The Voice

The 12 most-read LDV posts of 2014 (Day 7)

By | Wed 31st December 2014 - 2:45 pm

Throughout the 12 days of Christmas, we’re bringing you the 12 most-read posts on this site of 2014. Here’s today’s offering…

Ukip examined: who they are, what they stand for, and what it all means for British politics – Stephen Tall | Mon 28th April 2014

There is one off-note in Revolt on the Right. Ford and Goodwin dismiss the 1980s’ insurgence of the ‘radical centre’ when the SDP, albeit briefly, looked poised to win the popular vote: “in the end the SDP fell flat, barely denting the mould on the party system they had set out to break”. Except, of course, that the SDP lost the battle but won the war: Tony Blair’s victory under the New Labour banner in 1997 was, in reality, the SDP’s triumph. Socialism had been abandoned, and it was social democracy that propelled Labour to its biggest ever election victory.

Ukip may yet fail as an electoral force: it is, after all, hard to imagine a party reliant on the votes of a declining demographic of older, white, working-class, non-graduate men surging to victory. But that doesn’t mean they can’t win, just as the SDP did a generation before. It’s not so hard to imagine the Tories fighting an election in 2020 with a leader championing Better Off Out anti-Europeanism and decrying immigration. That’s the real danger Ukip poses.

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One Comment

  • JohnTilley 1st Jan '15 - 6:45am

    “…..a declining demographic of older, white, working-class, non-graduate men…”

    Hmmm. How odd that this is the description of people who we are told vote for UKIP.

    It seems to describe me.

    Although as AJP Taylor once said – “if I woke up and looked in the mirror and saw that I was white I would seek medical attention.”

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