British Democracy Forum - View Single Post - Tory rebel Bob Spink becomes Ukip's first MP !!!!

Baron von Lotsov · 22-04-2008, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anthony Butcher

The last election looked like this:

Robert Spink Conservative 22,118 48.3
Luke Akehurst Labour 13,917 30.4
James Sandbach Liberal Democrat 4,719 10.3 Neil Hamper
UK Independence Party 3,431 7.5
Irene Willis Green 1,617 3.5

Majority 8,201
Turnout 65.9%

This is one of UKIP's strongest areas, with 7.5% of the vote. However, it would take a fair swing for him to get re-elected. Assuming he would need at least 30% to get re-elected, he would need to carry over around 10,000+ votes for him personally. That also assumes a stationary UKIP national vote.

I can't really see him keeping 10,000+ personal votes given they way he was thrown out of the Tory party, and the local Tories are of course very likely to run a bitter personal campaign against him. As much as the public is uninterested by MPs having affairs, there is still a large number of people who take infidelity seriously and regard it as a personality flaw and/or a 'sin'; that will count against him too.

I suspect that the local Lib Dems will be rubbing their hands with glee. The Labour vote is likely to collapse (if Labour's fortunes continue to decline), and UKIP could take enough votes off the Tories for a good Lib Dem result.

Do you think though that since he is obviously well qualified for the job and has been an MP for a long time and has a very healthy margin, that given good UKIP support he could keep it? He's miles ahead of the rivals going on those figures. People often don't vote for smaller parties because they don't think they have the standing to represent them properly and they tend to stick with what they know. Take a look at Martin Bell, he pulled it off. Ofcourse if he did manage to then it might encourage more defections. People aren't that keen on the Tories anyway, they just see them as a better bet than the terrible Labour Party.