Tuesday 30 April 2013

How many seats are UKIP expected to win on Thursday?

As always I turned to the people who are usually right, the bookies. Only one, Ladbrokes are making a book on UKIP and neither Ladbrokes or any other firm are making a book on LIbLabCon seat total. It's hardly an active market compared to Eastleigh.

Ladbroke's UKIP odds were 11/4 less than 50 seats, 11/4 50 to 100, 11/4 over 100.  These are niggardly odds and imply a profit margin of 20% to Ladbrokes. On the flat horse races bookies margins are typically 8% to !0%. Gudo Fawkes today writes he expects UKIP to win 50 seats and the Plymouth politics dept goes for 40. Either of these outcomes are good results for UKIP particulary if they win 4 or so seats on a split council.

On the share of the vote the BBC quote Labour 37.5%, Tory 28.5% , LibDem 15.5%. UKIP is not quoted by the Beeb an indication of their support for the status quo, however adding up the three percentages above, aubtracting from 100 gives 18.5% for UKIP and others. That looks to me like UKIP are at LibDem share of 15.5%. Because of their excellent organisation particularly of postal votes and geographic concentration in areas like the West Country I expect the LibDems will do much better than UKIP in terms of seats.

That is the penalty UKIP pay for Farage's long term neglect of simple party electoral matters. I saw Crowther yesterday  on the Daily Politics where he was clearly operating in damage limitation mode with no positive message. It continued this evening where the Tories have targetted and smeared one of UKIP's juvenile candidates in Castle Cary. UKIP wheeled out N Hamilton to defend the poor lad. What   a message to send to the electorate who have not forgotten Hamilton's past and defeat by the man in the white suit.

Putting it all together I am hopeful UKIP will win around 40 seats which in my opinion will be a good result given the shambolic campaign they have run.

9 comments:

Junius said...

Agreed!

ALAN WOOD said...

Watched Dorothy Baker tonight on the Somerset candidate Alex Wood (no relative).
The SUN's dirty trick will have backfired spectacularly in two ways. There is more than a touch of anti-foreigner feelings among the general public - they do resent the takeover of their country by incomers. It's a natural human response. That WILL pull in a number of votes.
The other reason is that Dorothy & Alex showed commendable composure under TV scrutiny and that will encourage people to back the perceived underdog - another type of human response.
As you so rightly say Eric, Farage is now the problem not the answer to getting out of the EU with his narrow view of what constitutes leadership.

Mike Bridgeman said...

I think that, in the main, the over 50's will vote whereas the younger may not not be so bothered.
That is in Ukip's favour and I think they will do better than 40.
I expect 60 to 70.

Mike Bridgeman said...

Sorry, I was only half right.
But what a brilliant result!

ALAN WOOD said...

UKIP have exceeded expectations by a large margin.
Political parties are like supertankers - they take a lot of effort to get them underway but they also take a lot of stopping !
The fuel for UKIP's supertanker is immigration. The massive publicity gained this week cannot be smothered because the EU cannot break its position on Open Borders.
Farage will have a good ride into the 2014 European Elections, aided by Tory infighting over the EU.
He needs a solid prospectus for 2015 (and keep it under wraps) but has he got the will to form a Government or will he be satisfied with an IN-OUT referendum ( which he could lose )?

Mike Bridgeman said...

Hi Alan,
An interesting analogy.
You refer, of course to Newton's second law of motion-Impulse=Change in Momentum.
Thus Change in Momentum (which Ukip now has in shed loads) will = an impulse. But this impulse will need a massive force to reverse the growing momentum. Will any one person be able to control that reverse thrust, assuming they wanted to.
Of course, in the real world, unlike theory, there are other factors like drag, friction and air resistance which did not figure in the theory. But David Cameron has managed to achieve negative impulse by disregarding sensible, right thinking people, so it can be done over time.
So, should Ukip link up in some way with the Tories then they will have some of that drag attached to them and Ukip could steer towards a spent force with a policy like that.
Interestingly Mewton's laws apply to most things except, I believe, the Higgs-Boson particle which gives molecules and atoms there unexpected levels of mass. I'm not sure about black holes either.

Alan Wood said...

Hi Mike,

How about also applying the second Law of Thermodynamics.
Farage dissipates energy (people and money) at every election, prioritising the European Elections meaning that there is no energy left for a General Election the following year.
He finally realised that Local Elections are cheap sources of momentum although I am amazed at how well they did in a County election. As we know it is at least 3 times harder to win than a District Council election.
In 2013 there are European and District Council elections - they could win hugely in both if they do it right.
But for the 2015 General Election will they convince the public that Farage is Prime Minister material and has a plan to improve the economy ?

Eric Edmond said...

Alan & Mike,

I congratulate all the 1700 or so candidates who stood for UKIP particulary Yeovil branch who got 2 elected and one near miis by 15 votes thx to an EDL candidate getting 45 votes. Nigel Farage did vey well on the TV pundits progs.

I will try and put together my thoughts on the result etc later today

Mike Bridgeman said...

Hi Alan
A prime Minister has to win a parliamentary seat.
Anyone could lead Ukip in 2015.