Will the big tactical move be from UKIP backers?

All the talk about tactical voting seems to be about the Lib Dems with polling evidence starting to suggest that they split at least 3-2 in favour of a victory for Brown’s Labour.

But are we wrong to confine our thinking about tactical voting to just Nick Clegg’s party. Is the biggest source of potential movers from “others” – notably GREEN/BNP/UKIP which between them have been getting in excess of 10 point in recent polls?

Just before the June 2009 elections for the European parliament YouGov put its forced choice question to a sample of 7,500 supporters of the three smaller parties. Brown’s Labour was ahead amongst the Greens but surprisingly only by 6 percent. With the other two the split was overwhelmingly for Cameron’s Conservatives with 70 percent of the UKIP segment going for that option compared with just 12 percent the other way.

The essence of the Blue proposition in the marginals is that they are the ones to stop Brown and by polling day I just wonder whether we’ll see something of a tactical switch. Current UKIP supporters are probably Cameron’s biggest hope for an overall majority.

Will their dislike of Gordon exceed their hostility to Cameron over the Lisbon referendum pledge? Lucky for Dave that he faces a Labour leader with a negative rating of 61%.

Next week’s PB get-together: If you are planning to come to Dirty Dicks, opposite Liverpool Street station in London could you drop Fat Steve an email here. The previous link I put up was wrong. The event takes place on Wednesday March 31st starting at 6.30pm.

Mike Smithson