Saturday, November 22, 2014

Ukip's Rochester win shows voters no longer trust the main parties...

The headline on this column last week was “Miliband is driving white van man into the arms of Ukip”. I promise loyal readers that I did not conspire with Emily Thornberry to make my prediction come true. But I must thank her all the same. Her mocking Tweet during Thursday’s by-election polling pictured a white van in front of a St George’s-flag-festooned house in what she thought was Rochester. (Actually, it was Strood: getting places wrong is another good way of irritating locals.) She accidentally parked that much-maligned vehicle right in the middle of public argument, and had to resign from the Labour front bench.

It is taking the main political parties and most of the mainstream media a very long time to adjust to how things are changing.

On the BBC news yesterday morning, I heard its political correspondent telling us that “the [Rochester] result was never in doubt”, and implying that it had not been all that good for Ukip. Never in doubt! Who would have predicted, even six months ago, that two Tory MPs with safe seats would resign them and re-present themselves to their voters, standing for a party which had never before won a seat? Who would have predicted, if they were mad enough to do this, that they would win? Certainly not the BBC. Yet they did all these things.

 At the Conservative Party conference last month, the leadership boasted that although it might not be able to halt Douglas Carswell in Clacton, it would crush the treacherous Mark Reckless in Rochester. David Cameron and the Tory part of the Cabinet more or less stopped governing the country to pound the streets of Rochester (and Strood). Every Tory MP was ordered into the constituency. Yet Mr Reckless won. The Tories did very badly. Labour did worse. The Liberal Democrats did worst of all. What are they all misunderstanding? Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Across Europe disillusioned voters turn to outsiders for solutions...
  3. How Brussels elite was stunned by a flurry of right (and left) hooks from...
  4. Ukip wins European elections with ease to set off political earthquake...
  5. Marine Le Pen: EU robbed us of all liberties, we should fight to get them back...

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