I can recall when Ukip was very much a fringe party with just the one policy – get out of the EU. Indeed, I recall attending a count in 2001 when their candidate polled a few hundred votes.
Since then, I and it would seem, others, have grown weary of the political class who use politics as a career option. People who have never done a real days work in their lives, leaving university with a PPE and arrogantly thinking that this qualifies them to tell the rest of us how to run our lives and businesses, poking about in our affairs, passing idiotic legislation, stealing our money, trying to micro manage us – and, above all, lying repeatedly about anything and everything. Indeed, being truthful is such an anathema to the political classes that anyone who dares to speak it is ostracised – they are damned as racists – or, failing that, some other ism or phobia will be laid at their door.
Whatever failings they may have, Ukip have become the preferred party of the protest vote and it has shown today as the main parties find themselves bruised and battered.
Labour has won the South Shields parliamentary by-election, retaining a seat it has held since 1935.
It saw its majority reduced in Thursday’s poll as the UK Independence Party finished a clear second, with a 24% share of the total vote.
The Conservatives were pushed into third while their Liberal Democrat coalition partners finished seventh.
None of the three main parties can take any comfort from this – Labour won a seat with a much reduced majority in a constituency where pinning a red rosette on a dog turd would see them win. The real winners were Ukip.
Grant Shapps was on the news this morning spinning for all he is worth, claiming that they get the message. No, they do not. The presenter asked if the electorate had failed to get the government’s message – which always amuses me. Yes, we get it, loud and clear. We are not voting for minority parties because we are too stupid to understand the message. We do so because we do understand the message and we don’t like it.
I must say that I am enjoying the discomfort being experienced by the main three this morning. A pox on all their houses.
Concur. Not that the three mainstream parties will understand why of course.
It’s because, being politicians, they are professionally dense.
Elsewhere in the blogsphere I have observed some real panic suggesting that the UK’s energy policies are simply insane. Major energy companies are investing heavily in shale gas everywhere except here. Our enlightened government is busy putting every possible obstacle in the way of any company that wants to exploit our enourmous gas reserves. As a result, the companies in question are simply taking their money elsewhere.
Hey, lay off of the PPE! Plenty of PPEists have no desire to tell people how to live their lives 🙂
As someone who despaired of the main parties back in the 1990s, I’ve taken an interest in UKIP ever since its early days – and particularly in the past 10 years.
It doesn’t quite fit with my thinking – but it’s still a lot better than the others. For which reason, I have found this day most satisfying.
Some people are saying that this is the day that this country went from having a three party system to having a four party system. If so, it is a historic day indeed.
Indeed. If anything, all I’ve heard today on vox pops and interviews with MPs is further evidence that they still don’t get it.
Some examples: “We’re not getting our message across”. Err, no, the public understand the message, we just don’t like it.
“It’s a protest vote”. Err, that’s the entire point of democracy.
But the best was from Clegg, something like “It’s a vote for a wish list, but responsible political parties know this isn’t possible”. THAT, precisely, is the problem.
Government is so in hock to a variety of NGOs, quangoes, supra-national bodies, international conventions (with unelected agencies like the WHO, UN, EU) amongst many many other daft obligations they have prostituted themselves to, which they should never have done, and eye-watering legislation from the EU which has destroyed our country for good (cos even after an out decision at a referendum, the infrastructure is there and will be resisted by the parasites it has spawned), that it can never change unless booted out of office for something new.
They simply don’t understand that the public would like to have a say in how we are governed. Instead, we are being dictated to like naughty schoolchildren every day of our adult lives. Nothing changed today, it’s the same message, but they simply say that they might alter their approach a bit so that they will treat us a bit better in future.
In other words, they might metaphorically let us play music a bit louder in the playroom and get an extra half hour before bedtime. Even when voters punch them in the face, they still come back and ask for more. I hope they get it too, in spades.
Laugh fit to piss my pants ….