Elections!

[Zanza]

It always did seem weird to me.  But I think some of the anti-EU types have legitimate grievances.  I know it makes sense to some of you Euro types, but the idea of having an additional, unnecessary layer of government just baffles me.

What should be much more baffling to an American is the persistent regionalism and nationalism in Europe. Just imagine you wouldn't have a federal military but only state militias. No FBI, no FCC, no SEC, no other federal agencies, but every state having his own without a federal layer.

[Sheilbh]

Oh also Lib Dems have been wiped out in Manchester and Liverpool. They seem to be holding onto their vote a lot better in bits of the South and South-West but look in real trouble in London and the North.

Here's the popular vote in the North:
Labour: 39%
Conservatives: 19%
Ukip: 18%
Lib Dems: 13%

And the South:
Conservatives: 32%
Labour: 25%
Ukip: 17%
Lib Dems: 17%

The Revolt on the Right authors must be very smug. We really need to change our image of UKIP as retired colonels, golfing buddies and shire Tories. What's interesting is UKIP have shown they can harm both parties - for example they did it to the Tories in Basildon and Castle Point and to Labour in Rotherham and Grimsby. Even in London apparently the Labour victory in Croydon is because UKIP ate into the Tory vote.

I think this is an interesting graph, from the Telegraph on the long-term fall of two-party politics:


I think there's a lot to this:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/23/ukip-success-local-elections-two-party-system-crisis

Over the past week or so – in the wake of Nigel Farage's supposedly disastrous LBC interview and as politicians and pundits queued up to accuse his party of being racist – something interesting began to emerge. It was almost as unpleasant as some of the views of the Ukip leader and the out-there candidates who were crash-landing in the news – a collective outbreak of sneering, which started to transcend the party itself and blur into a generalised mockery of anyone minded to support it. You could see it most clearly in the rash of satirical(ish) #WhyImVotingUkip tweets that are piling up even now (eg "Because our true British maypoles are set to be completely replaced by foreign gay Poles within 5 years" or "Because I'm uneducated,uncultured, white and old") and it's not pretty: an apparent belief that to vote UKIP is to be an idiot of some description, either bigoted or duped, and worthy of little more than contempt.

If you remain of that opinion, you should stop reading and go somewhere else. As the local election results come in and Ukip's numbers continue to look remarkable, the rest of us should maybe pause for thought and realise that something rather sobering is afoot, as happened in the 2012 county council elections, only more so. If a party is averaging 47% of the vote in a Labour stronghold such as Rotherham, toppling Tories from their perches in crucial Conservative territory and apparently heading towards first place in the European contest, something important is obviously afoot. Moreover, if people are supporting Ukip in such large numbers – even after the media's massed guns have been rattling at it for weeks – it is probably time to drop all the sneering and think about why.

[Agelastus]

I do worry that I don't know a single UKIP voter and the world I live in is one where it's a given that they're racist. People enjoy the sneering articles and Radio 4 jokes and Twitter hashtags - but that's actually all rather distant from lots of people in the country. It makes me worry, again, that we're heading for US style culture wars

I voted UKIP this time (albeit I won't in the General Election) and we have met once, in person. Am I really the closest you've come to knowing a UKIP voter?

[Sheilbh]

Yep.

Edit: Also, independence for London!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100272847/at-this-rate-london-will-have-to-vote-for-independence-to-get-away-from-all-those-ukippers/

[derspiess]

It always did seem weird to me.  But I think some of the anti-EU types have legitimate grievances.  I know it makes sense to some of you Euro types, but the idea of having an additional, unnecessary layer of government just baffles me.

What should be much more baffling to an American is the persistent regionalism and nationalism in Europe. Just imagine you wouldn't have a federal military but only state militias. No FBI, no FCC, no SEC, no other federal agencies, but every state having his own without a federal layer.

If the states were in fact individual countries speaking different languages, it wouldn't feel that weird at all.

[garbon]

It always did seem weird to me.  But I think some of the anti-EU types have legitimate grievances.  I know it makes sense to some of you Euro types, but the idea of having an additional, unnecessary layer of government just baffles me.

What should be much more baffling to an American is the persistent regionalism and nationalism in Europe. Just imagine you wouldn't have a federal military but only state militias. No FBI, no FCC, no SEC, no other federal agencies, but every state having his own without a federal layer.

If the states were in fact individual countries speaking different languages, it wouldn't feel that weird at all.

Exactly. Our states didn't have a very long history of independence and differing customs. Made it relatively easier to coalesce.

[Tamas]

@UKIP comment:  thumbs up for being honest lady, and admitting that you and your party are fully aware of being the party of the xenophobic, the uneducated, and the old.


@Sheilhbh kulturkampf bit: it reminded me: if you think about it, globalism and the Internet (although these two are really very closely connected) has been creating this kind of uniform big city culture. I think if you take the open-to-the-world youth of Budapest and London, or any other two major European cities, you will find much less difference between them than, say, 20 or 10 years ago. Sure there are still important differences, but these people want the same kind of lifestyle and are generally the most accepting of their countrymen on account of being exposed to a lot of international stuff. And since they want the same thing, and have access to the same products, services (mostly), and culture thanks to the Internet, they are getting drawn to be more resembling each other instead of the more "rural" parts of their own countries, which are for various reasons are either much slower in being converted to this unified global (well, first world) culture, or are shunned from it altogether.

[The Larch]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

[Sheilbh]

The vote's not been announced but it looks like Lutfur Rahman won re-election

So, onto the Euros!

[derspiess]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

Aww shit, Tamas has joined the vanguard.

[The Larch]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

Aww shit, Tamas has joined the vanguard.

It hardly means that he's a Marxist, he has only made an analysis in a similar vein, that people have more in common with others in the same class and situation in other countries than with a countryman from a completely different background. Marx meant proletarians all over the world had more in common with each other than with their respective countries' bourgouisie, Tamas just applied that to urban educated youth instead.

[Tamas]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

Aww shit, Tamas has joined the vanguard.

It hardly means that he's a Marxist, he has only made an analysis in a similar vein, that people have more in common with others in the same class and situation in other countries than with a countryman from a completely different background. Marx meant proletarians all over the world had more in common with each other than with their respective countries' bourgouisie, Tamas just applied that to urban educated youth instead.

I don't see how that is Marxist. And by that analysis, he was totally wrong. The proletariat is the one who carries on the national identities, as by the very nature of their situation they are less exposed to the "urban educated middle class" culture that for me seems to be unifying via globalism and the Internet.

This may end around here and never go much beyond how international cultural trends spread among the elites, with the only difference being that thanks to the relative well being of people and the Internet, the cultural "elite" (ie. with big access to international cultural channels) is bigger than ever.

[Sheilbh]

I think in a Marxist analysis the peasantry carry national traditions/identities. So even if they're organised they often end up as a counter-revolutionary/reactionary force in defence of the Church or a mythic golden age of just landlords and an ordered society.

The urban proletariat are different from that rural one.

[derspiess]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

Aww shit, Tamas has joined the vanguard.

It hardly means that he's a Marxist, he has only made an analysis in a similar vein, that people have more in common with others in the same class and situation in other countries than with a countryman from a completely different background. Marx meant proletarians all over the world had more in common with each other than with their respective countries' bourgouisie, Tamas just applied that to urban educated youth instead.

Soy chistoso 

[The Larch]

Tamas, I don't know if you're aware of it but that's a rather Marxist (or should I say Troskyist?) analysis. 

Aww shit, Tamas has joined the vanguard.

It hardly means that he's a Marxist, he has only made an analysis in a similar vein, that people have more in common with others in the same class and situation in other countries than with a countryman from a completely different background. Marx meant proletarians all over the world had more in common with each other than with their respective countries' bourgouisie, Tamas just applied that to urban educated youth instead.

Soy chistoso 

Pero no tan gracioso como piensas. 

Besides, I needed a lengthier explanation.