Local Election Results

[ChillDoubt]

..are just starting to come in with Labour holding South Shields, UKIP second. Media suggest Dodgy Dave is in for a spanking and oh dear, the voting caption on Sky News a moment ago showed that the BNP got twice as many votes as the Lib Dems.

UKIP are widely predicted to make huge inroads, with suggestions that they are no longer the recipients of 'protest votes'.

[ChillDoubt]

Well ladies and gents, all the results are now pretty much in (awaiting 2 as I type) and as they say in football parlance, the table doesn't lie.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21240025

So much for UKIP being the 'protest vote' party. If that's the case the voters in England are protesting at the way Dodgy Dave and Naughty Nick are overseeing matters and the Tories in particular must wake up and smell what they've been shovelling in the last few days prior to this extraordinary result.

[mikey4444]

ChillDoubt...just 7.1 % of all the people who could vote on Thursday, voted for UKIP. In other words, 92.9 % didn't care enough about UKIPs single issue politics to vote for them. You are quite right...the tables don't lie !

[ChillDoubt]

That's right mikey, spin it whichever way you like.
The 3 supposed main parties can only dream of having the sort of night UKIP had.
You're beginning to sound like Ken Clarke. Ignore UKIP and the electorate at your peril.

[jim360]

In any case that's a dodgy extrapolation to the electorate as a whole. While 93% of people may not have voted UKIP, that figure is being skewed by all those people who did not vote at all. One could equally well say that well over 95% of people didn't bother to vote LibDem, or of order 90% not caring enough about the Conservatives to vote.

Come the election in 2015, it's entirely possible that the UKIP vote could be just as substantial, and even lead to seats. The massive gains UKIP made this week were from almost a standing start, after all.

The next two years gives UKIP a chance to show that it can be a party just as serious as any other -- or perhaps, crumble under scrutiny. Time only will tell, but certainly you would be foolhardy to write UKIP off.

[mikey4444]

Chilli...UKIP are NOT going to win the next General Election, I will guarantee it. I have been accused of many things in the past but I never thought I would agree with Ken Clark....God help me, what have I done to deserve that ?

[ChillDoubt]

I have been accused of many things in the past but I never thought I would agree with Ken Clark....God help me, what have I done to deserve that ?
-------------------------------------------
By adopting the same stance he did some 24 hours before the elections.

Who's looking the clown now though?