Today, Frank Davis points to the YouGov poll which shows UKIP more popular than Labour:
CON: 38%
UKIP: 28%
LAB: 25%
LIB-DEM: Missing, presumed dead.
Frank says,
I think all the mainstream political parties are facing identity crises. There’s very much a sense of fin de siècle in the air, that the old order is disintegrating.
He adds that Labour no longer represents working people. That’s true, unless they are coming from Eastern Europe and working for peanuts, undercutting our people, to keep down the costs for these champagne socialists’ wealthy corporate chummies.
The Conservatives no longer want to conserve. It’s become a progressive, modernising party.
He finishes with a remarkable quote from Polly Toynbee, who says that, “The trouble is that the sort of people who vote UKIP… often don’t watch the BBC News, don’t read newspapers that tell them the truth about where the parties stand.”
Dick Puddlecote has written about how out of touch Labour are, with Emily Thornberry’s snobbery about white van drivers and Labour’s leaked document about their healthist plans, including minimum alcohol prices and a ban on television adverts for ‘unhealthy’ food before 9pm.
Thornberry did the country a favour by showing that Labour don’t have the first clue about people in general. For Miliband to claim that his party respects the working class – while his party members furiously work to denormalise and outlaw their freedom of choice – is a just a sick joke.
I used to vote for these muppets! Their ‘morals’ (for want of a better word) are diametrically opposite to mine, although this has become far clearer in more recent years.
To me, it was a case of black and white; Labour and Tory; us and them. Of course, now I realise it’s them and them, sharing the same ideas because it’s the same people behind the curtain pulling the strings, against us. The ‘us’ in the equation are truly disregarded and despised and only needed on polling days.
For example, D.P. links to a Guardian article about Labour’s ideas about minimum pricing, etc.,
The Conservative party chairman, Grant Shapps, said: “It’s the same old Labour. They claim they are worried about prices – but want to put up the cost of a drink. Not only would that make a drink after work more expensive, it would hit pubs hard, putting many out of business.
We know that the smoking bans have already done that and that the huge indirect duties with VAT on top on tobacco, alcohol and petrol/diesel affect the poorest the most, but the Tories have exactly the same plan. If memory serves, Cameron’s figure was 45p a unit minimum price. Alex Salmond’s is 50p. Some Labour councilllors in Northumberland got into trouble in 2012 (Salmond’s price hike was supposed to have come into effect in the Spring of 2013, but hasn’t yet) by suggesting that they could profit from this by advertising “booze cruises” by bus obviously, for Scots to benefit from England’s cheaper (but still extortionate) prices.
And to think that some people say Labour are useless at anything to do with economics!
Of course, the Tories and Lib Dems were quick to denounce Labour. Probably because they wish they’d thought of it first.
Some of us have been fortunate in becoming deprogrammed. The smoking ban was the wake-up call for Frank. He then started to notice many other things he disagreed with. For me it was the realisation that the Labour vs Tory Punch and Judy show is just entertainment for the masses to give the illusion of “democracy” and to have reached an age when I can remember many governments and many characters and their promises of better times if we just trust them with our vote, while life seems to have become increasingly difficult regardless of who’s supposedly in charge.
There’s a 5½ month race on for more people to become deprogrammed, because another five years of this will possibly finish us off completely. Like the myriad of difficulties encountered with the possibility of Scottish ‘independence’, e.g. splitting the possessions after the divorce (including our overseas possessions – not sure if Salmond wanted Bermuda, Tristan da Cunha, Pitcairn, or what), the same will eventually be true of trying to separate the UK from Brussels.
Judging by the recent by-election UKIP nearly took from Labour, we could almost be there. But they’ll no doubt revert to type in the general election. It should be worth staying up most of the night for.
As for Ed Miliband. He surely has to go for Labour’s sake. Cameron, I think, will stay, but be very ‘earnestly’ Eurosceptic until he tries to form a new coalition with the SNP, N. Irish parties and the five Lib Dem MPs. Lib Dems are probably past caring who leads them. To see their tiny MP tally for the new parliament should be just one of the highlights.
Next Spring’s general election: last chance saloon for this one-horse country?