It's probably not unusual for political parties to commission private polling which tests how voters react to a set of fairly extreme propaganda statements. However, it's certainly quite rare for us to ever get a look at that polling. One of the few examples I can think of was a YouGov poll conducted for Archie Stirling's vanity project "Scottish Voice" in the run-up to the 2007 Holyrood election. The decision to publish it was baffling, given that it showed only around 20% of voters were responsive to even the most absurdly leading questions.
Stirling did of course have the excuse of being a political amateur, but there's no such alibi for UKIP's extraordinary decision to allow Populus to publish a hugely embarrassing private poll that seemingly hoped to establish that the people of Scotland view David Coburn as the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Please read the following statements and tell us whether you agree or disagree with them.
I am personally very angry that David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland, has been excluded from the STV leaders' debate this week.
Agree 3%
Disagree 54%
David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland, hasn't received the recognition he deserves for helping secure a No vote in the independence referendum.
Agree 2%
Disagree 57%
I would despair of Scottish politics if it wasn't for the new hope provided by David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland.
Agree 2%
Disagree 68%
My admiration for David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland, has increased over the last twelve months.
Agree 3%
Disagree 63%
The world needs more strong leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland.
Agree 1%
Disagree 81%
I would be proud to walk down the street wearing a T-shirt featuring an image of David Coburn, leader of UKIP Scotland.
Agree 0%
Diasgree 77%
That's not a typo, by the way - ZERO per cent of respondents fancied bearing an image of Coburn on their chest. I am quite simply dumbfounded - what possible utility does anyone in UKIP think there is in letting people know that these barking mad questions were even asked in the first place, let alone what the answers were? Perhaps someone just pressed the wrong button - we'll know for sure that's the case if the poll mysteriously disappears from the Populus website by mid-morning.
Showing posts with label UKIP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UKIP. Show all posts
Friday, April 1, 2016
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Is Rochester and Strood the most important by-election since Darlington 1983?
We've discussed this before, but by-election upsets are much more important when they happen just before a general election than when they happen at any other time. That's why Govan 1973 is more historically significant than Govan 1988 - it generated momentum that just a few weeks later carried the SNP to an unprecedented general election breakthrough.
Probably the most important by-election in modern history was Darlington in 1983, because it took place on the eve of a general election that would decide whether Labour lost their position as the main opposition to the Tories - and if they had, there might never have been a Labour government again. The SDP started the by-election as favourites, but their campaign was almost single-handedly destroyed by the BBC's Vincent Hanna (the Michael Crick of his day) who relentlessly undermined the candidate's credibility at press conferences. As a result, Labour held on for an unlikely victory, and a few weeks later fended off the SDP/Liberal Alliance on a national level by just 3%.
It's quite possible that Darlington changed the course of history - if the SDP had won, Labour might have slipped to third-party status, or else they might have quickly changed their leader, in which case Denis Healey could have mounted a credible challenge to Margaret Thatcher. Either way, things would have been very different.
Rochester and Strood tonight looks for all the world like a similar turning-point. If, as expected, there is a UKIP victory, it's likely there will be a bandwagon effect for Farage involving further defections, less than six months before a general election. But if there's a surprise Darlington-esque hold for the defending party, the UKIP bubble may be deflated somewhat, and next May could prove to be a massive anti-climax for them.
From a hard-headed tactical point of view, it's difficult to know what we should be hoping for - a UKIP surge could split the right-wing vote and bring about a majority Labour government, thus depriving the SNP of any leverage in a hung parliament. But on the other hand, a strong UKIP could hasten the crisis over Britain's EU membership that might lead to Scotland becoming independent fairly quickly. We'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.
* * *
So, who can resist a mysterious summons from Robin McAlpine? He asked if he could run something past me, so I ended up meeting him and Miriam Brett in a cafe in the west end of Glasgow this afternoon. I'm not sure I was able to help them as much as they'd hoped, but from my own perspective it was fascinating to hear about their future plans, which are almost mind-boggling in scope and ambition.
One thing that became clear is that Robin could urgently do with a good night's sleep, or a full day off now and again. So if anyone is trying to think of an 'alternative' Christmas present to give him...
Friday, October 10, 2014
What does UKIP's breakthrough mean for Scotland?
Oddly enough, I didn't see Ruth Davidson tweeting the words "Well done, Clacks!" this time. The Tories' crushing defeat in the Clacton by-election is a landmark moment in UK politics - it's easy to lose sight of that in the midst of post-referendum fever, but it's true. It's on a par with Hamilton 1967 as marking the moment that a one-time fringe party entered parliament, never to leave (or never on any imaginable timescale). Even if we assume the most pessimistic scenario for UKIP at next year's general election, they will at least retain the one seat that they now have. Douglas Carswell clearly has an enormous personal vote, and to be fair it's not hard to understand why - leaving aside some of his political views, he seems like a decent enough bloke, and now that he's made his move there's suddenly such a thing as "the sane wing of UKIP".
The likelihood of the party system in the House of Commons fragmenting further has increased significantly with this result, and that will offer a huge opportunity for the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the coming years to use the seemingly improbable Westminster route to bring about radical change. We could well be heading for an Indian-style situation where we retain the God-awful first-past-the-post voting system, and yet still end up with the PR-type outcome of a hung parliament in every future general election, thus enabling small parties to squeeze substantial concessions out of the larger ones. To understand how profoundly things have changed, you only need to look at the way that Labour people were jumping up and down with joy last night at the news that YouGov were putting them ahead of the Tories by 35% to 30%. I mean, seriously? 35% is good news? There was a time, as recently as the 1970s, when there were thoughtful people in both of the two largest London parties who realised that, notwithstanding their own personal distaste for electoral reform, serious questions of moral legitimacy arose for any single-party government that had been elected on a relatively small minority vote. That kind of decency in Westminster politics has long gone - now Labour are quite content to win an absolute majority by a freakish quirk of the electoral system, and to hell with moral legitimacy. Unfortunately for them, it's open to severe doubt whether they're even going to do that.
As I see it, we're now looking at a slim one-off opportunity for Labour to get a majority, because we're currently in a transitional phase where the Liberal Democrats are going to take a big hit, and where UKIP haven't yet put down enough roots to win anything more than ten seats at the absolute most. That means a hung parliament will only come about this time if the result happens to be close enough between the two main parties. But by the election after next, UKIP will be in line to make a second-stage breakthrough, the Lib Dems' fortunes may at least have stabilised somewhat, and the Greens might even be looking to take a few more seats. From that point on, it may well become next to impossible for the Tories or Labour to ever win an outright majority again.
If so, the SNP will only need a little bit of luck for the cards to fall in their favour as they did in the late 1970s, when the party effectively held the balance of power with just 11 seats. They skillfully used that arithmetical good fortune to steer the Labour government down a road that very nearly led to a devolved Scottish Assembly being established. ('Very nearly' doesn't sound terribly impressive, but it shouldn't be underestimated just how close devolution was to happening - it was probably only the unfortunate timing of the winter of discontent that thwarted it.)
And what about the other potential indirect route by which it's frequently speculated that the Scottish independence movement might reach its objective quite rapidly, namely a British exit from the EU? It's actually hard to judge whether Clacton has brought that prospect closer or made it more distant. Obviously the stronger and more credible that UKIP become, the more plausible it is that the "out" side could win an in/out referendum. But a prerequisite for that referendum taking place is that there is a Tory-led government after the general election, and as tedious as the Tory warnings last night were that a UKIP surge might help Ed Miliband into Downing Street, there may be a grain of truth in that. We generally assume that Labour can't win because the public don't take Miliband seriously as a potential PM, but if it's getting to the point where it's arithmetically possible to win a majority on 33% or 34% of the vote, just how seriously do they actually need to take him?
Suppose Labour fall short, though. Suppose they fall so far short that their only hope of forming a government is to involve both the Lib Dems and the SNP. That was exactly the position last time around, and it turned out that they found the idea so distasteful that they preferred to see the Tories take office. But after five years frozen out of government, would they be hungry enough for power to deal with the SNP? I suspect they might just be, but that poses an even bigger question : would they be prepared to make a generous enough offer, given that as things stand (incredibly) the Tories are more radical on devolution than they are? It's an interesting one.
On the BBC results programme last night, Professor Curtice was once again expressing his scepticism about the theory that the referendum has permanently changed the game in Scotland, and said that he didn't expect the SNP to make more than a handful of gains from Labour in the Westminster election. He may yet be proved right, because the apparent lead that the SNP hold at present will be very vulnerable to the media blackout they generally suffer in the run-up to any UK-wide contest. But if so, Curtice is right for the wrong reasons, because he actually seems to doubt that the SNP's current position is favourable, which I struggle to tally up with the available evidence. For starters, he's completely ignoring the almost uniform message from recent Scottish subsamples that the SNP have the lead. Doubtless he'd justify that by pointing to the inherent unreliability of subsamples, but when they're showing such a consistent message I'm not sure that doctrine works so well. He's also pointed a number of times to the fact that Survation's full-scale post-referendum poll showed a weakened SNP position in Westminster voting intentions, but has failed to qualify that by noting that it was a telephone poll, and therefore not directly comparable to the previous polls from the firm. For some reason he has also failed to call out the obvious flaw in the only other full-scale Scottish poll that has been published since the referendum, namely that it used the discredited procedure of weighting by 2010 vote recall (although even then it still managed to produce a small SNP lead over Labour).
Whether Curtice is right or wrong, though, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that the SNP still have a golden chance to make significant gains at the election even if Labour hold everything they have. There really is very little doubt that there will be huge swings in Lib Dem-held seats, and it's just a question of whether the SNP will be the prime beneficiary of that. Until recently it looked almost certain that they would, but there is now a school of thought that the referendum may have decoupled a section of rural No voters from the SNP, and that the Tories might prosper instead (or indeed Labour in East Dunbartonshire). As things stand, that's completely unknowable - the SNP's strength in the opinion polls makes it seem unlikely, but we can't be sure that a decline in support in rural areas isn't being more than offset by what might be a short-lasting surge in traditional Labour areas. Even if that's true, though, a post-Clacton UKIP bandwagon effect is the last thing the Tories need, because a split in the right-wing vote will make it harder for them to pip the SNP in Lib Dem-held seats (and indeed in the three most vulnerable SNP-held seats).
* * *
The SNP have published their submission to the Smith Commission - it can be read HERE. It's really important that as many people as possible make their own personal submission, in order to improve the negotiating hand of the SNP and the Greens. You can find out how to make a submission by clicking HERE.
The likelihood of the party system in the House of Commons fragmenting further has increased significantly with this result, and that will offer a huge opportunity for the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the coming years to use the seemingly improbable Westminster route to bring about radical change. We could well be heading for an Indian-style situation where we retain the God-awful first-past-the-post voting system, and yet still end up with the PR-type outcome of a hung parliament in every future general election, thus enabling small parties to squeeze substantial concessions out of the larger ones. To understand how profoundly things have changed, you only need to look at the way that Labour people were jumping up and down with joy last night at the news that YouGov were putting them ahead of the Tories by 35% to 30%. I mean, seriously? 35% is good news? There was a time, as recently as the 1970s, when there were thoughtful people in both of the two largest London parties who realised that, notwithstanding their own personal distaste for electoral reform, serious questions of moral legitimacy arose for any single-party government that had been elected on a relatively small minority vote. That kind of decency in Westminster politics has long gone - now Labour are quite content to win an absolute majority by a freakish quirk of the electoral system, and to hell with moral legitimacy. Unfortunately for them, it's open to severe doubt whether they're even going to do that.
As I see it, we're now looking at a slim one-off opportunity for Labour to get a majority, because we're currently in a transitional phase where the Liberal Democrats are going to take a big hit, and where UKIP haven't yet put down enough roots to win anything more than ten seats at the absolute most. That means a hung parliament will only come about this time if the result happens to be close enough between the two main parties. But by the election after next, UKIP will be in line to make a second-stage breakthrough, the Lib Dems' fortunes may at least have stabilised somewhat, and the Greens might even be looking to take a few more seats. From that point on, it may well become next to impossible for the Tories or Labour to ever win an outright majority again.
If so, the SNP will only need a little bit of luck for the cards to fall in their favour as they did in the late 1970s, when the party effectively held the balance of power with just 11 seats. They skillfully used that arithmetical good fortune to steer the Labour government down a road that very nearly led to a devolved Scottish Assembly being established. ('Very nearly' doesn't sound terribly impressive, but it shouldn't be underestimated just how close devolution was to happening - it was probably only the unfortunate timing of the winter of discontent that thwarted it.)
And what about the other potential indirect route by which it's frequently speculated that the Scottish independence movement might reach its objective quite rapidly, namely a British exit from the EU? It's actually hard to judge whether Clacton has brought that prospect closer or made it more distant. Obviously the stronger and more credible that UKIP become, the more plausible it is that the "out" side could win an in/out referendum. But a prerequisite for that referendum taking place is that there is a Tory-led government after the general election, and as tedious as the Tory warnings last night were that a UKIP surge might help Ed Miliband into Downing Street, there may be a grain of truth in that. We generally assume that Labour can't win because the public don't take Miliband seriously as a potential PM, but if it's getting to the point where it's arithmetically possible to win a majority on 33% or 34% of the vote, just how seriously do they actually need to take him?
Suppose Labour fall short, though. Suppose they fall so far short that their only hope of forming a government is to involve both the Lib Dems and the SNP. That was exactly the position last time around, and it turned out that they found the idea so distasteful that they preferred to see the Tories take office. But after five years frozen out of government, would they be hungry enough for power to deal with the SNP? I suspect they might just be, but that poses an even bigger question : would they be prepared to make a generous enough offer, given that as things stand (incredibly) the Tories are more radical on devolution than they are? It's an interesting one.
On the BBC results programme last night, Professor Curtice was once again expressing his scepticism about the theory that the referendum has permanently changed the game in Scotland, and said that he didn't expect the SNP to make more than a handful of gains from Labour in the Westminster election. He may yet be proved right, because the apparent lead that the SNP hold at present will be very vulnerable to the media blackout they generally suffer in the run-up to any UK-wide contest. But if so, Curtice is right for the wrong reasons, because he actually seems to doubt that the SNP's current position is favourable, which I struggle to tally up with the available evidence. For starters, he's completely ignoring the almost uniform message from recent Scottish subsamples that the SNP have the lead. Doubtless he'd justify that by pointing to the inherent unreliability of subsamples, but when they're showing such a consistent message I'm not sure that doctrine works so well. He's also pointed a number of times to the fact that Survation's full-scale post-referendum poll showed a weakened SNP position in Westminster voting intentions, but has failed to qualify that by noting that it was a telephone poll, and therefore not directly comparable to the previous polls from the firm. For some reason he has also failed to call out the obvious flaw in the only other full-scale Scottish poll that has been published since the referendum, namely that it used the discredited procedure of weighting by 2010 vote recall (although even then it still managed to produce a small SNP lead over Labour).
Whether Curtice is right or wrong, though, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that the SNP still have a golden chance to make significant gains at the election even if Labour hold everything they have. There really is very little doubt that there will be huge swings in Lib Dem-held seats, and it's just a question of whether the SNP will be the prime beneficiary of that. Until recently it looked almost certain that they would, but there is now a school of thought that the referendum may have decoupled a section of rural No voters from the SNP, and that the Tories might prosper instead (or indeed Labour in East Dunbartonshire). As things stand, that's completely unknowable - the SNP's strength in the opinion polls makes it seem unlikely, but we can't be sure that a decline in support in rural areas isn't being more than offset by what might be a short-lasting surge in traditional Labour areas. Even if that's true, though, a post-Clacton UKIP bandwagon effect is the last thing the Tories need, because a split in the right-wing vote will make it harder for them to pip the SNP in Lib Dem-held seats (and indeed in the three most vulnerable SNP-held seats).
* * *
The SNP have published their submission to the Smith Commission - it can be read HERE. It's really important that as many people as possible make their own personal submission, in order to improve the negotiating hand of the SNP and the Greens. You can find out how to make a submission by clicking HERE.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Sign the petition : the broadcasters MUST give David Coburn and UKIP a fair chance to speak on behalf of the No campaign
I've never started a petition before, but when I think of what a democratic outrage it would be if the BBC and STV don't ensure that "Scotland's newest political force" is fairly represented within the No campaign's allotted 50% of broadcast time between now and September...well, I struggle to contain my fury, quite frankly. I'm sure Labour's Margaret Curran will sign the petition even if no-one else does, because by all accounts she kept whispering "yes!" every time she saw a pile of UKIP votes at the count, so she seems to be particularly keen on having the delightful David Coburn speak on her campaign's behalf on a regular basis.
We demand that the broadcasters give UKIP a fair chance to speak on behalf of the No campaign
Until now, broadcasters such as the BBC and STV have rarely permitted UKIP to make the case for the anti-independence campaign. This is clearly now an unsustainable state of affairs given that 17% of the votes cast for anti-independence parties in the European elections went to UKIP, who now hold one of Scotland's six seats in the European Parliament. We call upon the broadcasters to ensure that the full range, breadth, depth, diversity and complexity of anti-independence opinion in Scotland is appropriately represented in future, and specifically that where there is a head-to-head debate between Yes and No, the "Better Together" representative is replaced on approximately one-fifth of occasions by David Coburn, Nigel Farage, or ideally Lord Monckton.
Click HERE to sign the petition.
We demand that the broadcasters give UKIP a fair chance to speak on behalf of the No campaign
Until now, broadcasters such as the BBC and STV have rarely permitted UKIP to make the case for the anti-independence campaign. This is clearly now an unsustainable state of affairs given that 17% of the votes cast for anti-independence parties in the European elections went to UKIP, who now hold one of Scotland's six seats in the European Parliament. We call upon the broadcasters to ensure that the full range, breadth, depth, diversity and complexity of anti-independence opinion in Scotland is appropriately represented in future, and specifically that where there is a head-to-head debate between Yes and No, the "Better Together" representative is replaced on approximately one-fifth of occasions by David Coburn, Nigel Farage, or ideally Lord Monckton.
Click HERE to sign the petition.
Monday, December 2, 2013
The Strange Death of UKIP Scotland, or 'Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining'
Here's the bad news, folks : Nigel Farage has sacked Lord Monckton as "leader" of "UKIP in Scotland" (if the latter isn't a contradiction in terms). The party's administrative body has also been disbanded, prompting Monckton to declare that UKIP in Scotland has ceased to exist. ('Ceased'?)
But here's the good news : Monckton and his co-author Edwina Currie now have much more time to crack on with their long-awaited historical masterpiece Salmond : The Labour Years.
But here's the good news : Monckton and his co-author Edwina Currie now have much more time to crack on with their long-awaited historical masterpiece Salmond : The Labour Years.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Farage à trois
Earlier today I was asked by the International Business Times to put together a quick piece about the Farage incident. You can read it HERE.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The ever-resistable allure of a Farage à trois
The UK Independence Party confuse me, and I strongly suspect they confuse themselves. According to the BBC report of their campaign launch, they want to scrap direct elections to Holyrood and instead have a Scottish Parliament comprised of double-jobbing Westminster MPs - all in the name of greater "democracy". This would imply a very traditionalist Tory view of British democracy, and yet UKIP are supposedly strongly in favour of proportional representation. Indeed, they are backing a Yes vote in the AV referendum, in line with the vast majority of PR supporters in the mainstream parties. Why on earth, then, do they want to scrap PR for the Scottish Parliament and replace it with an in-built, overwhelming, near-permanent Labour majority?
It's plainly a double-edged sword that Nigel Farage spearheaded the launch - on the one hand he is the party's only remotely recognisable figure, but on the other hand it simply emphasises that they are basically an English party going through the motions of fighting a Scottish campaign. One very silly blunder is Farage's repeated and patronising use of the word "our" in relation to Scottish institutions, which brings to mind Mrs Thatcher's infamous gaffes of the "we in Scotland" variety. It's testament to the extent to which the Tory party of those days simply didn't 'get' Scotland that by all accounts she was explicitly advised to adopt such a condescending tone. Apparently at one point it was even suggested she should put on a Scottish accent when venturing north - a comedy spectacle of truly epic proportions that in the end we were cruelly denied from witnessing.
It's plainly a double-edged sword that Nigel Farage spearheaded the launch - on the one hand he is the party's only remotely recognisable figure, but on the other hand it simply emphasises that they are basically an English party going through the motions of fighting a Scottish campaign. One very silly blunder is Farage's repeated and patronising use of the word "our" in relation to Scottish institutions, which brings to mind Mrs Thatcher's infamous gaffes of the "we in Scotland" variety. It's testament to the extent to which the Tory party of those days simply didn't 'get' Scotland that by all accounts she was explicitly advised to adopt such a condescending tone. Apparently at one point it was even suggested she should put on a Scottish accent when venturing north - a comedy spectacle of truly epic proportions that in the end we were cruelly denied from witnessing.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Absence speaks louder than words
In the early afternoon, I had been planning to write a mischievous post about UKIP, after I spotted in the TV listings that they had put their leader Lord Pearson up for a four-cornered debate with the "three main parties" on immigration. I was going to say - what were they thinking? Hadn't they learned anything from Pearson's (intensely amusing, it has to be said) humiliation at the hands of Jon Sopel? I knew that Nigel Farage had resigned as leader to concentrate on his Buckingham campaign, but surely to goodness he could have afforded to nip away for a few hours to prevent another meltdown for his party on national TV?
But then I switched on the debate, and lo and behold, Farage was there in Pearson's place. It seems even UKIP are capable of spotting a dud leader when they see one...eventually.
But then I switched on the debate, and lo and behold, Farage was there in Pearson's place. It seems even UKIP are capable of spotting a dud leader when they see one...eventually.
Monday, February 9, 2009
'Others' up 3% in Populus poll
More potentially good news for the SNP in the latest UK-wide Populus survey - the combined figure for parties other than Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats (which is all we have to go on for the moment) now stands at 12%, a three-point increase from the last survey. There is of course no way of telling yet whether this is due to increasing support for the SNP and Plaid Cymru or for UK-wide minor parties like UKIP, the Greens and the BNP, but at the very least it is in line with Saturday's ICM poll in suggesting that the squeeze on the non-Labour/Tory parties we saw in the autumn is now well and truly over. As in ICM, the Liberal Democrats see an increase in their share of the vote, while Labour is down a full five points to 28%.
Full figures -
Conservatives 42% (-1)
Labour 28% (-5)
Liberal Democrats 18% (+3)
Others 12% (+3)
So now begins the interminable wait to see what the Scottish breakdown is - but at least we know there'll be one eventually, which is not the case with ICM. I did have a quick peek at the Populus website on the off chance, but their 'latest poll' link directed me to a 'Fabulous Sex' survey for the News of the World, the fieldwork for which was supposedly carried out between the 23rd and 26th of February 2009. I know that polling is getting quicker, but that's impressive by any standards. Has someone at Populus invented a TARDIS?
Full figures -
Conservatives 42% (-1)
Labour 28% (-5)
Liberal Democrats 18% (+3)
Others 12% (+3)
So now begins the interminable wait to see what the Scottish breakdown is - but at least we know there'll be one eventually, which is not the case with ICM. I did have a quick peek at the Populus website on the off chance, but their 'latest poll' link directed me to a 'Fabulous Sex' survey for the News of the World, the fieldwork for which was supposedly carried out between the 23rd and 26th of February 2009. I know that polling is getting quicker, but that's impressive by any standards. Has someone at Populus invented a TARDIS?
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