Today is a very strange day for me. If I had not got so disillusioned with the Lib Dem leadership I would be down in Eastleigh helping to get the vote out. As it is I'm sitting at home and wondering how it will all pan out, and I've come to a rather odd conclusion.
If I was in Eastleigh I would probably have voted NHA Party as a way of protesting about the privatisation of the NHS. However the by election has come too early for them and they are not likely to win it. Bizarrely as a life long Liberal and pro European I want UKIP to win and think they might actually do it. Let me explain.
I have hated this coalition with a passion since its inception. A UKIP win tonight could deal a fatal blow to it. If as seems likely the Tories come third it will throw the party into paroxysms, with the backwoodsmen braying that they have to steal UKIP's clothing. They might even be brave enough to mount a coup against Cameron. A more right wing leader would be very difficult to work with even if Clegg managed to survive.
If the Lib Dems lose the seat, I don't foresee an immediate coup, but when there is another wipe out in the County Council elections in May and the relationship with the Tories becomes horribly fraught, a lot of MPs and councillors are going to be looking for another solution other than the disastrous Clegg regime before 2015.
A UKIP victory will not mean a new dawn for them. I've had 40 years of being on the wrong side of that argument. But it could mean the end of the coalition and hopefully the beginning of the end of the Orange Book experiment in the Lib Dems.
So swallow hard, put on a Polly Toynbee clothes peg and "Come on UKIP!"
If I was in Eastleigh I would probably have voted NHA Party as a way of protesting about the privatisation of the NHS. However the by election has come too early for them and they are not likely to win it. Bizarrely as a life long Liberal and pro European I want UKIP to win and think they might actually do it. Let me explain.
I have hated this coalition with a passion since its inception. A UKIP win tonight could deal a fatal blow to it. If as seems likely the Tories come third it will throw the party into paroxysms, with the backwoodsmen braying that they have to steal UKIP's clothing. They might even be brave enough to mount a coup against Cameron. A more right wing leader would be very difficult to work with even if Clegg managed to survive.
If the Lib Dems lose the seat, I don't foresee an immediate coup, but when there is another wipe out in the County Council elections in May and the relationship with the Tories becomes horribly fraught, a lot of MPs and councillors are going to be looking for another solution other than the disastrous Clegg regime before 2015.
A UKIP victory will not mean a new dawn for them. I've had 40 years of being on the wrong side of that argument. But it could mean the end of the coalition and hopefully the beginning of the end of the Orange Book experiment in the Lib Dems.
So swallow hard, put on a Polly Toynbee clothes peg and "Come on UKIP!"
Thinking the unthinkable!!!
ReplyDeleteI honestly think it would be (plucks awful cliche from the air) a game changer.
ReplyDelete