Farage Will Not Win Seat Says Poll

[Gromit]

// Mr Farage is one point behind the Tories in South Thanet, and just one point ahead of Labour, according to a ComRes poll commissioned by Aaron Banks, the Ukip donor. It suggests Ukip has shed nine points in a month, with Labour gaining ten and the Conservatives gaining four.

Mr Farage has pledged to step down as leader if fails to win a seat. //

Can the party survive without him? Who should replace him?

[mikey4444]

Boxy...don't often see you venturing into the News bear pit section of AB !

Farage is trying to be all things to all men, but utterly failing. Ghastly little man !

[Jackdaw33]

... is trying to be all things to all men, but utterly failing. Ghastly little man !

Same could be said of Miliband.

[tonyav]

Dunno about that, Jack. Miliband's policies hold no attraction to me.

[DTCwordfan]

Now mikey, what did I say, Cons by 5 to 10. UKIP reduced to circa 3 at best, Tories rape the SW Lib seats (SW of Bristol) and Clegg and Cable to go, SNP only c.25 seats, Labour holding the rest but an overall weakening.....

[Baldric]

Had to laugh at Cartoon in one of the Papers today;

Husbands Paper headline reads "Thunderbirds are Back"

His comment is Gosh! this takes me back to the '60's

Wife is reading "Labour Party Manifesto"

and replies "So does this!"

[mikey4444]

DTC...well ....we shall have to agree to disagree then !

Latest data from Electoral Calculus ::::

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html

[jim360]

48 seats for the SNP? Ouch. All other parties facing a wipeout in Scotland...

And Labour pipping the Tories by 11 seats on those figures, despite a meltdown north of the border and with a smaller vote share. Ho hum *mumbles about electoral reform*

[Jackdaw33]

Interesting to see that from that analysis the Tories will get 1.1% more votes than Labour but end up with 11 seats fewer.

[DaisyNonna]

Should I care?

[DTCwordfan]

Still way out, Mikey, I wouldn't believe any poll at the moment, left or right.

[jim360]

Yes, polls based on data collected from 10,000 people and projected onto individual constituencies are so much less trustworthy than figures made up off the top of your head, eh?

A don't expect any poll to be 100% correct, but the general trends are there: Labour and Tories to fall short of a majority, Labour hurt in particular by the SNP in Scotland and the Tories losing vote share to UKIP, who themselves struggle to gain too many seats. Lib Dems to be punished badly. Greens to remain little more than a curio really.

Perhaps on top of that we could see new records set in terms of closest races, smallest vote share for the winning parties, etc. Were it not for the fact that this is the future of the UK it would be quite interesting to see how the results play out.

[DTCwordfan]

depends how and where you sample though - it's still too early to work this one out and how many elections have thrown up their surprises poll-wise. Let's start with last September to begin with.....

[Gromit]

DTC

Labour lost 8 seats in the South West in 2010, mainly around Bristol. They will get some of those back.

If UKIP don't implode before the election, they could hamper the Conservatives progress. The Conservatives made 15 gains in 2010 which was a good result. But I would not be surprised if, rather than rape the region, they might actually lose a couple of seats.

[naomi24]

I’m not so sure that the Conservatives are more at risk from UKIP than Labour. I know no Conservatives who intend to vote UKIP but I know several former Labour voters who say they will.

[Calvados]

UKip are the ultra right wing of the Tory party. It's bad enough for any Labour supporter to switch to the Tories, but to switch to UKip?

[naomi24]

Calvados, I disagree with your assessment, but don't be surprised if Labour do lose votes to UKIP. It's happened before.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ed-miliband/11153129/Heywood-and-Middleton-by-election-Labour-holds-off-Ukip-surge-by-just-617-votes.html

[jno]

another Tory candidate has defected to Ukip, I see. Perhaps he won't take a single Tory voter with him; but my guess is that he will, and that that is Ukip's intention and his own.

[ichkeria]

Former Tory candidate. A current one really would have been a disaster for them!

[jno]

he was a current candidate until they sacked him a week ago "after he refused not to stand as a local councillor", says the BBC.

[jno]

sorry, that was incomplete - he will now be standing for the council on election day but not for parliament, as Ukip already have a candidate. Nonetheless, the plan is undoubtedly to attract Tory voters to Ukip for the general as well as councl election.