Copeland: The Statistical Facts

The meedja are currently doing the usual 'Corbyn is to blame' angle on the Labour loss in the Copeland by-election last week. It's an angle that is easy for them, because it's the angle they've been using almost everyday since Jeremy Corbyn came to power. It's the angle the Blairites within the party and the Tories in government want the meedja to use at all times.

But let's look at the numbers here, because they shed light on some very interesting facts.

Copeland may have been a Labour seat for the last 82 years but it has been a marginal rather than a safe seat for several years now. Labour have repeatedly lost ground since their 58% of the vote peak they secured in 1997 with Jack Cunningham. In 2001, they lost 6.4%, followed by another 1.3% in 2005, a further 4.5%  was lost in 2010 and in the 2015 General Election they lost another 3.7%.

The meedja are claiming that red turned blue in Copeland, when in actual fact that Tory increase clearly came from another corner altogether; UKIP.

In 2015, UKIP secured 15.5% of the Copeland vote, losing 6.5% last week meaning a fall of 9% which correlates almost perfectly with the 8.5% rise the Tories experienced.

And why is this?

Because Theresa May's ultra-right wing policies are being welcomed now by UKIPPERS resulting in them leaving their party in droves. Who needs a burger when you can have steak eh?

I do think it was a tough sell for the anti-nuclear Corbyn in a town so close to Sellafield and Barrow and I do think it's right that Corbyn should take some of the blame though. But that blame should be couched in different terms than those the Blairite 'on message' meedja continue to spin. What Corbyn should be considering now is just how he failed to reverse the loss that successive New Labour governments and politicians instigated in Copeland over the past twenty years. Because the rot was clearly set in by those very people who are quick to point the finger of blame at his door.

But hey, let's look the bright side - we drove Paul 'Pinocchio' Nuttall out of Stoke!

And one particularly noticeable cuntisome cunt genuinely thought he'd waltz his way to victory!

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Why has the shaven Bungle from Rainbow that is UKIP's deputy leader, Paul 'nutty' Nuttall deleted comments about the NHS on his website?

Could it be that UKIP want to mask or hide away the stances they have on anything other than their rapidly (though bafflingly) populist beliefs on the EU and immigration because they know that the prospective supporters and voters they get from espousing their Little England, borderline racist crap would soon change their minds if they heard about their unsavoury prospective policies and beliefs regarding things we hold dear such as the NHS?

I'm genuinely worried and astounded that such a madcap party of zealots, eccentrics, shysters and Tory floorcrossers can propel themselves forward on just one policy and I urge people to wake up and read the small print, read between the lines, see more than one opinion and actually realise how damaging a potential UKIP protest vote can be to everything we have fought for and become accustomed to.  

Don't fall for their flannel!