Conservatives must make a pact with Ukip, Lord Tebbit says

It's an ongoing focus for all parties contesting the GE.

If Ukip now believe they are a force for change and don't have a single seat in the Commons, I guess predicting seats of their opposition is an ongoing (internal) party focus.

There's a website called electoral calculus that uses opinion poll data to forecast the GE result.

Why would they want to even do that?

A question for after the Clegg-Farage debate, maybe?

The Lib Dems had 62 seats before the last General Election, 57 after I believe, so a tight average over two parliaments - I haven't seen any recent forecasts, has anyone else?

How many seats are Lib-Dems expected to win at General election?

Motown3000….you have explained the uphill electoral struggle the Conservatives face better than I did, and I promise you I understand the math; but in my view if the collective Eaton and Oxbridge brains of the Conservative Party cannot effectively campaign on the facts/choices, neither they nor ‘the people’ deserves the next majority government to be Conservative.

With respect, what you and Tebbit aren’t getting, but Mr Farage knows only too well, is that as Ukip is not a conventional political party with solid domestic policies (and its members reflect that), there is no real option in CONTROLLING them within some electoral pact, so the Conservatives need to put all their efforts into their own campaign.

Moreover the Ukip ability to keep their voters seems to be susceptible to pre election policies emerging, and seem quite capable of shooting themselves in the foot e.g. votes won on gay marriage.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2583636/Ukip-not-oppose-gay-marriage-Farage-reveals-calls-French-style-separate-legal-religious-services.html

Isit. You will be Aware that in Theory, the Labour Party could form an Majority Government with as little as 34% of the vote . The Conservative Party would Need 42-43% of the vote for the same no of seats. It means that Labour Start with a 35 Seat Advantage ( The System gives Lid Dems No chance ) Though with 7% of the vote , they will get, "Thank God"

. UKIP will probably cost the Conservative party at least 20 Marginal seats, in reality giving Labour a 55 Seat Start, Conservative Central Office are going to have to start speaking to UKIP . If they don't start speaking we are heading for 10 years of Labour and the completion of their ideology in destroying the United Kingdom.

Despite the rhetoric coming from Farage that many voters are labour voters, they are probably the children of the one's who catapulted " Thatcher in to power in 1979.

Seriously don't worry about it, I can more than look after myself on a board.

if the dropping of the 'c-bomb' on my head had little effect, a Conservative subjected to class/education snobbery, is actually quite amusing.

No, sorry IsItMe, that was rude of me. I've reported my post and asked for MNHQ to delete it.

Sorry Hammaconda, I accept my comprehensive school GCSE English means other people speak much better English ‘than what I do’, but I’m not sure how many more ways I can express the first few paragraphs.

In 2010 where under 2/3rds voted, there were various influences on the election that IMO with time/clarity will not be as relevant in 2015; the then worst recession in 80-years, we were then not allowed to see the government of the days cuts/spending/ extra tax plans when voters will demand costed plans from all parties in 2015, the then ‘do we trust the Conservatives’ when under Brown we had a ‘Money Tree’ we were told is still bearing endless fruit, the then Clegg TV debate factor, the acceptance that a coalition was both inevitable and politically balanced welcome, when the next one is likely to be 100% socialist - and another right wing political party gaining traction/votes, ALL then influencing the electorate.

The majority of those uncertainties have now been clarified, including the relevance of Ukip in EU policies two months after the Ashcroft poll.

Furthermore if Mr Ashcroft’s poll is 8,000 out of 10.7 million voters when many of them (and maybe the 1/3rd who did not vote in 2010) make their mind up on the day on whom they trust in a growing economy, often flying in the face of many much larger polls in the months before – personally I would be more interested in his NEXT one, closer to may 2015.

Referenda aren't binding

TheHammaconda….first of all, wasn’t Ashcroft’s ‘sampling’ (which apparently is large by sampling standards) of 8,000 people who voted Conservative in 2010, from 10.7 million of people who voted Conservative in 2010 – if so gauging sentiment both then and after Miliband’s March EU ‘no referendum’ re defectors to say, Ukip, nothing can go wrong there then. Not.

Ukip had how many votes in the 2010 General Election, around 920,000, and Farage himself has just said that ‘MOST of our voters are coming from Labour’ and ‘two thirds of our voters would never vote Conservative anyway’, so whether looking at past, or future Conservatives voting Ukip, to my mind neither the logic or numbers add up.

So as Ukip currently does not have any other policies to ‘sample’ and no Conservative voter I’ve ever met has voted for the Labour Party other than in 1997, when they thought (to their error) that the days of Old Labour crashing the economy was over – and many of those unhappy with liberal policies adopted by Cameron that were INFLUENCED by a coalition with the Lib Dems are unlikely to vote for Mr Clegg - I’m unsure where 2010 Conservative voters in 2015 CAN defect to.

Your Labour EU ‘no referendum’ strategy to split the Conservatives, rather than do what is right for the country MAY be the cunning plan, Labour/Brown have form there, but at the end of the day it matters not what Cameron wants, when THE PEOPLE ARE ALLOWED TO VOTE and that vote is binding.

As to Cameron not winning a majority in 2010, due to another right wing party in a major recession making promises to the electorate on the EU/immigration they could never keep - apparently over key constituencies it was a pretty close thing.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/7693877/General-Election-2010-Ukip-challenge-cost-Tories-a-Commons-majority.html

But come the 2015 General Election Labour has ensured it won’t be a fair fight, as the Conservatives need to be several percent IN THE POLLS LEAD to get a decent majority over Labour, thanks to the boundaries and other little ‘mines’ Labour left.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/10268870/Million-foreign-voters-could-sway-result-of-next-general-election-warns-report.html

"No worries, if fools like that wants to let in Labour rather than allow gay people to be happy, then on a ‘cut wealthy nose, to spite a blue face’ strategy"

The gay marriage issue is one that upset a lot of conservatives. Looking back it upsets me too, though I didn't give a sod either way at the time.

The media certainly painted the story as an example of mass homophobia, as did the government and every talking head.

So why do I only now give a damn, when it fell off the radar quite some time ago? Simply put I re-read Magna Carta.

The first paragraph, and therefore one would imagine the most important, deals with the freedom of the Church.

"FIRST, We have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for Us and our Heirs for ever, that the Church of England shall be free, and shall have all her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable. We have granted also, and given to all the Freemen of our Realm, for Us and our Heirs for ever, these Liberties under-written, to have and to hold to them and their Heirs, of Us and our Heirs for ever."

Find me a lawyer that could squirrel out of that...

But they did, and the fact is that the Church of England rejected gay marriage, for whatever their own reasons were ( I think Hitchens wrote at length about it).

So was it mass homophobia or something deeper? A sense that something was wrong and against our constitution even if the opposition was either ill judged, ill reasoned or ill represented?

Habeus corpus, equality under the law and even the right to be judged by your peers all went the way of the dodo under new labour, as did a great many sections and clauses when last labour had a large majority in the late 60s.

But it was the tories who put the last nail in the coffin. I suspect the anger was justified, even if possibly for the wrong reasons, or more likely I think for reasons felt but not rationalised.

No it wasn't that late. Yes it got little coverage.

His explanation was all hogwash. The festival takes place during the afternoon and early evening and the restaurant owner is one of the local philanthropists.

Tebbit is just vile and he should be deeply ashamed of himself, even now.

Maybe he sees himself as a modern day St George?

He made comments that weren't what I would call enlightened. They weren't reported.

It was a very nasty incident and most people in the town (decent people) were incredulous that he wasn't arrested and charged. We would have been had we acted in this manner.

Wise words from the man who assaulted a young Chinese lad taking part in a legitimate Chinese New Year charity event near his home? Nasty racist old dinosaur. The only reason he wasn't arrested and charged was because the business owner sponsoring the event was the bigger person and the Police were swayed by the 'celebrity'.

The wisdom of a man who is too dumb to realise that when you buy a house in a business district / town centre, you might have to live with civic events?

It suits Tebbit just fine to ally himself with UKIP - nasty racist old man.