Labour below 20 and Tories below 30 in Euro-poll

JohnAnt

"Encouragingly, it seems to be UKIP not the BNP."
Naturally, if the Toy-Tories are going be wiped out, it might as well be by a party with traditional Tory views. Not that that should worry the Cameroonies, I suppose. They'll be playing quietly in a corner while it's going on.
Once the BNP finds the 'EU=immigration' electoral G-spot, I bet you'll see it surge all right.

AndyLeeds

If Labour were canny they would start shifting the blame on to Speaker Martin and then quickly knife him. He is the prefect fall-guy.

Verity

James, you and the little social democrat cadre at The Speccie refuse to face the evidence that there is no appetite among Conservatives for David Cameron.

Tories, very sensibly, won't vote for Cameron until they know what the hell his stance is on Europe.

And even then, if they know what it is and they don't like it, they still won't vote for him ... which he knows ... and which is why he hasn't told us.

I don't trust him - any more than I trusted the forebear to whom he is heir.

Josh

And about time too ! I'll be Voting UKIP on June. I was Labour untill a few months back, but now UKIP has my full support.

Verity

What happened to swine flu?

Austin Barry

Brown is absolutely unelectable, becoming ever more a hideous gargoyle personifying venality, corruption, despair and dead insects. Labour has no option but to remove this depressing lump of congealed porridge before the general election. Brown's political assassination-by-colleague will be brutal and ugly and we look forward to it with unrestrained glee. Et tu Balls?

Inamicus

Why encouragingly? UKIP's record on expense abuse in the European Parliament is hardly commendable.

paracelsus

We want a general election, and we want it now.

Max Kaye

The only way that the Tories can salvage the Euro elections is for Cameron to promise that he will hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty irrespective of whether or not it has been ratified by all member states, and will abide by the result of this referendum even if it means a 'showdown' with the EU.

Unless Cameron promises this (no 'ifs' or 'buts') I will be voting UKIP.

TomTom

How do they remove Brown if he doesn't want to go ? The brands are contaminated

Vulture

Yes, they will have to find a way to get rid of the Prime Mentalist and put in Postman Pat to staunch their haemorrhage of votes and save, say, 189 seats. Its gonna be bloody, cos Bruin will fight lke a wounded badger rather than go. He'll still be out by October at latest however, because with him as leader Liebour will be third to the lib Dems in (un)popular vote and lucky to hold 100 seats, so for most Liebour MPs ditching Bruin is a question of saving their own skins/seats- sheer survival. I bet the BNP will do better than this poll suggests - people are shy abt telling pollsters they will vote BNP. They will certainly get a handful of Euro MEPs, if not a hatful. Problem for the Tories, this, as Pat will be relatively popular - his greatest weaknesses, which Dave should hammer away at are general gormlessness, union ties and above all - his admitted economic illiteracy. He's like the stupid man's Jim Callaghan.

Bocephus

The humiliation will be unbearable for Brown if he is replaced. To be replaced by such a nonentity as Johnson would kill him.

Anyway why would all these Labour Cabinet ministers just hand the PM job to Johnson. It might be their only chance to be PM and it would look good on any CV.

A bloodbath awaits.

alex

i hope people are not put off voting for the BNP simply because they believe the outright lies of the neo-con pro-immigration spectator crowd or those savage leftists and their islamic extremist allies.

Publius

I too intend to vote UKIP in the Euro election. Not as a protest against Cameron, but to express my disapproval in the clearest terms of the EU "project".

Fabio P.Barbieri

There is nothing encouraging about the fact that UKIP profits from a wave of anger. It makes them a classic protest party - here today, gone tomorrow. Nick Griffin, on the other hand, is taking the BNP on a long march through all the neglected places of England, building up their representation slowly and steadily. He took them in hand as little more than a thug's social club, and he has turned them into a real presence on the ground, harvesting one ward after another, one council seat after another - growing, slowly, steadily, like the nastiest kind of debt, the one you never quite seem able to repay. Significantly, UKIP has never been strong at the local level; its supporters only vote for it when it is a matter of delivering Westminster and Brussels a slap in the face. BNP voters, on the other hand, are voting for something that has its own identity, beyond - though beneath - protest votes. You should worry, I think.

Chris

Isn't it strange that McFall was on the radio about bankers bonuses this morning. Bankers were just working within the rules drawn up by Balls and Brown - yet they shouldnt be able to get bonuses now. Now where have I heard the phrase " It was all within the rules"

needleman

"What happened to swine flu?"

deselected I believe.

Pliny

No one should be foolish enough to vote UKIP to protest about sleaze. UKIP MEPs have been among the worst offenders for claiming lavish expenses in Brusels. Has anyone heard of them doing anything else remotely useful? As Fiona Hamilton points out in the 13 May issue of The Times:

"Ashley Mote, a UKIP MEP, was imprisoned in 2007 for falsely claiming £65,000 in welfare benefits. Last month another UKIP MEP, Tom Wise, was charged with false accounting and money laundering over allegations that he misused nearly £40,000 in expenses." UKIP is the Establishment's last resortsafety valve, they are no different to LibLabCon - if people really want to give our corrupt politicians a kicking, voting BNP - the party they ALL hate - is the only option.

Tiberius

If Labour could change leader again without calling a GE, it would demonstrate that there is virtually nothing left of what passes for the British Constitution.

Verity: you should not do yourself the disservice of willfully misreading the cause and effect of these polling figures. You know full well that Expenses are behind these figures, yet you persist in blaming Cameron's style for everything that draws criticism.

Mind you, worse is the number of posters who are resorting to personal attacks on the journos for merely reporting the fact that Cameron is ahead of the other politicians in trying to deal with a situation that no one could have taken pre-emptive action over.

I hope Cameron's ascendancy is not going to drag CH down to the level of some sports forums.

Jane

As a former Tory who has been sickened over the years by Tory lies on Europe ("no loss of sovereignty" etc.); the Party's shabby treatment of principled Eurosceptic MPs; and the only very feeble opposition to the ghastly Lisbon Treaty, I will certainly be voting UKIP in the Euroelections. Almost every Tory I know feels the same. Cameron just doesn't get it and, by the way, in spite of being asked 3 times over the past year by the Witney (his constituency) branch of UKIP if he would debate the issue of Britain's membership of the EU with them, he has declined. That shows either a lack of guts, or that he is not prepared to give a full explanation of his stance on Europe in public before his constituents. As a another poster said, it's time the Spectator began to wake up to this a bit more and stop being a Cameroonian House magazine.

Oscar

I can't believe the anti-Cameron onslaught on this site(and no doubt many posters are trolls). You are no more in tune with the country than the cabal around Brown and the Speaker. Cameron is having a good expenses war. Yes the Tories have taken a hit (quite rightly) but as the polls indicate most voters see Cameron as the leader most capable of tackling and renewing the system. Expenses can be to Cameron what the credit crunch was for Brown - an opportunity to show his credentials. Unlike Brown, Cameron is the leader best placed to demonstrate he won't bottle it and so far he's proved himself well up to the challenge.

Roy Simpson

Publius and Max Kaye: Totally agree with you both. The expenses scandal is certainly part, but only part, of the reason for the projected fall in Conservative support in the European elections. Many Tory supporters, including myself, will support them at the forthcoming local as well as the next general election, but will vote UKIP at the European election to register our opposition to Conservative European policy.

Tiberius

Jane: you forgot to add to your list of "faults" that Cameron is not prepared to make the same mistakes as his recent predecessors.

I'm afraid that it's nominal Tories of the 2000s such as yourself, allied with the sleaze Tories of the 1990s, that have helped New Labour to hold power for 12 years with such devastating consequences for the country.

Publius

Pliny. If I vote for UKIP in the Euro election, as I think I shall, it will have nothing to do with a protest against sleeze, and all to do with expressing, as clearly as I can, what my view is of the EU, and how we have been duped and misled over the years into accepting a superstate. The treatment meted out to the Irish was the final, final, straw.

Like the old communist states in their last days, the EU has lost all legitimacy, and just presses on, corrupt and self-serving, without even bothering to pretend.

As for Verity, I disagree with her about Cameron, and have said so many times. I think she and I agree about the EU, however.

mark

Voting BNP is the only true protest vote! UKIP has achieved nothing. and when it comes to opinion polls BNP support is allways way way underepresented as most dont want to admit to a stranger in the street they are voting BNP especially in these PC times.

JONNY

'James, you and the little social democrat cadre at The Speccie refuse to face the evidence that there is no appetite among Conservatives for David Cameron.'

You've never been more right Verity. The whole world and its dog is out there knocking David. How he keeps going with so much mud slung at him from every quarter is quite a minor miracle.
And his standing in the polls!
Disastrous. With that level of approval rating he's doomed.

And it gets worse and worse. Everyone is slamming his incoherent manic reaction to the expenses debacle.
Attagirl Verity ,you keep right on there at it. I do believe you're on to something at last.

Daniel

I'll be voting Green for the first time in the Euro elections for the Eastern region. I voted Labour last time, but I'm sick of this government. Over the past couple of years, I've written to my local MEPs about EU-related issues and never got a response, not even an acknowledgement. I wrote to Green MEP Caroline Lucas and she responded within a couple of weeks, even though she is not my MEP. The Greens are not tarnished by sleaze, unlike the main parties and UKIP. And they are not racist extremists like the BNP. I don't agree with 50% of Green policy, but I trust them and think they are principled. So, I'll vote Green. It's a shame not more is heard of them though.

Verity

Swine flu ... only last week tipped to conquer the world, causing deaths by the millions and panic by the masses; today, cast aside like an old Kleenex.

However, The Piggery at Westminster is equally malevolent, so we can expect some further entertainment.

Jonny writes to me, with heavy irony, "The whole world and its dog is out there knocking David."

As no one outside Britain has heard of David Cameron, don't you think this is a little overstated?

Manfredo

It amazes me how far behind the press is in recognizing what the British public figured out quite a few years ago--that like the Americans, Brits now have the opportunity to vote differently in different elections.

Media analysts who still try to extract some insight into next general election from results in the European or London Mayoral votes are simply behind the times.

In the U.S., no one believes that the election of a Republican governor in Vermont or a Democrat senator in Montana means that those states will be competitive in a presidential election. The British people have now become comfortable with the American practice of ticket-splitting. How much did William Hague's "victory" in the EU poll help the Conservatives at the next general election? How well did UKIP's EU showing translate? Not at all.

CCTV

June 4th should be our chance to review the Expenses Claims of MEPs but that seemingly won't happen.

Next week I get a postal ballot for these secret elections and so far all I have is a Labour Lies leaflet telling me how to fill in my postal ballot and a Green flyer inviting me to recycle it.

If this is Democracy it fits the EU to a tee. Cameron is not Clark Kent and he won't be able to sort this mess which has been 30 years in the brewing. Patience with politicians is at an end - and incidentally with BBC

Minnie Ovens

Verity
May 14th, 2009 11:57pm
What happened to swine flu?

The swine all got it.

Cogito Ergosum

In politics, some things are there for a reason.

In education, SATs are there because of the 60s-70s disaster of child-centred education. In Europe, the EU is there because of the disaster that was Europe in 1918 and again in 1945.

OK, there are problems with SATs and some rethinking is needed. Same for the EU.

Unfortunately the Conservative party has become dominated by the Europhobes, as most of the level-headed members drifted away during the Tory Civil War, 1993 to 2003. I shall therefore use some of my votes for non-conservative candidates.

That will include Marta Andreesen in this part of England.