Will UKIP be a problem for Labour?

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The recent political narrative has focused on whether UKIP presents a problem for the Conservatives and how the party is snaffling votes from disenchanted Tory voters. Indeed the blazered golf club bore became, for some, a caricature of the typical Ukipper.

However, with David Cameron (sort of) announcing an in/out referendum on Europe there is less incentive for the Tory voter to decamp to UKIP - which isn't to say that those who've already decamped are coming back but is to say that the challenge from UKIP becomes less acute.

Labour, on the other hand, has come out against such a referendum "now" - or for that matter later:

The Labour leader said he does "not want an in-out referendum" on Britain's membership because it would be a "huge gamble" that causes uncertainty for businesses.

Speaking in the House of Commons, he drew a clear line between his policy and David Cameron's promise of a public vote on Europe by the middle of the next parliament. 

There is an incredibly vague bit of wriggle room for Ed Miliband as his minions scamper around explaining that this may sound like 'no referendum ever' but actually they don't really mean that -  just not now and not when Cameron wants it.

This is a problem for Labour because:

Research by ComRes for the Sunday People found 63% of the public want a vote on whether Britain should remain in the union.

Some 33% said they would cast their ballot in favour of a full withdrawal - including two thirds of Ukip supporters, 27% of Tories, 25% of Labour voters, and 17% of Liberal Democrats. 

It doesn't really matter what the outcome of a referendum might be - those eurosceptic Labour voters (not to mention the 63% who just want a referendum) might just be tempted by UKIP.

Could we see the Labour poll lead ruined by Labour defections to UKIP?

It's a thought!

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Can we talk about why professionals don't vote Tory?

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After all it's the real problem. In fact 2010 wasn't lost because the working classes - C2DE - didn't vote Conservative.

This* shows Conservative lead by social class for 1979 and 2010

	1979	2010
ABC1	+35	+12
C2	0	+8
DE	-15	-9

In truth 2010 was the Party's best ever post-war result among the working-classes. It's the professionals that aren't voting Conservative.  So why is this and why didn't 'modernising' the Party work?

And maybe we can talk a little less about a 'working class tory' strategy?

*taken from here
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There are some places where voting still matters...

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Ghana for example:

Here's the rest of a slide show from the BBC. And I hope that these people queuing to vote get the change they want and the growth they need.

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Dedication to the cause...

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I guess that the person who doesn't turn up can be expected to be run out of town on a rail:

At the stroke of midnight on November 6th, the 21 registered voters of Dixville Notch, gathering in the wood-panelled Ballot Room of the Balsams Grand Resort Hotel, will have just one minute to cast their vote. Speed is of the essence, if the tiny New Hampshire town is to uphold its reputation (est. 1960) as the first place to declare its results in the US presidential elections [1].

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Tories wouldn't vote for UKIP if the Party listened to what they are saying

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You disparage the electorate at your peril – tell them they’re committing one of the great sins of political correctness (racism, sexism, homophobia, islamophobia and so forth) and they look you in the metaphorical eye and tell you politely to shut up and go away. And this lesson is especially important for the Conservative Party because those slightly grumpy, politically incorrect voters are part of our core audience.

So when we adopt a superior position – proclaiming in the cause of “detoxification” that we will be saints of political correctness – we annoy that audience. Now, in times past they’d nowhere to go – just as Tony Blair could patronise the traditional, working-class, council-estate dwelling Labour voter secure in the knowledge that he’d nowhere to go, the current Conservative leadership seems hell-bent on doing down my sort of lower middle-class, beer-drinking, cigar smoking, steak-eating Tory.

The problem is that UKIP has provided a place for those voters to turn. And don’t give me all the “elections are won from the centre ground” twaddle. I’ve seen what the residents on my ward – a ward that returned a Conservative councillor yesterday with nearly 60% of the vote – have to say about the issues. Not much mention of climate change, gay marriage or constitutional reform. But a great deal of worry about immigration, crime, jobs and, of course, Europe. For the older of these Tory folk, there’s the stress over living on a fixed income when government policies have led to higher inflation. And everyone is annoyed by ever higher taxes – Granny-tax, Pasty-tax, fuel duty, the cost of fags and the price of a pint.

These people – let me remind you again that they are good Tories at heart – look at the government and see waste. They look at the welfare system and see spongers. They like the NHS but think it over-filled with pointless form-filling and political correctness rather than focusing on the core point – treating us when we’re ill. And these people would rather like to see the occasional policeman other than on the television. You know – on the beat, dealing with noisy kids, catching burglars and keeping an eye out for trouble.

I could continue – talk about schools and how the refusal to accept selection fails young people, ask why we send millions to India in aid when even the government there says they don’t want it and enquire gently as to how it is that we can deport an autistic kid to the USA but can’t send a known terrorist supporter back to Jordan.

If the Conservative Party wants to become a party of the wealthy shires – of Beds, Herts, Bucks and Surrey – then it’s going about it the right way. If it wants to remain relevant up here in the bit of the North no-one ever mentions – decent, family-oriented, hard-working, not especially wealthy but OK – then it needs to stop implying that UKIP are the BNP in blazers and start engaging with the issues and problems that are making very loyal Tories turn away in sorrow and vote for another party.

In our survey of Bingley Rural residents – not scientific but a pointer none-the-less – we’ve seen response after response indicating these very concerns. And a goodly chunk saying they might just consider voting UKIP.  Respond to their concerns – on Europe, crime, immigration, schools and taxes – and they’ll stay loyal and contribute to a real Tory government after 2015. Ignore those worries and we'll have another disastrous Labour government.

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Ah, that apathy thing again...

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Excitement at the discovery that more English 18 year olds are on Facebook than registered to vote.

Officials expressed concern yesterday after figures revealed that Facebook has 1.08million 18-year-old users in Britain, compared with just over half a million who have reached voting age in the past year and registered on the electoral roll.

Lots of chatter - some of it relevent, some nonsense about making it easier to register (how about via Facebook - now that's a thought) and about "engaging" with young people via social media. No-one asks whether this discovery is either new or much of an issue. After all, if voting becomes something of concern, something people are concerned about, something that will make a difference, then rest assured that people will not only register to vote but will queue up outside the polling station to exercise this democratic liberty.

The problem we have (and remember that half of UK adults didn't vote in the 2010 election) is that loads of people simply don't see the point of voting - it doesn't seem to matter much to them or make the slightest bit of difference to their lives. So they don't bother.

And we (that is the politicians) don't care either - or we'd be hanging around at student digs and taking registration forms to sixth form classrooms.

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Voter registration...

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I'm convinced that we need individual voter registration. So, it's a bit of a pain for my son and other students but that's the price of democracy. A democracy compromised by the explosion of deception, cheating and downright fraud, much of it around registration.

Yet the Labour Party - egged on by MPs for inner city constituencies - are adamant that such an idea is an offence to democracy. We must continue with the situation where one person fills in the registration form for everyone living at an address. Here's one such MP:

However, the evidence is that, without mums, many young people will not register to vote: when ‘individual registration’ was introduced in Northern Ireland, the register collapsed by 11 per cent, and the Electoral Commission says this ‘adversely affected’ disadvantaged groups like the young, the poor, ethnic minorities, and those with disabilities.

What is so hard about this? Are Labour voters so unable or unwilling to complete a simple form (and it is simple)?

Or is it really a worry about something else?

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Campaign Diary: Meeting the 'enemy'

Before the main substance of this post, just to mention that Betty - who talks to a load of people in the village - thought my leaflet was good! Mind you she'd not had a leaflet from anyone else to compare it with!

Which rather takes me to today and to meeting my Labour opponent. And doing so during what was by far the best canvass of the campaign so far - found just one Labour voter, a few 'won't say' (which I put down as against) and plenty of Conservatives. Met some old friends who'd already given me 'two ticks' in their postal votes and a woman who wouldn't say how she voted but wished me 'very good luck'!

Plus the Labour candidate plodding up the street delivering his leaflet - wearing a purple hat. Good to see some opposition - not something we've had in Bingley Rural since the end of the 1990s. At least it stops me getting asked whether anyone else was standing this year!

Finally, it's very clear that older voters see no reason to change the way we pick MPs. After all, the current system has served us pretty well for the past hundred years and more! In terms of the arguments - the real ones rather than the endless ad hom nonsense from folk like Chris Huhne - the only 'yes' argument with any purchase is the idea of an MP needing 50% or more. But even then people are unsure whether AV actually delivers this in reality.

Expecting Bingley Rural to vote solidly 'no' on Thursday.

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Campaign Diary: Day Two - into the village

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Yesterday on the fairy estate we got a good response - finished off there today with some discussions about the management of the protected land along Cottingley Beck. This isn't just a lovely place, it's where some faked photos of fairies were taken - lots of concerns about the management costs, preserving the place as it is and not seeing it as a cut-through to the school.

Which takes us to Cottingley village - the oldest part and a mix of converted terraces, back-to-back housing and in-fill. Again there were plenty of gaps in the register- perhaps less surprising here where the small, relatively cheap terraced housing provides an entry point to the housing market. Got some positive response from the work we put in to stop the Council selling off a piece of land used for car parking

Overall a decent canvass - lots of 'don't know', 'I'll read that' responses but no evidence of switching. which isn't to say folk aren't switching, of course! Not a great area for us, so a pretty decent outcome.

On the AV vote seems to be more of a concern to older voters - really strongly against. The referendum's not in my literature but there are mentions from residents - the national message seems to be getting through.

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Campaign Diary: Day One - adventures in fairyland!

On the fairy estate at Cottingley this evening – Lysander Way, Goodfellow Close, Titania Close, Oberon Way – plenty of support but more conversation than I remember. People raised some real concerns – some national like tuition fees, some local like the lack of police cover after 11pm and the parking problems outside Cottingley Village Primary (something of a long-standing nightmare, that one). And I had a long chat about gritting – real issue on these newer estates as the gritters can’t turn round in the shaped dead end streets.

Good to hear a mostly positive response from the Asian voters on the estate – and to note the normalisation of this place. Nice Tory voting white bloke in a house he bought from equally nice Tory voting Asians!

One big worry – the register is poor, three or four examples of people who should be registered but aren’t which is very sloppy. When we get to Hill Crest in Denholme the gap in the register reaches one in ten houses – all occupied.  It worries me that people are losing the opportunity to vote because the bureaucracy can’t be bothered.

Day One positive – lots to do and a few e-mails from today’s delivery which is good. Thirty days to go before polling day, feet a little sore but pleased by what I’ve seen and heard.

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Alternative votes, fairness and why we this isn't the change we need

I have watched with some interest at the evolution of arguments for and against us changing from our voting system to one called the "alternative vote". In all this what has struck me is how shallow many of these arguments are and how much they miss the essential issues around our governance.

Let's look at a couple of these arguments:

"AV will mean the end to MPs jobs for life"

This argument is best illustrated by the comment from Greg Dyke, former boss of the BBC:

"In constituency after constituency, what matters is not getting the electorate to support you but getting the party to nominate you," said Dyke, who resigned from the BBC in 2004 and is now chair of the British Film Institute.

At the national launch of the Yes to AV campaign in London, he said: "Once nominated you've got a job for life in seat after seat which is why we've got rather average politicians. AV will begin to change that."

"Politicians are going to have to work harder to get our support and work harder to keep it," he said.

"You don't get jobs for life in anywhere else in Britain today so why should you in politics?"

Mr Dyke is correct in his assertion but incorrect in saying that AV will change this - after all in roughly a third of seats the MP gets over 50% of the vote and, under AV, these MPs would have those jobs for life. I very much doubt whether Barnsley Central will elect anything other than a Labour MP and Tunbridge Wells a Tory - sounds like a job for life to me!

"AV will mean the BNP and other extremists getting elected"

Here's Sayeeda Warsi scaring us with the 'fear of fascism' line:

"AV could see candidates pandering to extremist voters - because to win a seat they will need to win the support of people whose first choices have already been eliminated," she said in an article for the Sun.

"It could have serious repercussions in constituencies where the BNP vote is bigger than normal.

"It's not hard to imagine where AV could lead in places like Dewsbury - more inflammatory campaigns, and policies which appeal to extremists."

Sorry but this isn't true either - in an AV system people are more likely to vote for smaller parties (after all they are being told their vote 'counts' more) which would include extremists like the BNP and the Green Party but I can see no circumstance where a candidate actively seeks endorsement from racist or extremist candidates - for the simple fact that, even under AV, it is first preference votes that matter most and courting fascists or communists will threaten that support.

"But is isn't fair, is it?"

The biggest argument from those advocating change is the idea of "fairness". Setting to one side the fact that no choice system delivers a fair result where there are more than two choices, we need to ask whether AV really is any more equitable that the current system. I don't believe that it is any fairer  - the results are just as distorting, there are (small) risks of non-monotonicity and some votes are accorded more value than others.

I have felt for some while that our system of governance needs attention. Indeed, the tinkering of Blair's government so as to fudge the issue of Scotland made things worse and the decision to, in effect, institutionalise political parties further extended the grip of Westminster's elite on the system. But the system by which we choose MPs is far less of a problem than the malign influence of party whips, the ability of very wealthy individuals and rich trade unions to buy political parties or the decline in parliament's influence as Executive elites in Whitehall and Brussels come to dominate decision-making.

Changing the voting system will not resolve any of these problems - yet the advocates of change seem to want us to believe that somehow, as if by magic, the democratic deficit in British governance will be waved away by switching to Nick Clegg's "grubby little compromise". What we would get as a result is just what we have now - only harder to change. We won't get the reformed party funding system we need, we won't have the 'in-out' referendum on Europe we want and we'll see the same old faces engaged in a depressing caucus race of privilege.

So I shall be voting No in the referendum on 5th May. Not because we don't need change - we surely do and urgently. But because switching the voting system isn't the change we need.

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The Guardian's writers never check their facts do they? The example of Richard Seymour

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Too much of our politics is dominated by the discussion of class – working-class, middle-class, upper-class and so on. These terms mean almost nothing – is the multi-millionaire builder working-class? How is all this defined? So my apologies for writing about the psephology of class in response to a rather poor article by some chap called Richard Seymour:

The relentless, long-term narrowing of the Tory base since the 60s – as it has become more explicitly the vehicle of financial and monopoly capital, and less willing to articulate popular working-class concerns – has seen Tory support recede from working-class areas.

Arrant nonsense – support for the Conservatives among C2DE social classes has risen since that time not fallen. Here are the facts for C2 voters from Ipsos MORI:

	Oct 1974	1979	1983	1987	1992	1997	2001	2005	2010
Con	26	41	40	40	39	27	29	33	37
Lab	49	41	32	36	40	50	49	40	29

And for DE voters:

	Oct 1974	1979	1983	1987	1992	1997	2001	2005	2010
Con	22	34	33	30	31	21	24	25	31
Lab	57	49	41	48	49	59	55	48	40

The truth is that the Conservative Party’s problem is with AB voters not working-class voters – the reason for the Party’s failure to win overall last year lay in getting just 39% of AB votes not in getting the votes of the working class English.

But that truth wouldn’t suit the Guardian, would it! The biggest demographic shifts in British politics have been the shifts of the skilled working class from Labour to Conservative and the loss of Tory AB votes to the Liberal Democrats.

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