UKIP Uncovered
What motivates the leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party?


Wednesday, January 17, 2007 


Interesting analysis of UKIP's Election Effect

The Independent has an item on UKIP and the Tories linked here, which includes this interesting breakdown on the results of a UKIP vote at the last election. The figure I have heard most often on the cost to Tory seats is usually somewhere in the low twenties.

Ukip, which wants Britain to leave the EU, won 16 per cent of the votes at the 2004 European Parliament elections. Although it won only 2.9 per cent of the votes where it stood at the 2005 general election, analysis of the results suggests that it may have prevented the Tories winning up to 16 seats and shows it inflicted much more damage on the Tories than Labour.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the Tories performed 1.7 percentage points worse where Ukip did well than where they did badly, while Labour dropped by only 0.6 points. This suggests that for every vote Ukip secured from Labour, it won three from the Tories.

On these assumptions, the "Ukip effect" meant that Labour held on to 11 seats that would otherwise have been lost to the Tories - Crawley, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Harlow, Battersea, Warwick and Leamington, Medway, Gillingham, Stroud, Stourbridge, Dartford and South Thanet. The Liberal Democrats won another four seats which would otherwise have gone Tory - Romsey, Solihull, Westmorland and Lonsdale, Taunton and Eastleigh. Although it is impossible to predict Ukip's impact at the next election, the study highlights the party's potential to harm the Tories. All 16 seats will be high on the list of seats the Tories will need to win to push Labour out of office.

Cameron on his present performance can hope at best for a hung parliament, a repeat or improvement in UKIP's vote could therefore prove fatal, we will follow events with interest!

posted by Martin |10:56 AM
Google
www Ukip Uncovered
This site is a member of WebRing.
To browse visit Here.
Copyright © 2006 Martin Cole.
archives
contact us
my other blogs
nigel farage
landmark links
fired treasurer
glw incitement
booker/jamieson
glw & farage
a complaint
a neutered nec
graham booth
derek clark
mark croucher
michael harvey
roger knapman
mike nattrass
links
blogs
press
broadcasters
google
buy my book
technorati
Copyright © 2003/6 Martin Cole.