Stay clam and vote UKIP

One day to go. the smears will be desperate and extreme and the political establishment yells at the peasants revolt that they think UKIP is.

How dare working class people not vote Labour ?

How dare middle class people think for themselves, their children and country and not vote Conservative?

How dare liberals realise that the EU is an bureaucratic dictatorship and not support Nick Clegg masters as he expects them to ?

How very dare anyone vote UKIP.

After all - you're a racist, mad, bad gadfly. A nutcase for thinking Britain could become a sovereign country again.

If you are tempted to kick the establishment where it really hurts then I'll be with you - voting for UKIP.

The political class treat us with utter and total contempt - its time to return the favour !

The refusal to debate and the decline of democracy

Things are not going well for democracy in the United Kingdom.

The main political parties are hardly entering into the main issues of the local elections or European elections - with the possible exception of UKIP and to be fair the Lib Dems.

UKIP have tapped into a seem of popular dissatisfaction with what I would call our ruling class ( which I'd define by their common background and career, rather than the political flag ).

Politics has become Marketing for cynics.

Hence the answer to the rise of UKIP has been to attempt to smear and play the man, not debate the issue.

We have the Racism card being played, not only by the Left who have long used it to try to censor debate, but now by the desperate Conservative party. The main stream media has swung behind the campaign against the plebs, but occasionally you see articles where occasional commentators point out that the consensus in politics - which runs against majority opinion on many issues, is a problem.

We are trying to have an election. People, many ordinary people, are standing for office.

Tempers are getting frayed -self appointed activists groups are organising "counter" demonstrations to scare people away from debate with their smears. The media is playing into this theme.

In the end things will calm down after Thursday, but we should not kid ourselves that democracy is drinking in the last chance salon in the UK.

We need proper debates, calm heads, some mutual respect.

Democracy only works in the end if 49.9% of the people are willing to be ruled by 50.1%'s wishes. ( See this article by Sean Thomas in the Telegraph - which runs through these issues ).

Since all of the three legacy parties have an almost unified position on many of the key topics, which is often against the majorities wishes, we can't be far from democracy breaking down.

That is something we should all pause and think about after Thursday.

It looks like the combined unified action all all the establishment may yet save David Cameron the passing embarrassment at the count on Sunday night, but nobody should fool themselves that we can carry on like this.

-9% less one

Two headline news items caught my ear this morning. Firstly the okay to carry on drilling for shale gas - more on which later today and the 9% lead for Labour in the polls right now over the Consecrative party.

As you'll see from my about box that will be -9% less one as I've made the move to join UKIP. The motivation for this has two main headings;

1) Despair at the Conservative party. 

Its not just David Cameron who has lead the Conservative party into the Heathite muddle its now in. The rest of the party has let it happen. Now perhaps there were few actual party members listening to the leaders speech last year as the hall was filled with Guardian reading lobbiest but a party like the Conservative party should *never* have advocated abolishing marriage and replacing it with a metropolitan elites little dream of the moment. A proper conservative party would *never* have cheered a leader who stood up a tried to pull that sort of heresy off.

Add to this the clear betrayal on the EU.

Also add in the failure to reform public services at a time that they are clearly bankrupting the nation. ( And for a conservative party to try and hide behind just bank bashing, rather than spelling out the truth to the population. ) You see when you fail to take the main issues to the population, then they will not support you when the required actions are taken.

the half baked nature of the government is perhaps blameable on the Lib Dems, but that just doesn't cover it. The underlying problem is summed up in this particular quote from scripture - used for a different purpose here:

Matthew 16:25 "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it."

The current crop of professional politicians have put their careers ahead of the good of the country. Its true anyone who spells out the truth to the voters right now had better have a second career option, but the nation needs that sort of prophetic sacrifice.

The budget fiasco is just the proof of what happens when your half hearted and duplicitous. ( Which is what you get spending too much time with the Lib Dems. )

2) A feasible future needs to be laid out

UKIP aren't perfect. A number of well known bloggers and columnists have joined and then left UKIP. Some policies "need work" - but that is true of any political party. ( I'd personally put defence on that list for UKIP ).

But the truth is a lot of the evils in our society have their root in the EU. Our democracy is undermined by the EU. Our society is undermined by allied institutions such as the court in the Hague and Strasbourg and international treaty obligations entered into when the world was a different place from what it is today.

We are faced with a choice between managed ( and frankly mismanaged ) decline by people who are in it for themselves, with being dissolved into the bureaucratic nightmare of the EU as a distraction or having the strength of character and self belief to pull ourselves out and set a course with a future. Only UKIP offers the hope of that.

The politics might be terrible in the short term. Labour may become the next government as a result, but I've now lost faith in the Conservative party's ability to turn the ship around. We end up at the same final destination - just a little quicker with Labour at the Helm.

Its time to start join those making the arguments for a future for out nations ( yes I like the English Parliament committmemnt from UKIP also ).



I'm told the stay at home factor for Conservative supporters looks massive for the upcoming local elections - UKIPs challenge is to persuade those people and those on the left that there is a futrure for the UK and you can vote for it.


Will there be a UKIP government - not in any near future I can see. But could UKIP force the political debate onto a course that will save our nations ? Yes - I believe it can. And I'm willing to be optimistic enough to give it a go.

The sky is still blue over Woking

From my current distance in Liverpool it looks like an interesting night from a local politics view point in Woking.

From the share of the electorate the results were as follows: ( Note some seats Labour could field no candidate - which was also the case for UKIP ).

Conservative: 47%
Lib Dems: 44%
Labour: 5% (!!!!!)
UKIP: 4%

The failure of Labour to put up a candidate in Knaphill helped the Lib Dems win that seat. They also won in Maybury and Shearwater. Yet they lost both Philip Goldenberg (standing for a different seat at this election than his current seat - unless there are two people with the same name )and Anne Marie Barker. The Woking News and Mail reports that Mr Goldenburg left the count before the results were announced. Whilst it is said that some in his party thought this let his party down, I think you can have more sympathy since few people who haven't been candidates understand the emotion of putting yourself forward for judgment by the voters. IOt should be remebered that Mr Goldenburgh has work hard for many years in service of the public, election night can be brutal.

The Lib Dems - shameless as ever - can only see things in terms of their hobby - politics. Their web site claims they were just 109 votes from overall control. What this missed is that the Conservatives were well ahead in terms of the popular vote and that they got close mostly down to a poor Labour showing - helpfully not standing in Knaphill. I doubt it will make their infamous bar charts !

Control would then be determined by which party had the mayor - which would then lose control ! ( Perversely ). Still thankfully this hasn't happened.

Since Labour will most likely recover at least a little this has to put Woking beyond the grasp of the Lib Dems at the next general election.

But politics in Woking is going to be on a knife edge over the next year.

Update: Who am I kidding - of course it'll be on one of their dodgy bar charts. They always select whatever election results they want. Of course since Labour didn't stand for a number of the seats this is no true measure of Labour support. Just looking at the seats they did stand in ( which are perhaps self selecting as ones they expect to do OK in - or don't need to help the Lib Dems in ) they got 9%.

Local elections - my guess and a hope for candour

I don't really have much information to go on this year, as I haven't been out canvassing.

I am however quite sick of the game of expectation reduction that is played by all parties. The worst are always the BBC which normally starts the night with a predicted figure below which the leader of the Conservative party should get out his pearl handled revolver if he doesn't achieve it - then they forget all about their target and spend their time berating Conservative party representatives for not doing better than they did (come see the liberal/leftwing bias inherent in the system ).

I don't know why politicians keep lying about the facts as they appear in front of them, with the notable exception of Michael Portillo in 97. There are no votes to be gained once the polls close - and much grudging respect to be earn't be a bit of candour. If only ....

Anyway here my guess - based on nothing scientific:

Conservative +175
Labour -160
Lib Dem -25
Other +10

But with Ken Livingston holding on in London - but only just. (All those Lib Dem voters read the Guardian and Independent you know). Boris is an unproven quantity - maybe he's do well as Mayor - but it would depend on having good people around him (not impossible), so I hope I'm wrong here.

This will be written as Brown weathering the storm etc and will provide a head ache for the Conservatives.

It is equally a very good result for the Conservatives as it will keep Gordon Brown in power and the English public are really starting to hate him with avengence. Labour are toast at the next general election if he's still their leader.

More trouble for Brown - this time Scotland

Strikes in the Chemical and process industries are very rare. They are capital intensive industries and down time has a catastrophic impact on the sites economics. However a strike at Grangemouth in Scotland is on the cards. Apparently causing the shut down of the refinery to start now, with fuel interruptions expected in the north of England and Scotland over a month period.

There may be knock on impacts on North Sea oil production - unless extra exports can be made from BP's Kinneil terminal in Scotland. ( If you don't take the oil out of the pipeline, then you can't put any more in, there is also a need to remove the natural gas liquids - though I think this may still be carried out by BP rather than Ineos - which should help keep export of crude possible ). Corresponding offshore shutdowns may follow for those platforms linked to the Forties systems and a stop of the associated gas production.

The economy of Scotland may have a heart attack, as may some of Northern England.

All this in the weeks leading up to the local elections in Northern England.

Mr Brown will be having his ear bent by his constituents very shortly.

The pressure on the refinery operator Ineos to settle will be extreme. But in the long term this may help kill Scotland's petrochemical industry. Part of the problem may be the move away from the high pay of a company like BP (the former owner of Grangemouth) to a more competitive operator like Ineos. ( Did you know BP has sold its last UK refineries ? Quietly BP and Shell are reducing their exposure to the UK and its left wing government - soon perhaps one of them will leave the country.

Mr Salmond will be buzzing about this as will Mr Brown. The political test will be the emergence of queues at petrol stations (remember what happened to Labour's poll rating s last time this happened). This will be interesting, though the odds have to favour a quick settlement ....

PS If you live north or Liverpool to Leeds then I'd make a point of filling the tank over the next day or so.

Update: Now Guido has picked up on the political implications here.

Also Man in a Shed continues to be puzzled about the length of the down time required for the refinery. I would have thought Ineos and the Union could come to some agreement to keep the refinery ready to start up with minimal manning. The Union get what they want - production stopped for two days - and the company start up faster.

This month long shut own is odd. Man in a Shed suspects that Ineos has moved key maintenance and inspection tasks forward perhaps from a Summer shut-down. In which case the company loses very little and exerts maximum pressure on the Union. Some enterprising journalist should be on this angle.

A public health warning should also be attached to some of the speculation on the impact on the North Sea - which just goes to show how ill informed some commodity traders really are. The key point will be flaring from Kinneil. If they are allowed to break their flaring consent ( and why shouldn't they ) then crude and NGL can be stabilised for export, as the majority of it already is. It may be possible to export the ethane via pipelines to England or Exxon's Fife ethylene plant.

Update 24Apr08: The impact of this outage is becoming clearer. The Forties pipline system will have to shut with corresponding field shutdown and impact on gas production from fields sending associated gas to St Fergus. The key problem is at the Kinneil NGL gas processing facility operated by BP. I am assuming their is not significant propane, butane or NGL storage capability there (ethane export options may exits by pipelines to Mossmorran and Northern England ). See presentation on an unplanned outage in June 2007 of this plant here.

There are also signs of relations between the employer and Unions worsening - this could lead to further significant economic damage to the economy.

Good morning Conservative Woking

We have won control. For the last year the Lib Dems grabbed effective control thanks to it being the turn of a Conservative councillor to be mayor. The row of grim looking Lib Dem faces in the photo attached makes the point. (Sorry its a poor photo - they're loosing a Lib Dem ward as they watch).

The Lib Dem have launch a last minute desperate attack but it hasn't paid of for them.

If you live in Woking - good morning - good news at last !

Ming might want to chose another council to run his next party political broadcast from. The Lib Dems have thrown everything - including the kitchen sink and some very dubious leaflets at us and they have been rejected by the people of Woking. I'm going to finish a well earned pint - and head to bed. Its marvellous.

See BBC results summary here.

CON GAIN FROM NOC

SEATS AT A GLANCE
Conservative		19
Liberal Democrat		17

SEATS IN DETAIL
Party	Previous	+/-	2007
Conservative	15	4	19
Liberal Democrat	18	-1	17
Labour	3	-3	0

Voting

Well I've done my duty by society. The annual brief moment of panic as I yet again wonder if its a tick or a cross. The ballot paper looks so simple - its hard to believe your not making some sort of error. ( Where I was a cross sufficed ).

No Labour candidate on the ballot this time, and the independent didn't stand. I would expect their votes to go to the Lib Dem who can expect maybe 37-38% of the vote. Not that he deserves any votes given the nature of his literature.

Now its time to go and see what help is needed this evening ....

Lib Dem bar charts

I was beginning to feel a bit bipartisan. Thinking about the common problems all political parties and activists have campaigning in the modern world. I even saw the opposition councillor walking past doing a bit of a leaflet drop and felt a bit of empathy for him. But then my long awaited Lib Dem election leaflet dropped through the door.

This has to be one of the most brazen Lib Dem bar charts I have ever seen. I choosing my words as carefully as I can here - my wife heard a far stronger version an hour or so ago.

Let me explain - below is one of those infamous Lib Dem bar charts - not the can't win here one (though they have one of those and is as bad as ever ), but one on council tax.I have a band-D property so I know exactly how much money is charge for each service - see below. Those of you who can count will spot that Surrey CC tax was £1009.62, the £43 increase is 4.4% over the last year's figure. For Woking Borough council £190.62 the £8.10 is also 4.4% on the last years figure.


A realistic and fair bar chart would therefore show percentages and be of the same height. ( And that doesn't take into account the fact that the settlement from central government was good this year for the Borough and neighbouring Guildford council managed a 1.95 % council tax rise. In fact Woking's council tax bill is the highest in Surrey ! ).

So what do you think of the bar chart now ?

It was delivered at the last moment - before anyone can start to let people know about the real nature of what they have said.

The leaflet goes on to complain about Surrey CC (Conservative controlled) - even though there is no election this year for the country council !

I add the relevant section of their leaflet below.

Just in case your wondering - here is the Conservative bar chart I received, and have on one or two occasions delivered:
I have a small criticism of this also, like many newspaper graphs it isn't grounded at zero. Whilst the gaps between the different levels look ok - all the bars themselves should be higher by around 15% ( this would make the gaps look less, but not by much really - which is why this annoying). ( Based on my rough estimation with a tape measure - its getting late you know. Its possible the charts are based on area, but I think the tendency is to read them as height. It too late at night to work though all this now.)

None of the charts shown is strictly untrue - but they all lead to perceptual difficulties, especially when just glanced over. In my opinion the Lib Dem one is by far worse, and very likely to lead the viewer to conclusions that are false.

We can all do better - but I suspect the Lib Dems have by far the furthest to travel. ( See - I'm still trying to be charitable).

How far will the Lib Dems go ?

This car has been parked in the teachers car park for the last few days and my local school ( to be a ballot station tomorrow ).

There has been an outbreak of ridiculously size election posters in Woking - mostly Lib Dem ones - but there are Conservative ones also. (Haven't seen a Labour poster this election - they must be too ashamed to show their faces.)

But this using a private car in a school for campaigning just seems wrong to me. Schools should just be left alone (none of that intimidating campaigning outside school gates either - by any party.) Why are the Lib Dem supporters so desperate ? But more importantly how do they see out the back of their cars ?

Remember its a school car park, and they'll need to reverse to get out.

What if we voted electronically ?

Well some people are - see komadori’s green corner today.

Can't say I'd like it myself ...

Quite a few people who I've canvassed have already posted their votes. I suspect postal voting reinforces tribalism (especially if the head of the family is over your shoulder - or Leeds lLabour party offer to post your ballot for you, and stops people changing their mind - as it looks like might be happening in Scotland just now).

That's got to be bad for democracy.

ContraTory looks like he's got the forecast right

ContraTory smells a rat in the media expectation predictions again, playing Labour down so what ever happens on Thurs can be spun by its supporters in the MSM (know as the BBC) as a great success.

However - it looks like thunderstorms for Thurs.

Labour can still suck all the oxygen out of the room

Man in a Shed has noticed how a whole range of stories have occupied the radio 4 news airtime over the last few days. Many of them are about Labour directly (Blair's version of King Lear), the battle to be Gordon Brown's fag (deputy nobody), the fall out from the recent terrorism trial (will the admit to failures with an inquiry), Jack Starw in Britishness (help the BNP are coming), Tessa Jowell on the 'leadeship' (Give-us a job Gordo), even Peter Mandelson on Today this morning - trying for one last time to convince everyone that black is in fact white.

I suspect this is deliberate strategy of denying the Conservative party time to communicate with the electorate. Will this improve their local election results - no - and I'm sure they know that. But what it does do is remove the campaign oxygen from the Conservatives as they try to communicate with the voters. ( People are changing allegiances right now - the more they find out about the Conservatives - the more likely they are to support and buy into our message. Labour and their many supporters in BBC newsrooms are desperate to prevent this.)

Also note the continual equal billing between Lib Dems and Conservatives on R4 - in fact I'd say it favours the Lib Dems. But Labour eat up all the air time that remains.

And so the BBC fails in its public service and impartiality responsibilities and the Labour spin machine still achieves its objectives in defeat.

Democracy weeps..if it can catch any breath.

Ming is rattled

He's not doing to well on The Politics Show just now. His tie tells it all - the blue is their as he now fears the Conservatives.

The problem is the Lib Dems have no consistent underpinning and now that the Conservatives are campaigning effectively against them, by taking on the environment, they have no foundations to stand on. ( Except be opposed to anything and everything they think may win them votes - even if they were responsible for the original policy. )

I wonder if Ming might resign as well as Blair after May 3rd if things go as badly as the Lib Dems are now spinning ( of course its the old game of reducing expectations - but the Lib Dem spin machine is placing the bar very low this year ! )?

Update: Iain Dale makes a good point about the limpet tactics of Lib Dems. He's right of course in the observation. But I think we need to explain to people who and what the Lib Dems really are. Just playing with the kids of the electorate or being a social worker should not entitle you to run the government. If that were to be the case then effective democracy will have ended in Britain.

Also see the comments of what I assume to be a Labour supporter on the Surrey Lib Dems here.

Tony Sharp (The Waendel Journal) has another take asking why the BBC were so soft on Ming ? He has a good point relating to his neck of the woods ( wrt the Lib Dem lie about being the only national party )-

"He said that his party is the 'National party of opposition'. Well that is only true if you believe the definition of a national party is one that in an English shire county fields only 66 candidates with 270 seats up for grabs - and 47 of those candidates are standing in just one town."

From the streets and door steps

Man in a Shed has been pounding the pavement and knocking on doors as part of the local election campaign, and so far the results are encouraging.

As ever, people only slowly change their minds. Here in Woking we are fighting the Lib Dems and hence can't take advantage of the anti_Labour feeling that is likely to wash much of England blue next Thursday.

At the last election we gain 45% of the vote ( Lib Dems 40% ), but due to the distribution of votes in seats and a Conservative councillor being mayor for this year (and hence not political) the administration has been Lib Dem.

Last year things were tough - the fortnightly refuse collection had just been started ( large numbers of bins rolling out almost the day before the election - the Lib Dem view point / predictably enough was there hadn't been proper or the right sort of consultation/pilot [ the usual trying to have things both ways approach so beloved of the "Act wickedly, stir shamelessly!" brigade] ). Also there was a proposal to compost rubbish and use a pyrolysis process to convert some of it. The down side - it has to have a location and we lost both council seats in that ward. At the same time the Lib Dems had helped to prevent Surrey Councils HQ moving to Woking - again with the loss of a car park that they managed to play up ( as ever ). (Hurting the long term future of Woking - but letting the Lib Dems gather a few votes ).

But now that's not possible. They have been making the decisions - like increasing council tax to the highest in Surrey, though it doesn't stop them trying to have things both ways ( for a tremendous bit of Lib Dem double think see this link here ).

The feeling on the doorstep has been more positive for us. People like David Cameron and have time to talk to us. Indeed this year the only bad reaction I had was from a man shouting as he walked away from me "I'm not bloody voting Liberal Democrat" - I had to tactfully explain I wasn't asking him to.

Predictions for Thurs - a better night than last year. Perhaps we will win the council back.

Update: Man in a Shed hasn't even seen a Focus drop through his door this year - those Lib Dems must be saving up for that £2.4 Million they need to repay after not checking its legal status correctly and the electoral commission fine they may receive.

Just noted that UKIP (and some odd party called UKCIP) are running council candidates in Woking. That's hardly going to help.

Further update: ContraTory has a further in depth analysis here. He points out the Lib Dem targeting of the remaining Labour seats on Woking Borough Council. Thats an angle I hadn't thought of - and could be a real problem for us.

(By the way welcome back ContraTory - your back on my blog role..)

Deceit and the Lib Dems party broadcast

See the following on The Woking Forum message board. Vigilante ( no idea who it is - except they're not me ) is spot on here. Tells you a lot about the Lib Dems I think.... here he/she is below:

---

By Vigilante

19 April 2007, at 22:04:25

Woking featured in a TV party political broadcast for the Liberal democrats the other night. The town was used as an example to emphasise the party's green credentials by mentioning (and showing) CHP, Hybrolights, etc. with, as I interpreted it, the implication that WBC's green policies were due to the leadership of the party currently in control. Correct me if I'm wrong, but, surely, these measures were decided upon long before the Lib. Dems had control here. It's a pity the Advertising Standards Agency can't be involved in these broadcasts; we might then get a lot more facts than spin from all the political parties, something that's long overdue.

---

See original here - whilst links last !

Update:
Looking at the BBC election web site I'd say he has a good point:

PAST RESULTS
2004: NOC 2003: NOC 2002: NOC 2000: NOC
1999: NOC 1998: NOC 1996: LD 1995: NOC
1994: NOC 1992: CON 1991: NOC 1990: NOC
1988: NOC 1987: NOC 1986: NOC 1984: CON
1983: CON 1982: CON 1980: CON 1979: CON
1978: CON 1976: CON 1973: CON

Prior to the 2006 election there was a Conservative council leader. Note the following extract from the local elections manifesto from the Conservatives that year:

Woking Borough Council (Conservative-led - note prior to 2006 election)
Climate Change
The Council has opened a town centre Combined Heat and Power (CHP) station, as part of
an extensive Climate Change Strategy. It is the first commercially-operating energy
station of its kind in the country.
The CHP station uses combined heat and power technology, together with heat-fired
absorption cooling, to produce environmentally -friendly energy services.
The station provides heat, power and cooling to town centre buildings, including the
Council offices, by distributing electricity via private wire, and heat and chilled water
services via private pipe networks.
The main benefit is that this reduces fuel poverty – the use of the private grid reduces
energy losses and costs. There is a security of supply and the ability to operate in ’island
mode‘ if the National Grid fails.

Page 17 of 21 Vote Blue go Green.

If my understanding is correct I think the real credit here goes mainly to one or two members of the council staff who have pushed this issue.