carlton43
Reform Party
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 28, 2014 21:22:07 GMT
No, Mersey. people thinking of changing or just having a punt next year won't even remember Carswell and if they do they will no nothing about him or his views. You speak as if cold serious decisions are being made by the public based on an assessment of character, a knowledge of core political beliefs, and a close reading of the party manifestos. People aren't like that. I am really interested and have been involved at various levels of politics for over 50-years and I have rarely met people who look at the small print as it were. Indeed I can reveal that I have never read a party manifesto by any party in my life because they are boring, tedious tendentious and usually not put into practice. I should have clarified - I was talking about defections, not voters - but if you remember the SDP, they didn't pick up the Tory voters they were hoping to, and I think a lot of that came down to the fact that everyone bar one who defected in parliament was a Labour MP. The SDP appeared to be very much the product of a Labour party internal split. If other Tories follow Carswell the same impression could be given - and certainly that will be what we will say! I take your point, I had assumed ordinary voters. Yes SDP only one Tory but a significant number of flakey left-centre Tory voters for a while. It was more of a Labour schism thing and seen as such. UKIP was never really a Tory schismatic movement but a genuine single interest protest movement that mutated into a partly Tory schism after Cameron (my sort) and then an all and no party anti-immigration protest, and now a general standard for the politically off centre and dispossessed, coupled with the core right-wingers, the core BOOs and the core 'too many bloody immigrants'. At this stage that is fine and the lack of policy is fine and the big baggy nature probably helps. I would not anticipate seeing a Labour defection but it is not impossible. Two Labour defections would be a total game changer just as another half dozen Tories would be. As a strategist I could give a fortune for three Labour MPs of any quality or none. In my dreams! |
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carlton43
Reform Party
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Post by carlton43 on Aug 28, 2014 21:31:39 GMT
Not this anti-EU trade unionist But you are a right-wing anti-EU trade unionist. I'm talking about UKIP attracting people from the left as well as the right. I think that will be less likely if they become associated primarily with discontented Tories Carswell is very much associated with small-state libertarian views, which to an extent UKIP have played down in recent months - perhaps coming up to the election, this will be more of a focus again? The thing is Mersey that there are a lot of habitual Conservatives who are not very right wing and they were easy prey to Blairism. IMO there are twice as many habitual Labour voters who are not very left wing who could be siphoned off easily under appropriate circumstances. We live in odd political times. |
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Post by froome on Aug 28, 2014 21:42:33 GMT
Any thoughts on who will be the lamb to the slaughter here?
This will be a horrible by-election to be the Conservative candidate in. They will be up against a very popular local MP who will take with him much of the natural Conservative support, and who will benefit, I assume, from having all of UKIP's resources thrown in to make the breakthrough.
If they happen to win, well they've won a safe Conservative seat, but if they lose, which seems to be to be likely, then they have let in the UKIP bandwagon.
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neilm
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Post by neilm on Aug 28, 2014 21:51:36 GMT
It's worth mentioning here that a lot of 'trades unionists' are soft floating voters, certainly in the south.
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Post by Merseymike on Aug 28, 2014 22:03:15 GMT
But you are a right-wing anti-EU trade unionist. I'm talking about UKIP attracting people from the left as well as the right. I think that will be less likely if they become associated primarily with discontented Tories Carswell is very much associated with small-state libertarian views, which to an extent UKIP have played down in recent months - perhaps coming up to the election, this will be more of a focus again? The thing is Mersey that there are a lot of habitual Conservatives who are not very right wing and they were easy prey to Blairism. IMO there are twice as many habitual Labour voters who are not very left wing who could be siphoned off easily under appropriate circumstances. We live in odd political times. I don't see small-state libertarianism being the thing to attract them, however - indeed, I'd say that in 2010, most of those voters didn't vote Labour anyway. We were pretty much down to our core. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 28, 2014 22:15:22 GMT
Any thoughts on who will be the lamb to the slaughter here? This will be a horrible by-election to be the Conservative candidate in. They will be up against a very popular local MP who will take with him much of the natural Conservative support, and who will benefit, I assume, from having all of UKIP's resources thrown in to make the breakthrough. If they happen to win, well they've won a safe Conservative seat, but if they lose, which seems to be to be likely, then they have let in the UKIP bandwagon. They really don't want to parachute in a party hack from London (or even a non-hack from London). They got away with it with Carswell, but the added scrutiny of a by-election would prevent it working twice. But there aren't any obvious local candidates - most of the councillors wouldn't want to do it, and those few who might are mostly too thick to be let near it. |
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neilm
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Clacton
Aug 28, 2014 22:25:56 GMT
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Post by neilm on Aug 28, 2014 22:25:56 GMT
Indeed. There are one or two members in Colchester who might want to but...no. They couldn't take the heat.
I can think of one potential. I don't think he'd want to do it.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 28, 2014 22:29:42 GMT
Colchester still isn't local though. They really need somebody who lives or grew up in the constituency.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 22:39:03 GMT
Well there are some policy statements starting to emerge... I guess that might help give people some idea of where we have a focus... Yes but you do realise that if Carswell is elected almost everything that he utters about everything will be taken by some people to be UKIP policy. Tbh, thats a significant improvement. |
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neilm
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Clacton
Aug 28, 2014 23:12:50 GMT
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Post by neilm on Aug 28, 2014 23:12:50 GMT
Colchester still isn't local though. They really need somebody who lives or grew up in the constituency. As above, I can think of one. He won't do it, he's been elected elsewhere recently. |
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Richard Allen
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Post by Richard Allen on Aug 28, 2014 23:51:01 GMT
He's made it a damn sight more likely that I'll jump ship. Exactly...... but I think an anti-EU trade unionist will look at Carswell's bone-dry policies on public spending and welfare and think 'not on your nelly' You only say that because you haven't got a bloody clue what your typical anti-EU trade-unionist Lab-UKIP floater cares about. These people aren't like you in any way at all, for the most part they are sick to the back teeth of immigration, political correctness, gay rights and a million and one other things that you hold dear and the EU probably comes some way down their list of gripes. They might not like Carswell's economic policies but they aren't voting on the basis of economics. |
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Post by johnloony on Aug 28, 2014 23:57:00 GMT
From the point of view of historical record-keeping or record-breaking, it's awkward that there was no UKIP candidate in 2010. If there had been, there would be the potential for a swing of 20% or 30% or more; as it is there will be (technically) no Con/UKIP swing.
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Post by Ben Walker on Aug 29, 2014 2:33:47 GMT
Oooer. www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4190346.eceWhat's the likelihood of an exodus of Labour voters in the area to UKIP to halt a Tory hold? Surely - unlike Newark - they'd be more inclined to second pref us instead of the Tories in a "it's a two horse Con-Kip race here" scene? |
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Pimpernal
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Post by Pimpernal on Aug 29, 2014 6:20:42 GMT
Well there are some policy statements starting to emerge... I guess that might help give people some idea of where we have a focus... Yes but you do realise that if Carswell is elected almost everything that he utters about everything will be taken by some people to be UKIP policy. erm, yes... there are a few elements of all this that do concern me... I hope he doesn't force a shift back to the unelectable fringe... |
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Post by froome on Aug 29, 2014 6:34:50 GMT
From what I've heard so far, it sounds as if Carswell helped build the Clacton Conservative organisation up into something fairly substantial, and that now much of that activist base will either follow him into UKIP or will stay where it is but quietly support him. Either way, any Conservative candidate is going to have to work with a split or broken local party with those remaining being pretty embittered (and not the best to use for campaigning).
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Post by marksenior on Aug 29, 2014 7:42:33 GMT
Looking at Clacton Conservative Association annual accounts , I do not see a substantial organisation . Membership is only around 150 and down 20% on 2012 so there does not seem much for Carswell to take or leave behind .
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2014 7:58:53 GMT
Looking at Clacton Conservative Association annual accounts , I do not see a substantial organisation . Membership is only around 150 and down 20% on 2012 so there does not seem much for Carswell to take or leave behind . Given that there's been lots of talk about how Carswell has improved local campaigning, two hypothetical scenarios spring to mind: 1. He has managed to largely replace the existing membership with his own people - so the numbers haven't risen significantly, but the quality has. If this is valid, then the constituency association might follow him 'en masse' shortly. 2. He's built up a campaigning team that's distinct from the constituency association. This would mean that there is a constituency association for the new Tory candidate to work with, but it might be much easier for Carswell's team to go with him than if they were strongly tied in to the existing structure. Just playing devil's advocate  |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 29, 2014 7:58:54 GMT
Oooer. www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4190346.eceWhat's the likelihood of an exodus of Labour voters in the area to UKIP to halt a Tory hold? Surely - unlike Newark - they'd be more inclined to second pref us instead of the Tories in a "it's a two horse Con-Kip race here" scene? Depends on the polling, but 'former Labour voters' isn't necessarily that informative, given how we fell between 2005 and 2010. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 29, 2014 8:01:17 GMT
Looking at Clacton Conservative Association annual accounts , I do not see a substantial organisation . Membership is only around 150 and down 20% on 2012 so there does not seem much for Carswell to take or leave behind . Given that there's been lots of talk about how Carswell has improved local campaigning, two hypothetical scenarios spring to mind: 1. He has managed to largely replace the existing membership with his own people - so the numbers haven't risen significantly, but the quality has. If this is valid, then the constituency association might follow him 'en masse' shortly. 2. He's built up a campaigning team that's distinct from the constituency association. This would mean that there is a constituency association for the new Tory candidate to work with, but it might be much easier for Carswell's team to go with him than if they were strongly tied in to the existing structure. Just playing devil's advocate There is a third possibility - that nobody talking about it seems to have been to Clacton and is taking it on trust. |
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Post by Ben Walker on Aug 29, 2014 11:36:58 GMT
Roger Lord telling the BBC he might stand for the Tories.
Oh, you lucky, lucky, Tories.
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