"Middle class Labour has permanently lost support to Ukip"

[dutchman]

Labour’s working class support has “died” as the party becomes “very middle class”, an advisor to Ed Miliband has said.



Lord Glasman, the policy guru ennobled by Mr Miliband, said Labour voters who defected to Ukip may never return because the party is failing to address concerns on welfare and immigration.

He told The Times: "That is the dilemma at the heart of the party's strategy — is it possible to address these economic, political and cultural concerns when the party is becoming, in many ways, very middle class? What I mean by that is liberal and progressive in its sensibility.”

"Ed [Miliband] is trying to address it. This is a long-term trend since 2001, in terms of the working-class vote just declining quite dramatically. The Labour middle-class vote held up [in 2010]. It was the working-class vote that died.

“These are often people who are earning, who have jobs, but they don't see Labour as representing their interests."

Many working class communities have a feeling of “dispossession and abandonment”, the peer said.

"There was possibly an assumption at first that [the rise of Ukip] would just work against the Tories," he said. "But there is a view that says that after the European and local elections are over, there could be a swing back to the Conservatives of Ukip voters. But will there be necessarily a swing back to Labour from the Ukip voters?"

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, yesterday said Ukip is attracting racist candidates who make “disgusting” and “un-British” comments.

The Health Secretary, said Ukip leader Nigel Farage had to denounce one of his candidates who suggested that Lenny Henry, the comedian, should emigrate to a “black country”.

The gaffe was the latest embarrassment for Ukip, which last week was forced to suspend the “poster boy” of its European party election broadcast after it was revealed he had posted a series of racist comments on Twitter.

However, weekend polls suggest the rows have failed to dent Ukip’s popularity among voters, with polls giving Ukip a lead over Labour for the first time.

The survey by YouGov for The Sunday Times gave 31 per cent of the vote in next month’s poll, ahead of Labour (28 per cent), the Conservatives (19 per cent) and the Liberal Democrats (9 per cent).

[rebbonk]

Wow! Glassman is brain of Britain is he?

The average bloke in the pub watched Labour desert their traditional supporters years ago. Labour, as it is today, is not the party of the working class! How can twits like Blair, Brown and Miliband know anything of the working mans struggles?

Today's Labour Party is a bl**dy joke! and not a particularly funny one.

[dutchman]

Ukip's lead in election race 'narrowing'



Ukip is still leading the race for votes in the European elections, but their advantage is narrowing with just days to go until the polling stations open, as ComRes and ITV News poll has found.

With just a few days to go ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, Ukip appears on course to top the poll, with 33% of Britons who say that they are certain to vote in Thursday’s election say that they would vote for Nigel Farage's party.

The survey of 2,061 British adults also found that 27% of those who said they will vote would vote for Labour and 20% who would vote Conservative.

However, their headway is diminishing. The party is down from 11 points in the last ComRes poll for ITV News at the end of April, to only six points now. Ukip’s vote share has fallen five points from 38% to 33%.

Labour’s vote share remains steady, the Conservatives have increased two points, while the Liberal Democrats fall one point to 7%.

[dutchman]

Labour MPs fear party has failed to stop Ukip eroding its traditional working class base



Labour MPs have accused their party of being too complacent about the threat posed by Ukip amid growing alarm that the anti-EU party will eat into Labour’s working class support in the European elections.

Several senior MPs believe Labour has not taken the threat from Nigel Farage’s party seriously enough. Canvassing in their constituencies has convinced them that many traditional Labour supporters will split their vote by backing Ukip in the Euro elections and Labour in the council elections in England. There are no local elections in Scotland and Wales.

Peter Hain, the former Cabinet minister, told The Independent: “I don’t think we had a sufficiently robust strategy towards Ukip. It’s not about whether some of their members are racist.

“The problem is that there is a seriously alienated – mostly white working class, often male – vote out there that was traditionally Labour’s. They are not voting any more.

“They should be coming to us but they did not under Tony Blair or Gordon Brown see sufficient priority given to affordable housing, job security or well-paid skilled jobs that would take the place of mining or heavy industry.”

Mr Hain, MP for Neath, added: “These voters don’t think we speak sufficiently for them any more. Mostly they have been staying at home. But some of them have drifted towards Ukip.”

He insisted that it would be easier for Labour than the Conservatives to win back Ukip voters at next year’s general election. “It’s ours to win,” he said, but added: “I think it will be very difficult for any party to get an overall majority.”

Amina Lone, who will fight Morecambe and Lunesdale for Labour at the general election, said Ukip had become “an enticing option” for voters who want to “shake up the system” and complain that “none of the other parties listen to us”.

Writing on the LabourList website, she said: “The people I speak to are not racist. They are voiceless and what Ukip gives them is a voice.”

[rebbonk]

Labour MPs fear party has failed to stop Ukip eroding its traditional working class base

Labour deserted and betrayed its traditional supporters years ago. Now the spineless, self-serving, ****s are fearing for their own positions and want our help. Well, every last one of them can burn Hell for what they did to this country, I like many, will never vote for Labour again.

[dutchman]

Ed Miliband: "Labour won't yield for Ukip on immigration"


Dead man talking?

Ed Miliband has rejected calls from within his shadow cabinet to toughen up Labour's position on immigration in response to Ukip's victory in the European election.

Mr Miliband described many Ukip voters as "hardworking people" who "love our country".

But he said that Ukip's view of Europe and immigration "is not the answer for our country".

"This will never be Labour’s mission or policy under my leadership," Mr Miliband told supporters in Thurrock, a council last Labour last week lost control of thanks to the Ukip surge in the local elections.

It came after senior Labour figures including Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, and Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, called on Mr Miliband to go further on immigration to tackle the threat posed by Ukip and Nigel Farage.

In the wake of the European elections, Mr Balls said that Labour needs to speak "more loudly and clearly" on immigration and Europe.

However, Mr Miliband said he will not "make false promises or cut ourselves off from the rest of the world.

He said: "Labour would have controls when people arrive and leave here, we will tackle the undercutting of wages, we will ensure people in public services speak English and people need to earn their entitlements.

"But a Labour government won’t make false promises, or cut ourselves off from the rest of the world because it would be bad for Britain.

"These are the right principles for our immigration policy.

"And in the end, if we are to meet the concerns people have, we need to do far more than have the right immigration policy.

"We need more change in the way this country’s economy works for the people I am talking about - people who work hard, do the right thing, but feel the country doesn’t work for them."

Mr Miliband said that Ukip is "exploiting" the failure of previous Labour governments to address the concerns of working class voters.

“Labour was founded on standing up for working people," he said. "But for too many that link was lost. That is what UKIP has sought to exploit. We know what their appeal is.

"They provide a simple explanation of the cause of our country’s problems: Europe and foreigners. And they have an apparently simple solution: to get out of the European Union. I have to say: this is not the answer for our country, this will never be Labour’s mission or policy under my leadership. Our future lies in looking outward to the world.”

Mr Miliband said that his party has to learn that it is "not right-wing" to talk about immigration.

"We'll get a lot more scrutiny of Ukip in the run-up to the next election," he said. "The thing I'd obviously say to you though, is it's not right-wing for us to talk about immigration.

"We've got to be able as a party to talk about immigration."

Miliband may not be party leader very much longer?

[rebbonk]

The muppet obviously isn't learning.

Good bye Ed, I'd like to say it's been a pleasure, but my mother told me never to lie!

Sadly, I don't see anyone much better in the wings.

[dutchman]

Labour MP backs Gordon Brown "bigotted woman" accusation...

A senior Labour MP has triggered a new immigration storm by saying Gordon Brown was right to brand Gillian Duffy – the voter who famously challenged him – ‘a bigoted woman’.

Alex Cunningham, the MP for Stockton North, suggested to colleagues that the former Prime Minister was right to rail against Mrs Duffy on the campaign trail four years ago.

When a former Labour official brought up the incident, Mr Cunningham said he felt that Mr Brown had been ‘too grovelling and apologetic’.

Ed Miliband has insisted Labour has now been ‘on a journey’ about immigration and told an audience in Essex this week that people concerned about its impact are not prejudiced.

But at a £100-a-head fundraising dinner for MPs and supporters at a smart London hotel this month where the incident was discussed, Mr Cunningham, 59, - a former PR executive and aide to shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan - did not take the same stance.

When the subject was raised at the event called ‘Labour the Media’, Mr Cunningham was recorded telling colleagues: ‘She was a bigoted woman and that’s all there is to it’.

Proof, it it were needed, that nothing has changed in the Labour Party since Gordon Brown led it to defeat in the last general election.

[rebbonk]

You really can't cure stupid!