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Is putting some backbone into the UK government spine. Cameron is being dragged to the viewpoint that the UK may leave the EU and join the EEA, not so much by his own party but by the potential threat the UKIP represents.

However this is from By election results and they are rarely reflected in General Elections.

Yet it now appears that the UK is slowly gaining the opinion that the economy is healing, albeit slowly and there are bigger fish to fry now. Namely the EU and where Britain stands within a Union determined to become fully fiscal and governmental. Something most British do not want.

The biggest problem is that unless the UKIP destroy Lib Dem seats, as the polls suggest, they will split the vote and let Labour in again by blocking Tories from seats. Already the party has highlighted 20 seats lost to UKIP vote splitting at the last election. Something which, if reversed, would have allowed Cameron to make a single government with alliances.

Personally I think that pushing UKIP into mainstream politics and fracturing the three main parties is the best way to go right now, but I'd rather that the Tories wind up with enough votes to coalition with UKIP and not the Lib Dems, at the next election.

It's going to be an interesting 2.5 years but I can only see UKIP votes grow as the EU gets into high gear from September onwards, after the German elections. Pretty much most EU things are on hold right now as the rest of the EU wants Merkel to be the next German chancellor and they are bending over backwards (or forwards in some cases), to see that happen.

The more the EU tries to force fiscal and banking unification on the EU to fix a patently bastardised Eurozone, the more the British people are going to do the British thing and stick two fingers up to the EU, figuratively, literally and at the polls.

The old, fabled, Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times, is playing out. We are. History will mark this time as key in British history. What we have to ask is "How will our descendants see our role?". Did we do our part. Or did we stuff our heads in Facebook, Angry birds, the PS3 the Xbox or the goggle box and "let someone else sort it out". Sadly we will not know. But we can work it out by reading our own history and what was said about it. See if we can recognise the role we are playing today and, perhaps, do something about it. WM is certain of his convictions and will vote on them. What about the rest of us???

I would love to have a younger view. I know that one of my Granddaughters is very interested in politics. I'm sure the rest are "Politics WHAT".... I'm pretty sure that the 18-25 group are so wrapped up on their little internet bubble (generally), that they don't even care. "Just tell me who to vote for"........

UIP still attracts too many extreme 'loonies' for me

I think British politics is slowly changing.
The old Conservative party would never have backed gay marriage, wind farms or any other issue which mainly concerns only the chattering classes of London.
Cameron imo has chosen this path deliberately. The 'old' conservatism would not have acquiesced with mass immigration, for instance. Now, Cameron probably calculates that if the Conservatives oppose immigration he will automatically lose any possibility of X million votes from immigrants and second generation immigrants. So although he makes a few small noises on immigration, he does very little.
I think this is pure political calculation.
What Cameron doesn't realise, imo, is that he can espouse all the liberal causes he wants; the BBC and the chattering classes will still despise him simply because he is a Tory.
Cameron didn't defeat the Labour party at the last election because the voters went mad for his new improved brand of Toryism (although politicians vanity being what it is, he probably thinks that they did); they voted Tory because they thought that Labour had been in long enough and nobody much liked Gordon Brown.

So there is a vacuum. There are still meny 'old' Conservatives who don't like immigration, who have never liked the EU, who don't like the idea of gay marriage and who think that wind farms are an insane waste of money. But they don't feel welcome in Cameron's Tory party so they look elsewhere, like UKIP. Interestingly, one third of Conservative party members have left the party since Cameron became leader.

The forces of Conservatism are divided and this (my God) could let the idiot Minibrain in, with (I can't believe I'm writing this) Ed "Calamity Jane" Balls as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The one thing Cameron HAD to do was to redraw the rigged electoral boundaries which give Labour such an advantage*. He hasn't managed it. So unless he pulls a rabbit out of the hat he looks like losing the next election.

*In the 2005 General Election, the Conservatives polled 60,000 more votes in England than the Labour party. Labour however, won 92 more seats in England. That is how badly the electoral boundaries have been fixed.

cromwell wrote:Interestingly, one third of Conservative party members have left the party since Cameron became leader.

perhaps people like me who joined the party for the last election and the last election ONLY.....

The electoral boundaries can be changed again in the next two years. Labour, in Scotland, changed 50% of the boundaries one year before the election..... May not smell nice, but the electorate won't be able to do too much about it....

Interesting times, indeed. I think one positive of the Coalition has been that we have actually now seen the true face of the Liberal Democrats. In consequence, most people will probably now shun them.

I can't see UKIP winning a substantial number of seats in 2015 however, and fully expect Milliband to be in No.10 ...... which hopefully might lead to the ousting of the Cameron elite and the rebirth of a Tory party with stronger grass-roots values.

Cameron's only hope as I see it is a resounding "Yes" to Scottish independence in 2014 and the resultant abolition of Scottish (Labour) MPs in Westminster before 2015 ...

TheOstrich wrote:Cameron's only hope as I see it is a resounding "Yes" to Scottish independence in 2014 and the resultant abolition of Scottish (Labour) MPs in Westminster before 2015 ...

Well certainly the situation with the Scots is exactly the same as the situation with the UK in the EU. The UK has Scotland to lose as the electorate will not vote to secede. However if the English should go on denigrating the Scots, making out they are a bunch of wasters who can't pay their way and a drain on the "English" purse, then they will rile the Scots up to leave.

Similarly the moves in the EU, with expansive budget moves, denigrating the UK every time we don't bend over and smile as we take it, drives the UK further and further away from the EU.

The main difference is that the EU needs the UK money more than the Scots need the English money.

Food for thought.....

But, certainly, it's the best chance Cameron has of winning. So watch out for senior Tories running the Scots down......

I hope UKIP never get in when they have people like this disgusting man on board
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-ke ... WEET458432

I already posted about him Janiee higher up the thread - I think he's commited political suicide, well I hope he has!!

Every party has them and fringe parties have more than most.

What tends to happen is that when these parties become mainstream they weed them out because they can rely on more broad support.

If we condemn a whole party for one or two bad apples then we will never get change. Just ever more chair swapping.

The alternative is the BNP.... Good for a by election protest but never for a general election.

Kaz wrote:I already posted about him Janiee higher up the thread - I think he's commited political suicide, well I hope he has!!

Baroness Warnock a committed advocate of euthenasia for the elderly no questions asked... like it or lump it.. "And she is getting her way with PATHWAY Kaz.. These nutters are in all parties.. I shall certainly consider UKIP very strongly having been a life long Conservative..

Nice to see you nice"