UKIP on 20% and a chicken on the loose in the House. They're desperate!

[claig]

"Labour has a five-point lead over the Conservatives in the latest Opinium/Observer poll, which shows that half of voters think the prime minister is looking for excuses not to take part in live television debates ahead of the 7 May general election."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/17/labour-takes-lead-conservatives-cameron-opinium-poll

Why don't the pollsters ask the question that the public asks themselves - Would an empty chair perform better than Cameron in the TV debates?

The Establishment promoted Russell Brand to try and stop the people and their party - UKIP. Now we hear that Cameron's sixth cousin, Oxbridge graduate, Alastair James Hay Murray, who "is in remainder both to English and Scottish peerage titles, including the barony of Strange and the dukedom of Atholl" and plays the role of "The Pub Landlord" is standing against the People's Politician, Nigel Farage.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Murray

They're desperate. Will they ask Laurel and Hardy to stand aginst the People's Party next? Oh wait, they've already got Cameron and Clegg.

Anyway, UKIPs goal of leaving the EU was furthered by this Syriza victory tonight. If all goes to plan the EU will implode.

Can't wait.

I'm in support of the EU. But we're all different.

oops, pressed too early, we're all different but doesn't mean we can't agree to differ on occasion.

WetAugust .... why will the EU implode due to Greece?

The stakes are too high, Germany and others have too much money in the pot already for them to fold, so if it is a question of; letting Greece leave/ejecting them, having every bailed out country wanting debt forgiveness, or as you say have the EU implode - what is the lesser of the three evils???

The EU is not just dealing with a belligerent Greek government's whim of demands, they are dealing with a country who democratically have voted for the stand-off and won't be fobbed off with a typical EU political compromise.

The scary problem is for the early years of Greece outside the EU, not Germany's dream. IMO.

Claig .... at every election during the past few years, for some reason you have thought Cameron with far more problems to sort than UKIP, would resign due to UKIP's success.

Farage has previously indicated that if UKIP didn't do well in 2015 he would leave, so how many Westminster seats would UKIP need in total for him to stay - as Carswell is certainly trying to 'moderate' UKIP, and what would be the future of UKIP under him?

Spain will probably elect Podemos next year and their policies are also anti-austerity and they will be encouraged/disheartened by the progress (or otherwise) that Syriza achieves in getting debt waived or restructured.

Syriza has a strong mandate. It's a game of high stakes and the Greeks have nothing to lose. They have accepted that they cannot live with the Euro under the current austerity regime. If the cannot get those restrictions lifted then the EU either ascot pump more money into Greece to lessen their burden or Greek defaults, writes off it's debts at a stroke and returns to its own currency.

If Greece were to prosper outside the Eurozone then the remaining PI(G)S would be likely to see leaving the Euro as beneficial to them.

If the EU loses the Euro the experiment is dead in the water. Yippee!

Just been reading this thread. Thank you, Claig - very interesting.

I particularly enjoyed your claim that four million people... voted for the UK Independence Party in the European elections.

Just to put that into perspective: I believe around six million people voted for Steve Brookstein to win X Factor back in 2004. I'm not sure what he's doing these days...

It doesn't surprise me that UKIP haven't produced a manifesto yet. They're so ashamed of the last one (rightly) that they're doing their best to pretend it never existed. At every election since - whether council elections, bye elections or the European Parliament election, Farage has firmly swerved all questions about the party's overall national policies. He's probably in a cold sweat now at the realisation that he won't be able to swerve those questions any longer, and that "leave the UK and ban immigration" isn't going to cut it any more