Was the UKIP result a protest vote blip or will it translate into MPs at the general election?

The other possibility is that the Tories and UKIP form a pact. But that does not look very likely, because it would mean the chumocracy swallowing humble pie.

If the Tories do not change, if the chumocracy carries on as usual, then the risk is that the Tories will not be able to get their lost voters back, and that may allow New Labour to get the 36% of the vote that they apparently need in order to form a government.

As tiggy says, with our current first-past-the-post system, it is very unlikely that UKIP will get many MPs themselves, but they can split the Tory vote and allow New Labour back in.

What happened is that the Tory party lost many of its traditional voters - the Thatcherites.

'Does it not worry you at all that you voted for a party without knowing what they stand for?'

No, because I did it to protest about the Tories who have abandoned their own voters. I think lots of other former Tory voters will have done the same. We all risked allowing New labour to make gains, which is not what any of us want, but we took that risk in order to be heard.

We didn't know how many others felt like us and did the same thing. It was only when we heard the results that we realised we were not alone, that Labour had fortunately not made many gains at our expense, and that we all felt the same.

(I think UKIP are repugnant is what I was trying to get at there)

I hope not, because my town now has a UKIP councillor and I'd really rather not have a UKIP MP!

I'm really not sure to he honest, i can't really engage with the mindset of a UKIP voter, not being one personally and finding them generally repugnant.

Now, most people don't really know what their policies are

People who bothered to read their manifesto do. Does it not worry you at all that you voted for a party without knowing what they stand for?

AKiss, you are right that their policies will come under scrutiny and they may end up being unpopular when people understand what they are. Now, most people don't really know what their policies are and if they are feasible.

If they fail to make a good case, then they will lose the support that they have recently gained.

Cameron thought that promising a referendum on Europe would keep the plebs happy. But it didn't work, and the reason is because they don't believe him, but more importantly their concerns are about much more than Europe.

The chumocracy hope that if they throw some bones to the plebs, that they will be content and vote for them again.

No one really knows if that will work. We have witnessed the rise of a fourth party in UK politics. The chumocracy hopes it will just go away, but I am not sure it will.

Yes, Claig. I'll leave you to it.

'The UK electorate is currently generally centrist'

This is what all the oundits and politicos always say. But it is not true. The UK electorate is basically rightwing, it shares the views of the Daily Mail. The Tories and UKIP got 48%, Labour and LibDems 43%.

If we had a party that adopted the views of the Daily Mail, it would win. But the chumocracy will never do that, because it disagrees with many of those views and instead believes in global warming, windmills, carbon taxes, foreign aid and minimum pricing levels for units of alcohol for working class people. It does not represnt the majority of the people, which is why so many people turned in desperation to a party whose policies they don't even know, they turned to UKIP.

Do you realise when you talk about UKIP representing working people that they want to abolish the minimum wage, paid holiday, 40 hour working week and increase taxes for lower paid workers while decreasing them for higher paid workers.

I don't think many average working people will support this.

'Recent right wing Tory parties under Hague and Howard were electoral poison'

But this is where Hague, members of the chumocracy, Portillo and the progressives are wrong. They say that Hague tried to be anti-Europe and it was a disaster. What they all fail to understand is that UKIP is much more than just Europe and immigration, Farage told them that it was a mindset

The chumocracy doesn't believe that, they think it is just about Hague's anti-Europe failed policies. It isn't. The people have been anti-Europe for years and years, but that is not their main concern, which is why Hague lost. The journalist from the "New Statesman" was right - this is about "culture wars", this is about a "mindset", this is people fed up of an elite of all parties and a chumocracy that does not represent them and not listen to them. This is the revolt of the plebs against the patricians. This is not about Europe. And if the chumocracy fails to understand the mindset then mpre plebs will vote against them and for UKIP.

The Daily Mail has it right. They say this is because of the "modernisation" of the Tory party, the "detoxification" of the party by progressives within it who believed it was in fact the "nasty party".
As Cecil Parkinson said when interviewed about Thatcher's funeral, it was a mistake for people to call their own party the nasty party.

Thatcher's funeral reminded Tories of Thatcher and how far-removed from Thatcher the chumocracy is. They looked at Farage with his anti-windmill, anti-global warming, anti-Europe , anti-immigration, lower taxes, cutting of quangos policies and thought that he rather than the chumocracy was the true inheritor of Thatcher's crown.

The people are fed up of not being represented. That is why they sent a message to the metropolitan elite and to Labour also, who pretend that they represent the working people.

But that's not how it works, Claig. Euro-elections, yes, but they get even more of a protest vote than local elections. UKIP already have MEPs. Your own posts demonstrate the trouble UKIP will have at the next general election.

The UK electorate is currently generally centrist. Recent right wing Tory parties under Hague and Howard were electoral poison. Even socially liberal Cameron couldn't outright win an election. Moving to the right would be a bad thing in the long run for electoral hopes. Cameron backed gay marriage for example because the majority of the UK population has no problem with it.

Come the general election, should UKIP still have any sway, the party will struggle to produce a manifesto that doesn't alienate quite a lot of people who chucked an anti-politics vote at them last week. They can't opt out of 'politics'.

Yes, but Labour got 29% and UKIP, a party that has come from nowhere, got 25%.

The door has been pushed open, now many more people will vote UKIP believeing that they can even beat Labour next time.

When we voted UKIP, we didn't know how well they would do. But now everybody knows that lots of people voted for them, and they may do the same next time. If the Tories listen and change then that won't happen. But can the Tories change? Can the chumocracy admit that they were wrong on certain issues, can they reverse their carts and meet the people halfway?

I think all that will happen is that the Tories will spin their policies to sound a bit more right wing, Shiny Dave will claim he has listened to the people and the general public will be too stupid to see through it.

Sorry if that sounds negative but I live in a retirement area where many people blindly vote Tory because they are scared of everybody else and are, generally, poorly informed on the issues.

75% of those who cared enough to turn out for the local elections didn't vote UKIP of course.

Eeee, I said open-door EU policy meaning open-door for citizens of EU member states.

People know that they don't care what we think. They will spin it and hope that the first past the post system will get them back in. They won't hire advisers who understand why 25% of the voters turned to UKIP, they will carry on as usual, they say they they have heard us and that they are "on it".

Come off it, the people know they don't listen.

The government of the day almost always performs badly in council elections. The media always portray it as being a crisis for the government. The last two governments won successive general elections. So the historical precedent would suggest there is nothing to worry about - but one shouldn't be complacent. As others have said, this party's inexperience will cause them great problems in a general election campaign, as it has done for the LibDems and Greens in the past (the traditional recipients of the protest vote).

Incidentally anyone who thinks the uk has an "open door" immigration policy has clearly never entered the country on a non-eu passport, let alone applied for a visa.

'you voted for a party without having clue what they stand for'

Yes, I said so on another thread. I, like probably most of the other people who voted for them this time, voted for them without ever reading their manifesto or speaking to one of their candidates or looking at their website. I did it to make a protest, like many others did too.

As Farage rightly said, UKIP is not just about Europe or immigration, it is a mindset which is why its individual policies are not probably understood by most of its voters.

As the journalist from the New Statesman siad on the politics show today on TV, it is about "culture wars". It is about ordinary people not being represented by a metropolitan elite who take ordinary people's votes for granted.

The Daily Mail is hammering the Tories today telling them that they ignored the ordinary people with their metropolitan elite chumocracy.
But will the Tories listen?

If they really wanted to know what the people think, why don't they employ people like Richard Littlejohn - someopne who never went to Eton - as an adviser instead of members of the chumocracy?

i love that my sense of security in this country shuld hinge on who is married to a party leader

she's german

great

i'll get her to put in a good word for me then, shall i?

i'm not buying the whole 'it's just a protest vote'. is it pure coincidence that everyone who wanted to protest chose a party whose most famous platform is immigrants=ruining everything and must be stopped?

oh sure. nothing to worry about here at all.

chibi, Farage's wife is German. UKIP are not against immigration and immigrants. As far as I understand it, they want controlled immigration rather than an open-door EU policy and want skilled immigrants rather than unskilled ones who compete for low-paid jobs when we have millions of people unemployed here.

I think this thread is already proving some of my points.