As a Lib Dem member I'm obviously opposed to what UKIP stand for, but even leaving that aside, there are three things in particular I have an issue with:
1) Using the result of the national European Election result as indicative of what may happen in a local by election is misleading. The issues are different, the electoral system is different, and the electorate is different. But at least they have labelled the bar chart, so this is my smallest quibble.
2) Stating that "Every week, 5,000 new people come to the UK to live" without stating the number number of people who leave the UK, which reduces the number to 4,100. They then blame this on the fact that citizens of new EU countries (Poland and Latvia) can move here. But these A8 countries are only responsible for net migration of 12,000 per year, which is only 5% of total net migration. The biggest contributors of net migration are foreign students (whose fees keep our Universities running and contribute £8bn to the economy).
3) This is the one that triggered me writing this post: UKIP are explicitly squeezing the BNP vote! By writing "Wasted vote" over the BNP column on the bar chart, they are actively trying to get the thickos and fascists who vote BNP to switch to UKIP. And it's not even true! The BNP beat UKIP in this constituency in 2010 by 2,546 votes to 1,720. The tactical racist vote is for BNP, not UKIP.
So I guess my message to UKIP is this: When your main competition is the BNP, perhaps it is time to reassess what you stand for.
2 comments:
Course, the BNP vote wasn't really wasted. They did return a MEP for North West England, after all.
And I thought the bar graph thing was our gimmick, not theirs.
Great blog I enjoyeed reading
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