Communists 16 seats
Italy of Values (Di Pietro’s list) 16 seats
Greens 15 seats
Udeur 10 seats
SVP (the German speaking People’s Party in Alto Adige) 4 seats
Total Centre Left: 340
Forza Italia 137 seats
Nationa Alliance 71 seats
Christian-Democrats (UDC) 39 seats
Northern League 26 seats
New DC/New Psi 4 seats
Total Centre-right 277
Then 12 seats are allocated for Italian Abroads and 1 is the MP elected by Valle D’Aosta FPTP constituency (he’s centre-left)
101 - Andrea how does the Northern League result compare to last time? And do they actually want to form a new country (Padania?) or do they just want a better deal for the North of Italy?
102. Max, they polled 4.6% at the House of Deputies and 4.4% at the Senate. In 2001 they polled 3.9%, but at 2004 Euro Elections they polled 5%.
The consensus on the press is that they expected something more than that result.
In terms of political requests, I don’t think they ask for independence anymore. Whilst at the government, they produced a reform giving more power to regions.
Stodge says at 196 above ” This is, despite Iain’s efforts, a bit of a non-story. Brown made his view about the LDs abundantly clear in the Independent a couple of weeks ago. Whether or not we should or shouldn’t have taken his money - I don’t know. I don’t have the full facts so I can only reserve judgement. I gather the money was repaid and rightly so.”
Stodge, you have wonderful powers of self-delusion. Apolitical party accepts £2.4 million from a convicted fraudster, who is then re-arrested. A non-story? Don’t make me laugh. And you are wrong. The money has not been repaid. It was all spent during the election and the LibDems do not have the money to repay it even if they wanted to. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Stodge, imagine if this had been a Tory or Labour donor. We all know what your line would have been then!
98-What tosh. Talking about 1990 when the Tories were kicked out in 1997 is as relevant as talking about Labour’s 20%+ inflation rate in the 1970s. What were the figures for unemployment and interest rates in May 1997?
97 Andrea. I think that’s much more difficult to assess, as the contest is both one and the same and yet different !!
You’d have to examine similar/same wards at roughly the same time in other similiar contexts. Not easy !! …. and then add in all the usual caveats for local contests.
In Burnley the mainstream parties struggled initially as they blamed each other for the BNP emergence. However cooler heads prevailed and a formal and informal approach of standing down candidiates to give the better placed a better run at the BNP worked to a degree. Additionally where elected the BNP were given enough rope to hang themselves. They didn’t need much and showed what a fourth rate shower of lame bast*rds they are.
……………………………………
On the wider issue of fringe party emergence this BNP blip is only the latest of an occasional series of electoral fear spikes that takes place from time to time :
National Front : Blacks and Jews eat your babies …. ritually.
UKIP : European straight bananas usurp Westminster parliament.
Greens : World floods tomorrow or next century perhaps.
BNP : Blacks and Jews eat your babies …. ritually … Again.
And as usual the good sense of the British voter will prevail.
89
You are way off beam.
As Nick Palmer has shown your claims on the number of immigrants is totally wrong. It is this sort of misinformation that helps the BNP. In any case it has been shown that this country ( and therefore all of us ) benefits economically from immigration, those who make the difficult decision to leave their place of birth often suffering considerable hardships and discrimination in the process are those most motivated to suceed. Immigrants from whatever background have made and continue to make a vital contribution to this country.
As to the prosecution of Nick Griffin I was uncomfortable with the prosecution on free speech grounds however I do see that what he said would be deeply offensive to many. As an aetheist I have a pretty low opinion of all religions. However his comment that Islam was a seriously deficient religion is patently absurd it was designed to be offensive to millions of britons and to appeal to the prejudices of the uninformed. As even the most cursory study of religion will reveal Judaism, Christanity and Islam stem the same traditions and geographic area and there is much common ground between the three Abrabhamic religions. To suggest one is deficient implies the others are too.
The BNP can be challenged and defeated by exposing their lies. The recent example of the mother who beat them in a byelection after they had twisted her family’s misfortune for their own ends in a good one. Many other contibutors to this site will have also done this by knocking on doors and talking to voters. The mendacity is the BNP’s.
105 - well as Nick P pointed out, 326,000 people came here in 1997, so “Meritocrat’s” argument is pretty ludicrous.
In fact, throughout most of the Tory years, the economy grew quite rapidly.
Re: 100 - Sean, I don’t disagree but we come back to perception again. Instances reported in papers like the Express and the Mail which show families of asylum-seekers getting flats, televisions etc are often exaggerated but they are used as ammunition by those who adopt a more anti-immigrant line.
If we take the opposite view and deny all welfare to all immigrants or asylum-seekers or their families, does this show us to be a more civilised people or is it that we think we are viewed as some form of “soft touch” ?
102. Max, in terms of seats in 2001 they got 30 MPs at the House of Deputies (but they finished the term with just 26) and 17 MPs at the Senate
106. Jack, uhm, hurry up and produce a research paper soon!
Then, uhm, that type of attack to fringe parties is unfair IMO, because major parties do it too (”the tories will destroy the country. Stop them!” is not better than “World floods tomorrow or next century perhaps”)
Jack W, as I pointed out in one of my articles, the proportion voting for the fringe parties is steadily climbing.
109 - Well it’s a difficult one isn’t it? Up to a point, that’s what Frank Field seems to be advocating, when he proposes that one should have had to contribute in terms of tax and national insurance for a fixed period, before being entitled to receive welfare benefits.
Re: 104 - I’ll re-iterate, Iain, I don’t have the facts in front of me. On balance, I’m prepared to accept we shouldn’t have taken Mr Brown’s money. However, we did and it seems both my Party, your Party and Mr Blair’s Party are all guilty in some form or other of bending or breaking the rules in some form or other. I’ve never sought to make political capital for my party out of this story from which I think no one emerges with any great credit.
That doesn’t of course mean I support State funding of political parties - what I am in favour of is a severe restriction on what CAN be spent. A very low national spending limit to include mailshots, call centres and the like is my view of a level playing field. After all, we wouldn’t want to live in a society where democracy can be “bought” by anyone with a large enough wallet, do we ?
104 Iain Dale. We await with anticipation some further exclusive on Asil Nadir ……… No …. such a shame !!
110 Andrea. It’s the context and rationallity of the attack that’s different :
Absolute fruitcakes, sometimes poisonous against normal fruitcakes !!
Northern Scot reported the Liberal Democrats to the Electoral Commission over a party leaflet for next week’s Moray by-election.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/north_east/4930672.stm
114. uhm, Jack, it’s just because you havent’ read Glenda’ election start speech
(btw, IIRC that speech even contained a reference to a GE fought in 2002….)
Re: 104.
I agree with Iain.
The Lib Dem’s top donor gets extradited for fraud. But they claim it is not a story becuase they’ve fallen out with him.
Come off it.
[113] Stodge wrote After all, we wouldn’t want to live in a society where democracy can be “bought” by anyone with a large enough wallet, do we ?
Actuually, I sometimes wish I had a large enough wallet to ask that nice Mr Shakespeare (or one of his rivals) whether we would or we wouldn’t… I’m not sure that the answer would be terribly encouraging..
Have Stanley Kalms or Stuart Wheeler ever exercised any Conservative policy over Europe? I am sure they have!
Looks like the Lib Dems have a problem with donations now. Michael Brown has been arrested on fraud charges http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4931660.stm
Nick Palmer The migration Watch site has a clearer presentation of the same National Statistics figures (as you say) and they say:
Since 1997, net international inward migration has more than trebled from 47,000 to 153,000 in 2002. Illegal immigrants are additional to this total. 50,000 were detected in the year 2002 so a similar number undetected would be a low estimate. Adding this brings the total to 203,000 a year or more than 2 million every decade [1].
And this is not, of itself, the problem. Non UK citizen immigration into the UK is running at well over half a million a year and has more than doubled since 1997 if illegals are included. This means that we are importing up to half a million people with languages and cultures different (and sometimes very different) from the current prevailing one in the UK.
That scares people particularly because those at the lower end of the employment pyramid, well away from the quarter a million a year GPs and hair stylists, often find those immigrants creating social and economic pressure, schools, jobs, hospitals and housing and a fear that their lives will be changed in ways they do not welcome. Multiculturalism and ‘the fight against racism’ don’t touch the parts that need to be reached.
What is being created in patches seems to be a classic breeding ground for extremism. At the moment the main effect seems to be an alienation from the political process and a tendency to curse all parties. But that seems to be changing. Worryingly the move from Labour to the BNP that seems to be developing does seem to reflect, in modern form, many of the social and economic circumstances that drove the growth of the Black Shirts in London in the 30’s.
115 - The link doesn’t work, try this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/4930672.stm
IMO this by-election has decended into farce.
Stodge, I agree with you to the extent that no Party emerges with any credit from the funding sagas. But I think we all get heartily sick of the self righteous nonsense that comes out of the mouths of LibDems, pretending that they’re above all of this. It didn’t take Einstein to work out that Michael Brown was more than a bit dodgy. Do you accept that the LibDems have not paid back the money?
And as to the point about Asil Nadir, it’s an entirely fair one. But as I recall, the Tories paid the money back (I may be wrong - perhaps someone knows better than me). That didn’t make it right.
I am afraid that the whole donor system has reached a point where no one in their right minds will ever want to donate money to a political party again - and who could blame them? Philosophically I am totally opposed to state funding, but I am afraid it is probably now inevitable. And the Parties have only themselves to blame. The challenge will be to come up with a system that is fair. And to return to the subject of this thread, how will a threshold be set so the BNP do not benefit from it? Because you can bet your bottom dollar that this will be a priority for anyone who is drafting the legislation. Does anyone know if the NPD in Germany receives any State funding?
Sorry. Didn’t see the reference way back at 83.
117 - But there’s no suggestion anyone in the Lib Dems ought to have known the bloke had committed any criminal offence (and indeed until any trial for all any of us know he hasn’t). Surely nobody suggests that parties should carry out the equivalent of a full police investigation into all the business dealings over any prospective donor?
The fact is that all parties have within them people who have committed criminal offences - they are a microcosm of society in that respect and hardly a day goes by without a “councillor convicted of…” story in the local press. It is only a story when there is a real suggestion of some sort of cover-up by the party organisation (as there was with Archer - the point is that everyone knew what Jeffrey was like but they still had him run for mayor).
122. It works to me!
At least Labour campaign is still immaculate…I wonder if they’ve started it!
Would anyone consider it remiss of a political party not to check if one their candidates was on the sex offender’s register for example - if that is possible.
123 Iain Dale. Not one penny piece has been repaid by the Conservatives.
Parties critisizing each other over funding is like alcoholics fighting over an empty wine cellar - pointless and with loads of empties to stack up !
“And to return to the subject of this thread, how will a threshold be set so the BNP do not benefit from it?”
I loathe the idea of State funding. But if it is introduced, I can see no justification for withholding it from the BNP.
A good argument against it Sean.
122. totally agree with you, I wonder what the voters in Moray are making of it all?
121. Hear hear. It seems to me that one of the big problems for politics at the moment is the perception amongst the ruling elite that the average person faces fewer economic problems than ever before. To take housing in particular, the two major groups of people competing for scare resources are young people trying to build lives for themselves, and new immigrants to the country who obviously need to live. The immigrants are by no means all competing at the bottom end of the market with many of them able to pay exorbitant rents at the top end. The end result, combined with the buy-to-let boom (encouraged by Brown’s pension policies), is that a generation of British young adults is having to face a standard of living well below that of their parents at the same stage in their lives.
I think the feeling that politicians from all major parties are insulated from this dislocation is a big cause of disillusionment.
121. Hear hear. It seems to me that one of the big problems for politics at the moment is the perception amongst the ruling elite that the average person faces fewer economic problems than ever before. To take housing in particular, the two major groups of people competing for scare resources are young people trying to build lives for themselves, and new immigrants to the country who obviously need to live. The immigrants are by no means all competing at the bottom end of the market with many of them able to pay exorbitant rents at the top end. The end result, combined with the buy-to-let boom (encouraged by Brown’s pension policies), is that a generation of British young adults is having to face a standard of living well below that of their parents at the same stage in their lives.
I think the feeling that politicians from all major parties are insulated from this dislocation is a big cause of disillusionment.
123: - The NPD does recieve state funding.
Who will give Michael Brown a watch enscribed “Don’t let the b*ggers get you down”?
131- A low turnout wiating for them? The “none of them” option wining here?
Iain Dale… though this is not in any way good news the latest scandals have come about because of the belief that political donors are getting something for their cash.
This doesn’t really affect the LibDems since we obviously haven’t got anything to give… I’ve a funny feeling Michael Brown won’t make it onto the LD possible peers list. No-one in their wildest fantasies has yet suggested he gave us for the money for anything other than purely philanthropic reasons.
123 - Iain, wasn’t the Brown donation declared by the LDs? Surely that makes it different from loans taken by Labour and the Tories to avoid declaring gifts? (And which are then followed by offers of peerages.)
Re: 223 - Surprisingly, Iain, I agree with you. The LDs have no right to play “holier than thou” though as James fairly points out, it may be that each party contains elements with worse criminal records than “No Way No Way” by Vanilla (remember them ? :)).
As to whether I “accept” that the money has not been paid back, I recall reading somewhere it had. You tell me it hasn’t. I’m still not sure
Of course Nick Palmer ignores illegal immigration.
And the PM has admitted he has no idea how many illegal immigrants are in Britain.
These are people who don’t officially exist. So if they drive a car, they are likely to be driving illegally. There are a million illegal, untaxed or ininsured vehicals and unlicenced drivers. And a massive surge in hit and run incidents. This is just one problem of illegal immigration, that could affect any one of us. And what has Mr Palmer done about it apart from using spin to hide behind the problem?
Re Moray and 22.
Blimey, the Lib Dem candidate has her picture on the front page and if you believe the old adage the only bad publicity is no publicity, she might even gain overall. Now her name becomes more prominent, this will be fascinating to see whether it works for or against her.
The party does not seem to be making great claims at the moment, presumably someone will tell us on Monday or Tuesday what is happening.
134. Andrea this byelection has always been the SNP’s to lose and it will be interesting to see how much of a personal vote there was for Margaret Ewing. I really would not like to predict who will win or come secound or third.
121. B2Win. The stick Nick has been getting on this site must be clouding his judgement. The link he himself posted to the ONS stats on immigration showed that SeanT’s comment was actually accurate - net immigration did triple between 1997 and 2004 (see my post at 94.). These stats of course only include the ‘official’ immigration and asylum numbers - the volume of illegal immigration has probably risen too.
The general NuLab pattern on this one seems to be a) to deny immigration has risen b) after being shown it has, to claim it is economically beneficial and c) after being shown this is a dubious proposition, smear anyone who voices concern about immigration as a racist.
135 Jon you said the belief that political donors are getting something for their cash.
This doesn’t really affect the LibDems since we obviously haven’t got anything to give…
The Scottish administration is a LibDem coalition is it not, and all those councils with contracts to give out? All that power and patronage from ‘Winning here’.
Many people I speak to (in Labour stronghold Easington) wouls be prepared to vote for either Respect, BNP or LD. ‘New Labour’ Tory and Labour are an off put to most young people. The BNP embrace ‘Old Labour’ socialism and ‘Little Englander’ nationalism, they can only get stronger and stronger and their support base froms from Labour, Tory and Lib Dem voters!!!
I love Nick Palmer’s charge that it is talking about immigration, rather than chronic lack of doing something about it, which fuels the BNP …
139. David(s), well Mary Scanlon got more bad publicity recently and if bad publicity is always publicity rule always works, she should already be neck to neck!
Anyway, I agree that on Monday we could have a better picture. If Lord Rennard decides to stay there after his weekend visit, I think it’s because they think they could make it.
140. Chris D, last time Ewing stood down (from Westminster), SNP lost 11%. If their % falls of 11% this time too, well, they could risk a lot (depending who will get it).
maybe we could find a consensus that Labour will come 4th, right?
138, Yes that wonderful argument ‘the government don’t know how many illegal immigrants there are’. You should have an award for stating the bleeding obvious. Of course if they’re not here legally they won’t be getting benifits or housing or any of the other things that people think immigrants get.
‘There are a million illegal, untaxed or ininsured vehicals and unlicenced drivers’
Who says? So not only are there loads of illegal immigrants they’re all also rich enough to drive? And before you say it I doubt that there’s a million people all living comfortably off the proceeds of crime.
Was the Labour Party held responsible for Lord Kagan’s business dealings? Or the Conservative Party for Tiny Rowlands?
Andrea. I must say I will be very surprised if the LDs win Moray. I suspect Lord Rennard’s hoping to knock the Tories into a poorish third place in order to dent DC’s momentum. He may be more successful in that objective. That would be very bad news for the Tories north of the border in an area where we should be challenging the SNP, not falling back. I hope DC draws the conclusion that the Conservative Party in Scotland needs to be independent from London if it’s to be credible as a patriotic Scottish Party. The problem is finding a charismatic Scottish Tory leader. Any suggestions? Don’t all answer at once….
Incidentally Andrea I hope you take no offence but it’s ‘neck and neck’… feel free to correct my non existent italian any time.
“Incidentally Andrea I hope you take no offence but it’s ‘neck and neck’”
ops! Thanks.
Re 90 I believe I read the story of Brown withdrawing his financial support for the Lib Dems over the course of six months at at least three different occassions in the Indy.
145. Andrea I would not even predict Labour coming 4th because they don’t seem to have been dragged into the “dirty tricks” row.
Re: Moray. I wonder if the Lib Dems would have the chutzpah to take on the local paper? It seems to me that all parties pay far too much attention to the views of these so-called “opinion formers”, whereas if they had the nerve to tell them to get lost they might get some additional support. Anyone who stood for election in my home town on a policy of hostility and/or contempt for the local rag would certainly have me considering voting for them.
148. I think one of the problems is that the better Scottish Tories have moved south of the border e.g. Rifkind and Ancram.
At the 2005 general election 3 Scottish Conservative MSPs stood for Westminster. Only one was successful. This all projects a message that the Tories aren’t serious about Scotland.
What they really need is a leader grown-up enough to state that the Tories would serve as junior partners in a coalition, for the good of Scotland.
151. Chris D, maybe NHSFirst (is it labelled in that way the 5th candidate, right?) will win and we’ll all look a bit foolish!
Anyway, I agree with you that this byelecion is difficult to read.
Btw, Labour performed well in the last Scottish parliament byelection (Cathcart): better than in the Westminster byelection held in the same day in Westminster.
150 - Yes, I remember some Tories gloating in pb.com because the Lib Dems had lost their biggest donor. Now, when he got in trouble, he is suddenly a Lib Dem donor again for those same Tories. How logical…
“At the 2005 general election 3 Scottish Conservative MSPs stood for Westminster. Only one was successful. This all projects a message that the Tories aren’t serious about Scotland.”
You are correct Alan, back in 1997 the tories were wiped out in Scotland and even though there is a slow revival happening in some areas at local council level there is still a perception that the tories aren’t able to mount a serious challenge to gain seats at Holyrood never mind win a Westminster seat. One complaint I heard from people at the last election was that they wanted to vote tory but felt it would be a “wasted” vote.
Next year the Scots will have the benefit of voting for their Councillors using PR. Surely this will end the term “wasted vote”.
fred at 94/141: ah, you reckon when SeanT at 89 said
“Labour TRIPLED immigration when it came to power in 1997″
he didn’t mean that anything happened immediately in 1997 or that immigration had tripled, but rather something like this:
“Immigration has risen by 80% during the period 1997-2004, while emigration has risen more slowly, so if you calculate the difference and deduct British nationals it has tripled”?
chuckle - have you considered a career as a spin doctor?
Moreover, sean attributes the surge in BNP support to this ‘tripling’, so apparently BNP voters are actually not bothered by immigration but by the fact that people aren’t emigrating fast enough to keep pace? Do try to be vaguely plausible, guys.
BTW, I’m debating environmental issues on BBC E Midlands on Sunday (Politics Show) at 1355ish - they’ll have a clip of Cameron dog-sledding and asking me what I think of Tory environmentalism. (Don’t worry, there’s a Tory on too.)
Jack W, you’re right. I just checked and the Asil Nadir money was not repaid. In mitigation, I did say I wasn’t sure! Stodge, I do know, however, that the Michael Brown money hasn’t been repaid. On my Blog I explain why the decision might be taken out of the LibDems’ hands.
Moray
There was a hustings programme on Grampian TV last night albiet very late - I am afraid the candidate that failed to look like a candidate on the programme was Mrs Gorn of the Lib Dems - I actually felt sorry for her, she looked out of her depth. She was tongue tied quite a few times and a bit incompetent. I say that without any axe to grind. The saving grace for her would be that not many would have watched it.
Oh Nick. Really. Given your talent for evasion, spin and egregious waffle, have you considered a career as a New Labour MP?
Ah.
When I said that immigration tripled I kind of meant the usual. That is has tripled. i.e. gone up three times. Gone up by 300%. You know. Tripled. TRIPLED. Take one figure for one year and multiply it by three. You know. TRIPLED.
Jeez Louise. You are an odd person. Just confess that you got this statistic wrong…. really. Stop digging! And stop spinning. If you can. That last wildly duplicitous post you made has to be one of the strangest and most embarrassing ever to appear on pb.com. Which is saying something, as I’ve written a few nutty ones myself.
Labour tripled immigration on a yearly basis. Fact. They didn’t consult the people on this. Fact. They didn’t announce their intention in a manifesto. Fact.
As it happens I rather agree with immigration, but I also believe that a responsible party should announce such a huge change in something as important as immigration policy. Probably Labour didn’t announce it as they thought the people would not want it - but then that fits with Labour’s low opinion of ordinary Brits.
161-Nick Palmer
With 4 million economically inactive people currently in the UK,I would have thought that any immigration would be limited to very specific skill shortages which of course has not been the case.
I believe to some extent there is a seperate agenda,as for example allowing mass immigration from the new East European countries (Blunkett’s annual estimates 9/15,000 versus actual 250/300,000),is a great way of driving down wage levels in both the skilled and unskilled parts of the workforce.
162 Iain D. No mitigation required old chap. My main point is that it ill behoves any political party or their cheerleaders to claim the high ground on party funding ….. glass houses and all that.
I don’t want to get at Nick yet again - honestly! - but can I just underline how irresponsible it is for him, and his party, to spin this drivel about immigration: they are actually denying plain facts.
Look at those stats he links to. Non British immigration has actually more than tripled while Labour has been in power. Look at that graph for net migration - flatlining until 97, then suddenly it starts shooting up, and even accelerates. Now it is at record levels - again as Nick’s own link proves.
As I say, I think it is deeply, deeply irresponsible for Labour to deny this. It is precisely this kind of lying that makes people distrust the elite on migration, and turn to nasty parties like the BNP. Why didn’t they announce their plans on migration? Why did they do it in this apparently clandestine way? Why, moreover, are they still continuing to deny the obvious?
It really is weird. Maybe they do think the voters are basically racist, and wouldn’t stand for it, if told. Is that it? Someone enlighten me.
161. A strange mix of pedantry, tetchiness, and evasion in that response.
Net immigration is not some dodgy concept I have thought up. It is calculated by the ONS, referred to by the ONS in its commentary (the first line of the report you kindly provided us with, if you missed it), and is the figure usually used in these discussions - especially if we are concerned about the pressure immigration might place e.g. on housing or social services.
Looking at this measure, we find net immigration of non-British citizens is three times the level in 2004 that it was in 1997. If we add British citizens in, it was five times as high.
So sorry, you got it wrong. It happens to the best of us. As for spinning, you are the one who does that for a living, not me.
Can we lower the volume please?
These are very serious issues but can we discuss them in a quieter manner? We have maintained for more than two years our policy completely open access posting. There’s no need to register, and mostly you just click and the comment is published and, in thre main, PBC conrinues to be a place for civilised discussion.
I want it to stay that way. But if the volume gets too high I can put delaying controls in. I don’t like doing so - but can we all work together to maintain the ethos of the site?
Many thanks.
Mike Smithson
have people seen the lib dem main backer has been done for fruad - roll on state funding!!
141 - Of course the PM doesn’t now how many illegal immigrants there are in this country just as the US President doesn’t know how many there are in the US. In actual fact these people are the most vulnerable in our society, exploited by unscrupulous bosses the cocklepickers being a prime example of this. The fact that these people often risk everything to get here shows how desperate they are, and who can blame them for wanting to improve their lives? They don’t come here to sponge off the state but you’ll never hear about that in the tabloids. The only way this problem will ever be resolved is when the massive differential in wealth between richest and poorest in the world is narrowed dramatically.
144 - Just on the immigration debate it’s really disappointing the government doesn’t make a positive case for immigration because there is a positive case to be made - immigrants are economically beneficial. Also, I’m sure people desperate to find an NHS dentist won’t care if that dentist happens to be from Poland ditto a plumber.
163. Edmund I didn’t see the programme, did they concentrate on local issues or the various accusations being thrown about election tactics?
Kieran - very well said
92-Nick Palmer
Having flicked through the attachment with your post,there does not appear to be any mention of illegal immigrants / asylum seekers that are currently in the UK which have been estimated at up to 1 million.
Therefore any net figures are completely meaningless.
148 Andrea, sorry not get back earlier. I have always thought that the SNP would win “comfortably”, with the two lassies competing for second place, suspecting that Gorn would be successful there, because of the apparent intense Lib Dem leafleting campaign and the police investigation issue. Difficult for Labour to avoid fourth but who knows.
The Lib Dems have problems at by elections too, despite their ability to do well in them, remember the Hartlepool candidates blog fiasco and now this current apparent ommission.
Monday should tell where we are, I’m sticking to SNP up to 15% ahead with Gorn second.
172 It was a mixture of both - the presenter Crowe really went to town on ‘dirty tricks’. Mary Scanlon was on the defensive too - the best candidate of the bunch was the SNP man Richard Lochhead. Not many would have watched but you never know.
170-red flag
If we must have some public funding of political parties ,then for once in a lifetime let’s have an example from MP’s and have it at no additional cost to the already overburdened taxpayer.
i.e Let them work out how much they need each year with the basic cost being covered by a corresponding cut in the number of MP’s and any additional funds required paid by individual donations capped at £ 5,000.
We are already over representation with MP’s,SMP’s,Assembly members and numerous layers of councillors and assorted bureacrats and bag carriers.
Otherwise the obscene hairdressing bill (that apparently the Labour party has had to pick up) that was highlighted to-day will no doubt become the norm.
Edmund, is there a similar event on the BBC, I can receive that.
Just a couple of points on the immigration debate. Firstly, as far as people feeling vulnerable to immigration goes it is the gross figure, not the net one that is important. Politics is primarily about perception and if people believe there are large numbers of immigrants coming in - whether or not this is offset by emigration - at a time when they are not confident about keeping their jobs/pension etc. then this will cause problems and needs managing.
Secondly, perhaps even more important is whether those coming in are able to and willing to integrate if they are here for the long term. Ethnic tension is highest if one of these conditions is not met (even more than if both are not).
Perhaps we’re all missing the point. Race and immigration is at the core of the BNP’s message, and it’s plainly the only issue that matters to most of that party’s activists. But (and I have experienced this while canvassing) I think huge numbers of people believe that we have a political establishment (in its widest sense) that is mad. And many of these people think that the only way of making their views known is to vote for a party like the BNP. I think that it would it would take much more than Mrs. Thatcher’s “swamping” speech to rally support to a mainstream party now.
178 - No I don’t think so - Grampian TV only as it the local ITV contractor. On the Grampian TV website is only a transcript of the introduction of the debate - not the actual meat of the programme.
http://www.politicsnow.tv/content/mediaassets/doc/20Aprl06.pdf
164: sean, I’ve shown you the figures, which are an 80% increase over 7 years. You say this is a tripling in the single year 1997 and that I’m being duplicitous, etc. Nobody else is saying this - fred is saying you didn’t mean immigration, you met immigration minus emigration minus British nationals, john is speculating on the number of illegal immigrants. I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, old chap. Perhaps we should just leave it there in mutual bafflement.
john is of course right that official figures don’t count people who are not known to the authorities. It’s hard to get around this, in the same way as we have no reliable count of the number of burglars. We argue that ID cards will help, but others are sceptical - see zillions of previous threads on that!
Edmund, many thanks, much appreciated
181. thanks Edmund.
The reason why Labour voters turn to the BNF? - because a woman who earns £250k per year puts in a bill for her hairdressing as an electoral expense. Your average working class Labour voters has as much in common with the Blairs as a Martian.
175. david(s), I think it’s really a difficult byelection to read without being there. Many things happened could be read by voters in different ways.
96 - “Under FPTP the BNP tend to do better the larger number of mainstream candidates stand as they split the vote and allow the fascists to emerge through the middle.”
Not sure that’s true if you look at the wards the BNP win. There breakthrough wards in Burnley in 2002 were in seats the Lib Dems didn’t contest. The won Illingworth (Halifax) and two seats in Sandwell in wards not contested by the Lib Dems.
Net immigration is not the real issue. Non-British immigration running at around half a million a year certainly is. Its that vast integration task that has been shirked and the failure to understand and react appropriately causes the political pressures that manifest themselves in social unrest, disaffection and support for extremist parties.
So Nick Palmer’s interpretation of the figures, baffling as it is, and the subsequent debate, all misses the real point.
88 - I’m unrepresentative here - but for me, net immigration IS the real issue. England (when looked at as a discrete unit) is - bar Bangladesh, South Korea, and tiny city-states like Singapore - the most densely populated country in the world. Now, I love my country, and feel very fortunate to live here rather than anywhere else in the world, not only for the relative comfort Brtish citizenship affords me but also because I genuinely like the place. And I don’t want to see my favourite countryside gradually concreted over.
I accept that there may be an economic case for immigration - but even if this is the case, I am willing to pay an economic price for zero population growth. We simply don’t have room for ever-increasing numbers of people.
The people who I have most often heard the counter-argument from live in central London. These people are quite comfortable with increased population densities. But adding extra population to England is like pouring sand into a box - you may try to pour all your sand into where density is already highest, but ultimately it will spread out. The English don’t want to live in high densities, and if you increase the densities in one area they will spread out and concrete over an area that’s currently green.
Sorry - these opinions are verging on the unfashionable. But (broadly) I don’t care which 50 million people I share England with, I just don’t want it to increase beyond that. There isn’t room.
Didn’t Nick once profess to be an admirer of Switzerland. Perhaps he should suggest to “Tony” to copy their immigration policies? A very specific Gastarbeiter programme…
Labelling anyone who expresses concerns about immigration as racist is rubbish and hides away from the issue. To the point where it is necessary to have a black man complaining about immigration so as not be called racist…The reaction will come and will be more unpleasant for it.
As for Eastern European immigrants, there is a big difference, we have yet to see a Polish suicide bomber (or indeed putative suicide bomber). Alas, Somalis cannot claim the same…
The problem is though Cookie that England is not a discrete unit - it is an integral part of the United Kingdom and therefore it is only the population density of the U.K. that is relevant.
Slightly O/T but I had a quick look through population density figures and had to laugh at the most densely populated place on earth, Macau (to where there is a small chance I may be moving!) which has a population density of 20,000+ people per km2!
Quick thought on Michael Brown:
BBC says “Mr Brown is accused of a number of offences relating to fraud, forgery, and obtaining by deception.”
Maybe he was a keen reader of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors’ booklet “Effective Opposition” ?
92. Nice one!!! Great to wake up and be able to smile straightaway.
189 - I disagree. Only about 11% of the UK is urban, even if that went up to 20% we’d still be left with 80% countryside. There’s plenty of room left. Plus, with a falling birthrate we will need immigration in the long run to stop a falling population.
I’m with Keiran on this one. The fact of the matter is that many people are clearly prepared to pay a very high premium, in the form of housing costs, in return for all the advantages of living in a densely populated area, despite the clear disadvantages. There’s nothing to stop people who consider London too densely populated from selling up and moving to another part of the country. They might, of course, find there aren’t so many jobs there and those that do exist aren’t so well paid, and that access to various amenities isn’t so readily available, which might then give them reason to consider why they wanted to be in London in the first place.