Number Crunching

and the UKIP Earthquake

Those EU Parliament election results

There are roughly 46 million people registered to vote in the UK.

8.9 million of them voted for the Tory-labour/Lib-dem block (all committed - in varying degrees - to remaining in the EU)  - that's about 19.5% of the total British electorate.  

4.3 million of them voted UKIP - that's 9.5% of the total British electorate.

29.7 million - that's 64% of the total British electorate couldn't care a toss about the European Union and have no interest at all in who runs it, what rules it makes, what effect it has on us, or even whether the UK remains a member, because they didn't bother to vote.

UKIP has around 38,000 members - that's around 0.061% of the British population.

An Earthquake? I think not. Perhaps a mild tremor and even then, only maybe.

Decisions, Decisions

The other day I watched a Party Political Broadcast on the TV. 

I wouldn't usually do this as they are generally a waste of time but this one caught my eye as it seemed to be a 'Spitting Image' type Government Cabinet meeting scene. 

The broadcast was on behalf of the Labour Party for the European elections and showed the Prime Minister and various Cabinet Ministers sitting round a table and generally making fools of themselves. 

As a piece of humorous satire it was funny enough but by the end, I realised that they hadn't actually told me what they thought of the Conservative's policies on Europe and why they thought I wouldn't like them; they also didn't tell me anything about their party's policies on Europe. From this, I can assume one of two things -

1. They don't have any policies on Europe
2. They do have policies on Europe but if they told us what they were, we wouldn't vote for them.

Not a very effective broadcast then. At least it wasn't those UKIP loons.

Not so grumpy

Someone sent me this - I think they are trying to tell me something