Eastleigh by-election battle hots up

[Arthurgray50@blu]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21544685

Admin edit (Chris): Cloud cuckoo land made-up link replaced with something that actually works. PLEASE LEARN HOW TO USE THE INTERNET.

It has been sated that David Cameron is facing a leadership battle if the Tories lose Eastleigh by election.

It appears that the Tories will lose out to UKIP and that Labour will come second and the Tories behind the Lib Dems.
All the big guns are in the area including Boris Johnson to try and get the votes in - is this the sign that the Tories are running scared and that the voters will vote with there X.

On the Tv last night and today Tv crews are asking voters what they think and the vast majority are voting for the UKIP party

Quite a call that you think the by-election is going to finish: UKIP, Labour, Lib Dem, Tory.......

Complete fantasy, of course. Labour is not going to come second in Eastleigh. The Party is nowhere in that part of the world.

It's Lib Dem territory, formerly Tory, the sort of seat Cameron should have won in 2010. The outcome will be interesting and very important because both the leading parties in the constituency are in the government. Cameron needs it, to be able to claim support forums programme, Clegg needs it, to be able to prove the Lib Dems aren't going to sink without trace in 2015 and Miliband desperately wants it so he can claim the Coalition is losing its legitimacy.

Sadly for Dave, his outside chance of winning the seat have been wrecked by UKIP which will take enough votes to ensure the Tories can't win. The most likely outcome is a Lib Dem hold. Who comes after that is anyone's guess, but UKIP's showing is what everyone's wanting to see. Has Dave's promise of a referendum neutralised UKIP or not? We shall have to wait and see.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Chris

Complete fantasy, of course. Labour is not going to come second in Eastleigh. The Party is nowhere in that part of the world.

It's Lib Dem territory, formerly Tory, the sort of seat Cameron should have won in 2010. The outcome will be interesting and very important because both the leading parties in the constituency are in the government. Cameron needs it, to be able to claim support forums programme, Clegg needs it, to be able to prove the Lib Dems aren't going to sink without trace in 2015 and Miliband desperately wants it so he can claim the Coalition is losing its legitimacy.

Sadly for Dave, his outside chance of winning the seat have been wrecked by UKIP which will take enough votes to ensure the Tories can't win. The most likely outcome is a Lib Dem hold. Who comes after that is anyone's guess, but UKIP's showing is what everyone's wanting to see. Has Dave's promise of a referendum neutralised UKIP or not? We shall have to wait and see.

I don't trust Dave to give us a Referendum as he will Wiesel out of it, therefor my only option is UKIP.

Many posts removed. Could members with generous offers of help for Arthur regarding links, please contact him by PM. Ta.

I would have done however they are not open Arthur send me a pm with an email address in so I can help you out mate

So they're voting in Eastleigh today. Polls suggest no big surprise or upset in the result and therefore no big consequence as a result. The Liberal Democrats are expected to win, a good result for them. The Conservatives should come second which isn't a disaster but will cause concerns about their ability to win in 2015. Labour won't feature again which puts them in the same position as the Tories, not a big problem but raises questions.

The interesting one is if UKIP can spring a surprise...

On the contrary, some of the latest polling puts Lib, Con and UKIP close enough together as to be overlapping on margin of error. A Lib Dem hold is the most likely outcome but the polls are certainly not suggesting there will be no surprises. Anything could happen, especially as many political hacks are returning from a shift in the constituency reporting how surprised they are at the level of organisation UKIP has achieved in this campaign.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...s-believe.html

I know UKIP are fighting hard for this

Originally Posted by Chris

On the contrary, some of the latest polling puts Lib, Con and UKIP close enough together as to be overlapping on margin of error. A Lib Dem hold is the most likely outcome but the polls are certainly not suggesting there will be no surprises. Anything could happen, especially as many political hacks are returning from a shift in the constituency reporting how surprised they are at the level of organisation UKIP has achieved in this campaign.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...s-believe.html

Ah The Telegraph have put up a paywall and I have exceeded my free articles this month. Although only £2 a month isn't bad. Anyway.

I thought the polling led to what I've written. Lib Dems first, Tory 2nd. UKIP were polling high but a few percentage points behind the top two. UKIP could pull a surprise but it remains unlikely as I understand it.

The top line:

Research by Survation, a polling company, concludes the Lib Dems are most likely to win but victory is far from certain.
It said Nick Clegg's party retains a "narrow advantage" over the Conservatives in the polls and has the most organised campaign machine to help get its supporters to the polling stations. However, it found the Liberal Democrat lead over the Tories is so close as to be within the "margin of error".
Survation also found support for UKIP may have been understated in the first few polls and a victory or second place cannot be discounted.
The most recent polls put the Lib Dems are on 33 per cent, the Conservatives on 28 per cent, Ukip on 21 per cent and Labour trailing on 12 per cent.

Well 7 percentages points is a pretty big gap...So I do think that the polls suggesting 'no big surprise' was fair

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by tizmeinnit

I know UKIP are fighting hard for this

Good

Originally Posted by Damien

Well 7 percentages points is a pretty big gap...So I do think that the polls suggesting 'no big surprise' was fair

The thing is, the margin of error is +/- 5 points. Which means it is possible at one end of that range that UKIP is actually polling 3 points ahead of the Lib Dems. That is not the most likely scenario, I agree, but the message the pollsters are giving today is that the race is very close and to predict no surprises is to be a hostage to fortune.