European election resutls.

About to head down to Manchester for the North West European parliament elections Count and Declaration (result expected around midnight.)

Whichever way everything goes I am very proud to have been a part of the Conservative campaign in the North West this year.

Comments

Jim said…
No matter what happens tonight, watch for this from the UKIP result.

In 2004 UKIP took 2,650,769 votes (16% and 12 seats)
In 2009 2,498,226 votes (over 150,000 less) but 17% and 13 seats.
so the thing to watch for with the ukip vote is this, if they take far more than 2.6million then they are on the rise, time to do something about that.
If not then its much the same. Percentage of vote may look good but, as I keep telling you, you must identify the problem before you try to fix it. You see the UKIP voters are more likely than anyone to turn out for an EU election, but we see the vote base did not increase between 2004 and 2009. I for one will be pretty amazed if it increases this time either.

now if i am right on this one, your problem is not a stronger UKIP, your problem is turnout, dis satisfied potential voters who have given up and decided not to vote.

What ever happens tonight, all I am saying is that you should concentrate more on results in terms of Number of Votes cast for each party, rather than in terms of percentages, it will cast a much clearer picture and give you a far more accurate indication of what you are doing right or wrong.

Will end this with, Good luck at the count tonight
Jim said…
Never too big to admit it when i was wrong!

in 2004 UKIP -2.6 million votes.
in 2009 UKIP -2.45 million votes.
in 2014 UKIP -4.35 million votes.

So it seems UKIP have found 1.9 million votes, the question now is from where?

BBC are saying turnout is 34.19% (this may change come tomorrow with all declared) but that level is only marginally higher than the 2009 level of 34%,so think its time to wait for final results then take another look at the data area by area.

Chris Whiteside said…
Thanks for your good wishes.

Clearly turnout is a problem, and I am concerned that it is so low, but that is not the whole story of the results we are seeing.

The Conservatives significantly outpolled our predicted opinion poll share from surveys asking about voting in the European elections, and I think this is because our turnout problems were not as bad as some other parties: more of our supporters came out to vote.

However, although some UKIP support is people who had not been voting, the maths suggest that UKIP must have gained switchers from other parties. In the first two years of this parliament, these were predominantly coming from Conservatives.

That does not appear to be true of the people who UKIP have most recently gained.

On Sunday night the BBC were showing tables with percentage shifts in vote share which had UKIP up 12%, Labout up 8%, Conservatives down 3% and Lib/Dems down 7% compared with the last Euro elections. Which did appear to make sense because that is a net rise of 10% in share of the vote.

Then they showed the rest of the table which had a 10% drop in the share of "others" such as, but not only, the BNP, English Democrats, etc.

I think Labour gained significantly from the Lib/Dems but lost some to UKIP. The Conservatives lost some of our vote share to UKIP a couple of years ago but since then it seems to have held up. UKIP seems to have taken votes from all the other parties.

I agree with your point about the absolute number of votes telling an important story and that we should not just look at the percentage share.

On that basis the North West had one of the best results for Labour, their absolute vote was significantly up (which was not true in some of the rest of the country) but it was very goegraphically focussed on the big conurbations, e.g. Manchester and Liverpool, where a lot of people came out for them.
Jim said…
My first incling is that Labour have taken the disgruntled lib-dem vote. UKIP the BNP, Eng democrat, and some of the other "other" vote, perhaps you are right with some of the tory vote but unlikely. The rest I do think is "new votes" basically traditional big three votes did not turn out, but traditional "non voters" did. they thought the protest vote (UKIP) better than "no vote". This cant hurt them either, if a party has no policy (UKIP by its own admission) then that party wont do damage. not that they could do damage with policy either in the EU parliament, so what the hell, "think i will vote UKIP here just to watch the other buggers squirm"

a party with openly no policy, and openly no exit plan from the EU, and one the main parties have been kicking in the media, for all the wrong reasons. Well time for a field day!!!

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