As the results of yesterday’s local elections come in, the big story is undoubtedly UKIP’s success. Questions are being raised about what this means for both the Tories and Labour, while the Lib Dems were humiliated in the South Shields byelection, ending up in seventh place.
We’ve put together the best articles about the results and their implications for the parties.
1. Panic is pointless. UKIP’s not a serious party by Philip Collins (The Times, £)
Collins repeats the Labour and Tory line on UKIP, which classifies it as a party of protest—at a good time to be a party of protest—but he has a better sense of how exactly this has played into UKIP's hands:
“When Kenneth Clarke and David Cameron dismiss UKIP candidates as clowns and fruitcakes they might, oddly enough, be alighting on a source of their appeal. There is always one party that benefits from being, in essence, none of the others. There is a significant minority of voters who, though they might not put it so bluntly, prefer protesting to power.” But as Collins points out, this anti-politics stance will be harder to maintain as the party becomes more successful.
2. Panel verdictby Simon Jenkins, Jonathan Freedland, Polly Toynbee and John Harris (The Guardian)
In the run-up to the elections, questions have been raised about whether UKIP has genuine national appeal. For Freedland, the results put these doubts to rest:
“Only one party managed to clear the 20% threshold in both the South Shields byelection last night and the parliamentary contest in Eastleigh in February. That was not Labour, which safely won in the former last night, after it had trailed in fourth in the latter. It certainly was not the Tories, who came third in both places…
Only Ukip performed strongly in both these seats, one in the heart of traditionally Tory southern England, the other in a northern Labour stronghold – claiming nearly 28% in the first and 24% in the second.
To have such wide geographic appeal, taking on both government and opposition, is a feat rarely achieved by a third party, let alone a fourth.” 3. The green shoots of Lib Dem recovery are appearing by Richard Morris (New Statesman)
Despite the Lib Dems’ terrible showing in South Shields, Morris argues that other results from the elections are rather more promising for the party. It’s taken around 16 per cent of the overall vote (so far), and its share has held up reasonably well in those areas where it has parliamentary seats.
He also has an interesting point to make about the implications of UKIP’s rise. By weakening the Tories, he suggests, the party may make it easier for the Lib Dems to win seats; more significantly, if it attracts a significant portion of the vote at the next general election but is unable to win many (or any) seats, then the case for electoral reform will be strengthened. Whether the Conservatives would agree with that is another matter.
4. Wanted: a leader who can unite the warring Tory tribes by Iain Martin (The Daily Telegraph)
Tory MPs and supporters are already calling changes from their leader and, as Jay Elwes wrote yesterday, Number 10 now faces a challenge in keeping a lid on discontent in the party.
Martin’s column is a taste of plenty more to come:
“Mr Cameron was spot-on in the 2005 leadership election, when he stressed the desperate need for the Tory party to widen its appeal. What is most curious is that, having diagnosed the extent of the ailment, Mr Cameron and the modernisers should have made such a botched job of devising a cure.
The modernising revolution was rooted in a calamitous assumption that the core Tory vote could be taken for granted, because it had nowhere else to go. Actually, it seems some of it could quite happily go down the pub with Mr Farage.”
