Rotherham Election Frenzy, UKIP Fostering Scandal, Campaigning Gets Dirtier by the day
ElectionOracle / UK Politics Nov 24, 2012 - 02:12 PM GMTBy: N_Walayat
The national press is abuzz with reports that suggests could significantly impact on the Rotherham by-election, as the frenzy of activity continues to intensify on breaking news of UKIP playing their Trump card in an attempt to garner votes in the final few days of campaigning left ahead of Thursdays vote.
The Telegraph appears to be the first to break with UKIP's story : UKIP fostering scandal: has Labour just lost the Rotherham by-election?
The stunning decision by Rotherham Council to remove three children from a foster home (where they were happy) because the foster parents support UKIP shows that the “culture war” here in Britain is being waged not by the Right, but by the Left..
In a low-turnout by-election with big protest vote potential, the fostering decision by a Labour council could just be the kind of issue UKIP might use to pull off an upset. It’s still much more likely that Labour will win, of course. UKIP is notoriously crap at the ground game of fighting elections. But if I was them, I’d pile everything I have, and more, into Rotherham.
The UKIP Leader, Nigel Farage could be seen in Rotherham on Saturday doing several interviews for the mainstream news bulletins, trying to capitalise on the news story.
Will it impact on the election results to any significant extent? I doubt it, after all we are talking about the peoples republic of South Yorkshire, where Rotherham lies literally at its centre. So whilst it has garnered much mainstream interest and been hyped up by Labour's opponents, in really it is not going to help UKIP gain any additional votes. Because the only political parties that Labour are actually at risk of losing votes to are the left of centre parties / candidates, not right of centre parties such as UKIP, which implies that the following candidates could be beneficiaries of Labour votes (ranked in distance of residency from Rotherham) :
- Simon Copley - Independant - Rother Valley, Rotherham - Priest
- Ralph Dyson - Independant - Barnsley - Teacher, NUT Secretary.
- Yvonne Ridley - Respect - Roxburghshire, Scotland - Journalist
So it looks like UKIP's cunning plan is likely to backfire on them as the net beneficiaries are most probably likely to be George Galloway's Respect, who was seen with his candidate doing a tour of Rotherham on Respect's open top green bus, who themselves have been blamed for allegedly distributing anti-labour leaflets.
Gaurdian - Labour complains to police over leaflet's 'closet racists' claim
The Labour party has complained to the police over an election leaflet purporting to come from George Galloway's Respect party, which refers to Labour as a "party of closet racists" who are prone to "anti-Islamic bigotry".
The leaflet, entitled "Respect Yourself", was allegedly sent to a number of Asian households in Rotherham, where a by election will be held at the end of the month following the resignation of Denis MacShane over his expenses.
"Dear residents," the single sheet of A4 began, "On Thursday the 29th November every voter and most importantly every Muslim and Asian family in Rotherham will have the opportunity to send a message to the sickening racism, Islamophobia and corruption of the Labour party here in this town."
Who Will Win?
My recent analysis (Rotherham By-election Who Will Win?) concluded that given Labour's large majority of 10,500, and regardless of all of the mud that is flying around, Rotherham still remains a very safe Labour seat, that coupled with the mid-term unpopularity of the Coalition government implies less votes for the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, which means that the probability still remains extremely high that Labour will win on Thursday, albeit with a much reduced majority.
Undoubtedly Respect will capitalise on many of the stories in the press and do very well to come a distant 2nd, with the 3rd place a toss up between UKIP and Simon Copley (a local priest). So in terms of the probability for the election outcome, today's frenzy of activity changes nothing, and therefore much of what is being reported on in mainstream press is more wishful thinking than anything that is actually probable i.e. a UKIP or Respect election win, for which the numbers just do not stack up.
To regular readers, I promise to imminently return to analysis of the financial markets as the real big story is not the Rotherham election, or even the Euro-zone crisis, the real big story is the failure so far for the US to deal with the fiscal cliff that threatens to tip the world into another recession starting 1st of Jan 2013.
Source and Comments: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article37705.html
By Nadeem Walayat
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Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of three ebook's - The Inflation Mega-Trend; The Interest Rate Mega-Trend and The Stocks Stealth Bull Market Update 2011 that can be downloaded for Free.
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