I have just been looking at the performance of some of the minor parties in the local elections. Of particular interest is UKIP.
At the beginning of the campaign UKIP had a grand total of six councillors in the 10,000 seats being fought last Thursday. Amid great fanfare they anounced they were putting up 1,000 councillors. Their leader, Nigel Farage, made great claims about how well they were going to do. Well, amid all the controversy about how well the Conservatives had done (or not), the media seems to have overlooked the fact that UKIP not only didn't win any new council seats, they actually lost one, leaving them with 5 councillors - that's two fewer than the Cornish nationalists, Mebyon Kernow and one more than the Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern. Well done to UKIP! A fantastic advance!
Contrary to many people's expectations, the British National Party also failed to make a breakthrough. They only have 10 councillors in the seats fought last week, an increase of one. I think it's now time for the media to stop giving them as much coverage.
The one minor party which did make a small advance was the Green Party. They now have 62 councillors, an increase of 17.
Another continuing trend is the decline of the the Independents. They now have 158 fewer councillors, with a total of 941 in the seats fought on Thursday.
57 comments:
Wasquite funny at North Herts District Council's election results. One UKIP candidate and boy did he look lonely. I don't think anyone talked to him.
I was also appalled that he didn't wear shoes, he wore trainers. Well, if you're not going to take politics seriously...
He came last in his wars.
Yes, well done UKIP. Keep taking the tablets.
correction:
He came last in his ward.
I must admit I am rather sorry that Independents are less likely to stand as such (or to be elected). Although I am delighted by the 900+ conservative gains, I can't help but feel that councils are potentially the poorer for their loss. We need more people who are prepared to stand and vote for what they believe in both in local government and in parliament
Iain why do you have to be so disingenuous on such a consistant basis?
Following hard on the heels of your childlike 'Don't shoot me I'm only the messenger' article about the BNP listing all the UKIP candidates while vociferously pointing out that you weren't suggesting a link between the two parties.
Farage quite clearly, publicly in the media stated that out of 1,000 candidates he doubted if UKIP could return 15 at best, yet you obviously misheard.
Your continuing skewed comments only make the look of horror on the faces of the Conservatives that I was fortunate enough to witness at the Vale of Glamorgan count all the sweeter, as they scurried about like ants squealing that UKIPs 2,310 votes had cost them the seat.
Try to be more honest in your reporting and I feel that more people will respect you and your views.
I wonder how Chad/UKIP Home would have spun the results?
Yep, we English Tories pretty much cleaned up last week, especially in the south and midlands. Overall, a triumph, whatever the Beeb says, improving on the good results the last time these seats were contested. Too bad Labour won the expectations battle so well.
The London press reported very smugly that the BNP didn't make a breakthrough this week.
Well, they did. It's just that it happened in Wales, so nobody noticed.
They came 5th overall on the regional list. They polled 9.4% of the vote in Wrexham and came just 2,580 votes from taking an assembly seat in North Wales.
Driving home tonight along the Tweed valley, surely one of the most beautiful drives in Britain, I listened to a Radio 4 programme about the BNP. At first I thought why are they giving them the oxygen of publicity then as I listened more it became clear. It made them sound like the bunch of intellectual pygmies (actually that's giving pygmies bad press by association that they don't deserve).
On e of the people they interviewed suggested that because she waqs a Christian and so were some of the people she knew that were in the BNP that made them OK.
It made Mapp & Lucia seem like revolutionairies!
In England UKIP may be as irrelavent as they should be, but in Wales they polled between 1000-2000 votes in some contituencies, depriving us of quite a few gains.
We'd have taken four constituencies from Labour (Clwyd S, Delyn, Gower and Vale of Glamorgan) and one from the Lib Dems (Mongomeryshire), if the UKIP vote had gone Tory, which I'm guessing a large majority would have done so if there had been no UKIP candidate.
Shows how wrong Dr (Sic) Richard North is on yet another issue.
He must be the Lord Rees Mogg of the blogosphere. Only more arrogant and deluded.
So if they had fielded 6,000 candidates they could have lost all their councillors?
I bet they clean up at the next European elections, though.
I wonder how Chad/UKIP Home would have spun the results?
LoL. :-) Not many ways you can spin that. Of course as always, Iain is as always economical with the truth when it comes to UKIP, as UKIP did win seats, they just also lost more than they won giving them a net loss, but at least they are putting out candidates to give people a choice and long may it continue.
I wonder if Iain had a similar hatred of homosexuals before he came out, as on policy, in a blind taste test, Dale is clearly a secret ukipper.
Still, my new site in June will give careerists like Mr Dale something new to get wound up about....
Tut tut Will J... UKIP ARE Tories, it's the Tories who aren't. However, rejoice away whilst we just replace one bunch of socialist scum with another.
It looks like Dave will struggle to get a majority at the next general election, and UKIP will be important in that. They take the view that if we are going to have euro-socialism it might as well be the real thing from Brown.
I was going to vote UKIP but my local candidate rejoices in the surname France. I just couldn't do it ...
The numbers for independents always seem slightly skewed if the comparison is made from day before election vs day after election rather than from one election to another. There tend to be a few deselected / hacked-off councillors elected for a party but sitting as independents with no intention of going on at the election. Still in long term decline though, but not quite as bad as the figures show.
Friendly correction: The Greens now have 111 councillors (here) not the 62 you quote.
I think the number you're refering to here is probably excluding those who were not up for election this time around...
richard havers: I am very glad to say most Christians would be appalled at other Christians expressing such a view of the BNP.
I should also add that the BNP lost a seat on Broxbourne Council, losing it to the Conservatives. There are now 36 Conservatives and 2 Labour councillors on the council. Iain, are there any more one-sided councils in the UK? It'd be interesting to find out.
I think it would be quite fun compiling a top ten list of the worst examples of the media talking up the BNP. Top of my list has to be the lifestyle piece the Times did on Nick Griffin.
I notice that now the Breckland result is in Labour have managed to reach the magic -500 figure for councillors lost and the Tories have reached +904 for councillors gained.
That aside, does anyone know what on earth is going on in Warwick?
Sod's law that Iain covered further down the page. I have an excuse - I was at a meeting for new councillors :)
158 fewer candidates for the indes - well actually 160 if you count the defections that we've had locally to the Conservatives in the past 2 days. Is anyone else seeing the same sort of defections?
UKIP- an apology
In common with every other right-wing newspaper, the Telegraph/Times/whatever wrote screeds and screeds of articles before the elections about how UKIP are a potent electoral force, to which thousands of party members are defecting, and are set to make real gains in the local elections as a sign that they will prevent a Tory majority at the next General.
In the light of the abysmal showing of UKIP at the local elections last week, we now realise that we were completely wrong, and that we prefered writing made-up stuff because it suited the deranged editorial team on our newspapers, who would rather stick pins in their eyes than see David Cameron become prime minister.
On page 56: Janet Daley Vitamin writes 'Only 900 Conservative gains? It's 1945 all over again. I was a marxist at university so I know'.
Still, my new site in June will give careerists like Mr Dale something new to get wound up about... - Chad
I'll take the bait. What new site will that be then? VeritasHome?
LoL, sorry, still a ukip supporter.
Well I do own toryhome.com and toryblog.com but they are being reserved for a special negative campaigns nearer to the general election!
It always makes me wonder how Iain can support West Ham when only Man U or Chelsea can win. Surely supporting the Hammers took vital support away from fellow Londoners Chelsea and thus helped the Reds sneak in through the back door?
Unfortunately there was no UKIP candidate in my constituency, so I spoiled my vote. It will of course be different at the next European election and possibly the general election. The Conservative Party's tone and approach to what many see as
natural allies gives even less reason to vote Conservative.
Exactly - don't forget that voting for a Tory MEP means electing someone to a Euro grouping (Cameron's MER) that is only a third of the size of UKIP's and whose members combined GDP is less than 10% of UKIP's.
UKIP are clearly the only viable eurosceptic vote in the euro elections.
A euro vote for the Tories is a wasted vote.
Chad
" wonder if Iain had a similar hatred of homosexuals before he came out, as on policy, in a blind taste test, Dale is clearly a secret ukipper"
That's pretty freaking low. I'm amazed Iain let it pass.
Can you comment on the post on an anti-ukip blog that says that ukip meps voted against a resolution calling for an end to female genital mutilation and rape within marriage?
__________________________________
"Indeed, in February 2006 the European Parliament adopted a resolution based on a report by Maria Carlshamre MEP calling on all member states to work together take a zero-tolerance approach on all forms of violence against women and to exchange information on how best to do this. It also instructed all EU countries to recognise rape within marriage as a criminal offence and not to accept cultural practices as an excuse for honour crimes or female genital mutilation. Indeed, Parliament called on all member states to ban female genital mutilation and to prosecute all perpetrators of it.
Needless to say, this report was resoundingly supported by all groups across the Parliament - the resolution was passed by 545 votes to 13. Not one single UKIP MEP supported the resolution and the seven UKIP MEPs who voted, voted against - Gerard Batten, Godfrey Bloom, Graham Clark, Nigel Farage, Roger Knapman, Mike Nattrass and Jeffery Titford."
_______________________________
Is this true or false. If it is true how exactly do you justify supporting this party.
That's pretty freaking low. I'm amazed Iain let it pass.
Because its likely to be true I expect.
I'm not UKIP's spokesman, in fact I won't even be a party member on 1st June, but I remain a supporter because they are simply the only party that supports EU withdrawal, more grammar schools, opposes the extension to state funding of political parties, supports a controlled immigration approach treating people from ALL countries equally, supports lower, flat taxes and has shown it can operate in terms of people politics rather than party politics with its BOO strategy.
UKIP is a party of lions led by a lion who is supported by donkeys. Nigel can't do it alone, but thank the stars he is trying.
But if you are asking me if there a lots of things I do not like about UKIP, the answer is yes, but the decision is one made of balance of core policies and anyway, my vote goes to the person who matches my core values, not the party.
Why does UKIP occupy so many column inches on here? Their aims seem very reasonable to me. Does the Tory Party disagree with any of their policy(deep down I mean, not the Cameron facade). In which case maybe they doth protest too much.
Seriously Iain reserve the vitriol for our enemies. Else if you make us choose, some of us may decide we prefer UKIP.
And don't UKIP support more nuclear power too?
The BNP business is a small but disturbing point. They polled 9% in my ward but that's without (as far as I know) making the slightest effort - no posters, leaflets or visits.
15% last year, when more fuss was being made in the media about immigration. Why hasn't it collapsed further this year?
"Seriously Iain reserve the vitriol for our enemies. Else if you make us choose, some of us may decide we prefer UKIP. "
I'm a member of UKIP but I voted Conservative in a 'no-hope' ward because I believe I should vote and some Conservatives are nearest to my views, I include Iain in that. There wasn't a UKIP candidate.
Vitriol can backfire, I was tempted to abstain from voting or spoil the ballot paper, but I chose to remember those Conservatives (esp at Con Home) whose views I share, rather than the new bunch of politically correct socialist types.
I let it through because it shows Chad up to be the hompophobic bigot he undoubtedly is. His claim of No Preference No Prejudice was always a joke. It's not the first time he has indulged in homophobia. He also charmingly once said on his sad little blog that I looked like a paedophile -until the UKIP leadership told him to take it down.
Chad is a sad little joke and it's best to treat him that way.
I let it through because it shows Chad up to be the hompophobic bigot he undoubtedly is.
Very touchy! And of course completely untrue. That said seeing as your party indulges in institutionalised racism with its a-list and immigration policy, everyone can learn some bigotism from the Tories...
However, as with your weak 18DS 'gloves off' attacks, I'm free from any 'party restraint' from the 1st June and I am very much looking forward to it.
And as you know, my comments about you were the same kind of extrapolation as those you seek to throw on ukippers (ie because Kenneth Leadbetter is a paedo that makes you all one too - of course untrue but in the same gutter as your constant ukip racism bnp links blah blah). Don't forget the context Mr Dale.
You constantly fight below the belt but cry like a baby when it comes back at you.
Make sure you have some tissues handy.
The did however manage to get one Lib Dem councillor elected in Woking - thanks to splitting the vote.
That Lib Dem councillor will no doubt be working for European integration and federalism.
Get over it man in a shed.
Remember, Cameron proposed a labour supporter to run for mayor on a joint LibDem ticket, whereas Nigel Farage has proposed to not field any candidates against open EU withdrawal supporters.
That's an official Vote Tory get LibDem policy!
Then consider the openly admitted europhilia rife within your own MEP's etc.
Quite a difference, eh?
The tired old Tory 'vote for a rosette' arguments have lost their teeth I'm afraid.
Chad: your rants have persuaded me never ever to vote Ukip.
If your representation of their policies is correct then it just shows how blinkered and stuck-in-their-ways they are. How about some improvisation and fresh thinking, instead of banging on about grammar schools (so last century) and withdrawal of the EU (so selfish and absurd in these unpredictable times)?
Chad @ 07.20:
"don't forget that voting for a Tory MEP means electing someone to a Euro grouping (Cameron's MER) that is only a third of the size of UKIP's"
Eh? is this size as in number of putative MEPs or size as in the number of national delegations?
EPP-ED Conservatives have 27 MEPs, the whole of the Independence and Democracy group have 24.
Chad has clearly had experience drafting Lib Dem election leaflets: "only UKIP can win here".
eml(opposed to EU withdrawal) announces an end of UKIP's hopes of drawing their vote. I'm guessing you never considered it anyway. I think UKIP might recover from the loss of this particular vote. Sling your hook, see if we care.
UKIP gained if the BNP did not stand. racists needed a peg to hang their coats and they found one in UKIP.
The BNP candidates want the media and wider public to stop calling them racists. Just because their Party stands on a racist ticket, does not mean that each and everyone is.
Labour took a bashing (slightly) as a judgement upon their party, so the BNP candidates should stop whining.
In Stoke, it was left to Labour to fight the BNP and racism, with the Tories selling 'green power' and double council tax rises for households (100% increase).
The Tories lied to gain favour and to some extent it worked.
Gary
I wonder how many more anonymous postings Chad will make on here to back up the posts he puts his name to? Chad, maybe you should try to vary the amount of time between your post and the sycophantic anonymous post agreeing with it that follows about 20 minutes later.
If you think the two domains you have are going to derail the Conservative general election campaign, then you really are a legend in your own padded cell.
Er, Tony perhaps you should ask Iain to check the IP addresses then say sorry for another baseless attack?
Is that the best you can hope for, that all neg comments are from me? I post enough as it is without responding to my own points! ;-)
Anonymong 2:32pm
I'm talking about Cameron's new MER grouping (europeanreform.eu) which has just 3 members despite being formed in July last year! Remember Tory MEP's will be leaving the EPP for the MER in 2009.
Embarrassing.
Chad @ 3.09:
I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong (and no doubt correct me if I am right), but the MER has not yet been constituted as a political group in the EP, adn so there are no MER MEPs.
All its putative members sit with the European Democrats element of the EPP-ED group.
If the UKIP "Wise rebels" had followed through on their challenges to the leadership and left the UKIP delegation in the EP -- and hence the Independence and Democracy group -- would Ind-Dem have lost their group status and therefore their funding?
Don't forget also that an MEP elected on a UKIP ticket has also joined the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group with Jean-Marie Le Pen et al, enabling them to meet the qualifying threshold for an EP group to be established.
This just in:
UKIP won 5 seats in 2007, up from just 1 in 2006.
UKIP won 2 seats on Newcastle-Under-Lyme council, where we can now form a UKIP group. We also had wins in Kennet, Staffordshire Moorlands and Carrick.
UKIP took an average 12% of the vote where we stood in 2007, up from 10.5% last year.
UKIP took over 200,000 votes in the English local elections, more than double our previous record.
Candidate Brian Pearce missed out on winning a seat in Wycombe by the drawing of lots after he tied with his Conservative opponent.
Other ‘near misses’ include Roy Hopwood (14 votes short of a seat on Wyre council) and Martin Aiken, who finished 3rd with 32.1% of the vote and was just 23 votes short of winning his ward in Hartlepool.
UKIP stood in every ward in Milton Keynes, Dudley, Wokingham and Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Despite not winning a seat in Dudley, UKIP took more votes across the council than Lib Dems, Greens and BNP put together!
Across Bournemouth and Poole, UKIP took more votes than the Labour Party. Who is supposed to be governing the country?
More than 3/4 of a million personalised election address leaflets were ordered by candidates from the national party. Many more were produced by local branches.
UKIP does seem to have a knack of doubling it's vote very time Ian so don't get too complacent cause we ain't going to stop now!
Anon 4:49pm
"I'm sure you will correct me if I am wrong (and no doubt correct me if I am right), but the MER has not yet been constituted as a political group in the EP, adn so there are no MER MEPs."
Cameron announced it as a new political grouping in his launch speech in July 2006 so you would need to ask him if he is telling the truth or not. I'd be interested in the answer to see if this is yet another eu-related porkie from Cameron.
But, as you note, despite the big speech from Cameron, the Tory MEP's are still in the federalist EPP with, bizarrely, no plans to move until after the 2009 election, so kind of, relying on us trusting them to leave the federalist group after they have been elected again. Nice.
This is the group that Cameron will present to the British people as the one his MEP's will go into upon election in 2009.
So, as it stands, the Tories will ask the electorate to trust them to leave the federalist EPP after being elected to join a new micro group with members from just 3 member countries.
In contrast, UKIP will be able to show that they are members of a long established eurosceptic grouping of nine countries.
So the Tories face lack of influence in the EPP, or lack of influence due to being members of an impotent micro-grouping.
Despite all their many faults, UKIP have clearly learned how to work with Eurosceptics from many different countries and are thus the most influential and trusted eurosceptic voice in the euro parliament.
I'm sure most eurosceptic conservatives will be voting ukip in the 2009 euro elections as even if all UKIP MEP's spent their entire time in the bar getting shit-faced, that is better for Britain than having europhile Tory MEP's rubber stamping more integrationist legislation.
Always helps to read the source text carefully, I find.
Here is Cameron speaking in Brussels on 13 July 2006:
"I can announce the creation of a new parliamentary group for Europe.
Our partners have asked that we create this group at the beginning of the next European Parliament in 2009.
That is what we will do.
The Joint Declaration we sign together today commits us to that course.
[So - the new group to be created at the start of the next EP in 2009]
This Agreement will help build the strength of the centre-right in Europe. Instead of being reluctant room mates of the EPP, we can now operate as friendly neighbours - working together when we agree, but with our own distinctive political group.
We are also announcing today a new Movement for European Reform open to parties across Europe.
[So - pan-Euroepan political party open for business as of July 2006, but with no associated political group in the EP until 2009].
"
LOL. Thanks for the clarification. So you have to trust Cameron, and if he is good for his word, then you will end up in an impotent micro-grouping of 3 countries, but if he reneges, you end up stuck in a powerful federalist grouping.
Well, he couldn't have fucked that up any more than he has.
to be fair - they tied for a council seat in high wycome (i think) with the result being decided by lot - and their guy losing out - which is a bit of a shame - as the last thing Wycombe Needs is another tory!
Why are you not renewing your membership of UKIP Chad?
Before he was forced to shut his site, Chad proudly announced that he would be re-joining UKIP (the point being that UKIP was the only political membership he had RENEWED). Clearly, he's a fucking liar as well as being a real nutter!
"I think it's now time for the media to stop giving them as much coverage."
What coverage? That was a joke, right?
Just to clear the picture being made by UKIP 'anonymous' who proudly boasts of a UKIP victory In Newcastle-under-Lyme, which is next door to Stoke.
UKIP is made up of expelled Tory members in these parts.
They are very clued up and knowlegeable but are regarded as being a bit loopy.
The reason they have gained ground is because Labour, to a large extent(two years) were denied the opportunity to answer their unfounded and unjust claims in the press.
Labour were banned from the press in this period and that is seen as the root cause of the rise of the BNP/UKIP parties in this area.
Today, no-one challenges their spurious claims of British annhilation by the EU.
Guess which Daily Paper owns our local press?
Clue: ask Benedict Brogan.
Gary
Decline of the Independents? It depends where you look.
They did astonishingly well here in formerly solidly Old Labour Derwentside, taking the very heartiest of Labour heartland wards, and almost taking the Council to NOC (as happened next door in Hilary Armstrong's citadel of Wear Valley, although more than half of her constituency is in Derwentside, with which she has, er, more strained relations...).
All in all, a timely example of just how far an at least broadly right-wing opposition to Labour (including people well-known in their local communities as bieng of the UKIP/Peter Hitchens persuasion) can get. Provided, of course, that it is not the Conservative Party.
Frankly, your post is "erronous" to put it politely. I'm sure you wouldn't actually lie about what UKIP said in the runup to the election so we have to presume you don't know how to use Google productively. Nigel Farage clearly said that he did not expect spectacular gains in council seats. We did field triple the number of candidates that we put up last year. Hopefully next year will see a stronger performance.
In Runnymede this year we fielded more candidates than the Lib Dems and only two fewer than Labour. Next year we intend to field a full slate of candidates. we obtained four second place results this year and we gave the Tories a bit of a fright in Englefield Green West where they brought in a bunch of local party leaders and county councillors to put out a second leaflet at the last minute. We attracted the public support of one Tory ex-mayor.
I expect that we will win council seats Runnymede either next year or 2010. I expect that when that happy day comes Iain will stick his fingers in his ears and hum loudly.
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