And just like clockwork - UKIP score 14% in tonight's YouGov poll, their highest rating for 3 months. You don't "shoot UKIP's fox" by legitimising their bigoted arguments, simple as that.

 

And now a new Opinium poll puts UKIP at 19%, the highest from ANY pollster since July.

Back on topic and like Harve I am seriously starting to worry about the damaging rhetoric about immigration coming from all the major political parties, which now sees UKIP pretty much calling the shots - I mean you'd probably expect this kind of policy from the Conservatives (the nasty party), but to have Labour and the Lib Dems pretty much support it, or to even suggest that they've not gone far enough makes me feel increasingly alienated by UK politics. I mean my views are far more in line with the SNP for goodness sake. Immigration has so many benefits which FAR outweigh the disadvantages. There have been problems ( I have BEEN to Boston ) in the way that integration has been handled and of course there will be tensions, but how else are we going to solve the problems with an ageing population that cannot be supported because of a ever-increasing deficit in their pension fund.

 

Like what was said on question time, Cameron isn't strictly against free movement of people... just the free movement of poor people who want to BETTER themselves. It seems that others are moving towards this view in order to win votes.. well that makes me sad. :(

Back on topic and like Harve I am seriously starting to worry about the damaging rhetoric about immigration coming from all the major political parties, which now sees UKIP pretty much calling the shots - I mean you'd probably expect this kind of policy from the Conservatives (the nasty party), but to have Labour and the Lib Dems pretty much support it, or to even suggest that they've not gone far enough makes me feel increasingly alienated by UK politics. I mean my views are far more in line with the SNP for goodness sake. Immigration has so many benefits which FAR outweigh the disadvantages. There have been problems ( I have BEEN to Boston ) in the way that integration has been handled and of course there will be tensions, but how else are we going to solve the problems with an ageing population that cannot be supported because of a ever-increasing deficit in their pension fund.

 

Like what was said on question time, Cameron isn't strictly against free movement of people... just the free movement of poor people who want to BETTER themselves. It seems that others are moving towards this view in order to win votes.. well that makes me sad. :(

It is indeed very depressing.

And now a new Opinium poll puts UKIP at 19%, the highest from ANY pollster since July.

Still within the margin of error, given Opinium consistently has UKIP in the mid-upper teens. I'd say it's a boost, but not really that much - one or two points if that. I'm always loath to ascribe what look like short-term bumps to latest political stories given I think most commentators really overestimate how much attention normal people pay to the news, and the Cameron immigration story was front page but not really something that's dominated the news agenda for a few days, which is the kind of story that does tend to change voting patterns. It may be that, I just think it's the kind of thing that we'll be more easily able to tell in about a week's time when we've had a few more polls, given other polling companies (Populus et al) haven't seen a bump for UKIP since Cameron's speech.

Edited December 1, 201311 yr by Cassandra

Still within the margin of error, given Opinium consistently has UKIP in the mid-upper teens. I'd say it's a boost, but not really that much - one or two points if that. I'm always loath to ascribe what look like short-term bumps to latest political stories given I think most commentators really overestimate how much attention normal people pay to the news, and the Cameron immigration story was front page but not really something that's dominated the news agenda for a few days, which is the kind of story that does tend to change voting patterns. It may be that, I just think it's the kind of thing that we'll be more easily able to tell in about a week's time when we've had a few more polls, given other polling companies (Populus et al) haven't seen a bump for UKIP since Cameron's speech.

 

There's a difference between never hearing about stories, and hearing about them but not caring about them. The BBC 10 O'clock news alone gets, what, 6m viewers a night? But the crucial thing is that most of the things political journalists obsess about are things the public couldn't care less about - 'Plebgate', the Labour Falkirk "scandal", all the phone-hacking stuff and whether Conservative government ministers knew, that Lib Dem Lord who was accused of harrassing women earlier this year, any other type of gossipy story about "splits" or personality clashes that gets Nick Robinson excited as if politics is some boring soap opera, Prime Minister's Questions featuring unlikeable and uncivilised people treating politics like some hideous sport and just trying to get one up on their opponents rather than improve people's lives. It's not that people never hear about those stories, it's just that when they come on the news, people don't care about them and so don't pay any attention and forget about them quickly, and so they don't have any impact on the polls.

 

However, when a rare story that people DO care about comes on, immigration certainly being one of them (I would also, maybe deludedly, put Miliband's price freeze in the same bracket as a rare political story that people have actually paid some attention to), it does "cut through" and can produce big impacts on the polls. There are still lots of people who follow the news on some level, it's just both the politicians and the political journalists have a warped idea of what people want to hear, so people just tune most of the stuff they hear about politics out, but that doesn't mean they're never even "exposed" to those stories in the first place.

Edited December 1, 201311 yr by Danny

I don't think it's a case of them not hearing about them, more a case of them not really remembering them. I can see the hypothesis that focusing the debate on immigration can harden attitudes for those already against immigration (my argument on the previous page was more along the lines that I don't think the next year would change many people from pro-immigration to anti-immigration, and that there are very few people in between who haven't made their minds up yet - I can see the argument that it can make antis even more anti though, which I think is the main difference between us and France et al), but it strikes me as something that would be more medium/long-term. It strikes me as unlikely that one speech being tough on immigration from the Conservative leader, which people may or may not have noticed (the weekly Populus news poll indicates it was noticed by ~8%, which is a bit less than the Miliband price freeze got), would suddenly make 1-2% of the voting population think 'right, that's it, I'm voting UKIP'.

Well done. I do believe that is probably the stupidest thing you have said on this site and there's been a lot of nonsense to choose from.

 

How?

 

When Mo Farah did his first marathon in training in his life i bet the time in which he did it was way way slower than the best time he has done, through making sacrifices, working exceptionally hard and having drive and ambition he has become the athlete he is.

 

Farah himself said the reason for his successes has been hard work for a decade and prolific training

 

So i believe that someone who does a marathon for the first time in say 4hrs could with hard work and discipline get it down into the times you said

Not in the slightest, he doesn't favour withdrawing from the EU (which is really where any UKIP comparison should stop because that's basically the only reason they exist) and wouldn't ever put in a flat income tax rate.

 

Boris is in favour of freezing immigration and rewriting our relationship with Europe so that we are part of a trading zone/common market, returning the UK to what was voted for in the referrendum in the 70s

 

Complete withdrawal from the EU would be economic madness

 

UKIP are an anti immigration party as opposed to an anti Europe party

Like what was said on question time, Cameron isn't strictly against free movement of people... just the free movement of poor people who want to BETTER themselves. It seems that others are moving towards this view in order to win votes.. well that makes me sad. :(

 

I see no problem in this, it is common sense

 

I fully welcome anyone from any country EU or Non EU coming here to work and being able to support themselves financially

 

What i am against is people coming here who cant support themselves financially and rely on the taxpayer to do it

 

Anyone from Bulgaria and Romania who comes here to work and has a job i welcome with open arms, anyone who is going to be a burden can clear off

Boris is in favour of freezing immigration and rewriting our relationship with Europe so that we are part of a trading zone/common market, returning the UK to what was voted for in the referrendum in the 70s

 

Complete withdrawal from the EU would be economic madness

 

UKIP are an anti immigration party as opposed to an anti Europe party

I know it would be economic madness. You know it would be economic madness, so does Boris, and so does Farage. But when Boris is opposed to the party's founding policy then it's completely idiotic to suggest his views "mirror" UKIP on Europe.

 

I see no problem in this, it is common sense

 

I fully welcome anyone from any country EU or Non EU coming here to work and being able to support themselves financially

 

What i am against is people coming here who cant support themselves financially and rely on the taxpayer to do it

 

Anyone from Bulgaria and Romania who comes here to work and has a job i welcome with open arms, anyone who is going to be a burden can clear off

Then why do you come across as so sceptical when the vast majority of an already exaggerated number will find work?

Then why do you come across as so sceptical when the vast majority of an already exaggerated number will find work?

 

Labour grossly underestimated the number of poles who came here, exceeded forecasts several times over

 

Bulgaria and Romania are extremely impoverished countries it would be very tempting for many to come here, scrounge or beg and send money back to their families which is why i think the government are doing the right thing by restricting benefits, although imho by not enough

 

Many that come here will already have a job offer, i wish them well and encourage them but we have to prevent 'Roma' from coming here, Roma are a serious problem that even David Blunkett is deeply concerned about, restricting benefits and banning begging is a good start

 

 

The only way we are going to be able to compete with India and China on the world stage is to have an enterprising and prosperous nation that lives to work as opposed to works to live, we need everyone be it home grown or foreign to adopt that principle, Poles have, they are the hardest working people i have ever come across in this country, I do not believe that Romanians and Bulgarians share the same live to work mentality

 

We need to get rid of restrictive rubbish like Working Time Directive, reform the tax system so that wealth creators and entrepreneurs aren't human cashpoints, set the people free to trade and do deals

Edited December 1, 201311 yr by Sandro Raniere

Back on topic and like Harve I am seriously starting to worry about the damaging rhetoric about immigration coming from all the major political parties, which now sees UKIP pretty much calling the shots - I mean you'd probably expect this kind of policy from the Conservatives (the nasty party), but to have Labour and the Lib Dems pretty much support it, or to even suggest that they've not gone far enough makes me feel increasingly alienated by UK politics. I mean my views are far more in line with the SNP for goodness sake. Immigration has so many benefits which FAR outweigh the disadvantages. There have been problems ( I have BEEN to Boston ) in the way that integration has been handled and of course there will be tensions, but how else are we going to solve the problems with an ageing population that cannot be supported because of a ever-increasing deficit in their pension fund.

 

Like what was said on question time, Cameron isn't strictly against free movement of people... just the free movement of poor people who want to BETTER themselves. It seems that others are moving towards this view in order to win votes.. well that makes me sad. :(

I realised about this time 3 years ago that the SNP manifesto was pretty much identical in every way to my political views. Quite infamously was a rather large U-Turn I performed for the 2011 election.

 

The LibDems have changed so much since 2010, and not for the better. They need to ditch Clegg before they end up with less seats than Plaid Cymru.

 

It is very depressing. I found out last night I was the only pro-EU/left-winger in my family. I can't take the Daily Mail/UKIP/BNP/Tory (They are all the same. The BNP is thugs saying it, UKIP dresses them up in nice suits and avoids council estates an the Tories get suits flown in from Italy and picks it's racists from Eton) lines about immigration and the EU. They are just wrong. I know an opinion technically can't be wrong but there's just is. It frustrates me no end that people can't see the benefit to immigration or won't look past a couple of daily mail examples. Immigrants fill skills gaps and contribute £bns to our economy every year. As for this shite about 'Poles taking our jobs' Last time I checked mate the reason they were cleaning, manning tills, working in fast food places etc is because you deem yourself 'too good' for those kind of jobs. Um no.

 

The East European's I worked with at Amazon last Christmas were far far far better than a fair chunk of the brits.

 

 

The only way we are going to be able to compete with India and China on the world stage is to have an enterprising and prosperous nation that lives to work as opposed to works to live, we need everyone be it home grown or foreign to adopt that principle, Poles have, they are the hardest working people i have ever come across in this country, I do not believe that Romanians and Bulgarians share the same live to work mentality

Can't speak for the Bulgarians but the French owned Romainian car manufacturer Dacia is the fastest growing brand in the world right now and they produce a massive amount of vehicles in Romania to a standard that has been universally praised with them doing exceedingly well in reliability surveys.

 

From what I've heard the Romanians are just like the rest of Europe. Some are lazy and some are incredibly hard working and determined to make life better for themselves. The later kind is always more likely to be the one that moves as they have enough drive and ambition to actually pack up and go.

It is very depressing. I found out last night I was the only pro-EU/left-winger in my family. I can't take the Daily Mail/UKIP/BNP/Tory (They are all the same. The BNP is thugs saying it, UKIP dresses them up in nice suits and avoids council estates an the Tories get suits flown in from Italy and picks it's racists from Eton) lines about immigration and the EU. They are just wrong. I know an opinion technically can't be wrong but there's just is. It frustrates me no end that people can't see the benefit to immigration or won't look past a couple of daily mail examples. Immigrants fill skills gaps and contribute £bns to our economy every year. As for this shite about 'Poles taking our jobs' Last time I checked mate the reason they were cleaning, manning tills, working in fast food places etc is because you deem yourself 'too good' for those kind of jobs. Um no.

 

The East European's I worked with at Amazon last Christmas were far far far better than a fair chunk of the brits.

Can't speak for the Bulgarians but the French owned Romainian car manufacturer Dacia is the fastest growing brand in the world right now and they produce a massive amount of vehicles in Romania to a standard that has been universally praised with them doing exceedingly well in reliability surveys.

 

From what I've heard the Romanians are just like the rest of Europe. Some are lazy and some are incredibly hard working and determined to make life better for themselves. The later kind is always more likely to be the one that moves as they have enough drive and ambition to actually pack up and go.

 

Agreed -how Craig can assert that immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania have less work ethic than ANYBODY else apart from backing up his assertions from paranoid right-wing scare mongering shite from the Daily Mail/Express etc. is beyond me.

How?

 

When Mo Farah did his first marathon in training in his life i bet the time in which he did it was way way slower than the best time he has done, through making sacrifices, working exceptionally hard and having drive and ambition he has become the athlete he is.

 

Farah himself said the reason for his successes has been hard work for a decade and prolific training

 

So i believe that someone who does a marathon for the first time in say 4hrs could with hard work and discipline get it down into the times you said

So you can't tell the difference between a brilliant athlete like Mo Farah and the vast majority of the population. That sums it up really. I suppose next you will be telling me that anyone can understand quantum physics.

Labour grossly underestimated the number of poles who came here, exceeded forecasts several times over

 

Bulgaria and Romania are extremely impoverished countries it would be very tempting for many to come here, scrounge or beg and send money back to their families which is why i think the government are doing the right thing by restricting benefits, although imho by not enough

 

Many that come here will already have a job offer, i wish them well and encourage them but we have to prevent 'Roma' from coming here, Roma are a serious problem that even David Blunkett is deeply concerned about, restricting benefits and banning begging is a good start

Labour's estimate was based on the false assumption that the other major EU economies would also lift restrictions immediately. When that assumption proved to be wrong, they should have revised their estimate. Even so, their estimate was still more accurate than the estimates in the Mail and Express.

 

The difference with Romanians and Bulgarians is that all the major EU economies will be lifting restrictions at the same time. I don't suppose the Mail have found the space to report that after filling their pages with xenophobic bile.

The only way we are going to be able to compete with India and China on the world stage is to have an enterprising and prosperous nation that lives to work as opposed to works to live, we need everyone be it home grown or foreign to adopt that principle, Poles have, they are the hardest working people i have ever come across in this country, I do not believe that Romanians and Bulgarians share the same live to work mentality

 

We need to get rid of restrictive rubbish like Working Time Directive, reform the tax system so that wealth creators and entrepreneurs aren't human cashpoints, set the people free to trade and do deals

I have never understood the Tory obsession with the very sensible Working Time Directive (WTD). Let's be clear what it says. It says that people cannot be forced to work more than 48 hours per week over a prolonged period. People can choose to work more than 48 hrs. People can be expected to work more than 48 hrs some weeks. I suspect many teachers work more than 48 hrs per week in term time but they are not covered because they will work less than 48 hrs in holiday periods (including half term).

 

I know you will go banging on about small businesses so I will respond to that in advance. I am sure that many people would be willing to work more than 48 hrs per week in a small start-up business if they feel there is a medium- to long-term advantage for them. The WTD allows them to do that. However, a large company has no such excuse. If there is enough work to keep people occupies for more than 48 hrs per week, it is time they took on more staff to cover the workload.

I don't think it's a case of them not hearing about them, more a case of them not really remembering them. I can see the hypothesis that focusing the debate on immigration can harden attitudes for those already against immigration (my argument on the previous page was more along the lines that I don't think the next year would change many people from pro-immigration to anti-immigration, and that there are very few people in between who haven't made their minds up yet - I can see the argument that it can make antis even more anti though, which I think is the main difference between us and France et al), but it strikes me as something that would be more medium/long-term. It strikes me as unlikely that one speech being tough on immigration from the Conservative leader, which people may or may not have noticed (the weekly Populus news poll indicates it was noticed by ~8%, which is a bit less than the Miliband price freeze got), would suddenly make 1-2% of the voting population think 'right, that's it, I'm voting UKIP'.

 

But you seem to be making the assumption that how much people remember stories is directly related to how much media coverage they get / how long they're in the headlines for. I don't think that's right - there's plenty of examples of political stories which have been dominating the headlines for days or weeks but people have not cared about them, and on the other side plenty of stories that have got far less coverage but which have produced big impacts. To take a slightly random example, I remember a while ago the media was going crazy over some boring "scandal" about Theresa May, something about border checks and her firing some civil servant or something (that's another of my gripes about the political media; how they focus on trivial, managerial or personality elements of politics, and are obsessed with things like "competence" and "credibility", when people want to hear about the real issues). So at this time there was a poll asking people what they knew about certain government ministers - when asked about Theresa May, hardly anyone recalled the border checks "scandal" that had been dominating the news, but a lot more people recalled the story about "fatwa" posters being issued for her, even though that story got far less coverage and was in the news for far less time - people had found it so interesting that it stayed in their mind anyway despite its lack of coverage. So you can't draw a direct link between how much coverage a story gets, and how well its remembered.

 

Btw, another YouGov poll this morning has UKIP at 15%, up 4% over last weekend. They might not have had a huge surge, but it's definitely safe to say they've had a slight uptick atleast, and they CERTAINLY haven't had their line of attack "neutralised", which was what Clegg claimed was the aim of these ridiculous measures. These politicians just don't understand basic human sociology.

But you seem to be making the assumption that how much people remember stories is directly related to how much media coverage they get / how long they're in the headlines for. I don't think that's right - there's plenty of examples of political stories which have been dominating the headlines for days or weeks but people have not cared about them, and on the other side plenty of stories that have got far less coverage but which have produced big impacts. To take a slightly random example, I remember a while ago the media was going crazy over some boring "scandal" about Theresa May, something about border checks and her firing some civil servant or something (that's another of my gripes about the political media; how they focus on trivial, managerial or personality elements of politics, and are obsessed with things like "competence" and "credibility", when people want to hear about the real issues). So at this time there was a poll asking people what they knew about certain government ministers - when asked about Theresa May, hardly anyone recalled the border checks "scandal" that had been dominating the news, but a lot more people recalled the story about "fatwa" posters being issued for her, even though that story got far less coverage and was in the news for far less time - people had found it so interesting that it stayed in their mind anyway despite its lack of coverage. So you can't draw a direct link between how much coverage a story gets, and how well its remembered.

 

Btw, another YouGov poll this morning has UKIP at 15%, up 4% over last weekend. They might not have had a huge surge, but it's definitely safe to say they've had a slight uptick atleast, and they CERTAINLY haven't had their line of attack "neutralised", which was what Clegg claimed was the aim of these ridiculous measures. These politicians just don't understand basic human sociology.

The border checks story was a significant story. For many years opposition parties (all of them) have called for a minster's head when something has gone wrong even when it is likely that ministers themselves have had little to do with it. Sometimes the minister has ended up resigning. On this occasion Theresa May made a senior civil servant a scapegoat and sacked him.

 

Similarly, the Andrew Mitchell affair (I hate the lazy use of the gate suffix) is significant. There is a distinct likelihood that police officers have conspired to discredit a senior member of the government, forcing him to resign. If so, that is a very serious matter, regardless of what you or I think about the government or the individual involved.

 

Of course this trivialisation is nothing new. When the last government revived the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (dropped by the Tories just before the 1997 election due to lack of time), it got very little coverage outside newspapers like the Guardian. Most papers were more interested in Peter Mandelson's boyfriend and ignored RIPA until it had been implemented and was used for exactly what its opponents warned against. One of the most high profile examples was my local (Tory) council using it to spy on parents to make sure they weren't pretending to live in Poole to get their children into local schools.

I'd say by this point that it does look like UKIP have had a boost, which surprises me as I didn't think it would be quite so short-term (after all, the issue of the NHS/energy prices etc going up the agenda didn't really help Labour so sharply/vice versa for more 'Conservative' issues such law and order after the riots, but I suppose the kind of voter that is willing to vote for UKIP is more volatile in their voting preferences due to the likelihood that they're against the major parties and looking for an alternative). What's interesting is that it's difficult to tell whether the increased support has come from anywhere in particular - the most recent YouGov poll showed a dent for Others, but at the same time that could just be cherrypicking to fit my argument in the brackets as that's only one poll and the others done haven't shown particular dents for Others.