Upcoming EU parliament elections

I haven't checked the numbers out myself, but I've seen posted elsewhere that the rise in UKIP voting since last EU election is approximately the same as the fall in BNP and Tory votes together. I think UKIP have been quite canny in appealing both to the racists, and the euro-sceptic Tories. But again, in a general election, the Tories are just going to go back to voting Tory - unless there is a more radical splintering of the right over this issue.
 
Rolfe said:
If they do, I don't blame the Green Party voters, but I do blame the floating voters who thought Green was a good way to go tactically against UKIP. And I blame the GP leadership for encouraging that. They didn't have a hope. Wasted tactical vote might have swung it.
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With the results as they are now in Scotland:
Party|Votes
SNP|389,503
UKIP|140,534
Green|108,305
The SNP would have needed 3 times as much votes as the UKIP to get a third seat (it's the pure D'Hondt method, I assume?), or 421,602 - i.e., 32,099 more votes, which seems an awful lot to be floating voters compared to the Green vote.

Rolfe said:
To be fair, mostly I blame the idiots who voted UKIP, and the BBC who gave UKIP four times as much coverage in Scotland as the SNP during the campaign. The SNP being the party of government in Scotland and UKIP being a party which not only didn't have a single elected representative, it had never saved a deposit in Scotland before, not even at council level.
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I agree on the first count. The second count seems, hmmm, very odd.
 
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The BBC have been on a "oh isn't that jolly clubbable chappie Farage awful my dears!" crusade for some time. He's never off Question Time. He's never pressed on any detail of policy. At the same time we've had Salmond compared to Mugabe and every time any event at all happens in Scotland it's headlined as "a blow for Salmond" with the subtext "oh goodie!" Four times as much coverage of UKIP (never saved a deposit) as the SNP (the actual government), and the UKIP coverage always tending to big up the party's chances of success.

Of course it has an effect. That, and the Better Together campaign systematically demonising "foreigners" as people you wouldn't want to be related to or be friends with or perish the thought, actually be.

Rolfe.
 
ddt said:
Even worse, it means that one out of your four neighbours has voted fascist. Do you know which one? :covereyes
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Unfortunately, yes, I do. She's stupid enough to have told everybody . She seems to think that if Harridan-the-First* becomes president next time, she'll be able to take revenge on the neighbors who refused to give some of their gardens in order to widen the lane, preventing her to enter her property at her desired speed.

* Ms Le Pen. Sarkozy was Frenetic-the-Short. Haven't heard a good nickname for Hollande yet, maybe "Useless-the-Limp" ...
 
Flo said:
Unfortunately, yes, I do. She's stupid enough to have told everybody . She seems to think that if Harridan-the-First* becomes president next time,
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She realizes that that also would be the last time she's ever voted?
Flo said:
she'll be able to take revenge on the neighbors who refused to give some of their gardens in order to widen the lane, preventing her to enter her property at her desired speed.
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A certain German word comes to mind.
Flo said:
* Ms Le Pen. Sarkozy was Frenetic-the-Short. Haven't heard a good nickname for Hollande yet, maybe "Useless-the-Limp" ...
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:) The one about Hollande seems apt, unfortunately.
 
ddt said:
She realizes that that also would be the last time she's ever voted?
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As if that kind of people could think so far ahead :rolleyes:

They're under the delusion that should the fascists come into power, they will stand to the right of the Dear Leader and suddenly become powerful, rich, beautiful and super-smart slim (they already think they are super-smart).
 
Some fun facts about the Dutch electoral results. The official results are only determined on Friday by the Electoral Commission, so these are based on the (informal) communications by the mayors to the press.

  • The left-liberal and most vocally pro-EU party D66 (ALDE) is the clear winner of the elections in terms of votes, with 15.4%, and 4 seats (out of 26).
  • However, the winner in terms of seats is the christian-democrat CDA (EPP) which won a 5th rest seat, due to its electoral alliance with the ChristianUnion/SGP list. (An electoral alliance, in Dutch voting, means that two or more parties have separate lists, but are treated as one for the allocation of rest seats).
  • The vote winner, D66, could have gotten the 5th seat instead if it had entered an electoral alliance with the right-liberal VVD, which is also member of ALDE in the EP. However, VVD is government party and D66 is opposition and "the voter would not have understood."
  • On the left, the Socialist Party SP (GUE-NGL) is the winner in votes with 9.6% and 2 seats.
  • However, the Labour Party PvdA (S&D) is again bigger in seats (3) due to its electoral alliance with GroenLinks (EG-EFA).
  • The two small protestant parties ChristianUnion and SGP had a joint list, as with the 2009 elections. However, their current MEPs caucus with different European groups: the ChristianUnion MEP with the ECR (a.o., the British Tories), and the SGP MEP with the EFD (a.o. UKIP) because the Tories had objections about the SGP's stance towards women in office. In the meantime, the SGP has relaxed their stance on women.
  • Senior citizens party 50PLUS barely failed entry with 3.7%. They were the biggest party, though, in two municipalities, in one even with 28%.
  • Several people have been voted in with preference votes (*). Most notably, Ms. Annie Scheijer who was nr. 25 on the CDA list, and got ca. 110,000 votes. Wilders (nr. 10 on his list) got even more preference votes, nearly 300,000, but said he would not take the seat.
All in all, the shifts in seats were modest. D66 won one seat, and PVV (Wilders) lost one. The green party GroenLinks lost one seat, and the animal rights party PvdD won its first seat. All in all, a modest pro-EU vote actually.

(*) in Dutch voting, you always vote for a candidate. If you just want to vote for a party, by convention you vote for the top candidate. "Preference votes" for lower-placed candidates only influence which candidates get the seats, not how many seats a party gets. At these elections, about 18,000 preference votes were enough to secure a seat.
 
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MarkCorrigan said:
I must confess that I love the BNP section of the Scottish candidates. Their first choice candidate has no photo, and the photo for candidate number 2 looks suspiciously like a mugshot.
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They really remind me of One Nation down here. Did you see the video of their idiot candidate last year who thought Islam was a country and it wanted to introduce Haram to Australia? She also thinks Jews follow Jesus. She made Sarah Palin look like a genius.
 
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