UKIP second in Eastleigh...anyone from Eastleigh care to comment?

[SequinsOfEvents]

Bit tongue in cheek but wowsers! 11,000 votes! Crikey!

I am living abroad at the moment and am pleased to be! Can't come home with current political situation....how depressing

[claig]

'i agree. He sounded like someone living in cloud cuckoo land'

Naranji, it is very sad because there are millions of Labour voters who are desperate to kick the Coalition out, but when I saw that, I knew that they don't stand a chance of kicking the Coalition out even though it is not doing very well at all.

[Naranji]

I run my own manufacturing business and the living wage would force us to close. Shame as I have always been a Labour voter traditionally. They seem to have absolutely no clue.

[LittleTyga]

naranji I find your statement fascinating and I have a question I hope you don't mind?

But how can you justify employing someone and not pay them a living wage? Since when did an employer think it was OK to have someone work for them whom they cannot pay a decent salary to? Be interested in your input.

[naranji]

The Living Wage (7.45ph for those out of london) is a fixed amount approx £1.50 an hour above Minimum Wage.

We pay just above minimum wage (7 ph - look at your local temp agency - most part time jobs are lower than this) to a proportion of unskilled manual factory employees. They've worked for us for years and have good working conditions, perks and long holidays. Our business relies heavily on government contracts, all of which have been decimated over the last 2 years due to cutbacks. We are just about surviving. If we have to add a huge proportion more to our wage bill it will finish us and everyone will lose their jobs.

[naranji]

at the moment the Living Wage is a voluntary concept not actually a statuatory right like the Minimum Wage

[niceguy2]

The minimum wage was brought in using practically the same argument as being used for the living wage. If we did implement the 'living wage', in a few years time we'll be talking about a 'real living wage'.

You cannot raise wages by the stroke of a legislative pen unless the economy can support it. Right now our economy is hardly strong and it would be a disaster.

I think most people see the profits which the likes of Tesco and Amazon make and think all companies are raking it in. The reality is most employees are employed by small/medium businesses, most of which are scraping by. Even many large companies are zombies and only continue trading because banks are too afraid to call in the debts.

[LittleTyga]

I work in recruitment and the salaries paid when I started in the 90's are the same now - £7 ph was the average basic hourly rate then too - that's 20 years ago.

It's wrong that the Government are squeezing companies like yours to the bone in order to carry out your job - And this is Capitalism yes? This is how it's meant to work - keep the workforce under control by paying them just enough to survive?

It stinks doesn't it? I'm not blaming you - I see how the system is controlling you too. It's now wonder no-one votes what is the point?

Anyway, I too am a slave to Capitalism and must get off to work now!

[olgaga]

Can I just point out that Labour won 10% of the votes, which is the same result for them as in 2010.

It's never been a Labour seat, and is never likely to be. Everyone knows that.

Meanwhile, the Tories and Lib Dems BOTH lost 14% of their votes to UKIP.

As Farage quipped - "If only the Tories hadn't split our vote..."

[RedToothBrush]

Can I just point out that there is a frequent link between people would want PR and and those who complain about the Coalition and its policies because no one voted for them or they didn't vote for them.

Hello Liberal Democrats who feel betrayed by the abandoning of student tuition fees for example.

As for Labour. Seats in this country where the Lib Dems have ever been a contender either go down the lines of Lib Dem v Conservative with Labour not even on the same race track OR Lib Dem v Labour with the Conservatives not on the same race track. So much so that this was part of strategic policy in the last election with literature tailored to the area to encourage voters to 'Keep Out' the main opposition stating that the weaker party 'have no chance' in more or less that exact phrasing. They calculated that people were more likely to vote tactically for the Lib Dems than would vote positively for the Lib Dems during a General Election where it was so split and much fear about who would get in.

It would be something they had researched so, this decision just shows how much voting is motivated it about 'keeping out' and how difficult it is to massively change voting patterns in an area. Hence if you have complete disillusionment with the entire system like their currently is, then it doesn't surprise me that UKIP have benefitted rather than any of the other parties. Its about 'keeping out' rather than necessarily a positive vote for them and their policies.

[olgaga]

Do you know Eastleigh at all? There is no Labour infrastructure there. Hardly any membership let alone activists. Labour has only ever got out its core vote there.

There are 19 wards in the borough of Eastleigh represented by 44 councillors.
40 are Lib Dems, 4 are Tory.

Affluent areas like Eastleigh are barely affected by national issues. The "protest vote" here was about gay marriage and Eastern European migrants - and UKIP was the obvious choice.

The only surprise was that the Lib Dems lost quite so many votes to them.

[lancaster]

sorry that didn't make sense, I meant UKIP voting Asian friends.

[BMW6]

I am also shocked at Labour coming in 4th. Where did all the protest votes against the "evil" Tories go?

[niceguy2]

Then you need to get out more.

It's perfectly possible to be anti immigration without being racist.

It's not racist to say you oppose further mass immigration because the country cannot support it. There's not enough jobs already, we're spending too much already on benefits. The country cannot cope with another huge influx of immigrants. Of course at the moment there's a lot of concern over huge numbers of Romanian's coming.

It would be racist to say that we don't want lots of Romanian's because they're all gypsy criminals. But it's not racist to say that we don't want lots of them because we can barely cope with the numbers living here now.

One is racism, the other is a legitimate concern.

It does everyone a disservice to brand everyone who is concerned about immigration as racist.

[kimorama]

Yes, a force to be feared by other parties if they could poll at 7 per cent in a general election. Not likely to win seats themselves

[olgaga]

lancaster it's an interesting point. I lived on an inner London estate for 15 years, and during that time I got to know traditional white working class families who were dismayed by the number of Irish and Caribbean families on the estate who gradually replaced them. They in turn became dismayed by the number of Nigerians and Somalians who arrived, and replaced them. They became dismayed at the number of Bangladeshis who arrived. No doubt by now the Bangladeshis are getting concerned about the prospect of Romanian gypsies...

Many areas, especially where there are high levels of social or affordable housing, "churn" all the time. It seems that people of all races tend to feel concerned about the area they live changing significantly, so I'm not sure that racism is necessarily the right way to describe that resistance to change, or the decision so many people make to move out to a "better" area if they can afford to.

If your entire High Street changes out of all recognition, you no longer share a language with your neighbours and the local amenities don't provide what you want, you're bound to be peeved.

I think to dismiss concern about immigration as racist is too simplistic.

[SequinsOfEvents]

I was being light hearted but happy to have title amends for libel reasons....possibly slightly OTT but MNHQ know best

I can appreciate that one should never say racist lightheartedly...so I take that back.

I don't mind political debate at all and have had my eyes opened to some interesting views on here regarding UKIP and protest voting vs their commonly regarded but presumably (according to most on here) stereotype political leanings / undercurrent / tone etc

Will read back over again in a bit to understand more of the thoughts and opinion

I've never posted in Politics before despite an interest and lurker status. I will come back with more to add and less to learn another time.

Thanks for replies

One last point though....nice jump to stereotype yourself claif (on phone so can't check name - think thats right or in ballpark) right at the start though - Guardian reader? How would you know?! Can't really and with a straight face accuse me of sweeping statements (to paraphrase) if you start your (later very informed) comments with that little simplified gem

[lainiekazan]

I live near Eastleigh. People didn't care for the Con candidate. I've met a few new UKIP voters. Their candidate was impressive if you were minded to be swung in that direction.

Labour usually puts up a "paper candidate" in Eastleigh (ie one who does not actively canvass; just a name on the ballot sheet). It was arrogant of the party to put up a "celebrity" candidate - John O'Farrell. it just shows how Leftie-London centric the party is if they think anyone in Eastleigh knows or cares who he is.

[Tansie]

" Affluent areas like Eastleigh are barely affected by national issues".

I disagree. Whilst the more challenging areas of Eastleigh are hardly ghettoes, there still exists rather a lot of 'don't haves' there. It is very white, working (or unemployed) class, with a significant proportion of eastern Europeans. The main street, of an average weekday afternoon, will have a large numbers of young mums pushing prams, speaking English or what is possibly Polish (not so good on my eastern European languages!), and unemployed youth hanging around outside the pub door; the shops are largely pound shops and charity shops. Yes, obviously Chandlers Ford in Eastleigh borough is well to do and affluent and contains schools like Thornden which produces the highest academic results for any Hampshire comp but that school is very MC, and 'selects' by house price (and some of its catchment isn't in Eastleigh borough). I am not condemning this; my DSs are there!

But the rank and file of downtown Eastleigh are the sort of people who believe rightly or wrongly they witness their children's education being 'compromised' by the teachers spending more time with the DC who arrive without being able to speak English; they see their own teenage, pregnant DD unable to get a council flat because 'incomers' have been given them first; they wait far longer for their hospital appointments because there is an 'un-provided for' bulge of people they see as having been 'non-contributory' in the queue ahead of them (by this I refer to the 500,000 extra people in the UK as revealed by the last census that Labour didn't know were here!). Labour have had the grace to acknowledge they had no idea of how angry the 'average person' was at their free-for-all immigration policies. They also read the DM.

This is why UKIP have done so well.

And yes, my DSs attend this well-to-do school along with 'foreign' DC, largely Indian sub-continetal, Chinese, northern European, and I can say, hand on heart, that their parents whom I know feel the same way: they arrived in the UK as well educated contributors, so no, this UKIP thing isn't a racist thing, it is, as already stated, an economic thing.

People are angry that when it comes to the millions of Romanians who will flood the British welfare system next year, some well-educated, well settled, higher earning contributory Romanian will be wheeled out to accuse us all of racism, as if we can't tell the difference between someone like them (who could just as well have been from Burkina Faso as Romania) who had to apply for a work visa, (only granted after a British employer jumped through dozens of hoops to prove he couldn't find a suitable domestic applicant), then had to show sufficient funding to support themselves, then had 'no access to the public purse' for the first 5 years of their residency- disregarding that yes, 10 strong incoming EU families may have a couple of (minimum) wage earners among them (hooray, say the employers federations, we need care home workers and spud diggers!) but their tax contribution will be negligible against the cost of the state housing, the education, the health care etc etc the rest of the family will take from the public purse.

Our country is simply not wealthy enough to support its own needy any more, it does not want thousands if not millions of somebody else's. Only UKIP's withdrawal from the EU can prevent this.

I am not a likely UKIP voter- I don't want grammar schools back, for instance and yes, I believe we need ties with Europe, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is absolutely no way to prevent a tide of people we cannot support flooding the country next year other than to shut the door. I am not anti-immigration; DH is an immigrant (Australian), but was subject to the terms and conditions as outlined for the settled Romanian above. Australia wouldn't look at you twice unless you could tick those boxes!

[Abitwobblynow]

Really happy that MNtowers is taking a stance against people accusing others who they don't agree with, of being racist.

Well said Niceguy2. Born and bred in Africa here, and looking hard at UKIP.

[SequinsOfEvents]

I've read a bit more now and some interesting debate about racism vs valid (?) immigration fears especially in second and third generation immigrants.

What I don't understand are the previous immigrants now passing comment on the next wave. You can't seriously oppose other people coming to the same country you did looking for opportunities to better themselves just as you did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

I say this as a child of two Irish immigrants. I would be particularly cross if I ever heard my own father discuss immigration. I do get cross when my aunt discusses it - she honestly cant see the hypocrisy!

Perhaps people feel validated saying that the country can't cope with anymore and enough has been done but I still really dislike hearing friends discuss it too. I am not sure it is one you can discuss rationally without sounding a little bit racist possibly entitled and, again possibly, unwilling to help those less fortunate than yourself.

I take the point that is being made about mass immigration maybe not helping the UK anymore but it stills jars with me and even slightly left leaning people are allowed opinions.

I will probably stop short calling all UKIP voters and immigration worriers racist from now on though! Definitely on MN anyway!