Ist UKIP MP

Good posts from Elothan and popaoscar, well said. The only thing I'd add to popaoscar's post, is that I don't need to watch Who Do You Think You Are to learn about the deprivations of my ancestors. My paternal family moved gradually north as agricultural work came to an end. When they were on the south coast in the mid 1850's onwards, the family history records many of their children spending short periods in the workhouse. My grandfather learned from his, that this stays coincided with the fear the children would starve, as their parents were in a period of unemployment. I visited the mill my grannie worked in when I was 12, and doing "the slave trade and cotton history" at school. I'll never forget the noise, the cotton in the air, and the friendliness of gran's workmates. My grandfather told me he and gran had to ask for Poor Relief when the mills were shut, and my dad an infant. They were told to chop up the sideboard, or sell it, then they may be eligible. These were proud, hard working people. The sideboard was the only remaining piece of furniture, and my gran's pride and joy. They seem to have survived at this time, because grandpa and his relatives had a good allotment, and hens. Tough times indeed. It's all relative, and there are people suffering the same kind of deprivations now. Ukip won't help those people. I'm with those who said those of us with Liberal or Labour leanings need to re-build our parties, from within. It's the 60's all over again

Eloethan

You asked me a personal question , so I will reply.

It has to me been evident that the Tory Party has been the Party spoken of as 'being the loser' to the UKIP vote. I stand by that.

Until the poor Labour voter number was returned in Heywood this was most certainly the case.

I am generalising the debate to include the media, I am not relating solely to this thread, or even Gransnet therefore I accept that nobody 'on this particular thread' has implied it is the Tory Party who will loose votes to UKIP.

I hope that clears my thoughts up for you.

I'm not sure why your points made to me in person concerning UKIP policies or their view on the NHS was not a general comment and I shall assume you meant it as a comment to other posters not meant for my attention only.

Very well put, Eleothan, you only have to watch 'Who Do You Think You Are' to be reminded about the dreadful work and social conditions endured by many ordinary people until relatively recent times under Conservative and neo-Conservative regimes. Just about all the improvements that we enjoy today had to be fought for tooth and nail by our forbears against staunch resistance from the rich and powerful. Much of what I have seen of the Tory party in my life echoes the greed and callousness of those times, and I have a feeling that UKIP mirrors many of those bad traits. It is a shame but understandable that the Labour Party was obliged to water-down many of its principles to become electable, and they may have gone a bridge too far. But at the end of the day the only ones to look after the best interests of the people are the people themselves, and that certainly is not the nasty bunch in charge of UKIP. So perhaps its time to rebuild the Labour Party and the Liberals from the ground up and not sacrifice any more of our achievements on the altar of media-induced fear, greed and divisiveness.

Hollydaze I don't understand what you mean by "breaking the mold". In what way is UKIP breaking the mold? As far as I can see, it is at heart a very right wing and regressive extension of the Conservative Party. A clue to what the Conservative Party stands for is in the name: to maintain the status quo. Most social reform was pioneered the Labour Party - reforms to the Poor Law, improvement of workers' pay and working conditions, control of rents, price controls, housing regulations, old age pension, the NHS, slum clearance, de-criminalisation of homosexuality and reforms to abortion and divorce laws, abolition of capital punishment, introduction of race relations law and the minimum wage, etc. etc. Many of these initiatives, including the Race Relations Act and the minimum wage, were originally opposed by the Tories.

I suppose you could say that "New Labour" broke the mold in that it tried to distance itself from the left/right argument and to form more partnerships with business - hence the PFI deals that were opposed by "Old Labour", and which have since proved to be a disaster, and the "light touch" regulation of the financial industry, which again proved to be a disaster (but which the Conservatives criticised for being not light touch enough!).

POGS I'm not sure anyone has suggested UKIP is just a problem for the Conservative Party. UKIP has included some initiatives that may well appeal to Labour or "floating" voters - but, as I've said - their key policies relate to leaving the EU, restricting immigration and reduction in taxation - with the inevitable shrinking of the state. Those who vote for UKIP on the basis of other policies, may find that - in the event UKIP forms part of a formal or informal coalition with the Conservative Party - they will be dropped. It is interesting that on their website they state "UKIP opposes the sale of the NHS to third parties". This is, I think, an ambiguous statement since it merely states its opposition but makes no assurances to halt the contracting out of certain areas of NHS provision to private service providers or to return to NHS control the substantial parts which have already been contracted out. In fact Nigel Farage is on record as saying that corporations should be allowed to run the NHS and, in an interview with the Telegraph, said that it was "ridiculous" to protect the NHS from spending cuts.

Seems like we've reached as state of 'well, they're all crooked and insincere so we might as well vote for one that is 'honest about being crooked and insincere'. Mind you, was it David Cameron that said something to the effect of 'a vote for Farage will be like going to bed with Farage and waking up with Ed Milliband'. I can't quite get that image out of my head and it's a really horrible one on more than one level . Mind you, substitute Cameron for Milliband and it's not much better. Substitute David Milliband for Ed and it doesn't seem quite so horrifying [but that won't happen till after the election].

It's our first past the post voting system that has a lot to answer for - makes it difficult for smaller parties to get a foothold ( surely that's why UKIP have always done better in EU elections) and also it disenfranchises the majority of us who don't live in marginal seats ( although I accept that that landscape might change)

This is certainly a challenging time as regards national politics. The sense of disillusionment with the mainstream parties has led to the rise of UKIP who are now coming under increasing pressure, thank goodness, to prove that they are not just a flash in the pan. So far the signs are not encouraging - they appear to be very much personality-based, simplistic and hypocritical and they could make a bad situation much, much worse. In fact, the prospect of the frightfull NF and his mates getting their hands on any sort of power is appalling, so perhaps best to stick with the devils we know! The next few months, if not years, are certainly going to be very interesting, not only in the UK. In the USA and France the leadership may/could/will change hands quite soon with very uncertain consequences. And then there is the deteriorating situation in the middle-east and those terrible African health problems. The last thing we need is to be dragged into yet another vile war, but it may have to be. I wonder what plans NF has got to deal with all that from the comfort of his saloon bar in the shires.

POGS Sun 12-Oct-14 23:14:50

Excellent post - it always amazes me how people can support Labour and have the nerve to criticise parties that try to correct those errors of judgement by Labour in the past (akin to shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted). As has been said by so many before: Labour always leave the country in a worse state than they took hold of it.

Even if you are right, does that make him different to other politicians?

No, it makes him exactly the same. Where some people see him as grabbing opportunities, others see him as trying to deal with issues that the other main parties were too scared to tackle - somebody had to do it so why not him?

Bear in mind: Cameron was very anti-Europe before rising in the ranks of the Tories.

UKIP do not have a manifesto yet.

I think they are all still working on their manifestos. Harriet Harman was asked several times about Labour's intentions with regard to several areas of policy and she wouldn't give a definitive answer no matter how many times she was asked.

I don't know what you are going to do - with the see-saw politics you have (only really giving two parties a chance), it has squeezed out the smaller parties over the years (the chant of 'it's a wasted vote' ) that could have developed into decent parties maybe. Kind of a 'you reap what you sow' scenario. But if you don't break the mould, nothing will ever change. Talk about rock and a hard place ...

Yes I will gracesgran I'm a socialist and unlikely to change.

(Catching up - been away)

I thought Carswell epitomised the smooth talking, polished Tory that he so recently was, and is at heart. Self serving, too, I think, as another poster pointed out.

And yes, UKIP will, I fear, seem an attractive alternative to the mainstream parties. Farage certainly know which buttons to press.

Thinking of my post to Ana I wonder how we all feel about the party we voted for in the last election (I am not asking which that was) and whether we would vote for them in the upcoming election.

The LibDems have lost all credibility, so what's the alternative?

As I said previously Ana The LDs seemed to have been far from loosing all credibility with the Lib Dems. Yes, I can see if you voted for the party because of the student fees and were not particularly liberal or social democratic in your thinking when you voted then the fact that they could not get that through would mean they lost credibility but the LDs at the conference seemed surprisingly (or perhaps not ) pleased with what they had managed to achieve.

I think the credibility of any party is already lost to people who would never vote for them in the first place. My feeling is that the difference in the next election will be made by how many of their core vote each of the parties can pull back.

It is also my opinion that many people will vote UKIP because they believe what they think they are saying but I think a large number are "none of the above" voters who have felt very left out of decisions made on their behalf.

durhamjen That's assuming that there will be a Green "bandwagon" similar to the UKIP "bandwagon" - which is unlikely because the Greens are largely ignored by the media. Let's face it, media coverage is very important. If we had a PR system, I would have no hesitation in voting Green but with our first-past-the-post system, I'm still undecided.

Eloethan, at the last election, people voted to keep out who they did not believe in. They probably said that UKIP had no chance.
Now we know differently, surely it's best to vote for the party you think would best represent you.
Okay, the two big parties might have the biggest number of seats, but there could be three parties with the balance of power, Libdems, UKIP and Green.
That might be what everybody wants.

News headline, "Tories admit that NHS reforms our worst mistake."
In the Times.

Now I know why I haven't voted for Labour for ages. Even they do not stick up for the underdog.
Non EEA migrants actually contribute 2% more in taxes than is spent on them, making them net contributors to the UK.

nhap.org/a-handy-factsheet-about-immigrants-and-health-tourism/

The Greens are more representative of the policies I'd like to see, but they certainly do have an uphill struggle. As others have commented, they don't get their fair share of coverage. I agree the Lib Dems have lost all credibility. With an election looming, they're trying to distance themselves from the Conservatives but I think this will be seen for what it is. With an election looming, there must be a lot of people out there agonising about who to vote for - I know I am.

I still don't understand why it's said by some that UKIP is a Tory problem and keep on trying to connect UKIP solely with the Tories.

I think it has been widely accepted that Labour is on the run just as much as the Tories.

I watched Hariett Harman being interviewed today on Andrew Marr. A Marr said it looks like Labour is 'changing course' on immigration. I couldn't help but shout hypocrit at her, mind you I usually do. She stated the following.

A. We don't want to see people's wages 'kept down' because of 'people coming in' and working at a very low level and therefore people's pay and standard of living 'is repressed'. Therefore we need a higher minimum wage and tougher enforcement. (a higher minimum wage is fine but won't stop people working for less and she must know that, she also admits to immigration being a cause of low pay)

B. People shouldn't be 'allowed into this country' who have 'committed serious offences' and if they commit a serious criminal offence here they 'should be deported' back to their country of origin, even if they are from EU countries. (yeh, right, that's practically impossible thanks to Labours Human Rights Act etc.)

C. Benefits - If people want to claim contributory benefits 'they should have been here long enough to have 'paid into the system' before they get anything out'. If their children are abroad 'you can't claim child benefit whilst you are working here'. ( this is pure hypocrisy , Labour has practically denied this happens and certainly made hay out of using the spin of the Tories being the nasty party when such matters have been discussed in parliament and to the media. If that is the party line why haven't they backed Ian Duncan Smith?)

D. There should be ' transitional protection' for further countries who join the EU, 'no more free movement of labour'. ( Pity Labour never thought of that years ago, we might not be in such a mess. If that's how they have felt all along they should have backed the Tories over this in the both the British Parliament and the EU Parliament, pure hypocrisy again)

She admitted that 'problems come with immigration'

Are these not the thoughts and change of direction by a Labour party that is seeing a challenge from UKIP and are worried?

UKIP has them all on the run!

Hitler gained power by saying what people wanted to hear. I think UKIP is a very worrying organisation.

A great many 'protest voters' don't actually consider what will happen in the long-run, they just don't want to vote for the usual two parties. The LibDems have lost all credibility, so what's the alternative? I don't think the Green Party has much hope, before anyone suggests it.

It's interesting to speculate what would happen if there were to be a hung parliament, with UKIP having gained several seats. The anti-EU Conservatives would presumably favour going into coalition with UKIP but what about the pro-EU people (I don't know how many there are)?

If there were to be a Conservative/UKIP coalition, I suspect many of the more "liberal" policies of UKIP (that I think have been thrown in to attract the Labour vote) will be jettisoned. After all, both Nick Clegg and David Cameron went back on pledges they made before the election. I think what will remain will be the more regressive policies, such as a reduction in income tax and abolition of inheritance tax/green subsidies and policies, and a substantially smaller role for government in the provision of public services - which will open the door for even more privatisation. I hope that those voting UKIP, on the basis that we "need a change/the current parties can't be trusted", etc., etc., are aware of the sort of changes that may occur if UKIP does well.

Old Nick seemed very uneasy under fire from the big guns about his specific policies.

I am so glad you said that papaoscar. I have just peeped in to another forum I have posted on in the past to find that all (and they are many) the older male UKIP posters were saying how well he did ... how he tells it like it is.

Like you I thought he seemed very uncomfortable being pinned down.

I miss that [I know they're still with us but it's not the same now]

I wonder what made you feel that Tegan. I watched the Lib Dem conference (I'm such a politics geek I watched each of them) and felt they seemed really like Lib Dems always have - Liberal with a touch of Social Democracy