UKIP on 7% in YouGov poll

UKIP is on 7% in tonight's YouGov poll and 2% ahead of the Lib Dems in the midlands/Wales polling region.

The Lib Dems are on 8% nationally, level with UKIP on 10% in the south of England and on 5% in the midlands/Wales compared to UKIP's 7%.

UKIP could hold the balance of power in London

UKIP could hold the balance of power in the London Assembly after Thursday's election if a YouGov survey for the London Evening Standard is correct.

According to YouGov, Labour are expected to end up with 12 seats, the Tories with 10, the Lib Dems with 2, UKIP with 1 and the Greens and BNP to lose their single seats.  A ConDem coalition would have 12 seats, the same as Labour leaving UKIP holding the balance of power.

A UKIP assembly member sharing the London Assembly with a 12 member ConDem coalition and 12 Labour members would be king maker - neither faction would be able to form an administration without the support of the UKIP member.

Sadly the news isn't quite as positive for mayoral candidate, Lawrence Webb, who is sitting on 3% behind Boris, Red Ken and Brian Paddick.

Letter to Eric Pickles

As reported yesterday, the EU Commission intends to force the British Department for English Culture, English Media and English Sport to fly the EU logo all year round from its headquarters at Eland House.

We have helpfully sent Eric Pickles a solution that doesn't involve the futile act of openly defying the EU Commission (the EU always wins) or the obvious solution of doing what most people want and getting the hell out of the EU.

Dear Mr Pickles,

I read with interest your apparent outrage that the EU Commission is intending to force you to fly their logo over Eland House because your department spends taxpayers' money that is laundered through the EU in the guise of development funding.  I have a solution that doesn't involve leaving the EU or openly defying the EU Commission which, of course, your leader won't allow you to do.

Your department issues the guidance on the flying of flags from public buildings and said guidance includes respecting the order of precedence of flags.  In this order of precedence, the Royal Standard is first, followed by the union flag and then our national flags.  Eland House has two flag poles so the answer is to fly both the British and English flags, leaving no room for the EU logo which falls much further down the order of precedence, below the armed services' ensigns, the UN flag and the Commonwealth flag.

As a happy co-incidence, this would also serve to remind those working in Eland House that they are part of a British government department that, thanks to devolution, has jurisdiction only over England and would also inform voters in England of the same.  It is entirely appropriate that public buildings fly the English flag in England just as they fly the Scottish and Welsh flags in Scotland and Wales and it would leave no room for the EU logo in most cases.  All it takes is a change to your department's guidelines on flag flying that all public buildings in England or that are de facto devolved English departments (such as the Student Loan Company in Glasgow) that have a second flag pole should fly the English flag alongside the union flag and you can keep face without having to attempt to defy the EU Commission with all the embarrassing backtracking required when they slap you down.

Kind Regards,

Stuart Parr
Bloggers4UKIP

Sorry, Dan, but we are no longer interested

Yet again Dan Hannan has been calling on the Tory Party to come to some rapprochement with UKIP. Following on from his earlier blogpost calling for some kind of merger, he now suggests an unspecified form of 'pact'. Spooked like most Tories by UKIP's rise, his thesis is that unless the eurosceptic vote is united, the Europhiles will remain in the ascendant.

Well, the first thing to say about that is that in the days when the eurosceptic vote was more or less united within the Tory Party it didn't seem to advance our cause very much.

Been there and bought the T-shirt, thank you very much.

However, a much more significant point is that it shows how little commentator's of point left and right really understand what the rise of UKIP demonstrates: still stuck in the days when UKIP was more or less a single issue pressure group, they remain resolutely behind the curve in understanding that UKIP are emerging as a fully-fledged broadly libertarian party which is attracting people - particularly young Libertarian's - for positive reasons.

What is going on is the full de-merging of the classical Liberal and Tory wings of the Conservative Party. Are not UKIP the modern-day incarnation of the Whigs? Radical, committed, fractious, visionary and courageous. And are not the Tories...well, the Tories: pragmatic, cynical, cowardly, defeatist, myopic and elitist.

For UKIP to accept any kind of merger with the Tories would be akin to a puny kid who through sheer guts and determination trains himself up to be a professional athlete, only to then think it a good idea to inject cancer cells into his own bloodstream. For the cynicism of Toryism corrupts everything it comes into contact with: time and again we see the careers of good and principled men and women in the Conservative Party being brought down by those who believe in power at any price.

If you want to see what would happen to UKIP in a merged UKIP / Tory party, then you need to look no further than Mr. Hannan's own career. A well-meaning idealist who constantly deludes himself and his readers with his belief in a better Tory tomorrow, he has been left with egg all over his face time and again, most notably perhaps when he assured us that Ol' Cast Iron was working hard for a veto on the Lisbon Treaty. His more worldly comrade-in-arms, Douglas Carswell, is plainly now very disillusioned, likening Cameron to Heath.

The strange thing about both Hannan and Carswell is that both men are well-read with a strong grasp of political history, and yet they remain in denial about the true nature of the party they belong to, deluding themselves that there is something called the 'Tory soul' that can, presumably, be reclaimed.

But there is no such thing as the Tory soul, and never has been. As Boris Johnson (amongst many others) once correctly observed, the party exists purely for the pursuit of power. A correct reading of history shows that for the most part the Conservative Party only does the right thing, or for that matter the wrong thing,  out of fear of losing power to others. It therefore makes far more sense for UKIP to bully the Tory party from the outside rather than be suffocated by it's cold and cynical embrace from within.

Pickles told to fly flag over DCMS offices

The EU Commission has drawn up a proposal to force any organisation handling development money laundered through the EU to fly the EU flag permanently.

The rule change is an enhancement of existing rules that require said organisations to put the EU logo on all their stationary and on plaques to tell the world that the EU has graciously and beneficently given us back a fraction of the £50m a day we give them and all they've modestly asked for in return for such a selfless and generous act is to have their logo displayed everywhere.

Eric Pickles has criticised the plan because it means that the EU flag will gave to be flown over the offices of the British Department for English Media, English Culture and English Sport all year round rather than just for "Europe Week".  Eland House has two flag poles so there's no excuse for not flying the EU logo alongside the union flag but there is a quite simple answer, other than leaving the obvious one of leaving the EU: the English flag comes above the EU logo in the order of precedence and as culture, media and sport are devolved, Eric Pickles' department is a de facto English department and it would be entirely appropriate to fly it above his offices.

All it takes is a simple change to the flag flying rules his department issues saying the English flag should be flown over British government departments that are de facto devolved English departments and the EU Commission will have failed to get the EU logo over Eland House.  It would also have the beneficial effect of reminding Mr Pickles which country he works for and informing the electorate which British government departments are devolved.

Killing three birds with one stone, that's an efficiency Eric Pickles must surely approve of?  We'll write to him and suggest it, I'm sure he'll be terribly grateful.

1.4m Tory voters switch allegiances to UKIP

The Sun reports that up to 1.4m Tory voters have switched allegiances to UKIP according to the YouGov/Sunday Times poll that has UKIP on 10% ahead of the elections on Thursday.

As we've already said, the data behind the results isn't available but the Sun have obviously got their hands on it because they also predict up to 300 Lib Dem councillors losing their seats, 400 lost seats for the Tories and for Red Ken to lose the London mayor election.

The Sun says that if the 1.4m people who said they'll vote UKIP do so then UKIP will be the largest UK party in the EU Parliament after the 2014 EU elections.  More importantly, if the half a million or so that are due to vote in elections on Thursday go through with their intention of voting UKIP we could see a vote of no confidence in this useless coalition and a vote of no confidence in the whole establishment in the ensuing general election.

UKIP on 10% in YouGov poll

YouGov has UKIP on 10% versus the Lib Dems' 11% in a poll for the Sunday Times today.

The Tories are on just 29% whilst Labour are inexplicably way out in front on 40%.  Presumably lots of voters have really short memories or maybe it's just that Labour seem to be doing the sensible thing for once and are keeping Ed Dave Ed out of the media spotlight so people can't see what a useless cretin, completely devoid of charisma or backbone.

There's no breakdown of the results available so we can't see where the LabLabCon are feeling the pain but hopefully it'll be in the ballot box on Thursday.

Chorley Tories running scared of UKIP

Desperate Tories in Chorley have put out a leaflet trying to scare people off voting for UKIP by claiming that a vote for UKIP is a vote for Labour.

The leaflet makes no mention of policy at all and the only "positive" message is that their MP voted for a referendum on "Europe" a few months ago, referring to the vote on a referendum on membership of the EU (geography isn't negotiable) in which their leader whipped his MPs to vote against holding a referendum.

According to the leaflet "UKIP can't win here" which is probably what the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem candidates in East Sussex thought, right up until the results of the Seaford Town Council by-election were announced on Thursday night.

Remember, if you vote Conservative in Chorley, there is a very real risk you will end up with another Conservative or Labour council.  UKIP candidates for Chorley and the rest of the north west of England are listed on the UKIP website.

Teresa Gorman joins UKIP, rumours of more defections

Former Tory MP, Teresa Gorman, has gone public as a member of UKIP and is urging people to vote UKIP in the upcoming elections.

Gorman was a Maastricht rebel, openly criticising John Major's decision to ratify the Maastricht Treaty which created the political European Union from the European Community, the €uro and forced an EU citizenship on everyone who lives in an EU member state.

The Tories under the traitor Ted Heath took us into what is now the EU back in the 70s and the Tories have been behind every major power grab since, apart from the Lisbon Treaty which they were simply complicit in.  There have only been two opportunities for a referendum on membership of the EU - once in the 70s when Heath's government lied to the electorate to secure the yes vote and once last year when Cameron whipped his MPs to deny us the referendum we demanded.

Rumours still abound that one or more Tory MPs are planning to defect to UKIP with Angela Watkinson the latest one linked to the party.  Guido posted a list with odds a couple of weeks ago, suggesting Mark Pritchard and Bill Cash the most likely defectors, followed by George Eustice and Douglas Carswell and then Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorres.

• Mark Pritchard is Tory through and through and the Chairman of UKIP Telford & Wrekin branch is his former private secretary.  It wasn't a happy parting of company.  It's also my branch and we have ... history.
• Bill Cash was a Maastricht rebel like Angela Watkinson but other than produce some leaflets on the EU, has done very little to oppose our membership.
• George Eustice was a UKIP candidate in the 1999 EU elections but was turned by the Tories through his involvement with them when he worked in PR.
• Jacob Rees-Mogg is pretty rebellious (and co-incidentally contested Mark Pritchard's seat in 2001) but he's also a Cornish regionalist and an old Etonian - UKIP is possibly a little uncouth for Rees-Mogg.
• Nadine Dorres seems to be pretty disillusioned with the Tories at the moment - she's slating them again today on ConHome - but then who isn't?  She does seem to be trying to turn the Tories into UKIP though which is pretty futile but does make her probably the most likely one to defect.

It is very unlikely that just one MP will defect to UKIP so if Tory MPs have been talking to UKIP about defecting, they're probably waiting for another one or two to make the same pledge.

Keep Calm Greece

A crib sheet for Greek voters, shamelessly stolen off Facebook:

EU Commission wants 6.8% budget increase

The EU Commission wants another 6.8% increase in its budget this year - an increase of £1bn for the UK alone.

The EC says it needs the money to meet spending commitments which is interesting because that would suggest they have a 6.8% public spending deficit which is 2.8% over the arbitrary one-size-fits-all target of 3% that they are enforcing for all member states.  The Dutch government has just collapsed because they couldn't get through the necessary spending cuts to get their deficit (which is not far off the EU Commission's deficit) down to the EU's limit of 3%, shouldn't Emperor Barroso fall on his sword as well?  We can but hope.

Luckily, Cameron says that it's an unacceptable increase and so does the rabid europhile leader of the Tory MEPs, Richard Ashworth, so their plans are thwarted.  That's a Cast Iron Guarantee™.

UKIP MEP, Marta Andreasen, said:

[It's] selfish, unrealistic and insulting to taxpayers already under the cosh. This demand is cloud-cuckoo land stuff. Have the European Commission finally completely lost their grip on reality?

I think the answer is, they lost their grip on reality some time in the 60s.

Another great result for UKIP in Skegness

Another great result for UKIP yesterday, sadly not enough for a win though.

Chris Pain contested a Skegness Town Council seat yesterday and came second, beating the Tory candidate (no Lib Dem, a sign of things to come?).

The results were:

Lab 40.07%
UKIP 31.95%
Con 27.96%

Another great result, just a shame it wasn't enough for the win.

UKIP win Seaford Town Council seat

UKIP's Alan Latham was elected to Seaford Town Council yesterday, beating the Tories, Labour and Lib Dems.

The result was:

UKIP 428

Con 365

LD 344

Lab 105

Well done Alan, that's a great result.

UKIP and Lib Dems level again in YouGov poll

UKIP is level pegging with the Lib Dems again in tonight's YouGov poll.

Both UKIP and the Lib Dems are on 9% overall with UKIP out-polling the Lib Dems in the south of England and YouGov's Midlands/Wales polling region.

The combined vote share of the SNP, Plaid Cymru, BNP, Greens, Respect and "other" is only 9% which begs the question, once again, why do YouGov still lump UKIP in with the "others" when clearly it isn't?

UKIP 1% behind Lib dems in today's YouGov poll

The latest YouGov daily poll is out and UKIP is 1% behind the Lib Dems on 8%.

UKIP is up to 5% in Scotland which is certainly unusual and beating the Lib Dems in the south of England where we're on 12% versus the Lib Dems' 10%.

Once again UKIP is outpolling the Lib Dems amongst the older generation and working class.  12% of people who voted Conservative in 2010 intend to vote UKIP next week.