It’s a simple message, if I can vote from Uganda then you can walk down to your local polling station!
Go on, off you go! Vote.
UPDATE:
Thanks to Andrew Sparrow at The Guardian for posting this photo in their live blog.
Tag Archives: EU elections
Bad news for Labour: Latest polling before European Parliament elections
The latest piece of YouGov polling gives these headline figures:
We can see UKIP are just edging Labour. Bad news in itself. But I am sure Labour cannot be too happy to see The Green Party (down from their 12% high) are on 10% and just edging the Lib Dems. Let me explain why…
The breakdown of these figures show that The Green Party are picking up 19% of those who voted for the Lib Dems in 2010. Bad news for Lib Dems but also worrying for Labour. Labour are picking up a comparable 18% of 2010 Lib Dem voters – less than The Green Party. In short, Labour have failed to appeal to alienated left-wing liberals – something that is central to their general election 2015 strategy. .
This is further evidenced in the poll conducted of the Left Foot Forward readership. This poll should have, if things are going well for Labour, shown massive support for Labour. Instead it shows the Green Part picking up 34% and even the Lib Dems still claiming 17% of the vote.
As the editor of Left foot forward, James Bloodworth, noted:
This should perhaps concern Labour, as their message still appears not to be winning over many naturally left-of-centre voters – despite their recently announcing a raft of identifiably social democratic policies.
Labour might well come out on top in these elections but it is far from a ringing endorsement.
UPDATE;
Today’s Opinium/Daily Mail poll reinforces the crux of this post showing Labour polling just 25% and The Greens increasing their share of the vote.
Filed under EU politics, Politics
Are The Green Party on course to beat the Lib Dems in May’s elections? Part 3
That’s right – I am still not bored of writing about whether or not The Green Party will beat the Lib Dems in May’s elections!
On the 28th April I wrote an article essentially saying that The Green Party was on course to have a good night at the European Elections and that Lib Dems were going to get a kicking but, significantly, there was little polling to support The Green Party’s claim that they would beat the Lib Dems nationally.
I then followed this up with an article on 4th May when, for the first time, a poll was published that showed The Green Party ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
Any balanced commentator by this point would conclude that the figures were within a ‘margin of error’ and that it was next to impossible to call who will come out on top (between the Greens and Lib Dems).
This, in my mind, is still the only conclusion to reach (combined with the fact that Lib Dems will drop seats and Greens will gain).
But there is something to suggest that The Green Party might just slip past the Lib Dems. This is the trend of polls. While the Lib Dems have the numbers in their favour (more polls have shown them beating Greens than vice-versa) there is a clear recent trend of Greens climbing in the polls as the elections get closer while the Lib Dems seem to be dropping.
As Robert Lindsay on twitter pointed out (click to enlarge):
Interestingly, the same ICM/Guardian poll that puts The Green Party on 10% and Lib Dems on 7% is also the second in as many days that have put the Conservatives ahead of Labour (the other being this from Lord Ashcroft).
If you can conclude one thing from these polls for May’s elections it is this: voting under a PR system there is everything to play for regardless of the colour of your rosette.
Filed under EU politics, Politics
The rather droll UKIP joke…
UKIP (aka the people’s army) have launched their campaign ahead of May’s European elections. The campaign attacks establishment thinking focusing on concerns of ordinary Brits. Who better to head up the campaign (funded by ex-Tory donor and millionaire Paul Sykes) than son of a stockbroker, the privately educated city boy, Mr Nigel Farage? Who says UKIP don’t have a sense of humour?
UKIP’s European election campaign was today launched with a bang. Their (racist?) posters have caused controversy, shock and also a fair amount of TV coverage for UKIP.
But there is more than just a touch of irony in this campaign.
The posters nail the core issues that voters keep saying they are most worried about… the economy, immigration, and of course, jobs. But threaded throughout is their ‘core message’ that they are the party of the people standing up for ordinary Brits.
With either a splendid sense of humour or a terrifying sense of self-delusion, UKIP have even started referring to themselves as ‘the people’s army’.
You have to laugh don’t you (or you might cry)? Here is the privately educated stockbroker, Nigel Farage, heading up a campaign that is funded by ex-Tory millionaire Paul Sykes, lamenting the ‘establishment’ and ‘vested interests’.
In a way it is all quite droll.
Worryingly though, against all odds, I am not sure the electorate have spotted the joke.
UKIP are not exactly shy about their vested own interests. Hynd’s Blog is no Private Eye. Just yesterday in that little known publication, The Daily Telegraph, millionaire Mr Sykes wrote quite openly about why he has pumped £1.5 million personal pounds into the latest UKIP poster campaign. In the article he finishes by chillingly saying he will ‘do whatever it takes’.
Can people really not spot the contradiction here? A party stuffed full with disgraced Tories suddenly becoming the voice of the people?
I mean really….do people honestly believe that a party chaired by Neil Hamilton is really the party that is planning to stand up for ‘ordinary Brits’? The same Neil Hamilton whose Conservative career came to an end for accepting envelopes stuffed with cash from Harrods boss, Mohamed Al Fayed, in exchange for asking parliamentary questions…
If I stopped looking at the polls I could be convinced that UKIP was just a rather droll joke, but then I am reminded that this is the party that many tip to win May’s elections.
How very terrifying.
Filed under EU politics, Far-right politics, Politics
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