GET REAL TIME FOR THE KIPPERS

The latest YouGov poll shows the Brits – probably in sharper focus than anything else to date – where the power is going to lie after May 7th. It may seem like a kick in the balls for for Camerlot, but it’s also a kick in the teeth for UKip. The Slog crunches the stats.

Peter Kellner of YouGov polls is not a bloke with whom I always agree. His analysis of the latest UK poll figures is in my view a bit of a curate’s egg: some very good insights, but then along the way he loses the plot about how our ridiculous FPTP general election system works in practice.

There are a few bombshells in this latest tabulation, presented below:

The fieldwork was conducted yesterday (19th April) and so there are thus far no unknown bribes or left-field developments in these figures that naysayers can shoot down. Cutting to the chase here, the table evidences further what The Slog has been saying since the turn of the year, viz:

1. If the upward Labour trend continues from now until polling day – a mere 17 days away – then the result in terms of top 2 Parties on polling day will be an as near as damnit a dead heat.

2. There will be two Parties available with power to influence the Government we finally get: the SNP with 46 seats, and LibDems with 28.

3. UKip is NOT going to be a player, because as I’ve repeated endlessly, it is not popular vote that counts in our “democracy” but constituency seats.

Kellner is thus correct when he says, ‘Voters are warming to the idea of an Ed Miliband-led government, and Labour is contacting more voters in local constituencies…..Labour’s leader is regarded as more honest and in touch than the prime minister….Many voters are being turned off by the Conservatives’ campaigning tactics. Every day last week, many more people told us they had noticed something negative about the Tories than anything positive.”

Waydergo Grant Shapps, you’ve obviously played a blinder.

But this is where Kellner gets it inexplicably wrong:

‘Ukip has halted the recent drift of support back to the Tories. If anything, Ukip’s support has firmed up in the past few days. This is bad news for Conservative MPs with small majorities over Labour.’

This simply doesn’t make sense. Of late, the Kippers have been taking more votes from Labour than Conservative. What it really means in electoral terms is that we are going to get some odd results based on little more than mathematical serendipity: but without a massive surge to Ukip based on carefully orchestrated tactical voting, the Nigellas are not going to have so much as a chair in the post-election room…smoke filled or not.

Two months ago I projected a maximum of six Ukip seats. The YouGov data from yesterday suggests three – the third of which I assume is Thanet. But some polls I’ve been tipped off about there suggest Farage is far from through the tape.

Let’s be generous and say the Faragistas get four seats. Why should any wannabe ruling Coalition need four seats, when the other players are offering 28 and 46 respectively?

Miliband has made a watch-my-lips promise: we will not enter a Coalition with the SNP. However, this is Ed’s standard anal syntax meaning “but we’ll take their support in return for Scottish independence”. If (as so often in general elections) there is a late swing to the Tories, then the 28 LibDem seats – plus Protestant Parties in Ulster – may well be more than enough to return the current Coalition to power.

“Don’t waste your vote!” “Register to vote now!” we’ve been told in recent days. The chances are that this publicity has played Labour’s way. We are told “not to waste” our votes. But as none of Parties oppose global neoliberalism – and only one (UKip) with 4 seats is prepared to reject the EU option – any vote I actively make will be equally wasted.

Over the last three years, thousands of Slog threaders have told me that “UKip is the best chance we have got”. Well, based on these figures, the best chance we have has no chance.

The whole exercise is utterly pointless. To repeat the mantra: anything could happen, but nothing will change.

Last night at The Slog: https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/at-the-end-of-the-day-612/