That Eastleigh by-election, so the pundits tell us, is looking like a Lib Dem win although, in politics,nothing is a certainty until the votes are counted. Locally the Lib Dem machine is well established and their canvassing effective and efficient – but it could be that the most significant outcome of the election might well be not who wins but who comes third….
I suspect that another story next Thursday night will be how well UKIP does. They are surging there and I’d be surprised if they didn’t come a strong third. When I was down earlier in the week, I found it picking up voters off all three parties. It is getting disillusioned working class votes in Eastleigh town itself, which is a bit of the de-industralised north in Hampshire. While out in the more prosperous parts of the constituency it is picking up protest votes off the Lib Dems as well as playing on concerns among Tory voters about how sound Cameron is on Europe, immigration and tax.
Maybe a response to this piece actually hits the nail on the head
UKIP represents working class Britain, whether in-work, out of work, or retired from work. The other parties represent the wont-works, the on-benefits, the we-want- benefits, and the socialist state employees. And the penny is finally dropping. Voters : please don’t fall for the ‘don’t split the vote nonsense’.
At the heart of democracy is voting for whom we want, not for whom we don’t want.
