David Cameron warns ‘big vote’ for Ukip will lead to Labour government
1:03PM BST 10 Oct 2014
“We are ripping lumps out of the old Labour vote in the north of England. The truth of what has happened in the North today is that if you are anywhere north of Birmingham , if you vote Conservative you get Labour.
And the reason we haven’t won up there, despite a fantastic campaign, is that too many people have stuck with the Conservatives, not recognising that Ukip is now the challenger to Labour in every urban seat in the north of England.”
Then:
Nigel Farage: Ukip will be main challenger in nearly every English seat
Thursday 12 February 2015 14.28 GMT
“Farage said Ukip was “a truly national political party”, dismissing the Conservatives as a “regional party for the south of England” and Labour as a similar party for the north.
He went on to describe his party as “the challenger in virtually every parliamentary seat from Birmingham up to Hadrian’s Wall”.
“We are going to give Labour in the north of England a real run for their money, of that I have no doubt at all,” he added”.
And now:
Friday 27 February 2015 17:31 GMT
“What matters is that we succeed on May 7 and that we get a good number of Ukip MPs over the line and that in hundreds of constituencies in this country we have the opportunity to build ourselves from second position in those seats as the real oppostion.
And I certainly think that in the north of England this election will see Ukip emerge as the opposition to the Labour party virtually anywhere from Birmingham to Hadrian’s Wall.
I can tell you I am optimistic, I am upbeat, I am bullish, we are going to exceed all expectations, we are going to win lots of seats in this general election and I hope very much to be leading this party, not just into this general election, but into all the elections to come. In years to come we have elections in Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland and London and we are genuinely now the only truly national party in British politics.”
Nigel, Birmingham, Coventry and Redditch, for example are not in the South and neither are Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton in the North, you soft Southerner! We are in the English Midlands or, to be exact, the West Midlands. There is intelligent life (and a lot of it is not voting ukip) between the Home Counties and it’s ‘Grim’ oop Northland! In fact, there is intelligent life all over the UK, including in that London place (or so I have been told!).
Still, at least ukip is admitting it has no chance of winning seats in Birmingham, the largest urban authority in the United Kingdom with a population of 1 million, the regional capital of the West Midlands (ducks) and, for the second consecutive year running, the best UK destination to visit! Birmingham saw off competition from London, Liverpool, Torquay and York.
ukip failed to contest 11 out of 41 Ward elections in Birmingham back in May 2014. One Ward was a two seat election, a sitting councillor had resigned, but ukip only put up one candidate. The other remaining ten seats prove ukip is dissembling when they say that their policies should not be feared by Black and Ethnic Minorities. Those seats contain many of BEM descent, but also, interestingly, White Irish. Somehow, I think telling them that migration is a bad thing might lead to a free and extremely frank exchange of views, if not blows!
The ramblings of a former DWP Civil Servant ... 