On Being Up for Thannet South

[danieldwilliam]

I was up for Portillo. Every election has it's moments of drama and its moments that typify the whole event. Sometimes they are one and the same.

I am looking forward to the 2015 General Election for all sorts of reasons but perhaps the thing I’m most looking forward to is this.


It’s about four o’clock on Friday morning. Results are starting to come in. Early indications are that UKIP have actually picked up a few of their key seats.

Cut to the Thannet South declaration. By a whisker Farage has failed to win his seat. During the interview afterwards he attempts to talk down his personal disappointment whilst talking up the fact that it’s a been a great night for UKIP. His usually cheerful to the verge of smug face is tinged with the bitter realisation that, like Moses he has lead his people to the Promised Land but can not enter it himself.

Breaking news.

UKIP HOLD Clacton.

Comments

[andrewducker]

So what you're saying is that I should book the 8th off right now?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing that wee pie chart when the SNP have a bigger wedge than UKIP. Or even the LDs :)

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Every big election, I tell myself that I won't stay up, then I do.

I was up for Portillo...!

And I was awake when the referendum was called. (I can't recall the AV referendum, to be honest.)

I think next year I really should arrange to be somewhere. I think the last time I went to an election party was `1992 - when I correctly predicted a Tory victory (I wish I had put my money where my mouth was - I could have minted it!)

Maybe I should have an election party...! ;)

[matgb]

I was at the local count for the AV referendum, and for 2010, hopefully next year they'll have sorted the WiFi out at the sports centre (they turn it off at night even when it's used for the count, not that it'd have enough bandwidth).

So while I suspect I would be givign up, when the parliamentary candidate is an actual friend and you've a history of going, well, you're going.

but yeah, I was up for Portillo, I still remember that bemused grin on Twigg's face. I was also up for Sanders in 2001, but that was a lot more personal (my parents MP won by a whisker in 1997 and was convinced he'd lost in 2001, his face while his agent explains he's won by 6K not lost is just wonderful, we have no sound, obvs, but it's still a happy memory)

And yeah, Carswell as UKIP leader in 2015, on the one hand at least he's avowedly anti-racist and forward looking, on the other he's a "traitor" thus other Tories are less likely to switch as they don't want to work witha traitor (no, I don't get it either)

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

The Conservative Party, I think, has a longer history of being a clan enterprise than any other party. They take treason seriously.

I remember the transvestite at one of the counts (I think Portillo's) who had red flashing LED's on the end of his bullet bra which flashed on either side of the losing candidate's head.

I may have dreamed that.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'm much happier with a Carswell led UKIP than a Farage led UKIP.

I think a Farage led UKIP is going to blow up pretty spectacularly in short order doing significant damage to all sorts of things.

I think a Carswell UKIP is more likely to hang round for a while plugging their lines, most of which I disagree with but some I think are needed for an effective opposition and one or two I'm in favour off.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I'm quite tempted by the idea of an election party.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'd try and come up for that.

[andrewducker]

Moi aussi!

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I was taking that as a given.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Do you get comment notifications for Danny's posts?

[andrewducker]

Not all of them.

(I track a few people, so I get notifications when they create a new post - you and Dan are amongst them. I track comments on the occasional post - usually ones with high signal/noise ratio from my friends. Like this one.)