To laugh at the UKIP party political broadcast

[FreudiansSlipper]

just switched on the news to be confronted by a London cab driver (stating that he does not want foreigners human rights put above those of this country) and token Asian man (business man wanting more support for business not our tax going to Brussels)

could it have been more predictable

on a serious note Nigel Farage should not be written off

[lljkk]

flatpack or an NHS hospital able to get cleaners, or farmers able to get pickers, or carehomes able to get any staff...

The "immigrants jumping the housing queue" is a common claim, I know it got refuted recently, hang on a sec.

[TheVermiciousKnid]

Farage himself has just had to admit that some of their candidates might be rather ... unsavoury. Lovely party - former BNP members, a Holocaust denier - who wouldn't want to vote for them!

[infamouspoo]

Fancy emigrating to this country, getting a job, paying tax then daring to send your kids to the local school and use the NHS. The cheek.

[infamouspoo]

I shall send DH back immediately.

[Reasonrules]

One of the reasons voters find Nigel Farage attractive is that he tells the truth and leaves it up to the electorate to judge him.

Unlike all the other slimy politicians who much prefer to waffle than tell it as it is.

[lljkk]

"less than two per cent of all social housing residents are people who have moved to Britain in the last five years and that nine out of ten people who live in social housing were born in the UK" : 2009 study.

Immigrants make "little use of social housing." from Shelter.

2013: Tougher regulations already planned.

But what about asylum seekers, they are a different category from "immigrants", maybe?
Asylum seeker's housing is not paid for by the local council.

[Reasonrules]

Signing off now.

Good luck to you all.

[YokoUhOh]

Farage was on C4 News the other night, on a jolly to Bulgaria. He couldn't fine one person who wanted to move to the UK. In fact, a couple of girls had moved here, and moved straight back to Sofia because of the atrocious weather :)

He didn't cover himself in glory, he mostly sat in a bar with a cigarette and a nice glass of Bulgarian wine.

[infamouspoo]

I saw the TV interview he gave. The Bulgarian interviewer wiped the floor with him.

[ComposHat]

On a related note...

I'm not a Nigelist but

Does anyone know a Nigel who isn't a massive bell end?


I mean some of my best friend s are Nigels.

[flatpackhamster]

lljkk

flatpack or an NHS hospital able to get cleaners, or farmers able to get pickers, or carehomes able to get any staff...

So you're saying that all immigrants would leave the country if UKIP came to power? Curious because their manifesto doesn't say anything about throwing all immigrants out of the country.

Of course the UKIP message isn't targetted at bien-pensant socialists and comfortably off public sector workers living in Brighton. It's not targetted at the winners from the last 15 years of Labour and Labour-lite government. They're talking to the people who've struggled to get their kids in to a primary school thanks to a 3-million rise in the UK's net population. They're talking to the people whose salaries have fallen while their living costs have risen, thanks to immigration pushing private sector wages down. The ones who are wondering if their kids will ever be able to afford their own home, thanks to a Labour-created housing bubble and mass immigration putting pressure on house prices and trebling them over a 15-year period.

It's working, too. UKIP's membership rose by a third in 6 months. They did a tour around the country and every venue they visited was packed to capacity. It isn't the usual people turning out to these venues, either. A swathe of people have been disenfranchised by the last 15 years of government. UKIP is engaging them with messages that, while they may be disasteful to a small minority, really resonate. Most of their voters are C2s, skilled middle class and working class voters. They're ones who have suffered under mass immigration and it's good that they finally have a voice, since the other 3 main parties have ignored them or abused them for too long.

[YokoUhOh]

infamous didn't she call him on being a Huguenot? Brilliant. Why can't Jon Snow or Paxo do that?

[infamouspoo]

I'm not a public sector worker who lives in Brighton. Working class from the East End but I'm not stupid enough to vote for UKIP. They'd want my disabled child segregated. They have Holocaust deniers and ex BNP in their ranks.

[PeneloPeePitstop]

Yep, I'm in the same boat as infamous.

Any UKIP voter want THEIR kids segregated?

[lljkk]

How would I know if I've benefit from 15 yrs of Labour & Labour Lite govt? (Serious question!?).

Must be a website, somewhere, that says whether which type of person is better or worst off.

According to this:
UKIP want to double defense spending & cut 2 million people off the public sector payroll (but not in defense, I guess) and give everyone healthcare vouchers rather than be tied to the NHS. So can we add semi-privatisation of health care to their policies?

High speed rail, return to smoking in public places...

[flatpackhamster]

PeneloPeePitstop

Yep, I'm in the same boat as infamous.

Wow, what a lot of salt-of-the-earth working class East Enders we have on Mumsnet. We'll have a jolly knees up muvver brahn all togevver, won't we? Gor blimey, apples and pears, etc.

[flatpackhamster]

lljkk

How would I know if I've benefit from 15 yrs of Labour & Labour Lite govt? (Serious question!?).

Seriously? Depends on the job you do, in part. Public sector workers are overwhelmingly better off. Private sector workers, mostly not (except at the top end). Low-skilled and unskilled workers worst off of all. Public sector workers are largely protected from rises in the cost of living by their above-average salary rises during the Labour Spending Years. Average public sector salaries also rose above average private sector ones in 2007.
And of course there's the utter destruction of the private sector pension scheme.

Depends on when you bought your house and if you benefitted from the price rises.

Depends where you live. If you live in a Labour or Labour marginal (mostly outside SE England), you're better off. Tory councils were starved of essential funding on infrastructure and it was channelled elsewhere. Been waiting 30 years for a dual carriageway down here. It was due to go ahead in 1998, but in June '97 Brown cancelled it. Now it may get started in 2018.
Just a couple of examples.

Must be a website, somewhere, that says whether which type of person is better or worst off.

I agree. Someone with more time than me ought to write it.

According to this:
UKIP want to double defense spending & cut 2 million people off the public sector payroll (but not in defense, I guess) and give everyone healthcare vouchers rather than be tied to the NHS. So can we add semi-privatisation of health care to their policies?

Only if you think that Finland has a privatised healthcare system.

Plenty of scope for cutting in defence. The MOD is massively overstaffed. But we need to start to look to our own defence across Europe, because the US is going to start pulling its forces out and we'll have nothing. The average defence expenditure across the EU is 1% of GDP.

High speed rail, return to smoking in public places...

HS2 is a boondoggle. It's a crap idea, it's a waste of money and all it'll do is extend London's suburbs 100 miles to the north. If you want to spend money on the rail network, get the cross-country lines open again.

As for smoking in public places, I'm not a fan but I do recognise the essential civil liberty arguments behind it. Hardly anybody argues about the value of liberty any more. Well, nobody in any of the three main parties. But it's an important argument to have, and I don't think that the healthcare arguments necessarily justify a massive state intervention on smoking.

[lljkk]

Problem with Finland comparison is they are so small an economy/population.

I have not benefited from house price rises, real pain, paid way too much and don't think it's hardly increased in 9 yrs. I imagine that The only people who ever benefit from house prices are folk who release equity for specific purposes (ie, elderly, emigrants). Some BTL investors.

Not regularly employed in last 8 yrs (but will be soon, I hope, in public sector). DH has always been SE or privately employed.

Living in a split Conservatives-Libdem split place for past 9 yrs. LibDems now because most people actually like Norman Lamb.

I also live in a UKIP stronghold, though we have so few immigrants here, and there is no shortage of school places, house prices are lower locally than in most the UK (as are wages). NMW is probably rising faster here than house prices.

UKIP have heavy presence on local parish councils/govt. nonetheless. It's UKIP policies on everything but Immigration that infuriate me.

[infamouspoo]

'Wow, what a lot of salt-of-the-earth working class East Enders we have on Mumsnet. We'll have a jolly knees up muvver brahn all togevver, won't we? Gor blimey, apples and pears, etc.'

I do love a stereotype me. As well as the one that MN is full of middle class lentil weavers. It isnt.

[Viviennemary]

Not as ridiculous as the Lib Dems saying free university education and then supporting the huge hike in fees. Who can trust them after this.

[PeneloPeePitstop]

No, not a Londoner. Not that there's anything wrong with being one. A parent to disabled children that this shower wish to segregate in congregate communities.

Something which has been studiously ignored when mentioned on this thread and directly linked to on UKIP's own website.

I find their racism and general bigotry bad too, by the way.

[lljkk]

I just don't think most UKIP supporters understand what they are voting for.

Poll commissioned for The Independent newspaper finds 43% of UKIP supporters want an increase in public spending, and 40% think that Osborne's cuts have been too deep.

[SlowlorisIncognito]

I think that UKIP are a very dangerous party who hide their extremist views under a veneer of respectability. They started as an anti-EU political pressure group, which is fine, but they have become a lot more sinister. I would look to move elsewhere if they ever stood a chance of becoming a propper political force.

The immigration question is not as simple as UKIP makes it out to be. Our population is aging, and many British people are having less children. Ideally, the population should have most people in the working age bracket, with less at either extreme, so a population graph would look a little bit like {|} that with age being on the Y axis. However, the UK's graph is looking more like |/. This is a similar situation to Japan, and in Japan it has caused them lots of economic problems. We need a certain number of immigrants, including unskilled labour, to balance the pressures of an aging population.

Yes, there are issues in Europe right now, but as we are not part of the Euro, they should not impact on us too negatively. As we are part of the EU, many Brittish people live or own property abroad and make money doing this- a friend of my DF's made a lot of money developing property in Poland when they first joined the EU. Brittish students also have the oppourtunity to study for free abroad- many countries do degrees entirely in English, so this isn't as difficult as one might think.

UKIP support reppealing the human rights act and a lot of equality legislation which has really benifited women. As well as being sexist, they are disablist, even if you genuinely don't think they are racist. As most of you on here are women, I would urge you to look into their policies on women in the workplace in detail before voting for them.

I understand feeling disenfranchised with the main political parties. I also feel this way. However, UKIP really are borderline facist in some of their policies, and are not a sensible use of a protest vote.