If Clegg goes who will replace him?

[Jackieharris]

I don't think he'll still be leader next week.

My money's on Jo Swinson to replace him if she keeps her seat.

I also heard him say that he doesn't think we should reopen the voting reform question for now because we have already had a referendum on it. What a joke! Is he for real or for the Establishment? The Greens, UKIP and Uncle Tom Cobbley will all bring the voting reform question back to the table and the party that told us it believed in it for years looks like it will join Cameron and the Etonians and say there's no point at the moment.

Are UKIP really in favour of voting reform? That would leave the right out of power for a generation, because most people in this country actually vote for left-wing parties? This seems unlikely.

'Are UKIP really in favour of voting reform? '

Good point. Suzanne Evans was on the Daily Politics today and didn't seem too confident in the position, at one point she sort of implied that making the constituencies fairer by making them a similar size might keep first past the post going. She said Farage wants AV+.

Suzanne Evans doesn't run UKIP, Farage and other people do. What they really want, we don't know.

'That would leave the right out of power for a generation, because most people in this country actually vote for left-wing parties?'

I think you are very wrong there. Add UKIP's 15% to Conservatives' 33% and you gt the largest block, but of course nearly half of UKIP's vote is now probably Labour rather than Conservative. But right wing tax cutting parties will always beat left wing tax raising parties and if politically correct Cameron and his modernising crowd departed the scene, a real Conservative right wing union would easily beat the progressives.

On Newsnight tonight, Evan Davis said that the Tories are saying that if they had gone with AV, then they would now have an extra 30 seats in the bag and could form a government on their own.

The SNP have 4% of the vote nationally and yet they may get 50 seats, whereas UKIP may get 14% and only a few seats. It can't go on like that, even a Labour person up North on Newsnight said that the people may not accept it for long.

A Labour Dame on Newsnight said the system is broken and the large parties will probably try to keep things as they are. I am sure that Clegg will help them because that seems to be his whole game - he is Oxbridge. But we are in for huge change because the people are no longer voting as the Establishment would like.

Don't forget that with real PR, UKIP's vote would go through the roof. the 5% it is now on would seem like nothing. That is why the Establishhment will do its best to prevent PR., because UKIP might easily wipe out the Etonian Tories overnight.

What remains to be seen is how serious Farage is. He said "Join the People's Army. Let's topple the Esatblishment", but does he mean it?

When the Establishment realise that their game is up and that they need Farage and when they come knocking on his door, will he do what they want or will he go for it and smash the Tories and Labour as he has said he wants to do in the past?

"Nigel Farage’s grand strategy to destroy the Conservative Party"

www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2012/05/by-paul-goodmanfollow-paul-on-twitter-james-forsyths-spectator-interview-with-nigel-farage-which-tim-montgomerie-wrote-abou.html

"Farage vows to 'smash apart' Labour's 'one party state' in the North"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3057977/Farage-vows-smash-apart-Labour-s-one-party-state-North-says-Ukip-challenger-traditional-safe-seats.html

"UKIP continues to try to build up its credentials as "the Tory party you used to vote for".

The Establishment wanted Cameron and his progressives and they needed the LibDems in it in order to prevent a real Tory party like Thatcher had because the Establishment wants to remain in the EU.

But the game is almost up because the Cameroon modernisation Establishment experiment has failed. Farage came along and drove a coach and horses through it and told Tory voters they could have their old "Tory party you used to vote for" back again - the non-politically correct one, the non-progressive one, the one that didn't believe in rooftop wind turbines and hugging hoodies.

Cameron is trying to save the Establishment's Oxbridge modernisation agenda, he is getting "lively" and rolling his sleeves up, but the people aren't listening, the game has moved on, Farage is more popular and more interesting and PR is back in town.

We've already tried to change the boundaries to make constituencies a more uniform size, though, and people didn't like the impact (eg splitting the Isle of Wight in two, putting naice parts of London with less naice parts) so in many cases the Boundary Commission plans were shelved...

CloserToFiftyThanTwenty, good point I didn't know that we have already been through that. Suzanne Evans specifically brought up the case of the Isle of Wight (with over 100,000 voters) and a constituency in the Highlands of 22,500 voters.

Farage is brilliant, he says he wants to change our voting system. Suzanne Evans doesn't inspire me with the same confidence. I don't think she has Farage's gut instinct and knowledge of what it is really all about.

Here is Farage in today's Express again reiterating that he wants to change the voting system. We are on the brink of huge change for the better.

"Vote Ukip wherever you are," Mr Farage said in an exclusive interview on the campaign trail in his battle to become MP for South Thanet.

"In our target seats, if you vote Ukip you'll get Ukip.

"But even in those seats that we don't win, every single vote for Ukip is a vote for change, a change in direction for our country but also a change in our voting system because the one we've got doesn't work anymore.

Farage expected Ukip to get a similar vote to last year's European elections when more than one in four voters - 4.3million people - backed his People's Army.

But Westminster's first-past-the-post voting system could mean the party being grossly under-represented in the Commons.

"It would be a travesty - in fact there will be great anger - if millions of Ukip votes did not lead to very many seats," he said.

The voting system was "broken" and "not fit for purpose", he said, vowing to become "a firm advocate for electoral reform".

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/575168/Nigel-Farage-urges-voters-back-Ukip-wherever-live

Oxbridge Clegg can't ruffle the Establishment's feathers, but the outsider Farage certainly will.

"But right wing tax cutting parties will always beat left wing tax raising parties and if politically correct Cameron and his modernising crowd departed the scene, a real Conservative right wing union would easily beat the progressives."

Er, claig, I've just checked every general election since 1970 and in all of them, the Lab + Lib % was bigger than the Tories'. It just doesn't always translate into seats. (No-one has ever really split the right-wing vote before.)

Don't tell me, you, the standard-bearer of the People's Army... are actually out of touch with the people?

Don't tell me, you, the standard-bearer of the People's Army... are actually out of touch with the people?'

Heaven forfend! That could never happen! That is just not on the cards! Are you having a larf?

'the Lab + Lib % was bigger than the Tories'

But at least 50% of LibDems are libertarians who believe in freedom and civil liberties exactly as the People's Army do. They would never stand for SNP socialist 'named person' legislation or socialist Labour biometric ID cards, DNA databases and all the rest of the socialist panopticon to prevent the people being free. Some of them even probably agree with the People's Army that political correctness is another socilaist means of restricting liberty and free speech.

And also to go back to 1970 election results is of no use in our new world of politics. There was no real choice in the 1970s, it was all Establishment, Establishment or Establishment - Etonians like Liberal Jeremy Thorpe, Labour Oxbridge and Conservative Oxbridge. those days are long gone. There is a new people's party that represents the people now. It's called the People's Army and it has created panic among our metropolitan elite.

Have you noticed how "lively" our elite have got, how they have rolled their sleeves up? It's because they have the People's Army on their tails.

They are sweating, they are shouting and waving their arms and getting more "lively" and "pumped up" than they have ever been. They are doing 36 hour campaigning, drinking coffee to keep them awake, they know the People's Army is a challenger, they know what is at stake.

They even got so "lively" and "fruity" that they called the people "fruitcakes". The People's Army "fruitcakes"? Have they no shame!

"UKIP have taken more votes from the Lib Dems than most think

Clegg's party has lost more than 500,000 voters to Farage since 2010."

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/ukip-have-taken-more-votes-lib-dems-most-think

Our high and mighty, our esteemed, elevated Oxbridge and Etonian elites may have laughed at the "fruitcakes" once, but they ain't a-laughing now!

As Dickens, one of Rochester's most famous residents, once wrote

"Wot larks, Pip, wot larks!"

The LibDem's new President just mentioned how the Establishment LibDem party want to lower the voting age to 16, but mentioned nothing on what the whole country is now talking about - the Greens and the People's Army are talking about - proportional representation.

What has happened to the LibDems? Has their Establishment mask been revealed?

UKIP's Diane James is on BBC2 now. She is brilliant, one of the country's best politicians bar none. She has the same courage as Farage and that is a very rare thing.

Looks like it will probably be between Norman Lamb and Tim Farron then

Interesting. I think Farron ought to win it but who votes for it? Is it only the MPs or the entire party?

It's the whole party that votes. The whole party puts the manifesto together as well. We're very democratic. That's part of the problem; these days, a party of enthusiastic amateurs doesn't cut the mustard.

'a party of enthusiastic amateurs doesn't cut the mustard'

Hasn't UKIP shown that the opposite is true?

We may be going back to an era of real politics, people's politics, where LibDem members can vote down what their leadership think is best for them, a time where think tanks are told to take a hike, a time where teenage whizzkids are told to get back in their box, a time where the People's Army tell their leadership what to do, a time where Farage said trying to tell the People's Army what to do is like trying to "herd cats". They won't be told. They are the people and they are sovereign.

Not sure what to make of Farron. There' something about him that reminds me of two-faced middle management types in companies... guess that's just me though.

So what you are saying is, he reminds you a bit of David Brent? I see your point.

It doesn't even need to be an mp does it?

Maybe they should let their MPs gets on with being MPs and have a leader whose sole job is to restart the party from the grassroots up?

There is a lot of ex-MPs, with some experience, for them to choose from.

Norman Lamb was my MP and is a family friend. I like him very much indeed but I think his strengths are better utilised elsewhere.

Arf at Farage not being part of the Establishment!