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by simmo_Archive
It's hard to know exactly how to parse these results. Part of me feels extremely worried and depressed by UKIP's strong turnout, but there are reasons not to be too fatalistic.Labour performed really well, a 10% increase is comparable to UKIP's 11%, and no mean feat given how fucking drippy and forgettable Milliband is. Imagine where they'd be with a likeable leader! The Greens took 200,000 votes in London alone, and are now a bigger party than the Lib Dems in Europe. They have become the de facto Socialist party in the UK and are a growing force. All of this has been achieved with almost zero press coverage. If only they'd ditch their stupid ideas about energy and GM food, and realign their general anti-science thinking then we might have a viable leftist party to vote for.Results are distorted by low turnout and voter apathy, which is of course a massive problem in itself, but it does mean that it's not necessarily the case that 28% of the British public are ultra-conservative xenophobes. And another positive is that the BNP vote is down 5%, Griffin lost his seat, and they're still only taking 1% nationwide. I was disgusted by the sheer amount of press coverage given to UKIP. They got approximately four times more votes than the Greens, but I don't think I'd be wildly exaggerating if I said they got a hundred times more press coverage. I'd love to see a statistical analysis of coverage, the results would be truly shocking. Remember, the Lib Dems are the fifth biggest party in Europe, but I heard Nick Clegg on Radio 4 being interviewed four times I think. Natalie Bennett was overlooked by The Today programme in their series of leader interviews and I don't think I heard the Greens mentioned once.Maybe I'm being too naive, but I'm fairly confident that UKIP will fuck up majorly before the general election. Farage simply isn't very clever. He'll shoot himself in the foot in a big way somewhere along the line. His party is full of racists, facists and bigots who will keep saying ludicrous things. Anti-UKIP momentum will build. They'll certainly be an important part of the big 2015 election picture, but I can't see them returning more than three or four seats.
Rick Reuben wrote:daniel robert chapman wrote:I think he's gone to bed, Rick.
He went to bed about a decade ago, or whenever he sold his soul to the bankers and the elites.