If UKIP are so terrible, why did they win so much?

[balloondoggy]

I didn't vote UKIP - I voted for my local Christians. However, if I were to purely read the comments on Mumsnet and the comments on Facebook re UKIP, I would have thought they would come last; yet they didn't. Why? Are there so many of us on here that are so different from (clearly) the majority?

Electoral Calculus is where the prediction for next year based on recent polling comes from. I've now found their user-defined predictions here. I don't know if the figures will be retained in the link, but based on yesterday's share of the vote, Labour are predicted to get 298 seats (gain 46, lose 6), Conservatives 230 (gain 5, lose 82), LiBDems lose 33 to take them to 24, and UKIP got from 0 to 69. According to the specific seats predicted to change hands on that basis, UKIP will only gain 6 from Labour, with the majority gained from the Conservatives and 23 from the LibDems.

I'd support flat rate income tax (works very well in the channel islands where I live and nobody questions it. We have £0 national debit whereas you have billions. We are very wealthy with that tax system and still pay benefits etc to the poorer end of the society)

TabulahAnd echo Toad - are they all those things you've outlined - are they policy - or is it all hearsay?

I personally believe a lot of the hysteria about their policies is down to heresay, scaremongering and maybe things that individual UKIP supporters have said, rather than official party policy. I'm happy to be proved wrong though if SOMEONE can link to the manifesto that says these things.

My husband spend the whole of last year moving round factory jobs (agency) and most of the workers were polish, they were all taken on full time he was lucky if he got 3 months before waiting to see where he would go next sometimes with months inbetween jobs. He would be very happy to get a factory job and get weekends and chiristmas holidays

Perhaps those Polish workers were prepared to work more flexibly than your husband? If you're serious about getting work you don't put yourself at a disadvantage. And of course he will work extended hours in McDonalds - their opening hours have to be accommodated.

"where is their manifesto online that promises to do all those thing?"

Some of it is from their manifestos for these elections, some is from articles they've published and from their last manifesto which they've removed...

But, until they do a new manifesto, that's the views I have to judge them on and the views anyone who voted for them has as well.

Which is why it bothers me, either they're voting for nothing until UKIP decide what their manifesto will say or they're voting for those views - either of which is worrying IMO given that it seems highly unlikely that they'll do a complete u turn on things like disability.

I will happily admit to having used adjectives like homophobic, racist and sexist on threads about UKIP.

But I have been talking about their candidates and financial backers. Well documented events.

The UKIP headline appeals to a huge number of people. Take control of our own country? They'll sign up for that. But there's small print. I won't apologise for checking you know you're signing up for their other policy ideas.

ukip manifesto 2010

ukip manifesto 2014

notice how much shorter and vaguer it has got!

Electoral Calculus is where the prediction for next year based on recent polling comes from.

Oh ok.

Perhaps those Polish workers were prepared to work more flexibly than your husband? If you're serious about getting work you don't put yourself at a disadvantage. And of course he will work extended hours in McDonalds - their opening hours have to be accommodated.

Another closet UKIP canvasser are you sooty? Because talking to people like that will certainly gain them more votes.

Mumsnet may have a lot of posters but they're not necessarily representative of the electorate.

How many times do you see on here "I seem to live in an alternate/parallel universe to the rest of MN'? Just because mnetters didn't vote for or admit to voting for UKIP doesn't mean anything.

You get lambasted on here for being a Conservative voter or even agreeing with their policies. You'd nearly get deleted on the grounds of racism for admitting to a UKIP vote.

TT - there are lots of evidences re the statements of UKIP candidates and MEPs about their intended policies for this country.

-Ending maternity pay (to increase jobs market flexibility) was well-discussed,
-The E Mids 'winner' Roger Helms voted against a Euro debate regarding Equal Pay,
-Paul Nuttall the Dep Leader writes openly that he wants to privatisation of the NHS so people will have to pay to see a GP and pay for everything else though it is already paid for by NI and taxes,

• a candidate somewhere in the south expressed an opinion that women should have an amnio and any foetal abnormalities should result in a forced abortion
• a major funder opined that a man should not be able to be prosecuted for raping his wife
• ending all climate change-control spending.

As Stewart Lee comedian illustrates, voting UKIP as a protest is like shitting in your hotel bed as a protest against poor service and then realising you have to sleep in your shitty bed.

Still wondering though why the BBC is the media promotion wing of UKIP, with blanket coverage and wholey misleading reporting of voting levels.

pan I didnt see any of that written in their 2014 manifesto.

I see Scotland has officially declared now - only change is the LibDems losing their MEP and UKIP gaining one. Still 2 SNP, 2 Labour, and 1 Conservative. Northern Ireland is still to declare.

Another closet UKIP canvasser are you sooty? Because talking to people like that will certainly gain them more votes

Certainly not. I'm very pro Europe and violently anti UKIP. I'm simply stating facts. The fact is that people of whatever nationality who are prepared to work flexibly are going to be first choice when recruiting. One of my jobs involves enjoyability intervention. I can understand why people want to work regular hours but in many industries they'll lose out to people who are prepared to work different patterns.

even the daily mail think ukip are racist

Pan that definitely comes under the heading of hearsay a candidate somewhere in the south expressed an opinion that women should have an amnio and any foetal abnormalities should result in a forced abortion. And a fund raiser commenting? .

All a bit 'my mums best friends neighbour said........' isnt it? Hardly hard facts and policies.

Most people who contribute to the DM reader comments don't seem to care whether or not UKIP are racist anyway.

I think its fairly simple. People are feeling the long term affects of a recession and through basic, banal, selfish human behaviour are casting about for someone to blame. So we fall back to where we always fall back, its the "Others" that are to blame, the ones with the wrong language, the wrong colour, the wrong abilities.

And here comes the people who say that they will make those "Others" go away, UKIP, Golden Dawn, Front Nationale so i'll stick my pen to my paper and let them.

And whats EVEN BETTER is that they are all so very reasonable. Care in the community has failed a lot of the time. There is a lot of immigration. There has been terrorism. They ignore or don't look into the realities behind that vote because en masse people aren't that bright and being selfless only generally occurs when it costs us nothing.

The second reason is that they seem to be the only party who attracts both rich and poor. The poor because "They are taking our jobs" the rich because "The EU is a waste of my taxes".

Dangerous and should not be underestimated, I am genuinely afraid for my mixed race children's future when their educated, business owning grandfather who adores them more than he could ever express and would cut the throat of any threat to them can protest vote UKIP.

I'm very pro Europe and violently anti UKIP. I'm simply stating facts. The fact is that people of whatever nationality who are prepared to work flexibly are going to be first choice when recruiting. One of my jobs involves enjoyability intervention. I can understand why people want to work regular hours but in many industries they'll lose out to people who are prepared to work different patterns.

And evidently very pro-employer and very anti work/life balance. Workers rights took decades to gain, bit by tiny bit, in this country. Lecturing people like that about how they should be prepared to work is rather unattractive and, as I say, dismissing someone's concerns in such a supercillious fashion, is likely to drive them into the arms of UKIP.

BTW, what on earth is 'enjoyability intervention'? Is it supposed to sound impressive?

full version of 2010 manifesto

Because the issues are complex and too many people are simple and/or intellectually lazy.

Too much knee jerk reaction / 'system one' thinking

Newly elected Redditch UKIP councillor Dave Small's recist views are clearly stated on his Facebook page. Apparently he's now "being investigated". Many of his views were stated before he was accepted as a candidate.

gato well you wouldn't see any of that in a manifesto from UKIP as there is nothing of any detail in there, is there? It talks generally of blaming immigrants and cutting public costs ( hence mat leave/pay?) mainly, but those issues I'd listed is an insight into the mindset of the UKIP movers.
(also Tories promised to not privatise the NHS but we are now at a 70% contracted out level which commercially qualifies it as a privatisation, so saying something isn't or is in a manifesto is a bit dodgy overall)

Thanks for the reminder about Lord Ashcroft's polling longfingernails. I've just been to have a look on his website and his piece on what he said to the ConservativeHome (which he owns) conference on the battleground seats makes for an interesting read.

sadly though the actual policies referred to have been removed from the ukip website.