Saturday 23 February 2013

Eastleigh latest, Lib Dem sleaze & Andreasen

With under a week to go till the by-election tomorrow’s Times has a Populus poll of Eastleigh (£). Voting intention now stands at CON 28%, LAB 11%, LDEM 33%, UKIP 21%. The bookies have LibDems 4/1 on, Tories 4/1 against and UKIP 12/1 against. Delving nehind the figures it gets better for UKIP.

Without the reallocation of don’t knows the topline figures would have been CON 26%, LAB 12%, LD 31%, UKIP 25%. The reallocation of don’t knows has worked very well for ICM and Populus at general elections, improving their accuracy but will it  work at by-elections?. Without this re-allocation  the position between UKIP and the Conservatives is very tight.

E veryone assumes that the UKIP support comes mainly from the Conservatives. Not quite!. 17% of 2010 Tory voters are saying they would vote UKIP, but so are 11% of 2010 Lib Dem voters and 10% of 2010 Lab voters.


As I opined earlier this week UKIP' Ms James will get over 20% but can they win? In a fptp election there are no prizes for coming second. They can win if the Tory vote crumbles plus they pick up some from Labour. The easier target  may be  the LibDems and to win Ms James must go for the jugular and portray them as a party that has no respect for women and uses them when it suits them .  Ms Hutchings for the Tories should be doing the same. Huhne and Rennard are unpleasant men and Ms James should have no compunction in so labelling them as such. Women have over 50% of the votes in every election so go for the women's vote Ms James and go for LibDEm male sleaze. How many women MPs do the LibDems have and how many men? The Populus poll shows the votes are there for Ms James to pick up.

The LibDem candidate even  his own supporters describe as boring. He talks of defending green land and votes for concreting over a golf course. What for? To house EU immigrants perhaps. Another soft target again for Ms James!

Good luck Ms James but one of Farge's former women has just crawled out to queer your pitch and help the Tories. I opined previously that Andreasen could finish Farage. She has gone off to join the Tories. When on the UKIP NEC I warned Farage about this woman. A proper party would have  listened to me and many others but UKIP is a Farage worshipping cult so it lives and dies with its leader. Post Andreasen I think the latter now looks more likely.  

I still expect the LibDems vastly superior organisation will get their vote out and retain the seat for Nick. If UKIP come second it will put more pressure on Cameron from his eurosceptic wing. He may even bring forward his referendum date or cut a deal with UKIP.

7 comments:

Mike Bridgeman said...

The last thing Ukip need to do is a deal with Cameron.
That is a lose -lose situation.

Eric Edmond said...

Mike,

I agree but if the Tories lose at Eastleigh thrir backbenchers will be nrvously feeling their majorities.

Also what Farage wanys above all, a seat on the red leather is in Cameron's gift.

Eric

Mike Bridgeman said...

The Ukip leadership may not be very bright but no one could be that stupid-could they?

Eric Edmond said...

Never underestimate the stupidity of politicians

ALAN WOOD said...

Farage said that he did not want to fight the Eastleigh seat himself because he wants to lead in the European Parliament.
Let's examine the message behind that statement.
Does it say - "we cannot win at Eastleigh even with me as candidate".
Or does it say - "I have no interest in winning a seat at Westminster where UKIP could at least make a difference".
Or is he really clever and just wants the Tories to lose the seat because of UKIP (with any candidate in 3rd place) so that the Tories dump Cameron and become the new CONUKIP, in which case he gets a safe seat in the new CONUKIP ?

ALAN WOOD said...

Farage said that he did not want to fight the Eastleigh seat himself because he wants to lead in the European Parliament.
Let's examine the message behind that statement.
Does it say - "we cannot win at Eastleigh even with me as candidate".
Or does it say - "I have no interest in winning a seat at Westminster where UKIP could at least make a difference".
Or is he really clever and just wants the Tories to lose the seat because of UKIP (with any candidate in 3rd place) so that the Tories dump Cameron and become the new CONUKIP, in which case he gets a safe seat in the new CONUKIP ?

Eric Edmond said...

Good points Alan,

Farage has been a serial failure as a candidate in a fptp election. All he has achieved is to spend a lot of UKIP money and achieving zilch.

HE does not want a seat in the House Of Commons with 24/7 scrutiny from the British media. He prefers the easy life in Brussels with the big money.

He wants eventually a seat on the red leather that he could combine with his EU salary plus expenses.

Eric