Premier Rock Forum

'The One Show' is pitching its analysis at a sub-Newsround level.

Though I appreciate and largely agree with both Simmo and Andrew's analyses, I am still completely fucking depressed by this result. East Midlands, above all (where my mum is from/ where the rest of my family lives). I am pleased with the results in London in both elections, though. Labour regained Croydon council, which is a relief. I think the poll should be reset in the run up to the G. Election.

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.

Cranius wrote:Nothing really happened, the BBC and the right-wing media is over-exaggerating it. Really? From where I sit, it looks like a bunch of fuckwits who no one used to give a toss about have established themselves as a viable political party. That in and of itself is worrying, considering what they stand for.

In Germany, absurdist protesty part die Partei managed half a million votes in the EP vote and were awarded with one seat (same as the UK Lib Dems).Die Partei calculate that one seat is worth EUR 33,000 per month. The plan to populate said seat with one member per month (60 in total then over the course of the 5 years) to spread the wealth around.They have a simple policy "Yes to Europe, No to Europe".http://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/menschen/martin-sonneborn-im-interview-das-ziel-ist-ruecktritt-12959475.html

Remember 'Cleggmania' and when The Guardian backed the LibDems at the last election?

big\_dave wrote:I'm just speculating but I've always thought about votes for Clegg as being less about stealing votes from Labour and more about getting people to vote who don't usually vote, and capitalising on anti-working class sentiment. It's quite a new phenonemon for the UK - the left liberal who is tolerant on big talking point issues but anti-socialist, anti-public funding, pro-market in nearly every practical sense. It was the birth of modern, American style left liberalism in the UK, the idea that we were still on the backlash from Blair may be false looking at the turn out and the local statistics - the average Lib Dem voter was pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, probably feminist, pro tolerance and diversity, but did not want to recognise either class or racial divides as a real issue and voted for the party that best represented that. Clegg betrayed nobody. I'm sure we've all known the certain type of person who likes to sneer at christian bigots and laugh at the funny little chavs from the council estate. The logical ancestor of the person who retweets LOL@whitepeople privilege memes but doesn't want those rapey Romanians moving in next door: the Nick Clegg voter.The guardianista moral reaction to the racism of UKIP supporters misses the point that the working class actually have a material interest at stake when Romanians take 'their' jobs. Until the liberal left can address this need (i.e. provide jobs and welfare) then it won't get their vote.

They'll tear eachother apart before next year.

Interesting stat show's that Milliband's seat could be much less safe than Clegg's: Doncaster North locals#LABOUR 43.08%#UKIP 35.27%OTH 21.65%

Give the British people a real choice!