Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

There is no realistic possibility of UKIP being able to achieve anything
Hays - that's a very bold assertion, though come a general election, and the picture may well be different ...... do you happen to know how many seats ukip currently holds in the eu parliament?

I'm with Tanker on this. If Cameron's got any sense, he'll wait for a clearer sign of economic recovery and call a snap election with the promise of an in-out referendum asap thereafter. The public don't want to wait until 2017 and why should they?

It's about time for this old chestnut again.

They hold those seats because the MEP elections have proportional voting. It is the lack of PR that stops the Libs getting anywhere and stopped the SDP. UKIP will suffer in the same way. They may do well, but cannot budge the traditional Con and Lab voters. There is a stubborn rump of voters who won't alter their voting choices. In the UK elections are fought over the floating voters. The floating voters are not enough to put a party even into opposition.

cynic I believe it's 11.
2517

a snap election, even in 6/9/12 months time would be a very brave or even foolish call ..... it's one thing for the economy to be (well)on the mend, but there's a long lag between that and a general "feelgood factor" to become apparent

Hilary
It is interesting that the article was written in 2011. I like this bit!

David Cameron—now beginning his fourth term as British prime minister—thanks his lucky stars that, reluctantly yielding to pressure from the Euroskeptics in his own party, he decided to risk a referendum on EU membership. His Liberal Democrat coalition partners committed political suicide by joining Labour's disastrous "Yeah to Europe" campaign.

Egged on by the pugnacious London tabloids, the public voted to leave by a margin of 59% to 41%, and then handed the Tories an absolute majority in the House of Commons. Freed from the red tape of Brussels, England is now the favored destination of Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe. And rich Chinese love their Chelsea apartments, not to mention their splendid Scottish shooting estates.

Cyners,

I'm sure that some will consider it foolhardy to risk your political future on a snap election. But, if he doesn't get to grips with the Tory eurosceptics pdq, he won't have a political future anyway. So maybe he doesn't actually have anything to lose, and it won't be such a big gamble after all...

not my decision to make - fortunately for me and the rest of the country :-)

Haystack,

I regularly post a link to that article simply because I find it amusing that, 2 years down the line, so much of it is coming true. #nostradamuseatyaheartout

Torries in total turmoil.

100 plus tory rebels now.

Cameron going against the big wigs like Redwood and Cash......hes asking for trouble, big trouble.

fact the longer the torys allow the nutters from the lib party the worse things will get
for the conservative party the torys need to rid the gov of these lunatics and liars and thieves .

if the torys do not go to the country saying that it is the libs that are the big problem
the ukip party will gain over 100 seats via torys joining ukip

"There is no realistic possibility of UKIP being able to achieve anything"


Ummm I think they already have ... 100 Conservative MP's crapping themselves for starters and the Libs and Labour squirming around the subject without actually saying anything.

Problem the Cons got is their party is split on leaving the EU while UKIP aren't.

so Dil, do you think that ukip will (can) win enough seats in a general election to give them the balance of power?
if so, how many seats do you think ukip may win?

First time I've seen that article hils and all very plausible except the bit about Ireland joining back up with us and Cameron still being leader of the Tories in 2021.

The "iron Chancellor" made me laugh too , could think of a few better descriptions starting with clueless.

cynic - no I don't but I do think they can cock it up for the Tories and possibly let Labour in the back door.

Libs have already stated if they hold the balance they don't care who they side with.

The difference is that UKIP don't really have a party. It is just a ragbag collection of people want to stand for election. There is no grass roots party. They have stiired things up and I am not sure Cameron is that disappointed. If he plays it right, and it looks like he is, it will all be to the good of his party.

I remember well the excitement involved in the abortive attempts of the SDP to be a credible party. They had far more momentum than UKIP and they threw in the towel. UKIP is a one trick pony. No one is going to trust them with any amount of real power. They are a very useful tool to concentrate peoples mind on the topic of the EU. If you look at the charts above, you will see that there is 40% of people who want to definitely and/or probably stay in the EU. That shows you what a steep hill UKIP have to climb. It also shows them with only 18% of the vote. The Libs in the past have got nearly 30% of the vote and only achieved less than 10% of the seats.

Agree there Haystack but the SDP did manage to cock it up for Labour for years.

does one assume Dil, that you'ld be more than happy for labour to get in with say <30% of the vote? ..... and no, i have no idea who polled what % of the vote in the last general election, and of course with a fptp system, the % has little bearing on the number of seats won

UKIP may cause problems for the Conservatives, but I think their effect will be shorter lived than the SDP. Hopefully, the electorate will see the Conservatives as the only chance of a referendum, which it is. Only last Saturday, Miliband said he would not promise a referendum. Labour could be painting themselves into a corner over Europe. Conservatives seem to be taking the right line. There is no point in them saying that they would leave the EU as 40% would either definitely or probably want to stay in the EU. By saying that there would definitely be a referendum they get the votes of the ins and the outs. Labour by saying no referendum only get the ins. UKIP are left with some of the outs. The size of that fraction will depend on whether the voters expect UKIP to have any power in the situation. Hopefully the Conservatives will regain many UKIP supporters that realise that UKIP cannot actually do anything about Europe.

cynic

A coalition with Labour would be very unstable unless they do a lot better than last time. The Libs will probably do worse. A coalition with Lab and Libs in the last election would not have lasted. The numbers were such that the Conservatives plus the NI mob could have voted down the government anytime they wanted.