Electoral Commission says Tories committed election expenses fraud

The Conservative Party have been fined £70k by the Electoral Commission for making false spending declarations in the general election in 2015.

Specifically referring to Thanet South where Craig Mackinley went considerably over his legal spending limit to secure a victory over Nigel Farage, the Electoral Commission have said that they "cannot determine precisely" whether Mackinlay committed the fraud because of the Conservative Party's record keeping or whether he did it deliberately. They do, however, unequivocally conclude that Mackinlay and others "gain[ed] a financial advantage over opponents".

Hopefully the various police forces who have been investigating Tory election fraud will have found the evidence necessary to bring criminal charges against whoever was responsible. Their Chief Financial Officer has already been accused by the Electoral Commission of committing a number of offences and other officials are alleged to have been in on the fraud.

There could be several by-elections coming up soon ...

Geert Wilders' PVV expected to finish as second largest party in the Netherland in yesterday's elections

Geert Wilders' PVV has come second in the Dutch general election held yesterday, leaving the incumbent VVD the largest party albeit with a big slump in the number of seats.

It will take time to finish counts and calculate seats won under proportional representation but it would appear that the VVD will come out with 31-33 seats (down from 41) whilst PVV will increase their 8 seats to 20. The PvdA (Labour) are expected to drop from 38 seats to 9.

There was much speculation prior to the election that the PVV could win the election as resentment toward uncontrolled immigration and the cost of propping up the EU and €uro have increase. And Wilders was expected to benefit from Rutte's government ignored last year's referendum result on Turkish visa free travel a couple of weeks ago and the Turkish government denounced the Netherlands and Dutch people over the last week or so.

But the Dutch are a funny lot. They are fantastic people but they are liberal to the point of destruction. Another Rutte government is a disaster for the Netherlands but that's democracy for you.

Rutte described the PVV as "the wrong type of populism". In the EU, populism has become a dirty word but it would be interesting to know how you can have the wrong type of doing what ordinary voters want which is what populism means.

Elections to be held in Northern Ireland on 2nd March

Snap elections are to be held on 2nd March in Northern Ireland after Sinn Féin brought down the government by refusing to nominate a Deputy First Minister.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness - a convicted IRA terrorist - resigned a week ago supposedly over a botched renewable heating scheme that is costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement either the First Minister or Deputy First Minister's party can bring down the Northern Irish government simply by refusing to nominate a candidate for either post.

Sinn Féin won't have done this if they don't think they stand to gain. Reliable opinion polling is scarce in Northern Ireland so presumably they've got access to some private polling data that looks favourable.

Convicted terrorist and IRA Council member turned politician, Martin McGuinness

Merkel's CDU gets another pounding in the polls

Angela Merkel's CDU party has been given another bloody nose in regional elections, losing its place in the ruling coalition of the Berlin state parliament.

The CDU secured just 17.6% of the vote which is a record low for the party in Berlin. Both the CDU and the SDP lost vote share to the soft eurosceptic party, AfD who now have representation in 10 out of 16 regions.

A fortnight ago the CDU came third in regional elections in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

A good start to the 2016 electoral year ...

UKIP gain 5 seats on the Welsh Assembly with three of five regions declared

With 51 of 60 seats declared, UKIP has gained 5 seats on the Welsh Assembly.

Nigel Farage predicted that UKIP would take 5 Welsh seats but it looks like he may have underestimated with at least one or two more seats expected once the final nine seats have been counted.

Wales rejected the trade union's campaign of fear and hate run by their "Hope not Hate" campaign and backed UKIP in big numbers.

Counting is still taking place in the Central and Mid & West Wales regions but UKIP has topped the regional list for North Wales and South Wales East.

Region	Seats	%
North Wales	2	12.5%
South Wales East	2	17.8%
South Wales West	1	13.7%

UKIP make largest gains in English councils overnight

UKIP has done very well in the English local elections from the results declared overnight, currently sitting on +20 councillors. The Conservatives and Lib Dems have also made gains whilst Labour have taken a drubbing so far.

The UKIP group on Thurrock Council has grown by 6 councillors, bringing the party level with the Conservatives on 17 seats each. The UKIP group is in talks with the Conservative group to enter into a coalition.

UKIP has gained 4 seats on Great Yarmouth Borough Council to become the second largest group. The Conservatives have 14 seats, UKIP have 12 and Labour have 11 with 2 independents making up the difference.

The Conservatives have retained control of Tamworth but now have two UKIP councillors in opposition.

UKIP and the Conservatives have helped take Dudley out of overall control by the Labour Party with UKIP gaining one seat and the Conservatives gaining two. UKIP theoretically holds the balance of power but the Tories have said they would rather form a coalition with Labour than come to an agreement with UKIP. It's something of a moot point anyway as Dudley UKIP is disinclined to do a deal with anyone.

Only constituency seats (34 of 40) have been declared in Wales so far, none of which have gone to UKIP. The regional seats are where UKIP is predicted to make a breakthrough. UKIP has taken 13.3% of the constituency vote which, if reflected in the regional vote, could translate into 5 or 6 seats for UKIP based on the Lib Dems' 4 seats for 8% of the vote in 2011.

There have been no gains for UKIP in Scotland yet and counting has yet to start in London and Northern Ireland.

England, Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish, Police & Crime Commissioner and two Westminster elections are today!

Elections are being held today all over the country for local councils, devolved governments and Police & Crime Commissioners.

Polling has predicted UKIP storming the Welsh Assembly despite a dishonest and defamatory campaign by the trade union-funded Labour Party campaign group, Hope not Hate. If you live in Wales you can help show Hope not Hate, the unions and Labour that the politics of fear and hate don't work and help get UKIP elected to the Welsh Assembly.

UKIP is also in with a chance of getting representation on the London Assembly with polling suggesting that there could be two MLAs joining the 12 UKIP borough councillors already elected in London.

The polls are less clear on UKIP's projected fortunes in Scotland with predictions ranging from zero to 7 seats in the Scottish Parliament. There is a strong possibility of one or two UKIPpers being elected to the Scottish Parliament today.

Northern Ireland is voting for members of the Northern Irish Assembly today with 13 UKIP candidates contesting Assembly seats including three sitting councillors.

Police & Crime Commissioner elections are being held throughout England today with a UKIP candidate in every one. PCC elections are held under an Alternative Vote system where you express a first and second preference which makes the results very hard to predict but is fairer that the Victorian FPTP system where most successful candidates win without ever securing a majority of the vote.

There are also two parliamentary by-elections for Ogmore in South Wales and Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough with a UKIP candidate for both.

Finally, there are 2,747 seats up for grabs in 124 councils in England with 31 of them currently held by UKIP. Indications are that the party will make modest gains in England.

UKIP on 20% in YouGov poll for next week's local elections

With just a week to the local elections, YouGov have put UKIP on 20% in one of their opinion polls - the highest the party has ever had.

It's only one poll and such a jump hasn't been seen with other polling companies but it is a significant result nonetheless. A party needs 20%+ of the vote to be reasonably confident of getting multiple MPs elected under the Victorian FPTP system.

In Wales, where UKIP is tipped to make the most significant gains, the party is currently sitting on 17% for the constituency vote and 16% for the list vote with YouGov and those figures are fairly consistent across polling companies. To put that into perspective, UKIP got less than 5% in the 2011 Welsh Assembly elections. Interestingly, the Tories are only on 19% for the constituency vote and 20% for the list vote whilst Plaid are on 21% for the constituency vote and 20% for the list vote. The vagaries of proportional representation mean that a 1-2% difference in vote can mean a 100% difference in seats (it's still an infinitely better system than FPTP though) but with these numbers it's possible that UKIP could end up the second or largest party in the Senedd next week.

Northern Ireland Assembly candidates announced

UKIP's candidates for the Northern Ireland Assembly election in May have been revealed. It's great to see almost every constituency - 13 out of 18 - being contested by a UKIP candidate.

Candidate	Constituency
Cllr Donna Anderson	North Antrim
Alan Day	Mid Ulster
Alan Love	Newry & Armagh
Brian Higginson	Lagan Valley
Cllr Noel Jordan	East Antrim
Cllr David Jones	Upper Bann
Bob Stoker	South Belfast
Steven Parkhill	East Londonderry
Robert Hill	South Antrim
Jonny Lavery	East Belfast
Stephen Crosby	Strangford
Ken Boyle	North Belfast
Bill Piper	North Down

Regional lists announced for Welsh Assembly elections

The results of the internal party ballot to decide the regional list for the Welsh Assembly elections have been announced.

Former MPs Neil Hamilton and Mark Reckless have both topped regional lists, as has the leader of UKIP Wales, Nathan Gill. The regional lists are elected by proportional representation and with UKIP polling 18% across Wales, could return UKIP's first Welsh Assembly members.

Mid & West Wales
Place	Candidate
1	Neil Hamilton
2	Gethin James
3	Des Parkinson
4	Howard Lillyman

North Wales
Place	Candidate
1	Nathan Gill
2	Michelle Brown
3	Mandy Jones
4	David Edwards

South Wales Central
Place	Candidate
1	Gareth Bennett
2	Alex Phillips
3	Mohammed Islam
4	Liz Wilks

South Wales East
Place	Candidate
1	Mark Reckless
2	David Rowlands
3	Susan Boucher
4	Julie Price

South Wales West
Place	Candidate
1	Caroline Jones
2	Martyn Ford
3	Colin Beckett
4	Malcolm Biggs

Conservative Rajoy loses majority in Spanish elections

Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has been punished at the polls with his party losing its majority.

When jobs and money start to run out, people instinctively turn to the left for the illusion of financial security that it provides and in Spain they veered to the far left.

Rajoy's Popular Party still won the most seats but only managed 123 out of the 350 on offer, down from 186 before the election. The socialist party went from 110 seats to 90 but two new far left parties - Podemos and Citizens - came out of obscurity to gain 69 and 49 seats respectively. The chances of Rajoy forming a majority coalition are pretty slim with so few prospective partners and a rainbow coalition highly unlikely due to the highly polarised nature of Spanish politics.

The significant performance of Podemos will hurt the Catalonian independence movement as they are fiercely opposed to the region's secession. If Rajoy muddles on with a minority government he can, at least, rely on support from the far left in trying to stop the Catalonian government from continuing their preparations for statehood following a referendum which saw an 80% vote in favour of independence.

Ah, mierda

Tactical withdrawal by French socialists leads to defeat Front National

The French Front National have failed to take control of any regions in last week's elections after an unprecedented pact between the socialists and conservatives which saw candidates stood down to help keep Marine Le Pen's party out of power.

Last week's regional elections had overtones of recent elections this side of the channel where left and right have united to stop UKIP from challenging the status quo. The big difference here, of course, is that UKIP isn't a racist party.  But despite the efforts of Marine Le Pen to make her father's party more moderate since she took the helm, it's still some way from being transformed into the kind of moderate party that can gain enough mainstream support to win elections.

The decision by the Socialists to withdraw candidates from the second round of voting to help the conservative Republicans is controversial and undermines the democratic process. Voters marked their preferences knowing how the votes should be split between the Socialists, Republicans and Front National. So-called tactical voting belongs in the ballot box, it is wrong for parties involved in the election to manipulate the result with tactical withdrawals.

If Le Pen continues to reform her party between now and the next election, it is hard to see how they can fail to capitalise on the 6.8m votes it received this time round.

Far left criminals are making a mockery of the law

As the election gets closer, the campaign of threats, intimidation and vandalism against UKIP candidates and supporters is escalating.

Signs are being stolen and properties are now being vandalised on a daily basis, someone threatened to firebomb Nigel Farage's house on Facebook yesterday and a man has been arrested for threatening to behead a UKIP candidate in Newcastle today.

Nigel Farage's request for police protection for the election campaign was knocked back for a second time earlier this year and the threat posed by criminal gangs of fascist anti-democracy protesters to UKIP candidates and supporters is met with indifference by the police. There is an organised and coordinated campaign to undermine the democratic process and the police are standing by and watching it get out of control. Groups of far left criminals all over the country are making a mockery of the law and the law doesn't care.

Looking outside the box.

UKIP 1 Establishment 0.
While the Tories and Labour make silly excuses and Limps try and spin their lack of results as a labour and Tory problem, UKIP should be jubilant in the results we have garnered over the last few weeks in the polls and elections. And rightly so.

Now is the time for us all to pull together, I know some think we are taking a new direction, but as the party of the people we are going in their direction and it is working.
We have to have faith in the leadership and back them even if we do not agree with their decisions at the time because it seems their decisions are working for the greater good of the party.

We need to go with the flow on the good ship UKIP and see where it takes us.

We can not get our main goals of EU withdrawal and equality within our own country, some say our vision is inward but to me it is not, looking inward is concentrating on the Eu whereas we could look outward to the world for trade partnerships and the betterment of all and not just a secular section of the world called Europe. We need to concentrate on spelling out to the masses the flaws and inconsistencies of Europe.

We now have to pull together and fight as one Unit. The peoples army.

On QT last night some of the snipes at UKIP were from an uneducated view, we will not change that view hostility, we have to show why we think it is wrong and why our vision will benefit the UK and beyond.

They talked of a 30 billion hole in the NHS by 2020, well the logical and simple solution would be get our country back and stop a 10 billion a year pay out in membership fees, plus all the quangos to do with the dictacts from Brussels.

The HS2 vanity project being scrapped would save 80 billion plus.

Global trading would bring in millions and we can only have that by going it alone, without the EU shackles.

We need to be less insular and look outward, our new trade deal with China = unnecessary tariff expenditure due to our EU membership, the commonwealth can not be traded with because of our EU membership. Growth is stifled by our bailing out of declining economies in the Eurozone.

One idiot stated about Education within Europe, We are the only country, apart from Scotland, that has to pay, the EU students get grants to get education in the UK, so we fund it via taxes and fees.

They call us insular, well they are the insular ones, the world is bigger than Europe.

I just wish people could see that instead of the doctrine views spewed out by the small insular minded LIBLABCON brainwashing that they all hang on.

So lets fight as one, it is not about right and left. IT IS ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG.

UKIP NI Cllr Henry Reilly re-elected

Congratulations to UKIP's Cllr Henry Reilly who has been re-elected in the Mournes.

Not only did Henry secure re-election, he came top of the list for the ward with 1,964 first preference votes. Henry is also UKIP's candidate for Northern Ireland in the EU election.

Elections in Northern Ireland are conducted under the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system where candidates are ranked in order of preference and the least popular candidates are eliminated in a series of rounds based on first preference, second preference, third preference, etc. It's almost impossible to predict without seeing the ballot papers and having a really good memory because the lowest scoring survivor from one round can be the highest scoring in the next.

A night of success for UKIP

UKIP has seen some amazing results overnight in the local elections, depriving the Tories of control of a couple of councils in Essex and making big gains in several councils.

The result everyone will be talking about this morning is Rotherham where UKIP gained won 10 seats, becoming the opposition party. Had the whole council been up for election rather than being elected by thirds, UKIP would probably be in control of the council this morning.

Essex is the big success story of the night with UKIP taking a plethora of seats in Southend, Thurrock, Basildon and Castle Point and depriving the Conservatives of control of two councils and their leaders.

UKIP also won seats in Dudley, Sandwell and Cannock Chase. Husband and wife duo Bill Etheridge who is third on the MEP list for the West Midlands and Star Etheridge who is UKIP's disability spokeswoman both won council seats yesterday.

You can keep up to date with results as we get them on the Bloggers4UKIP Facebook page.

UKIP the only party to contest every division in Surrey

The Conservatives have cocked up in Surrey, failing to submit the paperwork for sitting councillor, Simon Gimson, to stand in the May elections to defend his seat.

As a result of the mistake, UKIP is the only party fielding candidates in every division of Surrey County Council.

If recent by-election results are anything to go by, Shalford is the one to put money on!

Another win for UKIP

Former Conservative councillor, Alan Preest, has been re-elected to the council he resigned from a year ago with a massive 73.9% of the vote.

Cllr Preest was elected to Lydney Town Council on Thursday after leaving local government under something of a cloud last year after being accused of shoplifting and of verbally abusing a council officer at a public meeting.  He has always protested his innocence at both accusations.


Since resigning his position, he has exposed some pretty serious failures in the financial controls of the town council that resulted in a rebuke from its auditors which will no doubt have contributed to his victory this week.

Greek election produces no workable majority

With 99.92% of the vote counted, there is no outright winner and things are so close that another election might be necessary to try and find some sort of consensus.

Syriza has gone from fifth to
second in 3 years

New Democracy and Pasok both suffered big losses whilst Syriza almost doubled their vote share and the new Independent Greeks party have taken over 10% of the vote in its maiden election.  The Communists failed to make any significant gains but the hard right Golden Dawn increased their vote from less than 0.3% to almost 7%, gaining 21 seats in the Greek Parliament in the process.

It is unlikely that any party will form a coalition with Golden Dawn so there are effectively 279 seats to play for in any coalition.  Maintaining the current New Democracy/Pasok coalition would produce a coalition with 149 seats - two short of an absolute majority but an effective majority of nine if Golden Dawn are taken out of the equation.  Dimar is ideologically close to Pasok so a three-way ND/Pasok/Dimar coalition is a possibility.

A right wing coalition of New Democracy and Independent Greeks would produce a coalition with 141 seats - ten short of an absolute majority but an effective majority of one without Golden Dawn's seats.  A left wing coalition of Syriza, Pasok, KKE and Dimar would produce a coalition with 138 seats - thirteen short of an absolute and effective majority.

The support of Golden Dawn, with its 21 seats, could be the key to forming any minority coalition.