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.

Not that good a result for UKIP after all. They were only 7% ahead of the Conservatives. They were 20% ahead then 14%, 12% and ended up only 7% ahead. UKIP did not manage the percentage that the Conservatives got when they won the seat. That should be easy to overturn at the GE. It is Labour that should be worried. They had thought that they were immune from UKIP. That is clearly not the case.

Max,

You should know, you seem and expert at it!

Mind you do seem affiliated to the right party.

Conservatives lead at 1

Latest YouGov / The Sun results 20th November -

Con 34%, Lab 33%, LD 7%, UKIP 15%;

Hays,

What was the tory majority at the G/E.

How many and what % of the votes have they declined to.

Suggest you pop down to party Central Office and ask Grant for you next spiel.

Wavy Dave is alright now.

His mate Andy is out of prison.

Andy will be able to advise him again.

Wavy Dave is alright now.

His mate Andy is out of prison.

Andy will be able to advise him again.

hays the cons had a 10000 majority now lost the seat by 3000
the voters are fade up with the liars in gov immigration is destroying the uk
the working classes are being pushed in to the gutter .immigrants have come here and fcuked up services which suit the cons so they can sell off the nhs to their cronies
taking the public as fools . as a life long tory I am now ashamed of the party of liars and crooks . that is all they are liars and crooks

It was not a normal election. The incumbent MP was standing and picked up votes because of it. UKIP picked up votes in equal measure from the other three parties making it look like a protest vote.

By Fraser Nelson
6:10AM GMT 21 Nov 2014
The general election will more of an ugly baby contest than a political beauty pageant

Three years ago, all main Westminster parties believed that they’d be in power after the next election. It was not entirely delusional: the opinion polls were tight and any sort of coalition seemed possible. Now, that optimism has been supplanted by fear and Parliament feels like death’s waiting room. The parties now all think they are about to lose – and this time, they’re probably right.

The Conservatives are today mourning the loss of a second constituency to Ukip. There are no mitigating factors in their defeat. Unlike Clacton, which Tory strategists gave up on apparently on account of its having too many old and poor people, David Cameron did his utmost to keep Rochester and Strood. “We are coming for you,” the Prime Minister told Ukip, in an interview with this newspaper, “and we are going to throw everything we can at you.” He did, yet Mark Reckless still easily won the seat for Ukip taking four in every ten votes cast yesterday. What does this say about the Tory election-winning machine?

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Labour has arguably more cause for despair; it held Rochester until 2010 and a party on the way back to power ought to be taking such seats back. When Gordon Brown called the last general election, his first visit was to a Morrisons supermarket there – to make the point that this was precisely the type of southern marginal constituency Labour needed to win the general election. Yet last night, it finished a distant third. The highlight of its campaign came when one of its wealthier frontbenchers, Emily Thornberry, tweeted a picture of a Rochester house with three England flags flying outside and a white van parked in the drive. It was as if she wanted to say: eew! She has now resigned.

The Liberal Democrats have once again been reduced to a fringe party, taking just under 1 per cent of the vote last night. This fits a trend: Nick Clegg has now lost almost three quarters of his party’s original supporters – a record surpassed only by Clement Davies, who oversaw the collapse of the old Liberal Party in the late Fifties. Long ago overtaken by Ukip in the polls, the Lib Dems are now fighting to stay ahead of the Greens. Clegg will now fight the next election in the foetal position.

Nigel Farage last night declared that Ukip’s victory in Rochester means that it can win anywhere – but he does not run a party of government. It is a thorn in the side of parties of government – a very effective thorn, and one that has drawn blood from all the leaders. But the problem for Britain is that one of the bleeding men will be our prime minister after the next election, and it will be a sorry sight.


It will come as no comfort to David Cameron, but this is part of a trend sweeping the continent. Ukip belongs to a populist backlash that is terrorising politicians in France, Greece, Italy and Spain – and in each of these countries, the problem is the same. The established political parties are reviled and the insurgent parties are in the ascendant. From Helsinki to Thessaloniki, this is being shrugged off with the same response: that these crazy parties may throw stones, but they’ll never govern. This is perhaps true, but they can stop other people governing – as Britain may soon come to find out.

Take Sweden, where one of David Cameron’s main allies – Fredrik Reinfeldt – was defenestrated a few weeks ago. He started off as a radical reformer, but took a safety-first approach as the election drew closer (a strategy, alas, now being followed by the British Conservatives). The result was as you’d expect: Swedish voters struggled to see what conservatives would do with another term in office. They didn’t turn to the official opposition but, instead, the protest parties – the mainly anti-immigration party and feminists.

As a result, no one won Sweden’s election. But someone had to form a government, so the Social Democrats, fresh from the second-worst election result in their history, had to put together a coalition. Today, not even the new prime minister seems to know what his government is for, apart from accepting the wilder demands of the fringe parties on whose support he now depends to survive in parliament. Sweden is, in effect, governed by a coalition of losers – and we ought not to laugh because, this time next year, we could be too.

The bookmakers, who are often more informative than pollsters, now argue that no one will succeed. That is to say, the shortest odds are now on us having a prime minister too unpopular to command a majority and too toxic to find a formal coalition partner. The lamentable lack of progress on spending reform means that the next government must implement more cuts than have been made so far – but far more painful ones, given that the easiest savings have been already made. The surviving Lib Dems would probably conclude that it is wiser for their party to sit this one out.

Ordinarily, a prime minister unable to form a majority would call a fresh election and seek a new mandate. But it isn’t an option for Cameron, since he unwisely passed the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. This has legislated for an election in May 2020, and an earlier one can only be called with the agreement of both Labour and the Tories. Which is unlikely, given that a date that suits one party will not suit the other. What was intended as glue to bind together the coalition may become a vice, keeping a minority prime minister in its grip for five agonising years.

It might be survivable for Cameron, thanks to a fresh revolution stirring in Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon is currently enjoying the most successful debut of any political leader in living memory, taking support for her Scottish National Party to historic highs. Alex Salmond emerged from the referendum campaign having more than trebled party membership. He lost the war, but Sturgeon has won the peace, having translated 45 per cent support for independence into 45 per cent support for her SNP. If she keeps this up, then Scottish Labour will be put to the claymore at the next election. The latest poll, from Survation, gives the nationalists 50 of Scotland’s 59 seats.

On a point of principle, the SNP don’t vote on matters that don’t directly affect Scotland – which means health, education, transport and the other areas of deepest contention. So Cameron might just be able to get by, with the ad hoc support of some Northern Irish unionists, Liberal Democrats and perhaps the Greens. The big tasks – health and welfare reform – don’t need legislation. And he would likely find the votes he needs to cling on power, because he would be doing a job that no sane party would want to take over.

The scale of the cuts to come is often forgotten, but remains staggering. Even now you could disband the military, open every prison, fire every diplomat and every police officer, cancel all international aid – and still not be able to balance the books. To crunch spending with a majority in Parliament would be tough; to do it without any claim to a popular mandate would be far tougher. And were Ed Miliband to hobble his way into Downing Street, lacking the support of his own front bench let alone his own party, the agony would be even greater.

Today’s result in Rochester is a reminder the next general election will more of an ugly baby contest than a political beauty pageant. The election campaign that starts in just over four months’ time ought to have been a quest for a winner – now, it looks like it will be a battle of the losers. For a country in need of strong political leadership, it’s a depressing sight.

The Telegraph

hay load of bollocks my self my family my hundreds of close friends ever one at the club are conservatives but not any more we are ashamed of the scum
are we protest voters crap we are sick of the scum in power

the country is run now by crooks and liars the public are sick of the scum

The current government is doing an excellent job and will do an even better job after the GE, when the Conservatives have a clear majority .

That's good gear you is smoking Haystack :-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11244995/Rochester-by-election-How-Ed-Miliband-turned-expected-defeat-into-utter-disaster.html

Fish and Chip paper! Mouth piece of Party CO.

Haystack is quite correct. Cameron is doing a fantastic job as PM, Osborne is doing a great job as Chancellor, and the Tories will comfortably win most seats in May.

Cameron has an image problem because he's tried to engage with the public by pretending he's a normal, middle class bloke that you could encounter in any bar on a Friday night. He's missed the point that the public want somebody they can look up to and respect as their leader.

Once he cottons on to that simple fact, raises the rhetoric on immigration and the EU, and moves Tory policy closer towards the centre ground which is currently shifting increasingly to the right, he'll be fine.

Disastrous night for Labour and Milibland though. He must be gutted to see that 77% of the Rochester and Strood electorate voted for parties to the right of centre, at a time he's wandering aimlessly to the left.

Another lunatic as escaped from the asylum!

Hays watch out there is a "lady" about!

Besides the "kitchen sink", how much did it cost the Con party to lose the bye election?

Some may be conned by an ex PR agent, but with the number of mistakes Cameron is making, the G/E may be different.

I wonder how many of the Con party will have flown the country by then.


===============

Bill Cash MP: The EU has become an undemocratic German-dominated Europe

An increasingly assertive German Europe is at odds with British national interests



'Far from preventing instability, the treaties from Maastricht onwards have generated it' Photo: JOHN COBB



By Bill Cash MP

12:35PM GMT 18 Nov 2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11237986/Bill-Cash-MP-The-EU-has-become-an-undemocratic-German-dominated-Europe.html



In 1997, a few years after the Maastricht Rebellion, Thomas Kielinger of Die Welt wrote Crossroads and Roundabouts, about the contrast between the German vision of Europe and the UK’s commitment to its Parliament and the national interest. We have since done Kielinger’s roundabouts and are now truly at the crossroads of the European Union on the big, historic landscape of the 21st century.


Tomorrow, I will introduce a debate in the House of Commons about the UK and Germany in Europe. An increasingly assertive German Europe is at odds with British national interests. This, for me, was one of the mainsprings of the Maastricht Rebellion, but it has been exacerbated by the consequences of the present treaties as a whole.


For example, we are told that the Single Market is the prime reason for our engagement in the European project. But, although over 40 per cent of our trade is with Europe, our trade deficit with the other 27 member states is £56 billion. It is rarely pointed out that we have a substantial surplus with the rest of the world for the same goods and services. Our growth is being dragged down by the sclerotic eurozone. By contrast, the German surplus within Europe is £51.8 billion.


Furthermore, the majority voting system in the EU Council of Ministers profoundly (despite a transitional arrangement) changed on 1 November, effectively giving Germany and France with a few small states the power to determine European decision-making.


The European Scrutiny Committee, of which I was elected chairman in 2010, argued unanimously and strongly in November 2013 that the Government should reintroduce the veto. In the White Paper of 1971, which was the basis of our passing of the European Communities Act in 1972, it was promised that the veto would never be abandoned. This promise was broken, and so my committee unanimously proposed that the formula "notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972" should be applied to Westminster legislation where it is in our national interest to do so, in order to override European laws and the Court of Justice and regain our right to govern ourselves.


The European project based on Maastricht and the successive treaties has undermined the credibility and efficacy of European integration. This is now reinforced by the practical and visible impact of the endemic protests and riots in the streets of European cities and by massive youth and other unemployment in several member states which has reached obscene levels of up to 60 per cent. I predicted this outcome in my book Against A Federal Europe in the early Nineties, along with the consequent emergence of the far-Right, and that this would be followed by massive waves of immigration from central and eastern Europe. No one can say that this has not happened.


Far from preventing instability, the treaties from Maastricht onwards have generated it; and far from containing German domination of the EU, they have stimulated it.

Ten days ago, at a conference under the treaties in Rome of the chairmen of the parliamentary committees for each member state and the European Parliament, the German delegation formally proposed a defence commissioner, a defence council of ministers and an EU military headquarters. As chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I argued strongly against this with Sir Malcolm Bruce and Mike Gapes. The British delegation defeated the proposal, but the German delegation insisted that "it will have to be put back on the agenda at the next conference" and added ominously that "Great Britain will simply not be able to maintain their line".

We are now, indeed, at an historic moment at the crossroads of the European Union. For all the protestations, the European Union has morphed into an increasingly undemocratic German-dominated Europe, with Britain unacceptably relegated to the second tier and with low-EU growth deeply affecting our otherwise successful economic revival.

The fundamental change needed in our relationship with the EU is the reassertion of Westminster sovereignty and democracy. Democratically, politically and economically, the EU needs the United Kingdom and has done so for generations. We want trade and cooperation, not European government. Cameron was right to state in his Bloomberg speech that "Our national parliament is the root of our democracy." It is not sufficient to reform at the margins. We must resolve the European (and therefore the German) question on our own terms. If negotiations for this purpose cannot be resolved, we must leave the treaties and lead Europe on the right road to stability and peace, both for ourselves and for Europe as a whole.

As Churchill said, we must be "associated, but not absorbed". We must successfully lead a policy of an association of nation states. Then, we shall be able to say, as did William Pitt in 1805, that "England has saved herself by her exertions and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example."

I recommend that everyone on here reads post 50913 above at least once and maybe twice. Particularly this bit:

We are now, indeed, at an historic moment at the crossroads of the European Union. For all the protestations, the European Union has morphed into an increasingly undemocratic German-dominated Europe, with Britain unacceptably relegated to the second tier and with low-EU growth deeply affecting our otherwise successful economic revival.

The fundamental change needed in our relationship with the EU is the reassertion of Westminster sovereignty and democracy. Democratically, politically and economically, the EU needs the United Kingdom and has done so for generations. We want trade and cooperation, not European government. Cameron was right to state in his Bloomberg speech that "Our national parliament is the root of our democracy." It is not sufficient to reform at the margins. We must resolve the European (and therefore the German) question on our own terms. If negotiations for this purpose cannot be resolved, we must leave the treaties and lead Europe on the right road to stability and peace, both for ourselves and for Europe as a whole.

As Churchill said, we must be "associated, but not absorbed". We must successfully lead a policy of an association of nation states. Then, we shall be able to say, as did William Pitt in 1805, that "England has saved herself by her exertions and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example."

It's now time to put into effect a massive push to leave behind our membership of the EU and lead the beginnings of a new or much changed Eurpoean organisation from outside.

Over to you Fred , for your long winded reply , of mis quotes and a silly history of the EU , on how it as prevented another war in Europe