It was a terrific night for Conservative Euro candidates in the Eastern Region – as well as the United Kingdom – as voters gave Labour the bashing they were expecting.
The result in our region remained unchanged with 3 Conservative, 2 UKIP, 1 Liberal Democrat and 1 Labour being re-elected.
Our MEPs Geoffrey Van Orden and Robert Sturdy have been joined by newly elected Vicky Ford, who was likened to Margaret Thatcher and Madonna during the campaign – so she has a lot to live up to!
It was a tense evening waiting for the results to be announced. At one stage it looked like Labour would lose its only seat in our region to the Greens, and we would most likely have scooped four seats if it had not been for the MPs expenses scandal.
I worked closely with all the candidates and can tell you they were a very united and professional team and a great pleasure to work with. I hope those who were not successful this time round will put their names forward for Westminster seats. We have too much talent to lose.
Well done, Ellee!
So Ellie ~ do you really think the Government’s coming down, as its opposition would have us think?…
I wonder if you agree with me, but I just think British politics is becoming more like the situation in Italy, Japan and so many other countries where politicians are held in VERY low esteem, governments aren’t expected to last and people by and large ignore their irrelevancies… I’m sure that’s starting to happen here, don’t you agree..??
;->…
Gledwood, Yes, I would say it’s only a matter of time before the government collapses. I don’t agree with your last para, we would be in total anarchy if that was the situation. Certainly there is considerable mistrust and apathy, but hopefully it is resolvable.
The election turnout was very low. I think you are right, Ellee that this government is finished. I also agree with some pundits, even Gruniad ones, that Broon should probably go if Labour are to stand a chance in the next general election. With a year to go, max, then every day with the current leadership weakens their chances. Sadly I cannot share your enthusiasm with the Cameroon management.
I posted recently on a children and families committee proposal/debate. It was clear from that committee meeting what politics on both sides is all about.
Congratulations to the Conservative winners. They look like a good team.
Why won’t anyone deliver the obvious manifesto that will get voters in the polling booths in landslide numbers ?
Sorry. The unreconstituted Tories would be a disaster for Britain in every way that Nu Lab have been. Mr Cameron has already been shown to be a greedy fiddler over his mortgage and he hasn’t even been elected yet.
Low voter turnouts show that we are not fooled. How can you be happy with this, Ellee ?
Only thirty percent turnout. Two thirds of those voting for anti-EU parties. Why didn’t Nu Labour refugees defect to the Tories ? Because the Tories aren’t the solution either:
The post-mortem on the two BNP MEPs’ success, and the access they now have to great pools of taxpayers’ cash (the Telegraph suggested £4m over the four-year period of this EU parliament) threatens to become the main source of liberal angst for the time being. No bad thing, as the man-made global warming guff is sooooo yesterday (or tomorrow, or next year, or 2020).
Me? I think it’s a good thing, on balance. This is not because I am a racist or a Hitler admirer or a xenophobe. It is because the endless triangulation of policy by the three main parties had led us into a cul-de-sac of effete liberal consensus on immigration and multi culturalism. This was an airless place in need of a damn good blast of fresh air. I hesitate to suggest that the rank mixture of BO and Lynx anti-perspirant from Griffin and his mates is fresh air, but it will have the same effect.
The left’s response has been completely predictable, with a bunch calling themselves the UAF hitting the media sofas and emoting about the potential “normalisation” of the BNP in British politics. There will be a great deal of airtime gobbled up by Sonia Earnest asking Gregory Angst about the reasons for this, and vice versa.
Waste of time. What they need to do is to undertake the difficult, unpleasant, and potentially dangerous task of interviewing the many thousands of people who voted BNP, and find out why. Some, doubtless, will be Nazis. Others will be flippant protest-voters. Still more will be anarchists.
But the majority, I estimate, will be standard British salt-of-the-earth: in other words, mildly racist, but not offensively so; champions of British-is-Best, even if a lot of it is pants; buggered if they understand why economic migrants get away with this asylum racket, and get all those flats and houses and healthcare and benefits and, unsatisfied with that, want to be productive and take our bloody jobs as well! Normal British working class, in other words. No wonder the middle class politician hasn’t a clue about them.
New Labour is trying to find out what went wrong on Thursday, and soon the penny will drop that it was THEIR splendid ex-voters who trooped into the BNP lobby. Of course there will be a few far-right folk in there as well, but any analysis of BNP policy will tell you that it is designed for racist socialists.
So let’s find out what the hopes and fears of the 1 million people who voted BNP really are, and see if we want to address them. If you don’t ask them, you run the risk of getting your information from Nick Griffin and his Lieutenants, which is not advisable if you seek the truth.
Wannabe polemicist James Delingpole, who is a bit hit-and-miss, is mostly ‘hit’ with his blog on this. And amusing about the achingly centrist types who have dominated the thought process of our main parties for too long.
H/T to Idle for that