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| There's something you never thought you'd see: Nigel without a fag and a pint! |
I imagine that the majority of Scots will be disappointed
that there is now a Ukip member (not) representing them in the European
parliament.
Some people are delighted, of course. Possibly some of the
people who voted for them, but even a proportion of them must be aware that their
protest vote has actually produced a representative from a party which doesn't actually believe in anything about Scotland and has no policies for the
country. Indeed until recently it was their policy to scrap Holyrood until
someone pointed out that Scots law was different from English law and there
really was a need to a parliament in Edinburgh (otherwise a lot of important parliamentary time would be wasted discussing law in jockland).
Is the result surprising? Not really.
The BBC seems to have
been having a love affair with Farage over the last few years. For a man leading a party with
no MPs, he seemed to spend a disproportionate amount of time on Dumblebum’s Question Time.
Of
course he’s good telly. A bit like Nick Griffin (ha ha ha ha*), he pulls the audience in. And the BBC seems uninterested in
providing a balanced coverage of anything these days, commercially based as is
it. So wall to wall Farage stories gave the party prominence it didn't really
deserve.
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| I wonder what Nick will do after next May? House of Lords? International banking? Write a book "How I wrecked the Libdems"? |
The fact that the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK
appeared in two television debates with the man will have raised his profile
too. Not surprisingly for a man with apparently no political principles, Clegg
lost badly against Farage who has very firmly fixed ideas. Now we await the UK Prime Minister's debate with Farage.
Cameron will also almost undoubtedly lose to Farage.
Is it a blow to Alex Salmond and the SNP? Well, although the
Tories Murdo Fraser thinks so, I doubt it. It's certainly a disappointment that they didn't win the third seat, although they came close.
I’d say to murdo that it was a blow to us
all, but probably mostly to the Liberals, who have been wiped out in Scotland
(and only have one seat in the UK).
It’s a blow to Scotland in that Ukip MEPs have
a reputation for not turning up for work, so instead of its derisory 6 MEPs,
Scotland will effectively now have only 5 representatives in Brussels.
And across the UK it is a blow to
every party because Ukip came first, pushing them all back a place (or, in the
case of the Liberals, several).
Fraser, whom you would have thought should have known
better, tweeted to the effect that the result disproved the theory that
Scotland had a different political culture from the UK.
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| Politicians should probably avoid tweeting late at night |
I’m not sure how he arrived at this conclusion based on the
result of the Euro election (on a small turnout), where UKIP won 10% of the vote
in Scotland and 30% in the UK, and came in in 1st place in the UK, but 4th in Scotland. Maybe maths isn't a Tory strong
point.
Fraser must also be aware that while the UK elected his
party to government (albeit in coalition) and polls indicate that it will do so again, albeit with a different partner) Scotland elected them (even with the benefit
of PR) to be the 3rd party in Holyrood far behind the opposition Labour
party in numbers. There is, so fa,r no indication that that situation will change, solid as it has been since the first days of the parliament.
And while both governing parties in the UK had disappointing
results after 4 years of government, the governing party in Scotland, after 7
years of incumbency, saw their vote hold up and indeed, came in first.
No. I don't see one political culture across the UK there
Murdo. What is it you’re on?
There is a really amusing piece on the Euro results by Wee Ginger Dug which had me rolling about laughing at the ungodly hour of 6 this morning.
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| I wonder if there is anyone, except Griffin himself, who feels sorry for him. |
* Nick Griffin lost his seat, as did the other BNP member. Still, when Mr Griffin goes to the Job Centre on Tuesday he will doubtless be able to avail himself of some unpaid work stacking shelves at Poundland thanks to another right wing freak, Iain Duncan Smurf.
